Tag Archives: Charlotte Mason

The Brain

… the brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work.

Charlotte says we often make schedules which give the child’s brain a variety of work, but …

the secret of the weariness children often show in the home schoolroom is, that no such judicious change of lessons is contrived.

Again, I like to view school work in terms of receiving and producing. We need both for an education and alternating the two activities is the key to making the school day move at a pleasant pace rather than a grueling one. Once a child masters reading, reading becomes a “receiving” activity along with listening to a presentation or observing a demonstration — something to place between “producing” activities such as math or writing. Really, these are the only three subjects that truly exist, like the primary colors on the color wheel. From these three skills (reading, writing, and math) students learn all the other “subjects”.  By writing, I include other “producing” activities such as diagrams, oral presentations, poster, and the like. In other words, the child is synthesizing or analyzing information and producing some new and personal way of expressing it.

The teacher should move away from “subjects” and instead use the various subjects as a vehicle for the working of these three skills: reading, writing and math. As soon as the student starts to lag, refresh the brain with a change — she doesn’t have to stop her school work, she just needs to stop producing and move into a receiving mode for a while. Alternating like this helps to keep learning pleasurable and not a hateful task.

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Work, Rest, and Play

Charlotte Mason says it is just as important to give the brain periods of rest as well as good, hard work for it to do. She tells of how blood rushes to the organ(s) being used. While exercising or playing, the blood flows to the extremities. After eating, the blood flows to the digestive system. While the brain is actively at work, the blood flows there.

So, we do not want to feed a child dinner and then send her out for a long walk. It isn’t a good idea to go swimming right after eating. The blood that is needed for digestion leaves its work and floods to the extremities, leaving the meal half digested. If this happens on a daily basis (such as the practice of public schools to feed the children lunch and then send them out to their longest recess), we are setting them up for chronic stomach problems. Moreover, we shouldn’t feed them a large meal, send them out to play for an hour, and bring them in to do math. The brain will have very little blood to work with.

It follows that the hours for lessons should be carefully chosen, after periods of mental rest–sleep or play, for instance–and when there is no excessive activity in any other part of the system. Thus, the morning, after breakfast (the digestion of which lighter meal is not a severe tax), is much the best time for lessons and every sort of mental work; if the whole afternoon cannot be spared for out-of-door recreation, that is the time for mechanical tasks such as needle-work, drawing, practicing; the children’s wits are bright enough in the evening, but the drawback to evening work is, that the brain, once excited, is inclined to carry on its labors beyond bedtime, and dreams, wakefulness, and uneasy sleep attend the poor child who has been at work until the last minute. If the elder children must work in the evening, they should have at least one or two pleasant social hours before they go to bed;

 

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Conditions of Healthy Brain Activity

Nowhere does Charlotte Mason show her love and respect for children more than in her careful and studious instructions on how to create conditions for healthy brain activity. She begins with exercise, comparing brain inactivity with physical inactivity.

…the brain which should have been invigorated by daily exercise has become flabby and feeble as a healthy arm would be after being carried for years in a sling.

She blames eccentricity on someone not having enough to do — pointing out that the large active brain is not content with entire idleness. Instead, it finds paths for itself and then pounds down them, healthy or not. Generally, we understand the ways to physical health, whether we follow them is another matter. The body needs fuel, and the food which is the fuel should be a variety of healthy, wholesome meals. We know the body needs exercise. All of us, but children especially, need to run, shout, jump, play and exert ourselves in fun, physical activities.

So it is with the brain. It works on the same fuel and needs its own mental exercise to grow strong. The outcome of all this is:

Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure; and this for many higher reasons, but, in the first and lowest place, that the mere physical organ of mind will grow vigorous with work.

Some of us believe we are born “smart” or “dumb”. Certainly, we are given limits to our potential. However, the “dumb” label can most certainly be obliterated with enough mental work and effort.

One of the most common errors parents make is to think their children’s brain exercise happens at school.

Not so.

With the difficulties teachers face, they often must and do resort to efficient ways of teaching which will most certainly lessen the work your student’s brain will do. Lectures, where the student passively receives information, groups, where the student shares the work, and assignments which can easily be graded by teachers all cut the work done by your student’s brain.

Another error parents make is to believe that to increase mental effort means to increase school work. Again, this is a grave mistake. Students’ time is already over-packed with school-related activities. I firmly believe homework is not the best help for  learning or to encourage the growth of students‘ brains.

By this time, you’re wondering what the solution is.

Ahh, where should I start? The brain activity available to you and your children is all around you. Puzzles, word finds, riddles, jokes, discussions about the ethics of something, explanations (given by your child), the re-telling of stories heard, movies watched, interactions between friends or siblings, the re-enactment of anything, the careful observation of something, memorizing something, games, drawing, nature study, questions, questions, questions, and listening, listening, listening. The key is your child needs to form something, create something, argue something, reason something, do something.

Think in terms of receiving (consuming) and producing. We need to do both. A child in our consumerist culture will certainly find multiple ways to receive or consume in our society. They are trained into it by television, commercials, school, radio, and video games. Even reading, which is a better way to receive, is still receiving. So, anytime you can find ways to get your child to produce something, you’re giving him the exercise so desperately needed for his brain. Be it a thoughtful response to an open-ended question or a playful skit given for the family, finding ways for your child to produce is the key.

Build me a bridge with your legos that can hold all these quarters. Run to the end of the path, see all the details you can, and report back to me what you see. Teach your sister how to practice for setting a volleyball. Let’s make a … birdhouse, birdfeeder, hat, cake, story, play, etc. Let’s organize a … dance, birthday party, picnic, shopping list, chore list, the laundry room, etc. Let’s write a story, paint a picture, draw my feet, create a collage, write a thank-you, play a song, fix a car, plant a garden, build a chicken coop. Let’s … Let’s … Let’s …

Surely, there is something a child should naturally “take to”, helping to build an interest which may stay with him all his life. Certainly, she will learn the habit of “being interested”, which is a key to happiness.

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Hindering the Children

Charlotte Mason says the most fatal way someone can despise a child is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship with the Almighty God.

 

Suffer the little children to come unto Me,

 

says Jesus.

 

Coming to Christ is the natural thing for children to do, if their elders don’t stop them.

 

Mother and Child watching each other

 

And perhaps it is not too beautiful a thing to believe in this redeemed world, that, as the babe turns to his mother though he has no power to say her name, as the flowers turn to the sun, so the hearts of the children turn to their Saviour and God with unconscious delight and trust.

 

I’ve found this to be true. The young depend upon God with such easy grace we wonder at it.

 

But here is how such faith is lost: adults, though often well-meaning, imply or explicitly state conditions to God’s love. We know better than to return to “God will send you to hell if you do such things!” But do we return in other ways? Do we insinuate conditions into the mind of a child about His love for them? In order to bring about obedience, compliance, agreement or to save ourselves from embarrassment, do we give to understand God will withhold His love (or the child will step outside of it) if he or she continues?

 

Wouldn’t it be better to enjoy relationship with God and include the children in communion with Him? Give them gentle remembrances of how He cherishes them, how He loves them, and how He longs to fill their days with delight. How much greater is obedience motivated by love than fear!

 

Add to this, listless perfunctory prayers, idle discussions of Divine things in their presence, light use of holy words, few signs whereby the child can read that the things of God are more to his parents than any things of the world, and the child is hindered, tacitly forbidden to “come unto Me,” –and this, often, by parents who in the depths of their hearts desire nothing in comparison with God. The mischief lies in that same foolish undervaluing of the children, in the notion that the child can have no spiritual life until it please his elders to kindle the flame.

 

Perhaps the most important witness for your children is your own personal relationship with Christ. Do you trust Him? Or try to please Him? Do you love Him? Or follow a list of rules out of fear? Is He present always? Or just casually mentioned during rituals?

 

If your own relationship with Christ is vibrant and exciting, it seems only natural your children would want to know such a One as this. And if we assume they’d want to know Him and include them in all our doings with Him, friendship is a natural outcome and their own personal interactions will follow. We cannot force relationship. We must remember our children are persons with their own inviolate ability to choose. Christ would never wish to be forced upon anyone, especially a child. The invitation is there, given by Christ himself.

 

English: Jesus Christ with children

 

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

 

To add any strength to Christ’s invitation is to interfere or hinder the children from coming to Him.

 

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A Prince(ss) Raised by Peasants

 

 

A child in the midst — Charlotte Mason reiterates the child’s estate by alluding to Jesus’ words to his disciples.

 

“And He took a child and set Him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, ‘Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me.’”—Mark 9:36, 37.

 

What is a child in our culture today? C.M. repeated a few ideas from her own culture and time– a tablet to be written upon, a twig to be bent, wax to be molded. We have our own ideas of children’s purposes– products of a system, useful tools for society, good citizens, good employees, consumers, etc.

 

But it takes a great poet to put into words the child’s estate: Wordsworth‘s estimate is …

 

Stained glass windows in the Mausoleum of the ...

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

 

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

 

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

 

And cometh from afar;

 

Not in entire forgetfulness,

 

And not in utter nakedness,

 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

 

From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

 

 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

 

Thy soul’s immensity;

 

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep

 

Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind,

 

That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,

 

Haunted for ever by the eternal deep,

 

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind–

 

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

 

On whom those truths do rest,

 

Which we are toiling all our lives to find

 

Thou, over whom thy immortality

 

Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave,

 

A presence which is not to be put by;

 

Thou little child, yet glorious in the might

 

Of heaven-born freedom, on thy being’s height

 

Trailing clouds of glory, best philosopher, an eye among the blind … see how Wordsworth changes the present view of children as a product into someone to learn from? And Christ in his simplicity and efficiency best sums up the child’s estate by reminding us that childhood is the gate through which we must enter the kingdom of heaven. “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” “Except ye become as little children ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” “And He called a little child, and set him in the midst.”

 

By meditating on the words and actions of Christ relating to children, the child’s estate would elevate to its proper place in our minds and hearts– not a being ignored or annoying, but a prince or princess entrusted to the foster care of peasants.

 

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System vs. Method

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If a human being were a machine, education could do no more for him than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of systems.

But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power.

Here, Charlotte Mason brings to the forefront again that our view of our children is what matters. If we see them as only requiring the right system to bring about necessary ends, we undervalue them and view them as beings that are mass-produced.

Schools often undergo expensive adoptions of new curriculum in the hopes that by following it will bring about mass results.

A teacher’s first requirement is a deep love for the kids she will teach. The second requirement is a strong sense of duty to them. The third requirement is the freedom to adopt whatever methods she deems fit for the variety and levels of souls before her. If new curriculum is used, let her use it according to her own wisdom and knowledge of the spirits she guides and the curriculum she is familiar with and loves.

We are dealing with a human soul. If we wish to reach it, we must love and use all our wisdom, prayer, and tools to work with the spirit-being before us.

The mother or father has, of course, a great advantage in the teaching of his or her child because of the many ways in which they interact that can improve the child’s education. All parents should use this advantage.

But any teacher should distrust curriculum that promises mass-produced results and remember she deals with human beings — people who are best taught through story and ideas.

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The Family is the Unit of the World

A generation ago, a great teacher amongst us never wearied of reiterating that in the Divine plan “the family is the unit of the nation“: not the individual, but the family. There is a great deal of teaching in the phrase, but this lies on the surface; the whole is greater than the part, the whole contains the part, owns the part, orders the part;

I agree with Charlotte Mason but would change her words to fit our times. The family is not only the unit of the nation, it is the unit of the world.

The Family is the Unit of the World

Pages could be written about this statement. First, one must look at history. Charlotte Mason wrote before communism and Naziism had bloomed and produced its drastic effects. Both attempts at social change (communism and Naziism) depended upon removal of children from homes and placed in schools where they could be educated into the new ideas. The family was the enemy of the state, an unnecessary mediator, an old-fashioned idea impeding the way to utopia or power.

Today, when I take my teenage daughter to the doctor, the doctor can attempt to interact with her without my interference. My daughter could get birth control, vaccinations, and an abortion without my consent. When I receive a welcome letter from a principal at a school, it says things like … “thank you for sharing your children with us. We promise to take good care of them.” At another high school, the motto is “We Are One, We Are a Family.” Many school officials envision their institution as the social center for a community.Teachers spend their time challenging the many accepted tenets of children’s families, encouraging students to “think for themselves”, “be an individual”, and “free your minds.” Schools have usurped parental roles in all basics. Parents are separated from children. Siblings are divided from siblings. This is the path we deem “normal”.

At a class I was teaching, one elementary student admonished another:

I wish your (little) sisters would quit coming to talk to you while we’re standing in line. They distract the other kids and then we get into trouble. Our line gets messed up.

I defended the poor student. I said,

How wonderful that her little sisters want to be near her! She must come from a close family that encourages sibling harmony. Imitation is the best form of flattery and here her little sisters come, wanting to stand next to the line where her big sister is. They want to show everyone that they belong to one of the cool kids, one of the big kids. This is a good thing. This is something to encourage, to foster, to repeat!

I couldn’t help adding,

That’s one of the main reasons I homeschool — so my daughters don’t have to stand in line all the time and shoo their little sisters away into their own grade!

One of the other teacher’s assistants in the room straightened immediately and retorted,

Standing in line is a part of life! How will they know how to get their licenses or jobs?

I couldn’t help firing back (the sarcasm was a little heavy):

Really? You really think that children wouldn’t know how to stand in line unless they learn it here? When they get their licenses, they won’t know how to grab that little number and sit until they’re called? At least there, they can read a good book while they wait!

I thought to myself,

I’m sure when my daughters are grown, they will mill around in the grocery store, completely at a loss as to how to pay for their food because they are so deficient in the school experience of standing in lines. What would we do without you? How do my children survive?

I almost started to wring my hands in pretended worry, but I realized that would be stepping too far. I dislike myself when I sneer. I changed the subject and brought it back to the shunned little sisters.

Anyway, I think it is lovely that O____’s sisters want to be near her. I think you should welcome them and be kind to them — even if it means standing slightly out of line.

But do you see my point? In Germany, it is still illegal to homeschool. Germany educates children according to state ideals and goals. In America, we’re less overt, but we’re doing the same thing — using schools to inculcate nationalistic ideals. The family is split apart. They isolate the individual under the guise of its glorification. And then, they conquer the individual.

The family is the unit of a nation. As parents, it is our responsibility to 1) feed our children 2) clothe them 3) provide protection 4) model a good character and deliver a moral upbringing 5)  deliver an education (we have many ways to do this, but it is still our responsibility to make sure it is the best we can afford).

If we give these responsibilities over to our nation, it will form the nation’s goals and ideals in our children. The government will feed our children food that benefits it (government subsidized food and an addiction to it). The government will encourage our children to dress according to its values — consumerism. It will protect itself — teaching children to vote in a direction that will make them reliant upon the government and depend upon it for all their needs. The education will make the children fit for government ends.

The river can only rise as high as its source. If the source is the government, then its ideals are the highest our children will attain when educated in a government institution. If our children must be part of it, then parents must take precautions to counteract the many insidious ways the institution tries to separate families and form automatons. We should give them the best of the greatest minds (through the reading of great books) and a good deal of logic so they aren’t subject to wolves in sheep’s clothing. From grade levels to sex ed to special ed to bells and standing in line, a government institution will create food for itself. A government has its uses. Just don’t let your kids become one of them.

This video depicts so vividly what happens in schools. Notice the boy ridiculed for reading poetry. In school, he’s not allowed to read during class, because the teacher believes his material is more important. As long as teachers replace reading with lectures and worksheets, they bolster the conspiracy theory that the institution intends to keep children stupid and compliant. While I don’t agree with children burning their desks and throwing their teachers into the inferno, the violence reflects a truth we already see — that latent, seething revolution waiting to ignite. Shootings, fights, violence, bullying, suicides, drug use — if these symptoms occur among a group of adults, we’d blame poverty and oppression. But since it happens to children, we blame parents, TV, video games, sugar… anything but the institution where they spend their days. Truth is, the worst of public school life closely resembles prison life, from the violence to the sex going on in the bathrooms to the deep hatred of the establishment.

The Wall

There is a second part to Charlotte Mason’s section that I have waited to include because it seems to contradict what I just wrote.

and this being so, the children are the property of the nation, to be brought up for the nation as is best for the nation, and not according to the whim of individual parents… we should remember that the children are a national trust whose bringing up is the concern of all.

Charlotte Mason wrote when nationalism was reaching a fever pitch. She, too, was a product of her time and place. She had not yet seen World War I or II or a communist state and their methods of dividing families to inseminate state ideas. In other words, I believe she was ignorant or blind to nationalism’s dark side.

What I believe we can take from her words, though, is our children are not for our own caprices. Eventually, they will become husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, employees and employers. We should raise our children to be …

I find myself searching for phrases like “gifts to the world”, “blessings to others”, “assets”, and I must throw them all away. If children are persons, then we must treat them so from the beginning. We cannot raise them to be gifts. They are persons. They carry the divine light.They are made in the image of God, a little lower than the angels. We must not objectify them. We should avoid terms describing how to use them.

We must remember children belong to God — that Supreme Being who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. We should tread softly when speaking of children at all. They are not us. They are not ours. They deserve respect, ideas, and a thinking love.

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A Thinking Love

The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society.

This quote rankles me. In a world where so many entities clamor for a piece of our child’s soul — factories, companies, clubs, sports, schools, churches, advertisers — I do not wish to regard our children as belonging to anyone but themselves. Paul and I hide them from all of these hooks and grabs and picks that want to use our daughters for their own ends.

But Charlotte does not say that children are a public trust. They are not. She says parents should regard them as such. We are often shoddy with our own work and perfectionist when working for someone else. I’ll be punctual for a work meeting and slack on attending church on time. I’ll keep my work desk clean and allow my home to become messy. We are more professional when working for someone else, bottom-line. If we consider our parenting as a professional endeavor and the raising of our children as a product that will be evaluated, we may take our jobs seriously and do for our children better than if we considered them our own. Sad, but true.

I remember when I had Elsa, I actually wrote out a job description (in the form of a mission statement), and decided to “clock-in” hours. Too often, we stay-at-home mothers are tempted to do less by our children because so much of our society does the same thing. We have the sole direction of the children’s early, most impressible years, yet parents are encouraged to give these years over to strangers for the making of our children. Children inhale their environment and it becomes a part of them. The first five years of a child’s life may be the most important learning curve in their lives. Those years lay the foundation for all else.

Regarding our children as a gift to be given to the world may help our minds to battle against societal pressure to undervalue them. It will place children in their rightful place. They deserve a thinking love. We owe our children a careful training, a thoughtful upbringing, a loving, firm path.

Today’s model for child upbringing is a terrible cycle: ignore them until they demand attention in a negative way, be dismayed that they would act in such a way, feel guilty for ignoring them and placate their negativity with some sort of quasi-reward, and as soon as they are happy, ignore them once again.

The mother is qualified and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; … and what is demanded of her is — a thinking love. … God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided — how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education. Pestalozzi

We owe our children and the world a thinking love. They need our attention, our focus, and all of our experience to guide them. We do not realize that every happy hour, every peaceful meal, every restful nap, is actually the very education our world needs so badly. We underestimate the gifts we bestow in a well-managed, loving home. We undervalue the brain growth that occurs from hugs, kisses, interaction at meals, good food, cleanliness, order, daily and weekly routines. We hinder our children from obtaining an education when we ignore them and leave them to themselves too much. They require a thinking love.

A Continual Helper

We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

Yesterday, Paul mowed the lawn. Elsa watched him with interest.

“Dad is kind of chyuckinish about mowing the lawn,” she noted. (Translation: chyuckinish is Greta-ese for “messed up” or “weird”.)

“Why do you say that?” I asked. He wheeled around the yard with Dagne on his lap.

“You should see the pattern! He does a section over there. He misses pieces along the way. Then, he’s over here doing a section.”

“You mean there’s no logical pattern? Wow, that is so unlike Dad.” I said, sarcastically.

Paul’s playful, random way of doing things attracted me. He was refreshing, light and spontaneous. But it was also a source of major communication breakdowns between us. I always list everything in step-by-step order. He might listen to step 2 and 8.

Maybe.

Frustrated, I felt like I was wasting my breath.

Then came Greta. I remember watching her run around the church with one arm swinging in a wide wind-mill. Curious, I wondered why she swung just one arm and not the other. I asked her.

“Cause it makes me go faster,” she retorted.

Her look said, Duh, Mom, don’t you know anything?

Dealing with Greta has helped me to understand Paul. Somehow a mother’s heart is more understanding than a wife’s. We expect more. I sought to understand Greta and, through her, Paul was redeemed. I gained a deep love and admiration for both their random, creative ways of thinking.

Homeschooling Greta has had many miscommunications like this. I explain step-by-step. Her mind does not see steps. She bursts into life and assesses it with an uncanny gut-feeling about things. Her choices and thinking spring from an intuition and joy in life that is completely foreign to me. My mind sorts knowledge into patterns. Paul’s and Greta’s minds go like Paul’s lawnmowing job — willy-nilly. If I mowed the lawn, I probably wouldn’t miss a spot …

but I think I’d have less fun.

When I taught Greta math, we both shed tears of frustration. With Elsa, I explained once. Elsa, who started sorting as soon as those little fingers could pick up an object, grasped what I said with alacrity and never forgot it. It was filed in the correct spot and she could retrieve it anytime she wished. Then … Greta.

I prayed for wisdom. I prayed for Greta. I prayed for myself. I prayed with Greta. Turning to the Father who made us seemed only natural. We were at our wits end and needed help. So we asked for it.

I discussed this with Paul on a walk yesterday.

“I’ve figured out how to teach math to Greta. I skip the explaining. It just weighs her down. Instead, I explain the steps as she does the problem. Then she’s dealing with a step at a time. She doesn’t get bogged down.”

We watched an American Goldfinch balance on the twig of a bush.

I added,

“Teaching is really a spiritual exercise. Love brings the wisdom. It is through love that we find the answers.”

I’m so thankful for the Divine Spirit that has access to our spirits. I am grateful to be able to teach while integrating the spiritual and intellectual life. We are not a bundle of compartments. We are not machines or products. We are spiritual beings.

The Way of the Will and The Way of Reason

14. There are also two secrets of moral and intellectual self-management which should be offered to children; these we may call the Way of the Will and the Way of the Reason.

15. The Way of the Will. — Children should be taught –

(a) To distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’

(b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.

(c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.

(d) That, after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigor.

(This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of suggestion — even self-suggestion — as an aid to the will, is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

16. The Way of the Reason. — We should teach children, too, not to ‘lean’ (too confidently) ‘unto their own understanding,’ because the function of reason is, to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth; and (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps an infallible guide, but in the second it is not always a safe one; for whether that initial idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

17. Therefore children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. To help them in this choice we should give them principles of conduct and a wide range of the knowledge fitted for them.

These three principles (15, 16, and 17) should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

I love how C.M. respects the child by reminding parents to offer them tools. Parents sometimes overcome children’s wills with our own stronger wills. We should not have battles of willpower. This has only short-term advantages. A parent solves the issue at the moment but tramples the child’s spirit. He is left seething or sorrowful. We diminish the child’s ability to choose the right course if we cause an angry, rebellious spirit or a meek, submissive one. We cannot encroach upon the spirit of the child. Parents should view their authority as a responsibility, not a right. The full power of natural law should back a parent’s actions, not personal vexation or manipulation.

A parent’s authority is God-given. When a parent winks at a child’s misbehavior, he is taking this God-given authority and shrinking it into personal caprice. The child senses this and understands that his battle is no longer with great forces in the world, but with a single person’s will. Sensing the shrinking of his competition, she is more likely to engage in battle. She is a child, full of personal power, the natural outcome of which is to test her strengths against the elements. Therefore, a parent should never impose authority for personal reasons (I’m tired, I’m suspicious, I’m angry, I feel out of control, I’m happy, I’m busy). The authority should have the unemotional, impassive force of natural law behind it.

A tool a parent can offer her child is to distinguish between “I want” and “I will”.

I want to play instead of accomplishing the math problems set before me.

C.M. suggests diversion to train the will in the way it should go.

You cannot play instead of doing math, but, why don’t you practice music for now and come back to math in a half hour?

This takes away the dread for the moment and helps the child to come to math with new force. Moreover, C.M. suggests that a child’s school schedule alternate between difficult and light to do subjects with efficiency. Do not arrange all difficult subjects at once. For my children, we arrange our subjects like this: math (difficult), music (light), reading (medium), writing (difficult), read-alouds (light), history (medium), science (varies by child). We spend the rest of the afternoon in pursuit of enjoyable but worthy activities: sports, art, music, hikes, and nature study.

Notice that C.M. warns us from guilting our children into forcing their wills to win against a difficulty. She says it stereotypes our characters (picture the rigid stoic with a tight mouth and passions raging in her chest whose personality has receded beneath her will). We must work with who we are. Do we love the humanities? Do we love the outdoors? Do we dread certain subjects? Let us push ourselves gently. Let us massage our personality into obedience and not pound it into submission. Arrange a schedule for your child that breathes success. With these successes comes good habits.

In proving geometrical proofs, one always starts with a “given.” “Given that angle 1 and angle 2 are supplementary …” we can, step-by-step, make conclusions about the entire figure. If that given is not true, then all our conclusions are likely to be false.

Mathematics is a clean, pristine spring for all reasoning. Mathematics could be seen as the diamonds in the earth of thinking. Harder than all other minerals, it will scratch everything else. Try to live in obstinacy to the laws of mathematics and science and you’ll soon be receiving the Darwin award. They are innate, immoveable, and absolute. We cannot even comprehend beyond the boundaries of it.

Charlotte Mason argues that people’s chief responsibility is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. Once we accept an idea, our minds rapidly supply logical arguments to prove its verity. Givens all have their string of reasoning that follow. But if the given is wrong, the entire proof is wrong. With the rise of the informational age, initial ideas inundate us. Consider the headlines: “Breivik rails at psychiatrists for calling him insane.” Notice the “if …, then …” statements.

“I think that you couldn’t comprehend that a normal person could do something like that,” he said. “You think that a person who does something like that… must be sick.” (If a man kills 77 people, then he must be insane.)

“If I had been a bearded jihadist, there wouldn’t have been any psychiatrists whatsoever,” Breivik said on Monday. (If I am a jihadist, then people would not question my sanity. People recognize jihadists as accepting an initial idea — right or wrong– and following it out with reasoning).

We cannot live apart from our reasoning. We must, with our will, accept and reject initial statements. Our children’s acceptance or rejection of initial ideas can lead them in wonderful and terrible directions. Therefore, we must teach them to take this role of humanity seriously. How? Question them.

The girls at school are mean to each other.

Where did you get this idea? From your own observations? From stories from other girls? Did you take a survey or are you generalizing a single event?

This spring is rainier than last spring.

Are you sure? Or is the rain affecting your schedule more than last spring? Perhaps it is an emotional observation?

This questioning will train children to avoid generalizations, to support statements with facts, and to give logical reasons for which initial ideas they’ve chosen to accept. Furthermore, parents model the questioning for their children. Hopefully, when they read those slanted headlines or accepted myths, or hear a loose statement that has no substance, they can see right through it with clear, pristine thinking.

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