I have thoughts about this.  These are only my opinions.  I am sure there would be many CE purists who would disagree with me but I think there are a few things that set CE apart from any other type of education.

As far as the taking of latin goes, yes, latin is an ingredient of CE but taking  latin by itself does not make a CE.  The teaching of latin needs to be joined with the teaching of logic and rhetoric.  These  three subjects  make up the trivium--the language part  of CE.   The three subjects together work hand in hand in understanding word usage and vocabulary.   These three sujbects also work well together to give the best kind of critical thinking course offered.   In studying these subjects formally, a student is able to study the invention and arrangement of an idea and the logic of that idea and put it back together.  This is, I think, part of Classical Education.  Being able not only to write about an idea but to discuss the idea, to be able to deconstruct that idea and put it back together orally is also what Classical Education is all about.

This leads me to my second point.  Classical Education is all about ideas.  It is about the pursuit of wisdom and virtue through the understanding of the Great Ideas.  These ideas are given to us by the Great Thinkers of our time.  Many of these thinkers came to us during the time of the Ancient Greeks. These ideas, therefore, are tainted by their culture of many gods.  Do those ideas still stand today under a worldview of Christianity?  This is just one area in which these ideas are taken apart and examined.  A studnt of CE is enouraged to truly think about the Great Ideas through discussion.  There are two modes of discussion and intstruction, if you will.  Didactic intruction and Socratic Method.  Admittedly,  I don't know that much about the first form but Socratic discussion is the art of leading a student to fully understand an idea through a series of questions. 

To my way of thinking, in CE the discussion is the crux of the whole philosophy.  Discussion as well as writing are the two important ways for a child to learn about virtue.  Many educational methods and philosophies do not advocate discussion.  Writing is an important tenet of any method but discussion seems to be always left behind.  The student is given a textbook or a book and is told to read it then write an essay on some topic from that reading.  That is the extent of that learning.  There is little discussion.  I think that that is a big piece of the puzzle that is missing in our children's education.  In discussion, the student is exposed to various ways of thinking, not just his own.  He is able to hear the thoughts of others.  He is able to see the 'other side' of an issue.  Through discusson, an idea can be torn apart  and then put back together again to shed a different light on the topic.

I think discussion can be helpful at all ages.  I am trying to instill this in my children's education now, even though they are still young.  A perfect example took place a few months ago when I was reading  a Greek myth to my 7 and 5 year old.  We were reading Pandora's Box.  We started talking about the similarities between this story and the fall of man.  My children were able to see the similarities between Eve and Pandora.  Through discussion, they were able to tie two 'stories'  together and gain a  new understanding of each.  We had a great time of talking and understanding.

There are more characteristics of CE that set it apart from the myriad of other methods, but these two (discussions of the Great Ideas and the melding of latin, logic and rhetoric) are the main ones to me.

Julia lives with her husband on the Canadian Prairies  homeschooling her 3 children (9,7,5) and attempting to give them a Classical Education.

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