I received a comment yesterday on an old post, Spelling for Freedom. This post has been getting a lot of hits lately because it’s been linked by the author on his website and Facebook page, etc. I love comments. I especially love comments where I both agree and disagree with the commented. This gives us enough common ground to have a conversation, while also granting the opportunity for thinking through an issue.
And you know how I feel about thinking…
If you haven’t read my Spelling for Freedom post, it is basically me raving about our spelling book {wow…no wonder my husband calls me a nerd}, Sequential Spelling. This method of spelling uses word families as the common theme of instruction, rather than giving children lists of disconnected words that are “grade appropriate.” This means that a child will start with a root family–let’s use as an example, the “eat” sound. So maybe on the first day the child will spell eat, seat, meat, and beat. Then, in the days following, the child will learn to spell the various conjugations and tenses of the verbs {eating, eaten, seating, seated}, pluralities of the nouns {meats, seats}, and other variations of these roots, adding prefixes and suffixes as appropriate. The child will learn that any word which contains the root sound eat is likely spelled according to these patterns.
In many ways, this is a backdoor to phonics. And any time a child is being taught to see the patterns in the language he is learning {if the language is inflected}, he is being helped along the road to language mastery.
A Comment
The comment I received yesterday was a bit mysterious to me in that I wasn’t quite sure whether the commenter agreed with me or not. However, the {anonymous} commenter presented one of the mainstream views on education and the nature of knowledge, and so I decided to use the occasion as a jumping-off point for this post. Here is the comment:
All true knowledge is experience and everything else is just information. This is not to say that we do not need good information, of course we do. All kids and adults have their own best learning styles: listening, seeing, etc. but all learn better by Doing. You learn by doing. This is especially true for arithmetic. If you are homeschooling or teaching at all, you should Never Let a Kid use a Mechanical or Electronic Device such as a Calculator or Computer as a Learning Tool. After they have achieved 8th grade competencies in reading, writing and aritmetic [sic], then give them computers and calculators as Tools but Do Not Let the Calculators and Computers Become their Teachers as the Computers and Calculators Do the Work with the kid never understanding the Concepts. By doing Math on Paper and learning the rules, a kids mind is being programmed and his rational brain and logic is being developed. If you side track this with a calculator or computer, the child’s rational brain and reasoning abilities will not be well developed.
I agree with the conclusion: we don’t allow tools to replace the building of skills and the exertion of mental effort in our home education. However, I’m going to now walk through the major ideas in this comment in order to illustrate just where Charlotte Mason’s method of Classical Education {and don’t let anyone tell you she isn’t classical!} parts ways with this comment.
All true knowledge is experience and everything else is just information.
This is a popular thing to say in our culture, for a variety of reasons that I will not explore here. What we really need to discuss is the fact that this is not true, and how we can know this to be so. In 1828 Noah Webster devised the first American English dictionary. In it, he defined knowledge thus:
KNOWL’EDGE, n. nol’lej.
A clear and certain perception of that which exists, or of truth and fact; the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of our ideas.
Webster himself explains that knowledge is chiefly gained through experience and observation {though it is debatable whether those two words meant precisely what they mean today, at least in the implications of the words}, but there is an important distinction between knowledge being gained by experience, and knowledge being experience. Even modern dictionaries will state that knowledge deals with understanding or perceiving truths and facts.
Therefore, calling something “true knowledge” is redundant, for knowledge implies that one’s mind has been submitted and conformed to truth. There is no such thing as “false knowledge,” though we do use the word misunderstanding for a reason.
Reading, sitting under tutelage, divine revelation, observation, and experience are all means of refining our understanding of reality {i.e., gaining knowledge}, but no single item on this list can or ought to be singled out as being equal to knowledge itself. Knowledge, in other words, is not equivalent to any single means of acquiring it.
Incidentally, information is not a bad thing, nor even really a lesser thing. Rather, information is particular knowledge, usually pertaining to sensual facts {i.e., facts that can be verified using the five senses}. Information alone tends to be a dead thing–we talk about “cold facts”–and is therefore insufficient if one wishes to offer students a living education. But education without information, devoid of any specific facts, is an impossibility.
All kids and adults have their own best learning styles: listening, seeing, etc. but all learn better by Doing. You learn by doing. This is especially true for arithmetic.
I have two thoughts on this.
First, do you know one of the most remarkable, wonderful things about Charlotte Mason? Instead of deciding that each child had their “preferred learning style,” she looked at the nature of the thing at hand. She sought out the best means for everyone to learn whatever it was. She did this by, among other things, studying the best–those who were masters of something. How did they master it? she asked. When she discovered the answer, she was on the way to discerning how something ought to be taught.
I wish I could remember which of her many volumes I read this in! Then I could offer a nice, long, Victorian quote.
Suffice it to say that Mason {and others before her–she was the voice of classical education in the Victorian era, and it has had many voices prior} asked the question: How ought this to be taught?
Our friend declares that we “learn by doing.” This is true in a limited sense. My son and I recently learned to tie a series of knots. We read about them in a book, yes, but we did not know how to tie the knots until we tied them. We practiced tying them until we were good at it.
Knot tying is a skill. Skills are important, necessary even.
However, comma.
Skills are not the foundation of a liberal {liberating} education.
Current educational philosophies focus on skills. Skills can be tested and measured. Skills can be taught by doing {which comes in handy}.
If we intend to build a humane, virtuous culture, we {1} must not focus on skills and {2} must use something other than doing as a primary mode of instruction.
But first, let’s ask the question: Is math taught by doing? This is an important question, because math is not a skill {though calculating is}, and arithmetic is one of the seven liberal arts. The Circe Institute defines arithmetic as “the art that learns of the properties of numbers.” Calculating is a part of math, yes, and memorization of basic calculations can be accomplished through doing the calculations {i.e., adding 2+4 until the student has memorized that 6 is the result}, but adding over and over and over will not necessarily bring the student to the point of having an understanding of the properties of numbers.
This is why, in doing math with youngsters, we always use manipulatives. Numbers are symbols representing quantities. That, my friends, is the first rule of math. Without manipulatives, only the brightest child will ever grasp this. So we see that arithmetic is not merely learned by doing {computation}, but by observing objects in the real world.
Incidentally, higher math can also be learned by watching someone else solve a problem. I know this because this is how I learned a lot of math as a teenager. And the higher forms of math are often learned by…reading.
When we say that all that we can know is experience, and that everything that is truly learned is learned by doing, we are requiring every single student to reinvent the metaphorical wheel. We can think about this in regard to studying science. Do we really need to do every science experiment carried out by mankind in order to study and know science? Absolutely not! The best students will be able to read scientific papers and books, understanding them and gaining knowledge through what someone else has done.
This is how science has progressed through the centuries. Einstein read Newton who read Pythagoras and Euclid. Kepler read Pythagoras as well. My point is that the greats didn’t rely solely on experiment {the doing}. Rather, they possessed the ability to read with understanding, and they read the best works produced by mankind.
If learning comes only from doing, books are pointless. Teachers are pointless. Sitting and thinking is…pointless.
How a Spelling Curriculum Might Liberate
My point in my original post was that our spelling program was uniquely liberating compared to other programs I had seen. The reason for this was that it didn’t just teach the child to spell “ate” but helped him to master the language in such a way that he could use what he knows to spell “liberate” even if he’d never been taught to spell the word.
In other words, the students are not learning spelling by doing. They are being taught the logic of spelling so that they can become intuitive spellers. They are being taught to understand the language and use it with confidence. In this way, the spelling curriculum is freeing them. Pattern teaching means that the student does not need a teacher, nor does he need to have memorized a list, in order to tackle a new word.
Regular spelling {weekly lists and quizzes} might open the door for a student, but pattern-based spelling gives the child the key and teaches him to open the door on his own. This is liberation–it produces a level of mental independence.
There is a similar rationale behind phonics, where the student doesn’t need a teacher with a flashcard in order to know how to read a word. Because the student has grasped the logic of the language, he can discern new words without assistance.
Summer Reading Project
All of this reminds me of how little I know, and how much I want to learn before summer is over! Besides preparing for Year Three {and the accompanying new level of independence I’m going to expect of my son}, I also have A. beginning Year Zero. I read a volume of Mason before commencing with E.’s education, but I find that I have a deep desire to studying again, and do even more with A. The reason for this? Every day, I am becoming more convinced of the value of a liberating education.
So here is my study plan {in random order}:
- Print off A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six {scroll down once you click if you want to view it} and hang it near my desk
- Read the Year Zero page {again}
- Read Talks to Nurses {to ponder the rearing of our younger two especially}
- Read Home Education
{for A.}
- Read School Education
- Finish reading Norms and Nobility
- Purchase the CD collection from the Circe Institute’s Contemplation of Liberty conference {my, how I wish I could attend in person!}
Do you have a study plan for summer?
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