What are the tools of historical reasoning? Most curricular discussions revolve around what topics to cover or what information to deliver. Information is important, yet a classical approach to history is more concerned with forming the way our students reason about the past. Historical reasoning is an intellectual skill, a disciplined way of drawing inferences about the past. We want our graduates to go beyond us, discover information that we did not supply them and arrive at sound conclusions that we did not suggest. We must equip them to learn for themselves. What are these history skills? Do they appear in our curricular objectives?
Christopher Schlect
Dr. Schlect has worked in classical and Christian education for over 25 years. He is the Director of the Classical and Christian Studies Graduate Program at New Saint Andrews College, where he also teaches courses in history and classical rhetoric. Schlect has also taught at Washington State University, and has delivered many subjects to 7th- to 12th-grade students at Logos School in Moscow, Idaho. Schlect serves classical and Christian Schools around the country through his consulting and teacher-training activities, and his published writings appear in various school curricula and other outlets. Christopher is a teaching elder at Trinity Reformed Church (CREC) in Moscow, Idaho. He and his wife, Brenda, have five children, all products of a classical and Christian education. They also have three grandchildren.
