Walking (or singing) down memory lane tonight...

My friends Jackie, Julie, and I loved this album when we were teenagers.

Ten Ways: Way #1 - Keep The Children Indoors

But if you want to feed your children's imaginations - make sure they spend hours, every day, outdoors. In every kind of weather.

I've laid in the grass with my children to look at the night sky. (My oldest daughter said that during particularly stressful times at college she would walk up onto the quad and lay down in the grass to look up into the night sky.) I've let them have old wood, and saws, and hammers, and nails, and let them take all of them down to the creek to build bridges. They've played rollerblade hockey in the street with neighbor kids. I made sure they saw lambs being born and goats being born at friend's houses. I tried to rescue baby rabbits with them, and let them catch pesky raccoons to "relocate" away from the house. I made sure they had their own dog. We've grown gardens. I've stood with them on the back porch of our house in Indiana to watch the sky turn green and wonder if we would see a tornado (my dad didn't like that one - I told him not to worry, that I'd heard on the radio that the tornado was in another county (showing him my map), to which he replied, "You know what? That tornado can't read this map.") But he had no room to talk. He has told me many tales of his own adventures with his brothers growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town.

I've let them do all these things and more. And I'm glad.

I read The Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin years ago. I thought of this passage from it when I read Ch. 2:

"Countless numbers of microorganisms live in the soil, in and on plants, and in the human gut. Inside and out we are at one with the earth (or we should be). What depth of incomprehensible wisdom lies in the biblical statement in Genesis 2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
In 1989, Dr. David Strachan, a respected epidemiologist at Britain's London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, launched a tidal wave of debate with a complex theorem of human immunology development and disease control, saying, "We need dirt."
Dr. Strachan proposed that society's growing separation from dirt and germs may well be the cause of weaker immune systems resulting in the growing incidence of a wide range of maladies.
If Dr. Strachan is right (and a growing number of scientists and medical researchers believe he is), then dirt - or to be more specific, the microbes in earth's soil - may be some of our best friends. A recent report in New Scientist said researchers have discovered that microorganisms found in dirt influence maturation of the immune system so that it is either functional or dysfunctional. Technology may be expanding exponentially, but nature is not. We are a part of God's natural creation, so most of us will benefit by returning the missing soil microorganisms to our bodies."

Esolen mentioned the architecture of Roman churches. Eastern orthodox churches are built with a dome to invite symbolic identification with the "dome" of heaven.

This was an inspiring, and fun chapter, and I believe that Charlotte Mason would have enjoyed it immensely. :-)

Favorite lines:

"I was surrounded by a world of change, scarred and pitted, and I loved it, and wanted it never to change."

"Imagine, then, never being able to look upon the sky. That would drive us mad..."

I loved the paragraph on Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare - touche!

Also, this: "The object of our schooling, note well, is not to ensure that such poetry as this will never be written again. Of course it can hardly be written, when it can hardly be read. Our aim is more complete. It is to ensure that the feelings that inspired Hopkins' work will never be understood again." Oh, wow. That last really got to me. It's not just skills, it's emotions.
 

(And I'll refrain from quibbling over the few little things I disagreed with. ;-)

Ten Ways: Ch. 1 Truth is Your Enemy

I am behind in the book study, but I'm still working at it. I love thinking about the imagination. Am I imaginative? Have I encouraged imagination in my children? What does encourage it? I consider the imagination a sacred thing. And I have some thoughts on it, but I am not sure if I'm right. I'm going to put down some thoughts on Ch. 1 and then race over to the other ladies' posts to see what they thought of it. (I'm staying away from reading their comments until I'm done doing my own reading and writing.)

Before I get too far into talking about the content of this first chapter, however, I have to say that his changing voice can get a little confusing at times. Sometimes he's singing the praises of the thing that encourages imagination. Then he seems to remember that he's supposed to be telling us how to destroy the imagination, and he jumps back to a sarcastic voice and discouraging the use of the thing.

This first chapter of Ten Ways calls for the essential need of filling the memory with facts. I couldn't figure out why he didn't have keeping the memory weak and empty as one of his "ways" (except that the book would have been "11 ways." :-)

From pg. 9: "...A developed memory is a wondrous and terrible storehouse of things seen and heard and done. It can do what no mere search engine on the internet can do. It can call up apparently unrelated things at once, molding them into a whole impression, or a new thought. The poet T. S. Eliot understood this creative, associative, dynamic, function of a strong memory."

I couldn't agree more.

But I would disagree with what creates this creative, dynamic faculty. Mr. Esolen gave many examples of the kinds of things to memorize that he believes will feed the imagination, but I would make a distinction among them.

His examples on the bottom of pg. 4, pg. 5, and pg. 7 were examples of curiosity, which is not quite the same thing as imagination. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but I don't want to mistake curiosity for feeding imagination.

Imagination and creativity have always been very important to me. The books I have on my shelf show it. I have titles like "The Courage to Create,""Creators," "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci," "Cracking Creativity," "The Liberated Imagination," "Human Accomplishment," "Keys to Drawing with Imagination," and many more. Many of the books I've read aren't that helpful, to tell you the truth. I think Charlotte Mason's writings have been the very best for that.

I looked up imagination, creativity, and curiosity in the dictionary so as to keep straight in my own mind the differences. Imagination means "the faculty or action (in the mind) of forming new ideas, or images, or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." And creativity means "the use of the imagination in the production of a work." Curiosity means "a desire to know or learn; careful attention to detail; inquisitiveness." 

Imagination is forming a new idea/image, and creativity is using the idea/image to produce something. As Esolen points out, schools pride themselves on being places of creativity, but they often leave out the first step - feeding the imaginative faculty in the first place. 

I also realized that a child or adult could have a vivid imagination but not actually create anything (or at least not for a very long time as it incubates, or they don't create anything because they aren't encouraged to go to the next step of creating something). And children and adults create things all the time that manifest no imagination at all (only pale anemic copies of other more vibrant things). And curiosity doesn't have to include the other two.  

It seemed at times that Esolen couldn't decide if Gradgrind in Dickens's Hard Times was a good example to follow or not. I've concluded that he was saying that Gradgrind's method was bad, and that dry, dull facts are bad, but they are better than what we currently have, which is no memorization at all. I didn't find this particularly helpful.

He knew that Gradgrind's method was in keeping with preparing folks for work in industry, and was no longer about giving a child the liberal arts, but it's "not a bad way to begin." The lesser of two evils? I can't agree with this.

In various places in the chapter, Mr. Esolen recommends memorizing: basic facts about things in our world - animals and science (not as good as living with them, but the facts do present 'a challenge to the mind' - in my opinion, they may and they may not), geography (admittedly they're inferior to reading about places in Greek literature, The Lord of the Rings, and being out in the woods, etc. - in his sarcastic voice calling these the "heights of ignorance"), history facts (saying they can be flat, but they can be "dangerous" too), Latin and Greek grammar (the point being, of course, learning all that grammar for the purposes of reading the poetry of Roman and Greek authors), rules, timelines, math, maps, poetry, music.

Esolen does say, "a fact may not be much, by itself, but it points toward what is true..." Yes. But if we're not careful, and I see this all the time, we stop at the fact, because we're already tired, and full, and out of time. We're always satisfied with the lesser things. 

And this is coming from a mom who has her child in CC. I'm not against learning facts or I wouldn't be there. But I don't think that all of the facts that she is memorizing is necessarily sparking her imagination. Her history books do that. Memorizing "After the church split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, William the Conqueror defeated King Harold of England in 1066, and started feudalism" can't hold a candle to reading great books about those subjects where the characters are full-bodied, and an image can form in the mind.

Only some of these facts to memorize would be, it seems to me, fodder for the imagination. I would not call these unimportant things of life. These facts are goods, to be sure. And they can and often do support the production of new and beautiful things. But I've seen many a child not have the flame of their imaginations kindled by memorizing a ream of "grammar stage" (sorry, my own bit of sarcasm) facts. I don't think I've ever seen a child not come alive after hearing really great stories or singing songs, though.   

We watched a little girl for a time who hated to be read to. She wasn't read the right sorts of books, of course, and to make matters worse, the books were only ever used to put her to bed. They were "tricks" to get her out of the way. No one ever read to her just for the sheer joy of going into another time and place. By the time we no longer babysat her, we had won her over to loving story-time. It's one of my favorite memories of what I've done in my life. 

I love the example of Caedmon, one of my favorite figures in history. Caedmon, of course, had no storehouse of memorized facts. No Latin reading. Never any Greek. He lived and breathed real things all day long. Cows, and barns, and weather, and liturgy. But he did have a storehouse of memory of poetry and Bible stories. When God gave him the gift of song, he sang. He sang his own new songs.    

I have to add some quotes from Charlotte Mason's writings: 

"But let them have tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible--even where all is impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.

Now imagination does not descend, full grown, to take possession of an empty house; like every other power of the mind, it is the merest germ of a power to begin with, and grows by what it gets; and childhood, the age of faith, is the time for its nourishing. The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times--a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the child do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climes of his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose. But let lessons do their best, and the picture gallery of the imagination is poorly hung if the child have not found his way into the realms of fancy." 

"The object of children's literary studies is not to give them precise information as to who wrote what in the reign of whom? -- but to give them a sense of the spaciousness of the days, not only of great Elizabeth, but of all those times of which poets, historians and the makers of tales, have left us living pictures. In such ways the children secure, not the sort of information which is of little cultural value, but wide spaces wherein imagination may take those holiday excursions deprived of which life is dreary; judgment, too, will turn over these folios of the mind and arrive at fairly just decisions about a given strike, the question of Poland, Indian Unrest. Every man is called upon to be a statesman seeing that every man and woman, too, has a share in the government of the country; but statesmanship requires imaginative conceptions, formed upon pretty wide reading 'and some familiarity with historical precedents. "

Some of my favorite lines in Ten Ways were at the end of the chapter on pg. 25,

"Keep the students busy and idle at the same time. Have them study Germany by cooking a bowl of bean soup, or frying some wienerschnitzel (rather like studying baseball by grilling a hot dog)."

"At all costs have the assignments devour time. Call them "creative" if you like. Appeal to the student's vanity - never a difficult maneuver - and enlist his good will as you rob his days."

"Schola edax emporis sit - let the school be the eater of time." Indeed.

Ten Things I Like About Where I Live

I don't like where I live. I've disliked it since the day we moved here. And then when you read (I'll spare you the links, but I promise they're there) that it's in the top ten cities in the U.S. with bed bugs (Three of the 10 are in Ohio, btw) and #21 out of 354 cities for crime (Three of the 25 *most dangerous cities* are in Ohio, btw), you feel justified in disliking it. And we've lived here 6 years. Ugh.

Granted, we don't live in the city limits, but there are other things -- such as, it's just not beautiful here, and if you've driven through it, you know it smells like a porta-potty. After all, when you've lived near Washington, DC, and in Upstate New York near the Finger Lakes (no, I didn't appreciate it while I was there), and the southern coast of England (yes, I appreciated it while I was there), you become a little used to natural beauty and municipal cleanliness.

But I'm trying to develop a more grateful spirit, so I've tried to come up with 10 good things about it. I mean, I'm happy with my life, my family and all that. I just look out the window as I drive (quickly) through town, and I just hate what I see. Ok, I'm going to stop now or I'll never be able to...

10. It's nice to be able to live so near an airport. My husband travels a lot (a lot!!) and the rest of us like to travel when we can so it's nice to have a handy airport.

9. The DAI - very, very good art museum for a city this size.

8. The Neon - we've been able to see a few movies there that are limited releases.

7. Our grocery store  - this is an odd one, but our grocery store is special. Really.

6. Meadowlark, Pasha Grill, Basically British Tea Shop, and Winans

5. Kettering Children's Choir

4. Great Shakespeare productions in nearby Cincy

3. Raw milk and Grass-fed beef from John and Cathy at Homestead Farm

2. Our church

1. My husband was finally able to realize his dream of working for himself and helping other small businesses grow. I'm proud of you, Walt!

And, honorable mention...

We got the greatest dog EVER at the Montgomery County animal shelter! God meant for us to have this dog. I kid you not.

So, we had to move here, that's all there is to it.

Still, I'd move again if the opportunity presented itself. :-)

Tuesday Top Ten

I'm going to try to do a regular column on Tuesdays listing my "Top Ten" of various things. I don't have an internal clock at all (or an internal calendar for that matter), so this could prove challenging. I'm not good at narrowing things down to 'my number one favorite thing' either, so this will be a good exercise for me.

Today I've decided to do one on homeschooling. This is a subject that I love, so it will be easy for me. I think I'll do a separate post on what I'm glad I did in the past specifically another week.

10. My children get to eat healthier foods every day; and conversely, not be tempted by pop, chips and pizza every day.

9. My children get more sleep.

8. My children have many, many more hours to play.

7. My children get to spend much more time outdoors during the good daylight hours.

6. Because they are in a safe environment, they are able to indulge in their imaginations without fear of ridicule and without undue influence from others.

5. My children have gotten to experience more family life.

4. My children have been able to travel because they aren't tied to a school schedule.

3. We don't have to do traditional tests or exams.

2. We can get into deep discussions at any time of day on any subject we want and no one stops us to move on to another 'class' or tells us that it isn't on the syllabus. We can also stay up really late to have these discussions because my children can sleep in (see #9.)

1. My children and I have real and deep relationships. We know one another intimately because we spend more hours with each other than with anyone else outside our family.

Book Study: Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, Introduction

This is a book that Kiernan asked for for Christmas. I snuck upstairs and read the introduction after it arrived. It was so luscious and yummy, I didn't want to stop and wrap it. But I dug deep within myself and did the right thing. :-)

I'm still fighting the anemia in my body (by resting more, not actually fighting :-). So, I was thinking I needed to get back to some book studies (ones I've started and not finished, and others I have in mind.) I took it as a sure sign that I need to finish Ten Ways when Cindy over at Ordo Amoris announced that she was starting a book study on it.

As I said before, the introduction was wonderful and put to words many of the things I already believe. It's fun to read something that you already believe in. :-) It's encouraging and hopeful, and makes you feel less alone.

Esolen's intro is brilliant. He begins by telling us about a vandal at his college library removing thousands and thousands of books from the shelves to destroy, and we find out that the vandal was actually the librarian. (I see this often in my own hometown library.) But we soon see that he is making an analogy between books and children.

Reading the first paragraph as if it's referring to children (and abortion), and not books, we see that we simply want to get rid of them, even though they are irreplaceable. (And in the second paragraph I think I see a nod toward the elderly also - they grow old, and begin to be ragged around the edges.)

[A not-fun, but wonderful movie on what our world would be like if there were no children is "The Children of Men." It's like the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life", in which Clarence says, "Okay, you get your wish. You've never been born." It's like P.D. James decides to explore the idea of what would happen if all of a sudden we got our wish and we stopped having children. It's not pretty! It becomes quite clear that it is children that keep the world gentle and beautiful.]

Fleshing out the analogy between books and children, Esolen says they are bulky, take up space, are inconvenient, only interest a few people, are mischievous, and can ruin your calm and efficient day.

He also confronts our hypocrisy when we say, "we love books (children)," but we don't really want any around, or, at the most, only a few. If we loved them, we would have some, and we would truly consider them treasures. We would love the wonder we would find in them.

But children are also dangerous, mischievous, and take you into other worlds, a world where anything can happen.

And that's the scary part. They are unpredictable. Especially when their imaginations are involved (and valued and fed.)

We don't like this. No, siree, we don't like this one little bit, Sam I am.

But once we do decide to have some, Esolen boldly tells us that we lie to ourselves if we say we don't want our children to settle down and stop upsetting the status quo. (We want it so much that we routinely medicate children to get them to "settle down.")

Esolen really pulls out all the stops in the next to last paragraph of the intro. He hits on immodest clothing, refined sugar, shopping malls, processed (fake) foods, mass media, and our political culture.

I was really struck by Esolen's little phrase in this paragraph --"they owe it to us."

How much of what we do with children is about us? About our personal economic prosperity? They owe it to us to be cogs in the great wheel of fortune of our world, do they not? They owe it to us to provide us with a Social Security benefit. They owe us!

This post is long enough. I think I'll end it here even though it's a bit abrupt. Can't wait to dig into Ch. 1.

(Note: In Esolen's example of the Greco-Roman myth about Apollo and the virgin nymph, he mistakenly calls the nymph Diana. It is in fact Daphne.)

The Friend

Please run out to your library and get this book. Then read it to your children, no matter how old they are. I read it to my 22 year old this morning while she ate breakfast.

The Friend by Sarah Stewart

I cried small, warm tears at the end. Be sure to read the dedication on the last page.