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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 46
Chapter 3 - The Good and Evil Nature of a
Child
Principle 2. Although children are
born with a sin nature, they are neither all bad, nor all good.
Children from all walks of life and backgrounds may make choices for
good or evil.
1.
Well-Being of Body
A well-known educational specialist has accused us of bringing up
children as 'children of wrath.' He's probably exaggerating, because
the opposite view, perceiving children as perfect little angels, is
just as dangerous. The truth is, children are very much like ourselves.
They aren't that way because they've become so. No, they
were born that way. They have
tendencies and dispositions towards good and evil, just like us. And
they have an interesting intuition about what's right and wrong. This
indicates some influence of education. There are tendencies towards
good and evil in body, mind, heart and soul. The hopeful task before us
is that we might strengthen the good in us so that the evil is
crippled. This can be done only if education is subservient to
religion. We are no longer merely concerned about saving our own souls,
but our religion is more open-hearted and responsible. Our religious
thought now encompasses our whole community, nation and race. It's time
for our education to reflect that.
pg 47
When we acknowledge that education is the birthright of all children
simply because all humans deserve to know, rather than thinking of just
our own child, or the privileged children of the upper classes, we have
a sense of openness. It's as if we can breathe more freely. The
prospect is exhilarating. Recognizing the potential in every child,
regardless of his social status, should revolutionize education and
make the weary world rejoice.
Doctors and physical specialists say that all newborns [except those born with birth defects?]
begin healthy. A baby may inherit a predisposition for lung disease,
but he is not born sick with the disease. It is our job to see that
conditions keep him from ever realizing the disease that he has a
tendency toward. [Having a
predisposition for TB doesn't doom you to actually ever having TB!]
In the same way, all possibilities for good are contained in the
child's moral and intellectual capacity. But every potential for good
may be hindered by a corresponding tendency to do bad. We begin to see
what we need to do. It's up to us to know our child, to know what his
passions and weaknesses are. We need to discern the pitfalls that his
traits might lead him to, and the wonderful possibilities he might have
if his better tendencies are allowed free reign to make his path
through life smoother. No matter how disappointing or repulsive a
child's failings might be, we can be encouraged with the certainty
that, in every case, the opposite tendency is there. We just need the
wisdom to figure out how to bring it out in him.
Mothers come by this kind of wisdom more naturally than outsiders, such
as teachers. Of course everyone knows of at least one
exception--there's always one parent who can't do a thing with their
child and hopes that the teacher can whip him into shape. But how often
we're surprised to see that Robert and Polly are more themselves at
home than they are at school! Perhaps that's because parents know and
love their children better than anyone else. Therefore, they believe in
them more, since our faith in possibilities, both divine and human,
grows
as we know more. For this reason, it's good for teachers to get some
understanding of the human nature that's in every child. Everyone knows
that hunger,
pg 48
thirst, rest, and virtue are given by nature to help the body grow and
function. But every child has tendencies to greed, restlessness,
laziness, and corruption. Any one of those vices, if allowed free
reign, can ruin the child, and ruin the man he'll become.
Even the five senses need some guidance and practice. Smell in
particular can be developed to give subtle pleasure by being taught the
habit of discriminating the wonderful smells of the field, garden,
flower, fruit just for their own enjoyment, and not indulging a child's
personal preferences. Pampering the sense of taste too much can rule a
person
and limit what he enjoys. But there isn't a lot of new information to
learn about the body and its senses. Education already trains
children's muscles, cultivates their senses, orders their nerves. And
it does this for all children, both rich and poor, because, in our day,
we understand that development is good for all children. If there's any
lack in the physical side of education, it's in the area of steadying
the nerves. We forget that the nutrition, rest, fresh air and exercise
that benefit the whole body are good for the nervous system, too. The
undue stress from a small child being pressured to carry a cup of tea
without spilling, or, later, cramming for an exam, may be the cause of
a nervous breakdown when the child is older. We are becoming a nervous,
stressed nation. Although golf and baseball may do something for us, a
careful education that stays alert to avoid every symptom of stress
from too much pressure will go a long way in making sure that every
child has a healthy body and good amount of endurance.
One trap that brilliant teachers can fall into is not realizing that an
overwhelming personality can exhaust children. Children are such
enthusiastic, affectionate little souls that a teacher who gives them
approving nods, coaxings and insincere smiles may lure them like the
Pied Piper.
pg 49
But the teacher needs to beware. Relying on the teacher's personality
to win over students is likely to suppress and subdue the personality
of the children. Not only that, but children can become so eager to
live up to the demands of their teacher that they become stressed under
the influence of the charming personality of a teacher. This kind of
subjection was the subject of a recent novel about the German Schwarmerei. In this story, an
unscrupulous but fascinating mistress used her charm with disastrous
results. But the danger isn't with extreme cases. A girl who adores her
teacher so much that she kisses her door, will forget that teacher
someday. But the parasitic habit has been formed, and she will always
need to have some person or some cause to give her life purpose. It
isn't just female teachers who do this. Ever since the Greek days when
youths would hang around their masters in the walks of the Academy,
there have been teachers who have undermined the stability of the boys
they were supposed to be devoting themselves to. Were Socrates'
countrymen entirely wrong about him? The most noble minds who have the
most to give seem to have a tendency for this kind of weakness.
Therefore, it's important for those of us who teach to have a general
understanding of human nature.
2.
Well-Being of Mind
We tend to believe that we have an inalienable right to say whatever we
want, and think whatever we want. We think that, although the body is
limited by physical laws [such as
gravity] and our affections, love and justice are under moral
laws, our mind is ours and ours alone. Maybe this is why we tend to
neglect our intellect. We don't realize that the mind, like the rest of
us, has its own tendencies towards good and evil, and every inclination
it has towards good can be hindered
pg 50
by a corresponding inclination towards evil. I'm not talking about
moral evil. I mean the intellectual evils that we're slow to define,
and careless about dealing with. Teachers need to realize that, no
matter how dull and inattentive a student may seem on the outside, his
intellect is alive inside him. Every child in the classroom is capable
of being stirred by the wonders of science. Every child is interested
in the stars of the winter sky. One teacher said, 'Child after
child writes to say how much they loved reading about the stars.' An
eleven-year-old girl says, 'Sometimes when we're walking at night, I
tell my mother about the stars and planets and comets. She says she
thinks that astronomy would be very interesting.'
But we take a fascinating topic like astronomy, and teach it by
emphasizing heat and light, using devitalized text books, diagrams and
experiments that seem like white magic to children. The invisible
microscopic world fascinates children as much as the universe. They
love learning about the behavior of atoms and ions as much as they
enjoy fairy tales. History, with its collection of interesting
characters, is as good as a story because children can picture the
scenes in their minds. We make a big deal about the costumes, tools and
other details about historic periods. But children just need a few
appropriate and exact words about the subject and they can envision it
in their heads. In fact, with the lively imagination that comes with
their intellect, they can picture long movies about it!
Children are amazing in the way they can take examples offered to them,
and make them their own. When a child hears that Charles IX was 'feeble
and violent,' he'll always remember that characterization, and he'll
learn a lesson about self-control. We shouldn't point out the
moral of the story. That needs to be done
pg 51
by the children themselves, and they do it on their own every time.
What we think may be too difficult doesn't seem to affect them. One
teacher wrote about her eleven-year-old students, 'They can't get
enough of Plutarch's Life of
Publicola. They always groan when the lesson is over.'
I've said a lot about history and science, but math appeals directly to
the mind and, although it's as challenging as scaling a mountain, it
can be just as rewarding. Good math teachers know not to drown lessons
in too many words. What about literature? Introducing children to
literature is like planting them in a rich, glorious kingdom, or like
bringing a continuous vacation to their doorstep, or laying an
exquisite feast before them. But the way they need to learn about
literature is to be familiar with excellent examples from the
beginning. A child's relationship with literature needs to be with good
books, the best available. We've always known that this is the best
thing for children of the educated classes, but what about children who
live in situations where books aren't commonly owned? One wise teacher
in Gloucestershire said that, in dealing with this problem, we need to
realize two things--
'First, defining and explaining hard words is a distraction and an
annoyance to the child. Second, explaining may not even be necessary.
Even though a child may not know the exact meaning of a word, he may
have no problem understanding the sentence or paragraph. He may be able
to get enough from context to even use the word correctly in his
narration. I saw two examples of this last term. One boy in Form IIB [about grade 4] was never considered
an unusually intelligent child. In fact, by his age [maybe 12?], he should have been two
Forms higher. Last term, during the story of Romulus and Remus, I
noticed that in his ability to narrate, and his degree of understanding
by sensing a paragraph and converting it to his own words, he was ahead
of his class, and even ahead of most students in the next higher Form.'
pg 52
The Headmaster of A. said, 'What has surprised us most is the prompt
way in which the boys absorb information and get interested in
literature, and I mean the kind of literature that used to be
considered inappropriate to teach to elementary-aged students. A year
ago, I would never have believed that boys could read Edward
Bulwer-Lytton's Harold: The Last of the Saxon Kings,
Charles Kingsley's Hereward, the Last of the English,
or Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, and
enthusiastically enjoy it. Or that they could
understand and enjoy studying Shakespeare's Macbeth,
King John and Richard II. But experience has
shown us that we have underestimated the abilities and tastes of the
boys. We should have known them better.'
That's the most serious accusation against most schools. The teachers
under-estimate what their students will like, and what they can do. As
far as intellectual things, children have extraordinary possibilities
for good--even mentally challenged or learning disabled children. The
possibilities are so great that, if we were smart enough to let them
use their heads, the children would carry us along as easily as a
gushing
stream.
But what about the opposite intellectual tendencies--the possibilities
for
evil? One of those tendencies dominates many schools in spite of
teachers' best efforts to rouse the slumbering minds of their students.
But, the harder the teacher works, the more careless the students
become. So the teacher prods them with grades, competition for first
place, and the threat of exams is always dangled in front of them. The
result is some haphazard effort, but no living, vital response.
Although the students may enjoy school, and like their teacher, and
look forward to lessons, they don't really have a passion to know just
for the sake of knowledge--yet that's the kind of enthusiasm that
schools ought to be producing. I can think of two sure-fire ways to
guarantee carelessness in a class. One is a teacher who constantly
lectures and won't stop talking. We all know someone in person who
bores everyone by always explaining and clarifying. What makes us think
that children aren't just as bored by that? They try to tell us that
with their wandering eyes, listless expressions and fidgeting hands.
They're using every communicative aspect of their body language to tell
us, and kindly adults simply assume that it means the children just
want to play or go outside. But it isn't play
pg 53
they need; they only need to play some of the time. What they really
need is knowledge expressed in literary language. The chatter of their
smiling, pleasant teacher leaves them cold. And there's another
practice
that we think makes learning easier, but that unwittingly contributes
to mental lethargy. We take pride in reviewing and going over and over
the material to be sure that the students get it. But that kind of
monotony is deadly to children's minds. One child wrote, 'Before we had
these living books, we had to keep reading about the same things again
and again.' Isn't that true? In the homeschool, children are still
using the same books that their grandparents learned from, and public
school text books might be bought used with the names of a half dozen
previous students crossed out! And what about compilations used in
elementary schools that aren't living books, but aren't textbooks
either? No wonder Mr. Fisher, when he opened a public library, said
that he'd been surprised and distressed when visiting elementary
schools, that he didn't see anything in them that he would call a book.
He couldn't find any books that could charm, enlighten or expand the
imagination. And yet, he said, the country was full of artists and
writers. If we want them to really grow, we need to realize that they
aren't like cows who chew the cud--not physically, and not mentally.
They can't be continually rehashing the same tired old material without
deadening and paralyzing their minds. Intellectual life and growth
requires continual forward progress and new information.
When it comes to the mind, habit is useful as a tool, but shouldn't be
the rule that drives curriculum. It has been trendy to focus teaching
on specialized skills [such as magnet
schools that focus on specific subjects like science or math?],
but that's a bad idea. It's not good for people to focus too long on
one topic. For example, we shouldn't be too preoccupied with our daily
affairs and routines to broaden our minds with outside interests and
pursuits. And it's possible for a person to become interested in some
great subject
pg 54
and to throw himself into it until he's so focused on that subject that
he can't function outside of it. Darwin, for instance, lost himself in
science to such an extent that he couldn't enjoy anything else. He
couldn't read poetry, or appreciate art, or meditate on the things of
God. After a lifetime of focusing on science, his mind was unable to
think about anything else. In the great and free age of the
Renaissance, great things were done, great pictures were painted, great
buildings were designed, and great discoveries were made. One single
man might be a painter, an architect, a goldsmith, and a scholar at the
same time. And all that he did was done well, everything he learned was
assimilated into his daily thinking and enhanced his enjoyment of life.
Giorgio
Vasari wrote about Leonardo Da Vinci:
'He had a divine and wonderful mind. Since he was excellent at
geometry, he was able to sculpt and prepare many architectural plans.
He designed mills and other engines powered by water. Painting was his
life, and he studied drawing by observing real objects from life.'
Leonardo knew nothing about our recent popular phrase, 'art for the
sake of art.' Neither did Britain's Christopher
Wren, who was also a great mathematician and knowledgeable about
many things. Architecture was just one of his many interests, yet he
built St. Paul's Cathedral in London. How sad that his idea to plan
London so that it would be beautiful and spacious was rejected because
it would cost too much to carry out! And we also reject the minds of
our country's children because we're too stingy. Their minds could make
their lives more fulfilling, more useful, more filled with beauty, with
very little cost to us. It's good for us to realize that education is
something that continues throughout life. We must always be learning
more and increasing our knowledge.
Of all the ways we hinder mind growth, perhaps the most subtle way is
with comprehension questions. It's no different than expecting a child
to show us
pg 55
how his food is being digested at all different stages after dinner!
Requiring that of a child wouldn't help his digestion. In fact, he
would starve! The mind is the same. It needs its food, and it needs to
be left alone to assimilate and digest knowledge on its own. If a child
seems capable, we assume he has more depth than he really possesses,
and we ask him ridiculous questions that bewilder him: 'If John's
father is Tom's son, how are Tom and John related?' A shallow child can
guess the answer and impress everyone. Yet we use tests like this to
produce youth who are quick at trivia, but have no ability to reflect
and no intellectual pursuits. All they know is how to look cool.
The imagination can become like the filthy cave that Ezekiel mentioned.
There were all kinds of ugly, evil things in there. It might be like a
temple where the Self is glorified, or a chamber of horrors. But it
doesn't have to be, it might also be like a beautiful house. The
imagination stores all kinds of images. Do we want its walls to be
adorned with images from the movies, cheap novels, shocking pictures?
Or great art, and visions inspired by the works of Homer and
Shakespeare? One man's imagination became obsessed with the Sphinx!
These days, uneducated people admire Reason
above everything else, and their reason leads them to make mistakes.
Students need to be able to spot faulty logic. Even more important,
they need to know that Reason is man's servant, not his master. A
person can take any idea and, once he decides to believe it, his reason
will find logic to justify his choice--even a bad choice, like
mistrusting a neighbor, being jealous of his wife, doubting his faith,
or even having contempt for his country.
When we understand this, we can see how men found plausible logic to
justify going on strike after two workers were denied access to a
pg 56
meeting. We can see the unfairness of denying the men access, but
people tend to confuse reason with what's right, and the workers
thought that one unfair incident gave them the right to protest by
striking. The only way to keep a nation morally and economically strong
against fallacies that threaten to undermine it, is to provide
education for everyone, the kind of education that encourages them to
reflect and compare while providing enough information on which to base
sound judgments.
What about what Coleridge called the aesthetic appetite? Much of the
appreciation for culture depends on it. But it is vulnerable. Without
beauty to feed on, it becomes empty and dies. It needs to feed on
beauty--beauty in words, art, music and nature. The purpose of our
beauty sense is to open a paradise of beauty for our enjoyment. But
what if we grow up admiring the wrong things? Or, even worse, what if
we grow up believing in our arrogance that only we and those just like
us know how to discern and appreciate beauty? An important part of
education is being exposed to lots of beauty, and learning to recognize
it and being humble in its presence.
3.
Intellectual Appetite
The physical body has natural appetites. Undue indulgence on any one
appetite can ruin a person, but keeping them in balance brings health
and strength. In the same way, our souls have natural appetites whose
purpose is to make sure that we get the nourishment we need for
spiritual or
intellectual growth. Current educational practices make a serious
mistake by latching onto these natural desires in inappropriate ways.
Every child wants approval. Even a baby wants praise when she wears her
new red shoes. Every child likewise wants to be first, to get some of
whatever is offered, to be admired, to lead and manage others, to have
companionship with peers and adults,
pg 57
and, finally, to satisfy his curiosity to know. Those normal desires
are there, ready to act when needed. It's our job to work with them to
educate the children. And we do make use of them--a little too well, and in all the wrong
ways! We use children's desire to be first in a competitive way, so
that the most assertive student, rather than the most capable student,
takes first place. We use children's desire to get what is offered by
offering public acclaim, rewards, prizes, and scholarships as
incentives--which encourages children to be greedy. We play upon a
child's vanity and desire to be liked by the teacher, and we create
stress because the child tries too hard for approval. One might wonder
what harm there can be in using the tools that are already there in the
child's make-up. Even an athlete can damage the muscles he was born to
use if he over-does it too soon. A boy whose ambition or tendency to
admire is unduly stimulated will become a careless and weak person. But
that's not the worst of it. We all crave knowledge as much as we crave
bread. We all know how giving more exciting food can kill a child's
desire for wholesome bread. The worst thing about tapping into other
desires to motivate children to learn is that it kills the natural
desire to learn for the love of knowledge. The excitement of finding
out which should carry children eagerly through their school careers,
and which should enhance them all their lives, is choked out. Instead
of enjoying the pure act of learning, children cram to pass tests
without really internalizing the knowledge. They do pass their tests,
but they still don't really know. The God-given curiosity that should
have sustained their learning for their entire lives doesn't even
survive elementary school.
It has been proved that the joy of knowledge itself is enough to carry
a child successfully and happily through all twelve years of school.
Prizes, first place standings, praise, blame and punishment aren't
needed to guarantee enthusiasm and an eagerness to work. The love of
knowledge is enough. All of those other desires should play a
pg 58
part, but it seems like one or two desires are manipulated in
excess of the others. The area of conduct gives all students an
opportunity to excel, especially in team sports, where most of the
natural desires are at work. But even in play, we need to be careful
that a competive spirit doesn't overshadow the more important feelings
of love and fairness. In class, the pure stimulation of knowledge
itself should be enough to motivate students to pay attention and
persist in completing their work. A student who is constantly winning
prizes for being at the top of his class may be displaying greed, not a
love of learning.
4.
Misdirected Affections
Those of us who deal with children sense that they have more than
intellectual minds and physical bodies. Whether we call it 'soul' or
'emotions,' we find ourselves appealing to that spiritual part that
makes us who we are. We've probably never even taken the time to
analyze and name the different emotions, and we might never have
figured out that they all fit within the headings of love and justice.
It is a glorious gift to be able to show love and justice in any
situation. When such a situation arises, we have all the love and sense
of justice we need to deal with it, we never run out.
This divine gift is something that teachers should consider. And they
do, but in the wrong way. They point out the moral of stories with
numerous clichés. They lead, teach, illustrate--and thus bore
the delicate, sharp minds of their students. The area of feelings is
where teachers should be more careful--they should be hesitant to
praise or blame children in the area of feelings because students will
either disregard their praise and blame, or else they will focus on it
to the extent that it becomes their only motive for doing things--they
pg 59
won't choose to do something because it's the right thing to do,
they'll
do it to gain someone's approval.
Moral education, the education of the feelings, is too delicate and too
personal for teachers to take on by trusting their own resources.
Children can't be fed morals with predigested food as if they were
pigeons. They need to pick and eat for themselves, and they do this by
observing or hearing how others act. They need a lot of mental food
dealing with conduct, and that's why so much poetry, history,
fiction, geography, travel, biography, science and math are made
available. No one knows which particular bit will ignite a spark in a
child. A small boy of eight years old may come downstairs late for
breakfast because 'I was thinking about Plato and couldn't button my
shirt.' Another child may find his sustenance in Peter Pan! We don't
know what will feed any particular child, but all children have
complex, multi-faceted natures, so all children must read widely, and
they must 'own' what they read in order to nourish their moral being.
What about morality lessons? They are useless. What children need is a
lot of excellent moral food of many different kinds, and they'll
extract moral lessons from it themselves. Every child is gifted with Love and is able to express it in
all its possible manifestations: kindness, goodwill, generosity,
gratitude, mercy, empathy, loyalty, humility, gladness. We adults are
amazed when the most common child showers one of those manifestations
of love on us. But all children have been provided with enough love to
last their whole lives. Yet we adults are aware of how we've been
tainted and tend to be ordinary and common. So, when it comes to
teaching children morals, we don't trust ourselves. Instead, we draw on
the rich resources of the best we can find in art and literature,
especially the Bible, to teach children's delicate spirits about these
most important issues.
pg 60
St. Francis of Assisi, Collingwood [William Gershom? or Admiral
Lord Cuthbert?], Hawaii's
Father Damien or one of our soldiers who was awarded for bravery,
will
inspire children more than any lectures and clichés of ours.
And there is another gift to help us live right which even the most
neglected person or the remotest savage is born with: a sense of
fairness. Everyone has justice in his heart. Even an unruly mob demands
fair play, and everyone knows how children pester us with their
accusation of, 'it's not fair!' It's important to realize that every
person has, not only enough love to live a good life, but enough
justice. Discontent and unrest in the masses, which grows as the result
of wrong thinking and making judgments incorrectly, is not so much the
fault of bad conditions as a misguided sense of justice with which
every person is born.
Justice is another area that needs to be educated. But, all too often,
schools fail to educate properly. The sense of justice is so strong
that no amount of neglect or bad teaching can kill it, but if it's
choked from its natural course, it spreads devastation instead of
helping the child live a good life.
One of the most important tasks of education is teaching students to
distinguish between their rights and their duties. We each have our
rights, and others have duties towards us, just like we have duties
towards them. But it's not easy to make someone understand that we have
the same rights as everyone else and no more, and that others owe us
only as much as we owe them. That principle is born within each of us,
so it's within us to understand it and adjust our perception. But it
doesn't come naturally--our eyes must be taught to see. And that's
where education comes in. But if education isn't teaching students to
understand justice as it relates to others, then it's useless. To think
in a
way that's fair and just takes knowledge as well as reflection.
Students must also learn that their thoughts are not their own. More
about this is in Volume 4, Ourselves.
What we think about
pg 61
other people can be just and fair, or unjust. We owe everyone we deal
with a certain manner in the way we speak to them, and not saying the
things we should amounts to being unjust to our neighbors. Truth, or
justice in our words, is due from all people. It's a wonderful tool to
be capable of discerning truth, but that tool is only available to
those who are careful about what they think. Francis
Bacon wrote, 'Truth, which only judges itself, teaches that
questioning truth (which is the wooing of truth), or knowing truth
(which is the presence of truth), and believing truth (which is the
enjoyment of truth)--this is the highest good of human nature.'
If it's important for all students to learn justice in word, it's even
more important to learn justice in action (integrity). Integrity on the
job won't allow a worker to turn out shoddy work. A skilled worker
without integrity will try to do as little as possible in his work
time. A student may not be receiving a salary, but he does receive a
reward in the form of support, the cost of his education and trust from
his teachers and parents. He must not be careless and hasty with his
work, or dawdle, or postpone, or cheat or otherwise shirk from his
work. He must learn that his duty towards others is to resist stealing.
Whether a man is a servant, a workman, or a wealthy white-collar
worker, he should understand that justice requires that he have
integrity in his honesty, and not have the kind of common honesty that
's dishonest when no one's looking. A good example of honesty and
values is illustrated
by George Eliot's character 'Caleb Garth' from Middlemarch.
There is one more area where broad-minded citizens of the future need
to be taught justice: the area of opinions. Our opinions reveal how
much integrity we have in out thinking. Everyone has many opinions, but
whether our opinions are our own through the sincere process of working
them out in our own minds, or popular notions we picked up from the
media or our colleagues, shows how much integrity we have. A person who
thinks out
pg 62
his opinions conscientiously with a realistic assessment of his own
abilities, is doing what he ought. He is doing his duty as much as if
he saved a life, because no duty is any more or less important than
another.
If children need guidance to get them to think justly so that their
opinions will be trustworthy, how much more do they need guidance so
that they'll have just and fair motives--or, what we call sound
principles? After all, principles are simply the motives that we give
priority and allow to lead our actions and thoughts. It seems like we
absorb our principles casually--we rarely even have any definite
consciousness of them. Yet our very lives are ordered by them, for
better or worse. This is one more reason why wide, carefully planned
reading is useful. There are always buzzwords in the air: 'What's the
use?' or, 'Nothing matters in the end,' and others. A vacant mind will
latch onto these and make them the basis of thought and behavior. They
will become the worthless principles that guide the person's life.
And this is one more reason why nothing in the world of literature is
too good to educate children. Every wonderful story, enlightening poem,
informational history, every glimpse into travel books and every
discovery in the world of nature, is there to teach children. Maxim Gorky said,
'The earth belongs to the child, always with the child,' and there is
truth in that.
We believe that the PNEU has benefited education by discovering that
all children, including the mentally challenged, know what they need
and are desperately eager to get the nourishment they need. They don't
need to do any exercises to prepare themselves to take in this
nourishment. A limited vocabulary, underprivileged home life, or lack
of familiarity with books isn't a hindrance. In fact, those challenges
can be strong motivators in the same way that the hungrier the child,
the more readily he eats his dinner. This statement is not some
idealistic
pg 63
opinion. It has been well proved in thousands of children. Students in
a poor school in the inner city are eager to tell the whole story of Waverly, and their tellings capture
the beautiful language and style of the author. They talk about the
Rosetta Stone and other artifacts in their local museum. They discuss
Plutarch's Coriolanus and
conclude that his mother must have spoiled him! They know every detail
of a de Hootch painting by heart, or a picture by Rembrandt or
Botticelli. They're capable of grasping the march of history, the flow
of drama, the subtle sweet inspiration of a poet. But they won't learn
anything that isn't presented to them in literary form.
Whatever they receive in literary form, they absorb immediately. And
they prove that they know it by being able to tell about it
confidently, clearly, and with charm and spirit. And these are the
children who have been expected to learn from nothing but the three R's
for
generations! It's no wonder that juvenile crime is increasing. An
intellectually starved child has to find some kind of food for his
imagination, and outlet for his intellect. And, like an exciting movie,
crime offers brave adventures.
5.
The Well-Being of the Soul
Now we leave the outer courts of the mind and body, the holy places of
the affections and the will (we'll return to the will later). Now we'll
enter the holy of holies inside the person, where he serves God. We may
wonder what education can do for the spirit of a child. 'What can
outwit
a man's understanding? What is out of the range of a man's thoughts, or
out of the reach of his aspirations? It's true that his own ignorance
baffles him. Even the wisest man is full of ignorance. But ignorance
doesn't mean he can't learn. The wings of a man's soul beat
impatiently against the bars of his ignorance. He wants
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out, he wants to be free to go out into the universe of infinite
thought and infinite possibilities. How can a man's soul be satisfied?
Kings have sacrificed their crowns because they want something greater
than kingdoms. Profound scholars are frustrated by the limits that
confine them to only dip their toe into the deep ocean of knowledge. No
great love is satisfied with only loving. There is only one thing that
can satisfy the soul of man. The things around him are finite,
measurable and incomplete and his soul can reach farther than it can
grasp. He has a desperate, relentless, unquenchable thirst for
something infinite.' [from
Volume 4, Ourselves] 'I want, I am made for, and I must have a
God.' We need God, not the mere outer form of religion. Inside all of
us we have an infinite capacity for love, loyalty and service, and we
can't expend these on anything but God.
How do we plan education to prepare children to seek the God they need,
the Savior who is all the help they'll ever need, the King who gives
them all the joy they can hold, and who is worthy of their complete
adoration and loyalty? Any words or thoughts we might have will be poor
and insufficient. But we have a resource--a treasury of divine words
that children can read and know with satisfying pleasure, and that they
can tell about with beauty and relevance: The Bible.
One ten year old who read many books said, 'The Bible is the most
interesting book I know of.' Little by little, children get what they
need to know about God in order to fulfill St. Chrysostom's prayer,
which is a part of the Episcopalian liturgy: 'Let us know Your truth
while we're in this world.' Everything else that children learn gathers
around the truth of the Bible and illuminates it.
Here's an example of how this kind of knowledge grows. I listened to a
class of thirteen year old girls read an essay about George Herbert.
The essay included three or four of his poems. None of the girls had
ever read the essay or any of the poems before. They narrated what they
pg 65
had read, and, while narrating, gave a complete paraphrase of The Pulley, The Elixir and one or two of his
other poems. They remembered every point that the poet had made, and
they used his original words pretty freely. The teacher commented about
one or two unusual words, but that was all. If she had tried to explain
or enforce (in a way that wasn't reverently sympathetic and showed that
she cared) then it would have been meddling. Interestingly,
hundreds of students the same age in classrooms and home correspondence
schools read
and narrated the same essay and paraphrased the poems easily. I felt
humbled by these children. I knew I could never immediately and quickly
understand so many pages of a new book, especially if it included poems
that were obscure and vague. This is how the minds of great thinkers
enlighten children and help them grow in knowledge, especially the
knowledge of God.
And yet this most important part of education is often drowned in a
flood of
words, or tedious repetitions, or chiding and reprimanding--all kinds
of ways that result in the mind becoming bored, and the affections
deadened.
I have tried to outline some of the possibilities for good in children,
but, at the same time, corresponding possibilities for evil that are in
every child. Children desperately need guidance and control, but, even
more than that, they need the influence of knowledge to help them
develop internally. I've avoided using technical terms and have used
the more common words--body, soul, mind, spirit--because these words
represent concepts that, although we can't define, we all can grasp.
These ideas need to be the foundation of how we think about education.
We also need to be familiar with the raw material we have to work with
if our education is going to be effective. So we need to know about
children, and what
pg 66
they need--but not their needs based on how we can make them useful
cogs in society's wheel, or based on the standards of the current
culture. We need to know their requirements based on their personal
potential and unique needs. We don't want to educate them towards
'self-expression.' After all, a young child doesn't have much to
express yet, except what he's already learned from lessons or
experience. Even if he's not yet accomplished at expressing
originality, what he can do
is take in and digest knowledge, and give it back in his own individual
way because his unique mind has modified it and re-created it and made
it 'his own.' This unique originality can be produced from the same
mind food that everyone else is getting. It becomes original as it
reacts on the unique mind of each particular child.
Education implies that the mind is taking in knowledge from the outside
world. But if something causes the mind to draw inward for
introspection or in self-consciousness, intellectual progress stops.
You may have been disappointed that I haven't delved into current
psychology. Undoubtedly the subconscious mind does exist somewhere
between mind and body, where the mind submits to the physical body. The
mind, by definition, is always and forever conscious, so talking about
a subconscious or unconscious mind sounds contradictory. But
psychologists mean that the mind is able to think in ways that we
aren't conscious of, and they say that we need to look deep within
ourselves and make ourselves aware of the nature of our subconscious
and how it works. But that much introspection and self-occupation isn't
healthy. So far, the results of this kind of study are not encouraging.
They seem to be trying to tell us that the best that's within us
originates in 'complexes.' We have a sensory complex, erotic complex,
greed complex, etc. Even if these possibilities are safely hidden away
within us, it seems dubious to nourish the mind so that the seed
of base desires will bear beautiful fruit. This kind of research is
undoubtedly fascinating, and may eventually contribute to education
pg 67
by adding a few interesting facts about the mind to our store of
knowledge. But so far, such research hasn't improved the field of
education. It's possible that the mind, like the body, has certain
regions that were never meant to be touched. If we simply stick to
those areas of the mind that we do
know about, we may have enough information to come up with something we
don't have yet: a Science, or, even more accurate, a Philosophy of Education.
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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