When I was a junior in high school, my mom told me she had read about a small school named Hillsdale College in a book called Colleges that Change Lives. It dawned on me for the first time that I did want college to be a life-changing endeavor.

I was hooked on Hillsdale after my first visit, when I learned that, as a classical liberal arts school, Hillsdale was less concerned with churning out the next generation of workers and more concerned with caring for the minds and souls of its students, helping them through their personal and intellectual metamorphoses.

I had never heard of classical education before my visit, but it immediately seemed to respond to some of the anxieties I felt about the adult life that loomed before me. I feared the monotony of a corporate job, the emptiness of shallow friendships and relationships, and the overall hollowness of a life with much toil and little reward.

Classical schools like Hillsdale are beginning to surface more and more in nationwide discussions about education as parents and educators alike determine the best way to proceed with education in a post-COVID era. Classical education appears not only at the collegiate level, but also in the form of K-12 schools.

The defining characteristic of classical education is in the name: it's about the classics.

Classical education is centered on the Western tradition, which is the study of European and American history, literature, philosophy, and theology. The Western tradition spans from the ancient times until the early to mid-20th century. Students learn subjects that have long since disappeared from classrooms, like grammar, sentence diagramming, phonics, theology, philosophy, Greek, Latin, logic, rhetoric, and the Great Books.

In part, classical education focuses on the Western tradition because that tradition makes up the foundation of modern American life. Though some might like to believe that modern life is completely separate from and unrelated to the past, modern life is both a continuation of the past and a deviation from it.

When I got to Hillsdale, I realized that great literature was made up of much more than memoirs and intellectually lazy, dystopian young adult novels. At Hillsdale, my eyes were opened to an entire world of writers and philosophers whom I had never previously read, and who treated questions about truth, religion, and objective morality with the precision and depth that such fundamental topics necessitate. The Great Books were complex, and did not pretend that modern man's disdain and apathy toward truth must mean truth does not exist.

I learned about prominent thinkers from the Western tradition— such as French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville— who predicted some of our modern problems.

In his Democracy in America, which he wrote during a trip to the United States in the early 1800s, de Tocqueville said: "Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all."

Studying the Western tradition allows students to see that the dismissive modern attitudes about identity, humanity, and God are appealing to the modern man because they require no evidence, no effort, and no risk. By looking to the past, we can discover the richness of life that has been lost.

At the heart of classical education curriculum and lessons plans are the transcendentals: goodness, truth, and beauty. Classical students learn, debate, and discuss ideas with the goal of reaching truth, even if that truth is uncomfortable, unpopular, or inconvenient.

Today's world loves the opposite of the transcendentals: evil, lies, and ugliness. Not only are we divided on nearly every social and political issue, but individually, we are also unhappier than ever before. Many people shape their life choices and belief systems on their own selfish thoughts and desires, which are fleeting and often misguided.

Classical education responds to this chaos by showing students that everything is ordered. Because everything belongs to an order, everything—even human life itself—has a "telos," or a purpose toward which it is naturally inclined.

Topics like grammar, phonics, and sentence diagramming are important in classical education because they give a student a better understanding of the way that reading and writing are ordered, or structured. Topics like logic, religion, and philosophy give a student a better understanding of the way reality and morality are ordered.

When I began my freshman year at Hillsdale, I knew little about classical education, but quickly realized the stark contrast it had with my public-school experience.

On one of the first weekends of my freshman year, several of the girls in my dorm voluntarily decided to sit in a big circle and debate theology. Girls used various kinds of evidence to support their interpretations, relying on both logical arguments and Bible verses.

After I gave my opinion, one of the girls asked me why I believed what I did. I told her, "Because that's just what I think." She replied, "That's not a very good reason."

That may have seemed an insensitive response, but it was true. I realized right away that if I was going to learn anything from my education, I would need to humbly accept the fact that not only could I be wrong, but also that reality is bigger than myself.

I realized that truths about reality—such as whether or not God exists—cannot come exclusively from my own head, but rather must come from something completely outside myself and my own desires for how the world should work. Even if I didn't yet know how to find truth, I knew that I couldn't rely on my ideas alone.

Classical education's dedication to goodness, truth, and beauty—seen in this extreme example—has rippled throughout the rest of my Hillsdale experience.

In one class, we noticed beauty by doing our homework in cursive and writing in nicely bound notebooks. Many students voluntarily attend church every week—if not more often—out of a willing and ardent desire to worship God. In many classes, we try to ascertain the truth about historical events by reading the original sources.

Some professors teach using the Socratic method, which is teaching by asking questions. The ancient thinker, Socrates, taught his students by asking them questions that were designed to point to the flaws in their arguments and eventually led them to uncover the truth through their own reasoning.

My classical education's emphasis on goodness, truth, and beauty has changed me indelibly. I am prepared to enter the workforce not only because I have the right certifications, but also because I have become the mature kind of person who can teach myself, devise creative solutions, discern truth from falsehood, and love God and neighbor.

When my mom discovered Hillsdale in Colleges that Change Lives, it sounded almost too good to be true. But, as a rising senior at Hillsdale, I can attest that my school and my classical education have indeed changed my life.

Tracy Wilson is a journalism and classical education student. She writes a newsletter that is centered on classical education, but her interests include alternative educational models.

This article was originally published on Substack on July 26, 2022

Reprinted by permission.

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