The Seven Liberal Arts & Vocation
Quiddity had an interesting post on curriculum today. Generally in classical education discussions you encounter much abuse of “subjects” and the desire to integrate all knowledge. In this post, Andrew Kern cautions against going too far. His post reminded me of one idea of a goal I had for our children’s education, no matter where or how they receive it: through high school, they receive a strong foundation in the classical arts (the Trivium of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the Quadrivium of music, astronomy — the science subjects of today, arithmatic, and geometry) as well as in history and literature that he could be considered having a “liberal arts” education by a strong college standard (having done Running Start, we had completed the liberal arts, the core, requirement for UI, but that does not count as a “strong standard”). From graduation, then, the student would be free to pursue specialty, whether it be further study of philosophy or theology (as was pursued after the Quadrivium in a medieval model) or a specialty of vocation.
In my ideal, then, my students would have received an NSA-lite by age 18. I’m not so deluded as to think a full four-year NSA by 18 would be possible, but I do aim that by 18 they would be able to fully participate in an educated adult debate or philosophical/theological discussion. At that point, they will be thinking adults with a grasp of history and a working brain and the education of their mind will not be lacking if they even go straight to a trade school because they will have a love of reading that will follow them no matter what they do.
