K. D. Lunneborg - Why Choose Classical Education in the Modern Era?

July 9, 2026

Karl Lunneborg
Fr. Cain
Rhetoric III
17 May, 2026

Why Choose Classical Education in the Modern Era?

Why, in the modern world, would one want to go back to the ‘outdated’ customs of the classical era? Aren’t we able to build things better, heal people from more diseases, and invent technologies our ancestors never would have dreamed of? Don’t even the poorest of us live better than them? Do we not have everything at our fingertips? Why yes, we have all these things and more. By this understanding, it would make sense that our education system would be much better than that of the ancients. And yet… Even the schools that are considered the biggest and best are turning out students that don’t know everyday skills. It’s no small problem, either. And it’s no surprise that the children coming out of these schools don’t know how to read an analog clock, of all things![1]

Classical education is rooted in learning. Not just learning math and language arts and STEM, but learning how to learn. The goal of classical education is not to pass tests and memorize random factoids, but it aims to know how to absorb information. It did this in a sort of graduated system where a student would master the parts in one area and move on to the next. Of these there are three. Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric, known as the Trivium. These areas form the primary, necessary, and foundational education of a student. As he moves through them, he matures, and his maturity and level go hand-in-hand.

Grammar is the first phase, for the youngest scholar. Being the first segment of education, it is naturally basic. Younger scholars are better at memorization, so the fundamentals of different studies must be laid at this stage. A study of Latin is commonly begun in this stage, because Latin vocabulary is found in many different areas. It also introduces learning to the scholar by way of a very simple and organized language. Here the scholar also learns other studies such as would be usual to the modern world: Geography, Math, Science, and the like. Other than Latin, the Grammar phase is very much like our modern elementary school.

After mastering Grammar, the student moves on to Rhetoric. The big difference between, say, Rhetoric and Middle School, is that the scholar does not necessarily move up in a grade every year, being forced up whether he understands or not. He advances at his pace, allowing him to fully comprehend one subject before learning the next. The Rhetoric phase continues this education of learning to learn. The scholar is now introduced to Logic, and uses this to reason things utilizing facts learned from the Grammar phase. Similarly to how Euclid teaches math by establishing facts, then using them to discover more, Rhetoric takes the basic things learned in Grammar and builds off of them, using their foundation to move forward.

After mastering this phase of reasoning and logic, the scholar begins learning how to construct an argument and convince others. This is Dialectic. This skill allows him to use what he learned in Grammar, together with what he reasoned in Rhetoric, and shape a mature argument to prove his point. At this point, he finishes his primary education. Just like Latin, this system is very organized, and moving and mastering one concept before moving onto the next helps build new facts on top of previously learned ones. Through this process, the scholar learns to learn. And this lesson, taught slowly but surely, is one that is invaluable to the scholar, because he now has this ability to learn engrained into him and he will take that his entire life.

Back to our initial question. One wants to stay in the modern world with its modern customs because we live better than the ancients, or so he thinks. While we may live better than them, we certainly don’t learn better than them. The root of the problem we see in our schools is that kids don’t know how to learn. As Dorothy Sayers says, “although we often succeed in teaching our pupils “subjects,” we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning.”[2] In this day, many people might tell you that ‘an old dog can’t learn new tricks.’ Why is that? Because the old dog didn’t learn to learn. And if we continue to fail at teaching people to learn, they will end up no better than the old dog. Why give this burden to the rising generation? Why teach them things that they’ll never use, just to throw them out on the street and tell them to find life? To be honest, I don’t know the answers to those questions, and I won’t pretend to know them, either. I could theorize on different people wanting to dumb down the culture, but knowing – or trying to know – why we use a failing system doesn’t help quite as much as actually knowing where to go from here.

The question I want to answer is why should we choose classical education in the modern world. Modern education, well, you know that well enough. And even if you aren’t familiar with it specifically, you can see its product everywhere. Children who don’t know how to read analogue clocks and never will because they won’t put the effort into a simple skill. Adults who can’t find a job better than Starbucks, even with a four-year college degree. Classical education is the outlier, and I’ve shown you what it means. Simply put, classical education teaches the art of learning.[3] Without knowing how to learn, students find themselves at a loss. They learn their skill, or their trade, and then enter a workforce that throws curveballs at them. They don’t know how to react to these curveballs, and so eventually we have seen many of them give up and retreat back to the comfort and safety of their parent’s roof. Others work through the struggle, eventually catching on, but it isn’t easy.

We should choose classical education in the home, in private schools, in cooperative schools, because it teaches the old dog to learn new tricks before he grows old. It teaches the next generation how to process information, how to build upon it by reasoning, and how to put it together into a reasonable and mature argument. Classical education teaches men how to always be able to learn a new trick, because they never forget how to learn. While the rest of society wastes a child’s foundational years with learning subjects, the classically educated scholar’s foundational years are spent learning how to learn, so that he may continue learning his entire life.

Works Cited

[1] The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/news/850513/phone-ban-students-cant-read-a-clock

[2] [3] Sayers, Dorothy; The Lost Tools of Learning. https://wyoschool.faith/the-lost-tools-of-learning/