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.

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.)

Year End - Nature Study and Reviews by CM

The content of this year-end meeting was two-fold: philosophical, led by Liz; and application, led by Sandy. There was so much content and I'm finding so much great stuff to think and write about, that I'm going to split it into at least two separate posts.

Liz led the philosophical portion and succinctly summarized and highlighted portions of the reviews Charlotte Mason had written of three different works: The Moral Instruction of Children, by Felix Adler; Education from a National Standpoint, by Alfred Fouillee; Faith, by Rev. H. C. Beeching; and an article by General Booth in Darkest England; all found in volume 2 (Parents and Children), Chapters XI -XV.

What I find to be some of the best quotes from reading and discussing those chapters are the following (including my own comments for some of them):

"But it is singular that so few educationalists recognise that the Bible is not a single book, but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that, apart from its Divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that we understand by 'Revelation,' the Bible, as a mere instrument of education, is, at the very least, as valuable as the classics of Greece or Rome. Here is poetry, the rhythm of which soothes even the jaded brain past taking pleasure in any other. Here is history, based on such broad, clear lines, such dealing of slow and sure and even-handed justice to the nations, such stories of national sins and national repentances, that the student realises, as from no other history, the solidarity of the race, the brotherhood, and, if we may call it so, the individuality of the nations. Here is philosophy which, of all the philosophies which have been propounded, is alone adequate to the interpretation of human life. We say not a word here of that which is the raison d'etre of the Bible, its teaching of religion, its revelation of God to man; but, to urge only one point more, all the literatures of the world put together utterly fail to give us a system of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction, complete as that to which we have been born as our common inheritance in the Bible." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 104

When my husband and I had been married for 4 years, before we had children, we spent a year in south western Russia. That in itself was exciting, but what was more exciting was the reason for our being there. In the early 1990's, when Communism had collapsed in Russia, the whole moral and ethical structure of their society collapsed with it. They had no more backbone or ruler by which to bring up the next generations of Russian children into lives of great character and integrity. So what did they do? The Russian Ministry of Education turned to Western Christians to provide them with a curriculum of Christian Ethics and Morality based on the life of Jesus Chirst. They were making no claims to validate the theology of the Bible, but they certainly recognized this very thing that Charlotte Mason said nearly a hundred years earlier, that the Bible provided a fully comprehensive "system of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction"! Truly a miraculous period of Russian history to have been a part of!

The Bible's position as the holy Word of God, God-breathed, living, and inspired, is, in my mind inseparable from its value as a moral code, as a literary work. He planned it that way. But in the context of this statement by Charlotte Mason, we also recognize its value as the ultimate educational tool for all children. (And through that educational tool, might it be that some will come to know the God of all Creation for themselves? We pray that it may be so.)

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"I am inclined to think, too , that fairy tales suffer in vigour and charm when they are prepared for the children; and that Wordsworth is right in considering that the very knowledge of evil conveyed in fairy tales under a certain glamour, is of use in saving children from painful and injurious shocks in real life." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 107

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Regarding Bible stories:

"The child is not an exegetical student. The moral teaching, the spiritual revelations, the lovely imagery of the Bible, are the things with which he is concerned, and of these he cannot have too much...Read your Bible story to the child, bit by bit; get him to tell you in his own words (keeping as close as he can to the Bible words) what you have read, and then, if you like, talk about it; but not too much." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 109, 110

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Regarding a Child's Inducements to Learn:

"The motives proposed for seeking knowledge are poor and inadequate: to succeed in life, to gain esteem, to satisfy yourself, and even to be able, possibly, to benefit others, are by no means soul-compelling motives. the child, who is encouraged to learn, because to learn is his particular duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him, has the strongest of conceivable motives, in the sense that he is rendering that which is required of him by the Supreme Authority." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 114

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"Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy.../we are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output...What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 118, 119

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"As has been well said, 'Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.' And a great function of the educator is to secure that acts shall be so regularly, purposefully, and methodically sown that the child shall reap the habits of the good life, in thinking and doing, with the minimum of conscious effort...Educate the child in right habits and the man's life will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of the moral effort of decision." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 124

This is pure Charlotte Mason, a quotation we've all heard parts of so many times that it seems to almost embody the whole of what people think of when they hear "Charlotte Mason". As with so much of her writing, she addresses is so directly that it seems obvious, simple even. But we know that it is not so. Much of what we do as parents and educators comes from moment-by-moment action, not from the well thought out plan that she describes in horticultural terms here. And without that plan, there is no laying down of the rails of good habit. There is simply then a fly-by-night, come-what-may approach to education. It comes back to whether we have a philosophical spine to our educational approach, or whether we are grasping for whatever technique is current, appealing, popular, or what have you. (See the quote directly above the one I'm commenting on.) It isn't simple. Charlotte Mason doesn't say that it is, although she does present it very directly, very matter-of-factly. It it truly hard, truly challenging, and, in the long run, truly effective and rewarding.

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"As we have had occasion to say before, in this great work of education parents and teachers are permitted to play only a subordinate part after all. You may bring your horse to the water, but you can't make him drink; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child,; but you do now know in the least which he will take, and which he will reject. And very well for us it is that this safeguard to his individuality is implanted in every child's breast. Our part is to see that his educational plat is constantly replenished with fit and inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child's own appetite to take which he will have, and as much as he requires. Of one thing we must beware. The least symptom of satiety, especially when the ideas we present are moral and religious, should be taken as a serious warning. Persistence on our part just then may end in the child's never willingly sitting down to that dish any more." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 127

You heard me comment on this one at the meeting, so for fear of not stopping when I should, I'm just going to say "Stop When It Is Enough!"

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"...we shall most likely be inclined to agree with his conclusion that, not some subject of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of 'a being breathing thoughtful breath.'" Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 127-128

I simply love the last phrase here, speaking of our children as 'beings breathing thoughtful breath.' It's poetry. It's rich. It's all that I long for my children to be.

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If you have others that you really liked or would like to have conversation about, please, please, please comment below. This blog is intended to be an extension of the dialogue begun at the meeting, and what I, or any other post authors, write in my posts isn't meant to be definitive.

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The discussion about Nature Study was really encouraging for me, and, judging from the engagement of so many of you, I'm guessing that it was for you as well. The next post will look at some of the comments that came out of that conversation and will include some links to websites and blogs that were mentioned.

Blessings to you all,

Jennifer