One of my summer books this year is Poetic Knowledge by James S. Taylor, and it’s a tough one! I made myself out a schedule, and so far I’m on track, but I only tackle a few pages at a time and I know I’m not “getting” everything. But one thing that’s stood out to me is the theme of love (it helps that I’m reading The Four Loves and Till We Have Faces at the same time). For much of the history of education, from the Greeks to the Middle Ages and beyond, the goal of education was to love rightly – a goal that seems foreign to our current educational goals of good scores and jobs:
But to love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way . . . for the object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful. (from Plato’s Republic, as quoted in Poetic Knowledge)
I want my children to love God first and foremost, and the world He has created; and to love people who are made in the image of God. I want them to admire the great men and women of history and appreciate great art and music. But although I cannot actually make them love these things, I can guide them in a course of study which will, by God’s grace, lead them to love those things because
…knowing a thing is the first condition of loving it. (Poetic Knowledge, pg 54)
So although knowledge is not the end of education, it is a means, and in particular the type of knowledge that leads us to understanding and love:
All of the educational experiences detailed in The Republic for the child – songs, poetry, music, gymnastic – are meant to awaken and refine a sympathetic knowledge of the reality of the True, Good and Beautiful, by placing the child inside the experience of those transcendentals as they are contained in these arts and sensory experiences. (Poetic Knowledge, pg. 15)
Literature and history are a gateway to this type of knowledge as well, and I have seen glimpses of this as my children read the AmblesideOnline selections and other good books. Mr. D has spent the last several months slowly reading through Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc, and his narrations testify that he has actually grown to care about her and her story, even though she lived hundreds of years ago (and even though he wouldn’t admit it in so many words 😉 ). Mr. E grew to care about Oliver Twist and his (nice) companions. He was saddened when some didn’t make it, and his sense of justice was reinforced when the evildoers got their comeuppance.
I’m thankful that this fall the boys will have the opportunity to grow in this knowledge along with friends in our expanded homeschool co-op. Shakespeare (Macbeth!), drawing, handicrafts (paper sloyd), and nature study are on the schedule, as well as plans to start a small choir in which the kids will learn hymns and folksongs. These things lends themselves well to being done in community, and positive peer pressure can be a good thing. 🙂
Also read/listened to recently:
- Hubby: still slowly reading The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr.
- Me: The Law’s Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling – yes, I’m attempting to read it cover to cover. 😛
- Miss A: she’s deep in Les Misérables
- Mr. D: school books will be slowly dropping off over the next several weeks – he finished Eric Sloane’s Weather Book this week.
- Mr. E: Kipling’s Kim – he reading along with the audiobook
- Mr. L: hubby finished reading him The Hobbit and he wanted more, so he listened to The Fellowship of the Ring on audiobook (!)
- Little R: Jessie Bear, What Will You Wear? and A Pocket for Corduroy
