Cultivating a Life-Long Love of Learning (Part 3) ~ Education is a Life

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We spent the last week of holidays at the lake and tried to squeeze out every last drop of summer. The cousins drank it up like it would never come to an end. But, summer this year was vanishing as quickly as the mist on the lake in the early morning sunlight.

Some of the maple trees have already begun their annual change from summer green to autumn gold; their leaves dappled with orange and blushing bright red. Evening is settling in earlier every day, like it is trying to tuck summer in before it’s ready. The brisk night air is warning of the looming changes ahead. Change will come, you can be sure of it.

This morning our daughter walked down the drive as a round rosy sun snuck up through the clouds.

Life, it seems, can sneak up on you like that. You come to the end of a season and you find that the next season has already sprinted off with the baton. You hardly recognized the transition zone. Life just keeps racing on.

She walked down the street and vanished from sight. For twelve years, well, except for the one I was in the hospital barely alive after open-heart surgery, she has been learning at home.

This morning, after I snapped a picture, she walked right into a new adventure—a change of atmosphere, so to speak, and I had to catch my breath and keep trusting the Lord.





Her brother and sister, her Dad and I, stood with arms flapping our farewell and prayers lingered on our lips and my heart, it felt like it was getting silently squeezed right there on the driveway.

We walked back in the house, I wrapped my fingers around my half empty mug of coffee—the one with ‘Joy’ inscribed on the front of it—and the rest of us, we settled back into old routines and new habits. We dug out old lessons to review and cracked open new living books to read. I sipped re-heated coffee and joyfully considered the year of learning ahead.

For twelve years we have been learning that “education is an atmosphere; education is a discipline; education is a life”. It’s the philosophy of education Charlotte Mason advocated and we have been discovering.

These three instruments of education—atmosphere, discipline, and life—all braided together to weave a strong cord; each one as vital as the other to hold it all together.

We build up an atmosphere—the thought environment—that encourages relationships where real learning takes place.

Secondly, we diligently cultivate good life-giving habits in our children by laying them down rail upon rail, habit upon habit in which character is formed.

Finally, we spread before our children a large and varied feast to nourish the mind. Just like we provide nourishing food for their bodies, children need rich ideas to feed their mind.

Charlotte Mason, the British educator who has greatly influenced many teachers, parents and students, wrote in the Preface of School Education: “The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.”





This is the academic instrument of education, yet it is not made up merely of dry facts, predigested tidbits of information and dumbed-down books, but rather of living ideas obtained from first-hand personal experience.

Education is a lifelong process of one’s mind feeding on ideas that originate from God. We are to learn about God and His world.

Mason submitted, children learn in order to grow, to get ideas and to gain knowledge. Children will fill their bellies with garbage if that is all that is available and they will fill their mind with the same. Mason believed that children are persons that need to grow in knowledge.

And the way we should do this, she advised, is to freely sow ideas in the fruitful soil of the mind. An idea, she wrote, is: “a spiritual germ endowed with . . . power . . . to grow, and to produce after its kind. It is the very nature of an idea to grow.”






Mason challenged: “ . . . give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.” (Home Education, p. 174)

These ideas—the live things of the mind—are mainly passed on from one person to another, and when interwoven with experience and knowledge lead to growing concepts.

Children discover ideas in living books—books written by one author who passionate for his subject and written in a narrative or a story form. Real learning begins to take hold as the idea sown in the story grows in the mind. Anyone who has become friends with a character in a book, or has had the subject matter spark a fire in the mind, knows what a living book is.





Children also discover ideas in an atmosphere that lets them wonder and lets them ask why and lets them see how. Children need to be outside in nature—there is a feast for the mind when a child stoops down to study an ant or spider on the walkway; whey they observe a tree change in the seasons, drink from a glacier-fed waterfall, walk through a wheat field, listen to the spring peepers, watch a monarch butterfly unfurl from its chrysalis, or wade in the ocean.

Children digest ideas when they are given time to be silent and reflective on the living things they have read, given attention to, and handled. Let children be bored to allow time for the idea to germinate and grow. Let them run, and play unorganized sports, and invent games outside.

Charlotte Mason recommended four tests to apply to their children’s academic diet:

“ . . . children’s lessons should provide material for their mental growth, should exercise the several powers of their minds, should furnish them with fruitful ideas, and should afford them knowledge, really valuable for its own sake, accurate, and interesting, of the kind that the child may recall as a man with profit and pleasure.” (Home Education, p. 176)

Our children, especially today, need a nourishing feast set before them. The distractions are crushing, the amount of processed information is devastating, and all the while attentions spans are dwindling, and real learning is declining. It is up to us to present a feast, but it is the work of the child to deal with the idea.



We have work to do, a real labour of love. Mason encouraged mothers to seriously consider her children’s education. So, I challenge you today to ask yourself these same questions:

“‘Why must children learn at all?’ ‘What should they learn?’ ‘And, How should they learn it?’” (Home Education, p. 171)

Once you grasp that the mind has been created to grow and be renewed and that it feasts on living ideas that ultimately all come from God, you just may see that it is not so much what a youth knows when he has finished his formal education, but how much he cares. That is the learning that lasts a lifetime.



So, no matter what road your child walks down one morning to set off on a whole new adventure, it should be our goal to set our children’s feet in a large room. Real learning in life comes from relationship; build up these relationships. Invest in the atmosphere in which your children live and learn, lay down the discipline of life-giving habits, and nourish your child’s mind with rich ideas.

We need to set our children up to be life-long learners—to love to learn, to grow in knowledge about God and His world. This Truth will never vanish like the mist; it will not change like the seasons, it will stand the test of time and tradition and endure on into eternity.

Cultivating a Life-Long Love of Learning (Part 2) ~ Education is a Discipline

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Admiral William H. McRaven delivered a commencement speech to over 8000 graduating students in 2014. Recently, a condensed video clip of his speech has been bouncing around social media.

You want to change the world? Admiral McRaven says you can do it by beginning with one small and simple task. He explains how each day of his six month basic Navy seal training began with an early morning inspection in the barracks. The mundane task he was required to perform was to be completed to perfection. Corners were to be square, covers pulled tight and pillow and blanket were to be neat and centred. The task he was to execute each morning: make his own bed.

And, now, this edited version of Admiral McRaven’s speech has been floating around the internet three years later and viewers are commenting that they need to go make their bed so they can bring change to the world.

Everyone is eager to change the world with the hope of making it better.



But, you have to wonder, how in the world, have we arrived at this place that a short motivational speech on a screen is inspiring adults to go make their bed. In part, this challenge is just one of twenty clever metaphors being employed to influence the listener to go out and make a difference.

But, the comments are telling. We have dropped the ball when it comes to completing simple and small tasks to perfection. We would rather accomplish great and noble things. Or maybe we just prefer to watch a five-minute video. How many of us begin each day with such a mundane task as making our bed?

Stop and think for a second, this task, although mundane and simple, is not insignificant.

It has been said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; Sow an act and you reap a habit; Sow a habit and you reap a character . . . ”



If the formation of character is the aim of education, then it must begin with building on the proper foundation with the right instruments.

The first instrument of education, advocated by Charlotte Mason, a British educator at the turn of the twentieth century, is atmosphere.

The second instrument is discipline. As Charlotte Mason explained in her book, ‘A Philosophy of Education’:

 “By ‘education is a discipline,’ we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body.”

Charlotte Mason likened this instrument of education—this responsibility of parents—to the laying down of the rails for a train. Parents and teachers are to lay down lines of good habits on which the child is to run the course of his life.

Charlotte Mason supposed in her book ‘Home Education’:

 “This relation of habit to human life . . . is perhaps the most suggestive and helpful to the educator; for just as it is on the whole easier for the locomotive to pursue its way on the rails than to take a disastrous run off them, so it is easier for the child to follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines at his peril.” (p. 109)

The habits sown in the child will reap the character of the adult. As parents and teachers we can permit or encourage habits that will either be life-depleting or life-giving.





The formation of life-giving habits has the power to raise a child beyond his or her nature without destroying his or her personality. Charlotte Mason maintained that children are born persons, created in the image of God, and every child has the potential to be a “person of infinite possibilities”. Yet, children are ignorant and need to grow in knowledge.

These life-giving habits are tools in the spiritual, physical, moral and intellectual development of the child in the realm of relationships with God, others and oneself.

This is not new thinking. The apostle Paul exhorted in his letter to the Philippians that this is a life-long learning and practicing. He wrote:

“ . . . whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” {Philippians 4:8-9}

The things we have learned—we need to practice these things. Lay down the rails and keep the train on the tracks.

The discipline of habits is vital in the education of a child. Like a three-legged stool, the formation of habits nurtures the child toward growth along with atmosphere and feeding the mind with living ideas.





How do we lay down these rails on which the child can live out his or her life? How do the parent and teacher use the discipline of habits to encourage growth and development of the body, mind, and soul?

We start small and we build up. Miss Mason pointed to the three of the most vital habits to be learned: obedience, truthfulness, and attention. And we move on to respect, thankfulness, kindness, neatness, mental effort, imagining, thinking and more and more. Focus on one habit at a time and keep watch over the habits that have been laid down. When one section of the track is laid well, build on to the lines of habit to allow the child to grow with healthy progress.

Next, we need to be diligent. This is a process that requires discipline in the life of the parent and teacher as much as the child. Pursue excellence in an atmosphere permeated with grace.

Furthermore, we motivate the child with living examples of real people in his or her life or in biographical stories. Paul referred to an old proverb when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” The original Greek word translated ‘character’ suggests that character is based on or comes from habit.

Additionally, we must allow for natural consequences. To develop a healthy growth mindset, a child must come face to face with failure as well as successes.

Finally, it is essential we encourage rather than nag. Children need our loving affirmation, not false praise. Children need realistic expectations—not ones set too high or too low.



This is more than a metaphor in a motivational speech. It is wise to begin small by teaching a young child to make his or her bed, to pull the covers tight, to put their full attention to the task at hand. It is a simple thing, but not insignificant to lay down life-giving habits for a child to form the character of the man or woman he or she is becoming.

So tomorrow, when you wake up to a new day, be sure you sow one small habit—lay down another rail in the education of your child—to reap a great character. Do not miss this opportunity to be a living example and invest in the life of a child—a person with infinite possibilities.

Cultivating a Life-Long Love of Learning (Part 1) ~ Education is an Atmosphere

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Suitcases are coming home from camps and summer holidays stuffed with smelly laundry and souvenirs. While backpacks are getting filled with bright new binders, crisp white paper, and coloured pens. We are trading long summer evenings with cooler nights as the crickets’ chorus of chirping plays softly in the twilight. Children’s sandy toes and sticky fingers, sun-bleached hair and freckled faces will all get washed and scrubbed fresh and clean. Parents and children are all getting ready for the first day of school whether they want to or not. It’s that time of year. Pool gear will be swapped for school gear.

Before we jump into another year of schooling, it is beneficial to scan our environment and examine our lives to ensure we provide a rich and nourishing education for our children.

All around us children are craving knowledge. They have a natural curiosity that is evident in the endless ‘whys’ and ‘hows’. Children are born to learn and need to have their minds nourished as well as their bodies. This is an area that is near and dear to my heart.

I have had the privilege and responsibility to provide and invest in the environment of my children’s education. Every year has presented new challenges, taxing obstacles, and demanding hurdles.

Every year we have learned in an atmosphere where mistakes are common, failure is a tutor, grace is poured out, patience is essential, forgiveness is continuous, and love is unconditional. Every morning, God’s mercies are new—they never come to an end.

And so, we live and learn and love. Everyday learning alongside one another: learning to live an abundant life and needing every ounce of God’s grace that washes over us.

As we head into another year of learning, I’ve been re-reading and reminding myself of the philosophy of education that has shaped our years of learning. The last few years of heart failure, open-heart surgery and a difficult recovery has left me depleted.

I need gentle rhythms and peaceful seasons to permeate our home where our children live and learn. It is time to go back to a quieter life: where we will have space to breathe and room to grow.

Charlotte Mason was born in England in 1842 and died in 1923 and has become known as an innovative educator. Well ahead of her time, many teachers still use her philosophy of education today. She has been a mentor and has greatly influenced learning in our home as well as thousands of other families in the world.

Miss Mason taught that there are three main instruments of education. She strongly believed that: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”

The first instrument in education is atmosphere. The atmosphere in education refers to the realm of relationships. Mason suggested, it is in the relationships the child has with God, with his parents, or her teacher, his peers, her learning, or with himself that real learning takes place.

Children learn from real things in the real world. 

In her book, “A Philosophy of Education”, (p. 158) Charlotte Mason wrote:

 “Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child, the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe, --the knowledge of God ranks first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making.”

The primary focus of our children’s education is that the child learns about God and His world. This provides an atmosphere that does more than exercise the mind, but it nourishes the heart. This atmosphere is built up as relationships are built up. Charlotte Mason considered the atmosphere in education to be the “thought environment”.

We build up this atmosphere—this thought-environment—by setting a feast before our children, but also by taking a back seat at the right time and getting out of the way of real learning that takes place because the Holy Spirit will guide the minds of the children into His glorious truth. 

We, as parents, teachers, home educators, grand parents, have the power to help our children by investing in an environment that fosters questions, cultivates wonder, exercises the mind and nurtures the heart. If we have the power to help, we also have the power to hinder with an environment that stifles questions, chokes wonder, starves the mind, and damages the heart.

Charlotte Mason further clarified what she meant by atmosphere in her book, “A Philosophy of Education” (p.94) when she wrote:

“When we say that education is an atmosphere we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child environment’ specially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere both as regards persons and things and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the ‘child’s level.’”

What is the atmosphere in your home? What rules your life? For what are you reaching? 

We can invest in the atmosphere of our children’s education by eliminating stress, emphasizing co-operation, encouraging our children instead of nagging, motivating them with loving affirmation, and learning alongside our children. By investing in these ways in our children’s education we find that we are putting less emphasis on merely achieving good grades and making a living and place more importance on developing the character of our child and living a full life.

Children need to learn respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness more than they need standardized testing. Children need to learn attentiveness, obedience, and truthfulness. Children need to become critical and creative thinkers.

Their curiosity must not be squelched by boring lessons and long lectures.

Children need to learn how to live in the world they are in by interacting with other people and things in their own environment with much time to play, be active outside, tumble, run, shout, and be encouraged to use common sense.

Charlotte Mason, directs our attention to what our focus should be, in her book, “School Education” (pp 170-171):

“Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life. — We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room’ should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking — the strain would be too great — but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest . . . The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care?”

 

As the new books are cracked open and young lives are being shaped, it is time to once again examine if we are setting our children in a large room where life can be explored in a rich way, where the atmosphere is saturated with what is true, pure, lovely and of good report, and in which we are more concerned to ask of our child: how much does he care?

When Troubles Weigh You Down, Look Up Unto the Stars

We are almost three weeks into the new year and there have definitely been some hard knocks for many people already. Devastating diagnoses, death, divorce proceedings, distress, grief, sickness, debt, loved ones slowly fading away or homeless and lost in shelters and mental illness or out at sea.

These troubles are more than enough to weigh any soul down.

Oh, there have been exciting things, too, like babies born and birthday celebrations, healing taking place in bodies, hearts and souls.

We are a forgetful people though and when the days are long and the nights are dark and the bad news tips the scales, just as we need air to breath, we need words of comfort and assurance.

On those dark nights, look up. It won't take away the pain, but it will give you new perspective. It will help you breath when life has knocked the wind out of you.

Lift up your eyes unto the stars. Your troubles will grow smaller and you will behold the greatness of God. In God, you will be comforted.

We get to the end of a cold day in January; the saddest day of the year, some say. 

The schoolwork has been spread open all day, the books that were used are still scattered, dinner was prepared while the kids squealed and sledded down the little hill to the side of the house, and the rosy-cheeked and famished kids came in and devoured their steaming lasagna and then scrubbed all the dishes clean.

After the noise, the laughter and the fresh-out-of-the-oven snicker doodles with mint tea, and Bible reading, we settle down in the silence of the evening. Long after the sun has sunk in the Western horizon and the bright stars have been strung once again on the black canvas of the night, the boy and I, we read another chapter out loud from a biography of Nathanial Bowditch: the self-taught, brilliant American scientist and mathematician born in 1773.

We are almost half way through the book, and Josiah tells me he loves the book, but there has been too much dying and he's not sure it can be a favourite book of his with so much death—Nat has already lost five people in his young life. It's not a feel good novel, but a lot of life doesn't feel good.

"Sometimes if you look at the stars long enough, they sort of shrink your troubles down to size." Nat Bowditch thoughtfully advised in "Carry On Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham.

Mikko Lagerstedt


I pause.

Did you hear that? I read it again. There is something there that we all need know. 

"Sometimes if you look at the stars long enough, they sort of shrink your troubles down to size." 

Nat knows all about death, disfunction, and shattered dreams, but he presses on and "sails by ash breeze". He teaches himself math, science, astronomy, Latin, French, and navigation while he's been indentured for 9 years and is prisoner in his apprenticeship.

We are all dealing with shattered dreams, broken pieces of our lives, challenging circumstances, and demanding people.



Sometimes, if you look away from your day-by-day troubles and look up to the stars that God hung in place, it sort of shrinks them down.

There, in the darkest night shine the brightest lights.

Mikko Lagerstedt

"Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these [stars]? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing."

These words are words of comfort and assurance to the people of God that would be taken captive by their enemy, but God would never abandon them even when they were deeply afflicted. He brings good news to a people who just received devastating news and He promises through His prophet Isaiah to send a Deliverer—the Son of God would come and redeem His people and call them to Himself.

You cannot know all of His ways, His understanding is unsearchable, just as you can't see all the stars in the sky. But He brings each star out, every one that He has named and in His greatness He will do exactly the same for His people—He will call them by name and will renew the strength for everyone who waits on the Lord.

Look up to the sky tonight. See the greatness of God, trust in His Word; for the starry heavens you gaze up to will pass away, but the words of God will never pass away.

Words of Wisdom for the Weekend: Perfect Preparation

"The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;

 your steadfast love, 

O LORD, endures forever."

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent. Today I know  that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.  

I didn't know it then--nor, indeed that there was any new future to prepare for in a life as humdrum an predictable as mine. I only knew as I lay in my bed at the top of the house that certain moments from long ago stood out in focus against the blur of years. Oddly sharp and near they were, as though they were not yet finished, as though they had somehow more to say . . ."

~Corrie Ten Boom, 'The Hiding Place" [emphasis mine]

*****

{I began reading "The Hiding" this week to my kids as part of our literature for this year and at first, as they gathered on the couches in our living room, they were not sure about it, but within a few pages they were transported back to the scene of an old home in Holland that would hold many secrets, and our hearts began to break and eyes began to leak and we've only just cracked open the beginning of the story}

*****

{Words for Wisdom for the Weekend: These are words that I have been challenged or encouraged by that I have read throughout my week that I kept pondering; words that I couldn't get off my mind and heart throughout my week. 

For other Words of Wisdom for the Weekend posts see here.}

First Day of School: Lessons Learned on Life and Love

It figures I sleep in this morning. It's the first day of school.

I had the alarm set but the volume turned off.

It feels like the middle of the night when my son is at the side of my bed asking to come sleep for awhile in between us and in my sleepy state I shoo him off to his father's side. With his persistence I wake enough to look at the clock and blink the rest of sleep away.

6:45! and so the day begins. I knew I should have gone to bed before 12:33 am.

Even as a child, I never could get to sleep the night before the first day of school.

I reach for my phone and see an encouraging text from my sister-in-law and a challenge to read a few verses of scripture she is meditating on.

I'm determined to still start my day with a bit of quiet and I shuffle to the kitchen, set my coffee to drip, and grab my Bible. I open up to 1 Corinthians 8:1-4 and read it over a few times. I  flip back to Psalm 119 and marvel at the cries and desires and delights of the Psalmist. I smell the coffee and pour out a cup and consider some words penned by Spurgeon.

It's the first day of school and we think about gaining knowledge and wisdom, but I am challenged at the central theme of love interwoven in the words I just read.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

The Psalmist loved God and His ways and decrees. He yearned after God:

"With my whole heart I seek you . . . Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways . . . You are good and do good; teach me your statutes . . . The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple . . . "

Men of old could boldly claim their love for their God and be confident of His steadfast love for them.

"Get positive knowledge of your love of Jesus, and be not satisfied till you can speak of your interest in Him as a reality, which you have made sure by having received the witness of the Holy Spirit, and His seal upon your soul by faith. 
True love to Christ is in every case the Holy Spirit's work, and must be wrought in the heart by Him. He is the efficient cause of it; but the logical reason why we love Jesus lies in Himself. Why do we love Jesus? Because He first loved us. Why do we love Jesus? Because He "gave Himself for us." We have life through His death; we have peace through His blood. Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor. Why do we love Jesus? Because of the excellency of His person.We are filled with a sense of His beauty! an admiration of His charms! a consciousness of His infinite perfection! His greatness, goodness, and loveliness, in one resplendent ray, combine to enchant the soul till it is so ravished that it exclaims, "Yea, He is altogether lovely." Blessed love this--a love which binds the heart with chains more soft than silk, and yet more firm than adamant!" (Spurgeon, 'Morning by Morning' Sept. 3)

It is this gentle weaving of  these threads of the steadfast love of God in our lives.

  

Oh, I can force my children to sit at their desks with their pencils gripped in their hands or I can by God's grace love my children to stir their hearts to the wonderful ways of God.

Knowledge without love is empty.




Unless we know and are known by God, all our knowledge will cause us to inflate ourselves with our own importance and lead us to pride which will leave us empty and prevent us from loving others.

I know I can't do it in my own strength.

It's by God's grace working in me in the power of His Spirit that will allow His love to fill me up to overflowing and through me into those near and dear to me.

To build them up and awaken them to learn about God and His world.

To love them and disciple them to be lovers of God and in awe of His steadfast love.

My sons starts his math before breakfast, but it's the startling truth we share after we drink our strawberry smoothies that my sweet daughter made for us and take a chilly walk around the neighbourhood.

When, as a family, we sit together and talk about our goals and desires for this upcoming year.

After we come up with an acronym for a theme for this upcoming year: {WORK WELL!!}

Without complaining
Order & Beauty
Respect others on your team
Know and pursue truth

With a good attitude
Expect excellence
Love learning
Live for God's glory

It is when their Father reads about the love demonstrated in the bread and the wine. 

On the First Day of School he opens to the amazing grace of the Last Supper and how it is the body that was broken and the blood of the Lamb that was shed that takes away sin.

And how we can live because He died and we've been chosen from before time and He has conquered sin and we can look forward to the day when we will be with Him for all eternity.

We do our learning here, but it is really all about our loving and living for all eternity to the praise of His glory.

When we keep the cross in the centre and love as the central theme for all our days and seek the Sovereign God over all and cry out to Him to continue to seek us and for the rest of our lives rest our lives on God's grace and forgiveness, and his steadfast love, we will drink deeply of His grace and awaken our hearts and our children's hearts to the mercies of God that are new every morning.