Unconditional Parenting: 2. Giving and Withholding Love

Unconditional Parenting:
Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
by Alfie Kohn

2. Giving and Withholding Love

Parenting can be either harsh (yelling, threatening, hitting) or not - but even when it's not, less harsh methods are often used to gain power over a child, usually by withdrawing love or using postive reinforcement (reward/praise).

Withdrawing love might mean acting cold and withdrawn when a parent is displeased with a child. They may make a point of ignoring the child, relaying the message that attention is earned with obedience. The parent might verbalize, 'I don't love you, or want to be around you when you act like that.' Or they might put physical space between them by either walking away while the child begs them to come back, or by banishing the child to forced isolation (known as 'time-out'). This can be perceived as abandonment by the child, especially if they're too young to grasp the temporary nature of the separation.

When children are sent away to time-out/solitary confinement against their will, it's love withdrawal. But giving the child the option of cooling off in an inviting place, like his room, to spend time alone when the time limit is under his control, can be helpful. Kohn says that the term and concept of 'time-out' came from BF Skinner's lab experiments to control animal behavior (I've always thought it came from sports, where a player is benched for time-out to regroup or rest; I'm not sure I believe it came from Skinner.)

The problem with negative reinforcement is that it forces the child to think about how their actions affect themselves--'How can I avoid being punished?' But it's more important (and trickier) to get children to consider how their actions affect others. In fact, time-out might be more harmful than spanking because it lasts longer. When love withdrawal is used as a continual way to control children, those children may become anxious, afraid to express anger, and fear failure. They may fear attachment and be distant as adults, perhaps because they don't want to be abandoned again.

Children who are sent to time-out to think over their wrong-doings and repent are more likely to seethe and harbor resentful thoughts as they stew in time-out - which is hardly what most parents want to foster.

Rewards are also destructive. Rewards might gain immediate compliance, but will never motivate the child to make the action a permanent part of himself. Children who are rewarded for being nice think of themselves, not as nice people, but as people who only act nice for a price. Reading a book has its own reward; reading a book to get pizza can spoil the whole thing. "The more people are rewarded for doing something, the more likely they are to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward."

Verbal praise acts on motivation just like a reward. It makes a person less interested in the task itself. Do we want children to share in order to hear Mommy say, "good job sharing!" or to make their friend feel better, even if Mommy doesn't notice? Why/when do we praise our kids? When they make our lives more convenient, or when they show a really impressive trait? "Children's sense of their competence, and perhaps of their worth, may come to rise or fall as a result of our reaction." They look to us to see if we approve, like a toddler who falls and looks to his mother to see if he's hurt.

Everyone needs praise, but it's exploitive to use praise as a means of control. And the more we praise, the more we make a child crave praise, and the more we undermine their perception of their abilities.

Kohn goes into the concept of self-esteem - he disagrees with both groups, those who think high self-esteem is good, and those who think that focusing on "feel-good" self-esteem makes people unmotivated. He says that the key is how variable a person's self-esteem is - does a person feel worthwhile depending on how successful they are or what people think of them? People whose self-esteem fluctuates may feel worthless when their lives aren't going well, or defensive and aggressively protective of their esteem. They may have a competitive need to win. They may go to unhealthy lengths to look good, or succeed - because their self-worth as a person depends on it.

People who feel loved unconditionally spend less time thinking about their self-esteem, less time evaluating how good they are, and less time deliberately trying to feel good about themselves.

Unconditional Parenting 1. Conditional Parenting

I want to think more about CM and parenting techniques, and my first step is reading this book more thoroughly. I wish I had Jack Beckman's charts and outlines, as they did a great job of summarizing the book, but I don't have them. I've actually read the first six chapters (half the book) but I wanted to go back and read it a second time.

Unconditional Parenting:
Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
by Alfie Kohn

1. Conditional Parenting

All parents love their children, but not all children feel loved. Children need unconditional love that they don't have to earn or measure up to in order to thrive. If our preschooler is naughty and difficult all day, do we still snuggle and read stories with her that night, or do we refuse to reward her bad behavior by depriving her of that fun as a consequence? Unconditional parenting means that we deal with the behavior by talking about it and teaching, but then we snuggle and read our bedtime stories as usual. "Whatever lesson we hoped to impart was far more likely to be learned if she knew that our love for her was undimmed by how she had acted."

Conditional parenting is closely related to behaviorism (B.F. Skinner: if good behaviors are reinforced/rewarded, then they'll be repeated; if bad behavior is associated with negative results, it will cease. We can't do anything about a person's motives, we can only deal with their actions.)

Behaviorism is forcing a child to apologize, even if they don't feel sorry. It's making a child cry it out at night with no regard for why he's crying. It's ignoring a toddler's desire not to go potty and bribing him with M&M's or stickers. Behaviorism is "concerned not with the thoughts and feelings and intentions that give rise to a behavior, only with the behavior itself." Behaviorism assumes that if the little girl who was naughty in the previous paragraph gets her snuggle and story, she'll be encouraged to be naughty again because her bad behavior was reinforced.

"Unconditional parenting assumes that behaviors are just the outward expression of feelings and thoughts, needs and intentions. In a nutshell, it's the child who engages in a behavior, not just the behavior itself. Children are not pets to be trained, nor are they computers, programmed to respond predictably to an input." We need to find out why, not just stamp out the way the child is expressing his feelings.

Unconditional love doesn't reinforce bad behavior. Those who fear that it does are cynical and think the worst of human nature. A misbehaving child probably isn't being malicious or deliberately trying to make us miserable. She may be expressing her own misery in the only way she knows how. She needs to learn better ways of expressing herself, but she'll be more teachable in an atmosphere of love and acceptance. Love and acceptance should be a child's birthright, a gift, not a privilege to be earned.

Conditional parenting focuses on behavior, has a negative view of human nature, views parental love as something to be earned, and does things to the child - reward/punishment - as its strategy.

Unconditional parenting focuses on the whole child, including his thoughts, reasons, feelings (this sounds CM). It has a balanced or positive view of human nature, considers parental love a gift, and uses problem solving to work with the child as its strategy.

All parents love their children and want the best for them, but when children perceive that they have to earn their parents' love by doing well, they may have trouble accepting themselves, may create a false self as a result of trying to please, and may resent their parents as they get older. Children who felt unconditionally loved had a better relationship with their parents into adulthood and a more balanced view of themselves.

CM Conference Notes: Piquing Interest in the Arts

Lori Lawing gave this talk, and this is another one that I listened to without taking notes. There are some notes in the handout, though, and there was something that struck me that I wanted to remember. Since I can't say it any better than she did in her hand-out, I'll use her quotes.

Lori used the modern paraphrase of CM's Series, which was a first - it's the first time I've ever heard it quoted out loud, and I kept expecting to hear something off in the translation, or a typo said out loud. But it sounded fine (although I think I found a place where I need to add a comma . . .)

Lori said that CM wanted us to pique children's interest in the aesthetics of art, music and poetry. Those things move us "because they present truth and goodness in a context of universal beauty." Art isn't always beautiful, and it sometimes displays the effects of sin. But great art "can be beautiful even when it presents some aspect of the fall. As Christians, we see glimpses of paradise even in our fallen world. We have hope that our Redeemer is returning to restore all of creation back to the paradise that was lost . . . God's Word has a story to tell, a story of Redemption through the blood of His Son. That is the grand story of redemption. In a smaller yet still significant way, the aesthetics can portray stories of the hope of redemption in this fallen world."

Sometimes the question comes up, "What makes great art great? And who decides?" I think that the answer has something to do with what Lori is saying about the redemption story, although I haven't got it quite clear in my mind.

Then Lori showed us an example of art (Domenico Ghirlandaio's Old Man and His Grandson), music (Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; she showed the corresponding pictures as the music was playing) and poetry (Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Lessons from the Gorse) to illustrate how the beauty of redemption comes through in the aesthetics. See if you can see redemption illustrated in the examples.

Lessons from the Gorse

Mountain gorses, ever-golden,
Cankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and holden,
Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,
Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?

Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no summer can be had,
Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye whom God preserveth still,
Set as lights upon a hill,
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From that academic chair
Canopied with azure air,
That the wisest word man reaches
Is the humblest he can speak?
Ye, who live on mountain peak,
Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!

Mountain gorses, since Linnaeus
Knelt beside you on the sod,
For your beauty thanking God, -
For your teaching, ye should see us
Bowing in prostration new!
Whence arisen, - if one or two
Drops be on our cheeks - O world, they are not tears but dew.

E. B. Browning


(This is the last of my notes, although Tim has one to post; a complete list of conference posts is here.)

CM Conference Notes: Science of Relations vs. Examinable Content

John Thorley's first session was a talk about Charlotte Mason's early years as a teacher, with a few people reading letters from the time period from and to CM (Deani Van Pelt read the letters that CM wrote.) That was fascinating, but I listened to that session without taking notes. So, if that sounds interesting, you should watch the childlightusa.org website, as they will probably be making CD's or audio available.

These notes are from his second session. John Thorley lives in England and has was the Principal of the Charlotte Mason College at Ambleside. When I met him three years ago, he was working part-time at the Armitt Museum, which houses CM's library of letters and books.

Two movies, the Dead Poets Society, and History Boys, illustrate the debate in education, pitting a charismatic teacher against the educational establishment. The public is aware of this debate, and when it comes to movies, they sympathize with the teacher (but when it comes down to it, most parents are only concerned with test scores). In England, the public is rebelling against the testing system (England has mandated tests at age 7, 11 and 14). The debate is against policies that include testing, and the thinking behind that approach to education. CM is child-focused, but this kind of system is about government control. Can there be a symbiosis where both exist together?

Education is the Science of Relations. A child has natural relationships with a number of things, so we give him lots of things to help him make valid as many of his potential interests as possible by exposing them to him. Knowledge isn't data, knowledge is our relationship with the world. All that there is, all that there was, all that will ever be - that's what should be included in our curriculum. That's a concept that's dynamic, not static. Children aren't vessels to be filled, but beings who will develop relationships with the world. Every child is entitled to a full curriculum. Math shouldn't be the focus of a curriculum, science shouldn't be the focus; the child should be the focus of the curriculum. Children need to be actively involved in making knowledge 'their own.' (Children can't learn passively; that's why lectures and TV don't teach well. The child's mind needs to be engaged and participating. That's why narration is part of the CM method.)

1967 - the Plowden Report on primary schools said that education was good, especially in the early years. It said that the style of educational system was working very well, and was providing a full, comprehensive education. By the 1970's, reaction against child-centered education resulted in Black Paper studies, which reported that standards were slipping and recommended a focus on the 3R's. In our era of discoveries, they said, science and technology need more focus and kids need to be better at math. Thus, school was extended from age 14 to 16 to teach more science and math. This movement has progressed as society gets more technical. Trends in government policy that started innocently enough took on a life of their own and snowballed, becoming interlinked as one policy led to another. But all of them are based on questionable theories.

1987 - there were nine subjects in England's national curriculum, and specified methods saying how they were to be taught. In this new policy, curriculum would be reviewed and updated regularly. With the advent of a national curriculum, there was no more educational freedom. As a new policy, parents were given the option of choice to decide where their children attended school. (The truth is, parents had always been able to choose before.) This sounds good in theory, because nobody will choose to go to a bad school, so bad schools will close while good schools flourish. But in practice, people who live in small, rural towns have only one school to choose from unless they want to move or commute long distances to have city school options. And how can a parent know which school is better? So - new policy - it was decided that schools needed to have a Standard Attainment Test (SAT) so that parents could make choices based on objective test scores. League tables published scores and rated schools based on those scores. A new policy determined that math, science and English comprehension would be tested. These six-hour tests would need to be easy to grade, so they needed to be objective: fill-in-the-blank. SAT's required that certain skills (the testable ones) should be taught since skills, not knowledge, would be tested. Geography, history, culture are neglected.

This new system had undesirable results. Narrow tests mean that school teach narrow "skills" and leave no time for anything besides English, math and science. Now the government wants all schools to adopt a "synthetic phonics" program which improves individual word recognition without helping comprehension or writing. They don't understand that phonics isn't a magic pill to teach reading.

Does all of this help parents to make a school choice? Schools that have special needs children might be great schools, but they will test badly because the special needs students will bring the score average down. Small schools suffer when results are averaged out, because one child's low score carries more weight. Parents can't even make sense of the SAT results. So why is it still used? And what would happen if a small school tested well and then suddenly had a bunch of new students enrolling? What if small village schools decline and die? Where will village children go to get educated?

The fact is, even with new, scientific improvements, test results for reading are the same as they were in 1957. But today's children are stressed and labelled based on their test scores at age 7. The system of testing is expensive - 50,000 pounds per school per year. An entire industry (the test writers) lobby for more tests. But children don't benefit from these tests or from more government control.

Scotland doesn't do SAT's, and their students do better on tests than British children. Wales rebelled against the testing system and doesn't do them.

But schools do need to be accountable. If SAT's aren't the way to be sure that students are learning, then how do we show that schools are doing their job? Can Charlotte Mason's vision be combined with public accountability?

Maybe existing policies could be used, but according to methods that teachers approved of.

Governments have a right to know that a broad curriculum is being offered, and that the quality of teaching is good. Perhaps a national curriculum could have guidelines that are reviewed, with teachers involved in the reviewing process. Teaching inspectors need to be experienced teachers themselves who are specially trained to recognize good teaching even when it differs from their own style. They should be allowed to offer advice to help teachers teach better. Test results shouldn't be publicly published; schools should be the ones to publicize their scores along with explanations about any extenuating circumstances that might have affected their results. Tests should be brand new every year. Schools should have a broad curriculum, and then test themselves against national standards. Then schools would be able to experiment with different teaching methods and find something that works.

(complete list of conference posts here.)

CM Conference Notes: Behaviorism vs Relational Parenting

Jack Beckman led this book study, based on Unconditional Parenting: Moving From Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason by Alfie Kohn. Now that I've realized that the theme of the conference was "Moving from Rewards to Relationships," I understand how this book fits in with the conference, but I want to finish the book (I only got through chapter five; time ran out) and look up some Charlotte Mason quotes to see if I can draw any conclusions, as this might mean that CM has more to say about parenting methods than I thought - I assumed that she didn't really say much about discipline beyond habit-training and establishing parental authority, but I want to think about that before I post anything.

Not much of a post, I know. I was going to post my notes from Jason Fletcher's talk about Relational Religion, but Tim's notes are thorough enough that I asked him to post his instead.

(complete list of conference posts here.)

CM Conference Notes: Learning to Fledge

Learning to Fledge: Masterly Inactivity in the High School Years by Beth Pinckney

This was timely because this is my week to submit a post to the ChildlightUSA blog, and my post dealt with the same age group.

Beth made a point to say that this would not be a talk about SAT's, AP classes or getting into college. She began by introducing her family, saying a little something about each member while showing a picture (a nice touch, I thought).

Homeschool with high schoolers can be exciting and fun. It can also be hard, but an understanding of masterly inactivity can help.

What does it mean to fledge? Baby birds leave the nest before their wings are fully developed, but the parent bird knows that it's time to coax the little ones out of the nest. High school is like that; it's "pseudo-adulthood." High schoolers aren't really adults yet, and they've never been out of the nest by themselves before. They're vulnerable and need to learn survival techniques. The fledgling birds, although they're out of the nest, stay hidden in a bush. The parent bird feeds them and watches over them for a month before finally letting them go off on their own. Kids need to discover their passions and interests, and exercise their own self-discipline. At this age, parents need to let go more, and shelter less. High schoolers need to test their wings by flying, and we should be thrilled and awed to see where they go.

Masterly Inactivity is not an indolent , 'why bother' attitude of laissez aller (lay-zay ALL-lay; I always wondered how to pronounce this).

From the CMSeries (I'm using the modern paraphrase, but Beth quoted from the original.)

Volume 3, pg 27: "There are so many things that we should do for our children, and so much that's possible to provide for them, that we can start to think that everything rests with us. We begin to feel like we can't let up even for a minute in our conscious thinking about our efforts in training up our children's young minds and hearts. As a result, our efforts become over-controlling and micro-managed. We're with our children every minute of the day, always on their backs. Even when we can't get them to comply, we try to dominate them too much. We don't realize that wise deliberate letting alone is the best part of education."

Volume 3 pg 17: "Authority isn't harsh or indulgent. She is gentle, and easy to reason with about nonessential matters--because she's uncompromising when it comes to matters of real importance."

Volume 3 pg 17: "It's best for the parent or teacher to be in the habit of quickly reviewing the situation without being obvious. Then, if the children are right, it will be possible for the adult to gather his wits in time to yield the point graciously, and send the children away warmed with love and loyalty."

Volume 3 pg 29: "But a parent who's picky, anxious, constantly explaining, demanding, making excuses, over-restraining, too interfering, or who is simply with the children too much, destroys the dignity and simplicity of the parent/child relationship. Like all of the best and most delicate things in life, that relationship suffers if it has to be asserted or defended."

Masterly inactivity is a "wise passiveness" that "suggests the ability and authority to take action, a concern for the outcome, with the insight and restraint that keeps a person from interfering." (volume 3, pg 29, modern paraphrase) It includes the following elements:

Authority - 'masterly' implies that the parent is the master and is still in authority. Kids should still be obedient to their delegated authority. Children should be aware of our parental authority whether it's inactive or active. This element of strength is the backbone of our authority. The key is for those in authority to remember who gave them their authority. We are God's agent. That should make us careful of how we wield the rod. Choose your battles carefully, especially in high school--what's really important, non-negotiable, and an issue of morality? At this age, parental authority becomes less control and more guidance. The 'masterly' part decreases, but is never abdicated. This is the time when children "own" their faith, and recognize that their real authority is God Himself. School/curriculum needs to remain a non-negotiable issue; this isn't the time to abandon lessons and allow unschooling. Accept that there will be times you're wrong, and remember to silently review each situation before blurting a 'yes' or 'no' that you might have to take back later.

Good-nature and a sense of humour - be open and friendly, but don't confuse that with giving in out ofweakness or fear. The difference between the two is often only in the tone of voice and facial expression.

Self-confidence - The more we fuss or worry, the more we muddy our authority. Like an over-worked watercolor painting, going over and over the same area defensively never helps. Psalm 139 reminds us that God has searched and known us and our children. We don't have to know everything and have all the answers. God is over all, and we can be confident instead of second-guessing and doubting ourselves. Humility isn't thinking small things about ourselves. It's thinking so much of others that we have no room to think of ourselves at all.

Confidence in our children - Hold the bar high, as if it's a lovely blue teapot entrusted to a young dorm leader. There's a story about a young wife who received a beautiful blue teapot. She fell to her knees and said to her young husband, 'O, Algernon, will we ever live up to it?' Give kids trust, give them something to live up to.

Leisure - The parent needs to take/make time to have a life outside of homeschool and parenting. Slow down and enjoy life so that you don't miss the best things in life.

Serenity - develop serenity and the habit of calmness. CM took daily walks, had tea, and read Sir Walter Scott to calm her soul. Nurture your life as a person; don't let your whole life revolve around your high schooler and don't let your child perceive himself as the center of your universe. If you have no life, you won't be interesting to your child. Volume 5 pg 197: "Once a boy begins to look down on the intellectual status of his parents, the entire honour and deference he owes them are at an end. Any pains taken to keep ahead should be repaid by the glow of honest pride the young people feel at every proof of intellectual power in their parents." Keep up your own intellectual life so that your young scholars will respect you.

Faith - our children's future isn't totally up to us and in our hands. God created them as individuals with their own designed calling and purpose. Don't hinder what God wants to do in their lives. If we pressure, talk, explain why our kids should do or feel a specific thing, then we might make it difficult for God to work on their hearts.

Areas to apply masterly inactivity:
Play (teens can get stressed and need to unwind with unstructured free time)
Work (including schoolwork; give scope for personal initiative. Your job is to help them locate resources. Let their interests determine curriculum)
Standing or Falling by their own efforts - no prodding
Friendships (let them choose their own friends in order to learn to judge character)
Money (training and budget instruction should come early in life; high school is the time to let them practice handling their own money.)
Opinions (let kids decide for themselves what to think and believe.)

A coil in a watch unwinds gradually to allow the watch to work. We can parent as if we're gently winding a watch to set it into motion, or as if we're using a lever to throw a boulder out into space. We don't want to thrust our plans and opinions on our children; instead, we want to wind them with gentle prods and let them go by themselves.

Beth recommended a vintage Parents' Review article (from 1891/92) called Disappointed Mothers, which is online here.

(complete list of conference posts here.)

CM Conference Notes: Moving From Behaviorism to Relationships

Moving From Behaviorism to Relationships (Tammy Glaser)

I didn't take notes on this session, I decided to just listen and be inspired. Tammy has a daughter with autism, and the gist of the lecture was that, although many people working with autistic kids recommend behaviorism (reward the child with an M&M when he makes eye contact), Tammy had better, faster results when she used a relational approach. She showed a film clip of her daughter before and after a week of relational techniques, and you could see the difference.

But what struck me was when Tammy talked about how God created people with a pre-designed and perfect timetable of development. If a little boy hasn't caught on to reading, he gets labeled as a slow learner, or as a challenged or disabled child in need of remedial training. But the labeling and the problem are fabrications of the school, not a defect in the child. The child is developing along the perfect timetable that God designed for him. If lots of children aren't reading at age six, or writing compositions at age eight, or doing fractions at age nine - it isn't the children with the problem, it's a problem with our timetable.

This isn't the first time I've heard this - in fact, I had heard it just the day before at the Four Pillars lecture. But for some reason, it suddenly clicked and made sense. And it's made me a lot less stressed about my Year 5 son who still struggles with math.

Tammy has a blog where she discusses homeschooling and autism; it's here.

(complete list of conference posts here.)

CM Conference Notes: 4 Pillars of CM and The Child is a Person

The theme of this conference was relationships, although it took me awhile to figure that out. Yes, it was in the notebook, but it didn't really 'click' until well into the second day of the conference (because I'm dense). Looking at it from that perspective, these notes made a lot more sense than they did when I took them. :/

The Four Pillars of a CM Education and "The Child is a Person"

This was a tag-team session by Billy and Carrie Creech and Betsy Kester, who teach at a CM school (Redeemer School).

A teacher's perspective of the nature of children - does she see them as her equals, or as her inferiors? - will influence the way she treats them. It can even influence the eye contact that she communicates. A good teacher can afford to be real and transparent with her students, and doesn't fear that she'll be knocked off a pedestal. Teachers shouldn't compare students, but the pressure to compare infiltrates even CM schools.

All education is built on the philosophies revolving around how the teacher views the child/student. Education is more than the external part that we see (such as test scores, curriculum, school distinctions). It's about what holds the school together, and about how we answer the question, 'Why do we educate at all?'

The foundation of a school is its theology, and might be found in its doctrinal statement.

The ground floor if the school's philosophy, which is built upon its theology.

The ceiling is the school's mission and vision. What does the school hope to accomplish in the children it educates? What does the school hope to see in the fabric of the child's being as a result of its philosophy?

The roof is the external stuff like curriculum, schedules, and methods that distinguish the school. Those things are selected according to the school's theology/philosophy/vision.

The pillars in a CM education (that hold up the roof?) are atmosphere, discipline, life, and relationships. With these pillars, the school's school's philosophy 'puts on flesh and blood.' Behaviorism has no place in a CM school. Everything about a CM school should respect the personhood of the child, since that's so foundational to CM. Here are the four pillars explained:

Atmosphere: children are learning wherever they are. They don't suddenly start learning because we create an artificial idealized environment for them.

Discipline: the rails of good habits.

Life: ideas that nurture the life and growth of the mind - this would be the school's living curriculum.

Science of relations: we enable this by training the child to do things, and exposing him to books so that he'll have relationships with all kinds of things and people.

All good teachers understand that the child is a person - even if they've never heard of CM.

People are created in God's image. People are social beings, so they need to discuss what they learn. People are creative, purposeful, rational.

In the Wind in the Willows, Mole represents a "learner" and Rat represents the "teacher." Mole is busy in his narrow life tending to the details of his mundane existence until he ventures out after catching a glimpse of something wider. He doesn't know how to interpret everything he sees, and he needed a friend (Rat) to take him on adventures. All learners are people who are created by God in His image. Children are not empty vessels that teachers need to fill. They never were. They are learners, and they need to learn to exercise dominion over their time, their sin nature, etc.

We need to look beyond a school's externals and ask what the motivation behind it is. CM's Volume 6 pg 65, 66 (this is the modern paraphrase) "We also need to be familiar with the raw material we have to work with if our education is going to be effective. So we need to know about children, and what they need--but not their needs based on how we can make them useful cogs in society's wheel, or based on the standards of the current culture. We need to know their requirements based on their personal potential and unique needs." Teachers should keep Psalm 139 in mind when dealing with their students.

Dr. Mel Levine wrote the book "A Mind at a Time" that says that individuals have different kinds of minds for different purposes and callings. All children won't fit the mold because they aren't supposed to - they're unique. God created them that way. It's tragic when we abuse a child by forcing him to fit a mold he was never created to fit. Adults allow themselves to focus on what they're good at and avoid what they can't do - so why do teachers treat children as if they need to be good at everything in order to be well-rounded? Kids get teased and bullied when they don't excel at sports, and they're made to feel like failures when they can't grasp a subject.

The point was made to help teachers understand the God-given uniqueness of their students (their personhood), but it seemed to me to make a better case for radical unschooling than CM. And yet - when this concept was repeated the next day by someone else in another session, a light bulb went off and I had an 'aha' moment - but I'll explain that when I post those notes.

Volume 6, pg 36 (using the modern paraphrase again) says, "a child's mind is like the instrument that education plays upon; his education doesn't produce a mind in him. His mind was already there and active before he ever entered the classroom."

(complete list of conference posts here.)

CM Conference: CM's Great Recognition

This was the first plenary session I attended; we got in too late for the very first one.

CM's Great Recognition by Deani Van Pelt and Sandy Rusby Bell

Trinitarians drew us to the idea that the Spirit – in fact, all of the Trinity – was present at Creation, and potential that continues to unfold was imbedded right into Creation and the created world. The creational, unfolding aspect of the Spirit is exciting for educators (because of its implications in the unfolding revealing of knowledge, I think). Bacote wrote a book based on a dissertation in 2005 that goes into this. Gunton said, “God's action begins with the Father and goes through the Son...”

This lecture dealt with the fresco that CM got so excited about: The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Allegory of the Sciences. The original site is no longer online; it looks like maybe it moved here. You can see the church here and a small image of the fresco here, detail here.
(Read The Common Room's blog post about this fresco here, and Tammy's post from Aut2BeHome here.)

The lecture began with a timeline of CM's life:
1885-86 CM gave the lectures that became Volume 1 of her series
1888-89 PNEU was born
1891-92 Parents Review School and PR magazine started; CM moved to Ambleside
1891 CM's school for mothers
1892 House of Education born to instruct teachers
Then CM, needing a rest, accompanied Mrs. Firth on a trip to Italy and saw the fresco.
1893 CM experienced a light bulb moment: the Great Recognition that the Spirit is in all.

During the lecture, the fresco was described, displayed, and explained. At the top is Thomas Aquinas holding the Book of Wisdom open to the page that says, “I willed...” Or maybe "Wisdom conquers all"? I think I must have misheard this part of the lecture... This is the heart of the fresco. He is surrounded by angels named Faith, Charity, Hope, Temperance, Prudence, Justice and Fortitude. They represent the seven cardinal virtues. At his left and right are the apostles.

[Edit: I found, in this Parents' Review article, what CM saw on the page. At the bottom of the article is this note from the editor, who was Charlotte Mason: "The text referred to
is:--'I prayed and the spirit of wisdom came upon me; and I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones.' The fresco referred to (painted by Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Memmi) forms the "educational creed" of the House of Education. It represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, not only upon prophets, apostles and holy men and women, but upon the Captain Figures of the Seven Liberal Arts:--Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Arithmetic, Photographs (Nos 6722 and 4077, half-line each) may be obtained from Mr. G. Cole, 17, Via Torna Buoni, Florence.--Ed."
This PR article was a religious address delivered at one of CM's own conferences - I wonder if her conferences were like the Childlight conferences? They seem to be, judging from the speakers and topics, and then the write-ups afterwards.]

Beneath Thomas are three rows. The first is barely visible and includes a person in distress, someone counting money, a young man drinking, and others. Under them are seven mythological figures depicting divine sciences (like theology and Christian law) with seven men under them who represent those subjects (St. John, Pope Clement, etc.) On the other side are seven mythological figures, all women, like Greek goddesses, depicting the seven earthly sciences: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, logic, rhetoric anf grammar. They have seven men under them who represent the 'fathers' of those sciences: Pythagoras, Euclid, Zoroaster, Tubal Cain, Aristotle, icero and Priscian.

The heart of CM's Great Recognition is in Volume 2, ch 25 “...the great recognition, that God the Holy Spirit is Himself, personally, the Imparter of knowledge, the Instructor of youth, the Inspirer of genius, is a conception so far lost to us that we should think it distinctly irreverent to conceive of the divine teaching as co-operating with ours in a child's arithmetic lesson, for example.” Suppose we are willing to make this great recognition. How would that impact our education? "What stands between us and the realisation of this more blessed life?" Vol 2 ch 25 pg 276

1. We would only offer children living thought. If what they're given is living thought, then they'll be able to hang later facts on those ideas as if they were pegs. This is opposite current educational thought and Classical Education that has it backwards: give children dry facts to use as pegs upon which to hang ideas they'll receive later. Even math and grammar can be taught from living ideas. Living ideas and books get kids excited about a topic before they're bored by dry facts.

2. If all subjects are given and under the Divine Teacher, then we won't dare pick and choose subjects and neglect some in favor of others. "But once the intimate relation, the relation of Teacher and taught in all things of the mind and spirit, be fully recognised, our feet are set in a large room; there is space for free development in all directions, and this free and joyous development, whether of intellect or heart, is recognised as a Godward movement." Vol 2, ch 25, pg 275

"That, it is not for a man to choose, "I will learn this or that, the rest is not my concern"; still less is it for parent or schoolmaster to limit a child to less than he can get at of the whole field of knowledge; for, in the domain of mind at least as much as in that of morals or religion, man is under a Divine Master; he has to know as he has to eat." Volume 6, page 324

3. We can trust the Holy Spirit to mediate and help so that the child gets what he needs to know from a narration. We can allow 'wait time' while a child mulls over a thought before we jump in to give him the answer. And we don't need to fret if our child isn't where we think he should be in math or whatever.

4. We're safeguarded from the intellectual sin of using pure Reason to arrive at conclusions – this is where CM's Principle 16 comes from. Reason is only a tool, not a foolproof infallible way to form conclusions. Unlike some early scholars, CM believed that Reason and Intellect were corrupted along with our moral nature and everything else at the Fall. The early church believed that Reason was infallible and pure. Galileo challenged that concept when he challenged Aristotle's ideas. A liberal education and living books can help us from the fallacy of infallible Reason – IF we invite the Holy Spirit to participate in our education.

5. The teacher herself should also be intellectually alive and growing and evolving. Teachers should be continuing to learn and excited about new ideas, books, nature, culture. Her enthusiasm will be caught even if she doesn't convey all the information/data.

Here we have the breadth of mind so wide in the sweep of their intelligence. "The elements of a Charlotte Mason education – picture study, composer study, poetry, living books, etc. – are necessary not because we think it is nice to do things the way Charlotte Mason did. They are necessary because all believers need these to grow into the fullness of Christ." from Le Jardin Feenrique, Art in Kenosha's blog

(complete list of conference posts here.)

Starting J's Year 9 Booklist

I worked out J's booklist to schedule only two books per day, and leave Fridays open for co-op. This is part of our new commitment to focus on relationships this coming year and pay more attention to narration. These are the books he'll be doing this coming school year:

The Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill (history spine)
The Royal Road to Romance by Richard Halliburton (geography/travel)
George Washington, from Four Great Americans by James Baldwin
Napoleon by H.E. Marshall
Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen
Are You Liberal, Conservative, or Confused? by Richard Maybury
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Essays by Jane Haldimand Marcet (five shorts about economics)
Love is a Fallacy - an essay by Max Schulman
The History of English Literature for Girls and Boys by H.E. Marshall ch 63-73
Grammar for Dummies by Geraldine Woods
The Count of Monte Cristo by Victor Dumas
War of the Worldviews by Gary DeMar
Postmodern Times by Gene Edward Veith
Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif (2 chapters)
Saints and Heroes, Vol 2 by George Hodges (2 chapters)
The Story of Painting by H. W. Janson - two sections
The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
John Adams and the American Revolution by Catherine Drinker Bowen

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His schedule will look like this:

Sunday devotional/free reading:
The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer or Practicing the Presence of God

Monday:
The Age of Revolution by Churchill (part one)
Grammar or The History of English Literature

Tuesday:
The Age of Revolution by Churchill (part two)
War of Worldviews or Postmodern Times or Microbe Hunters or Saints and Heroes or The Story of Painting

Wednesday:
The Royal Road to Romance by Richard Halliburton
Economics/Government reading (book or essay)

Thursday:
Washington or Napoleon Biography or Miracle at Philadelphia
The Count of Monte Cristo

Friday:
co-op

weekend free reading:
John Adams by Catherine D. Bowen

To this will be added daily math, copywork, typing, a couple of weekly written narrations, Russian, and subjects we do together (art, music, Plutarch, Shakespeare).