Seton Home Study School - Method and Philosophy

Method and Philosophy

Seton’s educational method is sometimes referred to as the Scholastic Method. This term is derived from the Latin “scholasticus” which means “of or pertaining to the school.” There is not much difference between Seton’s method and the method that had formerly been used by the Catholic school system. The term “Scholastic” can also refer to the philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages, especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas whose philosophy provides something of a basis for Seton’s educational theory.

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, every child (and adult) learns by abstracting universal ideas from sense data. This kind of abstraction can take place in two ways, either by discovery or by instruction. When discovery occurs, a person randomly comes across sense data and recognizes some universal elements between the different objects he sees. For instance, after looking at a picture of the Great Pyramids of Giza, someone might notice that when a triangle has sides that are the same size, it also has angles that are the same degree. When instruction occurs, another person who already possesses an idea explains it to one who does not yet understand it by means of arranging sense data in such a way as to highlight the desired principle. Thus, a geometry textbook is designed to have illustrations of equilateral triangles pointing out the correlation of sides to angles. Either way, a student can only gain knowledge when he abstracts the universal idea for himself, but instruction is a much more efficient way to acquire knowledge. Child-directed learning is essentially just discovery, whereas teacher/parent-directed learning is instruction.

The Scholastic Method is an instruction based method primarily distinguished by its emphasis on the use of textbooks, which are designed to help the student, in the easiest possible way, grasp important ideas and concepts.