Does your kitchen not need a giant dry-erase world-map decal?
Charlotte Mason's words regarding the purpose of teaching geography:
***But the peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas, and to furnish the imagination with pictures. Herein lies the educational value of geography.***
Read more here. You'll need to scroll up a little to catch the beginning.
Reading this section of Volume 1, inevitably I remember the beginning of C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in the beautiful Narnia series. This book, as you will no doubt remember, opens with the character of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, who, the narrator says, "almost deserves" that unfortunate name.
At the beginning of the book, and for much of the story, in fact, Eustace is the kind of annoying little twick who would be named Eustace. Part of what makes Eustace such an annoying little twick is his lack of imagination, his utter failure to apprehend anything beyond literal, physical, empirical reality, his non-vision of the transcendent. All of this contributes to his despairing self-absorption, from which he is so mercifully rescued by grace, in the form of Aslan, some chapters in.
I think it's no accident that one of the details Lewis seizes upon, to demonstrate the turn of mind which has been nurtured in Eustace, is the kind of book he reads:
I think it's no accident that one of the details Lewis seizes upon, to demonstrate the turn of mind which has been nurtured in Eustace, is the kind of book he reads:
***He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.***
In other words, Eustace has been brought up and educated to think that facts are the full measure of truth. Now that I think about it, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader could be read entirely as a book about geography: what it isn't (as represented by Eustace's books and their effect on Eustace's character) and what it IS (the voyage of discovery, and its effect on Eustace's character).
And this reading would tell you a lot about Charlotte Mason's own vision for geography: what it isn't, and what it is, what it is and is not for – and the notion that the difference between these two poles has some ramification for a child's character.
Note what Miss Mason says about the foundational principle for the presentation of geography as a subject:
***Most of us have gone through a good deal of drudgery in the way of 'geography' lessons, but how much do we remember? Just the pleasant bits we heard from travelled friends, about the Rhine, or Paris, or Venice, or bits from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or other pleasant tales of travel and adventure. We begin to see the lines we must go upon in teaching geography: for educative purposes, the child must learn such geography, and in such a way, that his mind shall thereby be stored with ideas, his imagination with images; for practical purposes he must learn such geography only as, the nature of his mind considered, he will be able to remember; in other words, he must learn what interests him. The educative and the practical run in one groove, and the geography lesson becomes the most charming occupation of the child's day.***
In other words, just as history isn't merely a litany of names and dates, geography isn't merely a litany of topographical features, land masses, names of continents, countries, states and capitals, population figures and principal exports. It also isn't propaganda (think again about those "fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools"). It is, instead, imaginative travel.
***But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps. The 'way' of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as you read, Hartwig's Tropical World, the same author's Polar World, Livingstone's missionary travels, Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan––in fact, any interesting, well-written book of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards the child's education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.***
Among other things, it seems to me, geography complements history in a Charlotte Mason education in some important ways, which it's easy to miss if you're focusing on each content area in isolation from the others. This education truly is an integrated whole, and the relationship between geography and history highlights the significance of this integration. History, in this vision, does focus on the idea of Christendom: on the foundations, rise, growth, and consequent cultural developments of Christian civilization. To a huge extent, this inevitably means that the central focus is what is often referred to as Western, or European, civilization. And this is sometimes understood as a deficit, or worse, as evidence of some racist intent.
In other words, Eustace has been brought up and educated to think that facts are the full measure of truth. Now that I think about it, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader could be read entirely as a book about geography: what it isn't (as represented by Eustace's books and their effect on Eustace's character) and what it IS (the voyage of discovery, and its effect on Eustace's character).
And this reading would tell you a lot about Charlotte Mason's own vision for geography: what it isn't, and what it is, what it is and is not for – and the notion that the difference between these two poles has some ramification for a child's character.
Note what Miss Mason says about the foundational principle for the presentation of geography as a subject:
***Most of us have gone through a good deal of drudgery in the way of 'geography' lessons, but how much do we remember? Just the pleasant bits we heard from travelled friends, about the Rhine, or Paris, or Venice, or bits from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or other pleasant tales of travel and adventure. We begin to see the lines we must go upon in teaching geography: for educative purposes, the child must learn such geography, and in such a way, that his mind shall thereby be stored with ideas, his imagination with images; for practical purposes he must learn such geography only as, the nature of his mind considered, he will be able to remember; in other words, he must learn what interests him. The educative and the practical run in one groove, and the geography lesson becomes the most charming occupation of the child's day.***
In other words, just as history isn't merely a litany of names and dates, geography isn't merely a litany of topographical features, land masses, names of continents, countries, states and capitals, population figures and principal exports. It also isn't propaganda (think again about those "fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools"). It is, instead, imaginative travel.
***But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps. The 'way' of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious; read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as you read, Hartwig's Tropical World, the same author's Polar World, Livingstone's missionary travels, Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan––in fact, any interesting, well-written book of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards the child's education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.***
Among other things, it seems to me, geography complements history in a Charlotte Mason education in some important ways, which it's easy to miss if you're focusing on each content area in isolation from the others. This education truly is an integrated whole, and the relationship between geography and history highlights the significance of this integration. History, in this vision, does focus on the idea of Christendom: on the foundations, rise, growth, and consequent cultural developments of Christian civilization. To a huge extent, this inevitably means that the central focus is what is often referred to as Western, or European, civilization. And this is sometimes understood as a deficit, or worse, as evidence of some racist intent.
But here is where geography pairs with history, in expanding its lens to include, and value, all the cultures of the world, and to nurture a child's sense of relationship with those cultures. They may not be his culture, though then again, they may be where his ancestors have come from and therefore important to him in intense personal ways. The point here is that while he is looking at the foundations of the culture he has inherited by virtue of being American (I'm assuming a mostly American audience here, though obviously this isn't everyone who might be reading! Please feel free to substitute your own country or culture for "America" here), he's never ignoring the rest of the world, its beauties, its traditions, its peoples, their contributions and inherent value as human beings created by God.
Here is the Ambleside Online Advisory's thumbnail sketch of their geography program. Geography at Mater Amabilis follows much the same paradigm, with many of the same books, though the schedules vary.
Favorite geography selections in my family, over many years:
Holling C. Holling books, appropriate for lower or upper primary years:
Here is the Ambleside Online Advisory's thumbnail sketch of their geography program. Geography at Mater Amabilis follows much the same paradigm, with many of the same books, though the schedules vary.
Favorite geography selections in my family, over many years:
Holling C. Holling books, appropriate for lower or upper primary years:
Pagoo
Seabird
Paddle-to-the-Sea
Tree in the Trail
Minn of the Mississippi
Anything by Richard Halliburton – my middle schoolers read The Royal Road to Romance and The Flying Carpet with huge enjoyment – but especially good for children is The Book of Marvels.
M.B. Synge's A Book of Discovery
As with history, many of these books are older books and contain, sometimes, cultural or ethnic references and language which we would not use today. As with history, when reading aloud to younger children I often edited out terms I wasn't comfortable repeating, though sometimes I'd read them, but use that as a teaching moment about how our thinking and our language use changes over time. For older children reading independently, I included mentions of these things in the brief preparatory notes I would include with an assignment.
Seabird
Paddle-to-the-Sea
Tree in the Trail
Minn of the Mississippi
Anything by Richard Halliburton – my middle schoolers read The Royal Road to Romance and The Flying Carpet with huge enjoyment – but especially good for children is The Book of Marvels.
M.B. Synge's A Book of Discovery
As with history, many of these books are older books and contain, sometimes, cultural or ethnic references and language which we would not use today. As with history, when reading aloud to younger children I often edited out terms I wasn't comfortable repeating, though sometimes I'd read them, but use that as a teaching moment about how our thinking and our language use changes over time. For older children reading independently, I included mentions of these things in the brief preparatory notes I would include with an assignment.
To my mind, whatever effort I went to to frame a reading so that my child could go into it with some context and a heads-up, the book was worth it. So, too, was the whole mechanism of not being afraid to read books with troubling viewpoints, and not being swayed by those viewpoints. The value of the book, in other words, outweighed whatever trouble it caused me to prepare as a lesson for my child. So did the value of that whole lesson for my child.
There's a connection between imaginative, compassionate understanding of other cultures – some of whose practices might actually horrify us, and should – and imaginative, compassionate understanding of authors from other time periods, some of whose language might actually horrify us, and should. All of this, it seems to me, is crucial to a holistic, human, Christian education, and it's certainly of a piece with the aims of an education in geography.
There's a connection between imaginative, compassionate understanding of other cultures – some of whose practices might actually horrify us, and should – and imaginative, compassionate understanding of authors from other time periods, some of whose language might actually horrify us, and should. All of this, it seems to me, is crucial to a holistic, human, Christian education, and it's certainly of a piece with the aims of an education in geography.