Textbook Fatigue and the Literary Form by Carroll Smith

For many years I have belonged to an educational organization called Association for Curriculum & Development (ASCD) that deals with relevant topics in education (and often those which are not easy).  It produces a journal, Educational Leadership, and also sends out a few books during the year to its members.  I just opened my recent ASCD book and saw the title Textbook Fatigue:  21^st Century Tools to Revitalize Teaching and Learning.  I’ve not had time to read the book yet, but was so struck by the title, and it got me to thinking about Mason’s insistence on living books, the literary form.  I pondered that from my experience textbook fatigue is not an issue in her educational paradigm because she insisted that children must not have dry, desiccated texts but living books.  While there are other interrelated components to her model that help children avoid fatigue (access to a broad and wide curriculum, shorter lessons that fit the student’s attention, narration, the habit of attention, etc.), I want to just mention some things about Mason’s use of the literary form.

Mason (Philosophy of Education) says, “Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form. And again, the mind “has a natural preference for literary form; given a more or less literary presentation, the curiosity of the mind is enormous and embraces a vast variety of subjects.”   The word literary comes from the word literature and literature deals with written works, especially those characterized by beauty of form and expression (dictionary.com), which have superior or lasting merit.  Literary form is valued for its high quality of writing and its ability to convey text in beautiful and well written language and also it can convey transcendent ideas.  Whether fiction or nonfiction, authors using the literary form have an artistic gift of saying things in a beautiful way.  The literary form has a narrative quality and to me, the literary form contains a story so well written that it has power and simplicity from its beauty.

I have dealt with the necessity of the story in a recent blog and this blog will build on that.  I want to suggest here that the literary form which includes the narrative or well written language for both fiction and nonfiction is an organic and natural way of knowing. Facts portrayed narratively are true. When Mason said children learn facts best when they are clothed in the language of the novel, she understood how the literary form works with our need for story. As children read the story, those living books with beautifully written narratives, they do not tire because they are naturally drawn in and “inhabit the story.” And this prevents the fatigue.  This is not possible with facts dispensed through textbooks because facts do not fit our “storied lives.” Eugene Peterson describes beautifully this inhabiting:  “Stories are the most prominent biblical way of helping us see ourselves in ‘the God story,’ which always gets around to the story of God making and saving us.  Stories, in contrast to abstract statements of truth, tease us into becoming participants in what is being said.  We find ourselves involved in the action.  We may start out as spectators or critics, but if the story is good (and the biblical stories are very good!), we find ourselves no longer just listening to but inhabiting the story” (Peterson, The Message, 2000, p. 500).

Norman N. Holland suggests in his book, Literature and the Brain, that when we are engaged with a good story we are suspended in space and time.  That is, through the use of the story, the literary form, in our minds we are in another place and another time.  This is simply another way of suggesting what Peterson has said, “we find ourselves no longer just listening to but inhabiting the story.”  In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when the children go into the Wardrobe and then come back, no time has passed and they are as they were before they went into the Wardrobe. This is what I believe happens when we “inhabit the story”  as we go into the time and space of the story and it takes no effort or work to go there.  It is natural to us as human beings and thus there is no textbook fatigue.  This is why children can read various living books of literary form for a number of hours and not feel exhausted.

We must, then, be realistic about story, narrative or literary form or any means of writing.  First, story should not necessarily be equated with literary form or living book.  A romance novel may contain a narrative but it can also be twaddle.  Second, story can lack in transcendent ideas.  Third, if it is historical writing, then the facts in the story need to be accurate and based on good research and study.  I do not want to convey that somehow story or narrative or literary form is divine.  It isn’t and it suffers from the effects of the Fall like everything else.

As I have done a lot of reading to prepare for a paper I am writing on the place of history in a Mason curriculum, I’ve run across some interesting connections about the background of the literary form.  First, it was insisted on by the ancients and apparently used on into the 19^th Century and after.  Second, one can only suppose the impact the Enlightenment had on the use of the literary form and thus the very dry and desiccated textbooks of today which create “textbook fatigue.”  Third, Mason was advocating a return to the use of the literary form which had been dropped by many as history became more of a science (than an art) in an effort to be “objective.”  Let’s explore one reason why the narrative or literary form is so helpful by reviewing what the ancients had as an intent for education.

Why would the ancients insist on the literary form?  It seems to me from what I can garner through my reading that the ancients were not preoccupied with information or facts as much as they were with wisdom.  Our preoccupation with memorizing facts has come about since the Enlightenment.  Wisdom comes from our understanding of the integration of all the “information” we have informed by the Holy Spirit.  Wisdom is not about a piece of information or a fact, but it seems to me to be about the relationships between and among pieces of information and most importantly how that makes an impact on the relationships of humans.  To understand this wisdom from the past we must be “inside” the story.  This “inhabiting” enables us to go deeper in our understanding of the events.  Without it we cannot see the relationships among the facts and issues.  If our children cannot see the relationships among the facts and issues, then will they ever be able to turn years of memorizing information for our tests into wisdom?

This being “inside” a story is provided for effectively by the way Mason designed curriculum.  Her curriculum design allows this “inhabiting” that we need to do in order to see the relationships among events and ideas that then enables us to make sense of what has gone before us and how we might make better decisions in the present based on what we know about the past.  This is turning information into wisdom.  It is wisdom we are seeking not just information.  As Mason told us, children who memorize much are sharp, no doubt, but the question is “Do they know?”  Have they integrated the information they have gained in such a way within themselves as to gain wisdom?  In a Mason model, the integrated curriculum the students are immersed in with the rich living books written in beautiful literary form enables them to move from facts to wisdom, and all without textbook fatigue!

©  (2013) Carroll Smith

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Weed It and Reap by Nancy Kelly

As recently as nine years ago when my last child was born, a passerby stopped and suggested to my husband, Kent, that he might consider wielding a machete to chop down the weeds taking over the front porch (which had no railing).  Soon after that, a sweet lady from across town stopped by the house and invited me to come and see her flower gardens.  She described in detail what she envisioned I could do with our pathetic front lawn if I was willing to do the research and heavy lifting.  I had never gardened before, but her enthusiasm and vision for what she believed I could do was inspiring.  I was finally at a place in my life where I could consider what she was saying and get to work.  Over the next few years, our family worked hard on making the front yard the refreshing place that it is now.  We enjoy it so much, even though it needs a little weeding and the house will be ready for some new paint soon.  What does this have to do with anything,  you ask?  Stay with me here…

Oftentimes I hear from those beginning this relational education journey with the Mason method.  They tell me they are overwhelmed by all of it.  Those attending the conference speak of information overload.  As an organizer of a retreat myself, that type of comment can be distressing which is one reason why time for reflection and contemplation of the ideas presented is important – and no easy task.

I didn’t wake up one morning when my firstborn was six and start implementing a flawless application of the Charlotte Mason philosophy in my homeschool.  Does anyone?  No, I started by attending various conferences, listening, and looking.  Then I bought a unit study curriculum.  Then I bought classical everything.  Then finally, someone rather offhandedly mentioned a set of books by this “dead British spinster who wrote 6 tomes on education” and “if you like using literature, you might like her stuff.” Indeed.

I kept moving forward and  then heard Susan Schaeffer Macaulay speak on education at a L’Abri conference.  I read For the Children’s Sake.  Little by little, I implemented more and more of Mason’s philosophy, which was relentlessly true and alive.  It wasn’t until I was into it for three or four years that I could say with confidence that I used the Charlotte Mason method.  I’m still learning and tweaking what I do.  It’s been a process – no, make that a life – but there has been such reward and joy, as well as trials and errors, that I feel blessed to share about it all.

So, when you attend a conference or listen to other veterans of this method, consider how long they’ve been at it.  For me, that would be nineteen years of experience. My advice?  Start where you are.  Keep expectations realistic.  Implement a little at a time.  Join or start a community committed to learning and growing.  Support is crucial – one committed friend will do.  Try thinking deeply about one principle at a time.  After all, a young woman attending Mason’s House of Education took two full years to be trained properly in her methods.    Essex Cholmondley, in speaking of this training said, “Each week at college brought fresh growth in knowledge.  Slowly to each of us, according to her own nature, came the power to combine joy of mind with strenuous effort of will in the service of God and of young people for God.”   Slowly.  According to her own nature.

Remember my messy yard at the beginning of this post?  My friend could see the potential and knew the possibilities.  I’m convinced that our schools can be transformed into places of beauty, too.  For the newbie, you can start to read and apply one thing a t a time.  For the experienced, consider coming alongside someone else and sharing some wisdom.  Just like my yard, you will “weed it and reap”.

Copyright 2012 Nancy Kelly.  You can find Nancy over at her blog, Sage Parnassus, where she continues to weed.

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