Weaving the Educational Tapestry: A Liturgy of Learning
Patterns for Life audiobook, chapter 15
If we want stories that will spark a longing for Christ’s kingdom, one of the best places to start is with fairy tales.
That may seem a strange beginning, given the fact that we are used to thinking of education as dealing with facts more than fiction. But we have to be careful not to confuse fiction with falsehood. Ivan Ilyin, a twentieth-century Russian philosopher, says that, “fairy tales are not fabrications or tall tales, but poetic illumination, essential reality, even the beginning of all philosophy.”1 Fairy tales contain ideas about the foundations of reality; that good and evil exist, that good must struggle in order to triumph, that it is right to hope for the ultimate happy ending.
An education that consists only of data points will ultimately misunderstand the purpose of collecting those data points. As Ilyin says, “Only he who worships at the altar of facts and has lost the ability to contemplate a state of being ignores fairy tales. Only the one who wants to see with his physical eyes alone, plucking out his spiritual eyes in the process, considers the fairy tale to be dead.”2 Fairy tales prepare us to accept the existence of noetic reality before we are fully capable of interacting with it and participating in it. Someone who has never considered the possibilities and implications of the spiritual world can easily make it to adulthood without understanding that in order to be blessed to see God, we must first be pure of heart. Such a statement is obviously true to the reader of myths and legends and fairy stories.
Patterns for Life, chapter 15
A slightly longer-than-usual freebie excerpt from the chapter, which includes the above quote. Enjoy!
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Here we are at the last chapter in the book! This is where we finally take a closer look at a pivotal piece of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy — books!
By now it should come as no surprise to find that we are not prescribed a curated list of The Right Books. Instead, we find again principles intended to guide us as we make our own choices in books for our own children.
We learn about the difference between living books, twaddle, and death-dealing books. We look at the importance of story, particularly fairy tales, and how to tell a living book when we see/read one.
We also take a look at the three foundational notebooking practices that Charlotte Mason required of her students:
the nature notebook
the Book of Centuries
the commonplace notebook
It is vitally important to recognize that these notebooks are not ends in themselves, rather, they are tools that help us foster relationships with the ideas we encounter — and powerful tools at that! Even when used inconsistently they can bring about much growth.
Once again we are reminded that the work of education belongs to the person being educated, whether ourselves or our children. We are facilitators and leaders moreso than teachers. We do have our own work to do though, in building habits, in choosing books to spread the feast, and in leading by example. We tend the garden, cultivating the best growing conditions, but the actual growth is not dependent on us. We are stewards, not owners, and we should never forget that our children are born persons.
A few questions to kick off the discussion:
How do you tell the difference between a living book and a non-living book?
Why are fairy tales so important?
What is the purpose of the three main notebooks in CM practice?
How do we stand aside in a posture of ‘masterly inactivity’?
Ivan Ilyin, trans. , Foundations of Christian Culture, (Waystone Press, 2019), 44.
Ibid, 43.