The Classical Education Movement

I agree with the simple premise that today's students need more rigorous teaching of grammar and composition. It's not much fun, but it will serve any student well throughout their lives to have correct practices ingrained at an age where the brain can take them on and habitualize them.

And I agree many students have difficulty posing an argument and debating it with others. Such training would be useful throughout life, as would understanding mathematical concepts through basic algebra.

But a classical education ignores a lot of important things that we now know students need. Media literacy and financial literacy are the two that come to mind. and of course the three hydra heads conservatives love to hate, the concepts of equity, diversity and inclusion. These are functions of empathy, which have to be nurtured if our society is to not implode in the next couple of generations. The only way to do so is to help students find their own empathy by exposing them to a wide variety of human experiences through sensitive classroom discussion of real experiences around the world and accurate social history.