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Charlotte Mason in Modern English
Charlotte Mason's ideas are too important not to be understood and implemented in the 21st century, but her Victorian style of writing sometimes prevents parents from attempting to read her books. This is an imperfect attempt to make Charlotte's words accessible to modern parents. You may read these, print them out, share them freely--but they are copyrighted to me, so please don't post or publish them without asking.
~L. N. Laurio
pg 174
Chapter
16 - How to Use School Books
Disciplinary
Subjects
Now that we've clarified our goal, we begin to ask
ourselves, 'Is there a productive idea behind each of the subjects that
our students are studying?' We no longer believe that 'developing the
faculties' is the most important part of education. If any subject
doesn't originate from some great thought in life, we perceive it as
unhealthy and unproductive, and we reject it. But we keep the subjects
that encourage habits of clear, orderly thinking. Math, grammar, logic,
etc. aren't purely disciplinary. They do help develop intellectual
'muscle.' We don't advocate getting rid of the traditional subjects of
education for school lessons, but we value them for different reasons.
We no longer believe that their worth is in developing specific
'faculties.' We appreciate them even more because we know that they
leave real physical impressions on the brain tissue.
'Open,
Sesame'
If we'd quit thinking of ourselves as assorted 'faculties' and instead
recognize that we're individuals whose job is to get in touch with all
kinds of other people in varying circumstances, from all countries,
climate and times, then we'd have a great educational revolution.
pg 175
History would seem fascinating. Literature would be like a magic mirror
helping us to discover other minds. Studying sociology would be a duty
that we'd delight in. We'd become responsive, wise, humble and
reverent, and we'd recognize the responsibilities and true joy that
make up a full human life. It's too ambitious to think we can achieve
that kind of curriculum, but we can keep it in view. Even that will
help since every human life is shaped after whatever the person
idealizes.
The
Bible is the Great Storehouse of Moral Impressions
Although summaries of its moral teachings can be valuable, it's the
Bible itself that we need, because it's the great storehouse of moral
examples. Here' a quote from De Quincey about this:
'Among all of the vast collection of books in our room when I was
little, there was a Bible, illustrated with lots of pictures. During
long, dark evenings, my three sisters and I would sit by the fire, and
this was the book we would request most often. It had a power to move
us that was as mysterious as music. We all loved our young governess.
Sometimes she would try to explain the parts that confused us, although
she was no expert. We children would be touched with a pensive
moodiness. The restless gloom and sudden radiance of the room caused by
the flickering fire perfectly matched our evening feelings. They also
suited the divine relations of God's power and mysterious beauty that
awed us so much. Most of all, the story of Jesus, the just man who was
man and yet not man, but more real than anything else, and yet more
shadowy and obscure than anything else, who suffered an intense death
in Palestine, brooded over our minds like a morning mist broods over a
pond. Our governess understood and explained the main differences in
the climate to the east. As it happens, all of the differences
pg 176
express themselves in varying relation to the great wonders and powers
of summer. The cloudless sunlights in Syria seemed to indicate that it
was summertime. The disciples picking corn must also have been in the
summer. The very name Palm Sunday, which is a festival in the English
Church, troubled me like an anthem.'
The
Effect Of Our Formal Liturgy on Children
I can't resist from quoting De Quincy again as he beautifully describes
the effect that our liturgy had on him when he was a child. 'On Sunday
mornings, I went to church with the rest of family. The church was
modelled after the ancient churches in England. It had aisles,
galleries, an organ, all old, sacred things, and everything had
majestic proportions. The congregation would kneel during the long
liturgical prayer. When we came to the passage where God is asked to
help on behalf of 'all sick people and young children,' which is just
one of many prayers that are loved for their beauty, I would weep
secretly. Then I would raise my tear-filled eyes and look at the upper
windows of the gallery. On sunny days, I'd see a beautiful sight that
was as inspiring as anything that the prophets ever saw. The sides of
the windows were ornamented with lots of stained glass. The sun would
shine through deep purples and reds so that the heavenly light from the
sun would be mingled with the gorgeous earthly colors of man-made glass
art, illuminating what's the best in mankind. The windows had pictures
of the apostles who had once walked on the earth, serving others
because of God's love for mankind. And there were martyrs who had stood
firm for truth even through flames, pain, and the disapproval of many
hostile, insulting enemies. There were saints who had withstood
temptations
pg 177
and glorified God by humbly submitting to His will.' 'God speaks to
children, too. Sometimes He speaks to them in dreams and in messages
that come in the darkness. But, most of all, He speaks in solitude,
when His voice can be heard because the heart is meditative enough to
hear Him in the truths and services of a public church. God holds
'undisturbed communication' with children. Solitude can be as silent as
light. But it is also as mighty as light because solitude is necessary
to people. Everyone comes into this world alone, and everyone leaves it
alone.'
Principles
on Which to Base Book Selection
The right books have the ability to inspire and stir the emotions. But
that makes us ask, which are
the right books? And I don't want to claim that I have the answer to
that question. Someone might compile a list of 'the hundred best books
for school,' but it won't be me. But I'd like to give one or two
principles about selecting books, and leave the more difficult task of
applying those principles to my readers. For one thing, I think it's
important for children to dig for knowledge for themselves from the
appropriate books in all their subjects. We owe them that. There are
two reasons for this. When a child works and finds something for
himself, it's his for life. But whatever comes too easily from hearing
it like a casual song in the air, tends to float out of the mind as
easily as it floated in. It rarely gets assimilated. I don't mean that
lectures and oral lessons are totally useless, but their role should be
to inspire and give direction to what's learned. They shouldn't be the
medium used to dispense knowledge, and they shouldn't replace the part
of education that comes from appropriate knowledge given in the
appropriate way.
Like I've already said, ideas need to come from the thinker's mind
directly, and it's mostly with the books they wrote that we make
contact with the best minds.
pg 178
Signs
of a Suitable Book
A couple of things can be said about the distinguishing marks of a good
school book. The right book isn't necessarily a big book. When John
Quincy Adams was nine years old, he wrote to his father to ask for the
fourth volume of Tobias Smollett to read in his free time, although he
admitted that he was more preoccupied thinking about birds eggs. Maybe
some of my readers remember reading systematically through the many
volumes of Alison's History of Europe,
privately priding ourselves on how much good we were doing for
ourselves by getting through such a big book. But these days, even
great men write short books, although these books should be used with
discretion because they're sometimes nothing more than abridgments, the
dry dull bones of the subject. But sometimes a short book is fresh and
living. Secondly, it isn't necessary to insist on using only books
written by original thinkers. In some cases, a mediocre mind is able to
assimilate the knowledge about a subject and reprocess it in a form
that's more suitable for students than what the original thinker wrote.
There's no hard and fast rule. A thick book, a short book, a first-hand
source or a second-hand one--either one might be the right book, as
long as we're able to tell when a book is living, able to quicken the
mind, and full of living ideas about its subject.
How
to Use the Right Books
So much for how to tell which are the right books. The right way to use
them is another matter. The children need to enjoy the book. Each of
the ideas in the book needs to make a sudden delightful impact on the
child's mind, causing an intellectual awakening that signifies that an
idea has been born. The teacher's role in this is to see and feel for
himself, and then to prompt his students with an appreciative look or
pg 179
comment. But he needs to be careful that he doesn't deaden the
impression of the idea with too much talking. Intellectual sympathy is
stimulating, but we've all been like the little girl who said, 'Mom, I
think I'd be able to understand it if you'd stop explaining so much.'
One teacher said this about a student--'I find it so hard to tell
whether she's really grasped the concept, or whether she just knows the
mechanics of getting the right answer.' Children are like little
monkeys. All they usually get from a flood of explantions is the trick
of coming up with the right answer.
Children
Need to Work
This process of getting ideas fom the text isn't the only thing we need
to do with books. 'In all work there's some profit.' At least, there's
profit in some work. A book
needs to make a child expend some effort in thinking. The child
needs to make generalizations, classify, infer, make judgments, be able
to visualize, discriminate, or use his capable mind to work in some
kind of way until the knowledge in the book is sorted so that some is
assimilated and some is rejected, according to his own decision. In the
end, he's the one who decides what he'll get out of a book, not his
teacher.
The
Value of Narration
The easiest way to deal with a paragraph or chapter is to have the
child narrate it after a single reading that he's paid close attention
to. Only one reading, no matter how slow, should be the requirement,
because we tend to make sure we'll have another opportunity to 'find
out what it's all about.' If we don't get a clear grasp of the daily
news, there's always a weekend edition. If we still haven't got it,
there's a monthly news magazine, or a quarterly review, or an annual
report. In fact, many of us are content to let present events, history
in the making, pass right by us, and it doesn't bother us. We have a
false sense of security in knowing that, in the end, we'll find out
what happened one way or another. This is a bad habit to get into. We
should make sure that our children don't get into that habit
pg 180
by not giving them a vague expectation that there will always be a
second and third and tenth opportunity to do what should have been done
the first time.
A
Single Careful Reading
There's a big difference between intelligent reading that a child does
in silence, and a mere cramming of information in order to repeat it
back like a parrot. It's a good educational exersize for the child to
be able to give the different points in a descrption, or put a series
of events in proper sequence, or reconstruct the line of an argument
point
by point--after reading the passage just once. This is a skill that
lawyers, publishers and scholars work to acquire. It's an ability that
children can acquire easily. And, once they have it, they'll have
crossed the bridge that divides readers from non-readers.
Other
Uses For Books
But that's only one way to use books. Some other things that can be
done are numbering the statements in a paragraph or chapter, analyzing
a chapter, dividing a chapter into paragraphs with suitable subtitles,
arranging and classifying series, tracing causes to results and tracing
results back to causes, analyzing the characters of people in a book
and considering how character and circumstances work together to
produce a certain outcome--getting life lessons and learning how to
act, which is the living knowledge that can make practical science out
of any book. All of this is possible for students. In fact, they
haven't truly begun their education until they start using books this
way.
The
Teacher's Role
First of all, the teacher's role is to see what needs to be done by
looking over the day's lessons beforehand to see what mental discipline
and vital knowledge can be gotten from various lessons, and then to
plan questions and tasks that will give his students a full scope
pg 181
of mental activity. Writing notes in the margins of books is fine if
it's done neatly and beautifully--books should be handled with respect.
Numbers, letters and underlining can be used to help spot points and to
save the needless work of writing out notes. Let the student write out
a half dozen questions about the passage studied. He doesn't even need
to write out the answers if he understands that the mind can only truly
know whatever it can rephrase as an answer to a question that it asks
itself.
Disciplined
Studies Must Not Come Between the Child and the Soul of the Book
These few suggestions aren't meant to thoroughly exhaust all the
disciplined uses of a good school book. But we do need to make sure
that our systematic exercises and other tools to help grasp and
categorize knowledge don't come between the child and the living
thought that comprises the soul of the book. Science is promising so
much these days, nature seems to be unfolding right before us, art is
revealing so much meaning to us, the world is becoming so abundantly
rich for us, that we're in a bit of danger of neglecting the art of
getting nourishment from books. Let's not impoverish our lives and our
children's lives. As the golden words of Milton say,
'Books aren't static dead things. They contain the potency of life
within them so that they can be as active as the mind who wrote them.
They preserve the purest power and expression of the living mind that
created them, as if it were in a bottle. Killing a good book is almost
like killing a man. Whoever kills a man kills a good, reasonable being
created in God's image, but whoever kills a good book kills reason
itself, and kills the image of God itself.'
Paraphrased by L. N. Laurio
Please direct any comments or questions to me by emailing me at cmseries-owner at yahoogroups dot com.
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