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January 13, 2008 - by Terri Johnson, author of Homeschooling ABCs (www.homeschoolingabcs.com ) - dedicated to helping new homeschoolers gain the confidence and the necessary skills to
successfully teach their children at home.
Living Books
Why and How You Should Use Them
It is now January and New Year's Day is officially behind us. This means that most of you have started back with
school by now, and the rest of you are not too far behind. There is something exciting about getting back to
school, back into a solid routine. Eventually though, comfort of routine wears off and monotony settles in. How can
you keep your children excited about learning? The answer is to supply them with "living books."
So, what are "living books" and why should you use them for teaching your children? Here are some definitions of a
living book:
A living book is written by a single
person, a real and knowable person.
A living book is a literary expression of the author's own ideas and
love of the subject.
A living book is personal in tone and feel. It touches the heart and
emotions, and the intellect.
The author of a living book addresses the reader as an intelligent
and capable thinker.
In a living book, ideas are presented creatively in a way that
stimulates the imagination.
This idea of a living book stands in stark contrast to a textbook. So what then is a textbook? Read on:
A textbook is a non-literary expression of
collected facts and information.
A textbook is impersonal in tone and feel. It touches only the
intellect.
In a textbook, facts are presented without creativity in a way that
deadens the imagination.
[Excerpted from Educating the WholeHearted Child (copyright 1994, 1996 Clay Clarkson). Used by permission. For more
information, contact Whole Heart Ministries (P.O. Box 3445, Monument, CO 80132, 719-488-4466) or visit their
website at www.wholeheart.org.]
Charlotte Mason, a British educator from England in the previous century, whose ideas are currently experiencing a
rebirth among American home schools, wrote this in her volume 1 of The Original Homeschooling Series, "The fatal
mistake is in the notion that he (the student) must learn 'outlines' of the whole history... just as he must cover
the geography of all the world. Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a
short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading
and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a
whole nation for a whole age."
Have you ever experienced this in your home schooling adventures? You set out to cover a certain amount of history
in a particular year, just to find out that your child becomes fascinated by a single character or time in history.
This happened to us a couple of years ago. We were studying modern history with the goal of getting through the
years 1850 to the present. I had allotted 4-5 weeks for studying the Civil War, which I thought was plenty. What I
didn't realize was how fascinated my children were to become with not only this event in history, but the general
time period as well.
After 6 weeks of reading the books I had planned to read and doing the activities I had planned to do, my children
were begging for more. I reluctantly gave in and let them guide their own education for a while. They chose more
library books from the time period. My daughter sewed some period clothing, complete with snood and gloves. My son
converted some cast-off clothing we found at Goodwill into a union soldier's uniform. We went to a Civil War
reenactment, made a soldier's meal of hard tack and goober peas, and talked Dad into crafting some wooden rifles in
the shop.
We stayed on this topic for probably a total of 9-10 weeks. Since that time, I have realized that learning does not
follow a set pattern. In fact, more learning often takes place when allowed to progress naturally rather than on a
set schedule. Last year, we studied the medieval time period. We were supposed to get to the year 1600, but only
studied through a portion of the 15th century. And we did not get to all of the historical figures that I would
have liked. But those events and people that my children gravitated toward allowed them to soak in the particular
time period in history and gain more depth than if I had pushed them through on my schedule.
I am not saying that a schedule is bad. A schedule is a wonderful and necessary tool, but let it be your slave and
not your master. Take the time to slow down and read "living books". Read the first part of this article once again
to remind yourself what a "living book" is and learn to identify them when browsing your library's shelves.
I would like to conclude with a couple more quotes. Karen Andreola, author of A Charlotte Mason Companion, writes,
"If we want the mind of a child to come alive, we feed him living ideas. Ideas reside in living books,..."
I am a rather eclectic homeschooling mom and do not follow the Charlotte Mason method completely. Still, I would
like to end with a final word from Charlotte Mason herself:
"...the only vital method of education appears to be that
children should read worthy books, many worthy books." ~Charlotte Mason
For a list of great books to read, I would recommend that you check out these books from your library:
Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt
Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson
and visit this website: ValeriesLivingBooks.com, a ministry to homeschooling families, which provides an active
online discussion list as well as over 100 pages of free book lists, reviews, and practical helps.
Valerie writes, "I have chosen Living Books as my primary curriculum because I want to see my children loving
learning rather than enduring an education! In this, my interest has never been in books and resources designed to
entice reluctant kids with short attention spans, but rather in materials carefully written with an evident passion
to challenge children, encouraging them to reason carefully and respond wholeheartedly."
And finally, if you are studying the Ancient time period, the Middle Ages, or the Colonial time
period this year, do check out our book series entitled, "What Really Happened..." The authors who
contributed to these books are passionate about their subject and this delight gets transferred to the student.
This is a great way to introduce your children to amazing individuals from these time periods who changed the
course of our world. For more details, go to: Historical
Biographies.
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