Stepping Heavenward

By Elizabeth Prentiss

Parents and Children, part 2

From pages 5, 6

Families must not isolate themselves from the rest of the world in their communes lest there is a decline in intelligence and virtue from generations of keeping to itself. Without the proper outlets a family will wither and perhaps die.

Families must have proper outlets to sustain it's health. Just as a nation branches out by planting a new colony and is careful and attentive to include that colony in the national life, so too is the miniature nation: the family. Branching out to help struggling families, a family nourishes its own life and the whole community prospers. The family must serve its neighbors.

Furthermore, a family must branch out to serve in the national life. Just as any organic body, the nation is built up by an infinite number of living organisms. The life of the body is made complete when each organism is contributing to the overall well-being of its host. So too, a family must contribute to the national life by sharing public interests, taking up public works, and cherishing the public welfare. It's integrity within a nation must be maintained and preserved. Should a family fail to thrive in this manner, it becomes as injurious tissue to the living body and inhibits the vitality of the whole just as decaying tissue within an animal body.

This reminds me of a post I read today speaking about being good stewards of our God given gifts. Just as each individual has particular gifts, so does the family. These gifts must be nurtured and practiced at home, but ultimately aren't they to be used for the benefit of others? For the advancement of God's Kingdom?

What good does hoarding these gifts do? Like Charlotte said, it could be detrimental to the overall health and vitality of all should we hold back our gifts. What would the world look like today if we actually heeded Miss Mason's advice and blessed our neighbors, our communities, our towns, our states, our country and our world by branching out, looking for needs and filling them? Would we need all these social reforms and programs that we rely on so heavily?

I must confess here, I am guilty. I tend to concern myself with the needs of my immediate family and close friends. I tend to keep others at a safe arms-length distance. I barely know the names of my neighbors.

Oh sure, I may step out of my insulated comfort zone on occasion, but by and large I sit on the sidelines passively watching. Not to discount the things I am doing, BUT I know I could do more. Stretch-Mark Mama has some good ideas.....

Next Lesson: The United States Constitution - The Executive Branch

The United States Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net:

"Article II - The Executive Branch
Section 1 - The President
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:" (Read more here)

28 more days

Please PAUSE my Playlist to hear this encouraging song. Scroll down, you'll see it on the right hand side.

Government of a Nation Begins at Home...

"The family is the unit of the nation."

This little quote by F.D. Maurice is full of implications concerning the parental role, which Charlotte proceeds to flesh out. She begins by discussing the pro's and con's of communitstic societies, pointing out that all through history these types of cooperative societies, where members have all things in common, have arisen for the sake of a great work, social or religious reasons and more recently (in her time--early 20th century) as a "protest against inequalities of condition" (P&C.,p.4). She points out that while we may be quick to dismiss this form of government, many well-regulated cooperative bodies have flourished. Many have failed miserably, and the cause she concludes, is due to a "government enfeebled by the attempt to combine democratic and communistic princles; to dwell together in a common life, while each does what is right in his own eyes." (p.4).

Europe has long dreamed of a society where each State would be divided into small communes. Charlotte, probably smiling as she wrote this, then points out what apparently is too obvious to see, that these communes already exist. Each family is in itself a small commune. Each family shares undivided property. Each family shares a common social condtition. Each family has diversity in duties to help it function properly. Sometimes families band together in tribes with a sovereign chief.

Familes today are generally small or extended family lives far away; however, this does not diminish the force or power of the family. Leslie Laurio paraphrased this portion well: "We don't see that this natural commune is the unit that our country is built with, and we fail to realize that the family, like any commune, needs to fulfill all the duties of the government with the same kind of delicacy, exactness and detailed thoroughness that are suitable for any small operation." (P&C in Modern English, p.5)

Parents and Children

Each summer I spend a considerable amount of time catching up on my reading....

This Summer's Booklist:

1. Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss
2. Leaf by Niggle by Tolkien
3. The Wise Woman by George MacDonald
4. Persuasion by Jane Austen
5. Home Education by Charlotte Mason (yearly read)
6. Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason

To help me better "know" what I'm reading and to remember I'll be blogging some my narrations.
One book I particularly want to *know* is Parents and Children. I want to be an encourager to parents with young children. Now that my children are growing up and flying off, I'd like to be able to offer some insight from my successes--the things that worked, and my failures--things I wish I could "do over." The Lord has shown me time and time again that He was always involved in my parenting, the good, the bad and the ugly. Either by guiding me along or by teaching me from my mistakes (even still). Sharing this with other parents seems a natural next step..
Chapter I
Jean Jacques Rousseau, may not have proved very admirable, still he mined a deep truth that resonated with a generation of parents and still does to this day to some extent. Parents have a God-given duty to raise their children. Like a letting out of the waters, Rousseau released a flood gate of parental enthusiasm which turned the hearts of fathers to the children. Although he offered little more than mere straw to the builders, his teachings succeeded in awakening parents to the serious, profound responsibility of parental obligations. Mothers and fathers were given this God-ordained task and arose to the challenge by leaving professions and occupations behind to focus their attention on training and raising their own children. He effectively stated,

"Fathers and mothers, this is your work, and only you can do it. It rests with you, parents of young children, to be the saviours of society unto a thousands generations. Nothing else matters. The avocations about which people weary themselves are as foolish child's play compared with this one serious business of bringing up our children in advance of ourselves."

And people listened.
Charlotte Mason, thinking an attempt to codify how parents may do this would be interesting, uses the rest of Volume 2 in the inadequately titled, Original Homeschooling Series to eloquently present a practical foundation on the role of the parent in the education of the child.

How Firm a Foundation

By Jennifer Spenser
June 11, 2009
CLUSA Conference-Gardner-Webb University

• Schools buy into expensive programs and implement passing fads rather than invest in the foundational ideas that undergird methods of teaching.
• Methods alone do not make a school a Mason school; this produces shallow results
• No information should be given without an informing idea
  
  A Look at Various Educational Models Used Throughout History
  

Classical Model

• Views learner as blank slate
• Knowledge derived from experience
• Three stages of learning: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric
• Building from the bottom up
• Heavy Memorization of facts
• Teacher is the giver of knowledge
• Classic Literature, Language, Recitation, studies isolated from life
• Chronological study of history
• Mason did not subscribe to the Tabula-Rasa method
• Many poor children left behind
• Pre-Industrial revolution options for poor child: farming or tradesman

Industrial Revolution/Apprenticeship Model

• Factory owners recruited whole families, trained skilled laborers
• Began school run by the industry
• 1911 Frederick Taylor wrote Principles of Management; encouraged industry to monitor workers’ time not related to work
• Industry gets involved in Education; propaganda campaign to convince citizens that vocational training is good for America.
• Similar to German Model which placed education under the auspices of the Department of Commerce & Labor.
• Three types of learners: Cultural, Industrial, Factory
• Education is for social engineering
• Teachers are public servants; present ideas of controlling majority
• Principles of Industrial Education:
  § Education for training for trade/vocation
  § Children are raw material
  § Schools are like factory plants
  § Architecture of school building mimics factory, ie., classroom designed to look like shop floor
  § Middle school years explore possible vocations
  § Test for aptitude, “probable destiny”
  § Student placed into appropriate “tier”
  § Utilitarian methods: Standardized tests, textbooks, strict schedule
  § CM believed this type of education to be immoral

Humanitarian Progressivism

• Shifting Sand
• Against industry slavery of children, adults
• Persons above profit
• Wanted reform of industrial educational model
• Education is equalizer of opportunity
• John Dewey:
  § Science has potential to improve or debase society
  § Dominant vocation of humans is living
  § School environment:
• Free play
• Hands on
• Democratic atmosphere
• Integrated curriculum
• Emulate real life
• Loop learning
• Balance of Liberal Arts & Vocational studies
• Free of authoritarianism
  § Education is intelligent art of shaping beliefs and desires of children
  § Education reform enough for social revolution
  § Education should have child-centered instruction
• Learning centers
• Unit Study
  § Mason not child centered; she did not believe humans were at the center of the universe
  § Mason: Education is an Atmosphere
  § Even very young children are capable, insulted by twaddle
  § Students should dig for relationships between subjects not teachers
  § Contrived grouping of students silly to Mason
  § Outer character change, futile; only inner change produces real, lasting change

Mason’s Foundation

• After viewing “Triumph of St. Thomas Acquanis & the Allegory of the Sciences" by Andrea Da Firenze 1344-1377, Mason came to the impelling,underlying conclusion: All Knowledge is derived from God through the Holy Spirit.
• By studying Living Things, we learn that God is life
• Study of Math, God is form, order
• Study of Arts, God is beautiful
• Study of Languages, God communicates
• Study of History, we learn of the evolution of the relationship between God and man.
• Teacher spreads a feast of ideas before the learner
• Teacher allows student to ingest, digest what is proper for him
• Trinity of education, Knowledge of God, Knowledge of Man, Knowledge of the Universe
• Of God: Bible, character
• Of man: Humanities, Arts
• Universe: Science, math
• History is the pivot of a CM education
• Literature & Languages, Math & Science, Arts, Bible & Character extend from History studies
• All learning comes from Holy Spirit
• Mason approach connects learning: careful observations leads to relation to prior knowledge leads to assimilation of new knowledge leads to expression of knowledge leads to (?slide changed before I got it)
• Trivium, Grades, Behaviorism, Isolated Skills not needed in Mason method

Another Quote from Stepping Heavenward - Google Books

"duty looks more repelling at a distance than when fairly- faced and met."

Stepping Heavenward - Google Books: page 81

The Separation of Powers

I think its high time we, as citizens of the United States of America, actually revisit some of our founding documents to remind us or perhaps learn for the first time, exactly what we are apparently letting slip through our fingers.

From The Federalist, Number 48: The Separation of Powers II written by James Madison aka "Publius" between 1787-1788.

"It is agreed on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that none of them ought to possess, directly or indirectly, and overruling influence over the others, in the administration of their respective powers. It will not be denied, that power if of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others. What this security ought to be, is the great problem to be solved."

For your self education enjoyment I present: Article I - The Legislative Branch

Stepping Heavenward - Google Books

Stepping Heavenward - Google Books: "'You may be sure of it,' he said, solemnly. 'I, His minister, bring the gospel to you to-day. Go home and say over and over to yourself, 'I am a wayward, foolish child. But He loves me! I have disobeyed and grieved Him ten thousand times. But He loves me! I have lost faith in some of my dearest friends and am very desolate. But He loves me! I do not love Him, I am even angry with Him. But He loves me!' '"

Just what prayer should be...

Grantian Florilegium: "Prayer should be the breath of our breathing, the thought of our thinking, the soul of our feeling, the life of our living, the sound of our hearing, and the growth of our growing. Prayer is...(read more)"

I May Not Know What the Future Holds;

thankfully, I know Who holds the future.

"For I Know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and fine me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord...." Jer. 29:11,12

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." Rom 8:28,29

Brandon's personal favorite verses:

Hebrews 13:5,6

"Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we can confidently say,

'The Lord is my helper;

I will not fear;

what can man do to me?'

I'm so proud of my Brandon and thank God for the great things He has done!! To God be the Glory!!

Quiet, not really still

Quiet house, close my eyes,
steady springtime trickle,
ocassional plops upon my sill,
birds singing, hum.....hum....sigh....
Quiet house, but not really still.

I'm Kanga

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!
Who are you?

Playing with my new phone...trying to set up mobile blogging! This is so neato!!

Well Said!!

A homeschool mother replies to a public school teacher's Top Ten Reasons not to Homeschool:

I think Mr. Scaccia is ripe for conversion.