In Vital Harmony: What is a Child?
Welcome to A Mother’s Thinking Love: Living Ideas, Lovingly Shared! And welcome to the second installment of my blog series about In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass. In the first blog post, I introduced the series and wrote about the two essential principles of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. In today’s post, I will discuss the first of those two essential principles. Join me for “In Vital Harmony: What is a Child?”
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The Essential Question
“Student number 22, please collect your things.”
“25% of students in 4th grade are reading below grade level.”
“You are in the top 2% of your class.”
“The local school district received a 3-stars on their state report card.”
During my time in public and private education, I came to find that students are commonly spoken of in terms of numbers and data. Students receive ID numbers for the ease of efficiency. We quantify student success based on GPA or class rank. We even measure schools based on numerical systems. In light of these systems, I think, in order to discuss educational philosophy, we must ask “What is a child?” We can’t proceed with our efforts until we know.
A Child Is…
According to the first of Miss Mason’s first of two essential principles of education: “Children are born persons.” Karen Glass explains on pg. 17 of In Vital Harmony that, “The essence of the first principle is this: Children are born with both active and able minds, not simply brains, and therefore education must address this nonmaterial, spiritual aspect of a person.”
Children aren’t in the process of evolving into persons, they are born persons. Children aren’t simply bodies. They aren’t the sum of what can be measured through scans, tests, and evaluations. They are born complete and fully formed persons. They are eternal souls, created in the image of God. They are valuable and precious. They are more than numbers, data, and ranking. So much more. If we don’t take time to understand that “Children are born persons,” we will fail in all our educational endeavors. As Miss Mason said, “Children are born with both active and able minds.”
“Our Culture Needs to Understand the Idea of Mind”
In Karen’s view, the vital aspect of this principle in our current day may very well be that of the mind. I happen to agree. After all, this understanding is the essence of the first essential principle. In our modern need to measure, count, and quantify everything in order to determine its value, I think, we have lost sight of the spiritual, nonmaterial mind. Since we can measure aspects of the brain, the worth of the mind has fallen in importance. While we all possess brains with similar characteristics, the mind of a person, as is the person, is unique and irreplaceable. There are no two alike.
On this, Karen writes:
We are unique persons. We are not interchangeable, like so many identical parts manufactured according to a set of blueprints. Men and women go home to their own spouses, not any random person. Children are raised by their parents, not whichever adults happen to be nearby. We cherish special friends, and an incidental stranger sitting at the next table will not fill that role. If one of us is lost, we are lost from the earth forever. Everyone who has suffered the death of someone close to them knows this. A person cannot be replaced.
If we don’t acknowledge these simple truths, how can we truly educate our children?
“True Education Requires a Right Understanding of Mind”
“We cannot develop the best and most effective methods of teaching until we understand exactly what kind of a person we are teaching. We are educating a mind – a soul – not a brain.”
– Karen Glass
In a time when technology is advancing at a rapid pace, technology can become our frame of reference. We admire its speed, ease, and efficiency. As we marvel at these qualities in technology, we can begin to view “speed, ease, and efficiency” as virtues in people. This thought process then trickles down to our philosophy of education and children.
But those are not virtues, and they are not the standards by which true education ought to be measured. While they are good measures as we shop for electronics, we must remember that children are not computers. They are eternal souls with living minds. We won’t discuss this practical out-workings of this principle here, we ought to let this realization humble us as we evaluate our educational methods.
Think About It
Thank you for reading “In Vital Harmony: What is a Child?”. As I stated previously, we aren’t discussing the practical aspects of “Children are born persons” in this post, but we will in a future post. Until then, I challenge you to reflect on this first essential principle. Are you viewing your own children as born persons? How are you showing this in your actions? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
