Gifts to Give Our Children-Atmosphere, Habit, and Living Ideas
Eventually we all grow old enough to understand that we cannot control others, we can only control ourselves. This is good policy when rearing and educating children. Charlotte Mason removes all superficial and manipulative means of accomplishing growth in children by acknowledging their personal dignity, and placing the responsibility back on the child. Parents and children simply provide the best means of growth at the children’s disposal. The elegance of her program is in its simplicity. There are three things that we parents and educators can control: atmosphere, habit, and the ideas we present to our children.
Atmosphere
We all tend to love the things our tribe loves. In a so-called “sporty” family, an atmosphere of all things sport related trains the children to love sports. The family organizes its schedule around athletic events, watches the game on Sunday, and enjoys playing sports together in their free time. Rather than supposing that some children are more inclined to sports than others, it may be more accurate to suppose that some families create an atmosphere that nurtures “sportiness” in a child. Does a family turn off the television and read together? Are the walls of the living room lined with books? Are birthdays a time to give books as presents? If so, then expect the literary atmosphere to nurture children who love literature. Atmosphere is the crock pot we stew in.
When building a school, the atmosphere is one of the most powerful educators. If movie and popcorn parties are rewards for finishing well on a math assessment, the school has communicated that movies and popcorn are more valuable than mathematics. If a classroom is ugly, cheap, and sloven, then the message is that this school-business is not really that important. If a teacher looks dreary and has no joy when encountering her students, then the children would just as well not be in that classroom. However, a classroom that treats a child as a person, one that is tastefully decorated without condescending cartoon characters and cheap posters, one that is furnished with quality furniture when this is possible, this communicates that this education business is important, that it is amongst the best of life’s gifts.
Habit
Charlotte Mason said that habit is the rails on which our lives run. Do you remember how, as a beginning driver, how stressful every decision seemed? However, now that driving is an old habit, you probably don’t even remember driving home from church the other day. In the same way, students must learn the habits of being a student. The habit of attention, neatness, body control, and humility are just a few basic habits every student must master.
We know how to train in habit; we demonstrate and then expect the student to follow suit. Just as we understand this fact when training students to play the piano or to kick a football, we also understand the means to teach a child the habits of a student, that really are, after all, habits that make adult life much easier too.
Living Ideas
Perhaps one of the most important actions a parent or a teacher can take to nurture whole persons is putting before a child living ideas. Facts hang on ideas like clothes on a person, but, despite the old saying, “clothes make the man,” we know that it is what is on the inside, not the outside that counts. The same is true in the field of knowledge. The life of the mind is not merely the relaying of information, but instead it is the making of relationships with ideas.
Living ideas can be discovered best by presenting to children living books, for language is the mode of conveyance for most ideas. Living books are a child’s primary teacher. The child develops a relationship with the author when the author has first-hand knowledge of his subject, when his love of the subject is clear, when all of his knowledge points to something beyond the facts. Text books, written by ghosts-writers, tend toward hollow facts and little love for a subject, while living books bring the character and joy of the author to bear on the ideas behind the facts.
What better gifts can we possibly lay before our children than an atmosphere that loves the best things, habits that prepare them for life, and a feast of living ideas to nourish their mind?
Find out how Saint George School will be working to meet these ends by visiting www.saintgeorgedenton.com.
