That white sweater, or, how do you start thinking you want something?

If you get it in your head that you want something, have you really come up with that idea yourself, or did you let someone plant it in your mind? And is that necessarily a bad thing, if the thing you want is useful and fills a need? Charlotte Mason did a lot of thinking about that.

This winter I seem to have majored on sweaters, which is fine. There was a point a few years ago when I didn't have even one cardigan sweater, mostly because they were making me feel old. I've thrifted a few knit and sweatshirt-type cardigans here and there, cycled them in and out. This winter I found a grey belted cardigan I like (it's a few posts back), and there are one or two others in my closet that I wear sometimes.

Recently I've been thinking about lighter colours, though. I was at an outlet store a few weeks ago, and I bought an off-white cotton mock-neck pullover (after not allowing the saleslady to push me into a pink one. I like pink, but I needed a plain colour that would Go With Things. I was channelling my inner Charlotte Mason that day for sure).  The Vivienne Files did a story about ways that someone could wear an ivory cardigan. I also found this 2019 post by Style Bee about her investment-quality cardigan.  I liked the idea of something buttoned-up and light-coloured, even though white cardigans (especially fuzzy ones) made me think of my great-grandma. But okay: v-neck, about five buttons, medium weight. I started keeping my eyes open on our thrift-store touring, but I didn't find much besides much-washed acrylic. Then I was doing a thrift shift, and had a few minutes to shop afterwards. Here's what I found: an off-white cotton cardigan, v-neck, five buttons, in like-new condition. It's not organic or lifetime-quality, but it's not dollar-discount-store either. 

So far I've worn it with a denim shirt (that doesn't get worn enough) and light-coloured cotton pants, and a white t-shirt (kind of copying Style Bee) and grey jeans. 

The question might be, whose idea was it that I wanted/needed a sweater-that-wasn't-a-pullover? Is it like looking at a blank space in the stairway, and mentally matching it up with a pair of pictures while you're walking past the art rack at Value Village? I don't think it's about trying to be something I'm not (ahem, I'm not Style Bee); I just wanted/needed something that filled in that gap, that didn't cost too much money, and that fit into a Conscious Closet. (I did buy the white t-shirt at Walmart, so I needed to balance things out.)

How do you trace out your ideas?

Quote for the Day: Don't turn off your brain

"There is even a sense that an undeveloped mind is more virtuous than one prepared for battle...for many Christians, humble ignorance is a far more noble human quality than a cultivated mind...[but] deep within the worldview of the biblical authors and equally within the minds of the earliest church fathers was the understanding that to be fully human is to think." ~~ James Emery White, A Mind for God

Quote for the day: sometimes ideas are there and not there

 

"Ideas are everywhere, in the words and, so to speak, behind the words, present because they are literally present and present even if they appear to be absent. A writer may despise the idea of zoos and communicate that hatred by writing a book about animals in the bush, never mentioning zoos, never alluding to zoos or dropping a hint about zoos. Because of the way the mind works, we get the message...A book about the ethical nature of Christ may in fact be an argument against Christ's divinity. A book of recipes for winter soups made by cloistered monks may really be an argument against the modern world...If you picture a page of writing as three-dimensional, with the words hovering a half-inch or so above the paper, then you begin to see where the ideas are: behind the words, between the words, really everywhere." ~~ Eric Maisel, Deep Writing

From the archives: Edith Schaeffer on environment and message

First posted July 2013. Cindy Rollins' Ordo Amoris blog (now closed) was running a weekly study of The Hidden Art of Homemaking, and this was my post about the last chapter.

I haven't read other people's posts on the last chapter of HAoH yet, but I predict their reactions will be much like they were to the previous one:  "not what I was expecting."  The last two chapters of the book don't really draw the whole picture of Hidden Art together as fully as we might desire.  Was that on purpose, or did Edith just peter out?  The last chapter in particular is surprisingly short.  It's like getting to the end of a mystery book a little too suddenly...say one of the nutty ones by Ellen Raskin...and wanting to go back and comb through the final chapter for any clues that you missed.

So are there any?

First, there's one of the recurring threads:  "There is no place where one cannot plant ivy over the mud hut and put a flower on the stump....I am sure that there is no place in the world where your message would not be enhanced by your making the place (whether tiny or large, a hut or a place) orderly, artistic and beautiful with some form of creativity, some form of 'art.'"

And then the idea that "we [ourselves] are an environment for the other people with whom we work, the people with whom we communicate.  And in this sense we do not choose an art form and create something in that form; we are an art form...an art form God can use in this area of environment."

As others have pointed out, Edith always comes back to communication, a message.

Is the message we are living clear, or is it a lot of "glub-blubs?"

Are we hiding our real identities and gifts?  Leaving clues on bits of paper towel, or doing something more?

"We should be artists in...doing something practical to show that expectancy [that God can intervene]...affects the attitudes other people are going to have to their troubles." 

Mr. Banks carved the turkey; the plates were passed and filled high to overflowing; and Mrs. Carillon asked Augie Kunkel to say grace.

Augie Kunkel didn't know how to say grace.  He just named the dishes and let the delicious smells inspire the proper reverence:

Patate douce, dindonneau truffée, airelles en couronne, petits oignons, pointes d'asperges au beurre, purée de marrons.

"Amen," said Mr. Banks, who didn't understand French; and the eating and the chatting and the celebrating began.  ~~ Ellen Raskin, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)

Wednesday Hodgepodge, on Thursday

From our Hodgepodge Hostess: "Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with the universe. See you there!"

1. Do you find yourself influencing your world, or is it more the other way around? 

Somewhere in between, and it depends on how big a world we're talking about. People have told me that I've influenced them to homeschool their children, or to read certain books, or that I've encouraged them (strangely enough) in the way they teach math. But it comes back just as much the other way. Sometimes I've thought I would actually like to be more influenced by the world, but I couldn't find anyone to tell me how to do whatever it was, so I ended up doing it my own way by default.

2. July 14th is National Tape Measure Day...the device was patented on this date in 1868. When did you last use a tape measure? Do you always know where to find one in your house? Tell us one way in which you feel blessed 'beyond measure'. 

Tape measure: we used it when we shifted the dining room furniture around. Generally I would be using it to sew with, but the sewing machine was temporarily packed away and I've been letting the small jobs pile up rather than drag it out and work at the kitchen table.

3.The Plaza Hotel (Eloise), The Land of Oz (The Wizard of Oz), Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia), The Hundred Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh), Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), or Never Never Land (Peter Pan)...which storybook land (on this list!) would you most like to visit and why? 

Definitely Narnia, but maybe one of the safe spots (like the Beavers' house). Narnia can be a dangerous place. 

The Hundred Acre Wood would be second.

4. Where and when do you get your best ideas? 

Whoah, that's kind of a lifetime question, isn't it?

And sometimes you don't know which ones are the best ideas until much later, when you see which ones worked out and which ones didn't.

I think the really best ideas tend to grab onto you more than the other way around. Something you can't stop thinking about, a problem, a possible solution. Bang, out of the heavens.

But Pinterest is helpful too.

5.  So what have you been watching on TV this summer? Anything good? 

We're working through the Poirot episodes on Netflix. 

6. 'Don't swim for an hour after you eat', 'Dog days of summer', 'Knee high by the Fourth of July'...choose a summer saying from the list or share one of your own, then tell us what image or memory comes to mind when you hear it spoken.

"Put that book down and go out and play."

Probably good advice, but not what I wanted to hear when I was deep in the Hundred Acre Wood or off in Neverland.

7. In a single sentence, sum up one life lesson you've learned. 

You can probably find one at the thrift store.

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

One of my favourite minimalist bloggers posted about deliberately keeping books she's reading to a minimum. I don't mind minimizing clothes, and our fridge is much less crowded than it once was, but hands off my books. Not that I don't thin them down on the shelves--I have definitely done some of that. But the reading process, for me, is not very sequential. I have a lot of starts and pauses, then suddenly I do finish something. I'm only about a third of the way through this year's GoodReads goal, but I aim to get there.

Linked from The Fresh from the Garden Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

From the Archives: Charlotte Mason on how not to be a ShoppingZilla (and read to the end, it's more than shopping)

First posted January 2015. Based on Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, Book II, "The Scope of Will."

If you don't keep them out, they will sneak in.

 "If we keep the will in abeyance, things and affairs still present themselves, but we allow instead of choosing. We allow a suggestion from without, which runs with our nature, to decide for us. There would not seem to be much difference between the two courses; but most ruined lives and ruined families are the result of letting allowance do duty for will-choice." 

Does that mean you have to go to a lot of fuss every time you make a choice? What if you just make a typical choice for your own lifestyle? Do you have to refuse everything that is "normal?"

"But, you will say, he has not chosen at all! Yes, he has; he has chosen with modesty and good sense to follow the lead set by the common sense of his class."

It's worse to go in with no ideas and let yourself be "sold" something, than to go in with a good but not eye-popping idea and stick to it.

"Or, again, there is the man whose conceit leads him to defy general usage and startle the world with checks and ties, feeling that he is a mighty independent fellow. He is merely obeying the good conceit he has formed of himself, and his daring ventures come of allowance and not of choice." 

If you're not an EverydayZilla, you won't be a BrideZilla.

"The question of a lady's shopping is only a by-issue, but it is well worth considering; for, alas! the shopping scene at Madame Mantalini's is of too frequent occurrence, and is as damaging to the nerves and morale of the purchaser as to those of the weary shopwomen."

Again, it's more than shopping.

"Are we going after the newest and cheapest things in morals and religion? are we picking up our notions from the penny press or from the chance talk of acquaintances? If we are, they are easily come by, but will prove in the end a dear bargain."

Most amazing thing you should read today

A very important point about the meaninglessness of "what do you all think of that?"

"What Does Goodness Think of You?", by Joshua Gibbs, at the Circe Institute blog.

CM Quote for the Day: A Full Reservoir

 "Now the thought that we choose is commonly the thought that we ought to think and the part of the teacher is to afford to each child a full reservoir of the right thought of the world to draw from. For right thinking is by no means a matter of self-expression. Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea, and ideas are stored as we have seen in books and pictures and the lives of men and nations; these instruct the conscience and stimulate the will, and man or child 'chooses.'" ~~ Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, page 130

Herbartianism Made Fun and Easy, Part Three: Like a surgeon

Part One is here. Part Two is here.

After his previous zinger about the omniscience and omnipotence of the teacher, Adams continues:

"It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this view from the teacher's standpoint. If the mind must wait till the right idea comes along, what an enormous importance must be attached to the theory of apperception masses. If the idea that the soul ought to choose is not there to choose, what can the soul do but choose amiss? Here Herbartianism appears to great advantage. During the process of education when the soul happens to be on the lookout for a certain idea, the teacher, knowing what is going on in the soul, and the laws according to which its mechanism work, can readily increase the presentative activity of the idea in question and send it right up to the dome..."

Do you notice any, perhaps, slightly fuzzy logic in that paragraph? This is what strikes me: that there is one and only one idea out there today, or at this minute, that you are supposed to grab onto. Like a surgeon asking for a particular retractor or Mr. Fixit asking for a certain size of drill bit, there is one and only one choice, with implied disaster if the tool is missing or you take the wrong one. You've missed your chance at the brass ring; your life will never be the same.

In response, I will quote Colonel Potter:

"Pony Pucks."

Learning is not a midway game of Lucky Duck, where you either win a prize or go home with nothing. And doesn't it make it sound like your chances are even slimmer if it all depends on whether a teacher is standing by, ready to fire the right idea at you at just the right second?

Charlotte Mason suggested that education should put the focus on the student rather than the teacher, the learning rather than the teaching. That is, not in the above sense where the hypothetical teacher seems to hover like an anxious ICU nurse, attention fixated on the student's mental vital signs; but in the sense of letting the child take what he needs from the feast that is spread. Yes, you can say with Herbart that what he ingests may join his apperception masses and head up to the top of the dome. But the point is that there are many good ideas, many opportunities to learn, and most of them won't come around just once. If you choose an apple instead of a banana for lunch today, you probably haven't missed your only chance ever to taste bananas.

Photo of antique surgical tools found here.

Part Four is here.

Herbartianism Made Fun and Easy, Part Two: Let's talk about a sheep

Part One is here.

In the Part One post, I mentioned that Sir John Adams (the author of The Herbartian Psychology) saw Froebelian education as the opposite of Herbartian. He says that Froebel brought education as far as recognizing the importance of the individual learner; but that his theory lacked any real means of explaining or working with that individuality, that it didn't go far enough. "Almost every teacher thinks that when he has shown a thing to his class, he has done the highest, the best, the ultimate, in teaching....[but] the average child does not see what the master is showing him...[it] does not ensure that teacher and pupil shall speak of the same idea, when they talk of a sheep."

Adams says, "[Froebelian theory] suggests the immense importance of knowing [the student]; which is much, [but] It leaves to others the task of supplying this knowledge." (emphasis mine)  Yes, we see that each child is unique, that each one learns a little differently; but we aren't given much help in knowing what to do about that.

So here we have a problem set up, with Adams' assumption that Herbart found an answer or at least came closer to it. Adams says that so far "we have failed to explain ideas by the mind; how about explaining the mind by ideas?" What if the ideas are like critters we should be hunting down, and the mind (or soul, in Herbart's terms) is more like a ranch or a zoo where they can be corralled?

Herbart said that ideas "have a vitality all their own"; that they are the only thing that can affect the soul (mind); and that when "a soul has reacted upon an idea, it can no longer be the same soul that it was before." "The ideas really make up the mind," in the same way as it is the writing that holds the meaning, not the paper or the computer screen. But if Herbart (via Adams) was looking for practical results rather than theory, what might these ideas suggest to the teacher? Is the teacher then a sort of cowpoke, rounding up and organizing all the stray little dogies? A question that doesn't seem to bother Adams, at this point, is asking who really owns the "critters," or has final say over which ones come in or where they belong.

Adams' interpretation of Herbart in response to this is a little different from what CMers might assume. "The popular notion is that knowledge has to be carefully prepared beforehand by the teacher, and then judiciously stuffed into a suitable place in the pupil's mind, a sort of mental left-luggage office, there to be left till called for." If that is our only understanding of Hebartianism, and it might well be, then according to Adams we have missed something. One of my reasons for writing these posts is to try and be fair to Herbart; he wasn't always wrong.

But though Adams is a most genial guide to Herbart, he occasionally throws in a jaw-dropping pronouncement and then moves on. One such is this (page 73):

"On this view, the function of the teacher becomes clear; for, unlike most Psychologies, Herbart's has an obvious and immediate bearing upon education. The soul is in the teacher's hands, inasmuch as the apperception masses can be made and modified by the teacher....Every idea in that little head is a force with which the teacher must reckon. His first duty is obviously to discover as much as possible about the contents of John's soul. Only so far as he succeeds in this is he able to understand the reaction of John's soul upon any given idea. The very inevitableness of the soul's reaction is the teacher's chief aid. Here he finds the fulcrum for his lever. The rest of his work is actual building up, edification."

It's at that point where we start to see the true gap between Herbart and Charlotte Mason. Do we want to let even a well-intentioned teacher pry into our heads? CM is about not only recognizing that we have our own thoughts, but that they are between us and God; that we have the right and the responsibility to corral our own critters.

Part Three is here.

Education is a discipline: Mrs. Dowson weighs in (Part One)

Abridged and slightly adapted from "The Discipline and Organization of the Mind,"  by Mrs. Dowson, L.R.C.P & S.,I. (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ireland), in The Parents' Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 83-92

M.S.: What is the immediate purpose of discipline?

Mrs. Dowson:  It is, in every case, that process by which, in the opinion of those who apply it, a given material may be induced to take a certain form and display certain qualities and powers. 

M.S.: So, something like a dancer who builds up certain muscles?

Mrs. Dowson:  Whatever our material may be, success depends upon our following its laws. We choose one element to be repressed and another to be encouraged and brought out in form and in function; but if, instead of obeying laws and trying to work with them, we employ, as our ordinary method, arbitrary dominance and ill-considered force, we must always fail in the long run, if not in the short. 

M.S.: So it doesn't work if we try to fight nature; it works better if we co-operate with it.

Mrs. Dowson: The material with which we deal has laws of its own, powers and qualities, springs of activity, which we cannot do without if our end is to be attained, and which, in the case of a human being, assert themselves sooner or later in their native independence, frustrating any purpose their owner has not been led on to share. In other words, it is a necessary and a good thing that we cannot force nature, human nature or whatever other nature, to do whatever we like with it! It is only frustrating when we try to work against the laws of nature.

M. S.: What does this have to do, exactly, with the education of children?

Mrs. Dowson: We have to consider, some time or other, as everybody does who is in earnest with the matter, what we think a child is really meant to be, whether, in fact, we have found out, or are taking due pains to find out, not what we ourselves admire and wish, but the real truth about the chief end and good of man. Without full knowledge, all our discipline may be wrongly directed, all the pains and trouble may be worse than wasted, all our children's education may be drawing them along the way in which they should not go.

M.S.: How do we avoid wasting this time and causing this trouble?

Mrs. Dowson: The specialism of modern intellectual life, of scientific research and social and political inquiry, the diversity and incoherence of the claims upon our attention and the attention of our children, cut up the field of mental activity into isolated bits, and draw lines between one kind of knowledge and another that do not correspond with any real division between the corresponding kinds of things. Nature is a whole; we are obliged to cut the whole into parts for purposes of examination and study in detail, and for economy of our mental powers; but we do it, even when it is done most wisely and most carefully, at a certain loss.

M.S.: What sort of loss?

Mrs. Dowson:  There is a danger of loss of grip over the problem of the whole, and of mental confusion due to our acquaintance with a multitude of facts without an acquaintance with the rational links between them; and there is the very serious danger of mistaking a descriptive and abstract knowledge of one or more subjects for a knowledge of their true meaning in connection with the great problems that most vitally and permanently concern mankind.

M.S.: So they can have information, but without meaning.

Mrs. Dowson: The necessary imperfection of our knowledge brings with it, and always must bring with it, its own consequences; but the artificial divisions between one branch of study and another bring dangers against which educational discipline might protect us, and which it might do much towards removing altogether. Unnecessary mental confusion, mistakes and misunderstandings, might be removed if the unitary parts of our knowledge were brought into relation one with another in the course of our education.

M.S.: If we understood better about the science of relations?

Mrs. Dowson:  Our mental powers and the contents of our mind are both too often like an unorganized democratic people, free and independent indeed, but not interlocked together, nor disciplined to act efficiently as a coherent whole and to be treated as a whole.

(To be continued tomorrow.)

All Arthur illustrations from the PBS Kids website.

Lydia's Grade Eight: Plans for Term One, Week Eleven

First off, I have to point you to this quite marvellous post on Afterthoughts, Teaching Our Children the Way of the Reason. "Marvellous" for two reasons: first, that Brandy mentions a Lloyd Alexander book I've never heard of, The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. (Now going on hold at the public library.)  Second, it's a perfect description of what some call the Grand Conversation. 

"After our reading of this chapter, the children and I discussed it. I asked them what Li Kwang's mind did when he was tempted. Together, they were eventually able to discern that his mind sought to justify the sin he wanted to commit. I read once again of Li Kwang's desire to be rid of tempting thoughts. We discussed how he was looking for an outside source to do that for him."

So where do I hope that we'll have some Grand Conversations this week of Remembrance Day?

Westward Ho!, Chapter 29. How the Virginia Fleet Was Stopped at the Queen's Command
From the AO study notes: Amyas seems to be unable to see matters clearly, in more than one area of his life. What advice does his mother give? What is his return argument?
How is Salvation Yeo becoming a less positive influence on Amyas? Has his disappointment over the "maiden" darkened his own view?

Can you have a grand conversation over the topic of temperature? (Apologia Physical Science, Module 3) Maybe. How about the hole in the ozone layer? Definitely.

Keeping a Nature Journal
This week's challenge is to take as much time as you need and draw a natural object in close detail. How does this close study change your perception of whatever you're looking at?

Plutarch's Life of Crassus, Lesson 10.
From the AO study notes: Why did Crassus send Publius to charge the Parthians? Do you think he might have hesitated to send his son into that battle, or would he more likely have been proud to do it? Why? Comparison to a Bible narrative: read 2 Samuel 18:24-33 (David's reaction to the death of his son). Note any similarities to the story of Crassus and Publius, though David's relationship to Absalom was somewhat different. Why does Plutarch say that Crassus "shewed greater courage in this misfortune, than he before had done in all the war beside," or in Dryden's words, "outdid himself in this calamity?"

Picture Talk: Titian, Three Ages of Man (caution: semi-nudity)

"In life, we are in death, the philosopher tells us. In an age when people died so young, perhaps Titian is reflecting the same attitude by placing all of these figures in the same landscape. Perhaps the angel is not only protecting the infants, but also reminding us that in Titian’s day, children died at a frightening rate, inconceivable in this modern age, and his/her home in heaven is the destination to which they will soon be transported." "Shakespeare’s sonnets, That time of year thou mayest in me behold [we read this a couple of weeks ago], Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, and When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd; Coulehan’s poem, “Sunsets”; and Roethke’s poem, “The Waking” (all annotated in this database) are equally applicable literary companion pieces." (Literature, Arts and Medicine Database)

And a couple of related additions: the History of English Literature chapter on Sir Walter Raleigh mentions Millais's painting The Boyhood of Raleigh, and The Roar on the Other Side includes the poem Ozymandias.

"The Way of the Reason" in The Fellowship of the Ring

Subtitle:  Hobbits know how to stick to an idea!

In The Fellowship of the Ring, the hobbit Frodo has been given the responsibility of taking a magic ring (The Ring, the one that everybody wants, the same one that Bilbo found in The Hobbit) and disposing of it properly...that is, taking it on a dangerous journey to Mount Doom, where it can be destroyed.  In the last chapter, he has to make a decision about whether to go to the east, probably by himself, although it already seems like a lost cause; or to go with the other travellers to the city of Minas Tirith, where a battle is being fought against the dark forces.

He says he needs to think it over, and heads into the woods.  After awhile, he looks up and sees one of the others, Boromir, who says he would like to help Frodo think the problem through.  Frodo is not quite sure whether to trust him, and he tells Boromir that really, he already does know what to do; he is just afraid to do it.

'I think I know already what counsel you would give, Boromir,' said Frodo. 'And it would seem like wisdom but for the warning of my heart.'

'Warning? Warning against what?' said Boromir sharply.

'Against delay. Against the way that seems easier. Against refusal of the burden that is laid on me. Against -- well, if it must be said, against trust in the strength and truth of Men.'

Frodo already knows that he could come up with all kinds of very good reasons himself NOT to go east, but that he still has to continue with the quest. 

'Yet that strength has long protected you far away in your little country, though you knew it not.' 

'I do not doubt the valour of your people.  But the world is changing.  The walls of Minas Tirith may be strong, but they are not strong enough.  If they fail, what then?'

'We shall fall in battle valiantly.  Yet there is still hope that they will not fail.'

'No hope while the Ring lasts,' said Frodo.

Boromir hopes that winning the battle at Minas Tirith, fighting the evil lord Sauron directly, will solve all their problems.  He wants desperately to get hold of the Ring, or get Frodo to use it to fight Sauron.  Frodo gets right to the point, though:  eventually, in this battle or in some other, the Ring will ruin everything.  The mere existence of the Ring has become a problem that has only one solution, and it is up to him to solve it.  He doesn't like it, and he's afraid, but he knows it's what he has to do.

'Ah! The Ring!' said Boromir, his eyes lighting. 'The Ring! Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing! And I have seen it only for an instant in the House of Elrond. Could I not have a sight of it again?'

Frodo looked up. His heart went suddenly cold. He caught the strange gleam in Boromir's eyes, yet his face was still kind and friendly. 'It is best that it should lie hidden,' he answered.

I don't know how aware Boromir is of this, but looking at the Ring or holding it in his hand seems to have a strange effect even on Frodo, the Ring's current "owner."  In any case, Boromir probably thinks he can grab it if Frodo brings it out.

'As you wish. I care not,' said Boromir.

He trivializes what he desperately wants:  a small, insignificant thing, that he says he doesn't care if he doesn't get to see.  He realizes he may have pushed too fast, and backtracks.

'Yet may I not even speak of it? For you seem ever to think only of its power in the hands of the Enemy: of its evil uses not of its good. The world is changing, you say. Minas Tirith will fall, if the Ring lasts. But why? Certainly, if the Ring were with the Enemy. But why, if it were with us?'

'Were you not at the Council?' answered Frodo. 'Because we cannot use it, and what is done with it turns to evil.'

Boromir's reasoning here:  what you think of as only a bad thing, could be a good thing, if we had the chance to use it properly.  We are good people; if we had it, we could defeat the Enemy and use it only for good purposes.  Frodo's response:  it is too powerful for us, good or bad, and its unpredictable power tends to turn even good people bad.  Nobody can handle it safely, so it has to be destroyed. (Wouldn't Frodo have been an asset in the Garden of Eden?  Or in the arms race?)

Boromir got up and walked about impatiently. 'So you go on,' he cried. 'Gandalf, Elrond--all these folk have taught you to say so. For themselves they may be right. These elves and half-elves and wizards, they would come to grief perhaps. Yet often I doubt if they are wise and not merely timid. But each to his own kind. True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted. We of Minas Tirith have been staunch through long years of trial. We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause. And behold! in our need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him. The fearless, the ruthless, these alone will achieve victory. What could not a warrior do in this hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he refuses, why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!'

This paragraph is just crawling with manipulative suggestions that should have made Frodo doubt himself and his mission.  "You're not thinking for yourself, you're just saying what the wizards and elves have told you."  (Are you just gonna do what they say?)  "I think wizards and elves just say those things because they're scared of power."  "Besides, you and I aren't wizards and elves."  "We don't want more than our fair share; we just want to defend ourselves."  "Our cause is just." (true, but that's not the way the Council decided to solve the problem)  "Isn't it lucky that the Ring just happened to come along when we need it? Has to be fate." (Fred Flintstone: "it has to be fate that this bag of money flew over the wall and landed in my lap.") "You'd have to be crazy not to use the power when it's right in your hands." (using words like crazy and mad to make Frodo want to confirm his own sanity)  "We're fearless! We're ruthless!"  (maybe true, but it doesn't solve the problem)  "I'd give those guys what-for!"  (rah, rah)  And all we need...is your little bitty ring.

Boromir strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly; almost he seemed to have forgotten Frodo, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mordor, and became himself a mighty king, benevolent and wise. Suddenly he stopped and waved his arms.

'And they tell us to throw it away!' he cried. 'I do not say destroy it. That might be well, if reason could show any hope of doing so. It does not. The only plan that is proposed to us is that a halfling [hobbit] should walk blindly into Mordor and offer the Enemy every chance of recapturing it for himself. Folly!

'Surely you see it, my friend?' he said, turning now suddenly to Frodo again. 'You say that you are afraid. If it is so, the boldest should pardon you. But is it not really your good sense that revolts?'

'No, I am afraid,' said Frodo. 'Simply afraid. But I am glad to have heard you speak so fully. My mind is clearer now.'

Yes, Boromir has an object outside of himself:  defeating Sauron and protecting his own people.  But his talk becomes more and more self-centered, so much so that Tolkien doesn't even bother to quote him directly.  But he throws in a few more zingers, including a final appeal to reason.  Frodo's response:  glad to know what you're really thinking, Boromir--at least I don't have to wonder about that anymore.  Is he going to listen to Boromir's line of thinking?  No way.

'Then you will come to Minas Tirith?' cried Boromir. His eyes were shining and his face eager.

'You misunderstand me,' said Frodo.

'But you will come, at least for a while?' Boromir persisted. 'My city is not far now; and it is little further from there to Mordor than from here. We have been long in the wilderness, and you need news of what the Enemy is doing before you make a move. Come with me, Frodo,' he said. 'You need rest before your venture, if go you must.' He laid his hand on the hobbit's shoulder in friendly fashion; but Frodo felt the hand trembling with suppressed excitement. He stepped quickly away, and eyed with alarm the tall Man, nearly twice his height and many times his match in strength.

The words are still friendly, but suddenly there's a sense of physical threat.

'Why are you so unfriendly?' said Boromir. 'I am a true man, neither thief nor tracker. I need your Ring: that you know now; but I give you my word that I do not desire to keep it. Will you not at least let me make trial of my plan? Lend me the Ring!'

'No! no!' cried Frodo. 'The Council laid it upon me to bear it.'

'It is by our own folly that the Enemy will defeat us,' cried Boromir. 'How it angers me! Fool! Obstinate fool! Running wilfully to death and ruining our cause. If any mortals have claim to the Ring, it is the men of Numenor, and not Halflings. It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me!'

Frodo did not answer, but moved away till the great flat stone stood between them. 'Come, come, my friend!' said Boromir in a softer voice. 'Why not get rid of it? Why not be free of your doubt and fear? You can lay the blame on me, if you will. You can say that I was too strong and took it by force. For I am too strong for you, halfling,' he cried; and suddenly he sprang over the stone and leaped at Frodo. His fair and pleasant face was hideously changed; a raging fire was in his eyes.

"I don't want to keep it--but just let me use it!" "You'll make our side lose!"  "You're an idiot!" "It doesn't really belong to you anyway!"  And then..."You really hate it, don't you?  Having to go on this ridiculous quest?  Having to cart that thing around and be chased by every jealous evil thing that wants it?  You can get rid of all your problems right now.  It won't even be your problem anymore." 

And finally--when his persuasion proves useless, Boromir attempts to take the ring by force.

(What happens next?  You'll have to read it yourself.)

CM, big ideas, and co-op learning--yes, it does work!

Some great weekend reading: a post by Jeannette Tulis at the ChildLightUSA blog.

"In agreeing to teach this class, I warned the organizers that I was not going to utilize lap books, notebooking, model building, posters or other popular typical classroom activities. Not that these are not effective ways to teach, they just are not the way I prefer to teach. The organizers agreed to this so I set about planning a class that would be built around living ideas and living books following Mason’s teachings as much as possible."--Jeannette Tulis

There are no guarantees...but it's still worth our time.

Do you ever feel like you're wasting your time reading all those books to your kids? 

What if you spend the summer reading oh, I don't know, something BIG to them...maybe the entire Chronicles of Narnia...and at the end they know the stories, but don't seem to have made any particular connections, at least that you can see, with the symbolism or character examples?  What does Lucy learn about the dangers of eavesdropping after looking into the magic book?  How does Aslan's ripping off an enchanted dragon's skin (in Voyage of the Dawn Treader) symbolize our need for submission to Christ's sometimes painful cleansing of our sins?  Why is it such a puzzle about who gets to go into the New Narnia at the end of the last book?  (Wasn't that a bit unfair on Susan? How about Emeth the Calormene?)  What if all this seems to go over their heads?  What if they never grasp the world's desperate need for more Puddleglums, those who will not be lulled by false logic and propaganda, even if it means sticking one's foot in the fire?

Charlotte Mason says that's a necessary risk that we take when we tell (or read) stories.  The mind feeds on ideas, not dry information; to use her food metaphor, we may not get exactly what we need from any particular meal, but it's certain that we won't get anything at all from a meal made of sawdust.  Even when we read the best books, we (or our hearers) won't receive or understand everything, all of the time; but that still gives us a better odds of getting (or giving) at least some nourishment, than in presenting what she calls "pre-digested" or sucked-dry material.

In Philosophy of Education, she writes of the child:

He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that;

our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety

and his to take what he needs.

Urgency on our part annoys him.

He resists forcible feeding and loathes predigested food.

What suits him best is pabulum presented in the indirect literary form

which Our Lord adopts in those wonderful parables

whose quality is that they cannot be forgotten though,

while every detail of the story is remembered,

its application may pass and leave no trace.

We, too, must take this risk.

Math is more than minusing

Ruth Beechick once complained that school readers used to push all the really interesting stories to the back of the book, and maybe you got to them at the end of the year. Supplements in math class can be like that too--if you do them when you get around to them, you may never get around to them. We don't always have to be bound to the Big Fat Math Books, at least not all year long.

I think that's what was wrong with most of the math education I got during school: most of it, progressive as we were all supposed to be in the '70's, was simply arithmetic. A few angles here and there, but mostly it was about doing the basic operations. Once in awhile they hauled out the expensive kits of attribute blocks, or gave us laminated cards with "math experiences" on them, but even the teachers didn't really know how to use that kind of math stuff, so it was always back to arithmetic in the end.

Which, in a way, didn't serve us too badly; at least, as I've said before, I do know my times tables and I don't get caught too often on those silly trick questions like "what's 8 divided by 1/2?".* But I also hit that girl's grade 4 math block around long division, and it was never the same after that. I do know for sure that we never did any math research, or studied mathematicians, or looked at mathematics as something big and interesting that grownup people did. It was just what you did after reading class and before gym.

So I was very interested to read "Mild-Mannered Math No More" by Cheryl Bastarache in The Old Schoolhouse, Winter 2008-9 issue, and to also find it online. This article talks about basing your math course around a math notebook that's full of more than just sums: you can include "notes, copywork, research, challenges, responses, and fun stuff." In other words, like a scientist's journal, or a Book of the Centuries, or a Latin notebook, or any other notebook-with-a-plan like that. A book full of stuff that's actually interesting...and, as Cheryl says, if you're brave enough, you could make that "the centerpiece of your curriculum."

*The answer is 16. 8 divided by 1/2 means how many halves fit into 8?

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #26

So we were talking about the timeless aspects of what we currently call a Charlotte Mason education, but which has a history pre-dating Charlotte Mason herself. Can we get hold of the soul or spirit of this kind of education so that we can discern where to stay faithful to what CM wrote, and use what she used, and where we re-invent?

In one of Cindy's latest study posts on Norms and Nobility, she writes:

"The rest of Chapter 3, Part II may well be the heart of the chapter, the point being that we are not raising (teaching) children, we are raising adults. This is where the transformational power of ideas comes in. If we change our thinking in this one small area, we completely change our educational philosophy."

And maybe that's it.

Because when I started thinking through this post, I came up with a few basic CM ideas like these: training in the habit of observation, the habit of attention, the habit of books; emphasizing the value of the natural world (not worshipping it, but as the creation of the Heavenly Father); expecting that children can and should do small jobs perfectly and then work up, emphasizing quality over quantity. And the emphasis on facts not being presented "without their informing ideas."

I also thought about the PNEU programmes' structure, listing books and subjects rather broadly and generally, rather than trying to make sure that every hero and every concept are accounted for and categorized. There is an avoidance of time-wasting activities that no self-respecting child would choose to do without coercion and that do not advance the child's knowledge or abilities. And on the teacher's part, there is an avoidance of too much patronizing explanation.

Which brings us back to what Cindy said. We are raising young people, and while they definitely need time in their lives to be children, without being rushed, pressured, and burdened with knowledge they're not ready for (NOTE: non-family-friendly news content in that link), they also need the opportunity to grow, to be provided with mind-food according to their needs and appetites as human beings. I like seeing the little bitty plants and seeds go into the garden in spring, but I'm expecting that by the end of the summer, barring disaster and rabbits, we'll have tomatoes and beans.

In one sense we may see an afternoon's nature outing as a chance to let children to be children, to relax a bit but get moving at the same time; to drop the need for 'tween attitudes at least long enough to get interested in a newt or a garter snake; to have fun playing in the way children used to play before coaches and computers started telling them the next move. And as Charlotte Mason says, there are places in children's play where adults may not intrude. But at the same time, by giving our children that opportunity to see, to be curious, to compare and record, to tell back, to paint robins and violets with real art materials, to show us their discoveries; by giving them some space and time to play; and by not giving them a worksheet to be filled out on each detail of their afternoon, then we are treating them more as adults, as our equals in intelligence, as partners in discovery, as sharers in this journey.

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #24

Last night I found myself deep in Charlotte Mason's School Education (the third volume in the Home Education series), because I was thinking hard about how what we do for school here does or doesn't match up with CM goals. (Sometimes it doesn't!) I did take some time out to watch the last part of Mr. Holland's Opus with Mr. Fixit and Ponytails, including the part where Mr. Holland's school cuts out all the music and drama courses because of lack of funds and because the administration does not value those things.

Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division.
Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about.

It's hard to get away from the discussion and thinking over educational questions that have come up in Ontario over the past couple of weeks, questions about political correctness, about the school vs. the family's role in teaching anything beyond the "basic" subjects. The Toronto weekend papers were full of comments from people who would seemingly like nothing better to get their hands squeezed tightly around the minds of my children. We've also been talking about spiritual warfare as part of a study at church. It all leads me to a sense not so much of despair but of urgency, a sense that if our children are to have a chance to stand against not only systematic reprogramming of personal values but against the Vice Principal Wolters of the world, we need to give them some very strong tools to do it with and we need to do that now.

Ray Bradbury and Aldous Huxley, though not necessarily kindred spirits to CM, agreed on one point: that books, real books, are the strongest of those tools. Take books away from people, either physically or by taking away their ability to read them (or their belief that books are valuable, or their understanding that some books are just paper with covers while others are more than that), and you can reprogram your subjects to think any way you want. Find them again, and the winter of frozen minds starts to thaw and bud into spring. It even happened in the Bible.

That's why slaves were forbidden to read. That's why printing presses and newspapers are often damaged or closed down during times of political turmoil. Knowledge (not just information, as Charlotte Mason repeatedly said) is power. Thinking is power. Reading is power. We have the natural world, we have Mozart, we have paintings, we have so much more there to discover...but beyond that, we have books. They are still there. We can still read them. They disappear from the library shelves and from publishers' lists, but they often show up (as if in retaliation) as e-books and on used booksellers' sites. Nobody's taken away the Harvard Classics online. Nobody's yet taken away your right to buy books by David Hicks and Richard Mitchell. Or Bibles, at least for the time being and at least in this country. Or Shakespeare. Or the books that inspired Frankenstein's monster. If they humanized him, can they do less for us?

The definition proposed here for "a leisurely education" was having the freedom (time, space, opportunity) to discover what makes you fully human. Without a doubt, that freedom is being pulled away. Pull back as hard as you can, as long as you can.

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #23

I'm finding myself thinking more about Charlotte Mason's principle "education is a life." Maybe because a couple of homeschoolers I know have had to put their children back in school recently, or send them for the first time...when their hearts would have preferred to keep on homeschooling if circumstances had allowed it. Why the italics?--because homeschoolers like homeschooling. If things are going well, then our day-to-day learning-related thinking isn't about whether or not we're possibly going to be able to keep up with the public school class. It's about learning itself. It's about what to teach, how to do it, how our children learn best, how this fits into our larger lives. That's the kind of enthusiasm that instantly connects people standing in line together at a homeschool conference; we find it in ourselves, and we recognize it in others. It's the reason that some of us spend our online time reading and writing about what seems to matter in education.

When homeschooling suddenly stops--or not so suddenly, because sometimes it just happens that our children grow up (they do, faster than you'd think)--for most of us there isn't a feeling of release from something we haven't wanted to do, but rather a reluctance to see it end. This may be because we, the parents, have found some or many of our social connections in the homeschool community, and we don't want to lose those just because we're no longer worrying about math curriculum; but it may also be because we've found ourselves part of something larger, a way of thinking about learning that goes beyond how many children you actually have at home every day. It's not "playing school," as a post we've linked to before criticized homeschoolers; it's looking at our own lives differently because we've had these children to teach.

About a year ago I spoke at a support group meeting, on the topic "What in your own life has inspired your approach to learning?" For instance, experiences I had (years ago) working with mentally challenged adults gave me strong impressions about each individual having something unique to offer the world, and that has always coloured my ideas about trying to meet each person's needs rather than expecting everyone to fit into a pre-determined system. But if I had the chance to give a followup talk to that one, I'd ask this: "What in your homeschooling has inspired the rest of your life?" You may have started homeschooling for all kinds of different reasons. I know people who just always wanted to teach their own children, and I know others who got bounced into it because of teachers' strikes or bullying, or because their child wasn't fitting into the classroom or the curriculum. Some of the "bounced" ones have loved homeschooling and stayed with it, others haven't. But if you started and you stuck with it for any length of time, no matter what methods or curriculum you used, there's almost no way that you could come away from it and not think of school, teachers, learning, books, words, worksheets, writing, classrooms, play, authority, motivation, memory...thinking... in a different way than you did before. Not to mention having pies and Cheerios inseparably connected with arithmetic in your mind for years to come.

We're often cautioned not to let homeschooling become our lives. Most of us have husbands, other family members, home and outside responsibilities and interests, ministries, jobs that require lots of attention. Nobody wants to get so narrow that all she can think or talk about is what's in the latest homeschool magazine. But education, in its broadest sense, does become a big part of our lives. We enjoy seeing our children learn. We figure out that we need to learn as well. We start picking up books. Some of us even pick up degrees. We don't want to have to stop doing that just because our children have reached a certain age or stage.

And we don't have to.

Charlotte Mason #21: A Lovely Thought

"[People need] the cultivation of the power to appreciate, to enjoy, whatever is just, true, and beautiful in thought and expression. For instance, one man reads--

'...He lay along,
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish;'--

"and gets no more out of it than the four facts of the reclining man, the oak, the brook, and the wounded stag. Another reads, and gets these and something over--a delicious mental image, and a sense of exquisite pleasure in the putting of the thought, the mere ordering of the words....If people are to live in order to get rich, rather than to enjoy satisfaction in the living, they can do very well without intellectural culture; but if we are to make the most of life as the days go on, then it is a duty to put this power of getting enjoyment into the hands of the young....But the press and hurry of our times and the clamour for useful knowledge are driving classical culture out of the field; and parents will have to make up their minds, not only that they must supplement the moral training of the school, but must supply the intellectual culture, without which knowledge may be power, but is not pleasure, nor the means of pleasure." -- Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character