Even a casual visit to www.ClassicalFree.org will tell you that this is an extraordinary project. It is the brainchild of Headmaster Oliver Woods, who has a vision to see the benefit of a classical education extended to all. Let's visit Mr. Woods now to learn more about this excellent resource for homeschoolers.

TOS: Thank you for taking the time to visit with The Old Schoolhouse, Mr. Woods. Tell us what led you to develop this concept of a Christian "web school."

Mr. Woods: Thanks for the opportunity, Christine. You might think I'd be the last person to set up a classical Christian school on the Internet. I attended your garden-variety public high school back in Iowa, graduating in 1965. I got my master's degree in education at Oregon State in 1972, but that of course was a hotbed of humanism and I never had much opportunity to use it anyway. After that I attended the graduate program at Multnomah Bible College for a year. My career path unfolded along the lines of political science and electoral politics. For the Christian that involves thinking through the areas of government and history biblically, and I have been privileged to write a couple of books on those subjects. I spent 25 years as a political pollster and activist helping maintain a Republican majority in the Oregon legislature. As time passed, it became painfully obvious that our Christian legislators-with a few notable exceptions-had a very weak biblical worldview. I founded ClassicalFree Virtual Academy to be part of the remedy for this situation. I'm committed to help raise up a generation of young people who understand the application of the Bible to every discipline of life, including but certainly not limited to, the political.

TOS: Can you give us a brief overview of classical education?

Mr. Woods: With the classical approach you are dealing with both a special method and a special content. The method is captured in the well-known formula revived and popularized by Dorothy Sayers' essay on "The Lost Tools of Learning." In that article, she explains how the learning process involves three steps: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. When you look at the grammar phase of any subject, you are dealing with the basic facts and principles. In dialectic you are integrating those basic elements via logical thought processes to produce understanding. Finally, in rhetoric you are applying and communicating the truth you have mastered via the written word and spoken word. Interestingly, these same processes also apply to the child's developmental stages.

Out of this flows a unique content. In addition to the traditional math, English, science, etc., you have Latin, Greek, logic, rhetoric, debate, art, history, and composition of classical music and Classical studies. At ClassicalFree we have built our core curriculum around 100 of the classical authors-Christian and non-Christian-going as far back as Homer. Rather than the "classical synthesis," which has traditionally sought to integrate pagan and biblical thinking, we are self-consciously seeking to evaluate the pagan and Christian classics in light of the Bible. This is critically important. Without it we simply can't understand why we are where we are today as a culture. Students coming out of these classical studies have a finely tuned biblical worldview that encompasses virtually every discipline: history, philosophy, science, sociology, etc. There is an emphasis on learning to live-and learn-that goes beyond today's utilitarian focus on simply making a living.

TOS: How are you implementing this at ClassicalFree?

Mr. Woods: It occurred to me one day that the grammar level course in any course sequence-the basic facts and principles-was amenable to being self-taught and self-graded on the computer. I also realized that after the initial investment in development that these courses could be maintained on the Internet for very little cost and could therefore be offered to our students tuition-free. That means that of the 50 or so core courses in the junior high and high school curriculum, 40% or about 20 can be offered at no cost to the student. We charge a market-level fee for the advanced courses-those that require a bulletin board forum or a real-time discussion.

TOS: Why is it so important to give our children a Christian worldview?

Mr. Woods: There are a lot of reasons. The lack of a biblical worldview works itself out in many areas. Christians are quick to say that "the Bible has all the answers," but then they often fail to look for or apply those answers to anything outside their family or church. Typically, they end up going with some outmoded form of humanism that was in vogue 50 years ago and baptizing that. Rather than leading the way intellectually, we always seem to be tagging along behind the humanists-about 20years behind.

TOS: Can you give us an example?

Mr. Woods: For one thing, natural law thinking was abandoned by the world over a century ago with the advent of Darwin, and then Einstein. Evolution and relativity-together they pretty much killed the idea of fixed natural law discernable in nature by both Christian and non-Christian: RIP. Nevertheless, Christians continue to assume there is some intellectual common ground basis for communicating spiritual truth to the unbeliever. They cling to natural law thinking the way a dog clings to an old bone, and refuse to take biblical law seriously. They often try to lay an intellectual basis for belief in God before bringing in the Bible, and it can't be done. If you try it you end up undermining the Bible by elevating the authority of nature or human reason. The church has a 2,000-year track record of failure in this area. We develop this theme extensively in the Great Books courses at ClassicalFree.

As I mentioned above, political science is a great example. We've got all sorts of hard-core, Christian conservatives running around out there who are emotionally tied to the prison model of criminal justice. You know, the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" type of mentality. That model is incredibly expensive and ineffective. But more than that, the prison model is totally contrary to the biblical restitution model that says the criminal has paid his debt when-and only when-he has repaid his victim twice (Exodus 22:1-4). Men like Chuck Colson have been saying this for some time now. These ideas can't be developed adequately in a few short paragraphs-that's why you've got ClassicalFree Virtual Academy.

TOS: It sounds like this program would more than adequately prepare the student for the rigors of college. Any thoughts on this?

Mr. Woods: Yes, I believe it does because the classical model is specially designed to teach students to think for themselves. We strive to equip our students with the tools of logic, debate, rhetoric, and writing skills that will enable them to tackle almost any new subject on their own. Worldview is also extremely important. Bible doctrine, Bible survey, and Great Books classical reading program are invaluable for worldview. First of all, as a shield to resist the skeptical and humanistic onslaught of the college curriculum, but beyond that as an interpretative grid which enables them to quickly evaluate and process the multitude of new ideas to which they will be exposed. During the senior year there is a community practicum and seminar that helps the students to integrate the classical reading program.

TOS: Your faculty roster is impressive. Tell us about the individuals who have partnered with you to work on this project.

Mr. Woods: I am very excited about the team of men and women that God has assembled at ClassicalFree. Besides their all-important spiritual foundation, we have four doctorate level and seven master's level instructors and course writers. These people are intellectual leaders in their respective fields. They have volunteered their time to develop this curriculum and will be receiving royalties from each future tuition payment. To give you just a few examples, Dr. Jay Wile, author of Apologia Science textbook series, is at the head of our science department and personally provides instruction to students via a bulletin board connection. Dr. Peter Leithart is the head of our Shakespearean Studies Department; he's the author of a number of commentaries on classical literature, including Dante and the ancient Greeks. I could go on and on. Our economics instructor, Brian Baugus, is the Senior Budget Analyst for the Maryland legislature and Ben Allison, our English course writer, is the former Editor in Chief of the Notre Dame Law Review.

TOS: How do you advise a parent whose kids simply hate Homer?

Mr. Woods: Almost anything becomes interesting when it is viewed through the lens of Scripture, especially history and philosophy. Paul in Corinthians tells us to "take every (system of) thought captive for Christ." For example, the reason history courses are dull is because they leave God out. You take out the main Character and the story loses all its meaning and makes no sense at all.

If you don't understand Homer (for example) from a biblical standpoint, you can't really understand what you are reading in the morning newspaper or hearing on the evening news. The courses at ClassicalFree are designed to help you help your child to begin making the biblical connections and the connections to what is going on in the world today. When your children start to see history and philosophy from this perspective, it gets to be like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and they begin to take joy and excitement in fitting each piece into the big picture. Of course, it takes a little time to get to that point and the parents have to be there themselves in order to communicate that enthusiasm. Also, you have to pace things according to where each child is in their intellectual development; some may not be quite ready for abstract philosophical thinking yet. So just substitute something else for a while until they are ready.

TOS: What does it mean for a school to be accredited?

Mr. Woods: Accreditation has reference to the granting of educational approval by a government or quasi-government agency. Set up supposedly to ensure quality in education, these agencies have turned out to be a means of curriculum and teacher control on the part of the educational bureaucracy.

TOS: Is ClassicalFree accredited?

Mr. Woods: We are not accredited as a matter of principle. In fact, we hold our lack of government accreditation as a badge of honor. We like to think of ourselves as the "Ivy League of Homeschool Education." As you know, Harvard is not accredited either because they have the reputation of being the best. This doesn't mean that we do not believe in accountability. Accountability to other members of the body of Christ is very important because all of us are subject to getting off balance in our thinking from time to time. That's part of the Fall. It is especially important for Christian teachers to hold one another accountable because God holds them to a higher standard of judgment (James 3:1).

That is why we subscribe to the confession of faith and standards of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS) and require all of our instructors and course writers to subscribe to these standards and beliefs. Historically, the best mechanism for ensuring quality of education has been the free market. When parents have freedom to choose what is best for their children they automatically weed out what is inferior. You can take this all the way back to Athens and Sparta. Spartan education was state-run for strictly military purposes and consequently Sparta left no significant heritage. That is, unless you are a military dictator looking for a good model of how to run a police state.

On the other hand, Athenian education consisted of many small private schools competing for the educational dollars of Athenian parents. As a consequence we have the golden age of Athenian culture-a rich heritage in architecture, philosophy, and literature that has endured for ages. This is a pagan heritage-and thus in many ways dangerous to the church-but it illustrates the power of freedom in education. This same pattern has been manifested throughout recorded history. Government control of education (e.g., accreditation) always has lofty aspirations accompanied by miserable performance-with an astronomical price tag.

TOS: What plans do you have for the future of ClassicalFree Virtual Academy?

Mr. Woods: Our immediate goal is to complete t he development phase of our basic product-grades 7-12. All of our basic, prerequisite courses are now online, but we're still working with a few of the upper division courses. Once everything is in place, we will go back through and fine-tune all of it, enhancing the product with more graphics, etc. For example, we are currently working on a timeline feature to which a student can click at any point and see what was happening-in economics, music, art, literature, science, etc.-in any 100-year slice of history. Once in the "time machine," they can click on any bar, representing the life span of an individual, to learn more about that person. This will help students make the connections.

Whether or not to launch into the elementary grades is a good question. On the site, we talk about how we're geared toward assisting the homeschool parent who starts to run into difficulties and challenges beyond their capabilities at about the junior high level. The focus in the early years is on basic literacy and because most of us are literate, we can generally handle it. The problems come later on. I'mhoping somebody else will take up the banner of online classical Christian education at the elementary level, so we can work together with them.

In terms of implementation, we hope to start working with Christian schools soon as well as with homeschool families. Many Christian schools today may feel that they do not have the knowledge, financial resources, or the staffing to implement the classical model. One way a private school may overcome these entry barriers is to partner with ClassicalFree Virtual Academy to implement the classical model and gradually cut back on the number of instructors and associated costs. This will permit a lower tuition scale, a more lucrative salary structure, and enable the school to serve more lower-income families. Note that the computer is replacing student-teacher interaction only at the introductory level of each course sequence, where the emphasis is on rote memory of basic facts and principles. This serves our basic mission to provide the rudiments of a classical Christian education free of charge to every child who wants it.

TOS: We will be watching. You are doing an awesome work!

Mr. Oliver Woods is the headmaster of ClassicalFree Virtual Academy. www.ClassicalFree.org. His book, Discipling the Nations, is available at 1-800-699-9911.

Christine M. Filed practiced law for eight years before becoming a full-time mommy. She and her husband live and homeschool their four children in Wheaton, Illinois, where her husband serves as Chief of Police. As the author of the books Help for the Harried Homeschooler, A Field Guide to Home Schooling, Coming Home to Raise Your Children, Should You Adopt? and Life Skills for Kids. Christine is a ready and willing help to the homeschooling community. Christine welcomes readers' comments, personal stories, and questions. For more information on Christine and her resources, please visit her website: www.homefieldadvantage.org.