At Madison Christian School, we define Classical Christian Education as:
The formation of students' souls to know and love God's truth, goodness, and beauty through time-tested content and teaching practices.
Let’s break it down. First, “formation of students' souls.” We believe every student is a soul. Students are more than just their brains or instincts or impulses or emotions or bodies. Not every school believes that students are divine image-bearing souls. A soul is formed by training the affections or loves as well as the mind; shaping virtue, not just behavior modification.
The next phrase is “to know and love God's truth, goodness, and beauty.” Because students are souls made in God's image, we know that we were made to reflect God's character. A real education involves both the head and the heart; it is to teach people not merely to do the right things, but to enjoy the right things. We look for truth, goodness, and beauty around us because the truth, goodness, and beauty of creation point us back to the Creator. This is how virtue is formed.
Finally, “through time-tested content and teaching practices.” Fortunately, we are not starting from scratch when it comes to forming souls. Classical Christian Education is being rediscovered in our age, but it has been around for centuries. What has happened in education in the last 100 years or so has been an untested experiment, an experiment with disastrous consequences. At MCS, we rely upon the wisdom of the past in both what we teach and how we teach it.