Read Along: For the Children's Sake Ch 5
Education: A Science of Relationships. It’s not about how much children know when they have finished their education, but about how much they care.
A PDF of this article may be downloaded here.
It’s well to remember that education is taking place during all of the waking hours and is not limited to between certain hours. Macaulay emphasizes throughout her book that it is the balance of the entire offering which counts and even if a child has to attend a mediocre school, there are ways that parents and others may play an important role in providing possibilities for a child to build relationships with a vast number of things & thoughts.
Charlotte Mason’s view of education doesn’t see children as blank slates upon which we imprint ideas, impressions & knowledge, but neither does it mean that we should we leave them unattended like weeds growing beside a pavement. She believed that All children should have a broad education; that this was not just for the elite, the academically inclined or the gifted child.
‘A child should not be left to stumble upon educational material by chance. Charlotte Mason took great care to provide a wide variety of curriculum. Otherwise the child will be deprived of the best in ideas, culture, literature, science, etc.’
Charlotte Mason believed there are three sorts of knowledge proper to a child: the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Man and the knowledge of the Universe.
Knowledge of God
Mason believed that this ranks first in importance in a child’s life, but that it needs to be lived rather than imposed upon a child. (See A Philosophy of Education)
The Essence of Christianity is Loyalty to a Person.––Christ, our King. Here is a thought to unseal the fountains of love and loyalty, the treasures of faith and imagination, bound up in the child. The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty, passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief. We have laid other foundations––regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith, the Bible––any one of which, however necessary to salvation in its due place and proportion may become a religion about Christ and without Christ.
There were things I just accepted as ‘right’ when I was growing up because I saw that my Mum & Dad either did them or didn’t do them. They didn’t have to explicitly teach me some of this stuff because they lived it. Their values were passed on through our relationship. As parents, we are responsible for putting the child into direct contact with the One who communicated with us.
Macaulay gives some ideas on how to do this without wearying a child e.g. discussing ideas together, putting children in touch with other Christians by reading interesting biographies and books, including literature that expresses the dilemma of the non-Christian. She shares aspects of her life that helped her growing up in a missionary setting: a grounding in God’s Word; seeing her parents daring to trust God; answered prayers; talking about real questions people have; meeting all sorts of people; listening to the logic of the Christian ideas as they were discussed and seeing where the ideas of the other point of view led.
Charlotte Mason gives this advice which is especially important for our children as they mature:
Lay the foundations of their faith…they should know fully in Whom they have believed, and what are the grounds of their belief. Put earnest, intellectual works into their hands. Let them feel the necessity of bracing up every power of mind they have to gain comprehension of the breadth and the depth of the truths they are called to believe. Let them not grow up with the notion that Christian literature consists of emotional appeals, but that intellect, mind, is on the other side. Supply them with books of calibre to give the intellect something to grapple with––an important consideration, for the danger is, that young people in whom the spiritual life is not yet awakened should feel themselves superior to the vaunted simplicity of Christianity.
Emotional appeals are not strong enough to stand up against life’s difficulties when they come along. This applies to all of us. My own faith started with an emotional bang, which I believe I needed at the time, but it had to be hammered out intellectually over time as well.
An allegory such as Little Pilgrim’s Progress presents truth to children in a way they can grasp. My daughter-in-law read a lovely, HB illustrated edition written by Helen Taylor and illustrated by Joe Sutphin to our three and five-year-old grandsons and they hung on every word.
How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer is a book we used with all of our children when they were in their teens. The author traces key moments in the history of Western culture and the thinking of the people behind those moments in order to shed light on modern times. Schaeffer draws on his study of theology, philosophy, history, sociology and the arts in this work.
‘…we live in a time when our culture is all-invading, all-persuasive. The population, as a whole, is led like a pig with a ring in its snout. Unthinking opinions are the order of the day. The consensus of opinion is more important that what is right or true…We live in a passive age. “Let the experts decide” about the ethics of abortion, the practices of the educational system, the legality of family laws.
It is an imperative priority, as never before, to allow our children to learn to think, understand, and see the central truths quite explicitly and clearly. This is a central part of the “Christian” aspect of our education.’ Pg 101 FTCS
The God Who is There is another of Schaeffer’s books that is suitable for older students.
C.S. Lewis has been a favourite author in our home both for his fictional and nonfictional work which is intellectual but also very accessible. E.g. The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity.
How to be Your Own Selfish Pig...and Other Ways You've Been Brainwashed by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay - a very readable & practical introduction to Christian apologetics.
Knowledge of Man
Charlotte Mason goes into detail regarding this – six chapters in her final volume, A Philosophy of Education. She covers History, Literature, Morals & Economics: Citizenship, Composition, Languages (English, Grammar) & Art. Before I continue with the some of these details, it’s important to understand what Charlotte Mason meant by the term, ‘Living Books,’ because she required them to be used all across the curriculum.
One of the foundational ideas in a Charlotte Mason education is that just as children need food for their bodies to grow & develop, so they need ‘food’ for their minds. This food comes through ideas. Ideas are sparks of truth passed from a great thinker to another mind. Ideas come via living books.
What are Living Books?
Books that are well written and full of living ideas about its subject. They ought to be the best books, written by someone who is deeply interested in their subject. They may be fiction or non-fiction and should spark the imagination. Non-Fiction books that are living are usually written in a narrative or story form.
How to Know if a Book is Living
Read a chapter & ask:
· Is the writing of excellent quality?
· Does it contain living ideas and knowledge suitable for the child?
· Does it make an impact on the reader's mind (shown by his narrations)?
· Can you narrate (tell) about what you’ve read?
Nonfiction books such as history, geography, nature, religion or science that we use with children should be living books. The food children need for their minds is knowledge & it should be presented in literary language. There needs to be a great variety of well-planned and disciplined reading. We don’t use a scattergun approach in educating a child, where we just follow what a child wants.
The books we use shouldn’t be Twaddle; goody-goody sort of stuff – writing that’s beneath a child, dumbed down, (that’s like feeding a child junk food – it spoils their appetite for the nutritious food they need) but should feed the child’s spirit – their thoughts, feelings or soul.
If a child tends to consume mostly high adventure stories, it’s a bit like feeding them chillies or food that is too spicy - it deadens the taste buds for regular food.
A book doesn’t have to be old to be worthwhile (although books such as children’s classic literature that have survived the passage of time are usually living) but not all old books are.
Just because a book is Christian doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile.
Children sometimes choose books in the same way they’d choose food if left to their own devices. They pick the junk - lollies & chips instead of a nourishing meal.
In a Charlotte Mason education it’s up to the parent/teacher to choose which books to use.
Children need to develop their mental muscles so the books we use should challenge them. They must dig for their knowledge. Digging is hard work and requires a level of fitness. If a book is difficult and they push back about reading it, we might need to take a bit more time and persevere with it to increase their ‘fitness levels.’ The idea is to challenge but not crush them.
I’m specifically talking here about the books we use for ‘lessons.’ Easy books are helpful & are great for reading practice or leisure.
Books that only provide facts and not living ideas (information rather than knowledge) are like giving your child a meal of sawdust. Living books are ‘padded’ or clothed in literary language. This is also true of science books & is especially important in the primary/elementary school years. For a slightly expanded version of this and some ideas on reading aloud to children I’ve put together this PDF.
On page 105 of FTCS, Macaulay applies the three instruments of education to the Knowledge of God. Relationships are meant to be living and of course, this applies to our relationship with God. There isn’t a three-step programme we use with our children to achieve this and while it is necessary to lay foundations (regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith, the Bible) a religion about Christ and without Christ is not a relationship.
