The Series by Subject
Charlotte Mason's ideas are too important not to be understood and implemented in the 21st century, but her Victorian style of writing sometimes prevents parents from attempting to read her books. This is an imperfect attempt to make Charlotte's words accessible to modern parents. You may read these, print them out, share them with your local study group--but they are copyrighted to me, so please don't post or publish them without asking.
~L. N. Laurio
Geography
Volume 1, Home Education, pg 72-78
IX.--Out-Of-Door Geography
Small Things May Illustrate Bigger Things
We detoured from our topic to impress on mothers how important it is to inspire a love of nature in their children. A passion for natural objects can be like a wellspring of refreshment to a dry heart. Meanwhile, what about that mother from a few chapters back, who has been outdoors with her children? What is she to do next? She mustn't neglect teaching topography in her attempt to get children outside, as one teacher did, who when asked how she had time to fit it all in, said, 'Oh, I leave out subjects of no educational value; I do not teach geography, for instance.'
Pictorial Geography
But a mother knows better. She will find lots of ways to sneak in geography lessons. A duck pond can illustrate a big lake. A small brook can be like the Nile River. A little hill can be the Swiss Alps. A copse of trees can be the Amazon rainforest. A reedy swamp might be the rice fields of China. A meadow could be like the western prairies. A field of purple flowers might be the cotton fields of the south. Every kind of geographical type can be illustrated casually this way. The concept of maps can be taught in later years.
The Position of the Sun
Children should also learn to tell the time by the sun's position in the sky. They will undoubtedly ask if the sun ever gets tired, and then the mother can talk about the relative sizes of the sun and earth and about the orbits of bodies in the heavens.
Clouds, Rain, Snow, and Hail
Clouds, rain, snow, hail, wind and fog are all wonders of God that mothers will be asked to explain to their children in simple terms. If children are to understand any concepts of maps and geography at all, they will have to begin by learning about what's right in their own environment.
Distance is something that children must first learn at home, and it's fun for them to learn it. A child's pace [one step] can be measured and compared to the paces of his siblings. Then he can count how many steps it takes to walk to a certain point and multiply to get the distance--so many steps equals so many yards distance. Various walks around the home can be measured in this way. The time it takes to walk one hundred steps can be calculated and used as a reference to estimate other distances walked. If it takes two minutes for him to walk one hundred yards, he can calculate how far he's gone after walking for 30 minutes or 35 minutes, and he can figure out how long he has to walk to go one mile. The longer the legs of a person, the bigger their pace. That's why most grown-ups can walk a mile in just twenty minutes.
Direction
After the child is comfortable with calculating distance, the concept of direction can be introduced. The first step is making him aware of the progress of the sun. If he observes where the sun rises and sets in the sky during the year, he will have already learned something. He should be made aware of how the sun's light reflects in different windows in morning and evening, the differences in shadows at various times of day, how shadows are made by playing with a figure between a screen and a flashlight [or perhaps by making hand shadows!] He should be made aware of the heat when the sun is at its highest in the sky, and how the sun being lower in the sky results in cooler temperatures. He can be reminded how he feels warmer in a room while standing close to the source of the heat rather than in a far-off corner. When he is familiar with all of these observations related to the sun, he will be ready for the concept of direction, since that depends entirely on the sun.
East and West
The first ideas to learn are that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Just by knowing this he'll be able to tell in which direction nearby streets and buildings are from his house or the town where he lives. Have him stand so that east is towards his right where the sun rises and west is towards his left, where the sun sets. Everything straight in front of him is north, everything behind him is south. If he is in a certain place and wants to know in which direction a certain road goes but he has never seen the sun rise or set there, he can observe where his shadow falls at noon. At noon, all shadows fall a little north. Then he just has to face north so that east is on his right side and west is on his left side to tell which direction the road goes.
Practice in Finding Direction
Here's a way to learn something about the names of England's great railways. With a little practice, telling direction by the sun will get easier. Let him practice by looking out windows at home or school to observe which direction they face, or which direction rows of houses or church walls face. Soon he'll be able to tell the direction of the wind by observing smoke blowing from a chimney or branches or fields blowing in the breeze. If the wind blows in from the north, it means colder weather and perhaps some snow. If it's a west wind (from the west), it may mean rain. Children should understand that a wind is named for where it came from, not where it's blowing to. In the same way, he is English because he's from England. He doesn't become French because he's going to France. Now the concepts of distance and direction can be combined. A certain building might be judged to be 200 yards east of the gate, or a town might be two miles to the west. The child will soon find that not everything is exactly north or south or east or west. Let him figure out his own way of solving that difficulty: 'It's more east than west,' or 'It's sort of east but not quite,' or 'It's halfway between east and west.' He will appreciate the value of exact expression when he comes across a need for it on his own.
Later he can have a compass and observe how it marks all four directions. The compass will display the in-between names for all those difficult-to-pin-down directions he came across before.
Compass Drill
Then he can do compass exercises like this: Have him stand so that the compass points north. Then have him turn towards the east and observe how the needle moves in a different direction. However he turns, the needle follows with a movement of its own. How does the compass know when he moves? Have him walk straight in any direction and note that the needle isn't perfectly still, because, no matter how hard he tries, he can't help walking a little to the right or to the left. Have him move in a complete circle very slowly and watch the needle also make a complete circle in the opposite direction as it tries to stay pointed towards the north.
Boundaries
Once children understand the concept of direction, the concept of boundaries comes easily. A certain field, for example, is bounded by a road on the south, by a fenced field on the south-east, a hedge on the north-east, etc. By this, children come to understand that boundaries are no more than a space marked out by whatever touches it. A field may touch another without having any visible line between them, but it's still a boundary. Children should have a clear understanding of this because, later, they will come across countries in their geography lessons that are 'bounded by such and such.' Whether a space is a village, town, pond or field, children should be made to observe what kinds of crops grow in their area and why the land was used for those crops, or pasturing sheep, and what kinds of rocks are in the ground, and how many different kinds of trees grow there. For every field or space they examine, they should sketch it out in the dirt, drawing a rough outline of the shape and lettering N, S, E and W.
Drawing Plans
Once they have drawn a few of these rough plans of outdoor spaces, they can sometimes pace the length of a field and draw a kind of map to scale, allowing one inch for every five or ten yards. Then they can sketch the lay-out of the garden or barn or house.
Local Geography
A child's own area may provide opportunities to learn what a hill is, or a dale, pool, brook, watershed, current, bed, bank, tributary, and the relative position of nearby towns. He should be able to sketch this roughly with chalk or a rock or even a stick in the dirt, estimating the distances of all those things.
Volume 1, Home Education, pg 271-279
XVII.--Geography
I think geography is highly educational, but not because it includes some scientific value. Geography has its share of scientific problems, and some very interesting ones. It provides some opportunities to classify things. But it's only physical geography that might be related to science, and even then it touches on several different sciences. It's not a science in and of itself. No, the reason geography is so valuable is because it gives an opportunity to furnish the mind with ideas, and to add pictures to the imagination. That's what makes geography so educational.
Geography As It's Usually Taught
How is geography usually taught? The child has to memorize the capital cities of Europe, or the rivers of England, or the names of mountains in Scotland, from some miserably dull textbook. He has to learn how many miles long, or feet high, or population count, or find the names on his map, whatever his teacher assigns. Poor child! His lesson is difficult, but is it educating him? Is it developing his mental power or broadening his mind? No, he'd learn more by watching a fly walk up a window. But someone might argue, geography serves more purpose than just educational. Shouldn't everybody know the kinds of things geography teaches? Yes, but consider a classroom of children. Shouldn't their geography lessons teach them the kind of things that grown-ups would like to know? Consider how unreasonable we adults are. We would never read a travel book that wasn't interesting, lively and adventurous. Even when we go around with our Fodor's travel guide in hand, we skip the dry facts and figures and read the interesting descriptions of places. That's the kind of thing we like to know about and that we remember easily. But we refuse such interesting tidbits for our children. We don't let them have vivid phrases to dream about. No, we think they need facts, names and figures.
Geography Should be Interesting
But, you might argue, although dry facts may be difficult to learn, it's useful later in life to know those things. Not true, and here's why. Those facts were never really received and assimilated by the mind. They never became more than unattached vague terms of short-term memory. Most of us have spent hours over the drudgery of memorizing geography lessons, but how much do we remember? We only remember the pleasant descriptions we heard from friends who visited Europe, or some things from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or some other adventure. And that's how children should learn geography. To be educational, the child's mind must be filled with ideas. His imagination must be enhanced with images. He must learn geography in a way that he'll remember. In other words, he should learn what's interesting to him. What's educational and what's practical both work together, and a child's geography lessons become his favorite part of school.
How to Begin
But where to start? First of all, children get their foundation for geography knowledge by observing natural science during all those hours of being outdoors that are so important, as I emphasized earlier. A pond that gets water from a creek in the woods will help children understand how a lake works, and will give an idea what a lake nestled in the Alps is like, or the big lake in Africa that Livingstone watched his children paddling in. In making these connections, there will be some pleasant discussion about real places, which might be thought of as 'pictorial geography.' After listening to that kind of interesting talk, the child will unconsciously pick up the names of great rivers, mountains, deserts, plains cities and countries in the world. At the same time, the child should be getting his first concepts of how maps work by seeing you make rough sketches as you talk with a few lines and dots on paper, or, even better, a stick in the sand or dirt. 'This squiggly line is the Rhine river, but you'll have to imagine the rafts and the island with the Mouse Tower, and the Nuns' Island, and the rest. These are the hills with their ruined castles on both sides. This dot is Cologne,' etc. Even more, let these talks be about the scenery at home and things you're familiar with. That way, when he later looks at a map of his homeland, he'll see lots of names he recognizes that will bring interesting landscapes to mind, places 'where Mom has been,' the wooded flowery banks of a local river, the rolling hills of the next town that are fun to run and roll on, the plains in the county across the river where berries grow. And always give him a roughly sketched map of the route when you take a trip.
What Next?
Next, give him thorough, detailed knowledge of any country in the world, and some county or district near his home. He doesn't need to memorize 'the geography' of every country in Europe, or the names of the seven continents. Those are merely meaningless names to him for the most part. Even if he does learn them, he probably won't remember them. But if he can feel at home in any one region, if he can envision in his mind the people there working and having fun, the flowers and trees bearing fruit in their season, the animals that are common there, and if he can see it all sympathetically as an adventurous traveler, then he will know more than if he had learned all the names on the map. The way to accomplish this kind of teaching is simple and obvious. Read to him, or read to yourself and tell him back a little bit at a time, an interesting, well-written travel book such as Tropical World or Polar World, both by G. Hartwig, or Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bishop Bird. You may have to leave out a lot, but every anecdote or description that helps show something about the place will enhance the child's education. Here, as with everything else, it isn't how many things he knows about that counts, but how much he knows about each thing.
Maps
Maps should be used carefully. A map can be sketched during a trip and then compared later to a real map of the region. The teacher can ask the child for a description of a certain city or town marked on the map to see how much the child really knows about the place. This also helps the child to have intelligent ideas about physical geography. In his reading, he may find a description of a volcano, or a glacier, or a canyon or hurricane, and he'll want to hear more about it and ask how and why questions about it, or about whatever interesting phenomena has captured his attention. In other words, he'll learn in the same way that grown-ups prefer to learn themselves, although they rarely think to let children learn in the same pleasant manner.
The General Knowledge that a Child of Nine Should Have
If a half dozen well-chosen travel books have been read to a child between the ages of six and nine, he will have some idea of what people are like and what they do in every major region of the world. He will have collected some reliable, valuable knowledge about the world that will be a benefit to him all his life. And he will have developed an interest in books and the habit of reading. Books that cover too much ground like A Voyage in the Sunbeam by Annie Brassey should be avoided, because they can breed confusing ideas.
Particular Knowledge
We are discussing lessons as tools in a child's education, and so far the kind of learning I've discussed here has been what a child might do at home in his free time. For school lessons, the best book I know of is World at Home; or, Pictures and Scenes from Far-off-Lands by Mary and Elizabeth Kirby, for children aged 6 or 7. As they listen, they wonder, admire, imagine and role play all kinds of scenes. A child's first geography lessons about places should make him more observant of his own local environment. They should make him notice the features of his neighborhood, its hills and low places, where it's level, its streams and ponds. He should spend a lot of time outside seeing these things. He should be able to relate those things to generalized understandings of things, such as what a river is, or island or lake. He should be able to make one in the sandbox, or draw one on the blackboard.
Definitions
Definitions should be arrived at as he records these things. For instance, before he learns the definition of a river, he should have watched a stream and observed how it flows.
Children easily parrot facts, so the teacher will need to be careful that he isn't assimilating mere word definitions, but that he has worked out and understands what these things are from his own observations and experiences. For example, the child sees a wide stretch of flat land and his teacher explains something about it. Then he reads something about 'Pampas' of Argentina in his book, and about the flat land of Kansas, and little by little, he begins to understand the idea of a plain and can show what it's like in a tray of sand.
Fundamental Ideas
By the time he's seven, or even earlier, the child finds that he needs to know more. He's read about hot countries and cold countries, he's watched the seasons where he lives, and the rising and setting of the sun, he's repeated to himself,
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!"
He knows a little about the ocean and the sea, he's seen the tide come in and out, he's seen some roughly sketched maps and even made a few himself. He has probably noticed the criss-cross lines on 'real' maps. Now he is ready to learn about various things. There are some things about geography that he's been introduced to that he really wants to know more about.
The shape of the earth and its rotation are fundamental ideas, even though they are difficult for a child to understand. It will be easier as the child matures.
In each case, the principle itself is simple. Children don't dwell on the magnitude of the universe and planet rotations and continents like adults do. Children have vivid imaginations and they can picture the way the Earth moves, what makes the seasons, and other things without needing to know how many exponential times larger the real things are.
The Meaning of a Map
Geography should mostly be learned from maps. Talking about landscapes and reading travel books is only an introduction to geography. When the child begins real geography lessons, he should be learning from maps. This principle is important. No matter how many interesting facts and anecdotes a child may know about Italy, if he isn't familiar with it on a map, then he knows nothing about its geography. So his geography lessons should begin by learning what a map is and how to use one. He should make a scale drawing of how his classroom is mapped out. Then he should sketch out a field, and then the plan of how his town is laid out. Gradually he should be made aware that these scale drawings are maps. An explorer finds a new land and measures it and uses the sun and stars to record where things are on the earth's surface, whether north, south, east or west.
Then he can learn that the lines on a map are latitude and longitude, and what that means. He will learn how water and land look on a map and how rivers and mountains are represented. He should already know which way is north, south, east, west and be able to use a compass. He will learn that maps are always made as if you're looking north, which will help him figure out some things about maps, such as direction, pretty quickly. The introductory ideas about geography and how to use a map will provide what he needs to learn geography in a fun way. He will think of geography as something he likes because of the wonder and amazement from books and talks, and map work will give him some mechanical knowledge that he will also enjoy. Geography lessons only seem dull to a child when he begins with dry facts and concise lists of things to learn. If we want our children to enjoy geography, it's worth trying to make their first experiences with it as interesting and fresh as we'd want them to be if it was us learning.
Volume 2, Parents and Children, pg 278
Our Teaching Must be Fresh and Living
If we begin with this concept of a child, then we'll realize that whatever seems dull and pointless to us is going to seem dull and pointless to him. Every subject can be taught with a fresh, living approach. Is it time for geography? The child can make discoveries right along with the explorer, go on journeys with the traveler, and receive new, vivid impressions from someone else's mind as his pen records his first impressions. Why should the child receive impressions that have been rendered flat and stale after intermediate editors have filtered through it and put what's left into a textbook? Is he learning history? He has no interest in strings of dates and lists of names, or pleasant little stories that have been dumbed down to their supposed comprehension level. We know better. We realize that his comprehension level is at least as great as our own, although we need to fill in surrounding circumstances and background information as best we can because he doesn't know about them yet.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 79
Chapter 8. Certain Relationships that are Proper for Children
Geology, mineralogy, physical geography, botany, nature, biology, astronomy--the entire realm of science is like a beautiful fenced green field and we need to bring the child to the gate and leave it open for him. He doesn't need a thorough collection of facts. He needs what Huxley calls 'common information' so that he'll feel some connection with things on the earth and in the heavens. He'll feel as interested as if he owned it all--the same way that a man does when his parents die and he inherits their old house with its reminiscent heirlooms.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 222
Education is the Science of Relationships
The idea that gives life to the teaching in the Parents' Union is the idea that 'Education is the Science of Relationships.' That phrase means that children come into the world with a 'natural appetite,' to use Coleridge's mental image, and with a natural attraction to knowledge of all kinds and in all forms. They have a natural interest in the heroic past and in the age of myths. They want to know about everything that moves and lives, and strange places and strange people. They want to handle materials and make things. They have a desire to run and ride and row and do whatever gravity will allow them to do. That's why we think it's wrong to select certain subjects and exclude others when a child is young.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 237
The nature walk shouldn't be used as a chance to dispense miscellaneous tidbits of scientific facts. The study of science should be taught in an ordered sequence, and that's not possible or even desirable during a nature walk. I think that an essential aspect of any living education should be for all students of all ages to spend a half day every week throughout the entire year, outside in nature. In almost every town, there's some place where children can have the opportunity to observe the changing seasons from week to week.
Geography, geology, the sun's course through the sky, the way clouds behave, signs of the weather, everything that the open air has to offer, are utilized on these walks, but it's all casual and incidental, things are simply noticed as they happen to come up. In most areas there are probably naturalists who would be willing to help with these nature walks in one of the local schools.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 272
Bible lessons, read directly from the Bible; tales, nature science, and geography are taught from assigned books and supplemented with the child's own observation.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 301
The six years' curriculum--from ages six to twelve--that I suggest, should and does result in the ability of the students . . .
. . . (m) In Geography they will
have studied the map of the world in detail,
and have been at one time able to fill in the landscape, industries,
etc., from their studies, of each region of the map.
(n) They will have learned the
fundamental elements of Physical Geography, Botany,
Human Physiology, and Natural History/science, and will have read
interesting
books on some of these subjects.
Volume 3, School Education, pg 348-351 [a sample Geography Lesson]
Subject: Geography.
Group: Science. Class III. Average Age: 13. Time: 30 minutes.
SCANDINAVIA--NORWAY IN PARTICULAR.
OBJECTS.
1. To introduce the children to Scandinavia.
2. To foster interest in foreign countries.
3. To teach the children how to learn the map of a country by means of
map questions.
4. To implant mental pictures of the characteristic scenery of Norway
in the children's minds.
5. To show, by means of comparison, the great difference in the
physical features of the two countries which are included in
Scandinavia, although they form only one peninsula.
LESSON.
Step 1. Let the children learn the map of Scandinavia, Norway in particular, by means of the map questions previously written on the blackboard, writing down their answers.
Step 2. Ask for a general description of Scandinavia.
Step 3. Let the children fill in the blank map on the blackboard.
Step 4. Require the children to give the answers to the questions, and, as they answer, give information, in order that they may become acquainted with each place as it is mentioned, and be able to picture it in their minds.
MAP QUESTIONS.
From the Geographical Readers, Book IV.
1. What waters bound the Scandinavian peninsula? To what land is it attached? What countries does it include?
NOTE. Describe the government of Scandinavia briefly, showing that, although Sweden and Norway have a common sovereign, each country has an independent parliament, elected in very much the same way, as our English Parliament.
2. Through how many degrees of latitude does this peninsula stretch? What other countries of the world lie partly in the same latitude?
3. Describe the coast of Norway. Compare it with that of Sweden. Name the four largest fiords or openings, beginning at the extreme north.
NOTE. Give the idea of the extraordinary way in which the coast is cut up, and the immense number of islands which fringe it. Girls to notice how these islands form an effective breakwater to the force of the Atlantic breakers, so that within their boundary the water is as calm and still as a lake.
Describe the rocky, almost perpendicular sides of the fiords, over which the rivers fall in roaring torrents. Mention the fact that many ships of the Spanish Armada were driven as far north as Stadtland, and wrecked around this dangerous headland.
The Sogne is the largest and most important fiord. It is like a long sea channel running into the country for a distance of 100 miles, with branches right and left, over which wonderful torrents fall. The sides are very steep, and the water is very deep at the entrance. At the Sulen Islands, at the mouth of the fiord, Harold Hardrada collected his force for his expedition against England.
4. Name a group of islands north of the Arctic Circle. The most northerly island. The cape on this island. The most northerly cape on the mainland. The most southerly cape.
NOTE. The Lofoden Islands are granite rocks, rising from the
water in
hundreds of peaks, with jagged and fantastic outlines. The cod
fisheries of these islands are very important, and employ a great
number of people.
Nordkin, which means 'north chin,' is the most northerly point on
the mainland of Europe. Incessant storms rage round the island of
Mageroe, so that it is extremely difficult for anyone to land there.
Lindesnaes means 'Lime nose.'
5. Name five towns on the west, and three on the southeast coast of Norway.
NOTE. Stavanger is the fourth largest city in Norway. Its chief
trade is
in
herrings. It has a very ancient Cathedral.
At Bergen the houses are built on the slopes of the hiIls which run out
into the deep sea. It was formerly the capital, and is now a great fish
port.
Trondhjem is the oldest capital. The name means 'home of the
throne,' and in the Cathedral the kings of Norway are crowned.
Hammerfest is the most northerly town in Europe.
Tourists go there to see the midnight sun. Read Charles H. Wood's
description of the midnight sun, from the Geographical Reader.
Christiania, the capital of Norway, is not a big town, but has a most
beautiful situation. It is at the head of the Christiania Fiord, which
is studded with countless grassy and wooded islands. Most of the houses
are of wood, painted white, with green blinds. The fiord, which used to
be very much frequented by the old Vikings, is blocked by ice for four
months of the year.
6. The Scandinavian mountains nearly fill Norway--by what name is the range known in the north, south, and centre? Name three or four of the highest peaks.
NOTE. There is no continuous range in the Scandinavian
mountains; the
whole
is a high table-land, which increases in height as we go south, with
here and there groups of peaks which appear like huge rocks dotted over
the surface.
These plateaux are topped with moors or snowfields from which glaciers
descend right down into the sea.
7. How does the position of the mountains affect the rivers? Compare the rivers of Norway with those of Sweden.
NOTE. Describe how, in Norway, the rivers rush in torrents over their rocky beds, while those in Sweden flow more gently down the gradual slope of the land. Give the threefold reason--great rainfall, small evaporation owing to the coldness of the climate, and small waste owing to the hardness of the rocks--for the great volume of water in the short, quick, Norwegian rivers.
8. Recapitulate with blank map, the girls adding descriptive notes as they answer the map questions.
Volume 5, Formation of Character, pg 283-285
It seems that nature, one way or another, opens up for children a sense of past time (history) and remote places (geography), and makes one suspect that these concepts are necessary mind food for the child's development. With that fact in mind, what good is a school education that either eliminates this mind food altogether, or else serves it in dry, boring tidbits that the imagination can't work on?
Jörn got some history and geography, too--but through other means. On the front of his house, there were inscriptions telling of all the previous Uhls for the past three hundred years. There was also an old oak chest, and Jörn gradually became aware of its significance. His sense of geography was associated with the wide heath where his uncle Thiess Thiessen lived. He was an odd hermit who often slept among his piles of turf, and he also had an intellectual outlet. His most cherished possession was an old atlas, and his whitewashed walls were covered with his rough scrawled writings about journeys he took from China to Peru, or Hamburg, or the outlet of Schleswig-Holstein--all kinds of places around the world. This was how a child should discover geography! Of all the mistakes we make, the worst one might be the way we cheat children out of the living ideas that they have a right to. Here's a wonderful description of how a basic geographical concept was understood by Diogenes/Gneschen and how slowly it dawned on him. (Normally, it would be enough to give the chapter and verse for people to know which section I'm talking about, but Sartor Resartus is an older book, and people seem to only read new books anymore. So I'll include the quote.) 'The mail wagon worked in a similar way, slowly rolling along under its burden of passengers and luggage, winding through our little village. It went towards the north in the dead of night, yet I could see it go towards the south in the evenings. It wasn't until I was eight years old that it dawned on me that the mail wagon must be like the moon--rising and setting by some Law of Nature just like the real moon. It must have come from highways made by men, from cities far away, and towards other cities far away, making them seem closer and closer in the same way that a weaver uses his shuttle to bring threads closer together. It was then that I consciously thought of this significant concept: any road, even this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the world!' That's just what an Irish peasant said the other day when someone asked him where a particular road led to.
He also saw the swallows that showed up every year all the way from Africa and made their nests in the 'cottage lobby.' From them, he learned how birds behave. 'Surrounded by the mystery of existence in this way, under the heavenly sky, enjoying the bounties of the four seasons with their various gifts (even grim winter had skating contests, shooting contests, snows and Christmas carols) Gneschen absorbed and learned. These things were like his ABC's, and they helped him later to decode and partly read the great book we know as the world. What difference does it make whether the alphabet you learn from is in big, fancy colored letters, or small plain ones, as long as you have eyes to see it? For Gneschen, who was eager to learn, the mere experience of looking at the letters was all the color he needed. His existence was a bright, soft element of joy, and out of that existence, wonder after wonder stepped out to teach him with its fascination, just like Prospero's Island [Prospero is from The Tempest].'
Volume 5, Formation of Character, pg 317-318
He [Goethe] writes that, through hard work, he finally learned the things that his father and the teachers that his father hired wanted him to learn. But he wasn't grounded with a solid foundation in anything. We've already seen that he disliked grammar, although he tolerated Latin grammar because the rhymes helped his memory. The children had a geography book in verse, too, and that helped them to remember facts and names of places. But using their finger on the globe to trace George Anson's voyages and their father's travels is probably what gave them their real knowledge of geography.
Goethe's father was proud of his son's gift for language and rhetoric, and he made lots of plans for the future based on these gifts. For example, his son should go to two universities--Leipsic first, and then he could choose the second one himself,--and then he should travel in Italy. And, at that, the father would start talking about Naples, which was much more interesting to the children than whatever might happen in the distant future.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 39-42
Like faith, education is the evidence of things not seen. We have to begin with the notion that the body's task is to grow. It grows upon healthy food, which is itself made up of living cells. Each cell is, in fact, a perfect life in itself. Analogies are never adequate or accurate, but, in a similar way, the only proper nutrition for the mind is ideas. And ideas, like the single cells of physical tissue, appear to go through the same stages and functions as a life. We receive ideas with appetite and some interest. Ideas seem to feed in an odd way--for instance, we hear of some new treatment for AIDS, or a poet's latest thought, or the new direction that some school of art is taking. We take in the idea, we accept it, and, it seems, for days after that, everywhere we turn, every magazine we pick up, every person we talk to, brings food for the notion we've just received. The casual reader might say, 'You can't prove that.' But watch how your own minds acts towards any idea in the wind. You'll see that the kind of process I've just described will happen. And it's this same process that needs to be considered when educating children. We can't continue taking things as casually as we've been doing. Our job is to give children the great ideas of life--ideas in religion, history, science, but it's the ideas they need, although they may be clothed with facts. And we must give the child space to deal with them in his own way.
For example, this might be how a child deals with geography:
'When I heard about any country across the sea, I would envision the glory of that place. That vision would rise up in me until the whole thing filled and expanded me. I saw its goods, its rivers, meadows, people. I felt like I owned the vision of that place, as if it had been prepared just for me. That's how much joy I had in my vision. When I heard the Bible being read, my spirit felt like it was really there in another time. I could see the light and splendor of those ages, and the land of Canaan, the Israelites entering in, the ancient splendor of the Amorites, their peace and wealth, their cities, houses, grapevines and fig trees. I saw and felt all of this in such a real way that it seemed as if these places could only be entered into by the spirit. I could physically stay in the same place, yet visit and enjoy all these other places in my mind. No matter how long ago something happened, even a thousand years ago, it could always seem to be right there in front of me.'
I'm quoting Traherne again because I don't know of any other writer who still has such a clear memory of his infancy. But Goethe gives an equally thorough and convincing account of his early experiences with the Bible (see Volume 5). I use the word 'experience' with caution because the word implies the process children use to get to know something. They 'experience' everything they hear and read about. In this way, ideas feed their minds quite literally!
What about our geography lessons? Do they take our children there in their spirits? Do they feel like they're experiencing and living in the story of God's calling to Abraham? Or the story of the blind man who was healed on his way to Jericho? If they don't, it's not the teacher's lack of sincerity or intention to blame. The fault is the teacher's lack of confidence in children. He doesn't have an accurate assessment of a child's mind, so he bores his students with a lot of talk about things that they're quite able to understand for themselves--in fact, they understand it better than he does. How many teachers know that children don't need any pictures except the paintings of great artists, which serve a different purpose than illustrating? Children can see in their minds a picture more glorious, and usually more accurate than we, with our jaded experience, can envision. They're able to read between the lines and add in all the details that the author left out. A nine-year-old who'd been reading Lang's Tales of Troy and Greece, drew a picture of Ulysses on the Isle of Calypso cutting down trees to make a raft. A ten-year-old who was enjoying A Midsummer Night's Dream, drew the Indian Princess bringing her beautiful little boy to Titiana. Meanwhile, we adults are content just to know that 'Ulysses built a raft,' or, 'the boy's mother was an Indian princess.' This is how the mind of any child works, and we need to make sure we aren't starving these fertile grounds of intelligence. Children need intellectual food, and they need a lot of it, and all different kinds. They know perfectly well what to do with it themselves--we don't need to bother coming up with separate exercises for each of their minds' 'faculties.' The mind is one and it works as one unit. Reason, imagination, reflection, judgment, etc., are all like worthy seamen summoned by the captain. They all swarm on deck when it's time to unload the cargo. The cargo is that rich, fragrant bounty of ideas, and the boat is the child's mind waiting to receive. Don't we want every child to say, or, at least, feel, 'I was wonderfully broadened' by a geography lesson? Then let him 'see' a place through the eyes of those who have seen or conceived it. Barometer charts, temperature graphs, contour lines, relief maps, section cutaways, summarized sketches, etc., won't do it. When a child looks at a globe, his mind should be so filled with the panorama of images of places he's collected that he'd rather ponder them than go out to play. And it's so easy to give him this life's joy. Let him learn about the world in the same way we prefer to learn about it when we travel. Let him learn about its cities and people, its mountains and rivers, and his lesson will leave him with a piece of the place he has just read about, whether it's a county or country, sea or shore, and the place he pictures in his mind will seem like 'a new room prepared just for him, he'll be so broadened and pleased with it.' Truly, all the world is the child's possession prepared just for him. If we keep what's rightfully his away from him with our technical, financially-minded, or even historical approach to geography, or with attempts to make geography illustrate our own pet theories, then we cheat the child. What the child really needs is the whole world, every bit of it, piece by piece, and each piece a key to the next piece. When he reads about the Bore [surge wave] of the Severn River, he feels that he would know a Bore anywhere. He doesn't need to see a specific mountain to feel like he knows it. In his mind, he sees all that is described to him with a vividness that we adults underestimate. It's as if the only way to those places is in the spirit. Who can accurately assess a child? The genie of Arabian Nights isn't as marvelous as he is. Just like a genie, a child can be freed from his bottle and let out into the world. But woe to us if we keep him imprisoned in his bottle.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 72-73
These days, it seems like educators are mostly concerned about making it easy for the mind to work. But I must urge that, while physical activities like hand crafts, gardening, dancing, etc., are useful to train the nerves and muscles to be ready and responsive, physical exercise does nothing to keep the mind alive. We also must not put the focus of children's education on drama--even when it's Shakespeare--or poetry--even when it's beautiful, lyrical poetry. Yes, children need these things, but they come into the world waiting to connect with lots of different things. They need to establish relationships with places far and near, with the expanding universe, with the long-gone days of history, with current social economics, with the earth we live on and all of its delightful plants and trees, with the affectionate families who love them, with their home country and foreign countries, and, most of all, with the highest of all relationships--their relationship with God. With all these things to learn about, only the most ignorant teacher will let his students spend most of their time on math, or crafts, or singing, or acting, or any one of a hundred specialized subjects that try to pass for a complete education.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 176
In Form III children continue with the same history of England as they were doing in Form II, as well as the same French history, and the same British museum book. They continue adding to their 'Book of Centuries.' In addition, they read about 20-30 pages per term from a short book about the history of India, a subject that they are very interested in.
Their geography studies touch on the history of other parts of the British Empire.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 177
The geographical aspects of history are studied under geography.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 224-230
Geography
The teaching of geography has suffered a lot from our utilitarian mindset. The focus seems to be on stripping the planet we live on of every trace of its beauty and mystery. There's nothing left to admire or wonder about in our beloved world. We can't agree anymore with Jasper Petulengro, who wrote, 'The sun, moon and stars are sweet things, and so is the wind on the plain.' Instead, geography is confined to the question of how and under what conditions the earth's surface can turn a profit and be made comfortable for man to live on. Students are no longer indulged in imagining themselves climbing Mt. Rainier or Mount Everest, or skating on the fiords of Norway, or riding a gondola in Venice. In the world of corporate profit, these things don't count--all that matters is how and where and why money can be made in any region's conditions anywhere on the surface of the planet. Yet it's doubtful whether such teaching is effective, whether it even makes any impression at all on students. The mind ruminates on great ideas. Given great ideas, the mind can work to great ends. But if education doesn't teach a child to wonder and admire, it probably doesn't teach him anything at all.
Probably the most enjoyable knowledge is when one has such a familiarity with the earth's surface region by region, that a map of any area unfolds a panorama of delight. A map of every part of this beautiful earth not only brings to mind the great geographical features like mountains and rivers, but associations, images of people busy at different things both in history and in the present. In our schools, we focus a lot of attention on map work. Before reading a lesson, children find the places mentioned in the text on a map. They learn where they are, their relativity to other places, and to specific parallels and meridians. Since children don't think in generalities but in particulars, they read and picture in their minds places like the Yorkshire Downs, the Sussex Downs, the mysteries of a coal mine. They envision 'pigs' of iron flowing from a furnace, the bustle of the great towns, the occupations of the villages. Students in Form II (both A and B, grades 4-6) are busy working with a map of the counties of England. They study one county at a time. The counties are so different in geography, history and what the people do, that knowing England well will provide children with a reference point to the geography of every part of the world by either comparing or contrasting. For instance, even now as I write this book, the students in Form IIA (grades 5/6) are learning about the counties that touch the Thames basin. Part of their work for the term is to 'write poetic verses about The Thames.' H. W. Household's book Our Sea Power is very helpful in linking England with the world using an enthusiastic account of our navy's glorious history. The late Sir George Parkin, a highly qualified authority, writes books that help transport students around the British Empire. Students are left to their own devices to learn the facts that are usually considered geography. For instance, students might be asked to 'learn what you can about the political map of Europe after WWI.'
In Form III (grade 7), students still focus on their region, forming an acquaintance with the countries of Europe. In this way, a map of any country will make the child think of wonderful images in his mind's eye of the variety in another place, and the people who live there--their history and what they do. The only way to gain this kind of mental picture is by taking the countries one at a time. Students begin with an overview of the sea and shoreline of a continent, then they learn about the country and its people--the language they speak, the history of its people, its plains, mountains, rivers and basins. After such an overview, they should be able to answer questions like, 'Name three rivers that flow into the Baltic Sea.' 'Which countries form the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea?' 'Between what parallels does Europe lie? What other continents lie partly within the same parallels?' In this way, the young students become familiar with the map of Europe before they begin to focus on the individual countries.
The image we want to present of the individual countries in these lessons should be, above all, interesting. At the same time, it should give an intelligent and fairly thorough knowledge of the specific country. Whatever else the child learns about the country will be learned alongside this scheme. For example, they might also read 'The Rhone Valley and the Border lands' (the fourth book of Charlotte Mason's Ambleside Geography series):
'The warm, fertile Rhone Valley has a climate like the southern region where grapes are grown, but even more plantations grow olives and mulberries. We tend to think of southern France as the sunny south, but a writer we quoted earlier says that it's 'bleak, grim and somber.' The mulberry bushes are for feeding the silkworms that make the threads that are made into silk in the factories of France. Lyons, the second most important city in France, is the main place where silk is manufactured, including velvets and satins. Lyons is situated on a tongue of land where the rapid Rhone River meets the sluggish Saone River. There are piers along the banks of both rivers.'
You can see from that portion of text how geographical facts are casually worked in, similarly to the way someone actually traveling through the country might come across them. In one term, students might learn about Belgium, Holland, Spain and Portugal. There are many ways in which these countries are interconnected. For example,
'Katwyck is on the seashore near Leyden, where the Rhine River is nearing its end. A wide man-made channel provides no less than thirteen pairs of enormous floodgates to help the river empty itself into the sea. These floodgates are closed to keep the sea out when the tide is coming in, and opened to let the streams pass on their way out to sea at low tide. Even with these impressive gates, the Rhine River that was once so glorious makes a humble exit. The river's delta might be said to be wide enough to cover the whole width of Holland.' (Ambleside Geography, Book IV)
Notice that an attempt is made to give an exciting idea of the country's natural features, its history, and its industries. In this way, no country is merely a set of names on a map, or an outline of contour shapes. Those kinds of generalizations aren't geography. They're the kind of information that someone should draw a slow conclusion about as they become intimate with a region. The geography lessons need to have some literary character. What's new about these lessons is the addition of map study, which should be very thorough. For the other part of geography lessons, a single reading followed by narration is enough, the same as with every other subject we've discussed. Children can't tell about what they haven't seen in their own minds with their imaginations. And they can't imagine what's in their books unless their books are written with some vividness and some grasp of the subject. You can see how thorough their map study is from the questions on their term exam: 'Where in Belgium does the Scheldt drain? Name any of the waterways that feed into it. Name ten famous places in its basin. What port is at the head of its estuary?' The little yet very literary book, Fighting for Sea Power in the Days of Sail, is a very enlightening book about the English Empire's geography.
There are two rational ways to teach geography. The first is the inferential method, and it's popular right now. The student learns specific geographical principles, which he will supposedly apply universally. But this seems defective to me for two reasons. First, it can be misleading because every principle has to be modified to fit specific places. Also, the regional color, local historical and personal interest are missing, and the student doesn't form any kind of mental image or personal associations about the place he's learning about. The second way to teach geography is the panoramic method. The landscape of the whole world is unrolled region by region, right before the child's eyes. Every region is presented with its own climate, its specific products, its people, what they do, and their history. Geography is a fascinating subject, and this way of teaching it seems to bring the area to life with brilliant color and a wealth of detail along with a sense of proportion and familiarity with general geographical principles. I don't think that pictures are very useful in geography study. After all, as we all know, the images that stay with us are the ones we construct in our own imaginations from written descriptions.
The geography book (The Ambleside Geography, Book V by Charlotte Mason) used in Form IV (grade 9) covers Asia, Africa, America and Australia. The same principle is followed: vivid descriptions, geographical information, historical details, and facts about the area's industry. These are presented for the purpose of making an impression so that the child feels like he 'owns' that region, like it's a possession in his imagination. It also adds to the collective store of knowledge in the mind from which to make future judgments. Students begin with a survey of Asia, and then Asia is broken down into separate countries, regions and geographical areas. So the part about Siberia says,
'All travelers admire the free peasants of Siberia. As soon as you cross the Urals, you're surprised by the extreme friendliness and cheerfulness of the people, and by the rich vegetation of the carefully tended fields and the roads that are kept in such good condition in southern Tobolsk.'
or,
'The shiny black soft thick fur of the otter is the most valuable of the Russian skins. Next is the black fox. But even though the otter's skin is a thousand times more valuable, the little gray squirrel is the most important fur to Siberian fur traders. Millions of them are exported to other countries.'
Here's what it says about Further India:
'Pigou, the middle division, is really the huge delta of the Irrawaddy, which is a low-lying land where huge quantities of rice are grown. On the higher ground that walls in the great river, are forests where the finest teak wood in the world grows.'
Africa comes after Asia, and students learn about David Livingston, John Hanning Speke, Richard Burton, James Augustus Grant, etc. They read about African village life. Chapters in that part of the book are titled Abyssinia, Egypt, Up the Nile, The Sudan, The Sahara, The Barbary Coast, South Africa, Cape Colony, The Islands. America is studied next. Students learn about the discovery of the continent, the geographical area of South America, the Andes and Mountain states of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia. They learn about South America's Pampas (great plains), Central America, North America, and Canada. They get a historical sketch of the United States, the eastern states, the Mississippi valley, the prairies, and the West. The section about the eastern states says,
'Stretching the Allegheny mountain chain is the great Appalachian coalfield. It extends through Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio for 720 miles. They say that there's enough coal there to supply the whole world for 4000 years! There's an abundance of iron mixed with the coal. Most of the coal is the kind called Anthracite. It burns very lowly with no smoke, but it can dry out the humidity of a room. Sir Charles Lyall visited the Pottsville coal field and said, 'I was pleasantly surprised to find a flourishing manufacturing town here, with tall smokestacks from a hundred furnaces burning continually, yet emitting no smoke. And when we left this clean, clear atmosphere to go down into one the mines, we were just as pleased to discover that we could pick up and handle the coal without getting our fingers dirty.'
That should be enough to indicate the kind of familiar intimacy that Form IV (grade 9) students get in all the regions of the world and their terrain, landscape, history, industry and all the things that affect climate and industry. Geikie's Physical Geography does a good job introducing students to the principles of physical geography.
Forms V and VI (grades 10-12) also have to keep up with current events by reading the newspaper and finding out what's happening in the country they're studying. Also, correlating to the period being studied in history, readings are included like these books from one term: Sir John Robert Seeley's Expansion of England, Sir T. W. Holderness's The Peoples and Problems of India, Archibald Geikie's Elementary Lessons in Physical Geography, Frederick Mort's Practical Geography, and Kipling's Letters of Travel. In these Forms, students are expected to apply their knowledge to both practical and theoretical geography, and to be able to use an atlas without the leading questions that guide younger students.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 266
We could use more of the kinds of books that everyone should know. We could include enough history and geography to make everyone feel at home wherever they travel.
Volume 6, Philosophy of Education, pg 339-340
The current trend to teach geography using the scientific method is designed to give a child a stuffy, prudish relationship with Mother earth. The human mind is unable to assimilate the sentences in most books written for children. Yet they're retained by the memory, so the child gets a false sense of having information, but it's only psuedo-knowledge. Most geography books need to be written in literary terms before they can be taken in. We put a lot of confidence in diagrams and pictures. It's true that children enjoy diagrams and understand them as much as they do puzzles. But they often miss the connection between the diagram and what it's supposed to be illustrating. We rely too much on pictures, slides, and films. But without work there's no profit. Probably the pictures that stay with us are the ones we imagined in our own minds from words we've heard or read. Pictures can help to correct our false notions, but the imagination doesn't work with visual displays. When we process the phrases of a description on the palette of our mind, we create our own pictures. (I'm not talking about great works of art; works of art are in another category.) Dr. Arnold was always uneasy with new places until he had enough details to form a mental picture of it in his mind. It's the same with children, and with all people who have original minds. We like to have a map to figure out where a place is, but, after that, it's details about the place that we want.