Charlotte Mason: Feeding God’s Lambs: A Charlotte Mason Vision for Teaching the Bible

Charlotte Mason, the Person

Charlotte Mason was the only child born to parents who loved her, but whom she lost at an early age. She was inspired as a young girl by a teacher and teaching became a lifelong calling for her, a light that guided her through the early days of grief. She was trained in the 1860’s, in a day when this professional opportunity was just beginning to open itself up to women. Through her training, seeds of ideas began to grow that would later bear fruit in the form of her method, which is guided by her twenty educational principles. 

After studying educational philosophy for over two decades and implementing her findings practically in classrooms, she began taking her ideas public through a series of lectures, which she gave as part of a church fundraiser. An educational union of teachers and parents formed as a result of these lectures when these early adopters wanted to see her ideas regarding the laws of education implemented in their own schools and homes. She worked tirelessly alongside them until her death in 1923 as she sought to give children a true education, which she believed was their God-given right as born persons made in His image.

Charlotte Mason, Her Educational Philosophy

G.K. Chesterton says, “Philosophy is merely thought that has been thought out. It is often a great bore. But man has no alternative, except between being influenced by thought that has been thought out and being influenced by thought that has not been thought out.”

 Charlotte Mason thought much about education and laid out her conclusions in 20 educational principles. Just as the law of gravity governs the universe, she believed that there were also Divine laws which govern how humans learn. Allow me to introduce you to a few of these laws, which govern education, and should be considered by those responsible for teaching the Bible to children.

Children Are Born Persons

"Children are born persons" is the first and most central of Mason’s principles. It is where we must start. If we do not know what persons are, how will we move on to educate them? What exactly did Miss Mason mean when she said “Children Are Born Persons?” Karen Glass, a Charlotte Mason expert of our own day and author of In Vital Harmony, sheds light in the book on what she believes Mason meant by this primary principle. Glass provides the following quote to show Mason's rejection of the scientific notion of her day, which has been more fully fleshed out in our own, that man is nothing more than a collection of cells. Mason says, "that man himself is a congeries [collection] of regulated atoms—that there is nothing in the universe but atoms and regulating laws—this doctrine is oppressive to the spirit of man.”

 Glass goes on to highlight that “[Mason's] use of the word spirit is our clue. When Miss Mason said that children are born persons, she was implying that the life of a person encompasses far more than mere physical presence.” Viewing a person as a collection of neurons verses viewing that same person as having a spiritual mind leads to drastically different educational approaches.

If we go back to where our story begins as humans in the book of Genesis, we remember that to be made in the image of God means that “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen. 2:7). This breath, that is the Spirit of God, passes mysteriously on to every living soul. The essence of the first principle is this: “Children are born with active and able minds, not simply brains and therefore education must address this nonmaterial, spiritual aspect of a person.”

Mason goes on to point out that as spiritual beings, "children are endowed by their Creator with innate abilities to get knowledge, especially the primary knowledge of God."

 As Bible teachers, we humbly recognize that just as God created children’s physical bodies to grow, and therefore, gave them their innate sense of hunger, which leads them to cry for milk or ask for snacks, so their spiritual minds are designed to grow, and therefore, we set the table with a feast of living ideas about God from His Word for them to take and eat.

Education is The Science of Relations

The next panoptic principle for us to consider as Bible teachers is “Education is the Science of Relations,” that is, "a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts."

 Mason divided these broad relations that a child might form into three sweeping categories—"the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe." Those of us responsible for teaching the Bible to children do well to direct the majority of our efforts to the first of these categories, but we must take time to consider what it means for God to be the primary knowledge, the source of all other knowledge. If not, we may inadvertently fail to bring children to drink of this living water from the wells of knowledge where the Lord might also reveal Himself to children.

Charlotte Mason recognized the false dichotomy of her day which divided education into religious and secular categories. But, she also recognized the way of escape from this dilemma. “The alternative is to see that every fruitful idea, every original conception, whether in Euclid, grammar, or music, is a direct inspiration from the Holy Spirit, without any thought at all as to whether the person so inspired named himself by the name of God or recognized where his inspiration came.”Thus, she said, “We do not merely give a religious education, because that would seem to imply the possibility of some other education, a secular education, for example.”

The people of God, especially those who teach the Bible to children, have a great opportunity to bridge this discordant divide and stand in opposition to this consequential idea of the enemy. We can be the heralds of good news that all Knowledge belongs to the Lord and even seek to set a wider feast of ideas before children, in our ministry to them, then we might traditionally think to set because "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Col. 1:17). He is the Logos behind words which rhyme, the Truth which science seeks to uncover, the Beauty which the artist seeks to capture, and the thread of Goodness which interweaves all knowledge.

A modern “Sunday School Movement” is needed to unite knowledge that has been wrongfully separated and imprinted as secular. In the 19th century, when the first "Sunday School Movement" took place, the most pressing need of the day was for working-class children to be taught to read, write, do sums, and learn the catechism.Perhaps the most pressing need of our own day is for the church to become a place where born persons can come learn to read the Word of God and the World rightly. Saint Thomas Aquinas refers to this kind of teaching as coming from the "Book of Scripture" and the "Book of Creation."

What if the church were known for the proper ordering of our loves inspired by the knowledge of God, man, and the universe? What if the religious education of our children included opportunities for them to grow in their knowledge of God primarily through His revealed Word, but also by growing in their knowledge of nature, poetry, art, music, stories from history, and working with their hands? If we seek to merely entertain children when it comes to their religious education, we lead them into a small cubby hole. What if instead of trying to stuff fragments of Truth into this cubby hole, we instead opened the door and invited children to step into the large room that God has prepared for them to know Him, His people, and His world?

Education is An Atmosphere, Discipline, and Life

Charlotte Mason points to three tools that the educator has at their disposal to teach born persons with spiritual minds. These tools do not infringe upon the personhood of children, yet they show us how to set the table to feed them. They are as follows: “the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.”

Let us consider how these universal principles might take shape in places where the Bible is taught to children by applying them to a religious education. We might say then, religious education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.

Religious Education is An Atmosphere

“When we say that 'education is an atmosphere,’ we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions.”

This essay will address persons and not speak at length about things, though this topic is worthy of deep consideration, especially for those with the ability to make their houses of shelter, worship, and learning, also places of beauty.

Children need to be surrounded by an atmosphere of people who love God and His Word first for themselves. Caregivers need to have tasted and seen that He is good, and of whom nobody else will satisfy. This should be their parents first and foremost, those whom God has given a special deputed authority over their children. Yet as Christians, we are invited to join the larger family of God. The church is yet another place for children to experience love and to breathe in this atmosphere. The Spirit must pervade the Bible teacher’s own heart so that Christ in them will then permeate love and life to those around them. Oh that all children could breathe in the Spirit-filled air of their homes, houses of faith, and houses of education!

Religious Education Is A Discipline

“A virtuous person is one who knows what is right, desires to do right, and makes the choices that result in right actions.” Charlotte Mason speaks in great depth about educating and strengthening the wills of our children to know, desire, and choose what is good, which requires great effort. Yet, she also recognizes that God hardwired our brains to form habits, which in turn, give our exhausted wills a break. And thus comes the second instrument to educate persons—the discipline of habit. By"Education is a Discipline," Mason means “the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body.” While there are many habits of body and mind, this essay will focus on the chief of all intellectual habits, which is truly spiritual in nature, that of attention. 

The devastating effects of technology shortening our attention spans is of great interest and concern to many, but how does this modern dilemma specifically affect the people of God? A Christian, French philosopher of the 20th century, Simone Weil, concludes that “The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God.”

What if those responsible for teaching the Bible to children sought to offensively take back lost ground when it comes to our children’s dwindling attention spans and try to grow them, so that the child gains the ability to orient their soul towards God in prayer? It is counterproductive to attempt to chase down children’s attentions through entertaining videos or stimulating illustrations. A better alternative is to kindle young children’s “ability to imagine things and create mental pictures and images” by reading to them a strong narrative.

We can further grow a child's habit of attention through a simple, yet truly magical, tool called narration. A person who knows that he or she will be called upon to narrate, or tell back what they have heard after one reading, naturally encourages them to give their full attention to what’s being read. When a child gives their narration to you, they are telling you the things that caught their attention. As Mason says, “Whatever a child or grown-up person can tell, that we may be sure he knows, and what he cannot tell, he does not know.”

Religious Education Is A Life

The final tool the Bible teacher has at his or her disposal is encapsulated in the phrase "Education is a Life." Charlotte Mason believed the mind of the child was a living organism that needed to be fed. Fed on what, exactly? Living ideas. “But in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all the rest is thrown away, or worse, is like sawdust in the system, an impediment and an injury to the vital processes.”

Scripture embraces a similar vocabulary in describing its living nature. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The most living of all books is the Bible, the Word of God. All other books share in their being living in as much as they share in the Spirit of Truth, of whom the Word of God bears witness. There are no other meal replacements and if we deprive our children of feasting on the actual Words of God, we may find ourselves guilty of stuffing sawdust into their open mouths with whatever other resources we feed them in its place.

Children need Scripture read over them when they are not yet able to read it for themselves, just as they need language spoken over them when they cannot yet speak it for themselves, so that one day they will. Though access to the Word of God is no longer an issue for many, a new challenge of our heavily Bible-resourced age is that the actual Words of God from the Bible being read to children happens far less than we would like to reflect upon in our ministry to children. Instead Storybook Bibles, curriculum summaries, and entertaining videos which tell the story are more normative. Though there is a place for some of these resources in the discipleship of our children, they should never quench the very Words of God being reverently read aloud to them, nor should we believe the false assumption that “children cannot be interested in the Bible unless its pages be watered down.”

Conclusion

These are a few of the laws which govern education and should be considered by those responsible for teaching the Bible to children. Charlotte Mason's method of teaching the Bible to children, based on these educational principles, is quite simple. "Read aloud to the children a few verses covering, if possible, an episode. Read reverently, carefully, and with just expression. Then require the children to narrate what they have listened to as nearly as possible in the words of the Bible. It is curious how readily they catch the rhythm of the majestic and simple Bible English. Then, talk the narrative over with them in the light of research and criticism. Let the teaching, moral and spiritual, reach them without much personal application." Though this method of teaching the Bible to children is simple, it requires great faith to reject common children’s menus and set the table in this way. As Bible teachers, let us feed God’s lambs by taking them to a field and allowing them to graze freely upon His Word. We can trust

that God has created these born persons for Himself, that only He will truly satisfy them, and that He will glorify Himself by assimilating these ideas about Him in their spiritual hearts and minds.