Last week I was reshelving books when a certain title caught my eye. My memories were immediately flooded with my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Grabeel, reading to us after lunch each day. Honestly I remember nothing about this particular book, but what I do remember is sitting enthralled each and every school day as this teacher took time after lunch to read to us. Just read. We were never quizzed. There was not a list of facts we were required to regurgitate on a comprehension test. She just read.
My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Elkins, loved to reward her students with books. If a student accomplished a certain goal or won an award or simply made great progress, she gifted that student with a book. My Trixie Belden collection started with this one. I still have the very copy from 1972 that she gave me.
I was pondering the legacy they left me...and wondering how many children are being blessed with this legacy now. Times have certainly changed since I was a public-schooled girl in the 60's and 70's. Common Core, standardized tests and the race to the top, not to mention revisionism, Darwinism and worse have stripped most classrooms of any living ideas. What would happen if teachers were free to spend just 10 minutes after lunch reading to their students. Just reading. Wonderful fiction, inspiring biographies, thrilling adventures. How would this change the face of our culture?
I wish my teachers could see what became of their investment of reading. Mrs. Grabeel moved away a few years after I left her classroom. Mrs. Elkins passed away a few years ago after a brave battle with cancer. Their love of books and of the ideas contained within, however, are still alive and well in me and in those who enter my library doors. And the legacy is being passed on to future generations.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Getting to Know You
We recently said goodbye to an old friend. We have spent the last year or so getting to know him well. Our family has had many instructive conversations, laughs and cries because of our relationship with him. Our lives will be forever changed and made fuller because of the influence he had on us. It won't be goodbye forever, however. We can visit him anytime just by opening a book.
His name is Ralph Moody and we learned about his life..good, bad, happy sad...through the pages of the Little Britches series. Ralph's work ethic and willingness to learn whatever was necessary to make his way was inspiring to my boys. Some lessons are harder learned and we sympathized with him as he took his life's knocks. That's the wonderful thing about building relationships. We share the ins and outs of their lives and ours become fuller in the process.
The beauty of living books is that we can build relationships with those who have gone before, lingering over the pages to learn from their wisdom (or lack thereof.) They don't even have to be real people. I've learned some of the truest life lessons through the lives of fictional characters.
The secret...is time. Time to ponder. Time to savor. Time to ruminate. If we feel rushed to get through a book list or a curriculum guide, we won't develop those relationships beyond a cursory glance. It's like real life. Some people we do not know at all. Others we know only in passing. Lasting relationships are developed by spending time with those folks who are dearest to us. We get inside their hearts and minds and they into ours.
Our fast-paced world makes it more difficult to know anyone well. Slow down. Open a book. And build a relationship.
His name is Ralph Moody and we learned about his life..good, bad, happy sad...through the pages of the Little Britches series. Ralph's work ethic and willingness to learn whatever was necessary to make his way was inspiring to my boys. Some lessons are harder learned and we sympathized with him as he took his life's knocks. That's the wonderful thing about building relationships. We share the ins and outs of their lives and ours become fuller in the process.
The beauty of living books is that we can build relationships with those who have gone before, lingering over the pages to learn from their wisdom (or lack thereof.) They don't even have to be real people. I've learned some of the truest life lessons through the lives of fictional characters.
The secret...is time. Time to ponder. Time to savor. Time to ruminate. If we feel rushed to get through a book list or a curriculum guide, we won't develop those relationships beyond a cursory glance. It's like real life. Some people we do not know at all. Others we know only in passing. Lasting relationships are developed by spending time with those folks who are dearest to us. We get inside their hearts and minds and they into ours.
Our fast-paced world makes it more difficult to know anyone well. Slow down. Open a book. And build a relationship.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
I Have Found a Door
Charlotte Mason said...
"I think that it 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 good 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 its hinges, no, not all through their lives, even when they are very old people."
What a lovely picture of our schools. Our homes should be filled with great ideas that feed the imagination, the soul, the mind of a child. Our days should revolve around pursuing that knowledge and wisdom that the book of Proverbs says is more priceless than gold. Bringing our children up in the habit of loving and longing after those things which are good and honorable should be a priority. These should be present in the books we read, the music we hear, the art we see and the conversations we engage in. Our minds should be challenged as we grapple with the issues of the times and our children should be taught the Truths of God's Word.
We are their example. Are the hinges of our house of knowledge rusty? Develop your own habit of going in and out of the great palace of art and knowledge all through your lives, even when you are very old people.
"I think that it 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 good 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 its hinges, no, not all through their lives, even when they are very old people."
What a lovely picture of our schools. Our homes should be filled with great ideas that feed the imagination, the soul, the mind of a child. Our days should revolve around pursuing that knowledge and wisdom that the book of Proverbs says is more priceless than gold. Bringing our children up in the habit of loving and longing after those things which are good and honorable should be a priority. These should be present in the books we read, the music we hear, the art we see and the conversations we engage in. Our minds should be challenged as we grapple with the issues of the times and our children should be taught the Truths of God's Word.
We are their example. Are the hinges of our house of knowledge rusty? Develop your own habit of going in and out of the great palace of art and knowledge all through your lives, even when you are very old people.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Roads to the Past
In studying the books that fall into this section, we feel as if we should reword our signpost. Instead of "Roads to the Past," perhaps it should be "Roads to the Future." The authors of these books wish their readers to survey the road over which man has traveled with a new kind of discernment which will enable them to see the road ahead more clearly, and will make them better able to overcome and avoid the complications which lie in it.
From the introduction to the World Histories section of Five Years of Children's Books, page 291.
Monday, April 28, 2014
To be a child...
When Coleridge was eight years old, he walked one winter evening with his father from a farmer's house home, and his father told him the names of some of the stars, how far they were from the earth, and so on. Coleridge has written:
"I had heard him with a profound delight and admiration; but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For from my early reading of fairy tales and genii, etc., etc., my mind had been habituated to the Vast, and I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions, not by my sight: even at that age. Should children be permitted to read romances, and relations of giants and magicians and genii? I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the same truths step by step, through the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess. They contemplate nothing but parts, and all parts are necessarily little. And the universe to them is but a mass of little things..."
"Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and count yourself the king of infinite space."
"I had heard him with a profound delight and admiration; but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For from my early reading of fairy tales and genii, etc., etc., my mind had been habituated to the Vast, and I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions, not by my sight: even at that age. Should children be permitted to read romances, and relations of giants and magicians and genii? I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the Great and the Whole. Those who have been led to the same truths step by step, through the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess. They contemplate nothing but parts, and all parts are necessarily little. And the universe to them is but a mass of little things..."
"Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and count yourself the king of infinite space."
p. 156-157
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Reservoirs of Life
I recently took a quick tour through a modern bookstore. I usually avoid them, knowing that most of what is currently published is devoid of beauty, both of sight and of mind. But I had a few minutes to kill so, as the bear who went over the mountain, I went in to see what I could see. I left dejected, uninspired and definitely unimpressed. What little life that was there was crushed among the death-obsessed tomes.
I went home to dig out one of my favorite book treasures, Five Years of Children's Books: A Supplement to Realms of Gold. Oh, what a gem this book is! Published in 1936, this secular list of books contains wonderful selections for children in all genres that had been released since 1930. Just browsing its pages lifts the spirits for it contains snippets and illustrations of many of the books it lists. Over the next weeks, I hope to offer select quotes from this book to show what authors of past generations sought to instill in children...reservoirs of life.
From page 11 we read:
To estimate the importance of these beautiful books and to realize fully what they may mean to children and to the rest of us, we must ourselves believe that the artist creates life. He sees with more than the physical eye. He sees with the vision of the soul. The artist creates for the child a noble reality by which the child - and we ourselves - may grow. We have had too much emphsis upon realism and all its insignificant and often ugly detail. Let us be thankful for this wonderful gift of genius, cherish it, and let us expose our little children to these beautiful books as to "a simple atmosphere of all fair things, where beauty, which is the spirit of art, will come on eye and ear like a fresh breath of wind that brings health from a clear upland, and insensibly and gradually draw the child's soul into harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so that he will love what is beautiful and good, and hate that which is evil and ugly (for they always go together) long before he knows the reason why."
Page 3 reveals the purpose of collecting a list of these treasures into this volume:
As for the values which we claim are strong and clear in children's books, the first of these is a sense of God. "God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." A seeking after truth and beauty; a sense of wonder and reverence; the balance and proportion which humor gives: these are values in terms of the spirit which shape the design and form for living.
In Eleanor Farjeon's words, such a child would have ever "new eyes, new ears and a new vision of life."
The books which fill these pages have the power to add life and reality. Our hope for the book is that it may serve to introduce books, to reveal them as reservoirs of life.
May our children grow to offer reservoirs of life to a dying culture.
I went home to dig out one of my favorite book treasures, Five Years of Children's Books: A Supplement to Realms of Gold. Oh, what a gem this book is! Published in 1936, this secular list of books contains wonderful selections for children in all genres that had been released since 1930. Just browsing its pages lifts the spirits for it contains snippets and illustrations of many of the books it lists. Over the next weeks, I hope to offer select quotes from this book to show what authors of past generations sought to instill in children...reservoirs of life.
From page 11 we read:
To estimate the importance of these beautiful books and to realize fully what they may mean to children and to the rest of us, we must ourselves believe that the artist creates life. He sees with more than the physical eye. He sees with the vision of the soul. The artist creates for the child a noble reality by which the child - and we ourselves - may grow. We have had too much emphsis upon realism and all its insignificant and often ugly detail. Let us be thankful for this wonderful gift of genius, cherish it, and let us expose our little children to these beautiful books as to "a simple atmosphere of all fair things, where beauty, which is the spirit of art, will come on eye and ear like a fresh breath of wind that brings health from a clear upland, and insensibly and gradually draw the child's soul into harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so that he will love what is beautiful and good, and hate that which is evil and ugly (for they always go together) long before he knows the reason why."
Page 3 reveals the purpose of collecting a list of these treasures into this volume:
As for the values which we claim are strong and clear in children's books, the first of these is a sense of God. "God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." A seeking after truth and beauty; a sense of wonder and reverence; the balance and proportion which humor gives: these are values in terms of the spirit which shape the design and form for living.
In Eleanor Farjeon's words, such a child would have ever "new eyes, new ears and a new vision of life."
The books which fill these pages have the power to add life and reality. Our hope for the book is that it may serve to introduce books, to reveal them as reservoirs of life.
May our children grow to offer reservoirs of life to a dying culture.
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