When Children Love to Learn by Elaine Cooper

Author:Elaine Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2004-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

4

Distinctives of a

Charlotte Mason Education

LIVING BOOKS

By Maryellen St. Cyr

Charlotte Mason introduces the reader to living books and living things as the only form of “mind food” that provides the daily nourishment for the mind to do its work. “For the truth of the matter is that babies and young children explore new experiences with tireless enthusiasm. A girl or boy has a mind which is hungry for ideas. They have an appetite for knowing and experiencing.”1 If a book is not living, Mason refers to it as twaddle, something dry, diluted, predigested, void of vital thought. It seems as if there is nothing in between; books and things either do the work of nourishment, or they do not. Yet I’ve spoken with many a teacher who might argue otherwise, who might give justification for a book not necessarily living but not nearly dead either. Looking at each book in view of these principles may aid the reader in characterizing books as either living or dead.

• Books are to be well written, not dependent upon illustrations for the story to unfold (Ourselves, Part II, p. 11).

• Books must contain literary language to make a direct appeal to the mind, to stir the imagination, and hold the child’s interest (A Philosophy of Education, p. 248).

• Books must be enjoyed. The ideas they hold must make the sudden delightful impact on the mind, cause the intellectual stir that marks the inception of an idea (School Education, p. 178).

• Books are not to be too easy or too direct. If they tell the reader straightway what to think, he will read but not appropriate the information (A Philosophy of Education, p. 303).

• Good books are able to be narrated. The child is able to recall the ordered sequence with graphic details (School Education, pp. 179-180).

I have seen children of all ages well fed on thought from direct relationships with living books. Third graders went back to read the “dry parts” of Scriptures as they became familiar with geography and genealogies. Students begged for more history during the lunch hour after an already lengthy lesson. Books of geology and gemology were packed away to be read at home and brought back with students zealously retelling what they knew from the evening’s reading. And the daily time of reading a book to students of all ages usually ended in a sigh as the clock reached the final hour of school.

As a school, we carefully choose each book presented to the students in order that these meet the criteria of such living books, whether they are textbooks, read-aloud books, literature books, or resource books. For we desire to give children a full diet of living thought in order to approach life actively, to be in touch with vibrant interest with whatever they see and hear wherever they go. In turn, we want them to reflect upon their thoughts and conduct of life, to be able to value what is good, true, and beautiful. We, as educators, have

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