Pedagogy

Northfield’s pedagogy rests squarely on the liberal arts as

• the tools of learning and
• the mandate to study important science and culture.

And although we go beyond the quadrivium in choosing our subjects of study, we are certain the trivium remains the best breakdown [for educational purposes] of how human cognition [and thus all learning] takes place. That said, let's take a more in depth look at the trivium.

Composed of grammar, logic and rhetoric, the trivium is not [as we have observed] merely three specific subjects for study but the three universal tools of learning. If this is true, then all learning can be recognized by the presence of [if not the formal adherence to] a three step progression:

• get the grammar … identify the elemental nouns, modifiers, verbs and other parts of speech by which the subject is conceived, communicated and conducted,
• discover the logic … relate these parts of speech to one another in ways that build increasingly complex and meaning-filled thoughts and
• engage the rhetoric … debate the internal validity and external consistency of these thoughts through experiment and dialogue with others.

So there you have it … Northfield in a nutshell … there is no subject that cannot be learned using these three tools … and there are no tools that can be used to learn about any subject other than these.

The thing that makes Northfield different from most other schools is not our use of these learning tools in teaching the subjects we study, but the fact that we systematically reveal these tools to our students in every subject they study … and then we train them to handle the tools with the skills that enable them to master any subject.

At Northfield, the trivium is the one lesson our teachers teach which stands behind the many lessons our students study.

More Resources

Northfield Pedagogy Blog

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