Do you ever agonize – just a little – while watching your kids do art? Whether it is playing an instrument or painting I think we all sometimes watch out of the corner of our eye. Or maybe we watch like a hawk.

Check out this painting.

I was so delighted when my child pulled out the paints last night instead of asking for her favorite TV show. “Excellent” I thought, secretly proud that my child had chosen the better path. But then I stuck my nosey self into her work. She did a beautiful blue wash on on her painting and a perfect white mysterious white moon in the centre. 

The next time I look I’m screaming inside, “What are those weird white lines you stuck all over your beautiful blue wash and moon?” 

I hold back my frustration but passively aggressively ask, “What is that a picture of??”. (Later I was reminded that I could have more gently asked, “Can you tell me about this picture?”)

Thank God I return to reading my books and articles and leave her be.

Do the stars ever align in the various things you are reading? I’m staring hard in the face of how I stifle creative ability in my kids in small ways. I’ve been reading the philosophy of Creative Ability Development suggested by our violin teacher Katie Avery. At the same time, I’ve been reading an article from the Charlotte Mason method Parent’s Review magazine called “The Approach to Art”, By K. Minn. This article is well over a hundred years old. 

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These articles that span a century at least, one at the beginning, the other written in 1996, warn against the way we stifle creativity in our children and why creativity is so important (though like all qualities, varies in children to different degrees). In the Philosophy and Method of Creative Ability Development [in music] by Alice Kay Kanack, she paints this picture story from her past: 

“The first week I wrote a song and brought it to my lesson. [The teacher] did not criticize it. Instead he asked me to write four different harmonizations of the song so that we could choose the best one. For the remainder of the lesson he showed me scores by other composers and we listened to music.

For the next several weeks I brought in different harmonizations and arrangements of the same song. Each time, [the teacher] would ask me for more, and play me more music and show more scores by other composers. As the weeks went by I became more and more frustrated and found that I lived the piece less and less. I knew that it was better than when I started, but I also knew that it wasn’t having the power I wanted. 

Finally….it all came to a head. I was working late one night in a practice from and finally became so frustrated that I picked up the music, tore it up, and threw it away. Suddenly ideas and inspirations started flowing. It was the song but not the song. It was a completely new arrangement of the song, keeping the parts I liked best and replacing other parts with much better music.

I brought this song to my lesson and [my teacher] said ‘That’s it. The song is finished.’ I couldn’t believe it. How did he know? I told him what had a happened and he just smiled and put on some new music to listen to.”

This resonates with the Mason method, which discourages excessive praise, as well as criticism, coming from the teacher. It’s about encouraging the process and keeping the child on that creative process — being a guide, philosopher and friend. Notice how the teacher didn’t heap tremendous congratulations when the student finally found her song. He continued on the process. The student’s own satisfaction with her creative outcome was enough. 

CAD (The Creative Ability Development philosophy) pairs nicely with the Suzuki method we use. CAD proposes that good creative growth requires these ingredients:

1. Repetition of the question or problem needed a solution. Basically this is discipline and is the hardest part for most children. It means to keep painting and trying to get what is in your mind’s on eye onto the paper. With violin, it means practicing those scales so that you have the tools you need to compose or improvise a piece. 

2. Exposure to great examples of artistic beauty. For music this means listening to the Suzuki CD for the one millionth time or just listening to darn good music. Bach wasn’t only naturally gifted. He walked over 500 miles to study with the great Buxtehude organist. That’s basically good music on repeat in the 1600s. He studied the greats all through his early childhood.

3. No criticism during the creative process. This is a big no-no in the Charlotte Mason method. Never interrupt a child’s narration of what they just read. Don’t ask your child why they just inserted squiggly lines all over their beautiful painting. As hard as it may be. But is there a time for constructive criticism – perhaps. But not during the creative process. But it’s less criticism as showing another way.

The first two are easier for me to understand. Discipline. I get that. I am one of those people, Kay describes, who naturally has a higher ratio of analytical thought than creative thought. She says the ratio is usually 40:60 or 60:40 and occasionally 80:20 and 20:80. Mozart was likely 80:20 in favour of creative thought.

Regardless, this process is important for all natural inclinations. In hopes that my daughter is a creative genius I want to think she is the same as Mozart but she is likely 60:40 (similar to many others) in favour of creative juices over analytical juices. 

Exposure to great examples of artistic beauty. No problem. My house is basically an art gallery. My husband says if I put up any more art we are going to have to start charging an entry fee to subsidize all the frames I keep buying. 

In the mason method Parent’s Review article I am reading by Minn (suggested by The CMEC for our fall art instruction retreat), the author writes:

“Since this enjoyment in true works of art is so lively in little children, is it not infinitely more desirable that they should have about them, on their nursery walls and in their schoolrooms, reproductions of pictures that have passed the test of time rather than the pretty, mediocre pictures drawn for children that one so often sees?….She is able to recognize the essentials of composition and has gained a sense of significant form, which influences the choice of subject, the grouping and planning of her own paintings and studies, and which increases not only her appreciation of pictures, but of all forms of nature, architecture and machinery.“

Minn reminds us not to focus on just the utilitarian benefits of looking at good art or listening to good music:

“We do not seek to do more than prepare the children to enter into the infinite realm of art, with a firm basis of knowledge, by which they may appreciate and know the beautiful and the true, and to arouse in them the artistic intuition and creative abilities, which, in most of us, have been allowed to lie dormant…the six year old child should begin both to express himself and to appreciate, and his appreciation should be well in advance of his power to express what he sees and imagines.”

Minn concludes her article with the simple reminder:

“I should like to emphasize, once again, the necessity for encouraging freedom, spontaneity and joyousness by supplying the children with an abundance of good material and by refraining from the least suspicion of condemnation.”

Condemnation. Criticism. It’s that that third ingredient of the CAD method: no criticism during the creative process. Yikes. Guilty as charged. 
But surely, how can child learn to draw if not instructed. Minn explains the process by which a child can learn mainly on her own:

“Give the child large sheets of paper, paints and brushes, and he will cover them with the most delightful spontaneity, and often with a remarkable sense of colour and an astonishing feeling for design. Unhampered by technique, he fills the spaces happily, placing his figures with confidence. It is absolutely essential to build up this faith in his work, to foster this confidence, spontaneity and feeling for design throughout the early years, and especially through the most difficult years from ten to twelve or thirteen, when he begins to realize that his efforts lack reality.”

But she is unequivocally clear:

“We must not condemn or ridicule, nor in any way dishearten him or kill his joy ; his drawings are very real to him, and he very much resents our touching them at all. And here I should like to add that the less we work on a child’s drawings or models the better. Occasionally it is necessary to show the older ones how they can pull their work together and how to carry it a stage further; but by far the best method is to show them on another spare sheet of paper any suggestion or method in technique.

What genius! This is exactly what the music teacher did in the modern music example above. Instead of criticism, he just pulled out some really sublime music for the student to listen to. Over and over again.  This was enough to correct faults, push to creative heights. To inspire!

“The criticism of an original composition, particularly one in progress, is A very painful Experience because original music comes from the composer’s unique sensitivity to truth and beauty….If a teacher, parent, or fellow student criticizes a creator’s choices that person becomes creator by virtue of his criticism. That criticism is that person’s choice of the correct solution to the given creative problem.” (CAD)

So what is the teacher’s role in arts and crafts?

It is to provide all the exposure to beautiful examples as well as increase the child’s familiarity with “various tools and all kinds of materials, so that he may understand how to handle them with dexterity and to the best advantage” (Minn). For Mason, it is also about curating content to read and look at as well as handicraft work that is within the ability of the student, even if pushing to her to the edge of her ability. If it is beyond the scope of possibility the child will get frustrated, bored or have a meltdown.

And avoid comparison between children. I need to remember that my daughter and son may fit differently on the creative/analytical spectrum. The truth is most classical methods of education (Mason is different in significant ways from classical education) emphasize the analytical way of learning, and for a very creative child this means asking a left-handed child to do all her regular tasks with her left hand tied behind her back. It’s asking her to mainly rely on her left side (the analytical side) when the right side of her brain is her real strength.

Teachers and parents are not the only ones who do this. Children can do this to other children: “ Your drawing looks like a baby’s drawing!” We recently subscribed to a Waldorf online art instruction session that helps children evaluate each other’s art in a group environment. They taught instructors some better questions to ask when everyone has attempted a similar tree-themed piece of art (the results all look quite different):

“What season do you think this tree is living in?”
“Does this child’s tree look like it belongs in a forest or by itself?”
“Which tree looks like a storm is blowing through?”
“Which tree looks like the leaves are fresh rather than just at the end of the summer season?”

The journey to abundant and joyful creative and original expression is very simple. I find I complicate the matter. These two pieces of educational philosophy agree that it is:

Freedom of choice/freedom from criticism
+
Disciplined practice/repetition of making creative choices
= Creative ability.

SO….
To foster a creative thinker, speaker, writer:

Freedom to express in your own words the ideas that you find
+
Repeatedly reading or hearing new ideas
=A creative thinker (eventually either in writing or speaking or both)

To develop the creative artist:

Freedom to express your music or art in your own way
+
Repeated and un-rushed exposure to good music and art
=A creative artist

I love when worlds collide. I am thankful for these two methods with similar outlooks on education written at either side of a century.

Since we entered into the strange time of an epidemic, and schools closed, and as my daughter likes to put it, “EVERYBODY gets to homeschool!”, the role of the teacher has been examined even more closely. What is the teacher supposed to do? How can the role of the teacher exist if not in the school?

Charlotte Mason, who wrote over 140 years ago, had truly impressive insights into the role of the teacher that stand true today. If you haven’t read my post What is Education, read it before or after reading this one and it will help.

1. The role of the teacher is to help children form their own opinions, not force the teacher’s (or the dominant cultural paradigm) on them.

“It is our duty to form opinions carefully, and to hold them tenaciously in so far as the original grounds of our conclusions remain unshaken. But what we have no right to do, is to pass these opinions on to our children. We all know that nothing is easier than to make vehement partisans of young people, in any cause heartily adopted by their elders…Children are far more likely to embrace the views of their parents, when they are ripe to form opinions, if these have not been forced upon them in early youth when their lack of knowledge and experience makes it impossible for them to form opinions at first hand. Only by masterly inactivity,’ ‘wise passiveness,’ able ‘letting alone,’ can a child be trained to reverence his conscience as his king.” (School Education, p. 42)

Even for religious parents this means NOT forcing your beliefs on your child. Raising them in an atmosphere that makes an impression on the child and in all likelihood may persuade them to its possibilities and rightness is quite acceptable. Charlotte Mason knew, even then, that teenagers will always rebel against ideas that are forced upon them. She encouraged parents to trust the conscience of the well-formed child and model their influence after Christ who forced no man.

“Even the divine authority does not compel. It indicates the way and protects the wayfarer, and strengthens and directs self-compelling power. It permits a man to make free choice of obedience rather than compels him to obey. In the moral training of children arbitrary action almost always produces revolt.” ( School Education, p. 128)

2. A teacher’s job is show children where to look, not what to see. Therefore, a teacher must put the child in the way of living books and living things. This will expose the child to living ideas.

“Intelligent teachers are well aware of the dry-as-dust character of school books, so they fall back upon the ‘oral’ lesson, one of whose qualities must be that it is not bookish. Living ideas can be derived only from living minds, and so it occasionally happens that a vital spark is flashed from teacher to pupil. But this occurs only when the subject is one to which the teacher has given original thought. In most cases the oral lesson, or the more advanced lecture, consists of information got up by the teacher from various books, and imparted in language, a little pedantic, or a little commonplace, or a little reading-made-easy in style. At the best, the teacher is not likely to have vital interest in, and, consequently, original thought upon, a wide range of subjects.” (School Education, p. 170)”

In our public schools the opposite usually happens. At best the teacher is set up as a Sage on the Stage. At worst, the teacher is a demi-god who can do no wrong in the child’s eyes and is the imparter of all knowledge. Most often, in our schools, few ideas come from books and things explored by the child herself, but rather the teacher is the middle-man through which the ideas come, massaging the message to make sure it is appropriate, culturally sensitive and at the right level for the student. Sadly, the living idea falls flat in a game of telephone where it quickly loses its poignancy and originality. Teachers are generalists, mostly, and are not in position to always deliver knowledge first-hand.

Limitations of Teachers.––We wish to place before the child open doors to many avenues of instruction and delight, in each one of which he should find quickening thoughts. We cannot expect a school to be manned by a dozen master-minds, and even if it were, and the scholar were taught by each in turn, it would be much to his disadvantage. What he wants of his teacher is moral and mental discipline, sympathy and direction; and it is better, on the whole, that the training of the pupil should be undertaken by one wise teacher than that he should be passed from hand to hand for this subject and that.” (School Education, p. 270)

I do not judge the motives of the teacher. They are well placed. Mason defended the teacher’s motives but not the outcome:

But the teacher is not moved by arrogance, but by a desire to be serviceable. He believes that children cannot understand well-written books, and that he must make himself a bridge between the pupil and the real teacher, the man who has written the book. (Quoted in Parent’s Review article, Household, “Teaching Methods of Miss Mason”, 1921, pg. 10-20),

Sometimes a teacher is a specialist and from time to time can offer special insight and reflection on a relevant area. Perhaps, in these cases, oral instruction directly from the teacher might be suitable.

In fact, most times, Mason remarked that living books are preferred to oral teaching because most teachers are not naturally good speakers (School Education, p. 242-243). A second reason is given in volume 6, Toward a Philosophy of Education. Art Middlekauff from Charlotte Mason Poetry helped to answer my question this way when I asked about the de-emphasis on oral teaching from a Mason perspective:

“There are those who have a right to lecture, those who have devoted a life-time to some one subject about which they have perhaps written their book. Lectures from such persons are, no doubt, as full of insight, imagination and power as are their written works; but we cannot have a score of such lecturers in every school, each to elucidate his own subject, nor, if we could, would it be good for the children. The personality of the teacher would influence them to distraction from the delight in knowledge which is itself a sufficient and compelling force to secure perfect attention, and seemly discipline.”

3. A teacher’s role might have an important hand in forming the Will of the student, their habit of attention, their best qualities overall… NOT to explain everything.

“–And children have not altered. This is how we find them––with intelligence more acute, logic more keen, observing powers more alert, moral sensibilities more quick, love and faith and hope more abounding; in fact, in all points like as we are, only more so; but absolutely ignorant of the world and its belongings, of us and our ways, and, above all, of how to control and direct and manifest the infinite possibilities with which they are born.” (173, School Education)

Mason has argued that the “strong-willed” child is a misnomer. The strong-willed child is usually a child who has a weak will and cannot control her strongest impulses. Think of the child who refuses to sit at the table to eat, to go when asked to go. The child is giving in to the most natural of impulses.

“The teacher’s part in this regard is to see and feel for himself, and then to rouse his pupils by an appreciative look or word; but to beware how he deadens the impression by a flood of talk. Intellectual sympathy is very stimulating; but we have all been in the case of the little girl who said, “Mother, I think I could understand if you did not explain quite so much.” A teacher said of her pupil, “I find it so hard to tell whether she has really grasped a thing or whether she has only got the mechanical hang of it” Children are imitative monkeys, and it is the ‘mechanical hang’ that is apt to arrive after a douche of explanation.” (179, School Education).

I am sure that I exhaust my children sometimes with my explanations that they never asked for. Occasionally they may ask for answer to a question, and only expect a simple response. I will not help build their habit of attention by drawing out the endless possibilities of, really, a very simple question.

So what is a teacher to do?

4. “[The Teacher’s] part is not the weariful task of spoon-feeding with pap-meat, but the delightful commerce of equal minds where his is the part of guide, philosopher and friend.” (Toward a Philosophy of Education, p. 238)

Now there is no question that a parent is not a friend in the sense of childhood playmate. Mason was clear on this. She wrote at great length on the role of the parent as one of authority. However, in the part of education the parent must come alongside the child.

But in practical terms, what does this mean? At most, this is the work of the teacher:

“The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity. Let marginal notes be freely made, as neatly and beautifully as may be, for books should be handled with reverence. Let numbers, letters, underlining be used to help the eye and to save the needless fag of writing abstracts. Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.” (School Education, p. 181)

Again, the role of the teacher is to put the student in the way of good things, good ideas, and accept that the child may reject some parts and take others. This rejection isn’t for always. The next year, she may return and take new nourishment, new ideas that last year she left behind, not yet quite ready to take them in.

“Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. Probably he will reject nine-tenths of the ideas we offer, as he makes use of only a small proportion of his bodily food, rejecting the rest. He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety and his to take what he needs.” (School Education, p. 109)

Tell it and you will know it. AKA: Narration. It’s a trademark characteristic of the Mason method. I wanted somewhere where I could narrate, or rather just directly stash, all the key insights into what ‘education’ is as I read Mason’s works. Maybe then I will begin to know it.

Obviously my life has been consumed, for the last 2 years, with contemplating Education. I have always loved Philosophy but thought that the very familiar idea of education hardly warranted deeper consideration.

Now I find the very foundations of what I thought education was or is has been shaken, or maybe, coloured in. It is has been given a more vibrant presence in my life, a fuller depiction. Below you will find my summary of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education as I have read from the latest book in her series that I have at my beside- School Education (all page references below are from that book).

For those who homeschool I do believe that it is critical to have a philosophy of education. Otherwise, it would be like deciding to enter a swimming race and having no idea of what strokes to use or being without a stratagem for how to proceed and ultimately finish.

Charlotte Mason agreed that one adopts a philosophy whether one knows it or not, and to make sure that such a philosophy was backed up scientifically:

We do say that some educational theory which shall include the whole nature of man and the results of scientific research, in the same or a greater degree, is necessary. (65)

While she was not always aligned with the classical fathers in her understanding of education, she did agree with Socrates in one thing – that education was about ‘knowing thyself’ – but in that pursuit- not to adopt every educational fad that comes along.

We must not turn the cold shoulder to philosophy. Education is no more than applied philosophy––our effort to train children according to the wisdom that is in us; and not according to the last novelty in educational ideas. ‘Man, know thyself,’ is a counsel which we might render, ‘Child, know thyself, and thy relations to God and man and nature’; and to give their children this sort of preparation for life it is necessary that parents should know something of the laws of mind and of the source of knowledge. (118)

Mason does provide many definitions but provides one that she returns to again and again. I think our modern system adopts it in principle, if not always in action:

We consider that education is the science of relations, or more fully, that education considers what relations are proper to a human being, and in what ways these several relations can best be established; that a human being comes into the world with capacity for many relations; and that we, for our part, have two chief concerns––first, to put him in the way of forming these relations by presenting the right idea at the right time, and by forming the right habit upon the right idea; and, secondly, by not getting in the way and so preventing the establishment of the very relations we seek to form.(66)

This “not getting in the way” reference warrants its own post. It is a caution to parents to “not meddle” with their children’s learning. More to come….

I have set before the reader the proposition that a human being comes into the world, not to develop his faculties nor to acquire knowledge, nor even to earn his living, but to establish certain relations; which relations are to him the means of immeasurable expansion and fulness of living. We have touched upon two groups of these relations––his relations to the universe of matter and to the world of men. (90)

Mason took this relation-seeking in one more direction:

To complete his education, I think there is but one more relation to be considered––his relation to Almighty God. (90)

Mason was a Christian, but even with these references, I think the secular system can learn much from Mason.

What must we do? Just pack in content and information into the child. By no means! What is information without wisdom? And what is wisdom but the careful and considerate relating of things to each other in their proper way and in the correct order.

What, then, have we to do for the child? Plainly we have not to develop the person; he is there already, with, possibly, every power that will serve him in his passage through life. Some day we shall be told that the very word education is a misnomer belonging to the stage of thought when the drawing forth of ‘faculties’ was supposed to be a teacher’s business. We shall have some fit new word meaning, perhaps, ‘applied wisdom,’ for wisdom is the science of relations and the thing we have to do for a young human being is to put him in touch, so far as we can, with all the relations proper to him. (75)

Mason felt that mainly ideas, levered by habit and discipline, was the key to developing good character- ultimately an end goal of Education.

We hold with him entirely as to the importance of great formative ideas in the education of children, but we add to our ideas, habits, and we labour to form habits upon a physical basis. Character is the result not merely of the great ideas which are given to us, but of the habits which we labour to form upon those ideas. We recognise both principles, and the result is a wide range of possibilities in education, practical methods, and a definite aim. We labour to produce a human being at his best physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, with the enthusiasms of religion, of the good life, of nature, knowledge, art, and manual work; and we do not labour in the dark. (99)

She was also known for the great motto adopted by all Parent’s Union schools (Mason schools):

Some of my readers will know the Parents’ Union motto, ‘Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,’ especially well in the neat diagrammatic form in which it appears on the covers of our Library books. (149)

‘Atmosphere’ is a reference to what a child encounters just naturally going about living – her home, her friends, her things, nature, books, family. These encounters educate us. Unschoolers and delight-driven learners often place great emphasis on this and Mason says, indeed that it is tremendously valuable. But beware;

Suppose that all this is included in our notion of ‘Education is an atmosphere,’ may we not sit at our ease and believe that all is well, and that the whole of education has been accomplished? No; because though we cannot live without air, neither can we live upon air, and children brought up upon ‘environment’ soon begin to show signs of inanition; they have little or no healthy curiosity, power of attention, or of effort; what is worse, they lose spontaneity and initiative; they expect life to drop into them like drops into a rain-tub, without effort or intention on their part (150)

Education as a a ‘Discipline’ most simply, to my mind, means those habits of attention and otherwise that help us continue in our work in the best way.

Education is a “life”….well that will have a post all of its own as well.

But what so we often treat as “education”? Mason bemoaned this in her own time;

What do we do? We consider the matter carefully; we say the boy will make a jumble of it if he is taught more than one or two sciences. We ask our friends––’What sciences will tell best in examinations?’ and, ‘Which are most easily learned?’ We discover which are the best text-books in the smallest compass. The boy learns up his text, listens to lectures, makes diagrams, watches demonstrations. Behold! he has learned a science and is able to produce facts and figures, for a time any way, in connection with some one class of natural phenomena; but of tender intimacy with Nature herself he has acquired none. Let me sketch what seems to me the better way for the child. (76)

What does she suggest?

The father of Plutarch had him learn his Homer that he might get heroic ideas of life. Had the boy been put through his Homer as a classical grind, as a machine for the development of faculty, a pedant would have come out, and not a man of the world in touch with life at many points, capable of bringing men and affairs to the touchstone of a sane and generous mind. It seems to me that this notion of the discipline which should develop ‘faculty’ has tended to produce rather one-sided men, with the limitations which belong to abnormal development. An artist told me the other day that the condition of successful art is absorption in art, that the painter must think pictures, paint pictures, nothing but pictures. But when art was great, men were not mere artists. Quentin Matsys wrought in iron and painted pictures and did many things besides. Michael Angelo wrote sonnets, designed buildings, painted pictures; marble was by no means his only vehicle of expression. Leonardo wrote treatises, planned canals, played instruments of music, did a hundred things, and all exquisitely. But then, the idea of the development of faculty, and the consequent discipline, had not occurred to these great men or their guardians. (152)

Instead of subject experts (though her method of learning will give the world many a great expert) she suggested of first importance –the well-rounded child.

We are more exacting than the Jesuits. They are content to have a child till he is seven; but we want him till he is twelve or fourteen, if we may not have him longer. You may do what you like with him afterwards. Given this period for the establishing of relations, we may undertake to prepare for the world a man, vital and vigorous, full of living interests, available and serviceable. I think we may warrant him even to pass examinations, because he will know how to put living interest into the dullest tasks.(79)

Unlike the strict classical educationalist, a child is not simply a blank vessel to fill and learn from those “who know” and to stay for the most part in the three R’s.

Another elemental relationship, which every child should be taught and encouraged to set up, is that of power over material. Every child makes sand castles, mud-pies, paper boats, and he or she should go on to work in clay, wood, brass, iron, leather, dress-stuffs, food-stuffs, furnishing-stuffs. He should be able to make with his hands and should take delight in making.(80)

And while she placed emphasis on learning from books (not because she thought words necessarily imparted knowledge better than people (though she does allude to this occasionally) but rather that books gave the student access to so many more people through the whole of written history. It is the human relationship that she is after.

Perhaps the main part of a child’s education should be concerned with the great human relationships, relationships of love and service, of authority and obedience, of reverence and pity and neighbourly kindness; relationships to kin and friend and neighbour, to ’cause’ and country and kind, to the past and the present. History, literature, archeology, art, languages, whether ancient or modern, travel and tales of travel; all of these are in one way or other the record or the expression of persons; and we who are persons are interested in all persons, for we are all one flesh, we are all of one spirit, and whatever any of us does or suffers is interesting to the rest. If we will approach them with living thought, living books, if we will only awaken in them the sense of personal relation, there are thousands of boys and girls to-day capable of becoming apostles, saviours, great orientalists who will draw the East and the West together, great archeologists who will make the past alive for us and make us aware in our souls of men who lived thousands of years ago. (80-81)

Mason often had to emphasize that bookish learning is not the the goal, but the the means to…

Relations with each other as Human Beings.––But the subject of our relations with each other as human beings is inexhaustible, and I can do no more than indicate a point here and there, and state again my conviction that a system of education should have for its aim, not the mastery of certain ‘subjects,’ but the establishment of these relations in as many directions as circumstances will allow. (88)

These “books and things” help get the student embrace the fullness of what it is to be human. But books alone do not ensure the child gets to this fullness. Art Middlekauff, from Charlotte Mason Poetry illustrates in one his great podcasts that Stalin received what might be considered a typically well rounded Education, a blend of classical and experiential learning that should have opened his heart to humanity, but it didn’t. But perhaps for Stalin, he reduced the expectations of his education to subject mastery and performance prowess.

Instead, Mason writes,

The Full Human Life.––I think we should have a great educational revolution once we ceased to regard ourselves as assortments of so-called faculties and realised ourselves as persons whose great business it is to get in touch with other persons of all sorts and conditions, of all countries and climes, of all times, past and present. History would become entrancing, literature, a magic mirror for the discovery of other minds, the study of sociology, a duty and a delight. We should tend to become responsive and wise, humble and reverent, recognising the duties and the joys of the full human life. We cannot, of course, overtake such a programme of work, but we can keep it in view; and, I suppose, every life is moulded upon its ideal. We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more. (83)

And so now we see what we are after for our children and for ourselves:

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. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? (171)

Tissot, HIDE AND SEEK, 1877

What does it mean to have our feet set in a large room? Magnanimity. Wikipedia says this is is the virtue of being great of mind and heart. Amy Snell explores this in depth in her talk “Cultivating Magnanimity” from the CMEC retreat 2019. Suffice it to say we want our children, and ourselves, to continually grow and expand outward and inward so that their presence touches the world however small or big that community is for them. Our current system attempts to capture this with “growth mindset” but I think it only scratches the surface.

While I have mainly been quoting from Mason’s book School Education, here the great lady sums it up in her last book A Philosophy of Education:

The introduction of the methods I advocate has a curious effect on a whole family… The whole household thinks of and figures to itself great things, for nothing is so catching as knowledge and that fine temper of mind that knowledge brings with it. Children so taught are delightful companions because they have large interests and worthy thoughts; they have much to talk about and such casual talk benefits society. The fine sense, like an atmosphere, of things worth knowing and worth living for, this it is which produces magnanimous citizens, and we feel that Milton was right in claiming magnanimity as the proper outcome of education. (p.267-268)

It’s not just about being able to have ‘polite conversation’. This alone is not the goal we are after. They ought to learn…

With great interest something about themselves, mind and body, heart and soul, because they feel it is well to know what they have it in them to give… (Ibid., p. 187)

Ah, there’s the rub.

Since I live in a place where there isn’t really a Charlotte Mason (CM) homeschool community that exists in many other urban centres, I have to create a space to narrate my thoughts (narration is a key part of any CM school). My husband can only handle so much before he asks if I have still haven’t met anyone yet to really explore it with (hint, hint). Even since writing this post, a good friend has jumped into the fray with me.
So many of the wonderful mothers who homeschool here haven’t heard of her, or they simply have found a homeschooling system that works for them. I am so thankful for these companions in the day to day experience of school-at-home. But I do imagine what I would say if they ask me about CM and why I choose this method: “Who is she? What is it? Don’t you think it’s weird to follow an educational philosophy named after a person?” (not that wierd…so many philosophies are).

For moms with no particular religious affiliation, how do I explain what the method looks like? I know that at the core of Charlotte Mason is a Christian worldview that underscores every idea and practical suggestion. That said, I think there is much our secular schools could take away from the method, because, well…..it’s centered on natural law. Some things just make good sense.

So when I sat down with my kids to watch Mary Poppins Returns, I was delighted to find an example of a CM homeschool teacher for the secular school. Mary Poppins exemplifies a few of the stand-out features of a Charlotte Mason education.

#1 Play is The Thing

Discovery through play is pretty key to CM, especially up to mid-elementary and arguably beyond. She encourages kids to spend at least 7-8 hours outside a day, in play and recreational pursuits. I’m still doing the math on that one and trying to find all those hours but even the hours we do find make such a difference. Each afternoon sees the cessation of all lessons and free occupation and play is where it is at. While many public schools now try to make all lesson time ‘learning through play’ (which CM would not agree with), a good CM educator knows that this time is invaluable for the proper development and expansion of mind and interest.
What does Mary Poppins say?


Annabel Banks: It’s just that…
Mary Poppins: You don’t require the services of a nanny?
John Banks: Well, we have grown up a good deal in the past year, after all.
Mary Poppins: Yes. Well, we’ll have to see what can be done about that.

Charlotte Mason warns against forcing formal learning too early and emphasizing the former over the latter:


”No, let us be content to be the handmaids of Nature for the first five or six years, remembering that enormous as are the tasks she sets the children, she guides them into the performance of each so that it is done with unfailing delight; for gaiety, delight, mirth, belong to her method. If a child chooses to read and write before he is six, let him, but do not make him; and when he does begin, there is no occasion to hurry; let him have a couple of years for the task.” (The Parents Review, Volume XXIII)

Remember…. “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”


#2 Miracles are Possible


CM warned against the “horror of great darkness” which she felt was brought on by unbelief. She felt that people often arrived there, at first, by questioning miracles. She defends her belief that children must be presented with miracles of the Bible (and more generally, stories of the supernatural). Why?

“In the first place, all that the most advanced scientists have to urge against ‘miracles’ is that precisely such phenomenon have not come under their personal notice; but they before all people, are open to admit that nothing is impossible and that no experience is final” (CM, Parents and Children, p. 110).

And here our buoyant Mary Poppins (Returns) would agree:


Annabel Banks: But we can’t fix the carriage wheel. It isn’t possible.
Mary Poppins: Everything is possible. Even the impossible.

Perhaps a stretch to see the deeper musings of CM in this….but this whole post is a little whimsical.


#3 Distraction is the best way to get out of a mood.



Mary Poppins: When you change your view from where you stood, the things you view will change for good.

And…
Jack (Poppins trusty side-kick in M.P. Returns):

“There’s a different point of view awaiting you if you would just look up.”

From the first (and arguably, best, Mary Poppins) we have this old favourite tune:


A robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While gathering his bits of twine and twig
Though quite intent in his pursuit
He has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song will move the job along – for…

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way.

The honey bees that fetch the nectar
From the flowers to the comb
Never tire of ever buzzing to and fro
Because they take a little nip
From every flower that they sip
And hence (And hence),
They find (They find)

Their task is not a grind.



Does CM support such a flippant notion as this- that simply redirecting one’s attention or focusing one some new, more interesting occupation will help us leave a sour mood behind?

Let’s see.

“Again the sameness of his duties, the weariness of doing the same thing over and over, fills him with disgust and despondency, and relaxes his efforts;–but not if he be a man under the power of his own will, because he simply does not allow himself in idle discontent; it is always within his power to give himself something pleasant, something outside of himself, to think of, and if he does so; and given what we call ‘a happy frame of mind’ , no work is laborious.” (CM, Home Education)

#4 Education is about habit training.


Despite all of her peppy songs and rosy cheeks, Mary Poppins is a stickler for good habits. She doesn’t have time for gaping mouths, dawdling, messiness or any other bad habit that gets in the way of life.


Mary Poppins (Returns): You need to be more careful when the wind rises, Georgie. You nearly lost your kite.
Mary Poppins (addressing John and Annabel): And you two nearly lost your Georgie. He might have got away completely had I not been holding on to the other end of that string.
Mary Poppins: My goodness, Annabel, what have you done to your clothes? You could grow a garden in that much soil.
Mary Poppins (looking to John) : And, John, yes, just as filthy.

CM leaves no doubt that habit training is part of a good education:

“Here, no doubt, come in the functions of parents and teachers; they should be able to make the child do that which he lacks the power to compel himself to.” (CM, Home Education, p. 99-100)

#5 Feed the mind and soul with living books and ideas.

CM is famous for her insistence that living books are the best way for children to learn the pageant of history, science, and language arts. Books are cheap, accessible, they cut the fluff if properly edited and vetted. They prevent a teacher’s personality, extended oratory and showmanship from taking over. A book presents the big idea, and often one person’s life expertise, and it is left to the child to take what details are important and worthwhile to her.

CM doesn’t advocate for much ‘jostling’ on our part to get the message across:


“But a child of ten cannot understand Shakespeare. No; but can a man of fifty? Is not our great poet rather an ample feast of which every one takes according to his needs, and leaves what he has no stomach for? A little girl of nine said to me the other day that she had only read one play of Shakespeare’s through, and that was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She did not understand the play, of course, but she must have found enough to amuse and interest her.” (CM, Vol.5, p. 224)

Mary Poppins Returns offers a presentation of books as a great medium for learning virtue and knowledge in the musical number “A Cover is Not the Book”. This is perhaps the biggest stretch I have to make for the Mary Poppins = CM teacher cause. While there are no overt quotes to show Poppins’ love of living books, this dancing and singing number is a close nod to the power of book to “take us lands away”:

Uncle Gutenberg was a bookworm
And he lived on Charing Cross
The memory of his volumes brings a smile
He would read me lots of stories
When he wasn’t on the sauce
Now I’d like to share the wisdom
Of my favourite bibliophile

He said a-
Cover is not the book
So open it up and take a look
’
Cause under the covers one discovers
That the king may be a crook
Chapter titles are like signs
And if you read between the lines
You’ll find your first impression was mistook
For a cover is nice
But a cover is not the book

Perhaps the lyrics play in a little too nicely into the current a-la-mode virtue of non-judgement but we do see the song use Travers own storylines from the Poppins series to point to greater lessons, and certainly in a fun way, without any over-explanation.

#6 Don’t explain to children…just present ideas.


You may remember our first Mary Poppins say “Why complicate things that are really quite simple?”

The CM method challenges one of the biggest problems in our school system today — Scaffolding. That tiresome conviction that children must access all the help they need from those around them, to fill the gap between their own ability and potential knowledge (Zone of Proximal Development). Ashley Olander over at Charlotte Mason Poetry has done the best job yet unpacking the problems of this pedagogy. Our tendency to explain everything to children is our response to tired belief that we “need to show children HOW to learn!” Right?

CM says an emphatic NO! They know HOW to learn. What they don’t often know is how to get the ideas and information they need to build character, knowledge and virtue. That is the teacher’s job. The presentation of ideas. The curator of the classroom. The provider of the ‘what’ to learn.
 Here is Mary Poppins at her finest. In the newest film, Poppins is clear that she has no intention to ‘jostle’ the children by entertaining such notions of over-explanation.


Shamus the Coachman: Now, where would we all like to go on this fine, fine day?
Mary Poppins: The Royal Doulton Music Hall, please.
John Banks: Where?
Georgie Banks: What’s that?
Mary Poppins: We’re on the brink of an adventure, children. Don’t spoil it with too many questions.

But Jack, the Leerie, knows best. True to his job as a lamplighter, he brings light to every situation, bringing clarity without explanation.


Annabel Banks: How on earth did she do that?
Jack: One thing you should know about Mary Poppins, she never explains anything [Emp. Mine]

From the first Mary Poppins film we remember her up-front guarantee to Mr. Banks:

“First of all, I would like to make one thing clear: I never explain anything.”

These words could have come from CM herself. In fact they did.

She writes:
”As the object of every writer is to explain himself in his own book, the child and the author must be trusted together, without the intervention of the middle-man. What his author does not tell him he must go without knowing for the present. No explanation will really help him…”(Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, pp. 191-192).

And again,

“Our failure as teachers is that we place too little dependence on the intellectual power of our scholars, and as they are modest little souls what the teacher kindly volunteers to do for them, they feel that they cannot do for themselves.” (Ibid. p. 192)

Furthermore,

“[Teachers proceed] with lessons elaborately drawn up, in which certain work is assigned to the perceptive faculties, certain work to the imagination, to the judgment, and so on… this sort of doctoring of the material of knowledge is unnecessary for the healthy child, whose mind is capable of self-direction, and of applying itself to its proper work upon the parcel of knowledge delivered to it. (CM, Home Education, p.172)

And finally,

“… as the bird has wings to cleave the air with, so has the child all the powers necessary wherewith to realize and appropriate all knowledge, all beauty and all goodness.” (Mason, 1911, p. 427)

This is perhaps the most disarming claim by Mason for our modern classrooms and, in particular, for our elementary classrooms where a dependence upon illustration and over-explanation have “paralyzingly effect on the mind.” (Mason, School Education, p. 243).

To read a beautifully full account of the CM philosophy on this topic, Ashley Olander’s article, “Building Without Scaffolds” over at Charlotte Mason Poetry is a must read and I fully credit her article for the quotes above.

In the first film there is a little, but important, exchange between Jane and Mary Poppins that is worth considering

Jane: He’s [Father] never taken us on an outing before.
Michael: He’s never taken us anywhere
Jane: How did you ever manage it?
Mary Poppins: Manage what?
Jane: You must have put the idea in his head somehow.
Mary Poppins: What an impertinent thing to say! Me, putting ideas into people’s heads? Really!

And while it could be argued she did put this idea into Mr. Banks head, in the end, we must believe Mary. All she can be credited with is presenting an idea, but Mr. Banks must be credited for giving the idea merit himself, and taking it on.

CM writes:

“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” (CM, Home Education. p. 17).



#7 The teacher should NOT the showman of the classroom.

Mary Poppins is a show woman of the highest order…right? I don’t think so. She is charming and whimsical and certainly Disney has capitalized on the compelling personality of this fictional character. I haven’t read the books by Travers but I wonder if she is as powerful a force in the books. I believe the children play a greater role in the books. However, even in the Disneyfied telling of Mary Poppins, it becomes clear at the end that Poppins only stays as long as she is needed and then MUST leave. It would be wrong for her to stay. She has a job to do and has only come to offer the help that she can.

Balloon lady: Of course, the grown-ups will all forget by tomorrow.
Mary Poppins: They always do.
Balloon Lady: Only one balloon left [to carry Mary away from our world], Mary Poppins. I think it must be yours.
Mary Poppins: Yes, I suppose it must.

And whether by umbrella or balloon, she comes and goes just like that. Because Mary Poppins knows that the story is not about her. True to the original, Mary Poppins Returns is about a family. Once her job is done to help, she must exist stage right.

Parrot Umbrella: Awk, that’s gratitude for you. They didn’t even say goodbye?
Mary Poppins: No, they didn’t.
Parrot Umbrella: Look at them! You know, they think more of their father than they do of you!
Mary Poppins: That’s as it should be.

Mason presents a picture of a teacher that is much like what we see in Poppins:

“The teacher’s part is, in the first place to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day…and see what mental discipline, as well as vital knowledge, this that lesson afford, and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give fully cope to his pupil’s mental activity.” (Mason, School Education,pp. 180-181)

And further to that the mother (often the teacher),
 “…must refrain from too much talk….the less she says the better.” (Mason, Home Education, p.78)

What is the role of the teacher? Curator, Philosopher guide, and at times, friend. This doesn’t mean that the teacher isn’t in charge. Make no mistake, children and adults alike obey and adore Mary Poppins (i.e. “Close your mouth please Michael. We are not a codfish.”)


#8 Lay a feast before each child.


Mary Poppins invites her charges to “Open different doors. You may find a you that you never knew was yours.”

Likewise a CM education is not simply delight driven education. It is meant to be an illuminating experience, a feast of idea-foods that you have never tasted before. Maybe even some things you didn’t know you like. You may be surprised to find out that your child likes to sing, likes to dance, likes to gaze at the stars, likes Math and even history (minus the dates). The point is to ‘open different doors’. CM calls it laying out an “abundant and delicate feast”.

Mary Poppins keeps her cards close to her chest in terms of faith. Thankfully she is character of fantasy so we do not need to ask what she’s truly about. But I’m sure she’s as close to a CM teacher as we get in Disney World.