Foundations in Classical Teaching with Dr. Christopher Perrin
This faculty orientation will support you where you are at in your classical education journey as you study through select ClassicalU courses. Each course linked below has a professional certificate available upon completion. To get you excited to begin, here is a brief 11-minute lesson with Dr. Christopher Perrin contemplating the foundational question of “What is Classical Education?”
Scholé Educator Intensive Certification
Year 1
Introduction to Classical Education
The renewal of classical education has grown significantly over the last two decades. However, even seasoned classical educators agree that it can still be difficult to answer the fundamental question: “What is classical education?” In this foundational course, Dr. Christopher Perrin provides a clear definition of classical education and then explores key questions.
Essentials of Effective Teaching
In this course, Robyn Burlew shares her accumulated wisdom and practical insights into what it means to be an effective classical educator. Those teachers yearning for practical, hands-on guidance in teaching methods, classroom cultivation, testing and assessment, and effective planning will find this course truly essential.
The Scholé Way
In this all-new course, Dr. Perrin explores how the classical concept of restful, contemplative learning—scholé—provides formation in wisdom, virtue, and a deep intellectual life. Tracing the roots of scholé in classical philosophy, Christian theology, and monastic education, the course examines how this tradition contrasts with the anxiety-driven tendencies of modern schooling.
Scholé Muses 1: Classical Education at Home
Meet the Scholé Muses. These women are experienced home and classical educators who also share a love for restful classical education–or scholé. In this first course they lay a foundation for bringing a restful, classical education to our homeschools and homeschool co-ops. This is an ideal course for those homeschooling educators interested in bringing scholé to their homeschool.
Scholé Educator Intensive Certification
Year 2
Principles of Classical Pedagogy II
This course features master classical educator Andrew Kern presenting what he considers to be two critical modes of classical pedagogy: mimetic and Socratic teaching in which educators present models for imitation and when students become aware of their ignorance and begin to truly seek answers. Combined, the mimetic and Socratic modes of teaching help students to engage, study, and seek after the true, good, and the beautiful, which leads to the cultivation of virtue and wisdom.
The Liberal Arts Tradition
In this seminal course, Dr. Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain take us through a thoughtful, clear presentation of a paradigm for the tradition of classical Christian education. Clark and Jain emphasize that the 7 liberal arts are “not enough” to capture the classical tradition of education but that the liberal arts exist within the larger context of a tradition that includes piety, gymnastic, music, philosophy, and theology. To restore a vibrant classical, Christian education, we must recover not only the liberal arts but also this wider tradition that enhances the liberal arts, setting them free to enable the mastery of philosophy and theology.
Scholé Muses 2: Classical Education at Home
This is the second course, the Scholé Muses discuss how to wisely select classical curricula for a home school setting and how to employ classical principles of pedagogy.
Scholé Muses 3: Practice of Scholé
In this third course, the Scholé Muses focus on the practice of scholé. How can homeschool educators who have been formed by modern progressive education learn how to teach restfully, bringing an atmosphere of peace to the homeschooling day and to the hearts of their children?
Scholé Educator Mastery Certification
Year 3
Awakening the Moral Imagination
In this course, Dr. Vigen Guroian presents three lectures on the ways that classic literature awakens the moral imagination. He also leads several discussions with three classical educators in which they discuss six classical stories and explore the ways these stories awaken the moral imagination and thus cultivate virtue.
The Abolition of Man Book Study
In this concise course, Dr. Steve Turley introduces and explains Lewis’s insights into education, beginning with a clear overview and then taking us chapter by chapter through the book.
Teaching the Bible Classically
Bible scholar and professor Dr. Fred Putnam presents a course on teaching the Bible as a classic or classical text.
Classroom Habits and Practices
In Lesson 7 of Teaching the Great Books, Josh Gibbs discusses why students remember some things for life and forget others right after the test. He then goes on to describe a classroom practice for teaching the Great Books (or other arts). He advocates what he calls the “class catechism,” a daily ritual that promises to get students to remember important information for life and prepare the students to learn well.
The Seven Liberal Arts
In this course, master classical educator Andrew Kern along with Christopher Perrin present an insightful survey of the seven liberal arts–explaining their origin, history and significance in the classical tradition of education.
Scholé Educator Mastery Certification
Year 4
Myth Made Fact
With C. S. Lewis, whose own acceptance of Christ hinged on his understanding that Christ is the myth become fact, Dr. Louis Markos will seek to mine wisdom of eternal value from the great storehouses of Greco-Roman mythology and trace the links that bind those myths to the Bible and to the Christian life.
Narration: A Classical Guide
In this course, Charlotte Mason expert, Jason Barney explores and explains a reading practice called narration in which students learned to tell back and summarize passages which they have read and shows how teachers in classical schools can employ it to great effect and benefit.
Assessing Students Classically
This multi-presenter course reviews assessment approaches in the history of education and suggests methods of assessing students classically that align with the ideals of the classical tradition of education.
Essential Music
Dr. Carol Reynolds provides critical context in this course for teaching music classically. She covers a history, perspective and understanding of music that will integrate it with your other studies and unpack its significance for human wellbeing. Learn how to approach music instruction in ways that will shape and bless your students in this essential course.
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