Boys to Men

I have boys.  I have boys who are all boy.  They thrive on running, jumping, fishing, playing in the creek and bad jokes.  They enjoy Vivaldi, playing the violin and Monet.  And they love books.

As a mom, I have become increasingly alarmed at the challenges boys face in today's culture.  While the females in our society become more militantly antagonistic toward males (and ironically more masculine in the process) our boys are being beaten down and feminized.  In a culture turned upside down, what can we do to raise up strong men for the glory of God?

At the end of David's life, he gave his son, Solomon, this charge:  "Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man.  Keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn."  (I Kings 2:2-3). Oh, to have fathers like this today.

How can we train our sons to be strong and show themselves men?  Theodore Roosevelt spoke of the vigorous life.  Lots of time in the great outdoors, hard work and time spent with Godly men can be instrumental in developing the strong character that will be necessary to reclaim this culture for Christ.  Unfortunately, many boys no longer have access to these.   Thankfully books can stand in the gap when Godly role models are needed.

Boys should be immersed in biographies of great heroes from the past.  Davy Crockett, Patrick Henry, and Alvin York are examples of great courage.  George Muller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and D.L. Moody were men of great faith.  What boy is not encouraged after reading Ralph Moody's road to manhood by overcoming many obstacles in Little Britches?  Knights in shining armor, Richard Halliburton's adventures around the world, pioneers leaving everything they know for a better life all serve to inspire them to do great things.  Authors like Stephen Meader, Merritt Parmelee Allen and Jim Kjelgaard give boys the character-building excitement they crave.

Boys should have villains to fight.  Introduce them to Hitler, Marx, Stalin.  They must be equipped to stand in the world they will inherit.

School for boys should be real and relevant.  Endless reams of worksheets starve a boy's soul.  A friend who also has boys was bemoaning the fact that, although she was drawn to Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education, she thought it was much better suited to girls.  I replied, "Are you kidding??  Of all the educators throughout history, Charlotte is the only one I've found who had those boys' number!  Short lessons, on-the-edge-of-your-seat books, and kick 'em outside!"

Boys must have time to discover ways to solve real problems and accomplish real goals.  God has placed in each of them gifts to be used for His glory.  Biographies about scientists, inventors, mathematicians, artists, musicians, doctors, astronauts, missionaries, etc. encourage boys to step out and take dominion.  This is what our world needs.  Are we equipping them for the task?

Put a book in a boy's hand and watch what he will become.

Reading Re-Visited ~ A Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and librarians of Living Books Library in Abingdon, VA, and I came together for a three-hour seminar entitled Reading Re-Visited:  A Re-Evaluation of the Use of Books in the Modern Homeschool.  Liz, Emily and I feel a burden to spread the message that reading is in trouble and, consequently, our culture is in trouble.  Liz recently wrote an article on her blog summarizing the seminar and offering a challenge to anyone who senses the same need to make a difference through the written word.  I invite you over to her blog and encourage you to take her up on her challenge. 

Living Books Library

Another Golden Age?

Some interesting and encouraging conversations have been happening in my library lately.  Usually they begin with a child asking if I have a book on some obscure topic, often an animal, scientific concept or some little known event in history they have uncovered but can only find a few factoids about.  After an extensive search, I conclude that I do not.  Why don't they write one?  

Most often I'm met with a giggle but a few times I've gotten a wide-eyed curious response.  Really?  Could one of these well-read, articulate children be the next Robert McClung, Lois Lenski, Kate Seredy or Arthur Ransome?  My answer is YES!

Children brought up on living books are uniquely equipped to be writers of living books.  If you read biographies of the authors we love you will often find that they were surrounded by books, parents who loved to read and to read to their children.  These budding authors grew up with stories inside them waiting to be told.  Lists of dry facts were appalling to them.  Clothing these facts in story made the facts come alive, drew the reader in and helped the reader build relationships with the subject.

Sometimes I'm asked what recommendations I would give to children who desire to write.  My simple answer is to read.  But beyond that, I suggest that children read with a purpose.  Notice how an author like McClung teaches many facts through the story of Ruby Throat, for example.  Perhaps make a list while reading of all the facts.  It is amazing what can be learned through story.

Secondly, narrate.  This is simply telling back what has been read.  Read a portion, a short one at first, then tell it back with as much detail as possible.  When this becomes easier, try written narrations.  

Oddly enough, nature study is a wonderful tool for training good writers.  Nature study (or picture study, or observing anything closely enough to notice detail) can open our eyes to things we never saw before.  Close observation to detail and recording it through sketching or writing in a notebook causes us to notice deeply and think deeply.

Finding a topic of interest for which no interesting living books can be found is the perfect time to try writing one.  If you have been reading and narrating from the best living book authors, noticing the descriptive details they include as well as observing nature and the details God included, you can then use those techniques to transform the list of facts you have into a story to bring them to life.

The years between about 1900-1970 were special years in the life of books.  A plethora of exceptional living books were being written for children.  Michelle Miller, author of Truthquest History, calls this time the golden age of children's literature.  Since this time,  though there are more books for children being published now than ever before, there are few of them worthy of being called living.  Perhaps this will change in the years to come.  Perhaps God is preparing the children in my library and others like it to usher in another golden age.

Do you have other advice for encouraging and equipping the next generation of writers?  Please share.

Vacation reads

Because we farm, we rarely get a vacation treat.  It usually only happens when the cows are dry which we strive to make happen in the winter.  Lord willing, we will be basking on the beach very soon.  In January??

So what do you do when you go to the beach in January?  READ, of course!  Here is a portion of my stash to keep me occupied.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry - Berry is a newly-discovered author for me.  I've had his books on my shelves for awile but have not taken the time to get to know his writings.  My loss.  Hannah Coulter is a wonderful fiction story which takes place in Berry's well-known town of Port William in rural Kentucky.  Full of wisdom, strength and gratitude, Hannah Coulter is fast becoming one of my favorite heroines.

The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry - Berry is a proific writer of, not only fiction, but poetry and agrarian essays.  This volume is the latter.  From the back cover, Berry looks at why agriculture is becomming culturally irrelevant, and at what cost.  What are the forces of social disintegration, and how might they be reversed?  How might men and women live together in ways that are to the benefit of both?  How does the corporate takeover of social institutions and economic practices contribute to the destruction of human and natural environments?  Through his staunch support of local economies, his defense of farming communities, and his call for family integrity, Berry emerges as the champion of responsibilities and priorities that serve the health, vitality and happiness of the whole community of creation.

Of Other Worlds by C.S. Lewis - This is in preparation for an upcoming mid-winter reading conference I'm speaking at in February.  Very thought-provoking, especially the chapter entitled "On Three Ways of Writing for Children."  Other chapters include topics discussing fairy tales, science fiction, etc.

Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason - This is in part as preparation for our next meeing and, in part, the wisdom contained there.

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit - I can't forget my children.  This is our current read-aloud.

Happy Jack by Thornton Burgess - We love Burgess!  These are short, delightful reads for us.  Perfect for a vacation.

In addition, I'm taking my iPad along to fill in with other essays and articles on reading and the culture as time allows.  

Lest you think I've forgotten, my Bible will also be tucked in.  I'm trying to read the Word through in a year for 2013.  I haven't done that in awhile and do not want to get a week behind!

We will spend time playing in the sand, as well as a favorite toss-the-shell game (and hope the seagulls don't steal our shells again!)  We'll talk and laugh and relax!  We're praying for a special time of refreshement.  Praying times of refreshing for all of you as well.  And if the Lord wills it, I will be back in a week or two.

A Tribute to Charlotte

More than 17 years ago we embarked on a journey which would change the course of our lives.  We began homeschooling.  At first it was a rocky road.  Feeling like we needed to do it “right,” we began with a textbook/workbook curriculum which took away all the joy of learning.  But after a few weeks, I discovered living books and our homeschool took on life!

The following year I was introduced to a lady named Charlotte Mason through a book entitled Forthe Children’s Sake.  As I’ve learned more about Charlotte over the years, I’ve been blessed by her wisdom and endearing love for children.  So it is, as we approach the anniversary of her birth, I wish to introduce her to you.

Charlotte was born January 1, 1842, an only child of only children.  Charlotte had a rather lonely childhood but was blessed with a father who was fond of books.  It was during her young years that she discovered the power of these living books.

When she was eight, she had a life-changing experience.  She says, “One day I saw a tall lady with a dark shawl thrown scarfwise across her shoulders, a bonnet whose black strings floated, and a whole train of tiny children holding on to her skirts and following her…this was the mistress of a girls’ school near by.  The idea did not take shape at the time, but somehow I knew that teaching was the thing to do, and above all the teaching of poor children like those I had been watching.”  This lady took Charlotte to school now and then and Charlotte observed “girls who would now be doing great things at a high school.  They belonged to the professional classes, girls who wore watches and, sometimes, rings, and who read English history out of a miserable little book a quarter of an inch thick and entirely uninteresting.  I found out from that lesson how necessary it is that children should have books, good books, considerable and well-written books.”

In 1858 Charlotte’s mother died and her father soon afterward, leaving Charlotte a penniless orphan at the age of 16.  She stayed with friends until age 18, then attended a teacher training college for a year.  She began teaching in Worthing on the south coast of England where the school became very well known for its “perfect order without any severity and the pupils worked with intelligence and eagerness.”  Charlotte herself suffered from ill health for much of her life, yet she never complained.  She continued teaching, writing, lecturing, and training parents, teachers, and governesses.  In 1891, when she was nearly 50, Charlotte moved to Ambleside where she founded a college of education.  Her model of education spread all over England and, indeed, the world with tens of thousands of children being educated through her methods.

Though she never married, Charlotte loved children.  At one point when she was too ill to visit with the children she wrote this letter of greeting:

“I think that is a joyful thing to be said about anybody, that he loves knowledge; there are so many interesting and delightful things to be known that the person who loves knowledge cannot very well be dull; in doors and out of doors there are a thousand interesting things to know and to know better.  There is a saying of King Alfred’s that I like to apply to our school – ‘I have found a door,’ he says.  That is just what I hope your school is to you – a door opening into a great palace of art and knowledge…  But you will remember that the school is only a ‘door’ to let you in to the goodly House of Knowledge, but I hope you will go in and out and live there all your lives – in one pleasant chamber or another, for the rich people are they who have the entry to this goodly house, and who never let King Alfred’s ‘door’ rust on it hinges, no, not all through their lives, even when they are very old people.”

Charlotte likened education to spreading a feast before the children.  Students in her schools learned many languages, music, art, sciences, history, Bible, Shakespeare, poetry, Plutarch through “books and things.”  Short lessons, full attention, and wonderful living books were central in her teaching.  “Let their books be living books, the best that can be found in liberal supply and variety.” 

A devout Christian, Charlotte believed that the Holy Spirit is the teacher of all truth.  All truth is God’s truth and our job as parents and teachers is not to be the fountain of all knowledge, but to present the feast in order to allow God’s Spirit to feed the minds and spirits of children.  “The great recognition that God, the Holy Spirit, is Himself personally the imparter of knowledge, the instructor of youth, the inspirer of genius, is a conception so far lost to us that we should think it distinctly irreverent to conceive of the divine teaching as co-operating with ours in a child’s arithmetic lesson, for example.  …Every fruitful idea, every original conception, whether in Euclid, or grammar, or music, was a direct inspiration from the Holy Spirit, without any thought at all as to whether the person so inspired named himself by the name of God, or recognized whence his inspiration came.”

Charlotte spent her life striving to achieve this goal for children from every walk of life, rich or poor…

“Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul.  Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking – the strain would be too great – but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest.  The question is not, - how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education – but how much does he care? 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 died peacefully on January 16, 1923.  But she left a legacy of life-giving knowledge to countless children who have been blessed by knowing her…for the children’s sake.

Thank you, Charlotte.

If you would like to get to know Charlotte better, you might consider:

Charlotte's original six-volumes

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

Meet Charlotte Mason by Stephanie Walmsley

Tidings of Comfort...and Joy

So many books line my shelves.  From them I learn, through the lives of their characters, how to wrestle through the trials of life.  I learn how the consequences of my actions affect not only myself, but those around me, often the ones I love the most.  I learn how repentance can bring restoration and peace.  But as wonderful as these books are, there is one Book, the true Living Book, which leads us in the path of righteousness and gives us hope.  During this season, it is His Words I offer.

 Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.  John 14:1

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Phil. 4:6-7

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me

To bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord

And the day of vengence of our God:

To comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting,

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.  Is. 61:1-3

The people who walk in darkness

Will see a great light;

Those who live in a dark land,

The light will shine on them.

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given;

And the government shall be upon His shoulders;

And HIs name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father,

 Prince of Peace.  Is. 9:2, 6

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  John 14:27

Glory to God in the hightest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  Luke 2:14

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come."  And let the one who hears say, "Come."  And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.  Rev. 22:17

But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.  John 20:30.

May the peace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ surround you with tidings of comfort and joy this Christmas season.

Death of Reading, Part 2? Not if I can help it!

A future homeschool librarian discovered this article today which has caused quite a stir among those of us who have a passion for getting living ideas into the minds of the next generation.  The new "education"  standards state that at least 70% of books studied must be non-fiction in order to prepare students for the workplace.

"Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council."

Sounds thrilling, huh!

I have lots of non-fiction in my library.  Books such as Whitetail by Robert McClung and String, Straight-Edge, and Shadow:  The Story of Geometry by Julia Diggins.  My young patrons feast on these books and thousands more like them, filling their hearts and minds with great ideas that will change the world, I pray.

Somehow we do not trust facts enclosed within "story."  But God speaks to us through story by feeding not only our minds, but our spirits as well.  I'll reiterate this quote from Charlotte Mason:

"A great danger is threatening the country, and even the world. We're losing our faith in ideas. We're replacing guiding principles with mechanical practices. As I've said in previous Letters to the Editor, the trend in popular education these days is to have contempt for knowledge, and for the books that contain the knowledge of mankind."  What would Miss Mason have to say about the new standards?  Cogs in a system...is that all our children are?

Parents, hear me.  We are at a crossroads in our culture.  We will either fall in with the sheep led astray, or we will instill in our children the truth to proclaim to a dying culture!  My purpose in collecting and sharing the best books I can find is not to create warm fuzzies as we snuggle on the couch.  It is to enable parents to raise warriors for the cause of Truth!  We must be intentional and we must be serious...and we must be about the business now.  We must equip our children with this truth.  The world they will inherit will be one we won't even recognize.  Will they be ready?

For the sake of the children...