Babble On

by Anne White

Near the end of C. S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength, the speeches being given at a college banquet turn into word salad (“Tidies and fugleman—I sheel foor that we all—er—most steeply rebut the defensible, though, I trust, lavatory…”). If you haven’t read the book, the explanation is both complicated and simple: the wizard Merlin, resurrected for the occasion, has been interfering. This is what happens next:

[Merlin] had left the dining room as soon as the curse of Babel was well fixed upon the enemies. No one had seen him go. Wither had once heard his voice calling loud and intolerably glad above the riot of nonsense, "Qui Verbum Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbum hominis."

The translation of the Latin is given in a footnote: "They that have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away."

We can turn that around, and say that to love and revere the Word of God, we must also revere the “word of man.” That does not mean “the wisdom of this world [which] is foolishness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19), but rather something sacred and profound: God’s gift of language. The curse of Babel was that people lost their ability to communicate with each other; so its reverse is to be able to speak, to understand, to share meaning and metaphor, to instruct, to exhort, to tell stories, to make jokes. Think of the talking animals in Narnia. Think of what happens to Ginger the Cat in Lewis’s The Last Battle, when he loses that privilege.

“Look, look!” said the voice of the Bear. “It can’t talk. It has forgotten how to talk!...” And then the greatest terror of all fell upon those Narnians. For every one of them had been taught—when it was only a chick or a puppy or a cub—how Aslan at the beginning of the world had turned the beasts of Narnia into Talking Beasts and warned them that if they weren’t good they might one day be turned back again…”And now it is coming upon us,” they moaned.

How do we keep this gift and not lose it? And how do we teach the children under our care to cherish and not to despise it?

We talk to them. We sing to them. We read to them, repeat, repeat. Most of us reading this, know this. It is good  to read books full of strong and deep language; but (as in our music and art studies), we may also need to provide specific work on technique. And, in a time when the “curse of Babel” threatens civilization, we may need to go even further not only to protect our own walls, but to venture out in the spirit of those who go out carrying  tools to rebuild storm-flattened houses. Educator Marva Collins, always a proponent of word study in the classroom, wrote about a vocabulary “weapon” that she found; and tells us, as she told her students, why it really mattered.

That fall I discovered a secret weapon for building vocabulary, a book called Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student [by Harold Levine]. I ordered copies for all the students in Westside Prep. 

“Words are ideas. They make up thoughts. If our words are limited, our thoughts are limited,” I said, holding up the book and pointing to its title. “You see what this says? It says for the college-bound student, not the failure-bound student. To succeed in life, you must be a thinker, and to be a thinker, you must have vocabulary.” (Marva Collins’ Way, p. 170)

The introduction to Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student (available online) echoes the military, “secret weapon” analogy:

Though reading is the basic means of vocabulary growth, it is a relatively slow means. For the college-bound student who has not achieved a superior vocabulary, reading needs to be supplemented by a direct attack that will yield comparatively rapid growth—and that is the purpose of this book.

We may not require Harold Levine’s help in building our own vocabulary, but we could do worse than spread some of that curiosity and delight in words, and, in consequence, the ability to use them to think, to write, and to share dreams. Weapons or tools, whichever idea works better for us—the important thing is to develop skill in their use, and also care and respect for them, so that we will never be forced to rebut the defensible, though, I trust, lavatory.

[Aslan] said, “Rise up, Sir Peter Wolf’s-Bane. And,  whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword.” (C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

I Dare You (Charlotte Mason is powerful, Part IV)

by Anne White

Part I is here
Part II is here
Part III is here

"'You got to be kidding,' he said...'You want both sides of the paper for homework?' His voice cracked in disbelief midway through the question...Marva said, 'When your mother gives you dinner, do you want only half a chop?'" (Marva Collins' Way)

Charlotte Mason used the word "stultifies" to describe the well-meant attempt to bring the world down to a child's level, to make everything easy, controlled, regular, and predictable. She said that by doing this, we underestimate, degrade, even steal from the children in our care.

David V. Hicks,  in Norms and Nobility, contrasts two piano teachers he knew as a child.  His friend's teacher had young students memorize Mozart pieces.  His own teacher, more in touch with how modern children were supposed to learn, used graded exercises and fun, hands-on activities.  He says that his friend, who initially balked and struggled, was nevertheless playing Chopin and other difficult composers within a few years, while he himself never got beyond a simple arrangement of "The Lone Ranger." (Head First?, posted here in 2013)

This statement flies in the face of all we know, all we have been told over the past century-plus about learning and teaching. Particularly all we were ever told by the Herbartians. The cloud of classical witnesses, on the other hand, may be looking on knowingly.

We can't expect students to learn everything about everything, or even something about everything. But they can learn the things that matter about things that matter. This does not mean we allow them to overspecialize, or to go as far as Sherlock Holmes in selectivity:

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it." (A Study in Scarlet)

And the way, it seems, to let them learn the things that matter, is to allow them to balk and struggle a bit, as (for instance) many of our children did at first when studying Plutarch's Lives, or Charles Kingsley's books, or Parables from Nature. We give them something tough--not completely unchewable or unpalatable, but more solid than they are used to--and we bring them into the ages-old circle of listeners; we make them part of the "membership." Those who are allowed only to approach by baby steps, it seems, are the ones who will find themselves locked out, powerless.* How will they "increase their power of observation" if nothing demands to be looked at? How can they learn to reason without hearing reason? How can they develop what Martha Nussbaum calls "daring imagination" if they are never given that dare?

Our desire is not to abuse children (as someone said, "suffer, little children"). Nobody wants to see their child in tears over a book (although several, reportedly, have wept over the Battle of Hastings). But as serious sports coaches know that there will be no success without tough training, we count it as abuse of adult power if we do not allow them the chance to join the conversation.

"'I am not going to give up on you. I am not going to let you give up on yourself. If you sit there leaning against this wall all day, you are going to end up leaning on something or someone all your life. And all that brilliance bottled up inside you will go to waste...' Marva's highest aim as a teacher was to endow her students with the will to learn for themselves." (Marva Collins' Way)

* (Those studying Charlotte Mason's volumes may want to look at her story of the Grenfell twins in the Supplementary section of Philosophy of Education.)

Charlotte Mason is powerful (Part III)

by Anne White

Part I is here

Part II is here

In the book Marva Collins' Way, the first chapter begins with a description of the first day of school in Mrs. Collins' class, about forty years ago. She did not begin the school year with a game; she began with the words "The first thing we are going to do in here, children, is an awful lot of believing in ourselves." Then she handed out copies of Emerson's "Self-Reliance."

Now we may not all be great fans of Emerson, or think that his essays are an essential part of the second grade curriculum; but Marva Collins had a point. She also had something in common with Charlotte Mason, who insisted that true education was self-education. Self-reliance, strengthening the will, thinking independently (while still recognizing responsibility and duty); knowing that "I can": these were essential goals of a CM education.

Look at some of the goals given in the Notes of Lessons:

To train the pupils to think independently and to cultivate their constructive powers. 

To make the children think, by setting them questions which they cannot answer merely from their book

To increase the children's power of rapid mental work

To increase their power of reasoning and attention

To increase their power of observation

To exercise their reasoning powers

To increase their powers of narration & imagination

To increase their power of reflection by encouraging them to trace the Latin origin of words in our own language

To assist the cultivation of the pupils' mental habits [powers] of attention, promptness, and accuracy

To teach the girls self-reliance (through physical exercise)

To make the children use their common sense by giving approximate answers

To draw out their originality by letting them make designs for themselves.

To give the children exercise in judging various lengths and in drawing straight lines

To give practice in the choosing and laying on of colour 

To get the pupils to arrive at the rules by the investigation of examples

To improve E's reading [so he can do more for himself]

To enlarge his vocabulary [see above]

To increase the girls' knowledge of [the literary subject, Latin grammar, etc.]

To facilitate their translation [i.e. to give them more power in this]

To stimulate interest in algebra by showing how easily many problems may be solved.[i.e. showing them that they can solve problems]

To give the pupils an interest in Latin translation, and help them to attack it in the right way [similar to the previous goal] 

To give training to the ear

To draw from the children all that they have observed for themselves about [some aspect of nature] 

To give a greater appreciation of beauty

To help to train their hands in firmness and deftness

To teach him to use his fingers more easily, and be neater in his work

To enable the children to copy a basket by looking at it 

To establish relations with the past

To connect the past with the present.

To connect the lesson with the history they are doing.

To help the children look upon the separate battles as parts of one campaign

To help them to connect all the facts they know about [a historical figure]

To show how closely literature and history are linked together and how the one influences the other

To increase the girls' love of good literature [and their power to access it]

To inspire them with a desire to study zoology on their own account, both in books and from life

To paint berries.

There is much we could discuss about these, but much of it comes down to this: we want children to be able to. And to know that they are able to.

There are two children's books by Rumer Godden...at least two...that relate to these ideas: The Fairy Doll, and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. Both books deal with children who feel that they can't do things, don't fit in. Elizabeth in The Fairy Doll and Nona in Miss Happiness come out of their "stuck places" through acts of doing: making a fairy house out of a bicycle basket, building a house for two Japanese dolls. Elizabeth, in particular, suddenly sees "I can's" everywhere: she can suddenly remember her arithmetic, she learns to ride her bicycle, she stops being the child who holds everyone else up.

Even to know that you can paint berries...or make a fairy house...is a place to start.

This series will be completed in Part IV.

You might also enjoy: Head First, first posted here in 2013.