Learning from Whales and Other Inspiring Ideas

This month, the Charlotte Mason blog carnival is considering the topic of moral training — closely related to next month's topic, religious training. Both flow out of the idea of authority: what we ought to do depends upon who is the final authority. As a Christian, I see God as the final authority who decides what I ought to do. I believe that God is the final authority for all, even those who disagree with this view, as did Charlotte Mason. Just as gravity affects those who don't understand it or try to ignore it as demonstrated by countless disasters on America's Funniest Video, the moral Law set up by the Lawgiver still holds true.

I've never considered the word ought until now,

"Ought" is part of the verb "to owe," and that which we owe is a personal debt to a Lawgiver and Ruler, however men name the final authority. If they choose to speak of Buddha or Humanity, they do not escape from the sense of a moral authority. They know that that which they ought is that which they owe to do, a debt to some power or personality external to themselves. God has made us so that, however much we may be in the dark as to the divine Name, we can never for a minute escape from the sense of "Ought, the law. ~ Charlotte Mason (pages 126-127)

As Jesus, the One who paid my debt, attested, this Law isn't a rigidly enforced set of Do's and Don't's that creep into most religions. He boiled it down a simple principle. Love God and love others as yourself. What a timely whisper from God a week after a teen put this on the chalkboard at our school and the day after my pastor shared in his sermon that "We're number three!" in this look-out-for-number-one world.

Some moral impulses, such as generosity, come more easily than others. Recently, a friend leaving soon for a mission trip to Peru (yes, Amy, you read that correctly) shared her experiences with the kids at school. She showed us a video of the orphanage that we are supporting with the gift of construction paper and scissors. Seeing what little they have tugged at the hearts of our children. One, who suffers immensely in our hot summers, asked his mother if he could get a job to help buy an air conditioner for the kids. They all want to raise money, and we are considering something they can do with true work. A worm or cricket farm, perhaps.

Most feel the impulse to take care of the birds in our school yard and feed the fish in the pond and in the fish tank. They love animals! They care for the plants in our garden and watch to see them grow. Even chores get done with alacrity when they know that recess follows.


We also see what Mason called "selfish, resentful, unamiable movement of children's minds." Our task is to figure out what inspires a selfish heart to consider how actions affect people around it. What inspires an impatient heart to slow down and regroup. What helps a deceitful tongue tell the truth.

Mason recommended poetry, biography, and the Bible ("storehouse of the most inspiring biographies") for source material. Even a science book can offer a nugget of moral ideas. We'd noticed a bad habit creeping in one of the classes. They've become very good friends but, along with that friendship, came the desire to chatter all day long, even during a narration or while the teacher gave instructions. One day, we learned from Secrets of Sound that humpback whales sing songs that are more than calls (simple short sequences). They sing songs lasting as long as a half hour. Not only do they improvise like jazz singers but they sing their own "folk" songs unique to a region that change from season to season. And, whales NEVER interrupt the singer. Now, when they are too chatty, merely mentioning whales quietens them.

Stern lawgiver I yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through thee,
Are fresh and strong.
~ William Wordsworth

The Tale of the Sleeping Fish: A Parable of Mental Habits

Attention, the power of turning the whole force of the mind upon the subject brought before it.

Concentration, which differs from attention in that the mind is actively engaged on some given problem rather than passively receptive.

Intellectual Volition, the power, that is, of making ourselves think of a given subject at a given time;––most of us know how trying our refractory minds are in this matter, but, if the child is accustomed to take pleasure in the effort as effort, the man will find it easy to make himself think of what he will. ~ Charlotte Mason

Once upon a time, there were fourteen fish — thirteen swam around while one slept behind a plant. As they were new to this tank, they weren't quite familiar with how things were done. They didn't realize when they were to be fed, much less in what direction their banquet would appear.

One morning, the fish were quite hungry, but they didn't realize it was time for a feeding. They heard a strange creaking sound but hadn't yet connected it to the arrival of food. After the tank lid was opened, a boy and his friend sprinkled fish flakes on top of the water. The two watched the fish and waited and waited and waited for something to happen. None of the fish noticed the food floating above them. The boy and his friend giggled about the fish that were oblivious to their meal.



After several very long minutes, one fish flake slowly drifted down. The boy and his friend began to wonder which fish would spot it first. None of the fish paid attention to the flake until it fell halfway down the tank. Suddenly, the white fish with red blotches spotted the food and gobbled it up. The other thirteen fish didn't even know they had missed something. The boy and his friend began to giggle some more.



That fish remembered where the food came from and swam to the surface of the water. It gobbled up flake after flake. Then, another fish noticed its friend eating food at the surface and joined the feast. Before another minute passed, five fish had gobbled up most of the fish flakes. The boy and his friend tossed in more flakes and, by then, all the fish were at the surface gobbling food — all but one fish — the one sleeping behind the plant.



The boy and his friend watched and watched and waited and waited for that sleepy fish to wake up. It looked awake for its eyes were open. Clearly, it had no idea what it was missing. The boy and his friend waited for several minutes and then the jaws of the sleepy one began to move as if it were chewing. Perhaps, it heard the sound of its friends eating.



Its mouth grew wider and it chewed almost like a cow. It slowly drifted up from behind the plant. Then, the fish realized it has almost slept through breakfast. It zoomed to the surface of the water! Since the food was nearly gone, the boy and his friend sprinkled a few more flakes for the sleepy head.



Morals of the Story

Attention - Children are born with natural curiosity unless something hinders it. Sometimes, physical or brain issues get in the way. Sometimes, the education system encourages them to pay attention to earn cheap rewards (grades, test scores, awards, candy). When offered nourishing food (ideas found in living books and real things) and allowed to explore them with an active mind, they eventually learn to pay attention. Some take longer than others to join the feast.

Concentration - Children who have stayed too long in a stultifying atmosphere take awhile to wake up. My friend who fed the fish in this true fish tale, came to our school, highly resistant. He associated school with people who said "GREAT JOB" and "CALM DOWN". He associated school with long, tedious tasks and nothing that interested him in the least. He associated school with being asked to do things that were outside of his zone of proximal development.

As a result, he had developed the habit of balking when asked to do most things. It took some time and patience but we focused on developing a relationship with him. We kept lessons short and offered interesting things for him to do with free time. We consistently expected him to do little things within his reach and letting him do things he finds interesting — things like poring over animal books and magazines, feeding the fish, replenishing the bird feeders, cleaning the pond, working in the compost bin and garden, etc.

There was a time when a drawing in a nature notebook was "too hard" or "too boring." Now, he draws something and writes a sentence. He even drew a comic of the fish tale because he found the fish tale hilarious. Below is the nature notebook entry he made the day the school got the fish. He has gone from concentrating on how to get out of work to doing it so he can concentrate on what interests him.



Intellectual Volition - Some take a long time to find intrinsic motivation, especially if the education system hasn't been a good fit. Eventually, the sleepiest of minds or resistant minds or unfocused minds will find enough living ideas to find pleasure in the effort.

Anxiety the Note of a Transition Stage––Every new power, whether mechanical or spiritual, requires adjustment before it can be used to the full.... But to perceive that there is much which we ought to do and not to know exactly what it is, nor how to do it, does not add to the pleasure of life or to ease in living. We become worried, restless, anxious; and in the transition stage between the development of this new power and the adjustment which comes with time and experience, the fuller life, which is certainly ours, fails to make us either happier or more useful. ~ Charlotte Mason

Turtle Release Day

What is an idea? we ask, and find ourselves plunged beyond our depth. A live thing of the mind, seems to be the conclusion of our greatest thinkers from Plato to Bacon, from Bacon to Coleridge. We all know how an idea 'strikes,' 'seizes,' 'catches hold of,' 'impresses' us and at last, if it be big enough, 'possesses' us; in a word, behaves like an entity.

If we enquire into any person's habits of life, mental preoccupation, devotion to a cause or pursuit, he will usually tell us that such and such an idea struck him. This potency of an idea is matter of common recognition. No phrase is more common and more promising than, 'I have an idea'; we rise to such an opening as trout to a well-chosen fly. ~ Charlotte Mason

An idea is a slippery thing. It is not something to capture in a snapshot because an idea is alive. It is hard to recognize until seen in action. Once an idea takes hold, it grows into something beyond the initial inkling. When I first saw a friend post pictures of slider turtle eggs on Facebook in the summer of 2011, I thought it would be neat to study them. She ended up bringing her babies to Pamela's watercolor class. Seeing the turtles swimming made me long to study them more in-depth and attend their release.

Last summer, when my friend posted pictures of the nest, I begged her to let us come over and study them. She graciously obliged us, so Pamela and I saw their nest, peeked at their eggs, and visited them for a well baby check up. Bubbling over with excitement about the turtles, I shared the news with the children in our church afterschool program about nine yellow-bellied slider turtles a friend of mine was raising over the winter. The idea of seeing these little reptiles seized hold of those children. Unfortunately, my friend, a very busy volunteer who gives her time to others in so many ways, could not line up time for the turtles to visit us at church. Nearly every week, the kids would ask, "Mrs. Tammy, when is your friend going to bring the turtles?" Once the idea caught hold of them, they did not let up on begging to see them.

My homeschooling friends were also intrigued at the thought of studying the turtles. I suggested the idea of having a release celebration to the turtle lady, and she thought it would be marvelous to have a send-off for her babies. We timed the party for after our homeschooling gathering, and I invited the children from church, too. It turned out to be a wonderful day. After the initial surge of excitement died down, all my little friends had a chance to study the turtles up close.







Then, my friend dabbed non-toxic paint on the shells. It ended up being a bit messy because the turtles began climbing all over each other, smearing the painted. She placed the turtles in the center of a ring we formed around the turtles. We had a race to see which critter would reach a person first.





After my friend washed the paint off the turtles, we lined them up at the beach and watched them swim away, one by one. Some boldly headed off into the water. Others needed a little more guidance and encouragement from us, as you can see in the video below.

The traveler’s eye picked up a turtle trail,
Between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And followed it to where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried turtle’s egg;
And probing with one finger not too rough,
He found suspicious sand, and sure enough,
The pocket of a little turtle mine.
If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather,
All packed in sand to wait the trump together.
~ Robert Frost

What Is Real Learning?

In my last post, I described what fruit our science readings are bearing in Pamela's mind. She continues to refine her thinking about animal feet and put notes in her science notebook. She recorded tapir under the category clawed and discovered after careful research she had incorrectly placed as clawed when they are actually webbed. She cannot decide if trolls have claws or nails, which sparked a long discussion on my facebook page. While watching the speech Brutus makes right before Anthony steals the show, Pamela shared that Brutus had bloody fingernails but decided not to put that in her science notebook.

We started another page in her science notebook based on another train of thought Pamela has been following for some time: inventions. In one book on Alexander Graham Bell, he shares his newly invented liquid transmitter (i.e., telephone) at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. On display were machines invented between 1776 and 1876. Launching from that idea, she drew two columns in her notebook, labeled 1776-1876 and 1876-1976. She came up with a list of inventions and placed them in their proper category. Pamela continued to add items here and there and two days later asked, "What about 1995?" I flipped the paged and asked, "What should you write?" I was came up with three labels but refrained from giving her any suggestions because then I would steal from her the chance to think: 1976-2012, 1976-2076, and 1976-?. She chose to write the first option.

If you look carefully, Pamela wrote the word BETAs for the video format competing with VHS. We never had the beta system, nor have I taught Pamela about it. She has figured this out through her own research. Also, note that I could have encouraged Pamela to work backward in time and create more columns. However, then I would be thinking for her, which would hinder her from following an idea where it took her. Ideas let students to places when teachers get out of the way.

This school year I have reported how Pamela chooses the order of books and things: in her mind, she has organized every book, song, art study, etc. in chronological order. She has sorted them all from earliest event in B.C. to the latest one in A.D. We are singing Joy to the World for our hymn study and she placed it in B.C. when Jesus was born. She sandwiched it between Plutarch's account of Brutus and the New Testament reading. Pamela is quite flexible in how she approaches it. Some days she moves forward in time from beginning to end, and other days, vice versa. At other times, she closes her eyes and lets me pick in any order, giving her a clue and letting her guess which one. Now, she has refined her system even more: she has developed new categories: first century A.D., the Middle Ages, the 18th century, the 19th century, the 20th century, and 21st century. Sometimes we start in one category (Middle Ages) and jump to something completely different (21st century). By avoiding a strict structure and order, as is often recommended for children in the autism spectrum, I am letting Pamela think more flexibly.

The common thread in comments on that post pointed to these examples as being "real learning". One friend compared it to contrived teaching:

This is just what we experienced regarding geography. Last year I broached the subject of learning the names of the states using a fun music CD that our nieces had enjoyed. We had already been using the idea of bringing out the map or globe whenever we started a new book. Tim resisted so I put it aside. Then in the spring we took an Amtrak trip to Iowa. Tim became interested in the states we traveled through, looking at the travel map and talking about it often. When I brought up the idea of learning the states again, he was very interested and geography became a favorite subject! The next step for him was really fun. He likes trains so he thought of the idea of using the capitals of the states as the names in the states song instead of the states' names. All of the motivation for this was internal and was really fun to watch!

Two friends were pleased to be given a way to assess what real learning is: "This is a wonderful way of distinguishing real learning, which is fruitful and branches off in various directions, from rote learning. I'd never thought of it exactly that way before." "I simply loved reading your account of Pamela's interest in toe nails etc. I thought to myself this is real learning.Something she will treasure her whole life. I so much agree with you that we as teachers need to get out of the way and let them learn."

Another friend linked real learning to flexible thinking: "I so enjoy reading about Pamela's progress. I am overawed at her dynamic thinking."

What is real learning? I think real learning is giving an alert, curious mind the scope to explore ideas and follow them into paths of thinking that begin to intertwine and weave a beautiful tapestry of thoughts.

What is an idea? Borrowing from Charlotte Mason, "A live thing of the mind, seems to be the conclusion of our greatest thinkers from Plato to Bacon, from Bacon to Coleridge. We all know how an idea 'strikes,' 'seizes,' 'catches hold of,' 'impresses' us and at last, if it be big enough, 'possesses' us; in a word, behaves like an entity" (Page 105) I remember the very moment when the idea of animals having toenails was born. Pamela stared at the feet of the young gorilla and marveled that the primate had black toenails.

What does the mind do with an idea? Coleridge wrote (Page 107-108),

From the first or initiative idea, as from a seed, successive ideas germinate.

Events and images, the lively and spirit-stirring machinery of the external world, are like light and air and moisture to the seed of the mind which would else rot and perish.

Progress follows the path of the idea from which it sets out requiring however a constant wakefulness of mind to keep it within the due limits of its course. Hence the orbits of thought, so to speak, must differ from among themselves as the initiative ideas differ.

Looking at a picture of a gorilla's foot planted a seed. The seed began to germinate. Pamela sought images and researched information to explore that idea. From that day on, her thoughts went back to gorillas with toenails and followed it to other animals with toenails, to animals with other kinds of feet, to imaginary creatures. Her wakeful mind has continued to refine her thinking in the past year and has categorized animal feet and classified animals and imaginary creatures by their feet.

Here are some questions to ponder on whether or not we are fostering real learning:

Is there time in the day for children to explore, think, wonder, and ponder?

Would your books fall into the category of a compendium of facts or ideas clothed in story

Are books, things, and things you do laid out in such away that there are no neat categories?

Is what you present wide and varied, eclectic, written with literary power?

Do you focus on getting something out of your student or seeing how the mind acts upon ideas?

Do you learn new things every week?

What do you value more, process or product?

Does you student ...

• ask what a word means?
• make connections between books that you never noticed?
• ask you questions that have nothing to do with what you are studying?
• use words you have never taught them explicitly?
• desire to explore topics you are studying during free time?
• act out a story or historical event for fun?
• follow an idea and refine it into new ways of thinking?
• look forward to starting a new book or feel sad when a beloved one is finished?
• live in a larger world of ideas?
• grow more flexible in their thinking?
• ask questions that have nothing to do with anything you have ever done or read?

Fruits of Thoughts

Sometimes, trying to visualize what Charlotte Mason meant in her writings is difficult until you see them in action. Some of my favorite moments are when her ideas come to life in the form of homeschooling Pamela. For example, sitting at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, watching Pamela record artifacts into her book of centuries last month filled my heart with joyful tears. Other moments come from grand conversations that come from living books such as the time we talked about culinary horror stories triggered by a paragraph in The Brendan Voyage. Or the day when we were sitting on the back porch rockers making a nature notebook entry and a lone monarch butterfly flashed into the corner of my eye. I could go on, but I won't bore you. Another sweet example that has been emerging all last year brought this passage to life.

[Let me] conclude with a wise sentence of Coleridge's concerning the method of Plato, which should be always present to the minds of persons engaged in the training of children:––

Plato's Educational Aim.––"He desired not to assist in storing the passive mind with the various sorts of knowledge most in request, as if the human soul were a mere repository or banqueting room, but to place it in such relations of circumstance as should gradually excite its vegetating and germinating powers to produce new fruits of thought, new conceptions and imaginations and ideas." (Page 125)

What exactly did she mean?

I think about how children "learn" today. Adults pour facts into passive minds and students regurgitate them upon request until they is no longer requested and new facts replace the old ones. True learning of knowledge begins to germinate new ways of thinking. Some ideas are like beans and they sprout very quickly. Other ideas must age for a long time like tropical seeds before they germinate and eventually bear fruit. Last year, I noted Pamela's fascination with gorilla toenails after she studied a picture in a book we were reading. A new conception in her mind, that gorillas have toenails and fingernails like her, has born fruit all year long.

At first, Pamela talked about gorilla toenails a lot. Then she shifted to other primates with nails and eventually other mammals. In time, she shifted to claws, then hooves, and recently webbed feet. She also came up with a category called nothing for creatures like snakes. Today, I thought she might enjoy recording these conceptions that have been percolating in her mind for the past year into her science notebook. She loved it. Pamela drew the vertical lines and set up her categories. She came up with so many animals with claws that she had to write on the backside of the page. When she thought of salmon, Pamela realized she needed a category for fins. Later, she added flippers since they seemed to fit together. She remembered talons and I had to look up the exact difference between talons and claws to help her classify. Tentacles popped into her head for another category.



During this process, I noticed many interesting things about how Pamela's mind works. She thinks very flexibly. After she focused on one category and ran out of ideas, I would come up with an animal in a different category. She easily shifted somewhere else and often shifted on her own. Once we went back to reading, her mind pondered some more and she was able to "hold that thought" until we finished the book. While I grabbed another book, she recorded new animals. She cares enough about spelling to ask for help but doesn't obsess if something didn't look quite right. When she realized she put an creature in the wrong category, she simply erased it and corrected her error.

Pamela's knowledge of animal names and body parts are wide and varied. She came up with some obscure animals like grackle, anteater, pike, lynx, and platypus. She came up with extinct animals like mammoth, dinosaur, and dodo. She even included imaginary animals like beast, dragon, monster, and unicorn. You might be wondering why she put aliens under the category of tentacles. Here are three reasons: (1) Kang and Kodos, (2) Galaxy Quest, and (3) A Wrinkle in Time.

Now, if your "take away" is to create a worksheet or lap book for your kid, then you are missing my point! Pamela enjoyed this process because her mind had been chewing on categorization based upon feet for the past year. One small idea led to her mind being tuned into putting her thoughts into writing.

The hard part for teachers is the art of stepping aside, waiting for seeds to germinating, and guiding the child into meaningful expressions of them when the new conceptions are bearing fruit.