On Esteeming Creativity in Education

Charlotte Mason believed the science of relations was of ultimate importance in education. Children relate what they are learning currently to things they already know or have formed intimate affinities for previously. And conversely, if they do not have anything to relate current information to, they flounder and are less apt to take it in. Thomas Rooper gave us a great example of this in his "Pot of Green Feathers." If a child has never seen a fern and is presented with one, he can only relate to it as a pot of green feathers. Feathers he has seen. Ferns he has not.

Relationships are crucial.

To me, relationships always involve emotion. And emotions are tricky things. Students will often say, "I HATE MATH!" or "I CAN'T STAND DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES!" or somesuch. (Of course, Charlotte Mason says, "The child must not be allowed to get into the mood in which he says, 'Oh, I am so tired of sums,' or 'of history.' His zeal must be stimulated; and there must be always a pleasing vista before him; and the steady, untiring application to work should be held up as honourable, while fitful, flagging attention and effort are scouted." vol 1 pg 150)

But you know, those same children who cry and writhe in pain over the process will remember how to diagram a sentence for the rest of their lives simply because of the emotional response the struggle triggered within them. Ironic, isn't it? But I believe it's true! And the same is true (and healthier) when students fall in love with a certain author or painter or composer or scientist. The emotional response creates a hook on which to hang ideas and knowledge in our long-term memory closets. What an intricate organ the brain is. God really knew what He was doing when he gave us such a complex way to form relationships with His creation. I'm impressed yet again with the glory and magnificence of Who He is and what He does.

This morning, a friend of mine from childhood who also happens to be a former judge and the principal of a law-based magnet high school in Dallas, shared a video that I believe supports Charlotte Mason's belief in forming relationships. It's a commentary by Sir Ken Robinson on fostering creativity in education. How this is related to forming relationships for me is in the details. When students create, they solidify the relationships they're forming with the material, connecting it to other subjects and other knowledge they already have, and settling it into long-term memory. Creating is also emotional. It's fulfilling. It breeds contentment, satisfaction, and urges us to create even more.

Creativity has been crucial for us in our educational journey. I'll give you an example.

In our homeschool co-op, I decided to have the kids take the material we were reading about (Renaissance history) and research, write, assign parts, direct, find props and costumes for, and act in a play. Hoping this would help them form relationships with the material, which had been complex and difficult for them, I came to class with only one goal in mind. Assign them duties, then step out of the way.

Fortunately, since in a co-op all parents participate, the kids were able to use some outside time on this project under parental supervision. But that is nothing more than what is required of school children now and again. My two researchers set about deciding on and finding details about the topic. They chose Savonarola as their main character, which I thought was a juicy idea. Lots to work with there. They titled it "Bonfire of the Vanities."

They turned over their research to the writers, who then assigned parts to everyone in the class and created a script. They worked hard on the script, meeting at a local coffee shop to put on the finishing touches. The next class period, we talked about their progress. They turned over the script to the prop and costume masters, who set about finding materials. Their toughest job was finding a fake fire to throw all the materialistic goods into (read about Savonarola here).

We turned over some class time for rehearsals, and soon the play was performance ready. They did an excellent job! The younger class enjoyed it immensely, as did all the parents. But of ultimate importance is the fact that they will never forget who Savonarola was, what the bonfire of the vanities was about, and much more about Renaissance history. Creativity helped them form relationships that mattered to them. Listen to what education expert Sir Ken Robinson has to say about creativity: 

 

Many thanks to Tony Palagonia for posting this video and to Sir Ken Robinson for saying what I've known all along about creativity. The one caveat I have about his commentary is that he sees creativity as somewhat utilitarian. We are preparing children to enter the employment world, to take their places in society. Creativity and innovation are important for future employment. I almost disagreed with him, but in a very practical sense, he's right. Employers ARE looking for creative, innovative thinkers. (They're looking for thinkers, period, and not finding many, according to reports I've read.) And one of our duties as educators IS to prepare our students to somehow earn their keep in this world of ours. But in the overwhelming scheme of things, creativity is important for so many more reasons than merely taking our place as spokes in society's wheel. 

Her friend Henrietta Franklin said to students in memorializing Charlotte Mason, "Do you ever ask children from other schools if they like their lessons as you do yours? I fear many say they do not because they have not learnt as you do in the P.U.S. the joy of getting knowledge on which the mind can live. Lewis Carroll, who wrote "Alice in Wonderland," says in a serious essay on knowledge that we are very careful to feed the body on various foods--we do not give it nothing but dry bread or nothing but chocolate, but we are not so careful of the mind. Miss Mason felt that the mind needed food to make it do so. When you feel a joy in working it is because your hungry mind is being fed."

I believe fostering creativity yields great food for hungry minds. If you're interested in hearing more from Sir Ken Robinson, here's a longer video to wrap your heart around. Many thanks to Ann Voskamp for making me aware of this lecture from 2006.

         

The Big Things vs. The Small Things

        Today I have a treat for you all. My friend (and my daughter's mother-in-law) has agreed to share her thoughts on Les Miserables. Thanks so much, Leslie! And welcome to The Winding Ascent. I also want to share a link to a very insightful article comparing Les Mis to a current political crisis we're facing here in America -- what to do about illegal immigration. I'm still not sure where I sit on this issue. Probably somewhere in the middle? And it isn't a perfect comparison, by any stretch. But food for thought!

 The Big Things vs. The Small Things
 by Leslie Noelani Laurio

I saw Les Miserables this week. I'm familiar with the story -- I've listened to Focus on the Family's audio-drama, read about 4/5 of the book, and heard the soundtrack often enough to have memorized most of the songs. Les Miserables is epic, full of the drama of lives played out against the even bigger drama of life just after the French Revolution and before society settled into any real semblance of order. Everything about it is epic -- the story, the misery, the music, the sacrifices.

But what struck me about the movie was the small incidences of love and generosity sprinkled throughout the larger drama. Fantine's sacrifice of everything she had to give for her little daughter, Valjean's love for Cosette that redeemed the lives of both him and Cosette, Eponine's generous acts to help Marius meet Cosette even when she knew it meant he'd be lost to her forever.

I was familiar with all of those sacrifices from listening to the soundtrack so many times. But there's a small scene in the movie that isn't on the soundtrack. It involves the fiery and passionate leader of the young revolutionaries, Enjolras. One of the young men who follows him is Grantaire, a skeptic who doesn't believe in the revolution or anything else, but "Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras." When the end has come and the revolution has failed, Enjolras is about to meet his demise, and Grantaire walks up beside him to join him so they can die together. Grantaire isn't willing to give his life for the revolution, but he's willing to give his life for his friend. "Greater love hath no man . . ."

Enjolras had a dream of doing big things, of giving his life for a cause that would change the world, but his life is a tragic waste, given up for a failed attempt. As it turns out, it isn't the big things done in a big way that make a difference. It's the small, personal acts of generosity that make differences on a much smaller stage. The Bishop didn't evangelize large crowds, but his gift saved one man from a life of certain doom. Valjean didn't save the world, but he saved one little girl from a life of slavery. Eponine died poor and forgotten, but she helped to bring about the happiness of the young man she loved. All small things compared to the larger world of hunger and oppression and misery, but they are the only changes that were real. The people who attempted to change the world -- Enjolras with his young revolutionaries attempting to save France from oppression, and Javert attempting to save society from some abstract injustice -- effected no change at all. It was acts of simple generosity that had impact.

Charlotte Mason had much to say about simple generosity. "The nature of Generosity is to bring forth, to give, always at the cost of personal suffering or deprivation, little or great." Les Miserables presents beautiful and sometimes tragic examples of this kind of generosity in action. Rather than spending our lives dreaming of some big, heroic deed we'll do that will save the world, it might be more effective to look around at those people around us in the circumstances we've been placed, and make a difference in smaller ways, one life at a time, lest "while we are dreaming we are letting all our chances of doing slip by us."

In Praise of Friendship

Charlotte Mason said children are born persons. Well, of course they are. We know that. But what did she really mean by that? I think she meant that people are born with all the same abilities adult human beings have resting comfortably within them, some still waiting to develop, much as bulbs lie dormant underground through the winter months, at any moment ready to burst through the soil with vibrant color, velvety petals, leaning toward the sun for sustenance and warmth, soaking in the rain for nourishment and succulent moisture -- full of beauty and life.

Human beings are born valuable. Even as children, as babies, as unborn babies. We are of value merely because we are human. And we should not be taken for granted. Not any single one of us. Not that child who annoys us by interrupting the lesson frequently with avid questions, few of which pertain to the topic at hand, or the infant with colic who cries incessantly, or the cranky grandfather whose stern upbringing has left him hardened and broken. We are all of great value simply because we are. Like every daffodil, rose, daisy, and dandelion.

But sometimes we forget that. Here's why, according to Charlotte Mason (volume 6, p 34):


"But truths get flat and wonders stale upon us. We do not care much about the starry firmament, the budding trees, the cunning architecture of the birds; and to all except young parents and young brothers and sisters a baby is no longer a marvel. The completeness of the new baby brother is what children admire most, his toes and his fingers, his ears and all the small perfections of him. His guardians have some understanding of the baby; they know that his chief business is to grow and they feed him with food convenient for him. If they are wise they give free play to all the wrigglings and stretchings which give power to his feeble muscles. His parents know what he will come to, and feel that here is a new chance for the world. In the meantime, he needs food, sleep and shelter and a great deal of love. So much we all know.

But is the baby more than a 'huge oyster'? That is the problem before us and hitherto educators have been inclined to answer it in the negative. Their notion is that by means of a pull here, a push there, a compression elsewhere a person is at last turned out according to the pattern the educator has in his mind.

The other view is that the beautiful infant frame is but the setting of a jewel of such astonishing worth that, put the whole world in one scale and this jewel in the other, and the scale which holds the world flies up outbalanced. A poet looks back on the glimmering haze of his own infancy and this is the sort of thing he sees,––

'I was entertained like an angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory . . . Is it not strange that an infant should be heir of the whole world and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold? . . . The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious gold. The green trees transported and ravished me. Their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap. Boys and girls tumbling in the streets were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die. The streets were mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it.' " Thomas Traherne

Thank you, Thomas Traherne, for revealing so perfectly the world as a child sees it. The world we should all see. And for showing us how truly beautiful and valuable this planet and its many systems really are! And how valuable every human being is.

There are few people I feel I can count on to always be there for me, to always tell me the truth, to want what is best for me enough to give me the cold, hard facts wrapped in warmth and love and admiration for who I am as a person, of great value merely because of my humanity but also because of what my particular set of skills, ideas, beliefs, actions, and personality bring to the world. I was born a person, with great value because I am a human being. No one exactly like me will ever again walk the earth. That is almost a sacred thought. I (and you and your children and students) am 100% unique and valuable.

But not everybody thinks so.

And that's okay.

There is somebody who believes in me no matter what I do, no matter what I believe about life and the world and politics and such. I don't have to speak to her for months on end, but when we do speak, there is a quiet understanding that we are one another's greatest fans. We will love and support each other no matter what decisions we make or where life takes us. We are loyal to one another. We are friends. For life.

My friend's name is Elizabeth. I have known her since we were eight years old and in school together. She was my best friend throughout childhood. She lives on another continent, so far away that her winter is my summer and our time zones are very far apart. She converted to Judaism, so we no longer share the same religious beliefs. She's liberal where I'm conservative. And yet, we are always going to be friends. That kind of loyalty is generally hard-earned. But it shouldn't be, should it? We each have intrinsic value just because we exist. Imagine that. And imagine what life would be like on this planet if every single person was valued because we're alive and for no other reason.

Of course, virtuous people like Mother Theresa or Ghandi somehow seem more valuable than little folks like me who plod along daily, homeschooling and cooking and cleaning and driving kids around town to activities, rarely stopping to breathe in the air God surrounded our planet with to give us life. Monsters like Hitler seem less intrinsically valuable, and I can't argue that. But if we walked through life believing in one another, valuing each other as of great worth, like diamonds or emeralds or rubies, some still in need of a bit of polish, others very rough and unrecognizable yet, and some shining brightly, I believe the world would be a safer, gentler, more beautiful place.

Today is Elizabeth's birthday. Although she's in Australia celebrating with her friends and family (or maybe her birthday is already coming to a close. I've never been good with time zones), I know that she knows I remembered her fondly today. Happy birthday, Elizabeth!

Can Virtuous Habits be Cultivated?

My friend Christina shared this article with our local Charlotte Mason community this morning, and it is really thought-provoking. I'm copying and pasting it here, but you can also find it on bigquestionsonline.com -- a great resource for any number of topics, though not necessarily from a Christian perspective or a biblical worldview. That is completely fine with me. We have so much to learn from opening our minds to a variety of perspectives and to scientific inquiry. If God is real and His words are truth, what comes out through careful research will only further reveal the intricacies of His vast creation, not dispel His existence or lead us astray.

Can Virtuous Habits be Cultivated?

By Roy Baumeister

July 24, 2012 

The shopper covets the expensive item and worries vaguely about the credit card bill. The dieter contemplates the fine dessert. The ex-addict looks longingly at the cigarette, the bottle, or the drug, recalling the sweet feelings but also the problems and promises. The man and woman prepare to kiss, warm with alcohol and new intimacy, but are held back by thoughts of their respective spouses back home.  The procrastinator thinks of the tough, worrisome task ahead but notes the deadline is still a week off, so perhaps it is fine to leave it one more day. Such moral and practical dilemmas pervade daily life.

Doing what is right requires strenuous effort to resist the alluring temptations of vice. You strive to resist selfish impulses and push yourself to do what moral duty prescribes. Virtue is hard work.

Or is it? Could virtue become a habit — that is, a relatively effortless, automatic tendency to do what is morally right, with a minimum of inner struggle?

The answer to this question, crucial for understanding and improving the moral level of humanity, is emerging from scientific research on willpower. A recent study in which two hundred German citizens wore beepers for a week, and at random intervals reported on their desires at that moment, yielded a stunning finding. The researchers had sorted people into those with relatively good and relatively poor self-control based on questionnaires about their lives and habits. One fairly obvious prediction was that people with good self-control would resist desires more frequently than people with poor self-control. After all, that’s what self-control is for, to resist desires, right?
 
But the results came out strongly in the opposite direction. People with good self-control were less likely than others to resist desires as they went about their daily lives. How could this be? The answer is that people with good self-control avoid temptations and problem situations, rather than battling with them. Other research confirmed that self-control works most effectively by means of controlling habits, rather than by using willpower for direct control of one’s actions in the heat of the moment.

Self-control is sometimes called the “moral muscle” because it furnishes the basic ability to do the right thing. Most vices and sins involve failures of self-control, and most virtues indicate good self-control. Until recently, it was standard to think of self-control in terms of heroic single feats of willpower, such as for resisting a strong temptation. But much of the new evidence suggests that self-control is most effective when it operates through habits. People use their self-control to break bad habits and establish good ones, and then life can run smoothly and successfully, with low levels of stress, regret, and guilt.

Viewed in that perspective, virtue is best achieved when self-control is exerted so as to establish habits of good behavior. Part of the reason is that using willpower to resist temptation is a strenuous, costly business with unreliable results. Habits are far more reliable than that.

Two decades’ worth of lab research has established that willpower is limited, and exerting self-control to resist impulses or change your actions depletes it. Like all living things, humans naturally seek to conserve their energy, and so exerting self-control to resist temptation or take the path of virtue encounters a natural reluctance (which some moralists would call laziness, or worse). And if the temptation or impulse arises when your willpower has already been depleted by other demands, then your odds of resisting go down, and you do something you’ll regret. That’s why you shouldn’t plan on achieving virtue by relying on willpower to get you through crises, temptations, and other problem situations. Willpower fluctuates, and you can’t count on always having enough.

Instead, if you use willpower to establish virtuous habits, the danger of succumbing to impulse or temptation is reduced. The human psyche is well designed to acquire habits (both good and bad). Doing something new and different takes effort and attention, and sometimes plenty of thought and emotion. In contrast, doing something by habit requires none of those, or at most a very small amount. To conserve the limited mental and physical energy that people have, nature has designed us to convert novel exertions into easy habits. This occurs over time, with repeated practice. Can you remember your initial struggles with a bicycle, a surfboard, a computer keyboard and mouse, a tennis racquet? Yet after enough repetitions, one uses those same items efficiently and effectively, with hardly a thought or error. The human mind’s ability to convert difficult action into easy deft habit is remarkable.

Habits of virtue can be a godsend. Seated at dinner as the waiter begins to serve wine, I have watched and admired how the recovered alcoholic deftly covers his glass with his hand to signal “none for me.” Not so long ago, perhaps, saying no required of him much struggle and anguish. If every offer of wine took as much effort as on his first day of sobriety, it is a fair bet that he would have fallen off the wagon countless times. But it gets easier, thanks to the miracle of habit. Of course, the habit did not appear by magic or wish or resolve. It took willpower to make the refusals habitual.

How far can we rely on virtuous habits? The strongest desires and most problematic temptations probably cannot be defeated by habits alone. But cultivating virtuous habits in many areas can conserve your willpower for when you really need it. This explains the problems of people with characteristically poor self-control. They expend their willpower in ordinary things, like deciding what to eat and whether to blurt out some angry thought. When a more serious temptation comes along, their willpower is depleted, and they succumb. In contrast, people with virtuous habits conserve their willpower for when they really need it.

Indeed, it is questionable whether resisting a strong temptation or impulse can ever become entirely habitual. Virtuous habits are much more successful at avoiding those temptations and impulses than trying to stifle them once they are felt.

To understand this, it is necessary to ponder the question of whether temptation is inside or outside the person. Almost certainly it is both. Although there may be some impulses that arise entirely from inside the body, far more of them are triggered by external objects. Yet these same objects do not trigger everyone equally. They only tempt people who have such desires. So the problem situation — a tempting impulse to do something against one’s values — arises mainly when inner drives meet up with opportunities to indulge them. It takes both a suitably inclined person and the compromising situation to create the maximum temptation. In such situations, habits may help some, but willpower will almost certainly be required. At that point it may be too late for habits to help much.

The solution is not to get to that point. Virtuous habits may be more effective at avoiding temptation than at resisting it. The desires inside oneself cannot be eliminated. (This is probably why many of the great saints of history described themselves as terrible sinners. They knew that they had plenty of sinful desires. But virtue is not the absence of desire for sin — it is the absence of sin despite the desire to sin!) One can prevent inner inclinations and weaknesses from blossoming into full-blown cravings and desires by avoiding the external circumstances that trigger them. The recovering alcoholic knows to avoid bars. The veteran dieter knows not to keep fattening foods available at home. In such cases, even if the inner drive does occasionally produce a strong, specific desire once in a while, the lack of opportunity saves the day. There may be a moment of weakness, when willpower is low and sweet memories lead to cravings, but if there are no pastries or cigarettes or drinks available, virtue remains intact despite the fact that the person is briefly willing to give in.

Playing goalkeeper for my high school soccer team taught me a useful lesson that is relevant here. People told me that the goalie’s job is to block shots, and so I practiced trying to dive and jump to block the balls kicked my way. Yet I could tell I was not making much progress. Deducing that my coach was useless, I went to games and watched how the best goalkeepers played. I noticed that they did not block very many shots. Instead, they prevented shots from happening. They would quietly move forward as the other team passed the ball back and forth, watching for just the moment to intercept a pass, before it was ever kicked earnestly toward the goal. The post game stats might show only a couple blocked shots, suggesting the goalie had not done much, but the truth was that they had prevented more shots than they blocked. And it looked much easier than waiting in the goal and then trying to stop a swerving ball coming right at the goal with the full force of a powerful kick.

 In the same way, people with good self-control achieve virtue in a seemingly easy, undramatic fashion. We may reserve our admiration for the most dramatic cases, in which someone heroically does the right thing despite being strongly tempted to do otherwise. But everyday virtue is best achieved not by such heroic feats of willpower, but rather by avoiding such situations in the first place.  By pulling together many small habits, especially for avoiding temptations and problems, one can live a more virtuous life.  

Awake my soul and sing... How presenting living ideas stimulates the mind of a child.

                                                              
THE EXPERIMENT

 A Charlotte Mason education unearthed, explained, and remarked upon...
   

Towards A Philosophy of Education, Volume 6 of the Charlotte Mason Series, Author's Preface

  

         "...a soul awoke within a water-sprite at the touch of love; so, I have to tell of the awakening of a 'general soul' at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago the 'soul' of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake. We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance, men's souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge: but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. Already many thousands of the children of the Empire had experienced this intellectual conversion, but they were the children of educated persons. To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living."

         What was it that made the souls of these children from a small mining village awaken at the touch of knowledge? What was this new "technique" or "methodology" that led to such a dramatic impact? Well, as Rome wasn't built in a day, we can't very well give you all the tenets of a Charlotte Mason styled education at one time, so let's focus on just one for today. The awakening of a soul can be affected by living materials, distributed to eager young minds like the Christmas pudding to Bob Cratchit's Tiny Tim. Voraciously hungry for something that is alive, excites interest, and gives meaning to life, the mind of a child is ripe for books that enlarge his imagination, materials that launch him into new and unthinkable realms, magical places where new ideas pop up like fresh daffodils in early spring. He yearns for living books.

   

                                                    LIVING BOOKS

         To give you an example of what a living book is, I’ve copied out a section of The Life of the Spider by Henri Fabre. Rather than state a series of dry facts about poisonous spiders, Fabre begins his book by engaging the reader with an extremely well-written, amusing anecdote:

         The Italians have bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her.  To cope with ‘tarantism,’ the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the Italian Spider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy, so they tell us.  Special tunes have been noted, those quickest to afford relief.  There is medical choreography, medical music.  And have we not the tarentella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathed to us perhaps by the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?

         Must we take these queer things seriously or laugh at them?  From the little that I have seen, I hesitate to pronounce an opinion.  Nothing tells us that the bite of the Tarantula may not provoke, in weak and very impressionable people, a nervous disorder which music will relieve; nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resulting from a very energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfort by diminishing the cause of the ailment.  So far from laughing, I reflect and enquire, when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his Theridion lugubre, the Corsican husbandman of his Malmignatte.  Those Spiders might easily deserve, at least partly, their terrible reputation.

         Not only is this passage engaging, it is written in first person. The author is speaking directly to the reader, identifying with the reader by using the pronouns us and we, and offering his own opinion about whether or not what he has heard about the frenzied dance of the victim of a tarantula bite is true. We are immediately transported into his world, sitting in his living room, listening to him talk about the spider through the vehicle of story. This is the key to unlocking a child’s memory and capacity to learn. The enveloping of fact and knowledge into story form enlivens the study for the student and hastens its sticking power in the child’s memory banks. This is our goal – to engage children in learning environments all day that will keep them wrestling with knowledge and ideas for the rest of their lives.  

         Now here is an excerpt from what I would consider a non-living book on the same subject as Fabre's. The information is factual, but the sentence structure is predictable (not the repeated use of the phrase "are present in"):

        Almost all of the 30,000 species of spiders are venomous. However, the fangs of most species are too short or too fragile to penetrate the skin. Serious systemic reactions most frequently occur with bites from brown spiders. Brown spiders are present in the Midwest and south central US, not in the coastal and Canadian border states, except when imported through clothing or luggage. Widow spiders are present throughout the US. Several venomous species are not native to the US but may be imported on produce or other materials or through commercial trade in spiders as novelty pets.

         Only a few spider venoms have been studied in detail. Of greatest significance are those having necrotizing venom components (in brown and some house spiders) and neurotoxic venom components (in widow spiders). The most toxic component of widow spider venom seems to be a peptide that affects neuromuscular transmission. The specific fraction of brown spider venom that causes the characteristic necrotic lesion has not been isolated.

          Tarantula bites are extremely rare and nonvenomous, but agitation of the spider may cause it to throw needle-like hairs. The hairs act as foreign bodies in skin or eyes and can trigger mast cell degranulation and an anaphylactoid reaction (eg, urticaria, angioedema, bronchospasm, hypotension) in sensitized people, usually pet owners who handle the spider daily.

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/injuries_poisoning/bites_and_stings/spider_bites.html

        The study of Tarantulas is naturally going to be different for a Chemistry major in a university level class than it would be for a fourth grader in a public school classroom. Still, the enlivening of the study by offering engaging materials benefits all students in that it helps them retain the information and awakens within them a natural curiosity that will take them far. 

         In much the same way, our children became enamored with music when we allowed them to immerse themselves in it by performing in operas, singing in choirs that toured Europe, playing in youth orchestras, taking music lessons to become proficient on an instrument. These worthy endeavors all lead to the birth of dreams, the satisfying of desires, the awakening of the soul. Not every child (especially not one from a small mining town) has access to live opera or a community choir, but if you are so fortunate as to live in an area where you can take your students to see music performed live, do so! But make sure the music is engaging, just as you might choose an engaging living book. I'll leave you with a photo of my husband, daughter, son, and dog performing in La Boheme with the Central Piedmont Community College Opera. May the souls of your students come alive as you present them with living materials. Please share your successes with us! We'd love to hear from you! 

         "Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony;
but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food."        (Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 109.)

"The question resolves itself into--What manner of book will find its way with upheaving effect into the mind of an intelligent boy or girl? We need not ask what the girl or boy likes. She very often likes the twaddle of goody-goody story books, he likes condiments, highly-spiced tales of adventure. We are all capable of liking mental food of a poor quality and a titillating nature; and possibly such food is good for us when our minds are in need of an elbow-chair; but our spiritual life is sustained on other stuff, whether we be boys or girls, men or women. By spiritual I mean that which is not corporeal; and which, for convenience' sake, we call by various names--the life of thought, the life of feeling, the life of the soul."                                    (Charlotte Mason, School Education, p 168.)

Principles on which to select School-Books:

         "I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader. For example, I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this is for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated. I do not mean to say that the lecture and the oral lesson are without their uses; but these uses are, to give impulse and to order knowledge; and not to convey knowledge, or to afford us that part of our education which comes of fit knowledge, fitly given."

         "Again, as I have already said, ideas must reach us directly from the mind of the thinker, and it is chiefly by means of the books they have written that we get into touch with the best minds."                             (Charlotte Mason, School Education, p 177)

Where I've landed... And what we can do here together.

Welcome to a place I affectionately call The Winding Ascent. As we set our sights on things that are higher than we are -- magnanimity, humility, selflessness -- we are sure to find ourselves stumbling down a difficult road, both slippery and stony. When life throws difficulties at us, we may be tempted to despair, to question life's meaning, to wonder why we're even on this planet, what our purpose really is, how we're ever going to climb back up the mountain once we've fallen into a prickly, rough valley (or been tossed there by others). The answer to that question may be different for each of us, and it may change along life's journey.

 Despite the blows we all take as we struggle through, bleary-eyed and discontent, how do we maintain that childlike wonder we felt when we were young, that intimate connection we had to every bird's voice, to the bark of each tree, the snap of every twig we stepped on as we explored the woods, dreaming of faeries and miniature creatures? The singing of a babbling brook always takes me back to my early explorations of the woods behind our house. Despite a minor setback at around age 5 -- a scratch from a rusty barbed wire fence that landed me in the doctor's office getting a tetanus shot -- I adored those woods. I formed a strong connection to them, a relationship with them. I knew every nook and cranny, every bird and bug, every worm and woodland creature. I connected with the natural world around me and as a result, I felt a kinship with the wondrous Being who created it.

That small patch of woods, now a busy six lane boulevard in Dallas, Texas, is where my heart still sings, where my soul takes flight, where music resounds from within, where the voice of the Creator shouts the loudest. What place or space inspires you the most? Where does your soul take flight? Why? What about it inspires you?

We're creating a space here that we hope will nurture your understanding of yourself, your place within God's creation, and the living ideas you use to lay a sturdy foundation beneath the children in your life so that they, in turn, can live rich, full lives of beauty and magnanimity.

If you are looking for a fresh approach to education, for beauty and virtue within a world that has distorted, torn, and shredded the awe and wonder children naturally see in the world, please contact us. We would love to hear from you and help you begin the journey toward living an inspired life.

Our goal is to breathe fresh vitality into American life and education. We also intend to unite thinkers, writers, naturalists, scientists, artists, composers, and educators and seek funding for future projects that will nourish the lives of America's children.

 Please email us at megan@creativepowerhouse.com for further information and to recommend links to the work of others that you believe are nourishing.



Thank you!

(photo courtesy of http://www.sekaphotography.com/home/tag/flagpole-hill -- Flagpole Hill is where I spent another large part of my childhood explorations.)

Practical Applications of the Charlotte Mason method... Or, how my kids fell in love with learning.

Are you a school principal, teacher, homeschool parent, or homeschool graduate who has successfully implemented Charlotte Mason principles in your educational environment? We welcome submissions and would love to hear from you. What worked well for you? What did you find difficult to put into practice? Describe your greatest success? Your greatest failure and how it impacted future implementation? Send me your articles and I'll post them on this blog. You can email me at megan@creativepowerhouse.com

I'd like to begin by sharing a personal story or two. I've graduated three homeschool students using Charlotte Mason methods and I'd love to boast about how this educational outlook has made them into the beautiful adults they now are.

My eldest daughter is a senior at Berklee College of Music, majoring in vocal performance and film scoring. Her love for music began when we implemented Miss Mason's ideas for composer study. Hannah's initial contact with classical music came from attending live concerts in Norfolk, Virginia, and from taking Suzuki violin lessons at the age of eight. She practiced daily for thirty minutes or less at first, making sure she didn't get tired or lose her focus too quickly. The early habit training is typical of a Charlotte Mason education and established positive, focused attention from her early elementary years. We didn't realize it, but she had mild ADHD. The decision to focus on habits and lay down deep-rooted habits early was a good one, especially in light of the struggle with attention her brain was giving her. She set timers for herself, relied on alarms and daily regimens, and soon, she was able to conquer the struggles she had and channel the creativity that most ADHD kids have into avenues like writing symphonies and translating opera arias into Klingon! So very interesting.

Our second daughter fell in love with the work of Mary Anning at an early age and talked of nothing but paleontology for years and years. She had a dig kit, tools, watched documentaries, researched, went to museums (to see T-Sue!) and read voraciously. She has since put her studies on hold in favor of raising her own family, but she intends to pursue her dreams in the future, perhaps including her children. She has also performed in operas like La Boheme, The Pearl Fishers, and Tosca with Opera Carolina. The quest and thirst for knowledge that she now has came from me standing back and allowing her to pursue the information, skills, and experiences she desired as far as they might take her. I did not limit her to age appropriate books, textbooks, or documentaries for kids. She was very thankful that we opened her to a wide variety of ideas and still talks with a wide grin about her learning experiences in our homeschool.


Our son traveled a difficult journey, fraught with illness and learning issues. For him, attention deficit wasn't the only struggle -- he had dysgraphia, asthma, and a tic disorder as well. As we continued to utilize Charlotte Mason methods with him, focusing on reading aloud well-written, living books and having him narrate back to us orally, he began to develop a strong ability to memorize and to perform. For him, throwing his entire body into the narration helped him remember what he read and reinforced his visual memory -- some of which was affected by his learning differences. As time went on, he began landing lead roles in community theater and is now a freshman at the prestigious Boston Conservatory, studying Musical Theater. His steady progress can be largely attributed to the warmth, devotion, and continual encouragement toward magnanimity and a largeness of heart that his early educational journey gave him. These are ideas we don't necessarily readily attribute to Charlotte Mason. They aren't as easily measurable as a narration or picture study. But once you embark on this journey, you will find you are developing within your students a deep appreciation for humanity, for individual worth, for beauty, greatness, heroism, generosity, kindness, and empathy.

We have one more son still studying with us at home. He is very hands-on and can put furniture together, fix appliances (from a washing machine to installing a disposal to repairing computers), and more. From origami to playing drums, he is highly skilled, well read, and learning by leaps and bounds. 

Please share your success stories with me and let's talk about how we can apply Miss Mason's methods from a practical standpoint and help our students find success and become empathetic, loving, decent human beings along the way.

Megan Hoyt