Classical education is a process of training the mind that has three parts.
The early years of education are spent learning facts and laying a foundation for later studies. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments and debate. Then in the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This three part process is called the Trivium.
The early years are all about facts. They are the building blocks for all of the later years of education. The Classical education takes advantage of a first through fourth grader having a great capacity to learn and memorize a lot of information.
Once a child reaches fifth and sixth grade they have plenty of facts and are now starting to think more analytically. They want to know why things work and the way they relate to each other. They want to know how all of the facts they have learned come together.
Next children begin to apply logic to all of the subjects they have learned. They no longer read to memorize text, but they read to study the text and criticize it. A history lesson about the Civil War would not simply be about the facts of the war or names of the battles; it would be also a lesson in why the war was fought. A science lesson would not just have an interesting experiment; it would be a lesson on how the scientific method works.
Finally, young adults are ready for the Rhetoric phase. They put together what they have learned in the other stages to speak and write with conviction and original thought. They also begin to focus their range of study on areas that interest them for a lifelong career.
Above everything else, a classical education is organized and systematic. This is a complete contrast to the random and scattered nature of most secondary schools. The classical education constantly pushes a student to turn from laziness to reach a goal and master a subject. Classical education dwells on one topic long enough for children to make connections between the past and the modern, teaching them the story of the ages.

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