Tag Archives: Family

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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Despising the Children

Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue

However much we may delight in children, we grown-ups have far too low of an opinion of children.

If the mother did not undervalue her child, would she leave him to the society of an ignorant nursemaid during the early years when his whole nature is, like the photographer’s sensitive plate, receiving momently indelible impressions?

Today, we have daycares — some better than others. But still, we must know when the child will gain the majority of his learning (during the first five years), it may take place with a person who is “doing a job” and the time is divided among many competing needs. All those moments that could be used for the learning of language, loving touches, pleasurable kisses and caresses, the smell of mama, the careful consumption of food with loving interactions, the nuzzling, the laughing, the games, the peek-a-boo, the cooing, the blowing in faces, and the smiling replaces, at best, a general routine where the growing person is just one among many.

It is not what happens at daycares that is so terrible. It is what it replaces. 

Mothers don’t have to be at the constant beck and call of their little ones — but, if we are not to despise them, we should give them the best of us. If we are tired and harried and exhausted and that is the only part of their mothers that they see, shame on us.

One of many ways in which parents show a low opinion of their children is in the matter of their faults. A child reveals an ugly trait — he is greedy, she is vindictive, he tells a lie …

and the mother puts off the evil day of reckoning, hoping that he will know better by-an-by.

What happy days for herself and her children would the mother secure if she would keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters!

The child should never do wrong without being aware of it. He is never too young to be corrected or prevented. Deal with a child on the first offense and on every one afterwards. If a habit of wrong-doing is formed by overlooking or ignoring, the cure is slow to come and perhaps may not come at all.

Sometimes parents ignore one child’s misbehavior to focus on another child’s misbehavior. For instance, in telling. We can see the manipulative desire to get a sibling into trouble with a tattle-tale. Tattling can be dealt with. Speak to the motive. Are you moved to get your sibling into trouble or because of general concern for his or someones else’s welfare?

But then, and this is where parents make a grave mistake, they ignore the original offender. The child tattled on must be dealt with as well. Never should their offense be overlooked because of the way it arrived.

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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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A Method of Education

Method implies two things– a way to an end, and step-by-step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end or object to be arrived at. What do you propose that education shall effect in and for your child? Again, method is natural; easy, yielding, unobtrusive, simple as the ways of Nature herself; yet, watchful, careful, all-pervading, all-compelling. Method, with the end of education in view, presses the most unlikely matters into service to bring about an end; but with no more tiresome mechanism than the sun employs when it makes the winds to blow and the waters to flow only by shining. The parent who sees his way…to educate his child, will make use of every circumstance of the child’s life almost without intention on his own part, so easy and spontaneous is a method of education based upon Natural Law. Does the child eat or drink, does he come, or go, or play–all the time he is being educated, though he is as little aware of it as he is of the act of breathing.

Parents must accept the responsibility of educating their children, regardless of whether or where they send them to school. Parents should know what they are aiming at — what kind of character do I want my child to have? Everything … the atmosphere, the choices, the activities, the car-drives, the dinner table, the breakfast table, is used in the service of bringing about the chief end of education — a child of good character.

Books in the car. Reading aloud during dishes. A story told.

In a car ride…

“There were a million mosquitoes…”

“Did you count them?”

“Well, no, but there were a lot!”

“Always be exact. Be specific. Be truthful! Tell me more about what happened.”

Every small thing is a teaching moment.When parents accept their role without excuses and recognize that everything does shape the child, when this fact is accepted, then parents see their way, and can make use of their city or country living, their work, their home atmosphere, their gifts and strengths, their activities. Parents will see their environment as education. They will view their own personal choices and caprices as education.

Time is not compartmentalized as “learning time.” It’s all learning.

Parents educate their children without their willingness. The responsibility cannot be removed. The messy house? The child ingests it. The unhealthy food? The child acquires a taste for it. The marriage tension? A son or daughter senses it. The insecurities, the white lies, the secret enjoyments are all breathed in by the child. And also, the jokes, the jollity, the fun, and the love. Kisses and hugs are food to him. Compliments and assurances are like balm to her. Ignoring her goes to her very soul. Neglect is felt in his bones. And personal attacks are thorns in their hearts.

Everything is education! The parent must take pains to create an atmosphere of love and learning.

We don’t have to be perfect. But we … must … be… honest.

Do we want our children to share their hearts with us? Share our hearts with them. Do we want them to open up? Open up. Do we want them to be courteous? Do not allow incivility.

From counting the spoons to set the table to waiting to eat until after grace, from (dis)honoring the Sabbath to family functions and traditions, education is going on all the time.

This fact gives the home educator an edge in that she recognizes the home as “school” and, like a classroom teacher who carefully plans out her classroom, assesses her home for inherent educational value and how to use it to her child’s advantage. The parent who sends her child to “school” may overlook her responsibility to make everything at her fingertips work toward educating her child. She may not realize how much influence she has.

All parents are educators. All parents should have a method for educating their child whether or where they send them to “school”. All parents should use everything around them and inside them to educate.

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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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