Equipped by the Classical Method: Grammar

North Star Classical Christian School exists so that students are:
Anchored in the hope of the gospel,
Equipped by the classical method, and
Prepared to lead and live wisely.

What does it mean to be “equipped by the classical method”? There are many ways that this can be answered, but one of the ways is pedagogically. At North Star, we are implementing the three strands of the Trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. In contrast to modern thinking, this is not an education in subjects, but rather in “tools”. Dorothy Sayers (English scholar, author and contemporary of C.S. Lewis, widely known for her article The Lost Tools of Learning) would even call these “lost tools”. As a faculty, we are gaining a better understanding of what these tools are, and how to effectively use them in our classes at North Star.

We are starting with the first tool, grammar. Simply put, grammar is the body of vocabulary, rules and terms governing a field of study that must be learned by heart. Having this body of knowledge at the student’s disposal allows them to move on to process new concepts critically (Logic), and ultimately to clearly explain these concepts to others (Rhetoric).

Although memorization has drastically fallen out of favor because we can “just look stuff up,” the classical educator would argue that this furnishing of the mind utilizes our god-given capacity to organize, “file” and store information, and readies us to be in the position to make connections to the things we encounter as we navigate through life. Furnishing our minds this way gives our students a common vocabulary and body of knowledge to pull from, it is also an enduring way to learn. We are training the students in things they will not forget.

Think of your own capacity to develop a logical, systematic framework for storing information in an organized way. Are you able to dash into several stores to purchase an item or two, knowing exactly in which aisle and on what shelf to find that item? This is an analogy to what we are doing with the minds of the students at North Star. They are learning the context and terms of several bodies of information (math, science, geography, Latin, timeline, and history) first, so when they see or identify dates or terms, they know exactly where that information resides in the context of the whole.

How exactly is this being done at North Star? In younger grades, students are in a memory work class that meets daily. In our middle grades, students are drawing upon this inventory of information in their science, English, and other classes. In our older grades, students are learning the importance of starting with the grammar in a conversation or issue - defining terms and working with a shared understanding of what those terms mean. By equipping students with these tools of the classical method, rather than “subjects”, they are in the position to learn anything, really. We are helping them uncover the lost tools of learning.