Hello, I'm a young mom of two going on three babies and toddlers and plan to homeschool my brood (my husband and I were both homeschooled and wouldn't have it any other way for our kids.) I've been delving into educational theories and Classical Education, especially Bauer's approach, has appealed to me for many years. In an effort to get a well-rounded perspective, I've been reading articles on many alternative education theories. One of these was written by an atheistic libertarian educator and spoke of the faulty "rationalism" espoused by Classical Education proponents. The False Promise of Classical Education - The Objective Standard The article is worth a read in full to get a true sense of the author's vitriol reaction to the Christian faith and community, which in my view far exceeded the bounds of rational disagreement. However, I did find her thoughts on the pedagogy of facts during the "Grammar" stage very interesting. Namely, that facts should not be introduced to students when they have no ability to confirm their veracity either through observation or rational connection with other observable facts. This, I believe, ultimately leads to the false worldview that our senses can fully explain reality. However I was intrigued by the idea of giving observable/identifying context for learned facts whenever possible, rather than simply expecting our children to believe what we tell them by virtue of our authority as parents or educators. Have any of you encountered this criticism of the classical approach? How have you dealt with the Hierarchy of Concepts and balanced it with a more well-rounded, indeed theological view of the world? Many thanks for any input this generates!