Nourishing a Life: Parents as Inspirers

by Megan Hoyt

http://www.sugme.com/children-health/6benefits-children-will-get-from-regular-activities.html

What is our job as parents when it comes to education? Charlotte Mason answers:

"Our last paper closed with an imperfect summary of what we may call the educational functions of parents. We found that it rests with the parents of the child to settle for the future man his ways of thinking, behaving, feeling, acting; his disposition, his particular talent; the manner of things upon which his thoughts shall run. Who shall fix limitations to the power of parents? The destiny of the child is ruled by his parents, because they have the virgin soil all to themselves. The first sowing must be at their hands, or at the hands of such as they choose to depute." (Parents' Review, Volume 2, no. 2, 1891/92, pg. 38, "Parents as Inspirers")

Oh dear.

"...it rests with the parents of the child to settle for the future man his ways of thinking, behaving, feeling, acting; his disposition, his particular talent; the manner of things upon which his thoughts shall run."

"The destiny of the child is ruled by his parents, because they have the virgin soil all to themselves."

Um. Well. That's sort of a decently frightening amount of power to be invested in two people whose sole wish at the birth of their first child was that an owner's manual might be tied to his toe! Good grief! What are we to do?

My grandson Anthony Gabriel

I think she sums things up nicely here:   

"They [ideas that lead to right living] are not to be given of set purpose, nor taken at set times. They are held in that thought-environment which surrounds the child as an atmosphere, which he breathes as his breath of life; and this atmosphere in which the child inspires his unconscious ideas of right living emanates from his parents. Every look of gentleness and tone of reverence, every word of kindness and act of help, passes into the thought-environment, the very atmosphere which the child breathes; he does not think of these things, may never think of them, but all his life long they excite that 'vague appetency towards something' out of which most of his actions spring. Oh, wonderful and dreadful presence of the little child in the midst!"

So that's it. We provide the atmosphere. We behave in certain ways, and they "catch" the vision without knowing it. This explains why my children love opera and hate sports. But there's so much more to this. What about those gravely important and desperately cherished values we want to pass on to our children? And how do we handle this overwhelming and awesome responsibility of raising children toward their destinies? What do we do to and for this virgin soil of theirs? The answers are sometimes contradictory, as evidenced by all the various parenting books and websites and blogs, but here are a few I really like:

"The long-range vision of Attachment Parenting is to raise children who will become adults with a highly developed capacity for empathy and connection."

http://knowinggarden.org/parenting-pearls/

And here are a few I don't like very much at all (read: hate):

 Train Up a Child
(Read a few of the comments at the bottom to get an idea of what this type of parenting is about.)
Growing Kids God's Way

It's not that I don't believe in disciplining children who are not obeying the family rules. I do. I really, really do. But despite what these "spare the rod, spoil the child" parenting books have to say on the matter, when we only get at the outward acquiescence of a child with his "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," (to avoid punishment) and we don't ever reach the heart of a child with all the wonder of the universe and the great and glorious God who rules over it and their duty to obey Him out of a deep and profound love for Him, we have missed the mark in our educational duties as parents in my opinion. Our duty, according to Charlotte Mason, is much deeper than to achieve the outward cleanliness of training the child's faculties for obedience to the masters (us).

"Thus we see how the destiny of a life is shaped in the nursery, by the reverent naming of the Divine Name; by the light scoff at holy things; by the thought of duty the little child gets who is made to finish conscientiously his little task; by the hardness of heart that comes to the child who hears the faults or sorrows of others spoken of lightly." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

I'll let her explain it further to you:

"an idea is not an 'instrument,' but an agent; is not to be 'handled,' but, shall we say, set in motion? We have perhaps got over the educational misconception of the tabula rasa. ... Here it is in its cruder form: 'Pestalozzi aimed more at harmoniously developing the faculties than at making use of them for the acquirement of knowledge; he sought to prepare the vase rather than to fill it.' In the hands of Froebel the figure gains in boldness and beauty: It is no longer a mere vase to be shaped under the potter's fingers; but a flower, say a perfect rose, to be delicately and consciously and methodically moulded, petal by petal, curve and curl; for the perfume and living glory of the flower, why these will come; do you your part and mould the several petals; wait, too, upon sunshine and shower, give space and place for your blossom to expand. And so we go to work with a touch to "Imagination" here, and to "Judgment" there; now to the "Perceptive faculties," now to the "conceptive;" in this, aiming at the moral, and in this, at the intellectual nature of the child; touching into being, petal by petal, the flower of a perfect life under the genial influence of sunny looks and happy moods. This reading of the meaning of education and of the work of the educator is very fascinating, and it calls forth singular zeal and self-devotion on the part of those gardeners whose plants are the children." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

Dad and me

Even though that example of the flower is beautiful, and even though Froebel was someone Miss Mason admired, I still don't think she quite believes in this whole idea of fussing over the child, flower or not. She's saying children are not vases waiting to be filled. Nor is our duty to prepare the vase so it will be more receptive to filling. It's not even to prepare the flower by delicately molding and shaping it with a touch here and a touch there, although that's closer to her ideas than Pestalozzi came. But still, there's this dreadful fear that all children will be more or less replicas of their parents or of each other if we all follow the exact same molding and fussing to make them into the image we believe will be beautiful. And who's to say that our idea of beautiful is the right one? And anyway, is that really our duty as parents? To make our children into the images we want for them? I don't know about you, but whenever someone used to say, "she's the spitting image of her father!" I cringed. I didn't want to be the spitting image of my dad! For one thing, he had a gigantic nose, wore thick glasses, and was mostly bald. But looks aside, he was bold and loud and I was quiet and pensive. Now imagine for a moment what beauty looks like to the bold, loud parent and what it looks like to the tender, delicate child. My parents would have made me into someone totally different than what my heavenly Father had in mind when He intricately designed me! Is that what Miss Mason means for us to accomplish when she says, "...it rests with the parents of the child to settle for the future man his ways of thinking, behaving, feeling, acting; his disposition, his particular talent; the manner of things upon which his thoughts shall run." Does she want us to make our children into who we believe they should be? I don't think so. Isn't there a better way to draw out the positive attributes and leave behind the negative ones than to fawn over our kids and constantly pick and peck at them until they look like what we want them to look like? Even in positive ways? Absolutely!

Charlotte Mason tells us self education is the best education. But it's our job to be their guide and to oversee the journey. We do that by offering a luscious feast of living ideas to them, carefully chosen by US to display the glory and wonder of the living God. That doesn't mean we leave out important scientific discoveries because they appear to prove evolution is true or that we don't tell our children about all the evil in the world or all the starving children or teach them to take action against the sex trade industry and pray for the wisdom of our nation's leaders despite their support of despicable things that we abhor like abortion on demand. We're in this world. But as Christians, we are not OF this world. We occupy, not Wall Street, but our place within the sovereign will and plan of our Lord. So we guide our children toward accepting that awesome responsibility, toward listening to God and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit and effortlessly serving and loving and giving while being shrewd and putting forth large amounts of academic effort because it's our duty toward God, man, and country. These are the "unconscious ideas of right living that emanate from us as parents." And they're caught, not taught. Relieved? Don't be. It's even tougher to exemplify Christ than it is to teach about Him, don't you think? Thank goodness we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, quickening our hearts to behave rightly and to show our children the higher path.
 

Hannah, Drew, and Jesse

The next portion of "Parents as Inspirers" says:

"How much is there in this pleasing and easy doctrine that the drawing forth and strengthening and directing of the several "faculties" is education? Parents are very jealous over the individuality of their children; they mistrust the tendency to develop all on the same plan; and this instinctive jealousy is right; for, supposing that education really did consist in systematised efforts to draw out every power that is in us, why, we should all develop on the same lines, be as like as "two peas," and (should we not?) die of weariness of one another! Some of us have an uneasy sense that things are tending towards this deadly sameness. But, indeed, the fear is groundless. We may believe that the personality, the individuality of each of us is too dear to God, and too necessary to a complete humanity, to be left at the mercy of empires. We are absolutely safe, and the tenderest child is fortified against a battering-ram of educational forces." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

I think she's saying that God won't allow educational systems to go so far as to shipwreck the personalities and individuality of children. That's a comforting thought, really. But I have to admit that I don't have quite that much faith. I believe it IS possible for educational systems to shipwreck our children in a variety of ways, especially to shipwreck their faith in God and indoctrinate them with morals and values that are less than stellar. If only poor Charlotte knew what we are facing today. Check out Nathan Harden's article in Imprimis, Hillsdale College's monthly newsletter, if you don't realize what's happening  at our nation's institutes of higher learning: 

There is clearly a radical sexual agenda at work at Yale today. Professors and administrators who came of age during the sexual revolution are busily indoctrinating students into a culture of promiscuity. In fact, Yale pioneered the hosting of a campus “Sex Week”—a festival of sleaze, porn, and debauchery, dressed up as sex education. I encountered this tawdry tradition as an undergrad, and my book documents the events of Sex Week, including the screening in classrooms of hard-core pornography and the giving of permission to sex toy manufacturers and porn production companies to market their products to students.

In one classroom, a porn star stripped down to bare breasts, attached pinching and binding devices to herself as a lesson in sadomasochism, and led a student around the room in handcuffs. On other occasions, female students competed in a porn star look-alike contest judged by a male porn producer, and a porn film showing a woman bound and beaten was screened in the context of “instruction” on how students might engage in relationships of their own.

And again, these things happened with the full knowledge and approval of Yale’s senior administrators.

As might be expected, many Yale students were offended by Sex Week, but university officials defended it in the name of “academic freedom”—a sign of how far this noble idea, originally meant to protect the pursuit of truth, has fallen. And the fact that Yale as an institution no longer understands the substantive meaning of academic freedom—which requires the ability to distinguish art from pornography, not to mention right from wrong—is a sign of its enslavement to the ideology of moral relativism, which denies any objective truth (except, of course, for the truth that there is no truth). 

(http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2013&month=01)

Yes, it's disgusting, but God has provided the antidote! The following video clip is long, but I had to include it because as I was writing this blog post about the winding ascent and going higher up and further in, I heard Heidi say in the background on this video, "He will lead you higher up and further down." I asked God what she meant by that and listened to it again and discovered she was talking about going into dark places with the light we have and shining brightly. So another of our duties is to prepare our children to enter these dark places and not allow their lights to be doused by the wickedness and worldliness they'll soon encounter. Since I am in the throes of raising teenagers and not young children, this is all the more real to me, but those with toddlers and preschoolers can start invigorating their faith now, while they're still in the nursery, as Miss Mason advises. 

Miss Mason says, "We are absolutely safe, and the tenderest child is fortified against a battering-ram of educational forces." While that may have been true in the early twentieth century, I'm not so convinced it's still true in the twenty-first. But God is fully alive and capable of turning all of this around. And He may just have US in mind as the vehicles through which a gentle shift in educational theory will be accomplished, so keep your minds and hearts (and ears) open to His call. The college professors of the future are in our care today. How we nourish and inspire the children within our care can have an enormous impact on the future of American society. It's no small thing. Not in the least.

 "The problem of education is more complex than it seems at first sight, and well for us and the world that it is so. "Education is a life;" you may stunt and starve and kill, or you may cherish and sustain; but the beating of the heart, the movement of the lungs, and the development of the faculties (are there any "faculties"?) are only indirectly our care. The poverty of our thought on the subject of education is shown by the fact that we have no word which at all implies the sustaining of a life: education (e, out, and ducere, to lead, to draw) is very inadequate; it covers no more than those occasional gymnastics of the mind which correspond with those by which the limbs are trained; training (trahere) is almost synonymous, and upon these two words rests the misconception that the development and the exercise of the "faculties" is the object of education (we must needs use the word for want of a better. Our homely Saxon "bringing up" is nearer the truth, perhaps because of its very vagueness; anyway, "up" implies an aim, and "bringing up" an effort." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

Yes! The winding ascent. The striving ever upward, further up and further in, reaching for the higher goal. That is my aim. I may not be able to do much more than lead by example at this point with only a 16-year-old watching, but that's one thing I can still do. And be present to answer any and all questions. Hopefully, the early years will bring forth a harvest of curiosity and a quest for truth that will last for years to come.

I'll leave you with these last few quotes. Ponder them. Ingest them. Let them sink into the depths of your heart. To me, this is the real purpose of parenting and education. 

"It rests with parents not only to give their children birth into the life of intelligence and moral power, but to sustain the higher life which they have borne. Now that life, which we call education, receives only one kind of sustenance; it grows up on ideas. You may go through years of so-called "education" without getting a single vital idea; and this is why many a well-fed body carries about a feeble, starved intelligence, and no society for the prevention of cruelty for children cries shame on the parents." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

"Every study, every line of thought, has its 'guiding idea;' therefore, the study of a child makes for living education, as it is quickened by the guiding idea 'which stands at the head.' " (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

"Ideas may invest, as an atmosphere, rather than strike as a weapon. 'The idea may exist in a clear, distinct, definite form, as that of a circle in the mind of a geometrician; or it may be a mere instinct, a vague appetency towards something,... like the impulse which fills the young poet's eyes with tears, he knows not why.' To excite this 'appetency towards something'--towards things lovely, honest, and of good report, is the earliest and most important ministry of the educator. How shall these indefinite ideas which manifest themselves in appetency be imparted? They are not to be given of set purpose, nor taken at set times. They are held in that thought-environment which surrounds the child as an atmosphere, which he breathes as his breath of life; and this atmosphere in which the child inspires his unconscious ideas of right living emanates from his parents. (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

"There is no way of escape for parents; they must needs be as 'inspirers' to their children, because about them hangs, as its atmosphere about a planet the thought-environment of the child, from which he derives those enduring ideas which express themselves as a life-long 'appetency' towards things sordid or things lovely, things earthly or divine." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

"The whole subject is profound, but as practical as it is profound. We must disabuse our minds of the theory that the functions of education are, in the main, gymnastic. In the early years of the child's life it makes, perhaps, little apparent difference whether his parents start with the notion that to educate is to fill a receptacle, inscribe a tablet, mould plastic matter, or, nourish a life; but in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all the rest is thrown away, or worse, is like sawdust in the system, an impediment and an injury to the vital processes." (Parents' Review, pg. 38.)

I'm not a child anymore;
I'm tall enough
To reach for the stars.

Your hands held mine so few hours,

And I'm not a child anymore.

A Considerable Speck: Recognizing the Importance of Mind in the Life of a Child

by Megan Hoyt

Architect Antoni Gaudi's House of Mind in Barcelona, Spain

"We go round the house and round the house, but rarely go into the House of Mind; we offer mental gymnastics, but these do not take the place of food, and of that we serve the most meagre rations, no more than a bean a day! Diet for the body is abundantly considered, but no one pauses to say, "I wonder does the mind need food, too, and regular meals, and what is its proper diet?" (Charlotte Mason, vol 6, p 24) 

What does the mind feed on? Is the mind different from the brain? Charlotte Mason believed it was. Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, professor at NYU Medical School offers little to dispel her reasoning. Listen to what he says about creativity:

"The neural processes underlying that which we call creativity have nothing to do with rationality. That is to say, if we look at how the brain generates creativity, we will see that it is not a rational process at all; creativity is not born out of reasoning." (Rodolfo R. Llinas, I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self)

The House of the Mind 

by Joseph Beaumont (1616-1699)

AS earth’s pageant passes by,
Let reflection turn thine eye
Inward, and observe thy breast;
There alone dwells solid rest.
That’s a close immurèd tower
Which can mock all hostile power:
To thyself a tenant be,
And inhabit safe and free.
Say not that this house is small,
Girt up in a narrow wall;
In a cleanly sober mind
Heaven itself full room doth find.
Th’ infinite Creator can
Dwell in it, and may not man?
Here content make thy abode
With thyself and with thy God

Miss Mason wrote much about the life of the mind in her six volume series. Still more is discussed on blogs as we hash out together the meaning of "A child is a born person" or "Education is the Science of Relations" or one of the other catch phrases we commonly associate with Charlotte Mason's educational methodology. But did you realize that when she talks about the mind she does not mean the brain at all? Did you get that? I had such a vague understanding of her beliefs about the mind that I thought I'd take this week and ruminate on some of what she said in volume six about it. 

Miss Mason begins by talking about Self Education and the importance of stepping back and allowing the child to make connections and grapple with knowledge until he makes it his own. But within that delicate dance where we step in, offer a living book, step back, check in, ask for a narration, step back again, it's hard to know exactly what to do to nourish their young minds! And it's a little scary, too. I mean, you don't want to do it wrong, so there's this tension that's palpable. It hovers in the air above the home school room. Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I (gulp) spoon-feeding information rather than serving a broad banquet of ideas?

"It is no easy matter to give its proper sustenance to the mind..." (vol. 6, p. 25)

Oh, the pressure! She goes on to say:

"Knowledge is not sensation, nor is it to be derived through sensation; we feed upon the thoughts of other minds; and thought applied to thought generates thought and we become more thoughtful. No one need invite us to reason, compare, imagine; the mind, like the body, digests its proper food, and it must have the labour of digestion or it ceases to function." (vol. 6, p. 26)

So, let me get this straight. We offer them thoughts and ideas rather than information? We don't need to trick them or cajole them or entertain them or beg them? They naturally want to: Reason, Compare, Imagine? They really will do the hard work of assimilating knowledge when it's fed to them by literary means and when the knowledge presented is alive? What a relief!

I did a quick google search on the mind and came up with some terrifically interesting research that's going on right now. Here in Wired Magazine something caught my eye. It's about how we assimilate and store memories. The research was done by neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux:

"Memories are not formed and then pristinely maintained, as neuroscientists thought; they are formed and then rebuilt every time they’re accessed. 'The brain isn’t interested in having a perfect set of memories about the past,' LeDoux says. 'Instead, memory comes with a natural updating mechanism, which is how we make sure that the information taking up valuable space inside our head is still useful. That might make our memories less accurate, but it probably also makes them more relevant to the future.' "

It sounds to me like both Dr. LeDoux and Charlotte Mason are telling us the child needs to put forth effort or work for knowledge to be retained. Without this effort, they are only able to do that memorization and regurgitation that we're all so very familiar with and that leaves the child's mind starved for nourishment and his soulish man proud -- of his grades, his handwriting, his ability to memorize facts, anything but what is really worth being proud of. Charlotte Mason says the mind is spiritual, not physical. She's definitely not talking about the brain itself. But even if she got things a little muddy in that department, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Children DO remember what they retell. And retelling it again and again keeps the memory alive. Modern science tells us that.

I see the brain as a complex human organ that we use to store memories, to store and sort knowledge, regulate emotion, etc. I believe human beings are complicated, with a spirit man that relates to God and the universe and ideas (whether we do that by using the brain as a vehicle or not). Charlotte Mason says the brain is like a piano and the mind is the music pouring forth. So it's the mind -- that inner essence of who we are -- that grapples with ideas and works to understand concepts and make connections. The mind does all the real work. It governs, loves, creates beauty, and more. And it's the mind we want to nourish. The brain, too, yes -- with lots of essential fatty acids through fresh, low mercury seafood, lots of fresh veggies and fruits, etc. Plenty of water, too. But the mind! Ah, the mind. That's an entirely different matter. The mind is nourished on living ideas.

So what is our duty as educators? Well, we know what NOT to do by now, don't we?

"But the children ask for bread and we give them a stone; we give information about objects and events which mind does not attempt to digest but casts out bodily (upon an examination paper?)" (vol. 6, p. 26)

Then what DO we do?

"But let information hang upon a principle, be inspired by an idea, and it is taken with avidity and used in making whatsoever in the spiritual nature stands for tissue in the physical" (vol. 6, p. 26).

But wait, there's even more to digest here.

"We begin to see light. ... Our business is to give him mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential. Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving" (vol. 6, p. 26).

Abundant provision and orderly serving. Now that's something we can hang our hats on, something solid to get us started. In order to help children, we need to offer them abundant provision and serve it to them in an orderly manner. That sounds doable, don't you think?

The best books. An abundant amount of the best books. A wide variety of the best books.

Filled with the best, most noble and magnanimous thoughts. Abundantly provided and served to them in an orderly fashion. I think I can do that!

"Now mind, being spiritual, knows no fatigue; brain, too, duly nourished with the food proper for the body, allowed due conditions of fresh air and rest, should not know fatigue; given these two conditions, we have a glorious field of educational possibilities; but it rests with us to evolve a theory and practice which afford due recognition to mind. ...

"We give them a 'play way' and play is altogether necessary and desirable but is not the avenue which leads to mind. We give them a fitting environment, which is again altogether desirable and, again, is not the way to mind. We teach them beautiful motion and we do well, for the body too must have its education; but we are not safe if we take these by-paths as approaches to mind." (vol. 6, p. 38)

So, to recap...

We give them living books filled with noble ideas to grapple with. 

They naturally reason, compare, and imagine.

They should play, but that doesn't necessarily reach the mind.

We should give them a fitting environment, but that doesn't lead to the mind.

We should teach them beautiful motion (exercise in various forms) but that doesn't lead to the mind.

So how do we get to the mind exactly?

"It is still true that that which is born of the spirit, is spirit. The way to mind is a quite direct way. Mind must come into contact with mind through the medium of ideas. ...

"The mistress of an Elementary School writes,––'The father of one of my girls said to me yesterday, "You have given me some work to do. E. has let me have no rest until I promised to set up my microscope and get pond water to look for monads and other wonders." ' Here we have the right order. That which was born of the spirit, the idea, came first and demanded to confirm and illustrate." (vol. 6, p. 39)

Ideas come first. They demand to be confirmed and illustrated. 

So... We give them living books filled with noble ideas to grapple with. 

They naturally reason, compare, and imagine, because the ideas demand to be confirmed and illustrated. Now we're getting somewhere! But what does it look like in practice?

 

"History must afford its pageants, science its wonders, literature its intimacies, philosophy its speculations, religion its assurances to every man, and his education must have prepared him for wanderings in these realms of gold." (vol. 6, p. 43)

Maybe what we're really after is a different way to convey knowledge to children. After all, the knowledge within a textbook for fourth grade social studies is the same whether taught via that dull, dry textbook or through lush, living books. The information is the same, I mean. But one student, the one who reads the textbook, will likely not retain the information longer than he needs to in order to pass a test. The other student will reminisce longingly about the days he spent lingering over Horatio Hornblower and will never forget the nautical terms he learned, the sailing techniques he looked up on his own after reading the book. His imagination will long after entertain him (and his friends) through play, storytelling, and more. Which would you rather do? Educate by temporarily dropping facts into the brain's storage facility or draw out a child's mind and inform it by allowing for endless connections to be made and delight to be stirred within?

This is what I love about a Charlotte Mason education.

I'm not suggesting that our efforts don't require any work on the part of the child. That's not what she's saying at all. There is real work to be done while grappling with the ideas our students find in their living books! To understand this, I went back to google and found another interesting explanation of how we retain memories. This is from the March 6, 2012 entry in the House of Mind blog:

"Every memory begins as a changed set of connections among cells in the brain. If you happen to remember this moment—the content of this sentence—it’s because a network of neurons has been altered, woven more tightly together within a vast electrical fabric. This linkage is literal: For a memory to exist, these scattered cells must become more sensitive to the activity of the others, so that if one cell fires, the rest of the circuit lights up as well. Scientists refer to this process as long-term potentiation, and it involves an intricate cascade of gene activations and protein synthesis that makes it easier for these neurons to pass along their electrical excitement. Sometimes this requires the addition of new receptors at the dendritic end of a neuron, or an increase in the release of the chemical neurotransmitters that nerve cells use to communicate. Neurons will actually sprout new ion channels along their length, allowing them to generate more voltage. Collectively this creation of long-term potentiation is called the consolidation phase, when the circuit of cells representing a memory is first linked together. Regardless of the molecular details, it’s clear that even minor memories require major work. The past has to be wired into your hardware."

He calls the process long-term potentiation. I call it narration.

Here are a few tips from Miss Mason to get you started. The example she gives is from a Geography lesson (vol. 6, p. 40):

"A map of the world must be a panorama to a child of pictures so entrancing that he would rather ponder them than go out to play; and nothing is more easy than to give him this joie de vivre. Let him see the world as we ourselves choose to see it when we travel; its cities and peoples, its mountains and rivers, and he will go away from his lesson with the piece of the world he has read about, be it county or country, sea or shore, as that of 'a new room prepared for him, so much will he be magnified and delighted in it.' All the world is in truth the child's possession, prepared for him, and if we keep him out of his rights by our technical, commercial, even historical, geography, any sort of geography, in fact, made to illustrate our theories, we are guilty of fraudulent practices. What he wants is the world and every bit, piece by piece, each bit a key to the rest."

"He reads of the Bore of the Severn and is on speaking terms with a 'Bore' wherever it occurs. He need not see a mountain to know a mountain. He sees all that is described to him with a vividness of which we know nothing just as if there had been 'no other way to those places but in spirit only.' "

I love what she says next:

"Who can take the measure of a child? The Genie of the Arabian tale is nothing to him. He, too, may be let out of his bottle and fill the world. But woe to us if we keep him corked up." (vol. 6, p. 42)

Woe, indeed! 

 

The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding. (vol. 6, p. 32) 

That's so encouraging! I don't have to be the shoveler of facts or the dumper of facts into my students' brains. I can be their guide, philosopher and friend. Whew! Relieved again. 

As I was preparing for the blog this week, I came across this Robert Frost poem. It's so perfectly appropriate for this moment that I had to share it:

A Considerable Speck

(Microscopic)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt--
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.

Robert Frost

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to leave comments, narrate, ruminate, give us your thoughts on these weighty matters of the mind. I'll leave you with one last meaty quote:

"The educable part of a person is his mind. The training of the senses and muscles is, strictly speaking, training and not education. The mind, like the body, requires quantity, variety and regularity in the sustenance offered to it. Like the body, the mind has its appetite, the desire for knowledge. Again, like the body, the mind is able to receive and assimilate by its powers of attention and reflection. Like the body, again, the mind rejects insipid, dry, and unsavoury food, that is to say, its pabulum should be presented in a literary form. The mind is restricted to pabulum of one kind: it is nourished upon ideas and absorbs facts only as these are connected with the living ideas upon which they hang. Children educated upon some such lines as these respond in a surprising way, developing capacity, character, countenance, initiative and a sense of responsibility. They are, in fact, even as children, good and thoughtful citizens. (vol. 6, p. 21)

Children are born persons. So what?

 by Megan Hoyt


The value of a child. I know I touched on this subject in an earlier blog post, but personhood is absolutely crucial to any true understanding of the Charlotte Mason method. So I'm coming around the mountain again, hopefully a teensy bit higher up and further in this time around.

Children are born -- not lizards or apes or giant sloths or butterflies or leopards or zebras. Children are born persons. But just what does that really mean? 

First, let me admit I'm still not completely sure. I suspect it has to do with value, ability of mind, and potential (see volume 6, chapter 2).

But here's something I've been pondering. What is my obligation as a teacher and a parent toward producing within my students a heart that values others as born persons? I'm probably duty bound to hone and inspire all sorts of positive character traits within their precious, malleable hearts, right? That's what the local school administrators say, anyway. They focus on a different trait each month. I've seen it on the marquees out front. Students earn awards for being the most helpful, generous, or kindhearted kid in school. Is this how we teach children to treat one another like persons -- by rewarding them with stickers and trophies when they are nice to one another? Where does that leave the kid whose natural willfulness has not quite been knocked out of him yet on the "value" chart? I can hear his negative self talk beginning even now. (Check out Creep by Radiohead for where he'll end up later in life.)

And while we're on the topic of positive attributes, is being kind more important than being thrifty? Being honest more important than being humble? The lines are rather fine and delicate, and I don't know which ones to place near the top of my behaviorism chart (sarcasm). We can all agree that producing the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, kindness, long-suffering, goodness, self control) is a good idea. But Charlotte Mason doesn't advise us to "produce" anything. Our job is to present ideas, then step out of the way. This task of valuing each child coupled with the daunting task of teaching them to value others seems overwhelming to me.

It all seems to go back to the single question of personhood. We value being good and noble and magnanimous because each one of us is created in the image of God, the Creator of the universe, and thus deserves to be treated with respect, dignity, and kindness. We are valuable because we are persons.

Valuable just for being human? Hmmm.

Can't I evaluate the worth of a human being? Can I grab my jeweler's loupe and take a closer look before I pronounce value upon a child? I'm not so sure we don't do that every day we enter the classroom -- without realizing it of course!

Is "worth" even something we should evaluate? Would it be morally superior to accept that every person is of great value simply because of our shared humanity and leave it at that? But then we have the sticky business of believing Hitler and Osama bin Laden were of equal worth to Mother Teresa and Ghandi. I'm not sure I can rationalize that. 

Does it matter whether or not we do what is morally superior anyway? How do we determine right thinking from wrong thinking? Morally, ethically superior thoughts and beliefs from those that are inferior? Who gets to decide? Have you ever witnessed someone get a tongue-lashing -- maybe a department store clerk or a cashier? Have you ever been the one to dole out the tongue lashing? They deserved to be ill-treated because they opened up a new checkout line and took the guy behind you instead of you. Where does the "he deserved it" stop and the "Because I value you as a person, I am not going to criticize, ridicule, or shame you" begin? Can we train ourselves to respect even those we deem unworthy of respect? Are we always right in our accusations anyway? After all, we can't walk in that other fellow's shoes to find out if his heart's motive was to cause us harm or if he just didn't notice we were next in line at the checkout.

And how do we teach children to evaluate their decisions and beliefs based on ethical guiding principles? Can we do that without bringing faith in God or a belief in a higher power into the mix? Should we even try?

These were the questions swirling through my mind this morning after a long week of soul-searching and prayer. It all started on the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that, via the mechanism of "privacy," created an avenue for abortion on demand to be legally acceptable. As I watched friends prepare to go to the March for Life in Washington, DC, and exercise their right to peaceful assembly, and as I read through social media of the many and varied types of people who attended the March, from feminists, pagans and homosexuals to ultra conservative Catholics and evangelicals, my heart was stirred. Personhood was inspiring people to come together, to drive long distances in frigid weather and stand firmly in favor of affirming life. It moved me.

What makes a person uniquely valuable, inherently of great worth even as pre-born infants? It's our shared humanity -- that spark within that shines out through our words and deeds and yet is present from conception, perfectly packaged and waiting for life to proceed. We're like little acorns, holding within us all the potential to become sturdy trees, with leaves outstretched to the sun and roots grasping and gulping for nutrition within the shadowy soil. Hitler and bin Laden had that same potential we all have. That's how I can equalize the value of every human being and still include these two. It's what happened as they experienced life that twisted them into a contorted mess.

Newly opened acorn

And that's where we come in.

Charlotte Mason said, "Who shall measure the range of a child's thoughts? His continual questions about God, his speculations about 'Jesus,' are they no more than idle curiosity, or are they symptoms of a God-hunger with which we are all born, and is a child able to comprehend as much of the infinite and the unseen as are his self-complacent elders?" If young children ARE born able to hunger for God, to reflect and meditate on ideas, then perhaps our limited forms of education in the early years need to be turned on their heads or at least rethought. Children are image-bearers of God. Human beings with souls. The acorn bursts open, roots seize at the earth, digging ferociously for nutrition, gasping breathlessly for water. And what that child, newly formed and hungry, finds on his desperate quest is of the utmost importance.

And we are their guides.

As teachers, moms and dads, friends, sisters and brothers, grandparents, and human beings, we have a holy responsibility toward our fellow man, woman, and child. We are obligated by our faith in God and compelled by our belief in the ethical treatment of others to value every child as a "born person," with all the gifts and talents buried within them that God and genetics have granted them. What a serious task is set before us! We can make or break a person with our words and actions. This is quite a strong power God has granted to us, this ability to use words and deeds to help form a child's view of the world (or to hinder it greatly). There really should be a warning label on this gift! "Handle with care. Brutality will render children psychologically crippled. Kindness will raise children to heights previously unknown."

I like my friend Leslie's modern paraphrase of Charlotte Mason's views on the matter: Children are born persons - they are not blank slates or embryonic oysters who have the potential of becoming persons. They already are persons. As Miss Mason says, "...the most prosaic of us comes across evidence of mind in children, and of mind astonishingly alert." We might say, "Children are born thinkers." And what are they to think about?

Velasquez' Sibyl with Tabula Rasa (blank slate)

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—think on these things." (Philippians 4:8)


We are not embryonic oysters! All the potential for great and high living is within every child. "I am anxious to bring before teachers the fact that a child comes into their hands with a mind of amazing potentialities..." (vol 6, p. 38) We can either draw this tremendous potential out of our students gently, with guiding principles from Miss Mason or we can bore them to death with endless pablum-filled, regurgitated lectures. We can offer them well-written living books that spark creativity, depth of thought and feeling, and compel them to read further by inspiring their curiosity. Or we can force textbooks down their throats and give them heartburn, both literal and figurative. I'm not talking here about spoon-feeding children morals and ethics or forcing them to read stories with obvious moral themes in an effort to channel their thoughts into some sort of stilted morality -- all because we're afraid they won't value others as born persons when they grow up. We instead need to create educational paths for them to stroll down that instinctively form them into Valjeans rather than Javerts. We need to get to their hearts by whatever means possible, to challenge them to think, perceive, intuit, sense, learn, judge, and evaluate -- all while making sure we are not "preaching" to them. Tough job, eh? Not if we remember that our job is to give them ideas, then step out of the way as they grapple with them:

Charlotte Mason Community Co-op study of Michelangelo

"Education, like faith, is the evidence of things not seen. We must begin with the notion that the business of the body is to grow; and it grows upon food, which food is composed of living cells, each a perfect life in itself. In like manner, though all analogies are misleading and inadequate, the only fit sustenance for the mind is ideas, and an idea too, like the single cell of cellular tissue, appears to go through the stages and functions of a life.

Olivia remembers how to make Jacob's Ladder

We receive it with appetite and some stir of interest. It appears to feed in a curious way. We hear of a new patent cure for the mind or the body, of the new thought of some poet, the new notion of a school of painters; we take in, accept, the idea and for days after every book we read, every person we talk with brings food to the newly entertained notion.

'Not proven,' will be the verdict of the casual reader; but if he watch the behavior of his own mind towards any of the ideas 'in the air,' he will find that some such process as I have described takes place; and this process must be considered carefully in the education of children. We may not take things casually as we have done. Our business is to give children the great ideas of life, of religion, history, science; but it is the ideas we must give, clothed upon with facts as they occur, and must leave the child to deal with these as he chooses." (vol 6, pp 39-40)

Hannah makes an Elizabethan collar

Take a look at the fruit of presenting living ideas to our children, especially those that provide an ethics framework for them:

This is how he [the poet Thomas Traherne] deals with Geography, for example:––

"When I heard of any new kingdom beyond the seas the light and glory of it entered into me. It rose up within me and I was enlarged by the whole. I entered into it, I saw its commodities, springs, meadows, inhabitants and became possessor of that new room as if it had been prepared for me so much was I magnified and delighted in it. When the Bible was read my spirit was present in other ages. I saw the light and splendour of them, the land of Canaan, the Israelites entering into it, the ancient glory of the Amorites, their peace and riches, their cities, houses, vines and fig trees . . . I saw and felt all in such a lively manner as if there had been no other way to those places but in spirit only. Without changing place in myself I could behold and enjoy all those. Anything when it was proposed though it was a thousand years ago being always present before me."
 

And in the words of Comenius: "The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree."

Here are some concrete ways to show that you value a child:

1. When speaking to a small child, stoop down and look him in the eye directly. Let kindness (but firmness) blaze through your eyes to his so that your shared humanity is recognized but your distinct authority is also noted. 

2. Give the child your full attention. So many times we're reading a text, cooking dinner, running errands, or otherwise preoccupied when that moment comes that a child is ready to open up his heart and soul to us. Each precious child deserves our full and undivided attention.

3. Bring your children (students) alongside you as you learn and grow in knowledge.Your appetite and curiosity will be contagious.

4. Be careful what you say. Choose your words carefully because not only are children sponges who will pick up the words and phrases you use and run with them. They are also delicate creatures who can easily misunderstand or misinterpret the words you say. And generally speaking, they will twist their hearts into a knot, worrying over what you meant when you said thus and so. Be very clear. As Richard Mitchell said in The Underground Grammarian, "We do the business of the mind in language." Children are born with alert minds, so please choose your words carefully. 

Tommy, second from the right, behind his sister

You may be wondering why I titled this post "Children are born persons. So what?" Well, there's a story behind the catch phrase, "So what?" My nephew Tommy has had quite a struggle in this life. He was born with a congenital heart defect and hydrocephalus. He had three or four heart surgeries and at least two brain surgeries before the age of two. He wasn't expected to live, but he surprised us all by surviving! And he is greatly treasured.  

Tommy doesn't talk much. He CAN talk, but he doesn't have a strong grasp of vocabulary and finds it difficult to grab the words he needs to communicate his thoughts and feelings to us. He struggles with typing, too, but desperately wants to be a part of our lives via social media. One of Tommy's favorite phrases is "So what?" He doesn't mean it in the typical sense (sarcasm, a challenge to whatever sentence came before). What he means is "So what does this mean for me?" He's trying to tell us he needs an authentic way to relate the knowledge to what his soul cares about. Tommy craves authenticity. He wants to know why what I'm telling him is important. He lacks much of what we consider the normal ability to evaluate, intuit, or perceive truth. So he takes everyone at their word. Interacting with Tommy is, in a way, a holy experience because he is so totally and completely open and raw and able to be harmed by the words we speak without knowing any harm was on its way.

Thomas Traherne's words ring true here:
"Our Saviour's meaning, when He said, He must be born again and become a little child that will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is deeper far than is generally believed. It is not only in a careless reliance upon Divine Providence, that we are to become little children, or in the feebleness and shortness of our anger and simplicity of our passions, but in the peace and purity of all our soul. Which purity also is a deeper thing than is commonly apprehended. For we must disrobe ourselves of all false colours, and unclothe our souls of evil habits; all our thoughts must be infant-like and clear; the powers of our soul free from the leaven of this world, and disentangled from men's conceits and customs."(http://www.spiritofprayer.com/03century.php)

May we all disrobe ourselves of false colors and unclothe our souls of evil habits; all our thoughts becoming infant-like and clear, the powers of our souls free from the leaven of this world. Is there someone you need to talk to today? A child you scolded impatiently or a friend you disrespected? A family member who made you so angry that you gave them "the silent treatment" for ten years? It's never too late. Call them! We are all persons, endowed supernaturally with great value. Some are diamonds in the rough while others have had their rough edges smoothed, but we are all of great value! Go find that pearl of great price that you have inadvertently marred and apply the salve of human kindness. Even if they don't choose to accept it, you will have expressed an important truth to them and to yourself. You will have said, "You are a person of great worth and potential." The rest is up to God.

"We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood.  To hate a man because he was born in another country, because he speaks a different language, or because he takes a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly.  Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human....  Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in considerations of language, nationality, or religion." John Amos Comenius

http://www.spiritofprayer.com/03century.php
http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/6_1_02.html
http://everywakinghour.blogspot.com/2008/11/children-are-born-persons.html
http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/20Principles.html