Friday Philosopher: No STEM for CM

Rejoice with me – I’ve finally finished my first book by Charlotte Mason, School Education! It only took 9+ years of homeschooling (counting the preschool years) and several false starts of three of her books. 😛 I did not read through all the student examples or sample lessons in the appendices, but I did skim some of them, and I did read the class descriptions and the list of attainments for a 12-year-old (formidable indeed!) No, I did not agree with everything she said; and yes, she probably could have used more editing (she repeats herself almost verbatim several times). I think there is definitely an improvement in style in her last book, A Philosophy of Education, which I have also been reading. But it has certainly given me a deeper understanding of her philosophy and much to think about!

The theme of the last few chapters was Books and Things and how they are to be used in the education of children. Books, of course, are living books, by a person knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject they are writing about – no textbooks or compilations here! She says:

A book may be long or short, old or new, easy or hard, written by a great man or a lesser man, and yet be the living book which finds its way to the mind of a young reader. The expert is not the person to choose; the children themselves are the experts in this case.

Things include such “subjects” as math, nature study and science, physical education, handicrafts, and art. Many of these would now be classified as STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) or STEAM (adding in art) subjects. But she seems confident that most students in her day are getting a good education with regard to Things – her concern lies mainly with getting children in touch with ideas and people through books. She says something I found surprising and thought-provoking towards the end of Chapter 21:

I think there is danger in giving too prominent a place to education by Things, enormous as is its value; a certain want of atmosphere is apt to result, and a deplorable absence of a standard of comparison and of the principle of veneration. ‘We are the people!’ seems to be the note of an education which is not largely sustained on books as well as on things.

Charlotte Mason wasn’t really against Things, or against our modern “STEM education” – my title for this post is a bit exaggerated (but it rhymed!). 😉 But she saw that something was out of balance in an education that emphasized science and math and neglected the humanities, and I think this is even more of a concern today. So what do history, literature, and especially the Bible itself bring to education that the STEM subjects don’t?

Context

Our children need to see all the advances in science and technology in the the context of history. They need perspective and humility to see that although we may have advanced in some ways,  we also have many blind spots that can be informed by the wisdom of earlier ages. Miss Mason writes:

…two things are incumbent upon us, – to keep ourselves and our children in touch with the great thoughts by which the world has been educated in the past, and to keep ourselves and them in the right attitude towards the great ideas of the present.

Character

History, literature, and the Bible give us examples of character – good and bad – that are more valuable to our children than excelling in math or science. Charlotte Mason felt very strongly that educating a child towards a particular career, at least before the teen years, was wrong:

To educate children for any immediate end – towards commercial or manufacturing aptitude, for example – is to put a premium upon general ignorance with a view to such special aptitude. The greater includes the less, but the less does not include the greater. Excellent work of whatever kind is produced by a person of character and intelligence, and we who teach cannot do better for the nation than to prepare such persons for its uses. He who has intelligent relations with life will produce good work. [emphasis mine]

I have a child interested in engineering who is much more inclined to pick up The New Way Things Work than The Hobbit on his own. It could be tempting to let him just follow his interests and emphasize the math and science that he may someday need for an engineering career. But that would limit the number of ” relations proper to him” that he is introduced to, and hamper the development of the character that he needs whatever career he pursues. I am thankful for the wisdom of Charlotte Mason and balance that the Ambleside Online curriculum brings to his studies.

Conscience 

Instead of the prideful claim of, “We are the people!”, Scripture reminds us that we are God’s people, and the sheep of His pasture (Ps. 100:3). All are under God’s authority, and may not use our earthly power or knowledge to oppress others or violate God’s design. History and geography open our hearts to other times and peoples, so we are not as susceptible to the temptations of racism and pride. Literature appeals to our hearts and helps us develop compassion and understanding for others. David Hicks, in Norms and Nobility, gives a sobering description of an education that emphasizes science over virtue:

The better our students understand and learn to manipulate the material universe, the less they seem to know and govern themselves. Minds once used to transcend matter become (as the deterministic ideologies on which we base our teaching insist) minds of matter. We seem destined soon to reach the fatal crossroads where the power of our technology outstrips the virtue of our self-knowledge, where our analytical knowledge of the parts sweeps away our normative grasp of the whole, where cosmos returns to chaos.

I will close with one more quote from Charlotte Mason encouraging balance in our educational endeavors:

Let it be our negative purpose to discourage in every way we can the educational faddist, that is, the person who accepts a one-sided notion in place of a universal idea as his educational guide. Our positive purpose is to present, in season and out of season, one such universal idea; that is, that education is the science of relations.

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