Books, Chess & Legos, Oh My!

Charlotte Mason’s motto is “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” In today’s podcast, for our TRUTH and GOODNESS segments, we are going to focus in on the “life” part by talking about what Miss Mason claimed in her 8th Principle: “In saying that ‘education is a life,’ the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas.” And we will do this by talking to Elementary and Middle School teacher at Aleithia Learning Community, Brittany Mountz. 

We discuss take-aways from Tony Reinke’s book, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, as he explains the challenges readers face but also offers many benefits of reading literature. We also touch on C. S. Lewis's book,  An Experiment in Criticism, in which he proclaimed that it is for joy that a person reads a book, and that books and stories should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. Lewis urges that it is better to first “receive” the book than to immediately look for how we can “use” it for ourselves. He has a lot to say about how to be a good reader.

For the last segment of the show -- the BEAUTIFUL, I get to talk with Brittany's other half, her husband, Peter Mountz, who is the Headmaster of Aleithia Learning Community and has advice on how to include Chess and Lego Clubs in your homeschool and classrooms.

Favorite Resources:

• An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis
• Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke
• Endpapers: A Reading Guide Newsletter by Brittany Mountz
• Goodreads website and App
• Close Reads Podcast
• A Literary Life Podcast
• Agadmator's Chess Channel- YouTube 
• Solitaire Chess by Think Fun

 

COMMONPLACE QUOTES

“In saying that ‘education is a life,’ the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. XII

“The only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.’- Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 12

“Bald, didactic statements such as ‘Honesty is the best policy’ will not touch the heart and mind of a child in the same way as a story in which honesty –or dishonesty – is present in the form of a hero who acts out the little drama that illustrates the law at hand, provided the book does not fall to moralizing for the child. Miss Mason urged us to let each child draw the moral for himself. True education requires the work of the individual, and it is only the ideas that a person perceives and accepts for himself that have an effect on his character. No one can eat and digest food for someone else. This is what she means when she says there is no education but self-education.” - Karen Glass, In Vital Harmony, p. 99

“We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. [sounds quite similar to Charlotte Mason’s charge to teachers]  (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)”  - C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, p. 19

“Reading for pleasure does not mean we cannot be educated at the same time. Robert Frost once said that a good poem begins by delighting the reader and ends by bringing wisdom and clarity to the reader’s life.” – The Robert Frost Reader: Poetry and Prose, ed. Edward Connerty Lathem, in Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, p. 103

”Literature helps to humanize us. It expands our range of experiences. It fosters awareness of ourselves and the world. It enlarges our compassion for people. It awakens our imaginations. It expresses our feelings and insights about God, nature, and life. It enlivens our sense of beauty. And it is a constructive form of entertainment…. Literature does not always lead us to the City of God. But it makes our sojourn on earth much more a thing of beauty and joy and insight and humanity.” - Tony Reinke, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, p. 128

 

"Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

 

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we're asleep.

 

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good."

- Wendell Berry, A TImbered Choir

 

 

"For the most splendid line [of a poem] becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines that come after it; if you went back to it you would find it less splendid than you thought." - C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

 

". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 174

 

APPLICATION

1. Start a Book Club with your friends and family. Meet once a month and discuss over coffee, or a charcutterie board, or fresh baked cookies.
2. Think of 3 different books that you can read through simultaneously, depending on your environment and mood.
3. Invest in a chess board and some real Legos and spend time as a family or class matching wits or exploring some creativity with different building challenges.