It’s late September. Kids are firmly back in school; routines are established and reading lists set. But what exactly is on the menu? The usual textbooks, which, if they’re in a government school, are often written by committee (with an agenda), range from uninspiring to outright woke.
Or maybe most of your child’s school curriculum is delivered via lifeless and impersonal computer screens.
But there is an alternative, a source whose advocacy first transformed the task of educating children over one hundred years ago. Virtually unknown to public school parents, the British 19th-century reformer Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) has long been the hero of modern homeschooling in America, and the movement’s best-kept secret weapon.
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But her ideas and theories are not just applicable to the home-schooling community. Parents and educators can greatly benefit from Mason’s ideas about children and reading, which are even more relevant today.
Creating a thirst for knowledge, and lifelong love of learning was Mason’s goal. If children developed an early hunger for ideas, she reasoned, it would sustain them through their lives. Mason believed that in addition to the proper vitamins and nutrients needed to thrive, children require ideas to chew on, to properly grow. And the source of these ideas, she reasoned, was not typical textbooks.
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That’s a perspective as true today as it was in Mason’s time. Most if not all textbooks which children encounter in public schools are either bland by design, so as not to arouse controversy, or the opposite: brazenly geared to advance a woke agenda.
Mason believed that the best resource for the ideas that will benefit children most came from a regular exposure to great art, great music, and, above all, books of “literary quality” or great books. “For the best thought the world possesses is stored in books,” she wrote in “Parents and Children.” “Children must have books, living books … the best is not too good for them; anything less than the best is not good enough.”
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Her idea of “living books” was about books written by a single author (not a committee), ones that actively engage the mind, imagination and spirit, rather than simply presenting factual material.
For example, a list of “living books” for early learners (grades 1-4) might include: “The Trumpet of the Swan,” “Black Beauty,” and “A Little Princess.” Titles for middle schoolers include: “My Side of the Mountain,” “Around the World in 80 Days,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and C.S. Lewis’s classic “Narnia” series.
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High school students can gain most from reading “Pride and Prejudice,” “David Copperfield,” and, “Through Gates of Splendor,” as well as the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Living books like these can spark kids’ curiosity, thanks to their authors’ genuine passion for their subject.
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Unlike textbooks, they use a compelling, even spellbinding style that draws the student into the plot and characters, triggering their imagination and emotions.
Living books like “My Side of the Mountain” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” weave sometimes complex concepts and subjects into an approachable narrative, in ways that allow children to more easily connect and identify with the material. Like those of us who grew up with favorite books, children are bound to remember details and themes, long after the work has been returned to the shelf.
Living books often feature unfamiliar words and language that challenge young readers to expand their vocabulary. Contrary to what lazy teachers may think, old-fashioned forms of communicating in English, like Charles Dickens’s novels or even the King James Bible, don’t turn off young minds. They broaden and deepen a reader’s grasp of the English language, which is crucial for their intellectual, even moral, growth.
For instance, E. B. White, author of classics like “Charlotte’s Web,” and “The Trumpet of the Swan,” never hesitated to challenge his young readers with new words like “radiant” and “humble,” because he believed, like Charlotte Mason, that children were smart, capable readers.
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White once said, “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth…. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.”
Finally, unlike typical textbooks, living books help students move from a passive learning mode to an active learning mode. Instead of simply memorizing what they need to know to pass a test, having students retell a story like “The Little Princess” in their own words, builds lasting communication and analytical skills.
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Try some living books out on your children if you haven’t already. Books like Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” will teach them lessons about the importance of family, sacrifice, and generosity. Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” teaches about friendship, loyalty, and moral courage.
Charlotte Mason used to say, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” If our current educators have abandoned that hopeful vision, turning to living books can restore it, not just for children, but for all of us.
Beth Herman is a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Education Freedom Center. She is completing her master’s degree in Classical Education at the University of Dallas.
