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Overview
On this page you can learn about the Founder of Home Trivium, about the Programme itself, and about the Course Content, including Our Process.... finally, there will be a word about Our Community.
Contents:
The Founder
Hi, my name is Tony Lowe.
I primarily work as a private, online tutor, focusing on the language arts of clear thinking and clear communication for both adults and children alike. This has mostly centred around general English, but I also teach essay writing, business English, presentation skills, Socratic reasoning, and discussion techniques.
I have taught:
- Over 2,800 lessons, with
- More than 460 students, and have received
- 170+ 5 Star reviews.
I have know about The Trivium for many years and am one of the few online creators who has made a video course on it, with very positive feedback.
Knowing this, some of my home-schooling friends here in the UK approached me and asked if there was some way to impart the Trivium skills to their children: this was the genesis of the entire Home Trivium project. I started by considering their needs, and have been adapting the programme ever since in order to make it suitable and affordable for full-time and part-time home schoolers who want a nice, clear-thinking supplement to their children’s general studies.
A bit more about myself:
My background was in philosophy. However, after my degree I became very aware of the shortcomings in modern education. For that reason, I started to look back and discovered that much of the philosophy and education of the past was, in fact, far superior to what our modern, mechanical school systems tend to offer.
Since that time, I have written multiple books, including two on philosophy:
- Life and Truth, and
As well as a book on The Trivium:
- Understanding The Trivium (which is a compliment to the Home Trivium course).
I have also designed a number of online courses, including courses on:
- An [Enhanced] Introduction to Logic, and
I primarily work as a private, online tutor, focusing on the language arts of clear thinking and clear communication for both adults and children alike. This has mostly centred around general English, but I also teach essay writing, business English, presentation skills, Socratic reasoning, and discussion techniques.
If you would like to get to know me more, want to talk to me about Home Trivium or just have any general questions, please feel free to reach out.
Josie (United Kingdom)
"I have known Tony for some years now. When I panic about an essay he explains it logically and step by step. His style is very efficient and follows a precise methodology for both the research of an essay as well as the writing of it. I recommend Tony because he follows his own succinct plan and will not only make you feel like you can write an essay but prove you can even when you did not think you could!"
Joyce (Taiwan)
"Tony is awesome！SUPER intelligent and has dialectical critiques on different topics. So we will have debates on ethical topics like abortion, euthanasia, morality, conscription, medicine and science, very rewarding lessons, my mind used to be a mess but I think I am clearer about my thoughts and positions now, especially during the arguments with my family and friends."
The Programme
Home Trivium was designed to directly address the needs of homeschooling families and communities. The parents I spoke to had a few key requests and concerns. And so, we created solutions for all of them. A course on The Trivium needed to be:
1. Affordable (these families didn’t have much money to spare and simply could not afford the high costs of specialised, classical schools. And so, they needed something that could fit into their budget).
Solution: We offer a price which is a fraction of what most Trivium/Classics-based programmes demand.
2. Adaptable (these families had multiple children, at multiple ages, with different time-allowances and busy schedules).
Solution: Home Trivium can be used by children of any age (ranging from 6-15+), and can be worked through at a family’s own pace.
3. Analogue (these families didn’t like the idea of their children spending all of their time on screens).
Solution: Whilst Home Trivium is both remote and international, there is no need for the children to use computers, tablets, or screens to use the programme. The only digital part necessary is the interaction between myself and the parents, which mostly involves exchanging assignments and feedback.
4. Autonomous (these families wanted a teach-a-man-to-fish approach that would allow them to have some kind of autonomy and independence when dealing with the material. Likewise, we completely agreed that it is no good for the children to simply “learn by wrote” – it is crucial that children learn to think independently).
Solution: The Trivium itself was designed to create just such independent thinkers. The original idea was that the mastery of the three arts: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric would equip a student with everything they need to think critically, communicate correctly, and learn on their own. Also, the Home Trivium programme is designed in such a way as to give maximum autonomy to parents and students. Students are invited to find their own solutions and to solve problems – not simply to mechanically memorize and regurgitate information.
5. Supported (these families knew that they lacked the expertise to feel fully confident to teach all of The Trivium skills on their own. And so, they wanted to feel professionally supported in their teaching).
Solution: subscribers receive regular support and feedback from me as part of the Home Trivium programme. My key, ongoing role is to serve as a touchstone for families and students. Whilst subscribed to the programme, I will provide consistent, weekly feedback on completed work and will be readily available to answer questions about the content. What's more, subscribers will have constant access to our community.
Course Content
The content of Home Trivium is divided into three major parts:
In terms of learning, Home Trivium is designed to achieve a few things:
a) To give children a comprehensive understanding of The Trivium and its main concepts,
b) To allow children to practice the Trivium skills,
c) To allow children to re-practice their skills and understanding at multiple levels of complexity, in order to continuously develop and improve.
Our ultimate goal is to move students of the programme from an elementary level of logical-linguistic ability, to at least a university level.
This explains the three major course components, and their relation…
The Book
Whilst not strictly necessary for the course or for a subscription, it is highly advised that families get a copy of Understanding The Trivium because reading it achieves at least three things:
1. It will give you an overview of The Trivium ideas and concepts before you get started, and therefore serve as an introduction to the Home Trivium programme.
2. It will allow parents to understand the same concepts and skills that they want to help their children to learn.
3. It can serve as a reference-guide when teaching Home Trivium.
Understanding The Trivium was written in response to parents who wanted to understand more about The Trivium course-content in a concise and accessible manner. Whilst the children were showing improvement, parents wanted a way to understand some of the key terms, concepts, applications, and so on, assisted by clear explanations and examples. As such, that was what the book sought to do, and that is what it has delivered. It is written with parents (and adult learners) in mind. It is not addressed directly to the children, but is to be a resource for the whole family, so that parents and children alike can feel secure in their understanding of the classical Trivium skill set.
To give you an idea of what the book contains, here are the contents pages:
To purchase a copy of Understanding The Trivium, click here.
The Path of Veritellum
We really don’t want things to be boring with the Home Trivium programme. We firmly believe that a classical education doesn’t need to be a dry eduction. Now, the problem was something like this: we needed a way to teach the children all of the key, core concepts of The Trivium before they could apply their understanding to the more complicated assignments. They also needed a way to practice what they learned. Yet, whereas other schools might opt for a more dusty, textbook approach, we decided to try something different…
The Path of Veritellum is a narrative; an interactive story which guides the children through each key Trivium concept by inviting them to not only understand the concept, but to put it to use. For that reason, The Path of Veritellum is a series of chapters, each ending in a task that the student must complete in order to prove their understanding. As such, it serves as a comprehensive introduction to The Trivium. By the time they have completed the Path of Veritellum, the children will have proven their understanding of all of the key Trivium concepts, which equip them to tackle the General Assignments.
The first pages of The Path of Veritellum can be read, here:
The General Assignments
Modern education suffers profoundly from over-specialisation or the atomisation of thinking. As a result, ideas and subjects are treated as separate – distinct… fracturing the fabric of wisdom.
Instead, The Trivium is, and has always been, a wholistic approach to learning. Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric may be distinct but are ultimately harmonised and integrated in the mind of the Trivium Master. Not only this, but such a master is equipped to combine these skills in a variety of ways, to produce a rich set of intellectual works.
The idea, therefore, is this: if we want our children to really practice The Trivium, they ought not only practice the individual concepts, but should do certain tasks which require them to exercise a number of skills all at the same time.
That is why we have designed the General Assignments.
These assignments are a selection of tasks which train different Trivium skills, and the general arts of clear-thinking and effective communication. Through these assignments, children will be called upon to argue, explain, describe, present, and otherwise create their own, unique answer to the assignment challenge.
This is not an all-or-nothing deal. This is not an exam room fail-once, fail-forever approach. We do indeed have standards. There will be right ways and wrong ways to tackle the challenges, but children are encouraged to experiment in order to test their developing skills.
That brings us to one, key aspect of the assignments: they can be done multiple times, at multiple levels of complexity.
Children of all ages can have a crack at the assignments. We can accept simple answers, or more complex ones according to the criteria. Nonetheless, the idea is to have students produce ever more complex pieces, until they show themselves at a level fit for higher education. We want students to create increasingly sophisticated arguments; write increasingly engaging stories; structure increasingly deep and lucid explanations, until the can comfortably consider themselves to be masters of the Trivium arts.
Hence, the General Assignments serve as the natural, third-part of the course. We invite parents to purchase the book in order to get an overview of The Trivium, then to progress through The Path of Veritellum, so that the children can get a general understanding of all of the core skills, then we move onto the assignments, so that children can exercise the full range of what they have learned, until it crystallises into a skill set far beyond wrote memorisation… so that they can become genuine thinkers and communications in the most meaningful sense.
Some examples of the assignments can be see here:
Our Process
Our process is quite simple and is the same for both The Path of Veritellum and the General Assignments. It consists of 5 steps…
1. Families receive the worksheets.
(These are provided digitally for free, or we can discuss arranging physical copies. Please contact us if you wish to do this).
2. Children complete their assignments on-paper.
(No screens needed!).
3. Parents scan/photograph the completed work to me.
(This is usually a simple case of forwarding the photos to me on WhatsApp or Telegram).
4. I provide feedback on a weekly basis.
5. Children either re-do work that needs correcting, or proceed with the programme.
Then, we simply repeat steps 2-5.
It’s that easy!
This process allows for children to complete the course without being “plugged in”, and allows a streamlined interaction between myself and the parents. Of course, if there are lingering questions that need to be answered, I’m ready to contact by phone or email.
Our Community
Finally, Home Trivium is about community.
From the very outset, we have envisioned making this a platform where families and learners can support each-other, enriching the educational life of everyone involved.
Home Trivium is international. It is available to people from all over the world, including remote places. Nonetheless, we still aim to engender community either by allowing local families to work together, or by allowing them to connect through the platform itself.
For that reason, we:
a) are open to helping groups of families and parents find strategies for teaching Home Trivium communally.
b) offer our online community for anyone who has an active subscription. Here, members can share thoughts, questions, tips, advice or just enjoy general chit-chat. I will also be active of course, willing to provide public answers to questions that people might have.
And so, that covers everything about our Home Trivium programme.
If you would like to subscribe, click here.
Or, if you would like to contact us, click here.