Integration in Classical Curriculum

As people have spoken to me about classical education and the school at which I teach, to get a better understanding of our approach one of the things that often sets them back is our focus on integration of subjects. Why would we put history and literature in the same category? A glance through our book list for a grade or two will make anyone see immediately what I am referring to. We have third grade students read about the Trojan War and our sixth graders read about Winston Churchill. I thought it might be appropriate to give a brief defense of the integration of subjects such as history, literature, and theology.
Every book is a work of history, literature and theology. Any printed material that you pick up can be mined successfully for all three of these disciplines. Some are going to lean heavily in one area over the others, but they will always say something in each area. All books have a history and are written in a particular time and place. This can affect the position the book takes upon particular events or ideologies. There are American history books written when Richard Nixon was in office but before the Watergate scandal that paint a very different picture of that man than those appearing just a couple of years later. Novels written prior to the 20th century will praise the glory of mankind’s increasingly benevolent spirit; a quality that most readers now don’t have as much trust in.
Every book must be written with a degree of style and structure. This quality of making information readable gives it a place in literature. Is it well organized and well written? Does it have grammatical or structural flaws? Is the argument developed just as carefully as the plot of a good novel would be? These things make any book a work of literature. It does not matter that it is not Oedipus Rex or Pride and Prejudice. Literature has a definite structure and style. A novel, a good novel anyway, will follow a basic pattern in its story. The author will make an introduction of characters and setting. Then the plot will take over as some need or want will motivate the characters. A similar pattern could be duplicated by a theological or philosophical treatise or a study in the Peloponnesian or Vietnam war.
Finally every book, regardless of its audience or content, is a work of theology. Every author has a worldview that governs their relationship to and with the world God has made. A worldview is a combination of elementary assumptions about reality, knowledge, and ethics that governs the way information is processed and acted upon. Every person has a worldview and attempts to live according to it. However, what we will find is that most authors strive for consistency in written works even if they fail in their day-to-day lives. A worldview is a very theological thing. A person’s thoughts about God will ultimately be determined by their presuppositions. Hence, what worldview a person holds will have a direct relationship to how they present information concerning God. Imagine an avowed Atheist writing a science textbook and including a chapter on Creationism. While this author may get facts, numbers, equations, and the basic narrative correct, their presentation of what God did at creation is going to be affected by the fact that they don’t believe in God. A children’s book written by a homosexual will likely present a less-than-true model of marriage or heterosexual realtionships. These examples are extremes and sometimes you have to look pretty hard for the influence of a competing worldview, but it is always there.
So Classical Education integrates these subjects to teach all of these skills and tasks at one time. It is the best way I know of to introduce our students into the real world. After all, no one on the evening news begins their report with “I am a Darwinist and a Socialist, so bear that in mind as I report on the happenings of the day.” And yet, we must be prepared to see that in everything we come in contact with that we might take “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).