People are too apt to use children as counters in a game, to be moved hither and thither according to the whim of the moment. Our crying need today is less for a better method of education than for an adequate perception of children–children, merely as human beings, whether brilliant or dull, precocious or backwards. . . .All action comes out of the ideas we hold and if we ponder duly upon personality we shall come to perceive that we cannot commit a greater offense than to maim or crush, or subvert any part of the person.
A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason, Chapter 5, “The Sacredness of Personality”
It’s as I read these words during a recent bout of insomnia that the real heart of the problem of all the educational “reforms” of the past 20+ years came home to me. Somewhere I knew it was part of it, but these words made it so clear. If it’s not clear to you, I’ll unpack it. It was, after all, written in 1922. Yet when she says “today”, I see no reason not to actually apply it today. The more I read Charlotte’s writings, the more I am equally encouraged and disturbed. Encouraged because, over and over again, she talks about problems in children and the schools and homes that we are currently dealing with. This causes me to believe she might have ideas to help. But it disturbs me that, in 100 years, we haven’t gotten any better.
When she says “brilliant or dull”, I hope it’s clear, by her use of contrast, that she doesn’t mean “dull” in personality. Instead it means someone who may not be as quick to learn as the child next to her. “Precocious or backwards” means outgoing and easily sociable vs not at ease in social settings. I feel these are the two main phrases that need explaining. If you need further unpacking, I suggest you read the modern paraphrase available at this link.
But this is what is wrong with everything our nation has tried to do with our schools for far too long. Even, apparently, in Charlotte’s day (she died in 1923). I’ll get to the point: everything that has been tried, has been tried with the benefit of the nation and it’s pride in mind, NOT the welfare or well-being of the child.
I’ll let you be offended or blown away by that for moment before I explain.
Whether it’s the so called No Child Left Behind, or pushing of test scores, or STEM over liberal arts, or Common Core . . .none of it, NONE OF IT, has been approached or executed with true, actual, real concern for the personhood of the child in mind. All the talk we hear proves it. How do we stack up against the rest of the world? How are competing on the world stage? These are the only things that matter. And if we don’t think that children aren’t getting the message–that they are merely pawns in the grown up game of world chess–then that is more proof we don’t care about them. We (and I do not for a second include myself, but I will say “we” to include all of society) take away their lunches and recesses and band and drama, and cram more sawdust like material down their throat, demanding they step up and choke it down, then regurgitate it as so much sick when asked. None of that is for their ultimate and final good, but to make us look good compared to everyone else.
Before I go any further, I will concede that homeschooling families are not exempt from this criticism. How often have they used test scores and stories of graduating top of college classes as convincing arguments for homeschooling? Now, perhaps they use it only to speak the language of the society that wants to shut them down. But I know so many that chose to homeschool with that as their motivation–not because they cared how their children turned out as people.
We have ingenious, not to say affectionate, ways of doing this, all of them more or less based upon that egoism which persuades us that in proportion to a child’s dependence on our superiority, that all we do for him is of our grace and favor, and that we have a right, whether as parents or teachers, to do what we will with our own. (all quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are from the same book and chapter)
This is the parent that insists the child choose a college because he is embarrassed to not have an answer when approached by friends. Or is embarrassed by the child’s chosen field of study because it doesn’t line up with commonly held ideals. Or who sees a child making immoral or otherwise bad choices, and hides what that child is doing from friends and family; not for concern for the child’s reputation and spiritual or physical well being, as he or she claims, but really because of how it negatively reflects on the parents. No concern for what is best for the child, or why a child has made certain choices, no concern for the true heart and character of the child. Just concern for how it makes the parent look. That’s why I say the powers that be in our nation are like the narcissistic parent, looking out not for the child but for the nation.
But we are breaking all the rules scripture, and indeed reason, give us regarding children:
Have we considered that in the Divine estimate the child’s estate is higher than ours: that it is ours to “become as little children”, rather than theirs to become as grown men and women; that the rules we receive for the bringing up of children are for the most part negative? We may not despise them [Matt. 18:10] or hinder them [Luke 18:16], (“suffer the little children”) [Mark 10:14], or offend them by our brutish clumsiness of action and want of serious thought [Matt. 18:6]. . . . .
So much in my parenting is lacking in this respect, and I am constantly repenting and working to honor my children as I am told. Many changes must come in how I use my Divinely deputed authority as their parent, because all authority is deputed by someone. As she said in the previous chapter, I am not someone in authority but under authority, and must parent as such. But so is true of those in charge of the public education system. Even at the ultimate head, that authority is given to them. Not just by the higher offices but by parents!!!! Parents are relinquishing their authority to the hands of the system on a daily basis, entrusting their little ones, and all they ask is proper education and treatment. Yet because the vast majority have themselves been stamped down by the same system, they cannot see what that authority is supposed to look like, and how it is miserably failing. When schools HAVE tried to approach teaching by looking at the child first, scores second (or not at all), they have had the most backlash from parents. I can’t get out of my head the school in Manhattan that tried to do away with homework for elementary students, insisting instead that they spend more time as a family and simply playing out of doors or reading books. One father responded angrily that his daughter didn’t have enough homework as it was, so this was outrageous; his daughter was only 7. So have a system that doesn’t care if the child will “Cram to pass and not to know; they do pass but they don’t know”. Because educators and parents alike are guilty of putting the child’s sacred personhood second to the goal of competition.
But shouldn’t we be competitive? Maybe this is outdated and the world today demands competition. Again, Charlotte says, if only we would start with the sacredness of the child, we would then produce men and women who are more than capable of advancing and competing, of making both parents and nation proud. But the more we tell them they must have the highest test scores or else they let everyone else down, the less chance we have. We may produce that handful of Type A people who seem to have reached the goals we set for them, but they are merely ambitious people with no character to fall back on.
Where we teachers err is in stimulating the wrong Desires to accomplish our end. There is the desire of approbation which even an infant shows, he is not happy unless mother or nurse approve of him. Later this same desire helps him to conquer a sum, climb a hill, bring home a good report from school, and all this is grist to the mill, knowledge to the mind; . . . Alas for the vanity that attends this desire of approbation . . . .
I am reminded so strongly of Lord of the Flies. People who don’t like it are, I think, missing the greater psychological point of it. It struck me so forcefully when I read it, and that was long before I’d even heard of Charlotte Mason. Which just goes to show how natural and basic her ideas really are. In the book, it’s the student who had trouble fitting in at school that was the actual good person. He didn’t get the best marks, was often in trouble, came from a low family, etc. He protected the weak, and had the best survival skills. And who was it that turned on his fellow man? Who couldn’t cope without adult supervision? The straight-A (or whatever they used) student, the one from the best background, who always received commendation. But he did all the right things to receive approbation–praise–and not because he knew it was right. He was well educated, yet he had no good character whatsoever. What is it Mr. Darcy said in the end of Pride and Prejudice? “I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.”
Now, I have a lot of friends who were the straight-As and I’m not saying the high mark students are the worst people. Yet I also knew plenty that were and I think an honest look at history and people shows that very often, they don’t go on to be good, successful people. Why?
Emulation, the desire of excelling, works wonders in the hands of the schoolmaster; and, indeed, this natural desire is an amazing spur to effort, both intellectual and moral. . . . In the intellectual field, however, there is danger; and nothing worse could have happened to our schools than the system of marks, prizes, place-taking, by which many of them are practically governed. A boy is so taken up with the desire to forge ahead that there is no time to think of anything else. What he learns is not interesting to him; he works to get his remove [modern English: “doing his work to get ahead of the others”] (italics mine)
I’ve said it before, it doesn’t matter how much you protest that you don’t treat the C student differently or as inferior to the A student: you do. And society does as well. Who’s going to get into college, get that high paying job, get ahead? The A student. But who probably had to work just as hard, maybe even harder, just to stay at a C average level, and yet will never get the chance to improve his station? Who would actually make the better employee, the one who worked to learn or the one who worked to be better than everyone else? The one who did what he could because he knew it was right or the one who did what he could because he knew he’d get medals? Again, I know many who did not work with that goal in mind, but we are foolish if we say none of them do because, as she says, emulation is a natural and base desire present in all human beings. But you don’t always get noticed or rewarded for right living in our society, I don’t care which side of the moral compass you come down on. The one who only works for notice will not be a credit to his nation. I think it’s painfully obvious that this system of rewards has created a secular caste system, even in our day and age. Coupled with our views of the value of certain jobs, we expect the Valedictorian to work as lawyer or become a CEO, while we expect the C student to work in a garage or flip burgers.
Let me say it loudly because when I’ve said it before, I’ve been bowled over and ignored: I BELIEVE IN COMPETITION!! I DON’T BELIEVE IN RIBBONS FOR PARTICIPATION!!! But not in education, not in our schools or our homes. In sports, for sure. In play and games, of course! Clear winners and losers there. Even for jobs–sure, compete, though based on skill and character, not on how you beat the other 40 kids in your class in high school. But NOT IN EDUCATION!!! We want to grow amazing, well rounded people, not “the boy [who] did not learn to delight in knowledge in his schooldays” and so becomes “the man [who] is shallow in mind and whimsical in judgment.” (CM, same book, same chapter) (Oh heavens, how many of THOSE do I know!)
Why? Because it should all be for the children’s sake!! Not ours. And if we would only focus on that, then they WOULD be a credit to society. They WOULD make our nation proud. And they WOULD excel on the world stage. People who are confident, broad minded, thoughtful, self-disciplined, and self-motivated. Step outside your selfish ambitions, those of you who want to improve education for your own sakes. Put the children first.
But so besotted is our educational thought that we believe children regard knowledge rather as repulsive medicine than as inviting food. Hence our dependence on marks and prizes, athletics, alluring presentation, any jam we can devise to disguise the powder. The man who wilfully goes on crutches has incompetent legs; he who chooses to go blindfold has eyes that cannot bear the sun; he who lives on pap-meat has weak digestive powers, and he whose mind is sustained by the crutches of emulation and avarice loses that one stimulating power which is sufficient for his intellectual needs. This atrophy of the desire of knowledge is the penalty our scholars pay because we have chosen to make them work for inferior ends. Our young men and maidens do not read unless with the stimulus of a forthcoming examination. They are good-natured and pleasant but have no wide range of thought, lofty purpose, little of the magnanimity which is proper for a citizen. (italics mine; this section copied from Ambleside Online)
Let us raise the educational standard by putting the children’s needs ahead of our own selfish ambition and conceit.