I have been homeschooling my now 16 year old son from birth. Our homeschooling has involved a lot of reading out loud. Interestingly, although I’m not a nature and sciency kind of person, some of my favorite things to read to my son over these years has been the nature stories. We’ve read many books by naturalists who share their stories of being there, and I’ve enjoyed “being there” with them as I’ve read the stories to my son. I’ve enjoyed reading our school literature selections, as well as our “free reads”. Over the years I’ve judged good writers, such as C.S. Lewis, by how good it feels (literally!) to read their sentences out loud.

As the years have passed, and my son has become an independent learner, I have increased my piano studio and have had far less time to be with him during his school hours. The thing I miss the most is reading out loud to him. In scheduling his days this year, I have reserved one hour before I start my piano teaching day (and some days that means 7 a.m.) to read to him. (And whenever I have a block of cancellations during the day, you might find me running home, rather than staying at the studio, as I ought, to practice my cello and clarinet, and saying, “I’m here! Can I read whatever you’re reading right now to you?”) For that precious “morning hour with Mom”, this year I have chosen to read books such as Plutarch’s Life of Alexander (just a bit each morning), Charlotte Mason’s Ourselves, C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man, and when I can steal it from his after-Mom schedule and squeeze it in before I dash to the studio on Fridays, Seven Men Who Rule from the Grave, which is a book not about politicians or business-leaders, but philosophers whose influence is still very evident today. I also do some Grammar, Latin, or Diagramming with him as a part of that hour. Do you really think that those 3 things are not like the others? You have not spent enough time with James, then. The study of language, which involves logic and the need for clear communication, generates a lot of discussion with us.  It’s a bonus for me when I can steal away and read History and Literature and Economics with him, as well, because those “subjects” are full of ideas well worth contemplating and discussing.

Truth be told (as one should), it is perhaps the discussion of ideas and the connections James and I make with them, and then with each other, that I miss even more than the reading out loud of the beautiful words. Sometimes I feel anxious about all the things that I’ve left undone or completely missed in the education of James Dewey Pelham. But then I sit with him and read C.S. Lewis or Thomas Sowell, or simply work on analyzing a sentence or translate some Latin, and I realize what a mature and honest thinker has been raised in our home. Sometimes I think I have harmed him with my concern about the wrong things, that I’ve not focused on filling his heart with ideas rather than his head with facts, and then I listen to this young man who picks up quickly on a logical or economic fallacy or grammatical error because he cares. He cares about Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Ordo amoris – somehow, in spite of his anxious mother, through the years his affections have been properly ordered. His conscience has been trained. He is not a Man without a chest.

From James’ “Commonplace” book

This will be my attempt in the true meaning of Essay to explain what I have learned over these 16 years about Science and the teaching of it. I will be sharing in some kind of orderly fashion many ideas (but not all, by any means!) in my head that have accumulated over the years from studying about teaching and the actual teaching of my son. References will be made but no actual quotes will be made or cited. However, I’d imagine that whole thing will end with a Proverb. It’s inevitable. I cannot help myself.

I stole the title of the post from Wendell Berry. It is the name of a documentary about him and comes from what he would tell his children as they would walk about the land. One of the things that has been made evident to me over and over is that regardless of (or perhaps, because of) how advanced we (think) we are technologically in the 21^st century, most of us have lost connection to nature — to what is real. We do not notice what is right before our eyes. We don’t take time to stop and look….deeply. To ponder. To wonder. To be humbled by it all. When you take time to look deeply, you realize how vast is the microscopic. You realize that it all began and continues without you. And the more you connect, the more you realize that although it began and continues without you, that what you do have is the power to destroy — and hopefully, that connection compels you to take personal responsibility to not destroy. Which brings up another point that I didn’t plan to address in this post, but here it goes. Some philosopher type that James and I have read recently made reference to the truth about global environmental issues, but noted that rather than being so focused globally, a person would do better to pick up the trash in his own backyard, as it were. James thinks this idea is from “that poet dude that Mom’s been reading”, as reported by his Dad, and that “poet dude” I’m almost certain would be Wendell Berry. (I said I would have no actual quotes, so forgive me for quoting my son.) I had wondered if it was Thomas Sowell, but I think James is right about the “poet dude” Wendell Berry. Anyhow, I was reminded of this idea when I saw a picture of the trash supposedly left behind on grounds where people were protesting about the lack of concern for global environmental issues. We love a cause. Especially when it’s way bigger than ourselves. But just Look and See, people. It’s all around you. Love your neighborhood.

Charlotte Mason has been our chief educational guide for the past 14 years. After years of research, discussion and application in her community of educators and parents, she summarized her philosophy of education in 20 principles. Karen Glass has proposed that two of those principles are “the most vital”, those two being that Children are born persons and that Education is the Science of Relations. Relations. Connections. How the various subjects naturally connect with each other. (No forced unit studies, my people! Oh, dear, No! Stop interfering with the natural process!) And how we as persons ought to make a connection with the ideas of the various subjects. Look and See, people. Education is not the filling up of the head with Facts; it is making connections with the Ideas in stories, history, nature, art, music. We ponder. We wonder. We connect. We are changed.

So we come to the subject of Nature Study/Natural History/Science in a Charlotte Mason education. We find ourselves reading “old books”. Some people balk at this idea. The “science” is old. It’s wrong. It’s “bad science”. Aren’t we doing a disservice to our students to teach them these wrong facts? And I realize that these people have little understanding about the teaching of “science” — or really, “science”, for that matter. They may think that they do, but this reaction shows me that they do not. I think being opposed to “old books” with their “old science” is arrogant. As if the facts presented in 21^st century textbooks are the absolute truth, never to be overturned. Pardon me, but I’m fixing to quote myself. I said this in a recent discussion: “Perhaps we should teach our children from the beginning that ‘science’ is really our best guess at the moment, and that what we think we know currently should never be presented as absolute fact, never to be overturned. James and I just read the second chapter in Seven Men Who Rule from the Grave where the author goes on about how we can never claim to really know it all — Science can never prove the absolute origin of life, for instance.”

When people oppose the old books they have failed to understand the purpose of teaching science. Perhaps if someone wrote books in the style of these old books, these old books could be replaced. But any new information in the newer books really doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are encouraged to Look and See. And that is what these old living science books do. What we Know at this hour, or think we Know, will be overturned — sometimes in a matter of minutes. And we can never Know absolutely. But we are built to be curious about everything. Even the origin of the species. So we Look and Ponder and Wonder and Connect and Care. That is what we want for our children. That is what we want for ourselves.

And once again:

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? ~ Charlotte Mason

Great are the works of Yahweh,
    studied by all who delight in them. ~ Psalm 111

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ~ Paul, an apostle of Jesus

Stay tuned. I just know there’s an appropriate Proverb.

In the woods

In the city

Anywhere at any age.  Nature is worth pondering.

“At the age of seventeen, Abbie must decide whether to marry Ed, and live a life of comfort, or Will, who offers a sod shanty on the Nebraska frontier.”

That’s the one sentence description at Goodreads for Bess Streeter Aldrich’s A Lantern in Her Hand. I’ll attempt to not give any spoilers as to which she chose, but either one could have led to hardships and disappointments, and this story is full of both of those. It also has hopeful and loving moments, but it takes some healthy thinking (not prone to dwell on and be overwhelmed by the sad things) to not be unaware of those.

It was a hard book for me to read as a mother and as a daughter. It was a hard book to read as a life-long dreamer of things I’ve wanted to do and be beyond “the normal”. There are some very sad deaths that occur in the story, but the over-arching story to me was of Abbie’s constant (at least it felt like it to me) putting aside her own desires for artistic endeavors in order to take care of her family and their needs. There were times when she was so close, and just like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, something would happen to block that dream. But it was always ultimately Abbie’s decision, just as it was George Bailey’s. I still struggled with the unfairness of it all. Every year with George Bailey, too.

John Adams, one of America’s founding fathers and leaders in the ideas that led to the U.S. revolt and independence wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail:

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

And so Abbie does what she does (I can’t tell you what because that would give away what I’m attempting not to give away) and watches as one daughter takes her paints and becomes the artist that Abbie had wanted to be, another insists on studying music and becomes the singer that Abbie had wanted to be, and a granddaughter seems poised to do the writing that Abbie had wanted to do.

I understand what John Adams was saying, and I see the good results of Abbie’s choices, as well as the many, many generational examples I’ve witnessed in my nearly six decades. But it still makes me sad. And I ponder over what becomes of the generations that don’t have to fight the battles. Do they really appreciate what they’ve been given by the sacrifical generation before? Must we continue in a cycle of War, Mathematics, Poetry, War, Mathematics, Poetry….? Or should each generation have real battles to fight? Could it be that we can have all three in one generation? How do we get Generations 2 and 3 in this cycle to stay grateful and ever alert?

Throughout the story, we are shown through her thoughts or spoken words moments of regret for Abbie, such as this statement in her 80th year:

But when I saw . . . when I saw the lovely lady that I used to dream about . . . it just came over me . . . in a sort of wave . . . all the wonderful things I planned to do when I was young . . . and never did.

But mostly Abbie appears to be resolved that though she gave up some dreams, it really was a wonderful and bountiful life after all. [And watch out, for here be potential spoilers.]

Grace was loath to accept the decision. “As I said, I’m sorry. You owe it to yourself, if you possibly can go. Your life has been so narrow, Mother . . . just here, all the time. You ought to get out now and see things.”

Unwittingly, as so often she did, Grace had hurt her Mother’s feelings. For a moment Abbie nursed her little hurt, and then she said quietly, “You know, Grace, it’s queer, but I don’t feel narrow. I feel broad. How can I explain it to you, so you would understand? I’ve seen everything . . . and I’ve hardly been away from this yard. I’ve seen cathedrals in the snow on the Lombardy poplars. I’ve seen the sun set behind the Alps over there when the clouds have been piled up on the edge of the prairie. I’ve seen the ocean billows in the rise and the fall of the prairie grass. I’ve seen history in the making . . . three ugly wars flare up and die down. I’ve sent a lover and two brothers to one, a son and son-in-law to another, and two grandsons to the other. I’ve seen the feeble beginnings of a raw state and the civilization that developed there, and I’ve been part of the beginning and part of the growth. I’ve married . . . and borne children and looked into the face of death. Is childbirth narrow, Grace? Or marriage? Or death? When you’ve experienced all those things, Grace, the spirit has traveled although the body has been confined. I think travel is a rare privilege and I’m glad you can have it. But not every one who stays at home is narrow and not every one who travels is broad. I think if you can understand humanity . . . can sympathize with every creature . . . can put yourself into the personality of every one . . . you’re not narrow . . . you’re broad.”

And this is why I mentioned earlier about a healthy mind that does not become overwhelmed by what was lost and therefore does not miss out on the bountiful blessings that they have experienced in this life. Life is short, as you probably know, and sometimes you have to decide what really has value in this life. Sometimes the hardest work in life is keeping on the sunny side.

Abbie took Lincoln, Omaha and Chicago papers, and with the same scissors that had cut out their homemade clothes, carefully cut out every item concerning her now rather well-known children. Sometimes she would run across one which gave her a few moments of almost wicked glee. One such was: “Perhaps more through the influence of Mackenzie Deal than any other single person, this series of Shakespearean plays is being brought to Omaha, . . .” For a few moments Abbie saw, in retrospect, a freckle-faced boy in a sod-house, hunching over a thick volume of plays and saying, “Aw, what’s the sense in this?” “Dear, dear,” she said to herself, “‘There is a divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.’ ”

My mother and her story-teller, artist, music-maker, and mathematician. Missing is her 5th, another artist, who she lost in his 31st year. She worked hard so we could have the freedom to do what we have done.

I wrote the following last month. Now that our web hosting company, who shall not be named, has fixed its glitches, however temporary that may be, here you go:

From April 4 -6 I attended the AmblesideOnline (AO) Camp Meeting at Camp Garner Creek in Dickson, Tennessee. I’ve had many thoughts (and plans for blog posts) since that time as I continue to process what I saw and heard there. While I intend to get to each of the talks that I heard and what I took from them, today I want to share not about words but moments that impacted me.

The first is not connected with AO in particular, or my life as a homeschool mom/teacher, but more with my life as a human — emotionally and spiritually. Rather than rewrite the story, I’ll copy here what I shared on Facebook a few weeks ago:

Just before we said goodbye Saturday afternoon. With my red face from sobbing as you will read below.

When I went to the AmblesideOnline retreat last week, I was looking forward to seeing the AO Advisory and Auxiliary members again that I had met previously, as well as meeting many of my online friends again, and some for the first time in person. There were two people that I particularly wanted to meet in person that have been a special encouragement to me in these past few years as a woman, a mother, a teacher, and human being. On the first night of the meeting, I found myself about 4 rows back, house left. The “lanyard people” (AO Advisory, Auxiliary, and special guest speakers for the event) were finding their places in the front row, and there I saw for the first time the back of Cindy Rollins head. Oh, yes, I’d recognize that head of hair anywhere. And then a few minutes later someone was being ushered into our row, being a non-lanyard person, and she sat down in the empty chair to my right. Y’all, it was Angelina Stanford. I cannot tell you how extraordinarily special I felt at that moment. Not that I’m special sitting next to a celebrity of sorts. No, it wasn’t that at all. I felt that God himself was wrapping his arms around me because this was someone I wanted to meet, and of all the 400 people in that room, she was seated next to me on that very first night. I don’t feel special hardly at all, ever. I for the most part feel overlooked. I feel lonely in this world. I feel sad. There are so few people in this world interested in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. So few honest and humble people. And I often wonder where is God in all this. Is he listening? Does he care? Then I listen to these podcasts where Angelina talks about the stories that she’s passionate about, and I hear her address challenges without guile, and tears come to my eyes because of that lack of guile. Here is someone in this world who does care. I cannot know what supernatural powers were at work for me last week, but I can tell you what I felt, and what I continue to feel about that moment. It was as if Heaven was saying, “We’re listening. We care. Here’s a gift.” Poor Angelina. So innocent. She was just sitting her possibly weary tush down. She had no idea how powerful that moment was going to be for me.

From the AO Camp Meeting booklet

Wendi Capehart is a member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory. She, like the other Advisory, wrote and continue to revise and make better the AO curriculum. Her talk: Of Imagination & Moral Insight, which was given Friday morning, moved me the most of the main talks and continues to stay with me. But that is for another post. What I want to share about now is Wendi standing before the room of 400 later that afternoon to teach us a folk song. I know that Wendi is into folk songs (and all “the riches”), but I can’t recall hearing her sing before. (If she led some songs in 2016 in Dallas, I don’t remember.) Anyhow, she tells us a little about the song (I was familiar with it, thanks to the piano books from my youth) and the value of folk songs, and then tells us that she is not a singer. She is going to sing the first verse and chorus for us, and then we will all join in from the beginning. She promises us it is an “earworm”. Now back to that part about her not being a singer. She starts that first verse, “I love to go a-wandering…” and the most amazing and unique belting voice I have ever heard comes out of her. It’s a folk sound, but definitely not that out-of-control high vibrato of some 60s-type folk singers. No, this is full and husky and just beautiful to me. It was perfect. She may not consider herself a singer, but her heart for the music is loud and clear. And, I’m sorry, Wendi, you are a singer.

On Friday afternoon, we had the only breakout session of the weekend. I chose to go to Naomi Goegan’s Learning with Delight: Preserving Wonder. In the late afternoon, all 400 campers went on nature walks. We had two leaders: Jeannette Tulis and Naomi. Jeannette, a Tennessee resident, was going to focus on wildflowers; I chose to follow Naomi, a California resident who had never been to Tennessee, to the creek. Remember that this post is about moments, and not words, that impacted me. I follow Naomi on Instagram and see all her nature walk pictures with her kids — mostly oceanside pictures, I’ve read her posts and comments on nature study for many years, I’d just been to her class on Wonder, but to watch her as she demonstrated wonder and excitement while discovering the native Tennessee flora and fauna was a bigger lesson to me than all her pictures and previous comments and talks. She is the real genuine deal, and I want to be like her when I grow up.

Saturday morning was “The Progeny Panel”, where the children (all in their 20s and 30s, and all AO graduates) of the Advisory answered questions about their memories of their upbringing and education and the various paths they’ve chosen since graduation. Donna-Jean Breckenridge followed with the last main talk, and again, more about that in another post. Her talk was very good, but what happened at the end made me sob, and sent her message and, really, the whole weekend “on home”. After having heard both her daughters answer questions in the panel earlier, then Donna-Jean sharing about her years as a mother and teacher to those daughters (and her sons), and how she would sing specific songs (she named some titles) to them when they were little, Bethany and Hannah joined her on stage and sang with her:

He is able, I know he’s able. I know my Lord is able to carry me through.

Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

Photo Credit: Mary Jo Tate

It was the most beautiful singing, with lovely, warm harmony. That would have been true with or without the previous messages. But for me, I had just heard words that told me that it will all be okay, “however imperfectly”, it will all be worth it. And then to have those women, both married and one a mother, walk up to that stage and sing the very songs she had spoken about, remembering words that their mother, who I don’t think claims to be a singer, sang to them over and over so many years ago, because she loved them, and she loved the Truth and the Life, and all that really mattered is that they would know that — beyond any grammar, history, science, writing, math lesson that she would teach them — and her heart’s desire was that her daughters would choose to believe and love the Truth. To look up there and see, Boom! Here it is. This is what it’s all about. This is what those lullabies of 20 and 30 years ago were all about. Here was beautiful, musical evidence that all those years of struggling but still believing in a chosen path of education for your child, which so many don’t approve of, will bear fruit. Good fruit. Fruit that will last.

______________________________________________________

As much as I would like to believe that I’m a Words person, leaning more on the intellectual side of life, it has become evident to me that that is not really so, and probably never was. I am an introvert, and do find energy in alone reading and thinking time, and time with small groups, talking about ideas; I am very attracted to philosophy and learning about how humans think and act, and why they choose to think and act in various ways. But for all that, it is moments, often ones that reflect the genuineness of words spoken by an individual, that really impact me. They move my heart and inspire me to think differently and to be different. Angelina Stanford is a brilliant and passionate talker about literature, and although her smarts definitely got my attention a few years ago, it was the humility I heard in her response to a challenge on a podcast last year that brought tears to my eyes. It wasn’t what she said in response; it was how she said it.

In the Charlotte Mason education world of which I’ve been a part for 14 years, there is talk about Principles and Practices. Some people focus more on the Practices — just tell me what to Do to give my kids a CM education. Many others, including my favorite people, warn that the practices are mostly worthless without understanding the principles behind them. The Principles — they tickle my intellectual side, but they ring true to my heart side, and that is what keeps me planted in this educational philosophy — this life philosophy. “Why are you here?” Charlotte Mason asked one of the students at her teacher’s college. “To learn to teach,” was the response. “No, my dear,” Miss Mason corrected, “you are here to learn to live.”

My favorite CM passage just cannot be quoted enough:

“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?”