Over time the term has changed in its reference. Right now there is a movement in the US to renew classical education. It is a response to progressive education, which it regards as the cause of much that is wrong with our schools.

The basic ideas in this movement, held with varying degrees of firmness by different groups, are:

1. Truth is, can be known, and can be communicated, so things like grammar, logic, and rhetoric matter a lot.
2. The western tradition is both our responsibility and our resource.
3. Education as education is not about getting a job, a college degree, or whatever. It is about becoming human. Classical educators believe that the rest follows, since a well-developed human being makes a better employer/employee, student, singer, artist, leader, etc.
4. There are tools of learning that equip the student to know the truth, sustain and critique the western tradition, and cultivate the humanity of the student. This curriculum consists of the seven liberal arts mentioned above (the trivium and the quadrivium), the natural sciences, the moral sciences (those that guide us in becoming human and forming truly human communities), and the philosophical sciences.

Your question about subjects is actually a little anachronistic. In the classical tradition, from Plato through Aristotle, to Cicero, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and well into the 19th century, they didn’t really talk about subjects. They talked about arts (ways of doing things) and sciences (things to know).

Every subject, as we call them, fits into this structure quite naturally. For example, what we call psychology would probably be considered a somewhat unstable mix of the moral science of "ethics" and the natural science of "anthropology". They structured it differently because they would have felt that they had too much respect for human nature to reduce it something that could be measured and analyzed the way we do.

To summarize:
There are at least two ways to think about what constitutes a classical education. One is to think about its goals and the other is to think about its means.

The goal of classical education is to cultivate wisdom and virtue (ie humanity) in the students.
The means are the seven liberal arts and the natural, moral, and philosophical sciences.

I know this uses strange language, but I hope it at least gives you some paths to pursue as you seek answers to your important question.

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There are also online high schools that you can do, and you actually get a high school diploma, rather than a traditional home-schooled kid who doesn’t get anything. Plus if you want your mom to teach you or someone else, they do have to be a certified teacher, it just can’t be a neighbor willing to help.

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If her goal is to get a GED, it’s a fine plan. But, there can be so much more to home schooling than what the GED requires! There are so many other ways to do it than through purchased curriculum!

You have full freedom to do what you want in Texas. If this is what your daughter has decided, then that is what matters. You did the right thing letting her pick what she liked best!

You do know that home schooled students don’t need a GED, right? You just need to keep track of her classes for a transcript for colleges, if that is what she wants to do when she is done with high school.

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