The Trivium and Classical Education

I have been examining the different styles of education recently and one particular method (classical education) has really appealed to me. Classical education is based on the concept of the trivium. The trivium divides a student's education into 3 parts.

First, is the Grammar Stage. The grammar stage consists of the early elementary years when children learn the rules and the facts about things and there is less focus on the whys and the hows. Children need to learn lots of things in the early years in order to have something to think about when they develop critical thinking skills.

Second follows the Dialectic stage. During this stage (middle school years)the concepts of logic and reason are taught. All the information learned during the grammar stage can now be fully analyzed.

The final stage is the Rhetoric stage in which the student learns to take their knowledge, examine it critically and be able to express it either in written or spoken form. In other words, children learn the science of communication and expression.

Here is a good summary of the trivium.