U is for Unifying
A good mind can trace a single thought well and ultimately pin it down to a conclusion or application. This is needful. However, this can also result in a classic case of “not being able to see the forest for the trees”.
The truly great minds of a field stand back and try to glimpse overarching principles. Ideas that unify the whole of a study or discipline, rather than segment it out into its constituent parts.
This has certainly been the case in the field of Physics. This region of study has blessed the world with a host of laws, and equations. Yet with all of this success there is still something that eludes some physicists. Many are searching for a certain tantalizing theory – a theory of everything; a unifying principle or equation that would bring together all of the dazzling bits of this branch of study.
At back of this hunt is a desire for and a recognition of order. A belief that all of the fabulous truths and functional rules we have discovered are not random or chance, but are somehow linked, are part of a unifying whole, a Christian would say – share a common mind. And so, they gaze, not at the pieces but at the whole.
While it is still to be seen if a theory of everything is out there for the field of physics, this is the very reason so many of us are excited about the work of Charlotte Mason and the PNEU schools. She claims to have discovered just such a unifying principle for the field of education.
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When it comes to training, launching, passing-on-to, and inspiring the next generation – mankind has not been short on theories and motivations and applications. Historically, the education of our young may look varied across time and place, but it certainly has not been a neglected area of thought.
From culture to culture, various attributes and skills have been prized and cultivated. There are almost as many approaches to education as there are institutions to carry them out. Most approaches focus on a certain something, and that turns out to be their angle. In the best case it sounds something like:
What is the child interested in?
Gifted in?
Struggling in?
What will earn a good living?
What does the economy need?
What are the test scores showing?
What looks good on a transcript?
What is modern?
What is ancestral?
In the worst cases it is:
What is niche?
What is photogenic?
What is shiny and new?
Change from year to year.
Change from budget to budget.
Change from administration to administration.
Some like to thumb their nose at public education, but very often private and homeschools succumb to the same pitfalls and pressures. The fragmented thinking above is the cultural air we breathe, and this mentality of thinking in segmented tangents of thought can seep into our understanding of Charlotte Mason’s method. We begin to think:
It’s nature study,
and paper-sloyd,
and studied dictation,
and Plutarch,
and Shakespeare,
and Artists and Poetry,
and streams of science and history,
and Swedish Drill,
and Living Books,
and Geography,
and, and, and…
And suddenly we are that physicist zeroed in on a particular equation, that hiker stooped and analyzing trees, oblivious to the forest.
All-of-the-things, even all of the “Charlotte Mason” things can begin to feel like work and tedium if we don’t stand back and catch her vision. Like looking at the night sky with someone who knows: they stand near, point for us, we lean our head close to theirs, we train our gaze to follow rather than lead, we blink hard and try to see with fresh eyes. And then, slowly, the individual stars begin to form patterns, and the patterns – constellations! And then we find that there is a story, a narrative that overlays it all, that preserves and interprets the order. And the next time we look, it isn’t just so many scattered pieces, but a unified whole. All of the pieces playing a part in something bigger.
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This is what looking at education with Charlotte Mason can be like, if we look rightly. It isn’t a hodge-podge of pieces dumped on our doorstep, pieces that we have to facilitate properly, and schedule properly - or else!
Charlotte Mason was one of the great minds. She distilled education down to a couple of unifying principles, and these all radiate out from what she calls Principle Number One: Children are Born Persons. When unpacked this short statement sets a lot of parameters, and like any good narrative, gives context for all of the details.
In asserting the personhood of children, she is arguing for a specific understanding of what being a person entails: an eternal being made in the image of God, whose value is not based on what they look like or what they can do. A being who is endowed with a capacity to will and reason. A being born with the ability to assimilate material, and immaterial sustenance (food & ideas), and is entitled to relationship with as many aspects of creation as possible. A being who actively and directly receives care and guidance from the Holy Spirit and is ultimately accountable to Him.
This foundational thought sets the tone for how we interact with children and what we offer them. With one hand it takes away liberties usurped by adults, while with the other, hands out obligations. It determines not only the posture of the teacher, but also the curriculum and how it is offered.
Why doesn’t the teacher dominate the student with authority or personality? Children are born persons.
Why narration? Children are born persons.
Why so many interactions with so many material things and immaterial ideas? Children are born persons!
Because the essence of what it means to be created human and placed in a created world is that we should be in touch with our Creator and with as much as we can of what He has made and called good, regardless of gifting, handicap, interest, or monetary benefit.
Our goal should be to touch life at as many points as possible.
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And how can all of this happen given the brevity of childhood and the busyness of life?
Attention trained. The innate ability to tell back utilized. The expounding of teachers kept to a minimum. Short lessons and invigorating rhythms to live within. Curiosity preserved so that education becomes - not a thing we do, or a space of time that passes, but a template for life.
Miss Mason didn’t get bogged down in all of the brambly bunny trails of any one subject or activity as if it were something to master and check off a list – and neither should we. Rather, she saw with clarity how the various elements were part of a unified whole and believed that that whole was the birthright of every born person.
To borrow from the field of Physics a final time, in the same way the fabric of our physical world has a warp and a woof (space & time), that grounds all of the elements of our existence like a tapestry; for Charlotte Mason the fabric of education also had a warp and a woof. Personhood & wide relations. She looked behind the scenes, past the stiches, and even the patterns those stiches created, and went straight to the strong fabric that was always intended to tether all of those pieces. Her mind saw the unity of the whole, and she, in turn, is showing the world.
Sara Timothy 2025
Author’s Note:
When I think of the warp of personhood and the woof that Miss Mason called The Science of Relations. I think of God with his human – Adam! What should our goals be for our students? I believe there is a template in that first garden. A person fully balanced and at perfect peace with his Creator, with himself, and with and in his environment - and yet free to reason & will. Personhood. And what did God tell him to do? To go and have wide relations with the creation.
Again, we catch the aroma of this goal when Solomon asks God for wisdom. God answers his request by saying that he will give him a “wise & discerning mind”. The bible also tells us that “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind (what Miss Mason would call magnanimity) like the sand on the seashore…” He spoke proverbs and wrote songs, he understood and spoke of trees from the cedar to the hyssop and he was given understanding of beasts, birds, reptiles and fish and his fellow human beings. (1 Kings 3&4)
Guys, it sounds like Solomon was instantly downloaded with a Charlotte Mason education!
Two things jump out at me:
1. The wide relations with all of creation. Immaterial (ideas) but also material!
2. God cares about all of these things and wants his humans to understand them.
What should our goals for education be?
Are you new to our ABCs of a Charlotte Mason Education series?
You can start with A by clicking below. Happy Reading!
