Ella Frances Lynch thread #3: New Frontiers

[LostintheCosmos]

Oy, three year olds. My best trick is having another three year old move in next door and send them out to play in the backyard together, ha - they can't spoil each other, and they also just seem to totally understand each other in a very charming way. It's quite entertaining to watch them interact and negotiate their plans.

I too find that activities only ever entertain them for short periods - every once in a while they get really engrossed in something for 20 or 30 minutes, but I've never found that there's any way of knowing what activity is going to provoke that kind of concentration when. Now that I've got older kids, it's (relatively) easy to assign one to read to or play with the 3yo when I need to work with another child one-on-one, but until we got to that stage it was just muddling through in spite of and over interruptions. I did have some luck last year with keeping the toddler in my lap with her own little white board and marker.

I also keep my eye out for ideas for simple activities that can be put together with stuff we mostly have around the house already. My mom had a whole book of these when I was a kid (the 80s version of potato creatures, lol), and I wish I could remember the title and look it up, because I feel like a lot of current suggestions that allege to be along the same lines are less "activities for little kids with stuff you already have around the house" and more "activities for little kids that require a ton of junk from the dollar store." Though the "busytoddler" feed on instagram is one of the better versions of this that I've found, for what it's worth. I got some mileage for a few weeks out of all the variations on putting-stickers-on-a-big piece-of-paper-taped-to-the-wall.

I've also gotten marginally better at what EFL I think calls "drill in obedience." Somewhere between two and three, for example, is when I stop taking things from babies that they aren't supposed to have and expect them to hand over contraband on their own.

And I am very much up for a read along! I ordered Bookless Lessons from a bookstore with an Espresso Book Machine, and it turned out very legible, though the dimensions are those of a smaller paperback (what is that? 5x8.5, maybe?). It might have been possible to get it printed to a different size, though, I can't remember off the top of my head. My husband's workplace just got a coil-binding machine, so I'm contemplating printing it out with big margins for easier marking-up and asking him to bind it for me.

Update: JK, I just got my copy off the shelf and actually the margins aren't too bad. I was thinking of my "Forgotten Books" copy of Educating the Child at Home, which is a larger paperback, but with smaller margins.

Edited May 28, 2020 by LostCove

[LostintheCosmos]

One last thought on the tech question: as far as I understand it, which isn't too well, the traditional Christian (and other?) method for disciplining the use of secondary goods is through fasting. I suspect most of us have maybe given up certain technologies or some of their functions for one Lent or another, but I increasingly suspect that it would be good for me to do a more regular, shorter fasting period throughout the year, "weekend luddite" style - every Friday? Sunday? after or before a certain time daily? Or even flip the model so that I'm not abstaining during certain blocks of time, but the default is non-use and there are only certain periods designated for the use of certain technologies. 

[GracieJane]

9 hours ago, ElizaG said:

And what about my elderly and terrifying primary school teacher, so out of touch with her younger colleagues, and so relentless in her pursuit of precise cursive letter formation?  She would have been a child in EFL’s time.  She certainly lacked diplomacy, but was she fundamentally mean (as both children and parents thought), or just trying to hold to standards she believed in? 

If I’m re-evaluating my opinion of Mrs. [X], then things really must be shifting for me.  😉

My primary school forbade use of pencils until 3rd grade and we did math and dictations in fountain ink (it sounds ancient, but it looked nice). The result was slow work and painfully exacting writing. They also graded on a 1-6 scale, where 1 was 100% and 1- was 99%, effectively making a distinct grade for Perfect. 

I like the idea of showing a child how to do a task well, consistently. It’s no different from studying a great writer to learn writing; we naturally want to know what the highest standard is in order to reach for it.

My mother sewed dresses, baked and cleaned, and taught us to read and write, but didn’t teach much of the domestic skills she had learned from her mother. I think one part of that was the shift away from needing those skills (she doesn’t sew anymore as the cost of clothes has dropped so much). But another reason might be that teaching a child these things requires incredible energy and consistent repetition. Right now I need to sweep the kitchen, do I take 15 minutes to show my child who will do a sort-of-okay job and completely forget what he learned by tomorrow, or just quickly do it myself in 30 seconds?

I think therein lies mms’ experience with her first child; you have way more time, energy and will to teach consistently with a single child than their younger siblings. 

[LostintheCosmos]

I don't know, guys, I feel like there is a big difference between the providing excellent examples and then having various carrots and/or sticks to try to get children to meet those standards. Montessori said that a drive for excellence was one of the basic human tendencies, so I'm just not sure that it actually requires elaborate motivational systems (which isn't to say that it is totally "natural" or will happen no matter what, of course). And in my reading about childrearing in traditional cultures, children seem to have be given a lot of freedom, but still contributed to the work of their families and became very competent at those tasks.

Another way to say this is that, personally, I'm having difficulty squaring EFL's insistence on work being completed "exactly so" with her just as emphatic emphasis on how progress happens little by little with consistent practice every day, or her comparison of childrearing to tree pruning. Obviously I am missing something. Is it a better intuitive sense of what each individual child is actually capable of so that I could hold each child to a high standard that is actually possible for him to meet? Is it that I don't have an adequate grasp of the training that needs to happen before the child is made to do things "exactly so"? Or is it that, because of the greater simplicity of her times, the things children were asked to do were also somehow simpler than the things I ask my children to do and thus more within their abilities? Or at the very least, moms weren't mentally juggling as many things as I feel like I am and could be more attentive?

Of course I can't find it now, but I remember reading one of EFL's columns in which she described giving lessons to the son of a neighbor in the Adirondacks, and you know, there was no switching or anything like that, lol, and you could tell how much she enjoyed his company and his childish efforts. My hunch is that in addition to some combination of the things above, EFL took for granted other, subtle, nonverbal ways of guiding and prompting children, of, basically, exercising authority, that are very hard to reconstruct once you don't have them any more, but for those who still have those skills are so obvious and natural that they also are barely able to talk about or describe them.

[LostintheCosmos]

I had some quotations from EFL's own writings I meant to add to the above, but got distracted. 🤪 Anyway, here's one I found interesting and I will try to come back and add the others later:

Quote

The beginner's assignments should naturally be simple. Failure results more often from lack of understanding the things to be done than inability to do what is required. It gratifies a child to find he can do something today more difficult than yesterday. Assign little tasks with the end definitely in sight, needing only a bit of industry and diligence to reach.

 

[GracieJane]

11 hours ago, LostCove said:

 

The beginner's assignments should naturally be simple. Failure results more often from lack of understanding the things to be done than inability to do what is required. It gratifies a child to find he can do something today more difficult than yesterday. Assign little tasks with the end definitely in sight, needing only a bit of industry and diligence to reach.

”We shall not seek to turn normal children into abnormal ones by preparing them for college at the age of ten, but instead try to show how the best things gained in a college course, such as the ability to persist in hard work until the assignment is mastered, can and should be acquired before the age of ten.” (p. 3, emphasis mine)

These quotes really distill EFL’s wisdom (for me), because much of her approach to education is teaching young children how to learn. I think that is the goal behind beginning with very simple tasks, because it is not so much the job that matters (the chore, learning the Lord’s Prayer, etc,), but the child’s experience of doing something challenging a tiny bit better today than yesterday (repeat ad infinitum). Can my child find reward in doing a hard, somewhat boring task every day, not with the goal of completing it, but getting better at it?  The simplicity of this idea makes it appear deceptively easy, going almost unnoticed among other methods. I have so many thoughts about this, but if your child can acquire this mindset early, I think there will be no limits to what she can accomplish. But my actual non-theoretical children are calling now, so I’ll bow out. What a great discussion!

[LostintheCosmos]

15 hours ago, mms said:

It is late and maybe I am not understanding what you are saying, but I don’t see a contradiction there in EFL’s writing.

I don't think there is one either, so I'm trying to figure out what hidden assumptions I have that make it seem that way to me. 🙂 Thanks for helping me sort out what is confusing me.

I was really struck by this part of that short quote I posted: "Failure results more often from lack of understanding the things to be done than inability to do what is required." I don't have a lot of memories of being taught things as a child - the things I remember being taught were academic subjects (I was homeschooled through 8th grade), but even then, as soon as I was reading independently, I was sort-of Robinsoned. I don't remember asking my parents for help when I got stuck or confused, nor do I remember them taking the time to teach to me to do other things, chores or whatever. I do remember impatience and exasperation when I or my siblings were slow or clumsy or couldn't do things well right away. So perhaps that's the cause of my lack of intuition about how to judge my children's abilities and lack of confidence that I've equipped them well enough to fairly hold them to high standards (but also why I feel slightly less clueless about academic matters than everything else). I also think I often attribute my own less-impressive-efforts to laziness or lack of willpower but at least sometimes I'm actually suffering from "a lack of understanding of the things to be done." In any case, I'm going to be particularly paying attention to what EFL says about all this on this read through. 

Edited May 30, 2020 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

Regarding Montessori, I still don’t know what her principles look like when applied to raising one’s own children.   (Beyond the obvious stuff, of course, such as keeping things they need within reach.)  From what I’ve seen of the homes of Montessorians - including some very dedicated, professional ones - while they were all different from the mainstream, they were also very different from one another, and all seemed to go against the method in some central way or other.  More lax, more restrictive, too much clutter, hardly any resources available to the children, etc.  It’s as if they just melded some bits of it with whatever they were going to do anyway.  So maybe they don’t know, either.

The M. classroom environment is artificial, in the sense that it has a large group of peer models, carefully chosen activities with built-in “control of error,” precisely choreographed demonstrations (repeated as needed), and not much practical necessity for the child to do anything in particular.  All of these increase the likelihood that the child will spontaneously work toward doing things “exactly so,” at least in the specific activities that he or she chooses.

Turning to the home:

1)  Lack of peer models means that the parent is more important as a model.  Montessori (unlike CM) wrote positively about the child being motivated by devotion to the adult, so this seems workable in principle.  It can be very hard in practice, though.  I often feel far too wilted to be an enticing “carrot.”  😁

2)  Control of error.  There are results that might look okay to the child, but that the adult knows are not acceptable and need to be corrected somehow.  I see this more and more as my children get older.  I even followed Amy Chua’s example recently, and told a couple of my children (not tiny ones) to redo birthday cards they’d made.  I don’t know if there is a more enlightened way of doing this.  

3)  Precise, repeated demonstrations.  Again, easy in principle, though challenging in practice.

4)  Free choice of activities within a given variety, such that the child can work on whatever he or she is drawn to.  This is not part of EFL’s method for chores, or really for academics either.  She does give them plenty of free time, and some scope for following their interests (e.g. with literature), but certain things just have to get done, and without self-motivation, I’m not sure we can rely on the child’s innate pursuit of excellence.  

Something I’ve been thinking about is that for elementary age and up, Montessori starts to incorporate standards from the outside world.  State requirements for education might be posted on the wall, or the middle school children might run a business that serves the public.  This provides real-world expectations and limits that are not inherent to the M. method, and will vary from place to place.  In a more extreme way, radical unschoolers tend to rely on outside institutions to eventually provide standards that the parents do not.   With old-style home education, though, the family itself is the main institution, and children interact with the expectations of the “grown-up world” from day one.   I’m not sure what this tells us, but it seems relevant.

Edited May 30, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

For example, this AMS “Montessori at Home” page says:

“Based on your observations, make changes to the environment to ensure your child’s success, interest, and independence. For older children, work together and include them in the decision-making process. Give choices, but be sure that you are comfortable with all of the available options, so you support the child no matter what choice is made.”

Is it just me, or is this not very helpful in most aspects of family life?   I feel as if Montessori herself would have had some more practical advice.  Or, failing that, at least admitted that she didn’t know.  She often expressed respect for mothers in traditional societies, who I’m pretty sure were not putting a lot of effort into coming up with lists of choices.

Edited May 30, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Ha, yeah, that tip from AMS is not helpful at all. For example, the first thing that strikes me is that it assumes a parent-child dyad with no other family members around who also might have opinions about whatever "choices" are offered. And in fact, of the Montessorians I know, the ones with the most "Montessori" homes are also the ones with one child. 

Hm, random thought, but I wonder if our collective mothers' disinclination to teach us useful skills has anything to do with the decreased amount of time kids presumably spent with their siblings over the course of the last century. Maybe our moms had way less practice "teaching" younger children than would once have been the case (this might have also been true generation or two above them? I remember a long while ago we had a discussion of how the radio changed how families spent their "free" time together). That might explain why they learned those skills well themselves, but weren't as able to pass them along to the next generation.

Are we going to follow any kind of a schedule for discussing Bookless Lessons? This weekend I am wrapping up a project I foolishly agreed to help with, but after that I will be starting my reread. Should be fun!

Edited May 31, 2020 by LostCove

[GracieJane]

20 hours ago, ElizaG said:

For example, this AMS “Montessori at Home” page says:

“Based on your observations, make changes to the environment to ensure your child’s success, interest, and independence. For older children, work together and include them in the decision-making process. Give choices, but be sure that you are comfortable with all of the available options, so you support the child no matter what choice is made.”

Is it just me, or is this not very helpful in most aspects of family life?   I feel as if Montessori herself would have had some more practical advice.  Or, failing that, at least admitted that she didn’t know.  She often expressed respect for mothers in traditional societies, who I’m pretty sure were not putting a lot of effort into coming up with lists of choices.

Haha! The old “Offer child choices so that they can make choices but also let them provide their own set of choices of which they choose their preferred choice which you support” false choice 😄

[ElizaG]

I think three chapters a week would be a reasonable pace, at least to start.  (Some of the later chapters are longer.)  So this week would go:

Monday-Tuesday: Chapter 1, “The Teacher-Mother’s Opportunity”

Wednesday-Thursday: Chapter 2, “Education or Heredity”

Friday-Sunday: Chapter 3, “Psychology and Pedagogy”

Does that sound okay?  

We could always go back and discuss things from earlier in the book, as it all fits together.

[ElizaG]

At the beginning of chapter one, EFL emphasizes that for all families, rich and poor, the home has the potential to be the “greatest educational institution in the world” for the child.  

Yesterday, I watched some YouTube videos of North American and European homes in the first part of the 20th century.  The gap between rich and poor, in terms of material lifestyle, looked much greater than it does today.  Many things that were once luxuries are now the norm (home appliances, electricity, plumbing).  Still, everyone’s home chores looked a lot more “Montessori” than they do now.  More direct interaction with, say, water and dirt, and less interaction with the strictures of machines.  More sewing, which meant more fabric scraps, buttons, etc. 

Perhaps because I started out with my little ones by studying classroom-oriented advice (Montessori and RIE), I think I’ve focused too much on having various resources available, and not enough on making sure they’re visible and used in our daily lives.  In other words, the advice was oriented toward making the home into a better educational institution by adding desirable things and practices (and, to some extent, removing undesirable ones), rather than by recognizing and using the educational potential that existed already.  Will have to think about how best to achieve the latter.

Edited June 1, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

A few more passages that stand out to me:

“One of the most pernicious blunders of modern education is putting a book into the child's hands before he is ready for the lessons it contains.”

“Unfortunately, the term education is confused with schooling, instruction, and book knowledge, and is used more often in a wrong than in the right sense, a confusion for which schoolmen are probably chiefly to blame.”

On the psychology of her day: “Its strange, wild theories seem to have originated from the process of imagining what children like best to do and writing these things out, averring them to be the science of exactly what ought to be done.”

“The home is the only institution that is in itself strictly an educational institution. The church and the school can each help, but the home and the home only can educate.”

“The mother's chief strength lies in her moral nature. Her very presence and example must exercise a constantly stimulating and elevating influence. Such a mother, even if no great aid to her children in the acquisition of school subjects, is the ideal mother.”

“Alfalfa is a difficult crop to establish, as it needs a special kind of fertilizer to enable the roots to draw their nourishment from the ground and air, but once it gets a start and finds itself at home in the new soil, it thrives and becomes not only a most valuable and abundant crop but also a permanent one, and moreover the soil becomes fourfold richer for its having grown therein.  What this fertilizing principle does to alfalfa, faith and courage do for the mother.”

Please feel free to add your own thoughts, on these or any other parts of the chapter.  

 

[LostintheCosmos]

So one question might be whether our homes have the same educational value as they did when EFL was writing, given the differences in how we perform household labor, prepare food, and so on (less "dirt and water," ha - I think we've talked about this a bit before in the context of dishwashers, I think). I think yes, of course, but it perhaps does require a shift in mentality, and one that goes against maybe our natural inclinations (glancing at my wonderful, very productive, and highly task-oriented DH here) and also cultural messages we receive about domestic life and work. The goal isn't for mom and dad to rush through the necessary drudgery as efficiently as possible (or for the happy set than can afford it, just outsource some or most of that labor) in order to make more time for leisure and "educational" activities. Instead, we can see the necessary "drudgery" as itself educational and we can even make that work somewhat leisurely.

I think I used to do a better job of this but as my kids have gotten older, but I have slipped because I'm more anxious to have time to get through everyone's book lessons. Also, life has gotten more complicated - we have a few more outside activities, we have more stuff, etc, etc. I feel like I have to maximize efficiency to get to everything, but efficiency doesn't go with small children very well. I was already planning a big decluttering/house organizing project this summer, but this has me thinking about that in a slightly different light. 

I love the paragraph where she talks about the confusion over the words "education" and "educator": 

Quote

Note the present general use of the word "educator" instead of "instructor, professor, superintendent, teacher. We have commissioners of education, boards of education, departments of education, when the correct term is "public instruction." I venture to assert that this misuse of the word has a wider influence for evil than any similar verbal blunder of the age. The school never was and never can be the chief factor in human education, and to rely upon it as such is one of the most far-reaching errors of the modern social system...

An error we see perpetuated by those who suggest classical Christian schools are the solution to all our ills...

Here are the things EFL says in this first chapter that a mother needs: understanding "something of the laws of human nature," "sympathetic understanding of the child's needs," and "faith and courage." She doesn't accept a mother's "pleading lack of time, knowledge, patience, culture, energy, self-confidence, servants, experience, inventiveness" - a mother doesn't need any of those things to get started just "leaving undone some of the things she now thinks so important."

So again, not greater efficiency doing all the things, but just abstaining from some things that seem right now to be really important. To me, this has interesting resonances with other things I've read, like Guardini's argument that asceticism is one of the most important virtues we need to cultivate in modern life. So I guess in addition to decluttering my house this summer, I also figure out what I should be leaving undone.

Edited June 2, 2020 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

I’m having trouble coming up with much to say about the second chapter.  She was firmly on the side of education (vs. heredity), especially for moral development.  This was at a time when eugenics was on the upswing, and everyone would have been familiar with the stories of “degenerate families” such as the Jukes and Kallikaks.

Will await others’ responses. 🙂

[ElizaG]

So, on to chapter 3, “Psychology and Pedagogy.”  Things got a little busy here, and I haven’t finished reading it, but feel free to post on any part that interests you.

(I’m trying not to get discouraged by her list of five important outcomes of home education, on p. 22.  My not-very-EFL homeschool only seems to have reliably achieved two of them:  reverence and vocabulary.  Observation, prompt obedience, and the work habit are still very patchy.)

[ElizaG]

p. 24 - Says that on average, children should start reading between 7 and 10, and that asking “why” questions is a sign of readiness.  

p. 27 - I have to laugh when she says, “few mothers would confess their inability to learn how to care for and to train the babe.”  Now we have mini publishing empires, classes and support groups, all on the subject of infant care.  I’m not sure most mothers have felt confident in their “good sense” for a couple of generations, at least.

p. 30 - I really like the part where she recommends that the mother look to nature as a guide.  Somehow her analogies to plants are more relatable and insightful than all those recent exhortations (e.g., from certain of the publishing empires) to model ourselves on marsupials.

This also reminds me to keep faithfully and prayerfully obtaining the correct fertilizer for my alfalfa.  😁  Maybe I’ll print pictures of all these plants and have the children color them, then post them as reminders.

Edited June 7, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Ok, I am already a little behind thanks to the majority of my brain power suddenly being consumed trying to get us ready for an enormous road trip in less than three weeks. I'm glad you reminded us of the context in which to place the second chapter, ElizaG. There were fewer practical takeaways from it, but I was still moved by several passages, such as "all normal human beings are in one way or another equally gifted for useful, honorable, and successful careers, whether the work for which they were called to earth be with head or hand, and...it is our most sacred duty to find out what each child can do and then to educate him accordingly" (12).

This was also a good reminder: "It is, of course, more pleasurable to teach children who respond quickly and showily to our efforts, but they who labor patiently, intelligently, and persistently to awaken the soul and mind of the little slow-witted backward child will be rewarded in due season with an unfolding of that soul and intellect as marvelous as the blossoming of the fragrant water-lily out of the dull brown bud that grew up from the slime" (17). I also thought when reading this about how I tend to find the kind of things the older children are learning more pleasurable to teach, and I need to make sure I don't neglect to labor patiently, intelligently, and persistently with the little ones.

I'm so glad to be rereading EFL and getting back to things I've gotten out of the habit of doing - like a little observation lesson on the branch of a maple tree this morning while we were outside waiting for Mass. And actually, it was quite pleasurable, too!

[ElizaG]

LostCove, best wishes as you prepare for your upcoming adventure!

That passage from p. 17 reminds me of St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle, who had such a hard time keeping elementary teachers that he had to make them promise not to study Latin and Greek.  In his experience, once a teacher had  tasted the delights of higher learning, he was rarely willing to keep teaching the little ones.  (Of course, this was also partly due to the desire for prestige.)  Perhaps we could draw inspiration from LaSallian saints such as Benildus Romancon, who sounds as though he could have achieved eminence in his studies, but who in fact attained sanctity through what Pius XII described as "the terrible daily grind” of teaching and helping beginners of all ages.

Edited June 8, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Haha, yes, here is me and Mr. LostCove on a daily basis trying to psych ourselves up for this journey:

Thank you for sharing about St. Benildus Romancon. This is what I need - patron saints of the terrible daily grind!

Edited June 8, 2020 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

Chapters 4 and 5 are both about discipline, and they’re fairly long, so I think it would be best for us to take the whole week to discuss them.  Chapter 4 could be the focus on Monday through Wednesday, and chapter 5 on Thursday through Sunday.  Again, feel free to jump in with your thoughts or questions.

Also, before I forget, I recently came across a reference to the 19th century French psychologist Ribot, who distinguished between two types of attention:

1) involuntary (or natural) attention, which happens effortlessly and is controlled by the emotions, and

2) voluntary (or artificial) attention, which requires the use of the will, is a product of education, and is a requirement for civilization.

It struck me that “voluntary attention” is very close to what EFL calls “the work habit.”

Many writers in the early 20th century made use of Ribot’s classification, including Vygotsky.  I would love to learn more about his angle (if only the book in question weren’t $150).  The social aspect of learning also reminds me of something Robinson said:  that it was extremely helpful to have the parent sitting and doing desk work, in the same room, while the children were doing their schoolwork.   

Here’s a link to the English translation of Ribot’s Psychology of Attention (1890).

Oh, and I just learned that some current researchers believe that the development of attention is the controlling factor for the development of executive function.  And the time frame they’ve observed lines right up with what EFL is saying.  Very interesting!

[ElizaG]

1 hour ago, mms said:

Especially, since I have been known to dig plants up to see how well they are coming along... now I’ll run away and hide.

You’re not the only one!  I did that recently (with a very weak excuse).  I just didn’t have the courage to tell you guys.  ☺️ 

TBH, gardening used to be relaxing, but since I’ve gone back to reading EFL, it’s become kind of emotionally fraught.  Everything wrong with the plants reminds me of some mistake I’ve been making with one or more children.  “Reluctance to prune, leading to sprawl” is the latest one.  😉

[ElizaG]

Okay, time to enter chapter 4... on the always challenging, and often confusing, subject of “Discipline.”

P. 35 - We need to understand that she’s referring to the traditional, humane meaning of discipline.  This is very important.  Once we’ve grasped the meaning of the term ourselves, it still tends to pose a difficulty in communicating with other people.  Even my older family members tend to equate it with either punishment or military discipline.  

When I was searching for advice on teaching docility, one of the texts that came up was Charlotte Mason’s School Education.  She writes at length on the importance of “mechanical obedience” in the younger child, and even uses an example of a retired soldier who still snaps to attention.  This was a surprise; given her online reputation, one would expect her to speak even more humanely than EFL, not less.  But here we have a passage that doesn’t seem to fit with all the discussions of picture books and tea parties, or even with the idea of children being “born persons,” at least as that’s often interpreted.

Thinking back to when I was starting out, Elizabeth Foss did write an article saying that prompt obedience was important, but I can’t remember anyone on CM-inspired blogs or forums addressing the nuts and bolts of achieving this.  Maybe everyone else found it too easy and obvious to warrant talking about?    😄  Apparently not, since I just came across an updated version of the article in answer to requests for more concrete advice.  But this one also leaves me with far more questions than answers.  Most significantly, it says nothing about how to teach the habit of prompt obedience to children too young to be reasoned with, as both CM and EFL considered essential.    

Does anyone know of a source that gives a detailed description of CM’s own advice on disciplining young children, so I can compare it with EFL’s?  I don’t have the time to tackle more of CM’s lengthy prose at the moment, especially as the passages on discipline are spread across several books.

[ElizaG]

P. 37 - We should be disciplining babies, and helping them to develop self-control, even before they can speak.  

If we forget the broader meaning of “discipline,” this will immediately bring to mind all sorts of dire images (due especially to certain child-training manuals from several years ago), but I think the basic issue here is just the formation of regular habits.  I found some magazines from the late 1800s that used the word “discipline” to describe getting the baby (past newborn age) on some sort of a feeding and sleeping routine.

This is controversial in itself, in some circles, but it was typical advice from 19th century doctors and clergy, including those in places where bottle-feeding wasn’t promoted.  They also tended to advise weaning from the breast onto carefully selected table foods around one year of age, completing the switch in a fairly short time frame, rather than doing the sort of long-term mixed feeding that’s the norm these days.  Montessori’s advice about teaching babies to use a cup was based on this assumption, for instance.  Once a very young toddler was drinking from a cup, he or she would no longer nurse, and would thus be more independent.  Of course, a follower of AP would likely see this independence as a bad thing.

Especially after reading more of Bonnie Landry’s writings, I’ve been wondering if the groups that traditionally practice something like AP also tend to have the sort of non-hierarchical social dynamic that Rogoff describes.  And, on a different note, if their usual daily tasks require a different sort of attention from ours.  There certainly seems to be some sort of package deal going on.

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Ack, I'm still a chapter behind but will try to catch up tonight. Eliza, I remember back in the day Jennifer Mackintosh writing a more detailed thing about how she teaches obedience to her littles from a CM perspective, but I cannot seem to find it now. I thought it was on her website, but maybe it was somewhere else. 

I'd like to understand more the difference between regular, "humane" discipline and "military discipline." Maybe EFL discusses this later, I can't recall at the moment, but it would be helpful to understand better what she is contrasting humane discipline with. My best guess is that "military obedience" is automatic and immediate compliance to serve some extrinsic end whereas discipline is ultimately about developing the disciple to eventually act on their own, and so obedience, while expected of the disciple, is subordinated to and meant to serve this larger goal. This perhaps changes both the type of things the disciple is asked to do as well as how he is asked to do them, though it does not change the fact that he is expected to comply. Thoughts?

[ElizaG]

6 hours ago, LostCove said:

. I'd like to understand more the difference between regular, "humane" discipline and "military discipline." Maybe EFL discusses this later, I can't recall at the moment, but it would be helpful to understand better what she is contrasting humane discipline with. My best guess is that "military obedience" is automatic and immediate compliance to serve some extrinsic end whereas discipline is ultimately about developing the disciple to eventually act on their own, and so obedience, while expected of the disciple, is subordinated to and meant to serve this larger goal. This perhaps changes both the type of things the disciple is asked to do as well as how he is asked to do them, though it does not change the fact that he is expected to comply. Thoughts?

Military discipline has a lot to do with group cohesion, and it makes use of many arbitrary rules and practices to foster that cohesion.  Marching drill is the best known of these.  Basically, the individual is subordinating his will not so much to a particular human authority, as to the military group as a whole.  The commanding officers are there to facilitate that, and are even somewhat interchangeable.

We can see a watered down, informal version of this sort of discipline in sports, traditional summer camps, and college freshman orientation.  Military drill itself was once part of the regular curriculum in public schools in the US and elsewhere, and some writers on education were enthusiastic in their use of military analogies.  I think this peaked around 1900-1910 (which also happens to be the time frame in which CM wrote School Education).  There was also something called a drill that looks more like an elaborately choreographed stage show, also done by school children.  Now we’re just left with vestiges such as “addition drills” and “fire drills,” which also derive from the military use of the word. 

Another major difference between regular and military discipline is that the military deliberately uses harsh methods and words, especially with new recruits, causing strong emotions which have to be controlled.  They take away the person’s access to necessities (food, sleep, etc.) and dictate his or her actions for all the hours of the day.  I guess it’s a sort of infantilization, so they can make a new start?  Again, there’s a parallel with the rougher sorts of orientation events.   

I think these might have been the sorts of things EFL was thinking of, when she said that military discipline should play no part in the parent’s approach.

[ElizaG]

BTW, don’t worry if you’re not caught up yet.  I think we’re going to need to spend a bit longer on chapter 4.  It’s too important to rush through.

Meanwhile, I have a pair of questions for you (not really related to the chapter, sorry).

1)  If you had a room (not very big) to set up as an EFL-ish play and craft area for under-7s, what would you put in it?  

2)  If these little ones would sometimes be supervised by other people who knew nothing of EFL, what special instructions, if any, would you give to them?

Edited June 12, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Thanks for the comments about military discipline, ElizaG - very helpful. I know I can always count on you to keep me anchored in the concrete when I'm about to fly off into the ether of abstraction. 😆

I'm about halfway through chapter four, but I have a quiet hour tonight, so I thought I would come and start sharing the things that jumped out at me this time round. I was struck by how she first sets the stage on page 36 with comments like "It takes a long, long time to learn to respond to a command with mind and body" and "Watch the growth of the human plant. Sometimes it will unfold leaf by leaf with pleasing symmetry, and if it should dismay us by a seeming long period of dormancy, it is sure to burst out again in ravishing bloom." Humane discipline is not opposed to patience, which I personally have struggled to hold together with consistent expectations. 

This is a pretty good parent's examen on page 37: "Do I practice what I preach? Do I chastise my children for mirroring my shortcomings? Is my policy one of 'Do as I say, not as I do?'"

And of course, "Much of the trouble and worry over children is really due to faulty domestic arrangements... regularity is the keynote of success, therefore be methodical. Systematize your household plans." I have finally learned that when we come out of a "survival" period of one kind or another - illness, new baby, whatever - that much of my panic about the children's near-feral state can be resolved by just focusing on getting the house back in order and re-instituting our daily routine, rather than running around trying to put out the fires of naughtiness (although, if the naughtiness caused an actual fire, a definite possibility around here, I would certainly put that one out). There may be a bit of push back at the beginning, but honestly, the kids seem mostly relieved for things to return to a state of predictability. I can remember the enormous effort it took to get us on a regular daily routine back in the day - I was totally exhausted by the end of the day and often just ran out of gas before the end of the week and spent Thursday and Friday at total loose ends. But now I'm looking back and...somehow it seems to have worked! Not perfectly, not always, but some things that did take enormous effort no longer do (outside of that periodic restarting phase, which I'm in right now - although I just learned I've been somewhat anemic, so hopefully some iron supplements will turbo boost our return to regularity, ha). 

I spent the very earliest years of motherhood reading all about and trying to practice attachment parenting, and I think that was good and necessary in many ways, but it left me feeling very anxious about provoking negative emotions in my children (turns out, I was also very anxious about provoking my own negative emotions! funny how that works). So this next one I remember very clearly jumping out at me the first time I read Bookless Lessons: "Be just! Do not, in the fear of alienating the child's love, condone faults and withhold punishment, for when kindly, strict discipline does not kill love" (37). 

Aaaannd, I just scrolled back up and saw I missed Eliza's post where she discussed the regularity question AND already brought in attachment parenting. I wonder how much of the baby-scheduling question is a first baby problem. I was the closest to by-the-book AP with my first baby, and I don't see how I could have done that ever again, definitely not by baby 3 or 4, even if I had wanted to. But I don't feel less securely attached to those later babies - maybe because their mother is less of an anxious basket case, lol, maybe because there was more of a overall plan that they could just slip into place in. 

I think I agree about the "package deal" thing though - I think it's this integration that has intrigued me about that way of life for years now, for better or worse. And I'm very interested in the ways that, as I see it, EFL is very much in line with parts of those traditional ways of life but also diverges at points. 

Edited June 13, 2020 by LostCove

[LostintheCosmos]

On 6/11/2020 at 6:43 PM, ElizaG said:

BTW, don’t worry if you’re not caught up yet.  I think we’re going to need to spend a bit longer on chapter 4.  It’s too important to rush through.

Meanwhile, I have a pair of questions for you (not really related to the chapter, sorry).

1)  If you had a room (not very big) to set up as an EFL-ish play and craft area for under-7s, what would you put in it?  

2)  If these little ones would sometimes be supervised by other people who knew nothing of EFL, what special instructions, if any, would you give to them?

 

1) Blocks, a few small toy animals or other play figures, some old sheets or "play silks" or whatever, clothespins, colored pencils, a pencil sharpener and paper, one or two "how to draw" books, all the household's non-dangerous recycling (catalogs, cardboard, and plastic stuff), scissors, tape, glue, a stapler (maybe), maybe rubberbands, although they would be gone almost immediately, a small shelf of books that could be rotated, a CD player or ipod or whatever for music and audiobooks, a whiteboard or chalkboard or something, a broom and dustpan, and a trashcan. 

2) I have no idea! That's a really interesting question! I'm curious what other people come up with.

[ElizaG]

On 6/12/2020 at 6:14 PM, LostCove said:

 

1) Blocks, a few small toy animals or other play figures, some old sheets or "play silks" or whatever, clothespins, colored pencils, a pencil sharpener and paper, one or two "how to draw" books, all the household's non-dangerous recycling (catalogs, cardboard, and plastic stuff), scissors, tape, glue, a stapler (maybe), maybe rubberbands, although they would be gone almost immediately, a small shelf of books that could be rotated, a CD player or ipod or whatever for music and audiobooks, a whiteboard or chalkboard or something, a broom and dustpan, and a trashcan. 

That sounds great!  

My current list also includes a one-hole punch, string, metal cans without sharp edges, thin scrap wood, a hammer, and small nails or tacks (as we don’t currently have someone who’s likely to try to eat them).

Plastic recycling is something I’m undecided on, partly because I find it unaesthetic, and partly because the crafting process tends to make it even less recyclable than it already is.  I might just let them have a few types.

I’m also unsure about tape.  In the olden days of my childhood, we only had a few kinds of tape, and my parents treated most of it like a precious resource, to be brought out when nothing else would do the job.  The one exception was the beige masking tape, which had limited sticking power and wasn’t a thing of beauty.  As a result, we became fairly skilled in using staples and glue.  (Even white glue was somewhat of a luxury.  Our regular school glue was a brownish mucilage.  Or, in kindergarten, flour-based wallpaper paste.  I can still remember the smell.  😁)

In my home now, when the children have free access to scotch tape or duct tape, they tend to use it as the default way of joining things together.  They tend to use too much of it, often in applications where it doesn’t work well anyway.  They’re often reluctant to try using other fasteners, even when I suggest them.  

I’m going to have to think this over some more.  Not for too long, because I tend to get bogged down in details.  But I have this feeling that some craft materials have become less educative and more elevator-ish, and I’m not sure what (if anything) to do about it. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

17 hours ago, ElizaG said:

That sounds great!  

My current list also includes a one-hole punch, string, metal cans without sharp edges, thin scrap wood, a hammer, and small nails or tacks (as we don’t currently have someone who’s likely to try to eat them).

Plastic recycling is something I’m undecided on, partly because I find it unaesthetic, and partly because the crafting process tends to make it even less recyclable than it already is.  I might just let them have a few types.

I’m also unsure about tape.  In the olden days of my childhood, we only had a few kinds of tape, and my parents treated most of it like a precious resource, to be brought out when nothing else would do the job.  The one exception was the beige masking tape, which had limited sticking power and wasn’t a thing of beauty.  As a result, we became fairly skilled in using staples and glue.  (Even white glue was somewhat of a luxury.  Our regular school glue was a brownish mucilage.  Or, in kindergarten, flour-based wallpaper paste.  I can still remember the smell.  😁)

In my home now, when the children have free access to scotch tape or duct tape, they tend to use it as the default way of joining things together.  They tend to use too much of it, often in applications where it doesn’t work well anyway.  They’re often reluctant to try using other fasteners, even when I suggest them.  

I’m going to have to think this over some more.  Not for too long, because I tend to get bogged down in details.  But I have this feeling that some craft materials have become less educative and more elevator-ish, and I’m not sure what (if anything) to do about it. 

Oh yeah, we used to have one of those can openers that doesn't leave a sharp edge which was great - I had totally forgotten about that. A hole punch is also a good idea. My kids get to hammer stuff outside, but the thought of that inside makes me feel slightly queasy.

My sister-in-law sent us a huge set of scissors with different cutting edges (like this, except, no joke, there were about two dozen of them in a big scissors carousel) for Christmas one year, and it was horrible, so I do not recommend that, ha.

Plastic stuff is really unaesthetic, but we also don't actually have any recycling pick-up or drop-off in our area right now, so letting the kids mess with it makes me feel less bad about it going into the trash.

Here's my clever solution on the tape question: occasionally buy a lot of tape and give the kids free access. They quickly use it all up, mom takes forever to get around to buying more, and in the meantime, they are forced to resort to other materials. This all reminds me, though, that I've been meaning to get a dedicated kids stapler, because we currently only own one and my husband is basically Milton from Office Space about it.

Another thought that occurred to me was yarn and a crochet hook or knitting needles. Or just yarn for finger knitting.

This is fun! Can we do this same exercise but for a road trip? What would EFL bring in a big van for five kids 3-12 on a 4500 mile drive?

[ElizaG]

On 6/15/2020 at 6:53 AM, LostCove said:

 Can we do this same exercise but for a road trip? What would EFL bring in a big van for five kids 3-12 on a 4500 mile drive?

Trying to picture EFL in a van full of children.  😄  Here are a few items that come to mind:

Some new literature to read aloud at bedtime (maybe related to the trip)

Probably some audiobooks and recorded music

Sketchbooks and drawing implements

One or two small, lightweight balls (ball pit or ping-pong type), in case you’re stuck indoors

We’d also likely bring a bunch of Wikki Stix, as they’re compact, versatile, and fairly tidy, though IDK if EFL would agree.  Plain waxed candle wick might work the same way; I assume that’s what inspired the commercial product.  And some pony beads, or buttons with large holes, to use with them.

Edited June 17, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

This is from p. 37:  

“Much of the trouble and worry over children is really due to faulty domestic arrangements. Now regularity is the keynote of success, therefore be methodical. Systematize your household plans. Draw up a regular daily schedule, and not only keep to it but make your children do so as well, so that all day long they know ‘what comes next,’ whether mealtime, bedtime, playtime, playing with baby, or helping mother in some other way. This does away with a certain amount of questioning and eventual protesting, which are excusable in a child if regularity is not observed.”

Do the rest of you feel you’re doing well with this?  

Even after many years of trying, our household still isn’t very methodical about anything, except maybe making breakfast (probably because we’re too sleepy and hungry to get distracted), and then starting school right afterward.  When my children were younger, I tried books such as Mother’s Rule of Life and MOTH, but couldn’t stick with them even for a few days.  Now I can’t even imagine creating such a comprehensive schedule, let alone implementing it.  The few school routines we have tend to be loose, and easily thrown off by some unusual circumstance, of which we seem to have many.  Maybe, instead of trying to schedule the whole day at once, I should start with just a few more things?  That would be a *methodical* way of doing this.

[ElizaG]

I think our expectations for the children can be higher than for ourselves in some ways, as it’s much harder for adults to change old habits than it is for children to form new ones.  I see this as the children get older, and are more reasoning and less purely imitative.  They have the potential to achieve a lot even in areas where we’re still struggling.  We just have to have humility, kindness, and discretion in talking to them about these things.  That isn’t much help with the tiny ones, though.  

Have we talked about “The Self-Propelled Advantage?”  It’s a fairly recent homeschooling book that has some similarities to EFL, but in a completely different way from Bonnie Landry.  It’s based on standard “book lessons,” but the author is very big on self-directed learning, and she emphasizes the importance of first-time obedience as a foundation.  Obedience is presented as a pathway to self-mastery, and a way to establish trust, both of which are essential for the sort of independent homeschooling she recommends.

I looked through the book a few years ago, but didn’t take much away from it besides the use of planners with checkboxes (which have become central to our homeschool).   In particular, I skipped over most of the discipline part, because she insists that both parents have to work together to fix problems, and that wasn’t really happening here for various reasons.  Just now, though, I was searching for advice on obedience, and her book came up again.  The fact that she agrees so closely with EFL is compelling me to take this seriously.  Maybe my high schoolers’ never-quite-solid obedience is the foundational reason why they still require a lot of hand-holding, of the sort that the “Self-Propelled” woman stops giving in fourth grade.   Maybe my own never-quite-solid obedience was the cause of a lot of my difficulties in late high school and college, when schoolwork got harder and sometimes less interesting. 

Okay, she is a bit like Bonnie Landry, in that she recommends finishing up the day’s schoolwork (for the younger child) with a dish of ice cream or some candy.  This “give them candy” thing seems to be the #1 difference between EFL and more recent homeschool writers with similar advice.  Even Ruth Beechick did it.  😄

Edited June 20, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

13 hours ago, mms said:

I just put that book in my declutter pile, lol. I’ll pull it out and look through it again. I will say that my children with whom I have worked more one on one, for whom I provided more scaffolding against EFL’s advice are far more self-propelled than eldest who was my guinea pig after I read Calderwood’s book. I will try to write more after I reread.

Isn’t Calderwood’s whole system based on scaffolding?  The parent works directly with the child for the first several years, giving whatever help is needed.  After that, she stays involved mostly by checking in and giving enthusiastic feedback.  This would be a problem for me, as while I enjoy working with my children, I’m not usually very enthusiastic in my reactions.  Nor am I a high energy person in general.  (When she says of herself and her husband, “We’re molding, shaping, disciplining, loving, praying, laughing, and cheering for them all along the way,” I get tired just reading that, TBH.  😉 )

Another thing I noticed is that her whole family is very involved in activities such as music and athletics.  This provides some balance to their lives, and likely also fosters connections among family members.  I’m reminded of the way the Robinson curriculum doesn’t have much parental interaction, but the Robinson family seems to have had quite a bit, including farm and lab chores and a lot of mealtime conversation (often with visiting scientists, etc.).  

This is something I appreciate about EFL: her system isn’t modeled on the experience of a single family, with its own peculiarities that might not apply in our situation.  Instead, it’s based on her interactions with hundreds or thousands of families in various walks of life.  The down side, of course - and it’s kind of a big one! - is that all of those families were living a century ago.  Hmm, and perhaps also that the version we have effectively ends at age 8 or so.  LOL

Edited June 21, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Also wanted to add that my older children have seemed quite diligent and well-behaved at age 10-12, but this declined as they got further into adolescence.  This is “normal” according to many fellow homeschool mothers, but not according to EFL, Calderwood, and Robinson, who say that the right kind of early obedience will go a long way toward preventing that.   So I’m reading Dupanloup, and re-reading EFL, with this in mind.

I’m sure strong relationships are important, but I know parents IRL who’ve done much more AP and face-to-face schooling than we have, and many of them have had similar problems.  As for Bonnie Landry, she’s a bit vague on the subject of teenagers; her main yardstick for success seems to be how much they love babies.  And gummy bears come up yet again.

Is this what we’re reduced to - placating ourselves and our children with candy?  I’m not bashing Landry here, just asking about our society.  I think it’s “The Renegade Home” (1940) that has the anecdote about the woman who asked EFL to help manage her cigarette habit.   

Now that I think about it, many of the homeschool families we know who are very socially active and seem to be doing well overall — faith, family relationships, respectful behavior, academics — also seem to eat a lot of sweets or junk food treats.  The ones who don’t tend to be more subdued.  I even know a family who are usually into healthy eating, but switched to fast food for a time out of necessity, and they said that everyone was happier then.  Do sugar and flavor enhancers have a role as self-medication, or as fuel for the modern world?  This is a depressing thought.  

I’m currently reading Dupanloup’s chapter on sensuality, which he calls the second great source of defects (after pride).   The entire physical side of discipline (including self-discipline) is clearly very important, but I don’t understand it much at all.  I just keep getting this feeling that we’re well on the way toward becoming what McLuhan called “discarnate Man.”  Even the current trend for very soft, stretchy, lightweight clothing seems to be part of it.  Old books recommended against such fabrics, calling them “enervating,” but now they’re almost the only sort of clothes available.   It’s as if people don’t want to feel any discomfort, or even any reminders that their bodies exist at all.

Edited June 21, 2020 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Oddly, now that you've mentioned it, Eliza, I'm remembering that I was once mildly scandalized to learn that in a family I admire very much, one parent and one child used to get up early every morning to have a bowl of ice cream together. 

DH and I were recently talking about how during times of stress, our sweets and alcohol consumption goes up and things despite our stated rule of saving those things for Sundays, feast days, etc. I've always tended to see the arrow of causality as going from stress to (moderate) self-medication, but we started talking about to what extent we actual avoid making some hard changes that could alleviate some of our stress because we can make the situation "tolerable" this other way.

Add to that the fact that I don't seem to be able to take as much enjoyment as I'd from certain other things, like just being together or a job well done or what have you. For example, I've never quite been able to wrap my head around the advice to just sit and read aloud on homeschooling-days-gone-south because that doesn't sound like a break to me, it sounds totally exhausting, lol.

I guess I am wondering how much of what you are talking about is a declining tolerance for discomfort or actually increased discomfort in some areas that we try to address by adding comfort in others.

If EFL is right that maintaining her psychic energy is one of the mother's greatest challenges, are these the inevitable trade-offs that happen when, as you said it upthread, "we can't achieve the 'simplicity of surroundings' that's supposed to be a sine qua non"? Is the fast food family happier because of the MSG or because mom has decided not to spend any of her precious psychic energy optimizing their food choices? It doesn't have to be one or the other, of course.

Edited June 21, 2020 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

Reading aloud is real physical exercise.  Some old-time writers gave this as a reason for keeping it in the school curriculum.  I’m with you on finding it a bit of a chore.  It’s something I only ever do for short periods, with books I really like, when I’m not already tired.  Usually we have some sort of special ritual around it, e.g. while eating lunch, or at bedtime when daddy’s away.  Even with all that, I rarely manage to finish a longer book before something disrupts the routine and we just don’t get back to it (despite the children asking).  Wow, I feel like a worm now!  Will try to restart one of their favorites this week.

I’m pretty sure almost everyone in the country today is suffering from what EFL calls “that obnoxious American malady, ‘nerves.’” (p. 41).   Harried housewives, bookish types, and idealistic people with “over-lofty purposes” are among the worst affected, according to old medical books on the subject.  Those doctors would agree with what EFL says about the preventive value of self-control and regular habits.  But they also say that we should avoid all sorts of things that seem almost unavoidable today.  Some say that the epidemic of “nerves” started with the faster pace of American life in the 1860s.  Maybe this would include artificial lighting, express trains, and telegraphy influencing newspaper contents?  But I’ve started trying to put some of their advice into practice anyway, with myself and my older children.  

I’m going to quote this whole passage from EFL, which mms referred to, because it’s quite helpful.

“Punishment, however, is only one phase of child management. It will be readily seen how much the physical well-being of a young child has to do with its disposition and behavior. Health and bodily comfort, good physical habits, exercise, food, drink, properly fitting garments, occupation— any one of these will make the difference between a good and a “bad” child. When baby gets tired, hungry, thirsty, or sleepy, it gets “cross” and naughty, and it is upset by unusual excitement or too much attention. Do not let a young child go too long without food, for even with a grown person that weak feeling in the stomach loosens self-control. If breakfast is early and dinner at noon, there should be a snack between ten and eleven, otherwise the child becomes ravenous and naturally naughty. One slice of bread and butter, an apple, or a glass of milk, will do. Let there be no sweets, for too much sugar is one of the deadly destroyers of a child's nerves and discipline. In the afternoon, a nap almost takes the place of a lunch.

Do your teaching and your disciplining in the morning, when the child is most impressionable, rather than at the wane of day. A little child works hard, harder than we. He gets charged wtih a skinful of poisons, his nerves are tingling, and towards nightfall he is irritable and primed for trouble. I have known mothers who would start late in the afternoon to wrangle with a child and keep it up until both were exhausted. If ever naughtiness or fretfulness is to be overlooked, it should be late in the day, but this overlooking must not be done if the child is conscious of it. Change the whole milieu by a little fun, a game, a story, a drink of water (be sure the children get water often), a little petting and cuddling, or even by a tepid bath and by calling on the sandman for help. But in the morning, do not stand any nonsense.” (pp. 51-3)

Edited June 23, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

mms, thank you for bringing up the door example!  I was also thinking about it, but had forgotten about your post and couldn’t remember the source.  I did remember that the book in question had been recommended by Elisabeth Elliot, and thought it might be John S. C. Abbott’s The Mother at Home.  On re-reading that one, though, I found that he said compulsion was sometimes necessary.   

Abbott was writing in 1833 and Trumbull in 1890, which is likely relevant. Mainstream Protestant attitudes toward child discipline grew more liberal during the latter part of the 19th century (in England as well as the US, as Charlotte Mason noted).  Here’s an article from 1869 whose author says the tide is turning against all compulsion.  He gives a negative description of one of Abbott’s anecdotes, or rather his misrepresentation of the anecdote.  If you’re interested, you can read the real version in chapter 3 at the link above.

Trumbull also seems to see children as tiny adults, and spends a lot of time emphasizing that the adult should try to treat the child the way God treats the adult, which seems odd to me.  

Back when I was starting out, I got hold of all the books Elisabeth Elliott recommended and read them carefully.  No wonder I was so confused when it came time to figure out what to do in practice!  I wish she’d been clear on the fact that they sometimes disagreed with one another, even on matters of principle.

Edited June 23, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Okay, here’s a bit of a cheat sheet I just made.  Feel free to add to it.

Ways to prevent bad behavior:

Teaching the habit of obedience from toddlerhood with regular, small, easy tasks.

Modeling good behavior.

Keeping the child with you.

Building a close relationship.

Prayer for the child.

Proper meals, snacks, and drinks of water.  (Not free access, though.)

A regular, balanced schedule of activities.

Good sleep habits.

Doing the most challenging things in the morning.

Noticing when children are getting grumpy or overexcited, and switching to a pleasant or soothing activity.

Ways to deal with misbehavior without confronting it directly (if that’s what you consider best in the circumstances):

“Not noticing” some minor infractions at times.

Treating the child as if he were tired or ill. (Montessori often took this approach.  She assumed that a naughty child must be ill, and set him up with some toys in a spot that was comfortable but separate from the rest of the class.  The child was usually back to normal quickly.  But she had the power of peer pressure to work with.)

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

P. 62 says not to attempt to change too many things at a time, so I’ll try to stick with that approach.

The whole chapter on habits has a lot of advice that’s very different from Montessori.  Going by what EFL said in Educating the Child at Home, I always assumed that the two systems should be fairly compatible, though I could never figure out what that was supposed to look like.  Now that I’m reading Bookless Lessons more carefully, though, they seem to disagree on many points.  Trying to combine their ideas seems as confusing, and perhaps futile, as trying to combine Abbott and Trumbull.  

I wonder if she changed her views over the years, or perhaps didn’t know very much about Montessori in the beginning.  (Few Americans did, in 1914.)  Or maybe there’s something I’m missing that ties the two together.  This is quite possible, as I’m realizing that I haven’t been reading many of these books as closely as I intended to.  For example, just recently, I noticed that EFL never said it was helpful to have the Montessori apparatus - just the training.  But if she didn’t recommend the special didactic materials, or the “free choice” aspect, or much of the lifestyle stuff, then what’s left?  Small brooms?  To be honest, that’s about what it’s come down to with us, these days.  Volumes of pedagogy, reduced to a cleaning implement.  🧹 😄

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I’m up for moving on to chapter 6, “Training Children to Observe,” but I don’t want to rush anyone.  Let me know what you think.

[ElizaG]

It’s fine with me if we stay where we are for a while.  These chapters cover a lot.

I understand about not being too ideological, but the differences between MM and EFL include practices that are fundamental to each one’s approach, such as how and when obedience should be developed, free choice vs. scheduled activities, and whether reading and math should optimally begin at around age 4 or 8.  It doesn’t seem feasible to just take a middle ground on these questions, or even to do much picking and choosing, because the different aspects of each method work together.  (One can’t do oral lessons reliably with small children without firm obedience, for instance.)  And while we all have to make modifications from time to time, I’m not interested in experimentation writ large. 

I still have hope of reconciling them, though.  Just putting my problems on the table!
 

 

[Ausmumof3]

Just butting in to ask if anyone knows whether there are versions of the books available in public domain?  Especially if it’s something I can read in kindle etc.  I found them in internet archive but they are scanned pages, although I will make my way through those if need be.

[ElizaG]

Ausmumof3, there should be text and epub versions at the Internet Archive.  Maybe you have to click on something to get back to the main page for the book.  Let me know if you can’t figure it out.

This is from Educating the Child at Home (p. 7):

“"What connection has your plan with the Montessori system?" I have been asked by many other mothers. The work, as outlined in the following chapters, though not necessarily presupposing Montessori training, will be greatly facilitated and furthered thereby, especially if the child has had such careful and thoughtful training from babyhood as any good mother, with the help of such a book as the Montessori System, is qualified to give.”

The book she’s referring to is The Montessori System in Theory and Practice (1912), by Theodate L. Smith.  This is one of the earliest American books on the subject.  Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s A Montessori Mother came out the same year.  Many others appeared in the next few years; this page has links to online versions.

Edited June 26, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Here are the main Internet Archive pages for Bookless Lessons and Educating the Child at Home.  Each of them is available in several formats.

[ElizaG]

I’ve just looked through Educating the Child at Home, and EFL did leave open a lot of issues that she later addressed in Bookless Lessons.  For instance, in the earlier book:

She didn’t give an age guideline for learning to read, but left it to the parent’s judgment. 

She said that the five year old child should be being trained in “unquestioning obedience,” but didn’t say how to get there, or how far along he should be.  

She didn’t talk about scheduling the child’s day.  

This does seem much more compatible with Montessori.  It also just makes sense to a great extent, as there are usually many “right ways” to do things.  On the other hand, there are many “wrong ways” as well, and in trying to fill in the details of her broad outline, I’ve certainly discovered plenty of them. 🙄

EFL wrote Bookless Lessons to answer mothers’ most common questions.  I don’t suppose she gave the best possible answer for everything, but at this point I’m willing to acknowledge that her answers are probably mostly better than mine.  So maybe the right way for my family to approach this is, once again, to be methodical - i.e., to start by making changes in areas where her advice seems to have the most solid foundation, and where my methods (or lack thereof) have had the least success.

Her third book, Beginning the Child’s Education (1926), is even more closely focused on Q & A for mothers of preschoolers.  It’s still in copyright, but most of it was also published in her columns that have been linked to on these threads.  (The mother is “Mrs. Wilson,” and the child is “Esther.”)  The advice is similar to that in Bookless Lessons, but the tone is more conversational.  That sort of content probably would have been best for me to start with, even though I wouldn’t have been drawn to it back then.  Like the mother in the book, I was looking forward to academics, and tended to be vague about the rest of it.

Edited June 27, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I finally had a chance to talk to DH about the compulsion question.  On hearing about Trumbull’s view that the child should never be made by repeated punishments to do anything against his will, DH (Catholic) immediately said, “Is this about God, and the idea that the believer should never be made to go against his convictions?”  He then gave a negative opinion of the effects of certain theological movements on American society, while acknowledging that Roger Williams had his good points, LOL.  And thus EFL’s view was ratified in our household.

It occurred to me recently that without “outlasting” and subsequent compliance, which contributes to the formation of habits, punishing the young child only serves as a negative stimulus.  The 19th century no-compulsion approach seems to put the focus of the interaction on the punishment itself, rather than on obedience and correct behavior, where it belongs.  I’d be very interested to learn more about the history of this - was it prevalent in certain regions?  Certain denominations?  But I suppose that will have to remain a mystery for now.

Edited June 28, 2020 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Apropos of nothing, I had been wondering why EFL compared slate pencils to chewing gum.  (I think this was in “Educating the Child at Home.”)  It turns out that circa 1900, slate pencils were made of chalk rather than slate.  People in some places are still using (and eating) them.  The things you learn on the Internet!

I think it makes sense to discuss chapters 6 and 7 together.  The first is on observation, and the second is on object lessons.  And I don’t seem to have much to say about either one.  Anyone else?