Homeschooling parents are reviving classical
education to teach their kids to think for themselves
Modern education often tells students what to think rather than teaching them how to think. Chelsa Budd, a homeschooling mother in Regina, believes the antidote lies in recovering the lost art of classical education, a model that shaped minds for centuries before being discarded about a hundred years ago.
Budd knows the modern system well. She earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Regina, where she was immersed in critical theory—an approach that views schooling largely through power, identity and social change. The end result is that schools often focus less on knowledge and more on turning students into activists shaped by identity politics.
But her sister’s decision to give her own children a classical education challenged Budd’s assumptions. “She’s not afraid to offend you with an idea,” Budd recalls. “Of course … that felt very bad, but I’m so thankful that she did and she didn’t back down.”
Budd saw the approach in practice when she visited her sister’s homeschool co-op in Ohio. The method struck her as a workable solution to the shortcomings of public education. “It was just really cool, and what I was learning there made a lot of sense,” she says.
Classical education, Budd explains, is rooted in the Western intellectual tradition of Homer, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. For centuries, it was the foundation of learning, built on the ancient framework of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, known as the trivium. Students begin by memorizing facts, then learn to connect ideas, and finally develop the ability to argue, articulate and persuade.
In Budd’s view, this stands in sharp contrast to today’s emphasis on producing agents of social change. “Our world desperately needs a return to classical education, but its aims are antithetical to social change. It is about looking back at the past and gaining the wisdom from the past and moving forward into the future with that wisdom in our current context, and shaping the souls of children to what is good, right and true,” she says.
To put this into practice, Budd turned to Classical Conversations, an international homeschooling network popular in North America that combines the classical method with a Christian worldview.
She now leads a homeschool co-op in Regina through the program. Families meet one morning a week for 24 weeks—12 in the fall and 12 in the winter—to study grammar, give student presentations, conduct science experiments and explore the arts. Parents then continue the learning at home. Tuition covers supplies, an honorarium for the tutor and a small stipend for the director.
The benefits, Budd argues, go beyond academics. Her own children have gained confidence, presenting to peers even at the age of four. They have been introduced to the great artists, the foundations of music theory and the wonder of scientific exploration.
For Budd, the true value of classical education is that it cultivates wisdom, virtue and awe. “We’re just trying to learn this whole new way of educating our children, not in this mindset of vocation, but in this mindset of shaping their souls and the curriculum leading them continually back to awe and wonder about God and the objective truths of this world that he’s made,” she says.
She has also found that she herself is learning more history than she ever did in her years of formal schooling. “I know more history of the world from the past two years of homeschooling my children than I ever learned,” she says.
Budd’s experience reflects a broader shift. Homeschooling has grown steadily in Canada, particularly since COVID-19, and enrolment is now at record levels in several provinces. For parents uneasy about ideology in classrooms, co-ops rooted in classical learning offer one path. At a time when many families are questioning what schools are teaching, this rediscovery is timely—and urgent.
If public education no longer teaches children how to think, then parents will have to lead the way.
Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
The views, opinions, and positions expressed by our columnists and contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of our publication.
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