Building a Culture of Classical Learning in Your Community

In the most famous passage of Plato’s Republic, a prisoner is freed from lifelong captivity in a dark cave and led out into the open air. At first he is dazzled by the light. Unable to see anything at all, he stumbles about awkwardly. But when his eyes adjust and he finally sees the world as it truly is, he wants never to turn away. To his dismay, however, he is eventually compelled to leave the sunlight and return to his former captivity. The sudden plunge back into the darkness and the flitting shadows cast by torchlight leaves him blind and blundering once more. To add insult to injury, he is mocked by the other prisoners for his claims about the bright, true world waiting for them just outside. He almost seems worse off than he was prior to his brief liberation and his newfound knowledge.

Plato had a very precise kind of knowledge in mind here: the knowledge of true beings and their cause. But his little parable has enjoyed broader currency as an analogy for just about any life-changing discovery that is met with the defensiveness, ridicule, criticism, or simply isolating indifference of those who have not shared in it.

This tradition of appropriating Plato’s analogy can well be applied to the parents, teachers, and school heads who discover classical education. Appalled by plummeting academic and ethical standards in their own or their children’s schools, frustrated by years of stagnation, these educators have found the promise of another sort of learning. They may be caught between regret at years lost to ineffective education on the one hand and enthusiastic hope for the future on the other. This is the experience of flailing about in the sunlight, if you will. 

We have all been there. In moments of inspiration we remember the old education tradition as it was at its best in the grammar schools and universities of yesteryear, and we imagine how it could come to life again—be it in London or Devon, in Essex or Yorkshire, in Scotland or Wales, in the Midlands or Ireland…

But whether we will or not, at some point we end up back in the cave. And rightly so, Plato would add. For one, that is simply life: each of us belongs to a particular community. For another, as Plato sees it, just as the prisoner was freed by someone else, so must he embrace his responsibility go back and try to free others, too—or at least to improve the lot of those stuck in the cave.

It is not easy. The morning after a late night spent reading Lewis or Newman or Quintilian or Boethius, a teacher must return to work. Perhaps this is in a smartphone-filled classroom with poor discipline, where the administration has already warned him that his behavioral standards are not ‘inclusive’ enough. Or perhaps another teacher musters the courage to send an eye-opening article to the school head, who doubtless means well. But will she even read it? There are those upcoming inspections to worry about, and the parent-teacher meetings… Or perhaps a visionary school head does have ideas for reform. She has it all worked out on paper. But the first few teachers she has approached want nothing to do with it. Mum and Dad, meanwhile, may be even more exasperated with the children’s local comprehensive now that they know there was and is another way, but their questions to teachers fall on deaf ears. And even if the parents, teachers, and school heads were all keen to try something classical, what would Ofsted say?  

Too often we languish in the cave, haunted by the knowledge that the educational orthodoxy currently dominant is not the only way to teach and learn, but unsure either how to escape or  how to change anything. 

Culture in the cave 

So what should the prisoner-returnee do? The many successful examples of new classical schools and home education co-operatives share striking similarities. 

First, keep reading. Follow the leads from those first sources that opened your eyes. Pick up a book or two. Listen to podcasts while you cook or drive. Keep forming yourself and learning about the tradition you have discovered. Read a great book, not just about that tradition, but from its depths. Read Pride and Prejudice. Read Macbeth—and go see a performance if you can, or if that is not possible, plan a film night for a screen adaptation. Give Horace’s poetry a try.  

Second, find a friend. We all need interlocutors with whom we can test and exchange ideas, have frank debates, and organise and plan how to make our dreams concrete. Often this first friend is a husband or a wife, a brother, a sister. There are many examples of couples and families who have thrown themselves into the classical education revival together.  

At some point, however—and even for home-educating families—it is extremely helpful to widen the circle and find other like-minded sorts with whom to discuss education. This will broaden your discussions, drawing in perspectives and strengths that will complement your own. You are likely to find such new allies and friends in your church community or toddlers’ groups or in your workplace. There are others out there just as frustrated with the state of affairs as you are. Some will be keen to look for answers with you. 

Third, while these discussions may happen organically, a systematic approach can also hold us accountable. Start a reading plan with your spouse or friends. Pick a bundle of articles or books or podcasts on classical education. Browse curricula together. Make a plan for the next six months. Perhaps you can manage to meet fortnightly. Take notes. Keep a file for the important ideas and any practical ways of implementing them. Video calls and online resources are no replacement for in-person interactions, but participants in a sensible forum or Facebook group really can be invaluable as you and your local friends start out, particularly if you live in relative geographic or cultural isolation. They will continue to be helpful companions as your project grows.  

Fourth, however, do start an in-person group with those you find near you. Send wider invitations to those monthly or fortnightly meetings. Bring in other parents or teachers. This will further enliven the discussions and put more practical ideas on the drawing board. Even a few committed participants will lighten the organisational burden by sharing responsibilities for presenting a chapter, moderating a discussion, or hosting. Food and drink help: the open discussion of ideas alongside the free exchange of hospitality is amongst the most ancient and most precious marks of civilisation. With a shared table as an accompaniment to your feast of ideas, you will have your own symposium in the best of the classical tradition.

Just by meeting like this you will be building up a culture of classical learning right where you are. If regular symposia should turn out to be all you achieve with such a group, the effort would be worth it. But it is unlikely to stop there. These sorts of discussions have a way of leading to practical projects. For decades now, from America to Britain to Central and Eastern Europe, classically minded institutions have been emerging from what are initially simple groups for reading and discussion.  

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Cultures vanish quickly. They are built slowly. So if you have spent enough time outside the cave that you hope to see classical schools or home education networks someday near you, then you simply have to begin. Read. Read with friends. Read with friends regularly and with good food. It will take time before that classical school you can already envision on the banks of the Ribble or the Dart or the Wye is ready to open its doors. It may even take a little time to find that first like-minded friend. That is all the more reason to start today.