Definition of classical education for a ten year old

Over at the WTM board set up by Susan Wise Baur there is an interesting discussion about how to define classical education for a ten year old. Here is what I wrote there:

To a ten year old:

When God made your great-grandfather Adam, he had something incredibly unique in mind for us as humans. He decided that, unlike everything else He had already made, He would make something that was so like Himself that He said to Himself:

Let's make man in our own image (as a picture of ourself).

He made us in a way that we could do two amazing things that nothing else in creation can do:

One, to know God Himself!
Two, to take care of, and therefore rule over, the whole earth.

To do these two things, we needed certain abilities that are unique to us as human beings - abilities that we have because we are like God and that we are the only created things that have them.

(Here I would break into a discussion about what we learn about God from reading Gen 1, eventually realizing, among many other glorious things, that God speaks - i.e. He uses words, and that God numbers things (1-7)).

Therefore, in order for us to be what God wants us to be (His image) and to do what God wants us to do (to know and glorfiy Him and enjoy Him forever while taking care of the world He put us in), we need to be good at using language and we need to be good at math.

And we also need to understand the world He put us in.

(Here I would go into a discussion of the fall and how that creates a whole new set of problems to deal with - namely, we don't have as much time as God wanted us to have for personal growth and sabbath leisure because of the sweat of the brow and man's inhumanity to man so we have no choice but to waste a lot of time trying to get food out of the ground and build fortresses to protect our families and to deal with this new problem of knowing good and evil but not being able to figure out what is which- then I would get back to the essential point)

God gave us time to rest from all the labor we have to do in growing crops and picking up stones out of the field and fixing our tools so that we could take that time to become better human beings.

So when we have time that we don't have to devote to getting food or protecting ourselves from the fallen world around us, we have the opportunity to refine those gifts that are unique to us as human beings, which are the greatest pleasures we can possibly experience.

First, we get to learn how to read and write and use words in every manner of useful and enjoyable way (to listen to and later tell stories, to listen to and tell jokes, to learn recipes and cook food, to learn about grandpa's childhood, to watch movies, etc.)

Then we get to learn how to add and subtract and multiply and divide and to use numbers in every manner of useful and enjoyable way (and wait till you get to listen to numbers sing when they dance on strings!).

Then we get to learn how to play with shapes and watch all the amazing things God does and we can do with them in every manner of useful and enjoyable way.

All the while, we do these things not for the use or for the enjoyment (these are benefits - blessings for God to disburse as He sees fit) but because the doing makes us better at what God wants us to be good at - being a human being (this is the goal - our duty regardless of use or pleasure).

And then, when we get good at using words and numbers and shapes and when we understand their secrets and begin to see their beauties, then we are ready to understand the world around us, the one over which God has given us authority.

We'll be able to understand what things are made out of (we call this the science of chemistry - would you like to see some weird things we can do when we learn what things are made out of?),

and we'll be able to understand what makes things move (we call this the science of physics),

and we'll begin to be able to understand all the living things around us (we call this biology - the science that lovers of animals and plants get to spend their time studying!).

After you've learned about the world we live in and our bodies that join us to that world and are made out of dust, we've got some pretty serious issues to deal with. Now you'll need to get serious about knowing what is good and what is evil because we need to start teaching others over whom we'll have authority. You might take on a role of leadership in our society and a leader needs to know what is good and what evil and he needs to know what things are and how we should take care of them and how we should relate to them. He needs to know how to think carefully. He needs to know how to use words and how to use numbers and shapes. He needs to be good at making decisions.

And if wise and godly people don't lead us, other people will. Then we'll be in serious trouble. So you need to do everything you can to prepare yourself to lead - whether that means leading your own children, your friends, your church, your business associates, your city or state, maybe even your country - or even just yourself, you will need wisdom and self-control. That is the path to greatness.

We're here to get you ready for that path.

That's the outline for a longish discussion.

The short and meaningless (to the ten year old) definition would go something like this:

"classical education is learning how to become a better human being so we can enjoy God better and do a better job doing what He made us to do, namely, to love our neighbor and take care of His garden."