The Habit of Attention

I'm back from spending one entire week away from The Ones I Love to explore, with 150 other educators (school and homeschool), the educational philosophy and methodology of Charlotte Mason. It was, for the third year in a row, a highlight of my year!

While there were many things that I learned from being there and many things that were reaffirmed for me, there was one thing that really stood out for me as a weakness in myself: attending - the habit of attention, the discipline of self control.

In North Carolina I witnessed people who were busy with a hundred tasks, all important to the smooth running of the conference, completely stop what they were doing and give full attention to others who approached them with questions, needs, concerns. The individual person was more important to these over-tasked conference planners than any measurable occupations. Time and again, personal deadlines and quantifiable activities took a backseat to people. Those tasks got done, to be sure, but they were done around the needs of the people, rather than the people's needs being worked around the tasks.

I was humbled. I was ashamed.

I thought about The Ones I Love and the way I so often ask them to wait while I do my things, only give half an ear to the stories they want to share, put them off in a dozen different ways.

Here I am, wanting to develop in the little ones the habit of attention, and not only have I not been modelling it, I haven't even noticed that it wasn't there!

I had a long drive home from the conference, which I shared with two special friends, and in that drive I verbalized some things that I hope to be held accountable for.

The first (and maybe the easiest) is this:

I need to curb my time at the computer. It is one of the main distractions I have from The Ones I Love and from spending time with my Lord. I'm going to set a specific time for dealing with emails (and no checking outside of that time, no matter what exciting things I might be waiting for: if someone needs me urgently, they'll phone); I'm going to have a specific time for computer-based scheduling and record-keeping; and I'm going to completely eliminate games on the computer. In fact, just moments ago Dear Man 'hid' the games on my laptop, at my request, and removed all signs of them from the startup menu.

The rest of my reflections will have to wait until another, pre-scheduled computer time! For now, the children are tucked in bed and I have two appointments: one with my Dear Man, the other one with Jesus.

Flesh and Blood - an article by Art Middlekauff

There is a new post entitled "Flesh and Blood" on the ChildLight USA blog. Art Middlekauff looks at what Charlotte Mason believed about the natural and supernatural process of sanctification. This is something that is foundational to her philosophy of who children are, yet it is often misunderstood because many of us interpret her perspective from her writings about education and not from her writings on the human soul.

My little introduction here is for no other purpose than to encourage you to read Art's post. It is, as is characteristic of Art, thoughtful, respectful, and insightful.

Living Books at ChildLight USA Blog

Carroll Smith has posted a new item on the ChildLight blog, a piece about Living Books. It's thoughtful writing, well worth the visit, and a prelude to more.

Happy New Year!

I hope you've all enjoyed the holidays, time with loved ones, celebrating faith and hope. Now a new year is upon us and we have much to look forward to. As you look ahead, consider reading this post by Leslie Noelani Laurio on the ChildLight USA blog. Leslie is inspiring, as always, and it would be so good to be inspired in the direction she is addressing.

Enjoy!

And see you in a couple of weeks: our next meeting is Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at Karen's home. Contact me if you need directions.

On Memorization

For anyone who has tried to memorize extended passages, be they Scripture, poetry, Shakespeare, or whatever, it quickly becomes clear that the "say a line over and over until you know it and then add another line" method really doesn't work. Nor does trying to cram it into the mind quickly before being 'tested' on it (as I and so many others I know did for English class and Sunday School); the words are there for the 'test' but fly out the window of the mind as soon as the direct attention to remembering is done.

This fall my children and I worked on memorizing a parable. Sixteen verses of Scripture. Not a huge chunk, by any means, but one of several longer portions that we've done as a family. Our memorization method was simple. I read the passage out loud every morning after breakfast, and again (most days) after lunch. Sometimes I'd read it a couple of times, but mostly just once. When it was quite familiar, I would sometimes pause part way through a line and let them finish the sentence, which they did quite easily, quite naturally, and quite happily. By the end of a month my two eldest children (12 and 6) and I could recite the passage without error. Now, almost 2 months after completing our memorization, we can still do it!

This week there is a new post on the ChildLight USA blog on memorization. Tina Fillmer has written an interesting piece entitled Memorization "Learnt Without Labour". I hope you will take a couple of minutes to read her article. It fit so well with my family's experience this fall that I felt I ought to share the news.

If you're interested, you can read about my family's experiences memorizing the parable by visiting PeaceLedge and clicking on the 'memorization' topic on the left.

New Nature Study Post at ChildLight USA

Deborah and HollyAnne Dobbins have a new post on the ChildLight USA blog, addressing common Questions and Answers about Nature Study, particularly when it is done as a formal Nature Study class incorporating dry brush watercolour once a month or so.

Links from ChildLight USA

• Education is Formation, Not Information - a ChildLight USA blog post by Naomi Heidorn
• Teaching Nature Study - Listen online to the 2007 ChildLight USA Charlotte Mason Educational Conference lecutre given by Deborah Dobbins and Holly Ann Dobbins. This link will bring you to the ChildLight USA website, where this lecture is being featured at the top of the page. Click on the "Listen Now" button.

First WHHE meeting of 2008 - Nature Study Notes by Jennifer Talsma

The following was originally posted on PeaceLedge. More about the first WHHE meeting and Nature Study, including Sandra's notes on dry-brush, photos from the meeting, etc., will be posted within a few days.

Tonight two sweet friends and I led the application portion of our Charlotte Mason study group meeting. We were asked to speak about Nature Study and to teach the dry-brush technique that we had learned at the ChildLight USA conference in June. What follow are portions of my notes from my part of that talk.

Nature Study

As the we were preparing this section of the meeting, we were struck by how much Karen Andreola’s chapters [33-35 in A Charlotte Mason Companion] reminded us of a session on Nature Study that S. and I attended at the ChildLight USA conference in June, led by Deborah and HollyAnne Dobbins, mother and daughter nature study teachers at a CM school in the south. So as I talk about these chapters, I’d like to weave in things from the Dobbinses, leading up to S's instruction in a dry-brush watercolour exercise that we experienced at the conference.

First of all, why do we do Nature Study? Karen says that in a Charlotte Mason education, there are two main reasons.

The first is that it establishes a relationship between a person and creation. On page 255, Karen quotes Charlotte Mason:

"We are all meant to be naturalists, each to his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."

Volume 1: Home Education, Page 61

And the second reason is because it points us to the Creator. Karen quotes Audubon, also on page 255, to illustrate this:

"When I had hardly learned to walk, and to articulate those first words always so endearing to parents, the productions of nature that hay spread all around were constantly pointed out to me. . . My father generally accompanied my steps, procured bird and flowers for me, and pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of their plumage, the manifestations of their pleasure, or their sense of danger, and the always perfect forms and splendid attire of the latter. He would speak of the departure and return of the birds with the season, describe their haunts, and, more wonderful than all, their change of livery, thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind toward their Creator."

John James Audubon quoted in A Charlotte Mason Companion by
Karen Andreola, page 255

Always looking at the creation and the Creator, nature study is not inteneded to be intense scientific investigation but to build a relationship between the student and the one (or One) being observed.

The next question becomes HOW? How do we do nature study?

Sometimes it comes about informally, as you’re going for a walk to friends and one of the children sees a bird, or an insect, or a leaf skeleton along the sidewalk. Take a moment or two, observe it, and when you get home, try to describe it and locate it in a field guide or draw it in a nature journal.

Karen’s book has lots of suggestions for small nature study projects that you can do with your children whether you are in town or country. Chapters 34 and 35 are full of ideas. A key element in each one, though, is the Nature Journal. It is here that observations are recorded – dated entries that include drawings, poetry or prose, personal reflections about the item being journalled. This is simply a book, any kind will do, really, as Karen tells us in chapter 33: blank or lined, hard bound or soft cover; Karen even says that small children might prefer to work on loose paper and mount only the entries they choose to keep into their notebooks.

We have kept nature notebooks sporadically since my oldest was about 5, and you can look at my family’s samples as well as S and L’s after the meeting (you can see some of our samples by looking at the Nature Study topic here at PeaceLedge. L's are posted at "the world as we see it". I'll see if S will offer photos or a links for hers). These things do become treasures to the children over time. They see how their observation skills are expanding, and how their ability to accurately represent what they observe is growing, too.

You’ve heard me use the word observation many times already. Well, Karen points out in her first paragraph on page 253, the importance of observation when it comes to nature. Observation is how we come to know the natural world, how we come to care about it. Without observation there is no chance of a relationship.

I found this passage written by Charlotte Mason:

"In Science, or rather, nature study, we attach great importance to recognition, believing that the power to recognise and name a plant or stone or constellation involves classification and includes a good deal of knowledge. To know a plant by its gesture and habitat, its time and its way of flowering and fruiting; a bird by its flight and song and its times of coming and going; to know when, year after year, you may come upon the redstart and the pied fly-catcher, means a good deal of interested observation, and of, at any rate, the material for science.... They notice for themselves, and the teacher gives a name or other information as it is asked for, and it is surprising what a range of knowledge a child of nine or ten acquires."

Volume 3: School Education, page 236

Do you see the emphasis on observation, of accumulation of visual details which get sorted, collated, arranged, and categorized by the children on their own? This is the ‘common knowledge’ that precedes science teaching – and continues alongside it. This was something emphasized by Deborah and HollyAnne. They would take their students to the location they had selected for observation, and each student would choose a specimen. Then the students would return to their seats (or, if the whole class period was being held out of doors, they’d find a spot to sit) and they would silently investigate their specimen for a full minute. They would carefully turn their flower, looking at it from every angle, seeing what they could discover about it, handling it gently so as to preserve its beauty.

After that minute of observation, they would tell a partner what they had seen. During this time, the student listening was required to remain silent and attentive – his turn to share would come. It was amazing when we did this in the workshop, the number of details that our partners came up with that we hadn’t – and vice versa. There is a world of beauty and detail in each specimen, just waiting to be discovered!

I want to quickly add that Nature walks and nature journaling are not Science instruction time.
Charlotte writes in volume 3:

"The teachers are careful not to make these nature walks an opportunity for scientific instruction, as we wish the children’s attention to be given to observation with very little direction. In this way they lay up that store of ‘common information’ which Huxley considered should precede science teaching; and, what is much more important, they learn to know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends. The nature-walk should not be made the occasion to import a sort of Tit-Bits miscellany of scientific information. The study of science should be pursued in an ordered sequence, which is not possible or desirable in a walk."

Volume 3: School Education, page 237

Nature study is a gentle time, a calm time of observing creation, and having our eyes raised to the Creator.

We want to give you an opportunity to try the dry-brush technique that we learned from the Dobbinses in June. I had been very intimidated about entries in our nature journals – I’m not an artist, our pictures were poor representations of the specimens we were choosing, and painting? Well, painting sounded like a lot of effort, so we stuck to pencil, pencil crayons, even going as far as watercolour pencils and crayons, but sometimes not even adding the water afterward! I wanted to try it, and having done it in the workshop I realized how very accessible it is. We considered demonstrating it only or having an opportunity to try it after the meeting if people chose to, but felt that the greatest benefit would be in trying it yourselves, seeing how easily it can be done.

A couple of things to keep in mind are that ideally the students should be silent during the dry-brush time. This is a time for quiet work – observing, reproducing. Sometimes Deborah and HollyAnne play soft music, other times there is complete silence. When the painting is done out of doors, the sounds of the environment naturally provide the backdrop.
The children’s work is not to be criticized or corrected, although using a step-by-step method to label the drawings, and so on, will encourage careful work and accuracy.

Always remember that the goal of this exercise is observation and a greater reverence for the Creator, not perfect representation of the specimen. If we wanted that, we’d take a photograph, and even that wouldn’t be perfect. No, the point is that the children spend time looking, learning to love what they see and the One Who made it.

For more on the Nature Study topic at the WHHE meeting, including S's notes about dry-brush technique, visit the post on the WHHE blog. Those items will be posted in a couple of days.

Deani's Research Trip to Ambleside

This summer Deani and a handful of other CM researchers spent time at the Armitt in Ambleside. It's true! Deani was there!

You are all invited to read about the time she spent there and to view the stunning pictures of the Ambleside environs on the ChildLight USA blog. This is a direct link to her post and from that post you can read previous posts on the ChildLight blog. There's a treasure of knowledge and encouragement there!

Welcome home, Deani! Pack me in your suitcase next time - although I probably weigh more than a printer/scanner/computer/recording device all put together. Hmmm. But, then again, I'd help you carry your bags once we arrived!

A Dangerous Adventure by Art in Kenosha

If you haven't done so yet, please read Art's article on the ChildLight USA weblog. It is a beautiful description of the unity of life, the lack of separation between life and education, of the transforming power of a living education. It is powerful.

This blog will be quiet for a while. I'm off to Colorado for 2 1/2 weeks and am so far the only one with access. See you again in mid-August. Jennifer

There is no separation between life and education

Before I tuck my self into bed for my last sleep at home, I want to direct your attention to Art's article on the ChildLight USA site. His is a beautiful piece of writing, inspiring me to see the unity in life, the way that, while we try to compartmentalize, life spills from one container to another, and a living education causes our lives to overflow with the beauty that God has written into each stroke. Okay, I'm mixing metaphors terribly, but you can read the real beauty yourself if you hop over to ChildLight USA.

Good night!

Shakespeare

I was inspired at the ChildLight USA conference in June to revisit Shakespeare in our home school. I'd done quite a bit of it with My Girl earlier in her education: read the Lamb's version from Tales from Shakespeare, followed up with reading the actual script, sometimes using paper dolls we'd made to help us distinguish some of the characters in the history plays. But for nearly two years now, we haven't opened up the text of a Shakespearean play, not even the Lamb's version, because it seemed too involved, too complex and time consuming to make it work with two small boys interrupting and with our other schoolwork to accomplish.

Then I attended Lori Lawing's breakout session on Shakespeare and Young Children, and I was encouraged to open up our volumes again. I'll write more about her session later, but for now, suffice it to say that we are all looking forward to re-imersing ourselves in this rich and living literature.

We are privileged to live in a small city with a world renowned Shakespeare Festival that runs nine months of the year. This spring, our home school group was included in the Festival's school outreach program, so two students from our group were selected by a draw to attend an all day theatre workshop, working on scenes from Romeo and Juliet, then performing their 15 minute version of the play on the Festival stage. My Girl was thrilled to be one of the two to attend that day. She had a great experience working on lines, projection, theatre games, and, of course, performing. That was a treat that many only dream of!

And, if that weren't enough, we are blessed to have terrific neighbours who work at the Festival and occasionally gift us with tickets to see a production.

This year has been tremendous: I have had the pleasure of attending Taming of the Shrew (with My Girl and several other home school moms and students, through the Festival's school outreach program), Hamlet (at the invitation of a friend), and Love's Labour's Lost (courtesy of our neighbours). And My Girl, after attending Shrew with me, went with one of my friends to see a matinee performance of Romeo and Juliet (again, courtesy of the neighbours) while I stayed home with the boys. Can any Charlotte Mason home school ask for more? These gifts, the excitement of attending live theatre, the beauty of the costuming, the sight of actors entering into their roles...nothing compares with this!

My Girl and I are going to start talking in iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets if we don't watch out!

But then again, maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Watercolour Magnolia

So, my sweet friend agreed! Here is her watercolour of a magnolia from Boiling Springs, North Carolina during the ChildLight USA Charlotte Mason conference. You can read her post about the experience by visiting arroz con siempre.

Feasting on Ideas: Reflections on the 2008 ChildLight USA Conference - by Sandy Moore

Have you ever gone to some fantastic buffet restaurant and stood perplexed in front of all the amazing and diverse dishes, feeling somewhat intimidated with all the choices? I must admit that at first glance of the ChildLight USA conference schedule I felt somewhat overwhelmed at the depth and richness of the topics and workshops available to partake in. Truly this was a feast spread before us, but the food all looked so good and so tempting how was one ever to choose between the various forms of nourishment available? I felt a little like a kid in a candy shop! Here I was in a CM educators' paradise and I was paralyzed to know where to begin!

My first choice of breakout session, “Education is a Discipline” (all about habit formation) launched me into a fantastic few days of inspiration, learning, fellowship and reflection. It was not long before I realized that no choice was a bad one...each discussion, each plenary session, and even the informal meal time chats were opportunities to be inspired and make connections, to be affirmed in my vocation as a home educator and my calling as a mom. Of course I did not understand every definition, idea, or concept presented and at times I had to laugh at myself wishing I had my dictionary in tow to look up some heady term like epistemology or pedagogy. But for the most part I was in my element, a land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey.

One particular session I have been reflecting upon since returning home was the session entitled “On Parallel Tracks: Mason and Vygotsky” by Tammy Glaser. I almost skipped this session as it fell on the last morning and I was feeling rather sleepy (having indulged in more than one late night chat session). I was also feeling rather cranky about having to wrap my brain around the many unfamiliar terms I had glanced at in the session summary of our handbook. Words like "scaffolding”, “parallel tracks”, “zones of proximal development”, and “Vygotsky" (who the heck was he anyway?) seemed to dampen my enthusiasm for attending this lecture, but at the last moment I sauntered into the hall figuring I had come this far and even if I picked up a couple of good points it would be better than having to pack my suitcase (which is what I would have done otherwise).

It turned out to be the pivotal lecture of the whole conference for me and I almost missed it! You know it reminds me of the times when I ask my dear husband to get some condiment or other from the fridge and he stands there with the door open looking puzzled: “I just can’t find it,” or, “It’s not here,” the familiar refrain followed by my typical, “What then is this?” as I lift the desired item from right in front of his nose.

For some reason I hadn’t seen it before but this lecture, and the points outlined within it, had the effect of turning on the lights for me. From Behaviourism to Relationships… that’s it! That is what all of my efforts at creating an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life are all about. And now Tammy Glaser was able to show me real, practical ways to actually put this into action. Scaffolded learning went from being a vague undefined mysterious concept to a solid framework of real-time tools that I can use "today" to help my young learners engage in the educational process in an emotionally healthy way. Terms like Dialog, Shared Understanding, Joint Problem solving, the Zone, and Self Regulation suddenly took on new meaning for me. These are not just abstract ideas but the keys to unlocking a healthy educational life that does not depend on the behaviouristic techniques of drill, reward, and punishment. Now this was something I really needed to hear and really needed to absorb. Oh, yes, these ideas are not new to my thinking but the implementation strategy has always been rather vague for me: How do we actually move from Behaviourism to Relationships? How do we know we are really doing this? Which techniques are best? I needed someone to lay them out side by side like Tammy did and point the way. This is the essence of our efforts as CM educators: building an educational process that is vibrant and living without external pressures and artificial expectations.

I feel equipped now and much more confident...sort of like my kitchen cabinets have all been cleaned and organized and I am ready to try out some new recipes. Indeed the educational life is like a feast and these ideas have been nourishment to my soul. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to taste and I will continue to digest this food for many weeks to come. As always a good meal is better shared and I can't wait to hear how others have been nourished as well.

( Editorial note: We look forward to a series of reflections on the ChildLight USA CM Conference in Boiling Springs, NC. Thank you, Sandy Moore, for pulling together the first post. We invite all you you to come back again later to see the other posts as they are added.)

Watercolours - Don't be Daunted by White

After that lovely experience with dry brush, I took my paints and brush to a friend whose lodging for the conference was across the hall, and showed her what I'd learned. Together we looked for a flower on the GWU campus that we could try painting and found that there weren't a lot of colourful flowers there. Beautiful magnolias, unassuming clover, and that was about it. And both those blossoms were tones of white! We were not to give up, though, and carefully removed two magnolias from a low hanging limb, returned to the apartment, and set to work. One and a half hours later, we decided that it was time to sleep.


The leaves surrounding my magnolia have been left unfinished (above) and I over-yellowed the cream I was trying to make for the petals, but overall I was pleased with the result. My friend's was lovely - shadows, tones of whites, ivories, creams, and greens. I plan to ask if she'll allow me to post her painting here, too, as I'd love to show what can be done by a new watercolourer who won't be daunted by white on white!

And here is my pansy from our front garden the same day as the children did theirs. I love this process!

Nature Study at ChildLight USA

This is the first in a series of planned posts about the ChildLight USA Charlotte Mason Conference. I was away from home for six days last week attending the 4th Annual conference in Boiling Springs, NC, and it was a fantastic time. It could take months, maybe even years, to be able to process all that I heard and was encouraged with, the conference was so full! The Lord certainly used it as a time to bless me in my home education as well as in my friendships and vision for a greater movement in home education.

Although there was so much to experience, it is obvious to me that my first post on the conference should be about Nature Study. That is what my thoughts have turned to over and over the past months, and it seems that God filled a need for me in this regard at ChildLight USA.

Two lovely women from Georgia, Deborah and HollyAnne Dobbins, teach the grade one and two Nature Study classes at a Perimeter School, a Charlotte Mason school in Duluth, and they shared their practices and techniques for NS with home and school educators. Following are some of the things that resonated in my heart as they spoke and demonstrated:

• Nature Study is a way to honour and glorify God - observing the details, patterns, colours, and beauty that He has put into creation, sometimes in a very hidden way, honours Him.
• Nature Study is not about doing a perfect watercolour reproduction.
• Observation takes practice, and is more easily learned in a quiet environment.
• Careful work in labelling a Nature Journal is not only a way to reinforce language skills such as penmanship, it is also a way to reflect the beauty and order of creation.
• Watercolour entries in Nature Journals don't involve a lot of mess or effort on the part of the teacher, but they yield a beautiful result, even with inexperienced watercolourers whose work is beautiful in its combination of simplicity in execution and insight.

This breakout session was a highlight for me. I have, for a long time, wanted to be able to use watercolours effectively in my own nature journal and to be able to give instruction to my children as well. The Dobbinses gave me what I longed for: clear, concise instruction and an opportunity to actually DO IT in a setting where there was support. Here is my first ever watercolour entry in my nature journal. It is a Pansy Viola Wittrockiana, and I loved every minute of observation and execution of this work!



I was so excited about the watercolour technique and the success that I'd had, that on my first day back home after the conference, I took the children for a little nature walk to our front garden and asked them each to choose a pansy to study. Once back inside, we used the Dobbinses' procedure of silent observation of the specimen for one minutes followed by a time of sharing about the specimens by each child. Then we got out the paints. I gave some basic instructions for technique and then we began. It was a tremendous experience, and here are their results:

My Girl's pansy done in watercolour. She is quite insecure about her abilities in art, and this was a huge success for her. We were both impressed with her results and she's eager to try again!

Little Man's pansy done in watercolour. This fellow actually did two paintings. The first time he thought that the illustration wasn't colourful enough, so he began adding extra colours. I admired his painting and then explained that when we do a Nature Study picture, we want to show what God has put there for us to see. The colours he added to his first painting were beautiful, but it didn't show the pansy as God had made it. His first reaction was "my pansy is bad." But after a moment of talking together, he realized that he'd done a lovely painting, and now he could try and make one that looked like what he saw. He eagerly picked up his brush and returned to work, completing the second painting above. I think it is lovely!

Brown-Eyed Boy's watercolour pansy. This fellow loved loading his brush and blending colours. I'm glad he enjoyed the experience even with the rest of us continually asking him to stop mixing the colours on the paint tablets themselves!

I'm looking forward to sharing more about the conference: Shakespeare, plenary sessions on "Moving from Reward to Relationship", Charlotte Mason in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and just some reflections from the week.