The true metric of educational success lies in equipping students with the skills to navigate a complex world, according to former Dow Journalism Program Director Tracy Lee Simmons.

Simmons delivered these remarks during a Sept. 27 lecture titled “The Classical Inheritance Goes to School.” 

“A classical education is about sustaining a classical inheritance, and it evolved to pass on a high legacy,” Simmons said. “It was never meant to be the stuff of museums. If that is the case, it’s dead, and a classical education was always meant to maintain a living legacy of inheritance.”

After 13 years since teaching at the college, Simmons returned to the campus to speak to students of the Diana Davis Spencer Graduate School of Classical Education and several faculty members.

Current graduate student and classical school teacher Christian Holmes said he appreciated Simmons’ perspective and particularly valued his emphasis on the necessity of being challenged at school. 

“We set the bar high for our students, which means that school can still be fun, but it doesn’t mean that school is supposed to be easy,” Holmes said. “I had a ton of students who wanted class to be fun, and I get it. I had to tell them that the main reason for me being here as a teacher is not for everything to be fun, but rather to help them and teach them what they don’t know.”

Rebecca Schwartz, another graduate student, said she was struck by Simmons’ style. 

“He was well-spoken, he was witty, he was funny, and he was charming,” Schwartz said. “He was also a very engaging speaker which made some of his points about classical education particularly poignant.” 

Classical education, once revered as the bedrock system for learning, is centered on preserving and transmitting a legacy of knowledge, Simmons said. 

“Rightly applied, this classical scheme is a hard but successful approach, which is one of the reasons why it was thrown from public schools long ago,” Simmons said. 

According to Simmons, the modern revival of classical education can largely be attributed to a growing dissatisfaction among parents with the standard public schooling system. 

“Many good parents are desperate to find alternatives to the dreariness of public education, so much so that they will turn almost anywhere to find it,” he said. 

According to Simmons, a true classical education is rooted in the trivium, which consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Beginning with foundational knowledge, proceeding to analytical thinking, and culminating in expressive capability, the trivium is not merely a triad of subjects but a progression of understanding.

“Any student who has spent nine or 12 years in school or homeschool runs on this plan, has read lots of books, and has had to prove that he has taken from them not just what he felt about them, but what the author intended,” Simmons said. “He has learned to observe the ‘otherness’ of knowledge.”

Simmons criticized institutions that brand themselves as “classical” without a genuine commitment to the foundational principles of the approach. Such misleading labels, he said, risk diluting the very essence of what classical education stands for. 

“For all their virtues, these schools can be unreliable models for classical education,” Simmons said. 

According to Simmons, in an effort to impart a true classical education, certain misconceptions have arisen. 

“We have achieved an impressive degree of confusion on a fairly simple matter,” Simmons said. 

For one, many educators are anxious about pushing students too hard, according to Simmons, fearing potential failure or believing that every aspect of learning must be enjoyable.

“Why not call hard things hard?” Simmons said. “What’s happening in schools is not only for their good individually, but also for the good of the society in which they will live and serve.”

Before concluding his speech, Simmons acknowledged the fact that classical education is not a universal cure. 

“A classical Christian education is not the only form of education worth having,” Simmons said, “but it is the highest our civilization has set and is one that lasted thousands of years before being assaulted in the 19th century.”