Hunting for a Building

We are on the lookout for a home for RiverTree School and we could use your help. The best buildings are often churches with education facilities or buildings that have housed schools in the past. Take a look at the location preference map I created to get an idea of where we are looking. If you happen to know of something that might be suitable, please contact me using the email address in the sidebar.

Living Books

As I look forward to the start of RiverTree School one of the things that gets me most excited is the chance to introduce students to really good books. Such books allow a child to connect with ideas, people, and stories in a meaning and exciting way. It is a sad fact, however, that the books children are often forced to read in schools these days do little to peak their curiosity or spur their imagination. In fact, they often do quite the opposite.

Textbooks used in schools are written for the simple purpose of sales. In order to do this, the textbook writers try to appeal, as best they can, to their target market: teachers, administrators and curriculum committees. Unfortunately, the top criteria of these groups are often things like: which textbook series has the best teaching aids? which has the best assessment tools? which most closely meets the state or school standard? which will cause us the fewest problems? The result is bland, encyclopedic, "age-appropriate", politically correct, drivel that while easily employed by a teacher, is of nearly no use to a student.

If these books were as filled with vital knowledge as the publishers would have us believe, then why is it only schools that buy them? Have you ever known anyone who ever bought a elementary school textbook to read to their children? Some small private schools require parents to purchase the textbooks their students use. But one of the most telling testimonials to the quality of school textbooks is how few of them are kept once the school year ends. If these books were the useful compendium of learning their publishers claim them to be, you would think that a few more might make their way to the family bookshelf rather than the dumpster.

A RiverTree education will be different. We will offer to our students what Charlotte Mason calls "living books." That is, books containing vital ideas written is a style that engages the student. Unlike the textbooks chosen by most schools these books are written with the reader in mind, not the curriculum committee. As a result, they are actually worth reading, for their own sake. They are also books that you might find on the shelf of a good book store or library because, you know, people actually like them.

The students are allowed to encounter these books and the ideas within them on their own terms. There is no list of carefully chosen facts that a child needs to glean in order for the book to accomplish its purpose. Rather the reader is offered an interesting topic presented in a lively, engaging manner. The ideas are there for him to take or leave as they are needed.

The result is a much more enjoyable education. Instead of laboring over a chapter trying to find the "answers" for the worksheet, a child spends her time with the sublime pleasure of a good book. She remembers more of what she read because the book was good enough to hold her interest. Perhaps it is even so good that she regrets having to set it down. Isn't that a much more refreshing and natural way to approach learning?

Status Update

I am sorry that I have not posted for a while. Sometimes life gets in the way of good blogging. I do have some news to report, however. Last week I had a delightful conversation with the director of Ambleside Schools International. Ambleside is a network of schools dedicated to the principles of Charlotte Mason; it could be a very good fit for us. The conversation was one of those energizing moments when you find someone with whom you share a purpose and who can be of enormous help. I am very encouraged because not only do they offer support for schools and teachers, but they also have a fully developed curriculum sequence which member schools can use. Writing a curriculum sequence was my biggest "to-do" item looming so, I might have just chopped about 200 days off mygantt chart. Please check out their website. It should give you a good idea of what RiverTree will be like.

Some of you have asked me recently if it was OK to tell your friends about this blog. YES!!!, by all means! Please tell anyone who you think might be interested in this type of education to check out the blog, or, better yet, contact me via the email address in the sidebar. Most schools start with a group of committed parents who go looking for an administrator. This startup reverses that order. I am keenly interested in finding parents who might desire to be involved, especially if they live in the Twin Cities.

Those of you who know me personally, also know that I have a doctoral dissertation underway. I am scheduled to defend the proposal on May 29th. Shortly thereafter I hope to get approval to begin the research. If you think of it, please pray that the process would move forward quickly. The prospect of simultaneously concluding a dissertation and starting a school is causing a little anxiety.

"I will" vs. "I want"

Charlotte Mason has an interesting and insightful idea about the purpose of education regarding the development of the will. Will, she says, is that part of us that separates man from beast. It is the thing in us that gives us freedom, makes us true moral agents, able and obliged to discern right from wrong and act accordingly. Will is also that part of us that allows us to choose something that we do not desire. It allows us to rise above our base instincts and passions and choose what we will over what we want.

I have often heard it said of children who are being particularly naughty that he or she has a strong will. In fact, precisely the opposite characteristic is being shown. The child with a strong will is able to behave himself when what he wants to do is throw a tantrum. The strong willed child can do those activities that are contrary to her desires, while the willful child is a slave to her passions. How many of us have had the experience of watching a child make himself miserable because he doesn't want to clean his room (or some other simple chore)? He pouts and he mopes and he cries and acts generally wretched, when if he would just "decide to do it.", he could be quickly done and go play.

One of the purposes of education is to teach children to use their will to master their desires. The educated child should set his will upon those things that are good and right and pursue them. The end result is a life lived more fully. Of course, this is easier said than done. The nurturing of a child's will takes time, patience and a steady supply of good examples to follow, both present and historical. It also requires that teachers and parents have at hand good techniques to help the child along.

Charlotte Mason maintained that one of the best helps to a child in learning to use his will is diversion. When a child (or an adult for that matter) is finding that concentrating on the task at hand is too great a strain, diverting focus to some other more refreshing pursuit for a time allows the child to return later to the task with renewed vigor. For example, a child may on a particular day be finding his mathematics lesson to be frustrating. Rather than manipulating the child through extrinsic motivation (threats or bribes) to concentrate on his lesson, the wise teacher will allow him to take a break and come back with his will restrengthened . This gives a much preferable result, because the child has learned, with help, to use his will to master his desires. He has also mastered his mathematics lesson for its own sake, using his own strength. This triumph allows the student to find satisfaction in an accomplishment that would not have had otherwise.

Television: The Bane of the Literate Mind

As you have probably picked up if you are a regular reader of this blog, RiverTree School will make regular and prolific use of books in the classroom. We do this because children's minds are fed on ideas and good books are the best source of those ideas. Books also do another wonderful thing. They force a child to actively use his imagination. Anytime a child is read a story, especially a good story, his mind is actively creating his own personal mental image of the scene . It is wonderful mental exercise.

There is, however, a modern enemy of the imagination and of the intellectual and spiritual development of children that Charlotte Mason did not have to deal with: the television. In my opinion this instrument of distraction is the single greatest hindrance to the education of the child and one of the main reasons that the population of the United States has become increasingly illiterate, despite the emphasis on reading in the schools. Mark Twain's quip, "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read", has never been so applicable as today. Children who receive a steady diet of television have their imaginations blunted by the constant barrage of imagery. This steady diet of mental junk food leaves little appetite for the comparatively challenging work and sublime pleasures of literature.

I have come to believe that in order to raise up truly well educated children it is necessary to drastically reduce the amount of time children spend in front of a screen. Therefore, at RiverTree school we are going to try something unusual. In fact, I have never heard of another school that has even attempted what we are going to do. We are going to insist that the families who make up the RiverTree community commit to each other that they will remove television, video and video games from their children's home lives. We will do this for the simple reason that it is the best thing for children.

My wife and I, about four years ago, decided to put the televisions in the closet for a month as an experiment. We did this because I came home from an education workshop having just heard a psychologist* talk about thephysiological effects that television viewing had to the cognitive development of children under eight. Suffice it to say that it wasn't good. Well, that month long experiment is still ongoing. Other than two Thanksgiving days when the TV came out for football, it has remained safely stored. I can honestly say that removing the TV was one of the best parenting decisions we have made. The kids don't miss it at all.

I have been hesitant to make this posting, even though for some time now I have known this would be a part of RiverTree, because I realize this kind of thing is not for everybody. But before you click away from this site, never to return, I would urge you to read the article: Life without TV. Notice how many different families mention how happy their children are, how much better their family life is, and how good a decision they believe removing television to have been. Then ask yourself: could we try it for a month? If your experience is at all like ours, it will be a very long and very good "month."

*I can't recall her name, but I am sure someone will remember and put it in the comments: hint, hint

Ideas

I like this quote:

Education is a life.  That life is sustained on ideas.  Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony;  but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food.  (CM, A Philosophy of Education p. 109)

Typical 4th Grade Textbook vs. A Real Living Book.

Here are two excerpts to help illustrate the difference between typical school fare and the kind of books children will be reading at RiverTree School.

First, an excerpt from a forth grade social studies text used in many Christian schools:

The Lost Colony

Queen Elizabeth I was the powerful ruler of England in 1585. She was proud of England and wanted all Englishmen to be proud, too. A successful English colony in the New World would boost her people's pride.

Walter Raleigh [rô'lē] was a good friend of the queen. When he asked for permission to begin a colony, Queen Elizabeth gave it to him without hesitation. But the queen told him that he himself could not go to America - he had to choose someone else to go!

How strange it seems that the man who was to plan the first English colony in America never went to America himself! The queen had very good reasons. England was having trouble with Spain. If a war broke out, she knew she could trust Raleigh's judgment to help England.

Raleigh sent two sea captains to find a good place in America for an English colony. When they returned, they reported finding an island called Roanoke [rō'ə‧nōk] that would be a good place to begin a colony.

Queen Elizabeth was as delighted as Raleigh. For his excellent plans, the queen added a title to his name. From now on, he would be called Sir Walter Raleigh. The land the sea captains explored was also given a name. This part of the New World belonging to England would be called Virginia, after Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen."

Notice the helpful bold type and underlining to help a child figure out the parts he can safely ignore. See how the "author" in the third paragraph cleverly tells the students what to think! What a strange use of an exclamation point! Notice also the short, declarative sentences designed to minimize any strain on young minds.

Now an excerpt from H.E. Marshall's This Country of Ours:

ABOUT SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S ADVENTURES IN THE GOLDEN WEST

The first attempt to found an English colony in America had been an utter failure. But the idea of founding a New England across the seas had now taken hold of Sir Humphrey's young step-brother, Walter Raleigh. And a few months after the return of the Golden Hind he received from the Queen a charter very much the same as his brother's. But although he got the Charter Raleigh himself could not sail to America, for Queen Elizabeth would not let him go. So again he had to content himself with sending other people.

It was on April 27th, 1584, that his expedition set out in two small ships. Raleigh knew some of the great Frenchmen of the day, and had heard of their attempt to found a colony in Florida. And in spite of the terrible fate of the Frenchmen he thought Florida would be an excellent place to found an English colony.

So Raleigh's ships made their way to Florida, and landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of what is now North Carolina. In those days of course there was no Carolina, and the Spaniards called the whole coast Florida right up to the shores of Newfoundland.

The Englishmen were delighted with Roanoke. It seemed to them a fertile, pleasant land, "the most plentiful, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the worlde." So they at once took possession of it "in the right of the Queen's most excellent Majesty as rightful Queen and Princess of the same."

The natives, too, seemed friendly "and in their behaviour as mannerly and civil as any man of Europe." But the Pale-faces and the Redskins found it difficult to understand each other.

"What do you call this country?" asked an Englishman.

"Win gan da coa," answered the Indian.

So the Englishmen went home to tell of the wonderful country of Wingandacoe. But what the Indian had really said was "What fine clothes you have!"

Exit Question: Suppose you were going to be trapped in a school room for a whole day and could only take one of these books with you. Which would it be?

I thought so.

Intrinsic Motivation to Learn

I have observed over the years the tremendous effort that teachers put into motivating students by crafting creative lessons and class activities. In fact, a teacher's ability to charm, coax, bribe or otherwise convince children to do their work is considered by some to be the mark of professionalism and talent. The problem, of course, is that all of these motivations toward effort are external to learning. Students do their work not so that they may learn, but so that they receive a good mark, or an approving look from a teacher, or so that they might avoid being held in at recess. It is true that the children give effort, but all the while they steadily become more and more dependent upon extrinsic motivation and more and more jaded toward school work.

The key to a highly effective school, I think, is to structure it in such a way that children find joy in learning. That is, to find learning intrinsically motivating. Of course, you cannot do this if you expect children to plow through mountains of worksheets, drills, quizzes and projects. Rather, a school must guide a child to material that holds interest on its own. In this books, real living books written in a literary style, are our secret weapon. Children have an innate appetite for knowledge and a greatly underestimated capacity to enjoy and learn from stories well told. If we feed that appetite with the best material available, it grows and becomes more and more refined.

What we must studiously avoid doing, therefore, are those little things which convince the child that the effort of learning is a drudgery, a contest, or a means to some more desirable reward. Even a child's love for her teacher can be put to bad use. The beloved teacher who tells her students "you should work hard because it will please me" is doing long term harm for short term gain. The child's vanity is fed and grows, while her knowledge and self-reliance are neglected, all for the ephemeral reward of a filled out worksheet or high quiz score.

Mind-food for Your Children

Many parents have asked me where to find good books for their children. There are many sources, but my two favorites have the great advantage of being free.

The Baldwin Project is an online collection of children's and juvenile literature. All of the works were published before 1923 and, therefore, are in the public domain. If you are looking for a new family read-a-loud, this is a great place. Many of the volumes can also be purchased on the site.

Librivox is a collection of public domain audio books. The catalog is a little hard to navigate. I think the best way to find a new book is to choose by genre. All the recordings are available in mp3 format. Next cold, rainy day, download a book to your mp3 player, turn off the TV and let your child get lost in another world. You may find you have some favorite readers. We like books read by Kara Shallenburg, she seems to have a knack for pickings some excellent books for kids and has a very pleasant voice.

As I think of more resources for children I will add to the new link list in the sidebar.

Children are Born Persons

Charlotte Mason begins her philosophy of education with this simple and profound statement: "Children are born persons." For some such a statement might border on the obvious. After all, it is a basic Christian belief that humans are created in God's image and by virtue of that image are invested, from the beginning, with person-hood. While this is part of what Charlotte Mason meant, the full impact of her statement is much greater.

You see, Miss Mason also meant that children are born with fully active and fully engaged minds. She did not, as was popular with educational theorists of her day, believe that the child was born a blank slate on which a mind slowly became imprinted through the accumulation of experiences. She saw that even in the newborn or the toddler there is a rich, beautiful, interesting personality that lacks only nourishment in order to grow.

The food metaphor is one that she often used to describe the minds of children. Just as every parent knows a child need a nutritious and plentiful diet to grow healthy and strong, so also must the mind of the child be fed a steady, plentiful and healthful diet of mind-food. And it is ideas that are the food of the mind.

The Charlotte Mason method (and the RiverTree method) involves ensuring that every child receives the best ideas available and receives them in quantity, for that is what they both need and crave. The four year old who incessantly asks "why?" (I speak here from experience) is simply ravenous for ideas, and good ones at that.

Too often, however, instead of good mind-food we feed our children intellectual pablum. We read them ridiculous, dull stories from a phonics reader because it includes the sounds from that week's lesson. Or we give them "age-appropriate" history lessons complete with review questions that stifle the imagination. Charlotte Mason had a word for such stuff: twaddle. The sad fact is that our schools, especially our Christian schools, are full of it. Just pick up a reader from ABeka Books or Bob Jones University Press (the leading publishers for Christian schools) and ask yourself: "could I stand reading this stuff for a whole school year, or would I go batty with boredom?" I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

What children need is not a dubious system of instruction, but rather a method of education that respects them as people, one that steadily feeds them good ideas. Of course, very few people are capable on their own of providing enough mind-food to satisfy a child, let alone a classroom of 15 or more. I know I am not. Fortunately, though, we know where we can find it: books. The teacher who opens the world of books to a child has brought him to a source of knowledge and ideas which he will never exhaust. Such an approach to books will be characteristic of the RiverTree classroom. But not just any books. We have no use for the boring, drivel filled textbooks of the modern school. We want our children to read (or be read) real living books that were written to be enjoyed, that hold their interest and cause them to want more. We want this for our children because we know they are people, hungry for knowledge.

We will not allow ourselves to be guilty of the sin of boring children.