Wear Away

What to take on a three-day weekend trip? This is what Janice at The Vivienne Files calls a six-pack. You wear three things and pack the other six.

One backpack

One tote bag

One coat

Two tops

One dress

One skirt, one pair of jeans

One flannel shirt

Two pullovers

One blazer

Two scarves

One belt

One pair of shoes

One pair of boots

Jewelry

And the boring bits like tights and pajamas and a hairbrush. And a re-useable coffee mug.

(Almost everything pictured, except for the boots, the backpack, and some of the jewelry, came from the MCC Thrift Store. One sweater was consignment. Oh, and the plaid shirt was from Giant Tiger.)

How's that simplicity going? (An update of sorts)

Have you ever heard that quote from the senior citizen (sometimes it's attributed to a man, sometimes a woman) who said "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits?"

Last weekend I was at the L'Harmas (Charlotte Mason) retreat, and the word "simplicity" came up in one of the talks: not as a question of how many wooden spoons and pairs of shoes you have, or what you wrap your avocados in, but more as a contemplative, even agrarian, old/new set of values; something that people are looking for but not finding. The title of a much-maligned expensive magazine comes to mind.

The idea of a retreat implies slowing down, unplugging, renewing. At L'Harmas, we often find ourselves asked to slow down in ways that are out of our "ordinary." If we're homeschoolers, we might be used to reading poems to our children, or showing them how to do a craft; but it feels different, even uncertain somehow, to have someone asking us, the grownups, to try Swedish drill. Or to have someone read a poem just for us, or show us how to needle-felt with those scary-looking barbed needles. Yes, I know needle-felting has been popular for ages, but some of us have never tried it (preferring our nice safe crochet hooks).

Or (at last year's L'Harmas), singing The Gypsy Rover, learning about ladybugs in greenhouses, and making a paper box, Sloyd-style.

To hear something different, to try something new, we have to slow down, listen to the words or the instructions, make our hands, voices, or bodies do something they don't normally do. We re-discover a place where the reading, the making, the singing come from our own initiative. This is the complete opposite of pushing a button or clicking an icon.

Those are the things I bring back from such a time away. Where do they lead?

Since returning, I've also sat in a church workshop on conservative Mennonite choral traditions, watched clouds from our balcony, spent a morning sorting books at the thrift store, baked a new/old gingerbread recipe, thrifted a cardigan, put away a few last summer clothes, picked up bananas and chocolate rolls at the discount store (because I can walk there), hand-washed my sweaters, and thought through the counting-clothes, capsule wardrobe problem again. (Post coming on that.) Tomorrow night will be our local Charlotte Mason study night; we're working through School Education.

I have been listening to a CD of hymns and the radio jazz station, and discussing retirement finances with Mr. Fixit. We have an at-home daughter doing late-night essays and wondering what to wear for Halloween, and grown-up Squirrelings dealing with work, sick pets, and other life issues.

I'm reading a book by Madeleine L'Engle where she muses on a similar variety of this-is-life happenings. In the first chapter, she's awake in the middle of the night, watching out the window, listening to the night sounds. Sometimes that's the best place to find quiet and think about simplicity.

Some of the minimalist writers are big on saying No. I would like to turn it around and say more Yes. Yes, I can come help. Yes, that thrifted purse would look nice with a dress.Yes, I'll make time to read that book. Yes, I will talk to someone instead of doing something else that I thought was going to be important (and it wasn't). Yes, I will try that new thing.

Because simplicity allows us to refuse, but also to choose. And Yes can be a good choice.

The Essential is Invisible: Notes from the L'Harmas Retreat, October 2016

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince. "Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all." ~~ Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

My autumn rite for the last four years has been to attend the L'Harmas Retreat, a Charlotte Mason-inspired weekend held in Kingsville, Ontario. It is created by the combined vision and work of a local C.M. learning community and a team of parents/educators/inspirers from several far-flung places. This year's insect mascot, if you can't guess from these photos, was the ladybug.

Kingsville is near Point Pelee, on the shores of Lake Erie. Because I went early this year, there was more time to explore. I found out that you can pick up small seashells on the beach there; at Lake Huron, a place I know better, we just find pebbles. Every place is a little bit different.

What made this event different from any of the others? Among other things, the chance to spend work and play time with a few special ladybug friends, who moved various mountains to be able to get there. And even more fluttered in for the retreat on Friday and Saturday. New friends are good. Old friends are good too.

An "harmas" is an old French term for ground that looks fallow, worthless, unworkable; but upon close inspection is rich with life. The L'Harmas retreat began with small, seemingly insignificant ideas and objects: a piece of paper and a ruler; a collection of needlework made by a grandmother; a simple song; thoughts on going to sleep. We were encouraged to look (or listen) again, and we saw a folded box, a wartime treasure, a child's growing trust in a parent who sang to her. We allowed the ideas to grow, and imagined more boxes of other sizes; a Beethoven symphony; a greenhouse full of plant and insect life working in harmony. 

One thread that came up several times was the idea that a "Charlotte Mason education" encompasses the physical aspects of our lives, the  intellectual or emotional aspects, and also the spiritual aspects. Many times more than one of those is at work at the same time, for instance during a paper-folding exercise that develops not only mathematical sense and manual dexterity, but encourages habits of character such as patience, attention, and accuracy.  When discussing those parts of our  personhood, or as Mason and John Bunyan called them, the Mansoul, we may find it convenient to separate the strands, and focus, for example, on how a child's intellectual needs can best be met through living books and narration. But in practice, just as we offer whole and living food at meals, we don't need to be as aware of those categories. We read or we sing or we look at the patch of ground, and our needs are met simultaneously and most enjoyably. Analysis, necessary at certain times, gives way to synthetic thinking, whole-person learning. As Louisa Thomsen Brits says about the Danish word hygge, "‘Hygge  is a way of acknowledging the sacred in the secular, of giving something ordinary a special context, spirit and warmth, and taking time to make it extraordinary.'" 

We were allowed to see some of the work that comes out of the busy minds and hands of the local C.M. learning community, through their insect paintings and the gifts they made for retreat guests. There was a reminder of the global community through a display of soaps and oils crafted in Indonesia. My own part in this ladybugs' picnic was to talk about the patch of ground where I do most of my own exploring and cultivating, and to invite others to come and join in that experience as well. 

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."  "It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . .""Yes, that is so," said the fox."But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince."Yes, that is so," said the fox."Then it has done you no good at all!""It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."

(Thank you to the friends who kindly offered me a place in their vehicle when it was time to "fly away home.")

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Home Away from Home

Note from Mama Squirrel: I will be away from the Treehouse and will have limited computer access for the next few days. If I don't respond to a comment or visit you back, that's why.

Notes from our Hodgepodge Hostess: "First things first...there will not be a Hodgepodge next week because whoohoo! I'm moving! It's only been 13+ months since we got started, but it looks like moving day is finally here. I will do my best to post a Hodgepodge the week after, but that may be dependent on the Internet fairies. I will post something so you'll know, but for now plan on no Hodgepodge Wednesday Nov 2nd, hopefully a Hodgepodge on Nov. 9th, and definitely a Hodgepodge on Nov. 16th. This week though, there is a Hodgepodge and here are the questions. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with all your friends and neighbors."

1. Besides your very own house, describe a place where you feel most 'at home'? 

I had a strange experience years ago (maybe harking back to last week's question about the sixth sense). One summer during university, I took a job at a camp just outside of the town where I grew up. I had actually started the summer working at a different job, but left it to take the camp job. I got up early on one of the first mornings I was there, and was just enjoying being outdoors wearing shorts, and not in an office wearing pantyhose, and I had a sense of being where I was supposed to be, of feeling at home. Soon afterwards I was talking to my grandmother, and she said that the land now owned by the camp was part of the farm where she lived as a young child. Maybe it was just a coincidence, and anyone would have felt equally happy to be out there in the country on a summer morning. But I've always thought there was something more to it than that.

2. When did you last 'hit a home run' with something? Explain. 

Big things, small things? I think the last big thing was the conference talk I gave in Texas, that seemed to just grow until it was done. Right now I am finishing up the final wording of a shorter talk, on a topic that I know more about, that should have been easier to put together; but with this one it's felt more like a few pop flies and then a very slow trot, one base at a time. 

3. Tell us about something you love in your house or kitchen that is 'homemade'. 

That's almost too big a question, because we have a lot of homemade things here. Our house itself was built fifty-plus years ago by Mr. Fixit's grandfather, along with friends and family who were in different trades like bricklaying and masonry. The fake wood graining on all the inside doors was done by hand, with a special tool. (Grandpa might have enjoyed some of the decorating DIY that goes on these days.)

We also have furniture that Grandpa built, since that was also one of his skills along with building cupboards and putting in floors. The hall console that holds our holiday decorations was one of his projects.

4. 'A man's home is his castle'...which of the world's ten most captivating castles (according to The Travel Channel) would you most like to visit and why-

Mont Saint-Michel (France), Edinburgh Castle (Scotland), Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany), Glamis Castle (Scotland), Windsor Castle (England), Chateu de Chambord (France), Hampton Court Palace (England), Prague Castle (Prague), St. Michael's Mount (England), Leeds Castle (England), and Swallow's Nest (Ukraine)

You had me at the word "castle." I have made it my personal mission in life to get everyone to give Ivanhoe a try. So, Scottish castles first, and then English if there's time.

5. What's a recent or upcoming plan or project that's required you do a little homework before getting started? Did the homework cause you to abandon your plan or adjust it in some way?

Yes, there have been lots of them, but my brain must be fuzzy this morning because I can't come up with one specific one.

6. In your opinion, is homework an unnecessary evil or a valuable practice? Should schools be done with homework? Why or why not? 

Tough question, and I'm somewhere in the middle. I do have a different perspective on this because we homeschooled through elementary, and if I gave someone an independent assignment, like reading a book, I wasn't always sure if that would qualify as "homework," especially if they decided to work on it in the off-hours. Let's just say I am in favour of giving some independent work, but not of making students work for hours and hours, especially if the material hasn't actually been covered in class. But I do think the opposite approach is interesting, too, if it's used right: having students watch a teaching video online, at home, and then use the class time for what would have been "homework," with easy access to the teacher.

7. Share a favorite memory of your childhood hometown. 

Scooting down Main Street Hill on my vintage (no handbrakes) bike. Very dangerous, but fun all the same.

I'm up here, you're down there.

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

Like being at the top of Main Street Hill, I'm up in the air this morning, ready to jump on and scoot (I almost wrote Scott), but this time it will be on a VIA train instead of an old bicycle. This weekend is L'Harmas, an annual gathering of Charlotte Mason educators, readers, and thinkers, and I am leaving early to meet up with some friends at a "home away from home" (not a castle, though). Hopefully it will all be a home run.

Linked from the Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

How to be a homeschool-parent-mensch

"If it be not goodness, the will is virtue, in the etymological sense of that word; it is manliness." -- Charlotte Mason, Ourselves (Volume 4)

In other words: Menschliness.

Mini poster and further explanations found on Life Without Pants; blog (outside of that post) contains adult language.

The post at Life Without Pants refers to a book by Bruna (not Brenda) Martinuzzi, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow. From her website: "Martinuzzi takes the reader on a transformative journey to a way of living, self-discovery, and personal strength that translates into becoming a person who authentically inspires with empathy and confidence—and successfully motivates others to follow by example, a mensch-leader."  I also liked one of the reviews posted there: “Bruna Martinuzzi has distilled the essence of what it takes to influence and motivate others, not by the exercise of authority, but through the example of ethical and admirable character. She doesn’t just tell us how—she helps us understand.” — Mark D. Lange, Christian Science Monitor

So what does that have to do with homeschooling parents? The attributes listed in the above poster, which are summarized from Martinuzzi's book on leadership, can be taken as characteristics of good teachers, and also of good parents. I won't paste the explanations as given on Life Without Pants, but here are my own (homeschooling) takes on the list.

1. Give people gifts other than those that you buy.  LWP mentions the gift of "A reason to care," among other things. In November I wrote a series of posts here about the gift of discipline, including this one.. We invite, we offer, we give; we don't invade or impose.

2. Become a talent hunter. See #5.

3. Share ideas and information that can enrich. Don't keep all your good ideas to yourself. Homeschooling parents seem to understand this naturally...hence the existence of support groups and the publication of many "how we did it" books and magazines, not to mention the Carnival of Homeschooling.

And of course it applies as well to what we actually teach. One way we frequently start our day here is with our homeschool "principal" (Mr Fixit), who tunes in closely to current events of all kinds and who is usually good for a "weekday update."

4. Spend more time in the “beginner’s mind.”  Put yourself in the student's place. What would you want to know about a topic? What would be a good way to communicate a particular idea? What points should you explain first, and which ones does your student need to discover for him or herself?

5. Don’t tell people what they can’t (aren't able to) do.  Marva Collins is a prime example of ignoring "can'ts," and so are John Holt and John Mighton.

6. Minimize the space you take up. LWP interprets this as referring to focus and lack of clutter, but I actually see another meaning in it: what Charlotte Mason calls Masterly Inactivity. That is, the focus is put on the student, rather than on the teacher. The student gets to ask the questions instead of just answer them.
7. Become a relationship anthropologist.  Maybe like this? "Justice can best be grasped through the prism of three generations. If I want you to treat me justly, I must imagine you and your parents and your grandparents in context. If we want to treat each other justly, we must imagine each other in context - you and your parents and grandparents; and me with mine. I must battle as hard for me to “get” your story as I battle for you to “get” my story." (Trustcounts.orghttp://www.trustcounts.org/just3.html)
8. Be happy for others. At the L'Harmas retreat last fall, Tammy Glaser told the story of a boy in their community school with a particular set of special needs, who was also hypersensitive to noise. On one occasion, when he demonstrated how far he had come by doing some kind of classroom presentation, the rest of the students all clapped for him...quietly.
9. Get rid of grudges. Allow second, third, fourth chances. Don't let past tensions spoil a good learning opportunity.

10. "Help others caress the rainbow," which means "Inspire hopefulness." One way to do this: include books that inspire in your homeschool curriculum: poetry, fiction, biography.

11. Make people feel better about themselves. No matter where they come from, no matter what's happened before. Give them opportunities to succeed, and let them know they're smart.

12. View promises as unpaid debt.  And don't promise what you can't follow through on. "How do you become the kind of person others want to follow? By being a person that people trust." (LWP)

Education is a discipline: Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle?

Quick, what comes to mind when you think of discipline?

Spiritual disciplines? Jesus and the disciples?

Military discipline?

The years of practice needed to become a dancer or a musician?

The grammarian slash disciplinarian attitude of many teachers in books and films, such as the vice-principal in Mr. Holland's Opus (the one who wants to cut all the arts programs) and Norman Lloyd's character in Dead Poets' Society (the one who wants to fire Robin Williams)?

Do you think of kindness or unkindness, grace or law? Is it Mr. Phillips in Anne of Green Gables, who really can't "keep order" at all, or is it Miss Stacy, who brings a friendlier atmosphere to the classroom? Is it Anne herself as teacher, endeavouring to win her pupils with love, until the day she gives Anthony Pye a well-deserved licking? (After that, he behaves himself.)

In Formation of Character, Charlotte Mason's Volume 5, she describes an approach to taming temper tantrums, and Tammy mentioned this chapter also at L'Harmas.  You can read "The Philosopher at Home" yourself, but this is the point: that the "cure" of "Guy" (the little boy) takes two distinct stages. The first stage is an attempt to control the environment, avoid Guy's triggers, and divert him out of the habit of blowing up. The second stage comes when, after a period of peace, Guy relapses, and his father says that it is now time to put the responsibility on the child himself. He suggests a couple of tools that Guy can use, but from this point on it is up to the boy to manage his own temper.

It reminds me of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories, where the first stage of a magic cure often involves parents secretly wafting invisibility powder or sprinkling radish seeds, but where, after the usual crisis (the dirty child appears covered in sprouting radishes), the end involves recognition and a certain amount of will.  Sometimes this takes the form of a parent-child conversation where they agree that there was a problem but that they will try not to let it recur (especially if the parents were enabling the misbehaviour). The magic bottles are returned to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and the responsibility shifts from the parents needing to teach a lesson or break a habit, to the children who may not always act perfectly from now on, but who are capable of recognizing and changing their own thoughts when they see old behaviours trying to break out.

If education is a discipline, it begins, ideally, when our children are young and we work on instilling habits of attentiveness, truthfulness and so on.  When they are old enough for school lessons, if we control the environment just enough, say, to avoid too many distractions and interruptions; if we make the first reading, writing, number experiences positive, successful ones; if they're given small things to do perfectly, and then the bar is raised just a little at a time; then good learning habits are formed without much need for extra schoolroom discipline.

And then, when they're older? How do we shift the responsibility for education, as in the tantrum story, onto the shoulders of our old-enough children?  I recommend reading Melissa Wiley's Down to the Bonny Glen, the chapters about Martha's new governess Miss Crow, as an example of CMish masterly inactivity:

"But still Martha had the feeling that her every move was being watched. As if to confirm this suspicion, Miss Crow, eyes still fixed upon the needles, slowly raised her left eyebrow. Martha jumped as though the governess had pricked her with a pin. She wrenched her gaze back to her copywork and wrote without daring to look up until all the assigned lines had been copied...Martha had just finished the last letter of the last word when the governess laid the knitting aside. She rose and looked at the copywork. Martha waited anxiously for stern words about the blots...But the governess merely nodded her head once and said, "Now then, let us have a look at your sewing."

Education is a discipline: It starts with us

At the L'Harmas retreat, Tammy Glaser did a demonstration lesson using "The Story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig," from Little House in the Big Woods. In the book, Pa uses this family story not only to teach Laura to behave herself on Sundays, but to make the point that his Sabbath-keeping expectations are not nearly as strict as those of previous generations. In other words, she has it comparatively easy.

As do we, around here, in homeschooling.  Non-homeschoolers are downright shocked when I tell them that no, we don't have to send in curriculum reports or have our children write standardized tests. In Ontario, it's more than enough to just send in names and ages. That's good for personal liberty, and I wouldn't have it otherwise, but it can be risky for the parents' self-discipline. There is very little accountability to anyone outside the family.

"What Mary does shows intelligence and pleasure in her work; but then she has done so little. She has only attempted one-third of the questions, and, even so, two of her answers are incomplete."  "She does not know as much as Bessie?"  "She knows six times as much. I believe she could have answered every question had she been able to pull herself together and get the work done in the time." ~~ Charlotte Mason, "The Parents' Review School," in the Parents' Review, Volume 2, 1891/92, pg. 308-317

And Ambleside Online, being a resource, a project, and a community, but not an umbrella school, has no authority either, if one-third or two-thirds of the exam questions get answered, or if the nature notebook stays empty. It's up to the teaching parent. Charlotte Mason conceived the "Parents' Review School" as a means of increasing accountability and discipline in home schools, and AO functions as that for us, to some extent.  But when some of what should be done, doesn't get done, what then? And how does a parent know how much to push?  To require?  How does one actually get Mary to work up to Bessie's example?

"But while we all think that our parents and guardians made gross mistakes with us, and that our turning out so well is entirely due to our superior natural dispositions, we fancy that our children at least will have no cause to complain of their training, and no pretext for making their forbears accountable for their failings and follies." ~~ Mrs. Ward, "'Grit,' Or Raising and Educating our Children," in The Parents' Review,Volume 2, no. 2, 1891/92, pg. 49

Well, first off we want to be examples of what we expect.  Why should we require self-discipline from our children but not from ourselves?

But if it's up to the students to learn good habits and eventually practice the Way of the Will (CM's theory of self-discipline), how do we get them there?

Maybe we start with a story.

(Another Treehouse post you might like: Get Some Grit.)

The Mason Circle (L'Harmas posts)

Mr. Fixit and I, having watched all the Foyle's War episodes, have turned to the somewhat-related miniseries The Bletchley Circle.  It's about a group of women, formerly wartime codebreakers at Bletchley Park, who reunite several years later and solve crimes.  During the war, they felt like they were doing something real and important; since then things have been too quiet.

Behind a front of knitting and discussing Charles Dickens, the women of the Bletchley Circle come together to use their brains.  At first it's hard to persuade them to take risks, to act. At one point even the boldest of them says that they shouldn't be pursuing a murderer; that's a job for the authorities. 

What does that have to do with Charlotte Mason email lists and Facebook groups?  With little meetups to share nature notebooks and talk about Shakespeare? And with L'Harmas, a bunch of apparently nice, middleclass moms (and a couple of dads; men aren't excluded) spending a Friday night and a Saturday at a small-town Canadian church?  Or with other similar goings-on in the United States? And maybe someday in Australia?

Francis Schaeffer said that in God's kingdom, there are no little people, just people God uses. 

We're of different ages, from different countries. Some of us are still in the trenches, actively homeschooling.  Others are older, have found post-homeschool life a bit dull and are finding ways to branch out. We want to be challenged and we also feel a need to serve, help, brighten our corners. We think learning is something to celebrate. But like the Bletchley group, more things happen when we connect and work together...and sometimes play together.  We learn from each other. We learn to take care of each other.

And sometimes we shake things up, bypass the experts. Because, as in The Bletchley Circle, if they're not going to do it...it's up to us. We begin by taking the risk of homeschooling, then by connecting with each other, by putting thoughts on paper, speaking to groups. Some of us find ourselves taking bigger risks, doing things we hadn't planned on: homeschooling through high school. Organizing communities, opening schools. Reaching out to more parents and children, looking beyond our families.

Maybe you could call it The Mason Circle. Because we don't want life to be "ordinary" either.  

In this way delight (L'Harmas posts)

Some final thoughts from Laurie Bestvater's talk (I'm not cribbing here, just thinking about it)

You cannot stop God from speaking.  Jesus said that if the children's praises were silenced, the rocks would cry out in their place.  I read that although Bibles were confiscated in Russia under Communist rule, the authorities forgot to ban some of the country's great novelists, like Dostoevsky. "For example, a character in one of his novels meets a young peasant woman with a baby. When the baby smiles for the first time, the woman makes the Sign of the Cross. When asked why she made this sign, the woman answers: ``All the joy that a mother feels when she sees her child smiling for the first time... God feels every time He sees... a sinner praying to him from the bottom of his heart."  (found here)

God's voice has a way of capturing our hearts, inspiring deep reactions and also actions. We learn to listen for that voice, and to see it as well.  We may seem to hear and see most clearly at certain times, at certain places, or through the words of certain authors that seem to bring us through magic doorways (sometimes found at the back of old wardrobes).  Mark Patrick Hederman calls those times and places "thresholds, where the very pores are kept open between the visible and the invisible."

And as teachers, what does all that have to do with the way we want students to learn?

We encourage the relationship between authors and readers. We direct students to the doorway, but we don't shove them through it.

We use lessons as an instrument for building relationships.

We allow grace to come as and when it will. "Grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways,' writes Marilynne Robinson in Gilead.

We count on delight.

And in this way delight is necessary for happiness. For it is caused by the appetite being at rest in the good attained ~~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Tomorrow: one last post about L'Harmas, Charlotte Mason, and what happens when CM homeschoolers meet up. 

Let the wild rumpus start (L'Harmas posts)

Have you seen the movie Hop? (Terrible reviews, but it did have its moments.) The main character is an out-of-work young man named Fred.  Fred's sister takes pity on him and sets up a job interview. Fred mumbles that he'll think about it.  His sister says, "You don't think about it. You shave, you shower, and you show up."  At the least, right?

Sometimes it does start with showing up, being there, human beans getting involved. I'm thinking of the kids who showed up to play in Roxaboxen, and in Maurice Sendak's The Sign on Rosie's Door. Somebody (Marian, Rosie) had ideas...but the others had to come too.

Laurie Bestvater asked a question (at L'Harmas) that came out of her son's studies in political science. What is the moment when an idea leads to some kind of action, positive or negative?  If the air is charged with something about to happen, how do you get from thinking about it to doing something about it?  What moves you from just considering an idea to acting on it?

And when it's an idea that you're taking in, from someone or somewhere else, how do you define that moment of learning, the lightbulb flash?   If there's an element of mystery about how this happens, what is our part as teachers?  Is it something we can control, or do we just help set up the conditions for that to happen? Charlotte Mason had some things to say about not getting in the way of the Holy Spirit, even in religious instruction.
On the other hand, are there things that teachers and parents do (or hopefully don't do) that kill the mystery, that strip the body down to the bones?  Last  Friday, Lydia and I read this in Adler's How to Read a Book:  "The vice of 'verbalism' can be defined as the bad habit of using words without regard for the thoughts they should convey and without awareness of the experiences to which they should refer...'verbalism' is the besetting sin of those who fail to read analytically. [Note that 'analytically' is used here in a positive sense, meaning the reader searches for the big ideas in an argument by noting the key words, terms, and sentences, and not in the synthesis vs. analysis argument of classical education.] Such readers never get beyond the words ...lack of such discipline results in slavery to words rather than mastery of them."

As Laurie pointed out, another way of killing books (and the enjoyment of reading) is to drag them to pieces in unit studies (or blog posts). Or to give multiple-choice tests on them. (Do you notice that that test is part of a unit on Imagination?)

Roxaboxen is set in Arizona.  It mentions cactus and ocotillo. It gives us an idea of what it was like to play outdoors in a desert climate. But it is not a botany or geography book, any more than Miss Rumphius is a scientific study of lupines. The text has to be taken on its own terms. (That is where synthesis, not analysis in its pulling-apart sense, becomes important.)

Dallas Willard said that the Kingdom of God means that God is doing something, and that He invites us to join in whatever this thing is that he is doing, this divine conspiracy.  There's a clear invitation but also a certain sense of mystery, something that calls to us, something that we can give to our children so clearly that they themselves dream of a place they've never seen.  As our friend Cindy says, that "thing" is more often found in poetry than in grammar lessons, unless, again, our 'verbalism' destroys the poem that "should not mean but be."

In The Sign on Rosie's Door, Rosie entices her friends into spending a hot afternoon sitting on her cellar door with her, waiting for someone called "Magic Man" to show up.

"That evening, when their mothers asked them what they had done all afternoon, they said they had done so much there wasn't even enough time to do it in and they were going to do it all over again tomorrow.  'Good!' all their mothers said." ~~ Maurice Sendak, The Sign on Rosie's Door

Sweet home Ontari-ama (L'Harmas posts)

Leaves all down now on the red maple

Melanie Walker-Malone may be a less familiar name to some Treehouse readers.  I met Melanie for the first time at last year's L'Harmas, while I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that people would actually come up HERE for a conference, from down THERE.

This year Melanie's talk was about the world-famous and inspiring people who were born in her home state, Alabama, and how learning about the heroes right around you often creates wider connections.  For instance, Helen Keller, from Alabama, had a close connection with Alexander Graham Bell, and when we were chatting after her talk Melanie mentioned that she (Melanie) had been to the Bell Historic Site in Nova Scotia.  But she didn't know that there's also a Bell Homestead in Brantford, Ontario, much closer to us, where the first telephone calls were made! So the connections continue to grow.

Melanie mentioned not only people but local resources; in her case, marble which is quarried nearby and used in Birmingham for everything from statues to kitchen islands. Teaching children to recognize their "own" rocks, wood, whatever, is another way to get them to notice what's around them in a new way.  A building, a wall, a monument that they would have passed over before, takes on new meaning when they know not only who or what it represents, but also why the material was chosen, where it came from.

So guess what I found online today? A local geologist has put together a self-guided walking tour of some of the city buildings, pointing out what they're made of, where fossils are embedded in stone walls, and so on.  Anybody local who wants to know, contact me and I'll send you the link.  Is that cool or what?

Our front steps and retaining wall

Little ideas...they just hatch out and hop all over the place.

Tammy Glaser (and the DHM) on teaching the whole child (L'Harmas posts)

One of the keynote speakers at this year's L'Harmas weekend was Tammy Glaser.  Most Treehouse readers know who Tammy is. (She also brought her daughter Pamela with her, and we got to see Pamela's artwork.) Many of you will also know that she has been involved with a small school, so she has been getting the chance to see how CM works with even more shapes and sizes and styles of children.

Tammy talked about teaching vs. what you might call therapizing. The Deputy Headmistress posted on a similar theme, awhile back, saying, 'Intimidated by the condescending attitude of the perky expert, who spoke kindly but loftily to all of us as though we were small and more than unusually dim children, we found ourselves responding by feeling small and dim and mentally shrinking down to her expectations."

If we are to teach with things and thoughts, then the teacher--of any student, including one with particular limitations--needs to know what potential things and thoughts are in the lesson, what might be in the way, and how we can get around those obstacles, make the lesson meaningful...and not make anybody feel small and dim.  Sometimes, in a classroom, that just means doing what teachers have always done: seating one child away from chattering friends or other distractions, or putting another one right up front to keep an eye on them.  It might mean letting certain children "break the rules"--letting them narrate a picture talk with the picture in front of them instead of hidden.  In a one-on-one situation, there's even more room for taking things as slow or making things as concrete as they need to be for that student.

And, to take something else away from what Tammy said, that makes outdoor time even more valuable for all children.  What sorts of things happen...naturally...on nature walks, during outdoor play time, in an afternoon at the beach? What happens when you encounter a real praying mantis? How can you match that in a therapy room?

We want to give everyone access to real things, big thoughts. It might help to remember that "a person's a person no matter how small," but only in the sense, maybe, of physical size or chronological age.  Because nobody wants to feel small and dim.

Another post you might like:  Illegal Moves.

More posts about L'Harmas 2014

Two weeks till L'Harmas!

In two weeks, some local CMers and I will be travelling to the 2nd L'Harmas retreat in Kingsville, Ontario.

In case you can't guess, I'm excited!

The L'Harmas Charlotte Mason Retreat: All You Wanted to Know?

1. Irony: a Charlotte Mason weekend was the first time I a) helped navigate the drive down to Kingsville with a GPS, and b) plugged my iPad into the free WiFi in the hotel so I could send an email home. Welcome to the 21st century.

(photo found here)

2.  The Windsor/Essex Charlotte Mason Education group outdid themselves (is that ungrammatical?) in making everybody feel welcome, providing wonderful homemade food, and turning a church foyer into an amazing CM environment full of wooden apple boxes, books, and nature collections.  Education is an atmosphere...

3.  The leaves of the Manitoba maple don't look like any other maple leaves I've ever seen.  (What we learned during nature time.)  I also found out that you can confuse it with poison ivy!  (We don't have Manitoba maples in our part of Ontario.)

4.  People, people, people.  People from the U.S. and all over Southern Ontario (oh, and I forgot, one from Quebec).  People I knew, but mostly people I didn't...or at least hadn't met in person.  People I am very glad to have talked to and hope to connect with again.

5.  We had lots of talk about Charlotte Mason and notebooks...notebooks as kind of organic things that reflect individuality and choice...if a student is allowed to make his own choices about what gets included, and if the notebooks have value, are kept, treasured, reflected on.

Photo of Trie Cloister (in New York) found here

6.  I had been thinking about cloisters since last week, ever since we started the "Romanesque" chapter of Architecture Shown to the Children.  Then suddenly, Friday night, one of the speakers mentioned quiet, peaceful, sacramental spaces...physical ones or inner ones...maybe a place where we listen for the divine voice?  If the majority of the educational world is an anxious, busy place, then maybe a Charlotte Mason-inspired approach of living ideas and leisure could be compared to a garden sanctuary like the one pictured above.

Just a thought.

7.  Can we do this again next year?

L'Harmas Starts Today

If you missed my other post about this...the l'Harmas Charlotte Mason weekend starts today.

Back tomorrow night!

When CMers get together, or, Mama Squirrel's upcoming weekend off

This is Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada.  Around here it's also Oktoberfest.

Next weekend is the 44th Migration Festival in Kingsville, Ontario (not far from Detroit).

But that's not why Mama Squirrel is going there.  There's something else going on in Kingsville next Friday and Saturday.

"Welcome to our 1st Annual Charlotte Mason Retreat at l'HaRMaS.  
A gathering
 where we will look closely,
think deeply and consider ideas 
as they unfold through presentations and conversations."

CMers from the U.S. and Canada will be getting together to talk, listen, look at nature notebooks, and hear about Laurie Bestvater's fear of bathmats.  Really.

If you're going, I'll see you there!