Comp Lit 101, Preschool Style

Today as we sat down to read Gabriel's rest time book, Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I think when Swimmy meets the big bad salmon fish he is brave just like St. George is brave!" We had read swimmy a couple times, but we just read our book on St. George and the Dragon for the first time today. Guess he got the idea. Not bad for almost 3 and a half, I thought, anyway!

(We've been talking about virtues and good habits, and I was wondering if it was really worth it at this stage of the game, but I think if he can identify bravery in literary form, he can understand at least in a rudimentary way what we've been talking about for "G" week this week--"gratitude" both to others and to God, mostly by working on saying thank you.)

Another newbie for 2010: The Weekend Book Nook

"By inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu). The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions. Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language..."

"Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language. Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word. It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up. Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola. The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man – a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God. But it also includes the formation of reason – education – through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself."

(From Pope Benedict's speech to representatives of the world of culture in France on September 12, 2008)

Pope Benedict offers an idea that speaks to all bibliophiles who always knew that there was something more to their love affair with books. We are drawn to books–good books, books that reveal the truth about the human person; books that speak of the beauty as well as the sorrows of this created world; books that overflow, above all, with words– because we long to know The Word himself. "The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions."

Why is this? Pope Benedict points out that one key way that God has revealed himself is through the word, the Scriptures. The only way such a revelation can be fully appreciated is through a cultivation of a “culture of the word.” My life as a lover of language has made me realize that the more one reads, the greater one’s sensitivity to the nuances of phrasing, the depth of metaphor, and the painting of character.

Our family is embarking on a new exploration of words as we teach our little ones to "penetrate the secret of language" through learning to read and write. Like the monastery, our little domestic church is called to pursue eruditio, the formation and education of man. And so we fill our days with living books, exploring childhood’s literary landscape in order to engage the heart and open the mind to knowledge. As Charlotte Mason remarks, the key to education is presenting children not with dry facts, but “with fact clothed upon by living flesh, breathed into by the vital spirit of quickening ideas.” Good literature incarnates history, geography, science, culture, and faith, propelling the naturally curious mind of the child towards a greater engagement with topics than the faceless facts of textbooks.

Such literature does not always leap off the library shelves into our hands. Often we find it through the guidance of others who have gone before us, sometimes we happen upon it. This little Weekend Book Nook will be a space to share literary discoveries and our family’s engagement with them. Most will probably be elementary-aged children’s literature, as my oldest child is only 3, and that is where our sights are set at the moment.

My grown-up reading habits entail much “grazing” and little “finishing,” but I’m sure from time to time my own reading will make its presence known as well.

Lest I think my efforts are in vain...

Today as Gabriel, Peter and I were riding in the car to go pick up our veggies and milk from the co-op we participate in, we were listening to the classical music station on the radio. A Mozart piece came on– don’t ask me the name, because I don’t really focus on these things(!)– and I waited for a reaction from Gabriel. Suddenly from the back of the car I hear:

“Mommy! Is that your phone? Is your phone ringing?”
“No, Gabriel. That’s the radio.”
“But, no, Mommy, I hear your phone!”
“Actually, what you hear is the melody my phone plays when it rings. Mozart wrote that melody a long time ago, and now someone is playing it on the piano.”
“Is it Daddy?” [Daddy is our home’s resident pianist and musician extraordinaire...]
“No, it is a different man, or maybe even a woman.”
“Hey...Mozart! That’s like the book we read! Is this the melody he found? Is this Mozart’s melody?!”

At least ten months ago we read a book from the library called Mozart Finds A Melody. Gabriel would have been not quite 2 ½ years old. It was a rather whimsical rhyming picture book about Mozart and his pet bird, and his attempt to find a melody for his next composition. I had just grabbed it off the shelf, seeing that it looked kind of like a “living book” and hoping he might connect it to Daddy’s piano playing. It seemed way over his head at the time, but we read it a couple times and then returned it, not to mention it again. But it was there, swirling around in Gabriel’s little thoughts, and it reemerged...today!

Episodes like this make me increasingly more committed to filling my children’s hearts and minds with excellence and beauty, and more averse to fluffy cartoon characters or books featuring characters with bad attitudes, slapstick violence, or potty humor. You’d think the library would know better than to stock such stuff, but I find that 75% of the time when Gabriel randomly finds a book off the shelves, it features the above-mentioned attributes. Books can be fun without all that... Cynthia Rylant’s books are great examples. (I’ll talk more about them in an upcoming post.)

Finding living books that feed Gabriel’s mind and heart takes extra effort–in our case, I check trusted booklists, go to the library website, request the books online, and wait until they come in. Then our trip to the library is much simpler... I have a huge stack of genuinely good books waiting for me (although I always flip through them now before reading them) and we can make a short visit to the children’s section for one or two spontaneous finds. Much easier than browsing shelves with two little ones in tow!

A Recipe for Learning at Home

It’s been quite an adventure figuring out what method of education is going to work for our home this year, but finally, two months in, I think we have it somewhat figured out. It’s kind of like one of those long-simmering winter soups that keeps expanding as I add a handful of this, a pinch of that...and so on. I can never be sure until later which flavors will stand out, which will recede into the background, and which things I know I would leave out next time.

Here’s the “recipe” for what I've been doing with Gabriel (3yrs old) so far:

• I began with a curriculum book called Little Saints which featured three days of a structured preschool curriculum, but it just seemed too... constraining, as well as a little over Gabriel’s head. I’ve been using it instead as a resource.

• As a preview to reading, we’ve been structuring our weeks around the alphabet, working mostly on sound-letter correlation. I’ve been getting many of my language ideas from Mommy, Teach Me to Read.

• We’ve been using a lot of ideas from Elizabeth Foss’ Alphabet Path, particularly the booklists for teaching science with living books and the saint ideas.

• Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy has pointed us in the direction of focusing on teaching everything possible through books that engage the heart of the child, lots of outdoor nature study, and a focus on the formation of good habits.

• I have skimmed some Montessori books and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd materials, and I've been using Moira Farrel's Home Catechesis Manual to begin introducing Gabriel to some "altar work"--in other words, he gets to learn about the Mass and its purpose using hands-on materials.
  

• I've planned my weeks using the following categories: Language, Math, Nature Study/Science, Habits, Saints, Music, and Menu Ideas. We tend to try to focus on language elements on Monday, the Saint of the Week on Tuesday, and everything else basically shuffles in between outings, chores, meals, playtime, etc...
  

I'll try to post some highlights and photos of this week, along with a review of our favorite book this week, on Friday.

Out-of-Door Life

A love of Nature, implanted so early that it will seem to them hereafter to have been born in them, will enrich their lives with pure interests, absorbing pursuits, health, and good humor. ~Charlotte Mason, Victorian British educator

In the spirit of Charlotte Mason, I have been striving to wander through the woods with my boys at least once a week, if not more. We spend time outside daily, but these weekly wanderings are something I've tried to build up in Gabriel's mind. We bring water bottles and “provisions” for the trail, we sometimes wear hiking boots, and we try to visit a different park each week. We leave ourselves a full morning for wandering through the forest, observing. I have been doing this instinctively for a while, but it has become a decided project after delving into Charlotte Mason's original writings. Her own time was over 100 years ago, but I believe her insights into the needs of a child's early education are wise and transcend the time in which they were written. She says, “in this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother's first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air. And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone—body and soul, heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the children are let alone, let to live without friction and without stimulus among influences which incline them to be good.” The receptivity to, and wonder about, all that nature holds, as well as the simple power of observation, are some things I hope to be cultivating in Gabriel on our little walks through the Virginia forests.

One of the secrets of the educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him. ~ Charlotte Mason

That being said, I just have to take the chance to pat myself on the back and tell the virtual world out there that today, baby in the backpack and all, I bent over and scooped up a little tadpole so that Gabriel could hold one, wondering at the little legs that were sprouting on either side of the tadpole's little wiggling tail. Certainly I have done my fair share of running through woods and creeks, being out of doors, and camping, but never once have I been inspired to plunge my hand into a creek and fish out anything. I guess it's not much, compared to other motherly acts of love and self-sacrifice, but I felt it was quite a triumph. All for the love of nature and education, and my little guy, of course. Hopefully Charlotte Mason would be proud.

Gabriel stops for a break and some "provisions" along the trail.

Education is a Life

Except for a couple intermittent years, and my most recent degree at the John Paul II Institute, I am (academically) the product of public education, from elementary school through my undergrad days at UVA. I must admit that much of the rote memorization, fill-in-the-blanks type learning that Charlotte Mason, a turn-of-the-century English educator, seems most concerned about seemed to have fallen out of style, at least when I was in school. Perhaps with the heavy emphasis on standardized testing (coming back just as I was leaving for college) there has been a renewed interest in memorization? In any case, in both my elementary and high school experiences, there was a heavy emphasis on creative writing, group projects, problem-solving, skits, and role-playing, as well as hands-on experimentation. I remember my parents even expressing concern about the fact that we were not forced to drill much of what we learned into our minds through rote memorization. By the time middle school rolled around I used a calculator for all of my math classes, so the necessity of recalling even basic math was for the most part eliminated. Yet there were still plenty of history, vocabulary, and grammar textbooks with bold-faced words and questions at the end of the book that told you “what you needed to know”; I became an expert at attacking tests armed with this somewhat formulaic knowledge.

Emotional Connection
I have been skimming through Karen Andreola’s A Charlotte Mason Companion in company with Education Is.... She points out that a key element in making education truly a “life” for a child (or adult) is forging an emotional connection to the subject matter. She quotes Charlotte Mason as she describes successful education as that which kindles a “touch of emotion” in the child with regard to a particular subject matter. Certainly this rings true with common sense– anyone dedicates themselves more diligently to that which they care about, rather than to that which they are bound only by duty or the pressure of evaluation.

I tried to ponder what has stuck with me most in my educational life. Literature, history, and language classes were always fascinating to me and received my primary attention; math, science, and any technical or computer classes elicited a “who cares?” feeling from me. I did the work out of duty; I always got “good grades,” but what I perceived as a lack of “human interest” in these classes made me feel that they were irrelevant to my life. Even now I am somewhat at loss to figure out how to present such subjects, particularly at higher, post-elementary levels, to someone without a natural affinity for them, in a way that they might care about them.

Recently my interest has been peaked by different environmental issues; I realize how much science of all kinds (biology, chemistry, statistics, etc.) goes into identifying and creating approaches for solving different environmental problems. Perhaps if my chemistry class had begun with a “big picture” such as the environment, describing how changes in the environment impact us and others directly, then moving from this to the necessity to understand the hidden chemical workings behind it, I might have been more inclined to care about it than I was when we began with the abstract “little picture” of the elements, their atoms, etc.

Gender differences?
One question I have regarding this particular topic (the important of emotional connection) has come to me because so much of what I have read about Charlotte Mason has been from the female point of view. In much of my studies of late, (interesting books like What Could He Be Thinking? by Michael Gurian, The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen, and Taking Sex Differences Seriously by Steven E. Rhodes) I have found a lot about the differences in the male and female brain and the best ways that, on average, males and females learn and engage in the world. From what Baron-Cohen writes, I think it may be more important for the feminine brain to forge emotional connections with subject matter than for the masculine brain. Why is this? Baron-Cohen describes the typical female brain as one with neural connections built more strongly for empathizing. What is empathy? He describes it as “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion” in order to understand, connect, or resonate with another person emotionally. On the other hand, the typical male brain is built with neural connections that promote a higher degree of systematizing–analysis, exploration, and construction of systems, in order to predict the behavior of the system or to invent a new one. Systematizing requires a degree of detachment, whereas empathizing requires a degree of attachment. There is much more that could be said–his book is a fascinating read–but I think the short conclusion I’d like to draw here is that my above inference about females vs. males and emotional connection to subject matter is probably true to a certain extent.

My husband is my “common sense” case study for this: he enjoys figuring out problems (physics, chess and other similar games, math equations, etc.) just for the pure joy of solving problems. This baffles me, as it is so different from my own natural inclinations. Yet his insistence that this is why he enjoys solving problems proves to me that there is another way of being, learning, and acquiring knowledge out there that is very different from my own. (My husband is not a purely “technical” guy by any means–his main pursuit is teaching and learning music; he is a singer, an excellent artist, and a not-too-shabby writer as well.) In addition to my own little “case study”, I recall that most of the more enthusiastic members of my computer classes and physics classes in high school were male. Certainly there were many women at my school who also excelled in these classes (I went to a science and math-based high school; that’s another story for another time!), so these male and female brain differences are not a hard and fast rule.

In light of all of this would be quite interested to hear about CM-style education from the perspective of a male educator, or from those who have educated males through the high school level in this fashion, given that I may be in the position of guiding the education of my son, who quite possibly has a mind that will work and learn in ways very different from my own.

Continuing thoughts on Charlotte Mason

These thoughts continue the online discussion that was started over at Elizabeth Foss' blog on the free e-book Education Is... I've been using my reading of this book to try to develop a "big picture" vision of how Michael and I can best care for Gabriel, because I have found the parenting books filled with step-by-step strategies and tactics and ways to respond to different behaviors to be somewhat dissatisfying. Better to have a vision, I think, and develop strategies that fit in with this vision, than use things that other people suggest haphazardly.

Education is a Discipline
The second prong of Charlotte Mason's educational approach is "education is a discipline", and by this she meant to highlight the importance of cultivating good habits that our children will continue into their adult lives. Good habits are central, she emphasizes, to the forming of good character. She has seven main points regarding education as discipline:

1. We should put intentional thought and effort into forming habits.
2. It's not always easy to administer consequences, but our children's futures depend on our faithfulness and efforts to do so.
   
3. Habits can become stronger than natural inclinations.
4. Education should deal with character issues, not just acquiring a certain amount of knowledge.
5. Incessant watchfulness and work are required for forming and preserving habits.
6. Cultivating good habits makes up one-third of our children's education.
7. The effort is in the forming of a habit; once it is formed it is no longer strenuous.
   

Mirror, mirror...
There are a limited number of habits that it seems Gabriel (22 mos) can work on right now. I have slowly been realizing, as I reflect on his most bothersome behaviors, that if I translate them into my own life, I could stand to work on the same things myself! Surprise, surprise, right? He's young but certainly quite perceptive; perhaps if I start putting some intentional thought and effort into improving, he'll start improving too, with our help, of course.

• Gabriel is easily frustrated--to the point of moans, groans, squeals, and sometimes tears--when he sets a task for himself that he can't do in the time or the way he wants it done. For example: putting on a hat that keeps falling off, or setting some of his toys up in particular arrangements when they keep falling down.
  
• Mommy is easily frustrated in similar situations--throughout my life it has been tough for me to persevere when a task doesn't come easily or quickly to me. Recently I have been particularly frustrated and easily defeated when trying to get Gabriel to nap/sleep in a reasonable amount of time. (I'm pretty sure Gabriel can sense my frustration...)
  

We both need to work on perseverance and patience under trial, I think! It is not always convenient or easy to figure out the best way to facilitate his growth in perseverance, but I think knowing that I need to work on the same habit will help clear the clouds some when I am faced with Gabriel's frustration in particular situations.

Consequences and Reactions
I must admit that I am stumped about how to teach Gabriel not to act in a way that is inappropriate. In other words, what consequences are appropriate for an almost-two-year old? I am getting the feeling that the key for this age--at least for this little boy-- is in #5 above--incessant and consistent watchfulness and work on the part of mother and father to physically keep him from running into the street, pushing other children away from toys, throwing objects, or standing on furniture. Verbal reprimands seem only to reinforce the precise behavior we are trying to prevent, and to encourage him to do it with more glee, awaiting our reactions! I continue to search for wisdom from other more experienced moms for appropriate methods of response to such behaviors, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Discipline brings Freedom
This point, highlighted in Education Is, reminds me of a point from my moral theology class. It is encouraging when I begin to worry about the repetitive nature of my "teaching" interactions with Gabriel. There will come a point that this instruction enables him to reach a greater stage of freedom!

The first stage of education in the moral life is to practice adherence to the commandments, which often, from the outside, can seem "constraining". Yet it is this first stage that is the bedrock for the true moral life, which is the life of the virtues, as developed to the point of becoming "habitual". "Habitual" virtues are those that can be exercised repeatedly and with creativity in diverse situations. They are not necessarily exercised with ease (although they may be) as even great saints are troubled by great temptations and moral quandries. It is only by complying with the beginning steps of discipline--adherence to the commandments, or in Gabriel's case, to our physical requirement that he not run into the street or push his cousin, that a person is able to experience true freedom in action. This freedom for Gabriel is one of the great hopes that sustains my everyday work of teaching and guiding!

Back to the Blog.... With scraps of a vision for our home

Thanks to an abundance of grace and constant support from my husband and my family, I have emerged from beneath the heavy yet illuminating stacks of theology books and finally finished my Master's degree, even miraculously passing my comprehensive exams in March amidst the throes of an admittedly mild (but still tiring) first trimester of my second pregnancy! I'm back to the blog to facilitate a turning of my intellectual mental energies towards home again.

I was inspired by a post over at Elizabeth Foss' blog to dive into a reflection on the educational ideas and theories of Charlotte Mason, via a short (but substantial) e-book called Education Is... Much could be said about this, certainly, and I hesitate to throw my 2-cents in with seasoned mothers who have much more experience and wisdom than I, particularly because I am only beginning to learn about CM's thought. But perhaps because of my lack of experience it seems like a privilege and a gift to have time to reflect on ideas that ring so true while my son is still so young. My challenge to myself will be to synthesize the ideas I encounter in the upcoming months with some of those I had time to ponder at the JPII Institute these past few years.

Education Is describes Charlotte Mason's approach to education as "three-pronged": "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." The first prong--"atmosphere"-- is what has most provoked my thought, particularly because Gabriel seems to absorb and mimic behaviors , placement of objects, and words so easily. The book points out six elements of Charlotte's thought on education via atmosphere:

1. Children should grow up in a natural home setting, not an artificial, adapted environment.
2. Character traits can be learned through the atmosphere of the home.
3. We must be careful how we live, because our children will pick up attitudes and ideas from us that will affect them the rest of their lives.
4. The atmosphere of our homes is formed out of the ideas that rule our lives as parents.
   
5. Atmosphere is only part, not all, of a child's education. We must also give the discipline of good habits and the living ideas of a generous curriculum.
   
6. The atmosphere of the home should encourage freedom under authority and obedience.
   

In light of these six points, I contemplated what words I might want to describe our home. I kept coming back to these :

• ordered
• rhythmic
• peaceful
• simple
  

In other words, in the best of all possible worlds, our little domestic church might echo something of a monastic lifestyle, with adaptations, of course, because the family, just as the monastic community, is called together by God to fulfill man's vocation to love. I spent 30 pages writing a paper for my Patristics course on how St. Benedict's monastic Rule might inspire and structure family life, so I'll try to hit the highlights. Perhaps this is a tangent from CM's atmosphere, but it is the direction my brain went...!

The Monastic and Familial "Milieu": Physical, Temporal, Auditory
The monastic enclosure is designed with the recognition that man is both body and soul, and so both physical and spiritual elements of a home must be oriented towards God. Each of Benedict's monastic communities were to have an oratory, a physical space dedicated particularly to group and individual prayer and nothing else. In a similar way, the physical space of the home could be filled with sacred objects and pictures, and a special place might be created for family prayer. This physical space can be the place where the family gathers at specified times, creating a rhythm of daily prayer which fit into the daily schedule of the family. I think in particular the "tide" of monastic life--flowing in and out of the oratory to other tasks and occupations--is what I would like our home to be like. Certainly it will be a challenge as schedules become more complex and little ones start their own activities, but I think such an "objective order" centered on specific times of prayer is important. One of my professors always said that the more one enters into an objective order, the more the order shapes who you are, the way you live, and the way you think. (A chaotic order in life creates a chaotic, scattered person; on the other hand, a rhythmic, prayerful life forms a careful, prayerful person. I know this is true in my own life so I can only imagine my children might be the same way!)

Another element I found fascinating was the reverence with which the Benedictine rule treats material objects. All objects must be treated with the same reverence as the "holy bowls of the altar"--even the most "lowly" bucket or scrub brush used for cleaning. Each item is seen as a gift which God has allowed the monks use of for the purpose of their survival and flourishing. Since we've been married we've tried to keep our home "simple" in terms of the stuff we have and the way we have it arranged in our home (books are our major stumbling block here). What I think has been challenging to us is in this realm is to maintain a proper appreciation for material things in the midst of a proper detachment--in other words, to maintain an appreciation for what we have such that we take the proper time to care for it, rather than adopt an attitude of carelessness with the excuse of detachment. Treating what we have and are able to use as the "holy bowls of the altar" helps keep us away from such carelessness, I think. Reverence towards material goods is also tough to cultivate when so much of what is out there is created really to be "disposable". We try to use as few disposable items as possible (although we really could still do better), not only out of "environmental" concerns but also with the above reverence in mind. It is hard to cultivate reverence and gratitude when we can throw away something once it has been dirtied or used once.

The monastic year as structured by Benedict in the early Christian era was quite dependent upon the seasons for both timing of prayer (due to available light and scarcity of oil and candles) and work (harvesting vs. planting, etc). One might pass over this detail regarding the temporal environment of the monastery as irrelevant to modern families, but it seemed particularly important with regards to the type of attitude it cultivated towards life: a Marian attitude of receptivity and dependence upon God and creation as He designed it. Certainly family life now might not revolve around available hours of sunlight, but the Marian virtues of active, patient receptivity and dependence might be cultivated in other ways--an obvious example might be planting and tending a vegetable garden, as my husband has tried to do these past few years. Such an activity seems to go hand in hand with "eating with the seasons"--possible not only for gardeners but by frequenting local farmer's markets, or at the very least, respecting what is reasonably and locally available in grocery stores (rather than eating Chilean strawberries in January, for example).

The Benedictine monastery was not completely silent, but it adopted specified times of day for silence. Further, the monks were encouraged to avoid "bawdy laughter", gossip, and pointless chatter. Certainly in light of the presence of small children a "rule of silence" even if for particular times is challenging, and even the practice of reading Scriptures at table rather than talking during certain seasons as the monks do has been a tough one for our family, even though I think we have made a valiant effort. I think the most successful way I have tried to "cultivate silence" in our home is to avoid excess noise--certain children's CD's with synthesized backups and annoying vocals can tend to fit in this category--and ensure that the sound that is present is beautiful and uplifting. (Although this isn't too tough when we have got a pianist for a husband/daddy, a nice piano taking up most of the living room, and lessons and practicing echoing through the little house throughout the day!)

Obedience, Service and Hospitality
...are further ways the monastic life and familial life can be paralleled, and further elements that I think would fit into Charlotte Mason's "atmosphere as education". I'll save discussing these for another post, because I think I've gone on long enough today. Gabriel is bound to wake up from his nap soon, and the "rhythm" of our little domestic church is currently quite determined by his sleeping and waking hours, so I must be finished with this post for now!