We Do Not Know How Children Learn. (So how do we teach?)

The Tree of Knowledge

A while back I wrote a post on how children learn. Or rather, our ignorance as to how children learn. Because no one really understands how it happens (and it does...happens). One thing we do know: learning cannot be coerced.

As the old saying goes: you can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. In the same way, we can bring a child to the lip of the “Pierian spring” but we cannot make her “drink deep.” We cannot force a child to learn.

Because the child has free will; the child is a person.

This is the first principle of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. But another of her principles is equally important. It is that the child is equipped, suited, in fact, created to learn.

For the mind of a child is “a spiritual organism, with an appetite for knowledge.” And knowledge is “its proper diet.”

I think sometimes it would be helpful for us to remember that story by Kipling about the Elephant’s Child, who was full of “ ‘satiable curiosity.” Or we could just recall the four-year-old living in our own home. Elephants’ children, and human children also, are hungry, ravenous, starving for knowledge. They want to know why, where, how, when, what. They want to hear stories. They want to look at pictures. They want to know what is in the dirt. They want to know how to draw a nose. They want to know what sound the vase makes if you drop it down the stairs. You don’t have to “teach” a small child. You merely have to let them play, let look at books, talk to them, read to them, answer their questions. They are hungry and knowledge is their “proper diet.”

According to Charlotte Mason, this hunger is the first tool of a good educator. It means that the educator doesn’t have to resort to those commonly used tools of education which encroach upon the child’s free will, namely “fear, love, suggestion, influence or undue play upon natural desire.” It means you don’t HAVE to threaten or cajole with the promise of reward or penalty, you don’t have to give grades (gasp!). The child will want to know what kind of animals lives in Kenya/what happens at the end of the story/how Monet painted the water-lilies even without the threat/promise of grades.

In fact, grades can distract/dilute this natural hunger. The child begins to think she should learn about poetry/history/etc.  so she can get a grade, rather than because these things are worth knowing. The natural hunger is compromised. Sometimes it is lost altogether.   

This might be as good a time as any for me to say this: Charlotte Mason was not a proponent of “unschooling.” I am not a proponent of unschooling. Charlotte Mason advocated for a broad and rigorous curriculum. She expected excellence from even the youngest pupils. She expected her students to perform tasks with “perfect execution.”

But how can an educator expect these things (and get them!) without the use of the above listed forbidden tools (fear, love, suggestion…play upon natural desires), without grades, bribes, threats, etc?

As I suggest above, the natural hunger for knowledge does much of the work—if left intact.

But there are, according to Mason, three legitimate “instruments of education” available to the educator. These are:

1. Atmosphere or Environment

2. Discipline or Habit

and

3. The Presentation of Living Ideas

    

In the next few weeks I will try to explore each of these "instruments," and try to understand how I might implement them in my own home-life and home-school. 

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real on Wise Road

Pretty

Against all odds, I installed shelves in the kitchen. They are "crafted" from "reclaimed" "barn-wood." That sounds so Pinterest-worthy, urban homesteading sophisticated, right? But don't get too excited. Note the sarcasti-quotes. When I say "reclaimed" I mean "pried from the walls with a crowbar and scraped down with a shovel to get rid of the hornets nests." And when I say "barn" I mean "the old shed covered in corrugated iron where we keep the tractor lawnmower." (We don't have a tractor, much to my husband's chagrin. If we DID have a tractor it wouldn't fit in the "barn.") Livin' the dream.

But still. The wood, once I sanded it down and oiled it was...pretty! And after a trip to Home Depot to pick up some metal brackets, we have some nearly free shelves. And they are (once again) pretty, yes?

Happy

The happiest thing about Wise Road is the evening. The light is gorgeous, slanting in, everything turns gold, even the long weeds grass that we didn't get around to mowing (again).

We are trying to take advantage of the lovely spring weather and (relative) absence of bugs by enjoying the following outdoor activities: mowing, making campfires, mowing, eating s'mores, mowing, eating dinner outside, and mowing. Hattie and Hugo are entranced by my fire-building skilz.

Hugo would not relinquish this smashed marshmallow, even to eat it.

Devin rigged up this old (what the heck IS is?) pallet thingy that someone used to keep firewood on...or something...so now we have a table outside, which has improved our life by approximately 28%.

And I am finally getting the hang of getting meals prepared out here, thanks, in part, to a working stove and a trip to Ikea. Mealtime has gotten a bit more civilized.

Of course i this picture you can't see the plastic silverware or the power tools which were also on the table. Never ignore what is just outside of the frame!

Funny

With all the reclaiming of barn-wood and sewing of curtains (stay tuned) I have been a bit distracted from child-related duties. Usually while I am working the kids are outside, engaged in some wholesome countrified activity--like playing with barbed wire and broken glass. KIDDING! Usually their just digging in the dirt with sticks (why? what do your kids do all day?). But the other day Hattie got into my car and found my makeup. She was there for a while.

Here she is just before I decanted her into the bath. The photo unfortunately doesn't do justice to her artistry or adequately capture the gallons of foundation on her skin and clothing.

Real

I bought a sewing machine.

I didn't exactly intend to buy a sewing machine, but I was at Ikea. You know? Come on, I know you've had this experience. It's like this. You are in Ikea. You have been in Ikea for more time than you would like to admit, weaving back and forth through tastefully modern kitchens and sleek bedrooms. You actually don't know exactly how long you have been there, you don't, in fact, know if it is day or night Outside because *there are no windows!*. Both of your children have reached The End and are throwing epic tantrums. (Yes, those were my children.) You just pried the four-year-old from the floor for the tenth time. The two-year-old is about to make another desperate escape attempt into the basket, box, and random container department. Your ability to think rationally left you back where you buy wall-mount shelves. You start to look at objects you didn't even know were Things and think: "Wow, this Enudden Toilet Roll Holder and Magazine Stand is so cool! How could I have survived this long without a toilet roll holder that incorporates a MAGAZINE STAND! And it's so cheap!"

So, when I saw a shiny new sewing machine I bought it (obviously!!).

"What are you going to do with a sewing machine?" Devin asked me once we were safely back in our car with all our stuff and the still-screaming progeny. Suddenly I was swept away in grand delusions: With my new sewing machine I was going to become a Truly Accomplished Woman, I would sew all of my children's clothes, I would make ties for my husband to coordinate with feast days and liturgical seasons, I would craft elegantly austere tunics for myself from organic linen. ...

"Why don't you start with some curtains," he replied.

And so I did. And let me just say this: Sewing machines: SO complicated, okay? I had NO idea how many pieces and steps and tiny movements were required. It took FOREVER just to find the bobbin (I didn't even know what a bobbin WAS!). It took HOURS of fiddling before I finally sewed a stitch. And then I had to stop: because I had sewed the edge of the curtain to the middle of the curtain. It was awesome.

But I did it. I sewed some curtains. And they don't look too bad.

(Of course I forgot to take pictures so have no documented proof.)


This post is linked to Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real at Auntie Leila's blog!

The Garden

"The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity. The other, of course, is the river. Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known.

But...the garden did not start out as metaphor. It started out as a paradise. Then, as now, the garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things. The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe... And what a wonderful relief every so often to know who the enemy is--because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time. And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth and growth and beauty and danger and triumph--and then everything dies anyway, right? But you just keep doing it."

                                                                                            Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

May is a good time in the garden. The seeds I planted have come up, and the seedlings have yet to be desecrated by heat, drought, or varmints. The mesquitos haven't appeared, so we spend a lot of time outside. The things I planted last year surprised me by surviving til this year. Our grape vine luxuriates; I'm sure Bacchus holds midnight revels beneath the arbor. A pair of robins is nesting in the pergola. 

Farmhouse Update: Spring Cometh

I apologize for the previous (wordless) post, though I hope you enjoyed the pretty pictures. So much has happened and we have been so busy and I have been so exhausted that I just couldn't muster up anything except...pretty pictures.

Needless to say, since this post the situation at Wise Road has improved. The last absolutely necessary changes and repairs were made. A new electrician fixed the horrible mistakes of the Dude. A plumber (like, an ACTUAL plumber) hooked up the sinks and toilet (yes!) with relatively little incident. Things weren't perfect with our new set of workers. They fixed some things, but not to our standard of quality/neatness. They left a big mess. We are pretty convinced that we will have to call in Kansas City workers for future work and pay them the big bucks. We have become just a wee bit disillusioned with the standards out here in the country. Sigh.

But, one way or another, the work was finished enough for us to "move in." Devin and I went up without the kids and filled an ENTIRE dumpster with the trash that various workers had piled on our back porch. And trash that had blown off the back porch all over the meadows and down into the woodland. And trash that had been left in every room of the house. We worked for a good two days, clearing, sweeping, scrubbing, vacuuming. There was a lot of dust, a lot of mouse droppings, and a lot of bleach used. I almost asphyxiated myself by mixing two cleaning solutions that...um...weren't supposed to come into contact. One should always read warning labels.

After all this the house began to look like a house. We actually ate dinner in the kitchen! We made a little campfire and watched the stars! We actually slept in our bedroom.

There is still a lot of work to be done. The trim was left with primer alone and nail holes, so...more filling and painting. We still haven't replaced the drawer in the kitchen that the Dude misplaced. We still haven't fit the dish washer with its matching white front.

A lot of the remaining work should be fun and exciting. It's mostly decorating, finishing now. We are going to build open shelves in the kitchen from wood salvaged from the barn.The hollow-core front door will be replaced with a solid door with a window (the view out this side of the house is beautiful). The chairs will get new cushions (no, orange was not the original plan). I am going to make some curtains. We will get a local carpenter to build us a new table (the one we are using is usually on our front porch and is a bit too weathered for indoor use). Bookshelves will be installed. We'll swap the bare bulbs for some interesting overhead lights. There will be wallpaper on the huge blank wall in the kitchen (I'm excited about that one!). And the list goes on.

But there is a place to sleep. (Here is Hattie's little nook. We are hoping to build bookshelves around her bed, kind of like this.)

There's a place to bathe and...powder one's nose.

Outside is much the same. An almost infinite amount of work to be done. For instance, here is my garden:

Since this picture was taken we planted a row of onions and some pumpkins, just "to see." But next year (or the year after that) will bring a total overhaul.

The fruit trees are in bad need of major pruning and I have NO IDEA where to begin. There are a few venerable pears that still bear... But what do I do? Any ideas??

There is plenty of room for dreams, plans, failure and success. But for now I am content: a place to sleep. A place to be quiet. Every time we are there I am struck again by the quiet. And the darkness: how dark it is at night, how lonesome. It's wonderful.

Farmhouse Update: In Pictures

No one knows how children learn.

Don't be alarmed. These pictures were taken in the Fall. It is still winter here too.

No one knows how children learn.

I have always found it beautiful that the first thing a child learns, the first thing that he sees, hears, touches, knows outside himself is his mother. He sees her, and he recognizes--- what? his own body, his home, his source, and—surely!—unmediated, unadulterated, unconditional love.

That first learning is a deep mystery. And subsequent learning is an extension of the first. The child looks, reaches out with curiosity and wonder, and finds something outside himself, other than himself, but also something gloriously native: something he recognizes, a world that speaks of beauty and of—could it be?—love?

This is all mysterious and beyond our control and comprehension.

Let me repeat: beyond our control.

Because no one knows how children learn.

This is a truth that all teachers and all parents know, or soon find out. And as parent who also hopes to home school my kids, I think it is essential that I learn the lesson early and well.

It is tempting to think, as one carefully prepares ones’ curriculum, that by controlling the texts, the methods, the timing, etc. of your child’s education, you are actually controlling their education. You might be tempted to think, in fact, that *you* are educating them. But the best books, the best plan, the best theory, won’t ensure that your child will learn anything. Because learning is mysterious. No one knows how children learn.

Again and again I hear stories from home-school moms. They always go something like this: “It was the middle of winter and I had just had (baby number 3, 5, 10) and half of the household had the stomach flu. I hadn’t done any lessons for a month. The kids had been wearing the same pjs for days.  It was an epically horrible week. A week of home-school (and life in general) FAIL. And you know what, that was the week my daughter learned to read.”

It’s not that all the phonics, the letter games, the reading out loud, all that stuff—it’s not as if it didn’t matter. It did. These were the material and the tools of learning. These are the things we can offer to our children. But the learning—the learning itself—we cannot force that, require that, manufacture that.

This must be the most humbling and the most liberating fact for educators to grasp. Humbling (humiliating even) because we must learn that all our efforts, all our plans and intentions, all our theory, count for very little in the end. Because no one knows how children learn. Liberating because the child (our child!) does learn—often in spite our teaching.

All this means that the teacher must learn to let go, relinquish our control (which is in truth no real control) over the learning process.

Now for my confession. This is a very difficult principle for me to accept. Naturally I am a perfectionist and a control freak. I hold myself (and everyone else) to impossibly high standards. When I let this tendency reign, my life is, for obvious reasons, a misery. Because this is my natural inclination, and because I recognize it as a fault, I am constantly trying to avail myself of the wisdom which comes from parenting styles/philosophies that are in direct opposition to these tendencies. Thus I believe firmly in hours of unsupervised play, in dirty children playing unattended outside, etc. etc. (This does not mean, by the way, that I don’t believe in discipline, but that’s a topic for another post…)

And when it comes to homeschooling, I am most attracted to methods and curricula that give the greatest responsibility back to the child, and require the instructor to step back and away.

This is why I am attracted to the methods and writings of Charlotte Mason.

Mason’s first principle of education is that “children are born persons.” What does this mean? It means that a child is not a blank slate (to be written upon by careful teachers), or an empty bottle (to be filled by conscientious educators). Children are *persons,* with a will, an intellect, a personality, and a choice.

Persons are mysterious. Persons must be respected.

If we accept this fact then we must act (and teach) accordingly. We must not manipulate a person (even a child). We must not “encroach” upon their free will.

According to Mason the learning process must never “be encroached upon through use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or upon undue play upon natural desire.”

Now if your education was anything like mine, these “tools” were used every day. In fact, it seems to me, that rarely were any other tools used. Desire for praise, fear of chastisement, desire for good grades, fear of bad grades.  Love of a teacher, love of peers, fear of teacher, fear of peers.

Could this be why I don’t remember much of what I “learned” in school? Because, so often, I was not—free?

So if we cannot use these tools, what can we use to help our children learn? Is the teacher useless? Is education divorced from the work of the educator? Is the only option some kind of radical “unschooling?”

Of course not. Surely this is not true.

The old adage tells us: you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

In the same way we can’t make our children “drink”—or learn. But we can, in fact we must, bring them to the water.

So how do we do this?

To My Hugo

You turned two on January 23. How did the days pass so quickly between then and now?

How did the years pass so quickly? A moment ago you were a baby, now--you are a boy.

Happy Belated Birthday, my golden child.

When I found out that I was pregnant with you I could not fathom how I could love you as much as I loved your sister. I didn't say anything, afraid to admit my fear.

From the moment I first felt you stirring in my womb I knew you were a different kind of child. Gentler, more deliberate than your fierce and tumultuous older sister. When you were born I waited for that wrenching newborn scream--but it didn't come. You smiled and went to sleep. You have been smiling ever since: delighting in the world you find.
                                          

Your sister is like me, fortunately or unfortunately. You are nothing like me. You are like your father. Fortunately. Only fortunately. When my grandmother saw you for the first time, she said (in her arch, Georgian way), "Well. We know where You came from." I love you for your father, for the happy spirit you inherited from him. I love you for your self.

I am so happy that you came. I am overwhelmed with pride at how you have grown, and troubled with grief that you are growing up.


*** The fantastic photos at the beginning of this post were taken by Chelsea Donoho, who is an incredibly talented artist based in Lawrence, Kansas. Check out her site HERE.