The Meaning of Personality

This is from a book called The Humane Psychology of Education by Jaime Castiello, SJ -- I've observed before that his thinking seems to overlap somewhat with Charlotte Mason's, and this is another example:

"From a psychological standpoint, personality is man's 'self-possession'. The Roman state denied all personality to a slave because a slave was not his own master: he did not possess himself. Man's self-possession is ultimately based on his rational nature, on the fact that 'every-man' knows himself, can control himself and is a responsible being. Consequently Christianity has always defended the liberty of the human personality against all tyrannies: the tyrannies of instinct and emotion, no less than the tyranny of a totalitarian state. Personality, in this sense, is simply another word for freedom, which is the first quality of a rational nature. Further it implies firmness, richness and unity of character."

This reminds me a bit of Pope John Paul's "freedom for excellence."

With Jesus as a guide, the Christian ponders anew the promise of Christ: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

Contemporary dogma tells us that freedom and law are always and necessarily opposed. It tells us that to be free is to be unencumbered by discipline, rule, or order; that to be under a law is to be unfree and constrained. This is a false conceptualization of the relationship of true freedom and just law. It places freedom apart from the moral truth in just law. It turns the promise of Jesus on its head: "You will ignore the truth, and ignorance will make you free."

But there are, in fact, two distinct senses of freedom. Freedom of indifference provides the ability to do anything one likes, to feel a lack of constraint. Freedom for excellence, on the other hand, is the freedom to do good. It can develop and grow over time.

A few non-moral examples will clarify. Everyone has freedom of indifference when playing the piano. Even if you’ve never had a single lesson, you can sit down and hit any key you wish. But only the trained musician has freedom for excellence, the freedom to play beautiful, sophisticated music. Similarly, everyone has freedom of indifference to throw a basketball toward a hoop, but only an experienced player has freedom for excellence, freedom to shoot and score consistently. Freedom of indifference is a lack of constraint. Freedom for excellence is the ability to achieve the aim, goal, and purpose of human life: true happiness. (For more on this distinction, see The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers, O.P.)

In the next chapter of Philosophy of Education, Charlotte Mason discusses the methods that are suited to development of this kind of freedom.

Task #15: Master Bathroom

Here is the master bathroom. It gets a lot of use since it's the only upstairs bathroom.

You can see the cupboard doors need some refinishing, and the cabinet door is broken. Mostly I just put the top of the cabinet in order, straightened the shoes, scrubbed the toilet, and scrubbed the corners and baseboards of the walls.


This is the view of the bathroom from the bedroom -- I like the chair better there, with the scale underneath and a towel on top to hide the torn part:


Whew, I'm done with my household journey! Originally it was supposed to be divided into 18 tasks -- I consolidated the great room/dining room, and did the kitchen in one day, and consolidated the loft into two parts instead of three. So that brought me down to 15, which means that in future I can spend the last few days of the month working on either kids' rooms, or outside around the house.

For now, I'm going to rest! I will probably blog some retrospective thoughts about what I learned from this and where I'm going from here. This run through was probably the most difficult -- next run through, I'm going to try to discard more things, keeping in mind these quotes from High Desert Home:

• True Simplicity
• Busy at Home

Poetry Friday -- Scottish Battle Songs

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome to your gory bed

Or to victorie!

Now's the day, and now's the hour:

See the front o' battle lour,

See approach proud Edward's power

Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn, and fleel

Wha for Scotland's King and Law

Freedom's sword will strongly draw,

Freeman stand, or freeman fa',

Let him follow me!

By Oppression's woes and pains,

By your sons in servile chains,

We will drain our dearest veins

But they shall be free!

Robert Burns Traditional Scottish Songs

Aidan loves to bellow out this one:

Sound the Pibroch

Sound the pibroch loud and high,
From John O'Groats to the Isle o' Skye!
Let a' the Clans their slogan cry
And rise and follow Charlie!

Chorus
Tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham
Tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham
Tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham
To rise and follow Charlie!

And see a small devoted band,
By dark Loch Shiel have ta'en their stand
And proudly vow with heart and hand,
To fight for Royal Charlie!

Chorus

Frae eery hill and every glen,
Are gatherin' fast the loyal men;
They grasp their dirks and shout again,
"Hurrah! for Royal Charlie!"

Chorus

On dark Culloden's field of gore
Hark! hark! they shout, "Claymore! Claymore!"
They bravely fight, what can they more?
They die for Royal Charlie!

Chorus

No more we'll see such deeds again,
Deserted is each Highland glen,
And lonely cairns are o'er the men,
Who fought and died for Charlie!

Chorus

The White Rose blossoms forth again,
Deep in sheltered Highland glens;
And soon we'll hear the cry we ken
Tae rise! And fight for Charlie!

In this spirit check out Freedom! at the Latin-Centered Curriculum. And follow this link to William Wallace.

More on Personality.

Some thoughts from Maritain concerning the reverence due to personality. It relates to Charlotte Mason's thoughts on the sacredness of personality. (If you wonder why I am suddenly blogging about this subject, I am trying to follow this reading schedule along with the CMSeries group)

In answer to our question, then, "What is man?" we may give the Greek, Jewish and Christian idea of man; man as an animal endowed with reason, whose supreme dignity is in the intellect; and man as a free individual in personal relation with God, whose supreme righteousness consists in voluntarily obeying the law of God....

From the philosophical point of view alone the main concept to be stressed here is the concept of human personality. Man is a person, who holds himself in hand by his intelligence and his will. There is in him a richer and nobler existence; he has spiritual super-existence through knowledge and love....

I should like to observe now that a kind of animal training, which deals with psychophysical habits, conditioned reflexes, sense-memorization, etc., undoubtedly plays its part in education: it refers to material individuality, or to what is not specifically human in man. But education is not animal training. The education of man is a human awakening.

Thus what is of most importance in educators themselves is a respect for the soul as well as for the body of the child, the sense of his innermost essence and his internal resources, and a sort of sacred and loving attention to his mysterious identity, which is a hidden thing that no techniques can reach. And what matters most in the educational enterprise is a perpetual appeal to intelligence and free will in the young.

...thus the prime goal of education is the conquest of internal and spiritual freedom to be achieved by the individual person, or, in other words, his liberation through knowledge and wisdom, good will, and love.

So, to paraphrase:

• The child (man) is a person.
• His supreme dignity is in the intellect and will.
• Training has its place but is not the same as education.
• Education should appeal to a child's reason and will.

Jacques Maritain is a Thomist, and his view is the traditional Catholic one. In this way, I see Charlotte Mason reclaiming a classical Christian understanding of personality which has tended to be distorted in our skeptical day and age.

While I was looking for something else, I found this old set of newsletters by Karen Glass called Magnaminity -- about CM's educational philosophy and classical education.

Thoughts on Charlotte Mason's Philosophical Context

I think Charlotte Mason was a kind of Thomist. That is, I think that her philosophy is mostly informed by classical Realism, in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas. There are probably divergences, but this seems to be the most fruitful starting point for considering her philosophy of education.

The article I linked to above is by Jonathan Dolhenty, who says:

... there is one philosophy that has stood the test of time, been accepted by virtually all ordinary men, and forms a rational foundation for truth and morality. This philosophy is called the philosophy of Common Sense, Critically Examined and Expanded. It is not ordinary common sense opinion, but common sense opinion subjected to rigorous examination and criticism. It is an authentic philosophy of Realism, based on demonstrated principles of objective truth and using objective evidence as its sole criterion of truth....

Realistic Philosophy is not a closed system of thought, as many critics have mistakenly supposed. It is a genuine open system of investigation, a comprehensive and continually developing world-view, capable of using new knowledge from the natural and social sciences to expand our intellectual horizon and provide practical solutions to the many problems we face today.

This is how Charlotte Mason tended to approach the subject of education, which as Maritain points out is inextricably related to one's philosophy:

The educational task is both greater and more mysterious and, in a sense, humbler than many imagine. If the aim of education is the helping and guiding of man towards his own human achievement, education cannot escape the problems and entanglements of philosophy, for it supposes by its very nature a philosophy of man, and from the outset it is obliged to answer the question: "What is man?"

Charlotte Mason tended to ask: What is the child? and her answer was "A person". To answer the question "And what then?" she often referred to Our Lord's words on children (Matthew 18):

At that time the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"He called a child over, placed it in their midst,and said, "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me."Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.

These were the core positive and negative injunctions of her views on education, and she extended it outwards from there to a thorough method of education.

I see Platonic influences on her thought, too, and of course Augustine was a Platonist and I know Augustine's thought was important to her thinking. But probably more details will have to wait for another occasion. Part of her philosophy you can deduce negatively, by noting her criticisms of the thinkers of her time, such as Locke and Rousseau, Spencer, and Herbart among others.

Maxima Reverentia Debetur Pueris

Charlotte Mason quotes this Latin maxim in her chapter on The Sacredness of Personality in Philosophy of Education. It is a quote from Juvenal, and means something like "great reverence is owed to the children". John Locke quotes it in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (for clarity, I'll put quotes that AREN'T Charlotte Mason's in italics):

That he that will have his son have a respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. You must do nothing before him, which you would not have him imitate. If any thing escape you, which you would have pass for a fault in him, he will be sure to shelter himself under your example, and shelter himself so as that it will not be easy to come at him, to correct it in him the right way.

Charlotte Mason notes that the maxim ought to apply in a positive as well as a negative way:

We take it as meaning that we should not do or say anything unseemly before the young, but does it not also include a profound and reverent study of the properties and possibilities present in a child?

This chapter proceeds to explain both some of the ways that a child's personality can be encroached upon, and then some of the ways its possibilities and properties can be regarded rightly.

Our business is to find out how great a mystery a person is qua person. All action comes out of the ideas we hold and if we ponder duly upon personality we shall come to perceive that we cannot commit a greater offence than to maim or crush, or subvert any part of a person.

What are some ways that a child's personality can be maimed, crushed or subverted?

One is by the tyranny of fear. You see this, she says, in David Copperfield, with the home tyranny of Mr Murdstone and the school tyranny of Mr Creakle.

Then there are some more subtle but just as pervasive forms of tyranny:

• The tyranny of love.
• The tyranny of suggestion.
• The tyranny of influence.

These all seem to me to be summed up as what my Scottish mother would call "manipulation". She hated it. She hated to use it and she hated it used upon her. The examples Charlotte Mason uses to demonstrate these are mostly taken from school. For example,

Supineness before a single, steady, persistent influence is a different matter, and the schoolgirl who idolises her mistress, the boy who worships his master, is deprived of the chance of free and independent living. His personality fails to develop and he goes into the world as a parasitic plant, clinging ever to the support of some stronger character.

This is subtle, but the danger she warns against is the same with all inordinate influences -- a stunted, too easily-led child who does not grow up with an upright independence, but is weak and vacillating. Maybe we are talking here about what we now call "lacking boundaries"? We see parents who are not openly tyrannic but seem not to establish separate personality zones and this leads to "co-dependency". Perhaps this is the kind of thing she says is harmful to a child's developing self.

I wonder if Davey's mother, and little Dora in David Copperfield, could be some examples of this kind of personal influence? Though it is difficult to assign any evil intent to either of them, they do seem to impart a kind of yielding to his personality which leads him into mistakes.

Charlotte Mason does allow that the natural influence of what a person IS, is a healthy type of influence. The harm that can be done has more to do with a conscious bending of the child by means of personality. It does not have to do with the proper influences of love and integrity of example. In other places she has discussed the idea of teaching a child to do well "because it is right", and this seems to be part of the same theme.

No doubt such influence is inevitable; we must needs affect one another, not so much by what we do or say as by that which we are, and so far influence is natural and wholesome. We imbibe it from persons real and imaginary and we are kept strong and upright by currents and counter-currents of unstudied influence.

Examples of natural influence of character, to keep up with the David Copperfield theme, might be Clara Peggotty and Betsey Trotwood? They are good influences not because they suggest or wrap themselves around Davey but because of their sturdy actions and characters and most of all their steadfast love for him.

The idea of doing good because it is right and not because of influences brings me to the next part of the chapter. Here she lists some of the natural desires which have a healthy element, but which can be taken to an extreme particularly if exploited as a motive for learning. These are:

• The desire for approbation (wanting approval, praise from the schoolmaster -- can easily turn to desire for approval from the stableboy, etc)
• The desire for emulation, or excellence (grades, "first rank" in class, honors)
• The desire of avarice (material benefits such as scholarships from learning, prizes)
• The desire for power (the schoolchild who wants to dominate his peers)
• The desire for society (makes a child conformable at school, but also often weak and vain and idle)
  

She says these are "natural" desires but that they must not be allowed to become the horses that drive the pursuit of knowledge. They will all misdirect the true appetite for knowledge in various ways . It seems to me that there is a right object for these desires -- desire for power might be a form of responsibility and leadership, etc -- but that using them as secondary means distorts what they are truly about.

We have considered the several desires whose function is to stimulate the mind and save us from that vis inertiae which is our besetting danger. Each such desire has its place but the results are disastrous if any one should dominate. It so happens that the last desire we have to consider, the desire of knowledge, is commonly deprived of its proper function in our schools by the predominance of other springs of action, especially of emulation, the desire of place, and avarice, the desire of wealth, tangible profit. This divine curiosity is recognised in ordinary life chiefly as a desire to know trivial things. What did it cost? What did she say? Who was with him? Where are they going? How many postage stamps in line would go round the world? And curiosity is satisfied by incoherent, scrappy information which serves no purpose, assuredly not the purpose of knowledge whose function is to nourish the mind as food nourishes the body.

Vis inertia means "force of inactivity" and here it seems related to the defect of the virtue of "studiousness" -- that is, a kind of indifference. From this Catholic Education article on Temperance:

The defect of this virtue (studiousness) amounts to an indifference to truth, which, as was said earlier, is the fruit of an inordinate attachment to the pleasures of touch. The excess is the vice of curiosity, which is certainly an offspring of pride.

So this idleness and quest for trivial knowledge she describes above are perversions of the real, virtuous desire for knowledge.

Now, this brings her to the solution for the problem. We are too inclined, she says, to think of "knowledge" as a bitter pill to be sweetened with jam, rather than a delectable thing in its own right. This leads us to the temptation to manage and manipulate a child inappropriately.

Knowledge is to us as our mother's milk, we grow thereby and in the act of sucking are admirably content.

The work of education is greatly simplified when we realize that children, apparently all children, want to know all human knowledge; they have an appetite for what is put before them, and, knowing this, our teaching becomes buoyant with the courage of our convictions.

She says that many schools have had the experience of finding "gold" in the appetite for knowledge common to all people.

The finding of this power which is described as 'sensing a passage,' is as the striking of a vein of gold in that fabulously rich country, human nature. Our 'find' is that children have a natural aptitude for literary expression which they enjoy in hearing or reading and employ in telling or writing.

So she recommends many good books written in a literary manner, and reflected upon.

Most schools give from eleven in the lowest to eight hours in the highest Forms to 'English' that is, from twenty to sixteen consecutive readings a week might be afforded in a wide selection of books,––literature, history, economics, etc.,––books read with the concentrated attention which makes a single reading suffice. The act of narrating what has been read might well be useful to boys who should be prepared for public speaking. By a slight alteration of this kind, in procedure rather than in curriculum or timetable, it is probable that our schools would turn out many more well-read, well-informed men and convincing speakers than they do at present. Such a method, even if applied to 'English' only, would tend to correct any tendency in schools to become mere cramming places for examinations, would infect boys with a love of knowledge and should divert the natural desire for acquisition into a new channel, for few things are more delightful than the acquisition of knowledge.

To try to make an analogy, if there is a yearning for goodness in human nature which can only be satisfied with practice of virtue, there is similarly a yearning for knowledge which can only be satisfied with real knowledge, not the scrappy trivial or "deadwood" kind, but the great ideas and thoughts of the best writers and thinkers.

I am thinking along this path that the object of knowledge is Truth and if this is so, then the love for the Good is part of the same thing (see this Fairy-stories, the Good and the Beautiful):

At the deepest level the Good and the Beautiful are transcendental properties of Being, along the the True and the One. They are interchangeable and differ only in notion.

Of course, we can be misled and diverted by our fallen nature, as mentioned above. Which is probably another reason why Charlotte Mason tries in her child-educating philosophy to avoid some of the pitfalls that can mislead and divert the children and cause them to be motivated by desires which ought to be ordered rather than indulged. By removing hindrances and distractions to real learning, and by reverence for the childrens' unique personalities, she hopes to accomplish more than by trying to play upon childrens' immaturity to "make" them learn.

It seems to me to be worth considering. I can see that though we've had our challenges through the years with pursuit of knowledge and virtue, much of the good fruits that have come out of our family life and educational attempts have come from example, good habits formed, and a demonstration of the value of knowledge -- not "value" in trade for praise, or power, or prizes, but the value of it for its own sake.

Task #14: Master Bedroom

I didn't have too much to do in the master bedroom. I vacuumed under the bed and cabinets and computer, and scrubbed the wooden baseboards, and straightened a bit, and dusted or wiped the surfaces. These are both "after" pictures.

Task #13: Eastern Side of Loft

My husband and older kids went to town to see a movie, so I ended up working on the rest of the loft Wednesday evening instead of Thursday as I would have normally.



Preparation, Action:

The center part of the loft actually didn't look too bad overall. There was very little clutter -- most of it was over at the western part. So most of my cleaning time I spent straightening, putting a few things away, vacuuming thoroughly, and wiping surfaces and part of the banister. I still need to dust the rafters and fan, and go through the audio cabinet .

I am finding that knowing what I am going to do next helps me prepare at the same time as I am working on the present tasks. So I was cleaning the east part of the loft even while I was focusing on the west part, and I did a little work on the master bedroom today in the process of working on the east side of the loft.

On the other hand, today was a bit demoralizing. Typical of me to get close enough to the finish line to actually see it, and then start moving too fast and wiping out. It's happening now with the last 12 days of "school" too; I just want to be done, but that certainly isn't the attitude I want to cultivate either with home learning OR with my home cleaning. It is the present moment I am working on, after all!

From here you can see all four of the boys' beds -- Paddy's youth bed in the front, Sean's next to the bookcase, and Kieron's and Aidan's over in the window area:


Paddy's little bed, the audio center, Sean's collection of footballs:


Here is a close-up of Kieron and Aidan's area; Kieron tidied it earlier today:

Here is the view looking towards the master bedroom -- a bit "busy" -- I would like to do something about that cloth, but it hides even more distracting cardboard boxes:


Here's the view from my room back over the loft:


Considerations:

One of the reasons I'm making this "journey" through the house is that there is a chance we may have to move. Funny how it's easier to pay attention to something when there's a possibility it might be taken away. Something I ought to ponder, because I do tend to walk through all my blessings almost blindly, and "wake up" only when there is some change. Seems to me that there might be some acedia in that.

I love our nice "tree house" but it would take some work to make it buyer-ready. I am not photo-ing the floors and ceilings and walls, which are the most banged-up and stretched -- the ceiling is sagging from many winters of heavy snows, and the floors and walls -- you can imagine, with six boys. And I don't really want to leave it, but I do want to be more intentional about keeping it up.

Last two tasks: The master bedroom and the master bathroom.

Education in Sand

From Jacques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads (Humanities and Liberal Education)

"First we have fogotten that science and knowledge are not a self-sufficient set of notions, existing for their own sakes, abstracted and separate from man. Science and knowledge don't exist in books, they do exist in minds, they are vital and internal energies and must develop therefore according to the inner spiritual structure of the mind in which they have their being."

"Secondly, we act as if the task of education were to infuse into the child, or the adolescent, only abridging and concentrating it, the very science or knowledge of the adult....So we try to cram young people with a chaos of summarized adult notions which have been either condensed, dogmatized, and textbookishly cut up or else made so easy that they are reduced to the vanishing point.

"As a result, we run the risk of producing either an instructed, bewildered intellectual dwarf, or an ignorant intellectual dwarf playing at dolls with our science. In a recent essay Professor Douglas Bush recalls "the classic anecdote of the young woman who was asked if she could teach English history. 'Oh, yes,' she replied brightly. 'I've had it twice, once in clay and once in sand.'"

Task #12: the western side of the loft

This is our upstairs loft. Originally it was going to be our "schoolroom" but it ended up being more of a rec-room while we do the bulk of our formal academics downstairs near the fireplace.

The before and after pictures don't look much different, unfortunately -- the upstairs seems to always look cluttered and un-flowing, though it's quite relaxing to sit up there as you can see (they don't ALWAYS spend their time in front of the screen, it just looks that way):

BEFORE



AFTER:




The bulk of the time was spent organizing and sorting through toys -- I got them all organized by type, as you can perhaps see:


I got 2 whole bags out of there, one to throw out and one to give away -- which brings me up to Bags 11 and 12 in the Trashbag Challenge:


The toy-sorting took over an hour, then the rest of the time I spent vacuuming the corners, dusting, wiping, and sorting books and videotapes. SO this was a time-consuming job, almost 2 hours' worth.

Next is the center loft. This will be easier because it is not quite so cluttered, though it does double as a sort of dormitory for the four younger boys.

Migrations

Sean was down south this weekend at Camp Quarterback. It’s really something to see the film of him only 9 months ago, last time he was there, compared to this time. His weightlifting and football drills have paid off quite a bit.

In similar fashion, he is getting through the Algebra review with a fair amount of ease, compared to the struggles he went through as we proceeded through the course for the first time (he did well, but it was hard work for him).

This week Liam goes up north, for his computer gaming internship.

It rained all this weekend, and Aidan was restless. He wanted to go outside, but his Mom’s temperature range is too narrow. I’m happiest between 55 and 70 degrees, preferably with cloudy skies. All my ancestors came from somewhere around the 50 degree N latitude mark, and most were close to the ocean (Scotland and Netherlands), so that probably plays into it.

Speaking of geography, Aidan asked for a “flag matching game” to play online. Wouldn’t you know, they have several. The Canadian leaf is still his favorite, and the Indian “wheel” comes near to tying as favorite. He also likes the St Vincent “diamonds” and the Japanese “circle”. Anyway, he had a lot of fun playing online “concentration” with flags.

What I've Been Reading

I've been reading a lot recently so I thought I had better make a quick list -- I resolved to keep track this year, but as usual it always slipped to last place.

First, here are some book reviews Clare wrote for The Robe and for Out of the Silent Planet.
(note 5/30 -- and one more The Great Escape.)

That is what I'd LIKE to do with these, but in the meantime, the quick list.

Here is what I've read during May 2008:

• IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea by Stephen Murdoch. Very interesting reading indeed -- much about the history of the testing, how it linked to early eugenic theory.
• Childhood Speech, Language and Listening Problems -- What Every Parent Should Know -- good read, doesn't assume specialized knowledge but is not condescending "parent-speak" either. Since I'm taking over Aidan's speech therapy I thought I had better get in touch with the general big picture.
• Quotidian Mysteries -- Laundry, Liturgy and Womens' Work -- by Kathleen Norris. I loved this book -- it's very short, very perceptive, written by a poet.
• Education at the Crossroads-- by the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain.
• Savior of Science -- by Stanley Jaki, Catholic scientist and philosopher -- about how only Christianity could set the conditions for the development of science.

In the Middle of at Present:

• Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel. A book about attachment theory and how recognition and dealing with your personal "trigger issues" can lead to better parenting.
• Summer for the Gods -- by Edward Larson -- about the Scopes trial and "American's Continuing Debate over Science and REligion"
• Joining the Literacy Club by Frank Smith.
  

Note 5/30 -- I finished the first two. I have also started rereading Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education.

Books I read bits of but haven't finished:

• The Mindful Brain by Daniel Siegel -- I found it hard going.
• History of Philosophy vol 6 Wolff to Kant by Frederick Copleston SJ. I only read the section on Kant.
• Descartes to Derrida -- An Introduction to European Philosophy. By Peter Sedgwick. I only read the first chapter on Knowledge and Reason because that was the section that concerned Kant.
• Straight Talk about Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference in the Early Years--I skimmed this to see if I could find anything that would be useful for my struggles with Aidan, but didn't read every word.
  

Not much fiction on there. The last fiction I remember reading is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, but that was in April. Oh, yes, and I forgot:

• Jenny by Sigrid Undset. Definitely an immature "minor" work of one who went on to become a great woman writer. Plenty of promise, but still wrestling with her creative angel.

Kind of the opposite of East of Eden which struck me as an elderly type of book, with the excesses of garrulity of a great one who is past his prime. Excesses of verbiage, both in the philosophical vein and in the "fondly remembered past exploits" vein. Some of it fit into what the story was about but some of it went on too long. I should add that Clare had a much better opinion of it than I did.

Oh, and how could I forget! Two more I read:

• Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence
• Jane Austen by Carol Shields

Clare read these too. We had watched the movie Becoming Jane and both of us were curious how much of the movie was "fact" and how much "poetic license".

Task #11: The Pantry

With my pantry, it's a bit difficult to show a "before" and "after" difference without showing the gross floor, which was probably the worst thing there. I didn't want to photograph that. But anyway, here are a couple of pictures -- one taken from the kitchen looking in, and the other from inside:

BEFORE:




What I did:

• Vacuumed and swept the shelves, the floor, and underneath the shelves
• Wiped some of the shelves, especially in front where it seems to be dirtiest.
• Scrubbed the floor.
• Rearranged everything to get as much as possible off the floor, and the rest loosely categorized , as follows:

I keep miscellaneous "surplus" baking supplies and pasta in the back, canned food on the right upper side, small kitchen appliances on the right lower side, cereal and bulk baking supplies on the left side, and pet supplies right to the right as you walk in. Oh, and cleaning supplies are on the top shelf away from the little ones, and there's a few odds and ends like extra baskets and bowls in the back too.

So here's a couple of AFTER shots:

View from inside




View from the kitchen looking in -- I tried it without the flash so you wouldn't get blinded by the window rebound twice in one post:


Conclusion/Continuation

• Either later today or next time through, I need to sort through the cans and look at expiration dates, and while I'm at it, scrub the shelves down and line them with paper or something so they won't get any more stained than they are already.
• While I'm at it I'd like to make some sort of dynamic inventory -- that means, not just a list of what's in there, but some sort of plan for how to use it up.
  
• I also need to weed down on the surplus stuff at the back -- I didn't really get rid of ANYTHING except some trash from under the shelves, this time.

That concludes the downstairs stage of the tour! This week and next I will be focusing on our upper level. That will be broken down into five sections: Western side of loft, central section of loft, eastern side of loft, master bedroom, and master bathroom.

Next stop on journey:

The west side of the loft

Pantry Psalmody

I did not know that Gerald Manley Hopkins, poet and Jesuit priest, had written part of a commentary on St Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. A bit of it is quoted in Kathleen Norris's The Quotidian Mysteries (which Susan recommended)

It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, white-washing a wall, driving horses, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in His grace you do it as your duty. To go to a communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives Him glory too. To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give Him glory, too. God is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean that they should.

So -- I've been trying to do household tasks in this spirit.

Kathleen Norris wrote about the quotidian duties that sometimes overwhelm and discourage us by their very daily-ness, but that imply commitment and trust:

...It might help to regard the gifts of our hearts as being like the manna God sent each day to the Israelites in their journey through a forbidding wilderness. God has made us so that abundant grace can flow from us in response to great need, but in order to fulfill its God-given purpose, such grace must be received and used up, as it is of the present moment and will not keep even overnight. But acedia seeks to hoard against the time when God is no longer present.... It rejects the present moment..

Also:

Our culture's ideal self, especially the accomplished, professional self, rises above necessity, the humble, everyday, ordinary tasks that are best lefft to unskilled labor. The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these "little things" -- that they don't matter, and that daily personal and houseehold chores are of no significance to us spiritually -- are exposed as falsehoods when we consider that reluctance to care for the body is one of the first symptoms of extreme melancholia. ...

At its Greek root the word acedia means "lack of care".... care is not passive -- the word derives from an Indo-European word meaning "to cry out," as in a lament. Care asserrts that as difficult and painful as life can be, it is worth something to be in the present, alive, doing one's daily bit. It addresses and acts on the daily needs that acedia would have us suppress and deny.

Something that I have been pondering recently as I scrub the grout in the pantry floor and sort through dusty piles of books and papers! It does not come easily to me.

Parallel Play

I have been thinking about the little ones, and how I would like to work towards some sitting together, focusing on literacy and numeracy and cultural knowledge type things. They learn quite a bit on the go, but I don’t want to miss that together-time with them, nor do I want to make it a boring seatwork session.

While I was thinking about that I started thinking about how Paddy and Aidan love to see a therapist arrive at the house (and when they were younger, the Head Start teacher for Aidan) because they usually brought a variety of toys and things to do. We lucked out with the Headstart teacher for Aidan — she was so wise and patient and almost like a natural Montessori-type teacher. She would bring out things to “present” to him but she figured out his pattern of a few minutes per item and so she would wait for his responses and watch for when he had had enough.

(One of the most common flaws I’ve seen in a therapist is a hurried attitude. So many of them don’t really wait; they ask a question and are so obviously ready to prompt him that Aidan, of course, picks up the signal and waits in turn for them to do this. The other related flaw is to force attention. Maybe that isn’t a flaw but a planned procedure, but to me it doesn’t seem as effective as the attention-response waltz this Headstart teacher seemed to do naturally– she was a grandma with 2 grown daughters and I think she must have gained wisdom with her silver hairs).

He learned so much from this teacher. He really surprised the evaluator at the end of the year because he knew all the names of the numbers and letters, shapes and colors, and this was actually ahead of where he was developmentally. More importantly, he had a good attitude about these things that has lasted him years now.

Anyway, it occurred to me that we have so many odds and ends around the house that it would be easy for me to make little packets of fun things and just sit with them and do this kind of interacting. That might be a nice way to build towards introducing some materials that are not quite so readily accessible — and when a child is having fun and relaxed this way, they are so open to learning and so ready to talk about what they already know.

Just a thought. I wanted to write it down while I was still thinking about it.

Aidan and Liam both focusing intently.

Task #10: South Side of Kitchen

I worked some more on the kitchen:

• Scoured the toaster and toaster oven.
• Scoured the copper utensil-holder.
• Scoured the pot-and-pan rack above the stove.
• Moved things on the counter and scrubbed behind.

It took a lot longer to do than it does to write! It is humbling working on the kitchen because you can always see more you could have done.... there's still a mess on top of the refrigerator, for example. Next time.

Anyway, here are some after pictures:




Aidan took a picture of me relaxing with my book and some coffee-- and those books in the background are the schoolbooks we are still using this year.

Curriculum Closet: AFTER Pictures

AFTER -- picture of curriculum closet.


This one turned out really dark, but you can see the different levels of curriculum stacked in plastic crates for the future.

One view from inside

Task #9: The Curriculum Closet

Today was a "lateral pass" day. I guess I can do those once in a while. I didn't finish working on the kitchen. Instead I tackled the curriculum closet. I think I can add two more bags to my total for the Trash Bag Challenge! They are not literally bags, but boxes of curriculum that I probably, really almost certainly, will send out the door. So that is 10 trash bags now, I think, if I really do manage to get them out of the house. Getting rid of curriculum is very difficult for me. The only things more difficult are getting rid of books and getting rid of mementos which are associated with poignant moments in our lives. Those have added up through the years! One possible midway solution is to take photos of the best of the old cute drawings, knickknacks etc -- I am afraid that is slightly spirit vs body Manichean -- however, I do really want a cleared house, so that might be the best solution.

I worked for about two hours. I put all the workbooks and "consumable" type resources into four plastic crates divided by grade levels:

• Primary (k-2)
• Grades 3-4
• Grades 5-6
• Middle school

After that age level we don't use very many consumables, just real books and a few texts; I put the high school books on shelves, and also the teacher's manuals and resources. That way these are easier to see. I also didn't crate the children's literature that makes up the bulk of our homeschooling. Those, too, I like where I can see them and where there is potential of the kids picking it out.

I will take pictures when it is fit to see. It's still a mess in there, just a slightly more organized mess.

Susan L is decluttering her house too, and here is a post Busy at Home that has quotes, links, and descriptions of her efforts. It is inspiring for me to read of others' efforts.

Quasi-What?

I just can't help putting these on here. ... from this summary of Aquinas's treatise on prudence. I love little lists like this and remember, prudence or phronesis is supposed to be my meditation for the year ;-)

Question 49: The quasi-integral parts of prudence

• 49,1: Memory: memory is the essential aspect of experience, and there are various ways, noted in the reply to obj. 2, in which we can perfect and improve our memory. They include the use of sensible mnemonic devices, ordering of things to be remembered, taking positive steps not to forget important things, and constant reflection on what needs to be remembered. Pieper points out how easy it is for us, through wilful misremembering, to corrupt our deliberation.
  
  
• 49,2: Understanding of first principles: Prudence presupposes the cognition of practical first principles, known as synderesis. Further--and this is what is especially relevant here--it involves the sort of insight into particular ends that delivers up possible singular premises for pieces of practical reasoning with respect to a particular end.
  
  
• 49,3: Docility: Docility is our openness to the advice and teaching of others, especially regarding the demonstrated and undemonstrated assertions and opinions of the wise regarding both the universal and the particular principles of practical reasoning.
  
  
• 49,4: Shrewdness (solertia): If docility involves our willingness to listen to others, shrewdness involves the ability to size up a situation quickly on one's own and to see which of the possibly relevant practical syllogisms is the most appropriate. Aristotle identifies shrewdness (eustochia) as the ability to identify quickly the most appropriate middle term. Once again, this trait presupposes a good dose of moral rectitude to begin with if it is to operate accurately.
  
  
• 49,5: Discursive reasoning: This is the ability to research and compare alternative possibilities and to reason well from premises to conclusions in practical matters.
  
  
• 49,6: Foresight: Prudence is forward-looking and so essentially involves the ability to order means to ends that are to be realized in the future--which is foresight. Pieper calls this a capacity to estimate whether a particular action will lead to the realization of our goal. Hence, foresight is the principal integral part of prudence, to which the others are ordered and in the context of which they play their role.
  
  
• 49,7: Circumspection: This is the ability to take all relevant circumstances into account, since otherwise what seem to be a good end and a good means can be vitiated by factors that have not been considered. Note St. Thomas's example: In a certain set of circumstances, showing signs of affection in order to better one's relation with another can produce the opposite effect of what one intends, not because of any defect in the end or means themselves, but because of circumstances that affect the way in which the signs of affection are taken by the other. So to be circumspect is to be on the lookout for ways in which a contemplated means to an end might turn out not to be a means to that end at all.
  
  
• 49,8: Caution: Prudence requires that that we take care, when choosing good means to a good end, to avoid or to mitigate or at least to anticipate those evils that will likely result from a good act that we contemplate doing. So it is by caution that we take steps, if necessary, to avoid such evils. So to be cautious is to be on the lookout especially for the bad consequences of a contemplated action.

Hey, I really need to ponder all this. Even one alone looks like a good day for me. All together....? Maybe I'll try to ponder one at a time.

Here's another article on Prudence.

Here's something on Memory

The first of these thing is that he should find certain things [or mental images] that match the things he wants to remember, but this should not be at all usual: because we marvel more at things which are unusual, and the soul is held by such things more and with greater force; whence it happens that we remember more those things that we see in childhood. Therefore the devising of such likenesses and images is necessary, because simple and spiritual intentions fall out of the soul very easily if they are not linked to some physical likenesses: because human cognition is more powerful with regard to sensible things.

Second, it is necessary that a man should arrange in an orderly way the things that he wishes to hold by memory under his consideration, so that from one remembered thing he may progress easily to another.

Third, a man should apply interest and emotional energy to the things he wants to remember: because the more deeply something is impressed upon the soul, the less does it drop out of the soul.

Hence Tullius also says, in his Rhetoric (book 3, ch. 19), that meditations keep memory: because, as it says in the same book: custom or habit is like nature: hence the things that we understand many times we also recall quickly, as if moving from one thing to another in some sort of natural order.

In turn this reminds me of a book in my closet called Memorize the Faith!
It uses the #1 in the list above, in combination with a method of loci -- arranging the things to be memorized around an imagined physical location. My visual/spatial sense seems to work a bit differently. When I used the images suggested in the book I had to spend way too much mental effort remembering what images match up with what words and what place in the "mansion" they were in. I think for me the unconnectedness of it short-circuited my desire to have the "big picture" in mind.

I think for me it might work better to have the words written in a unique way in my mind -- Envy could be written in green with a snake winding its tail around for the "Y" -- etc. I can see it now. And I like the way Aquinas talks about arranging things in an orderly way so the mind walks from one to another -- you can do it visually/spatially as with the loci method, but you can also do it by train of thought, it seems. I really like #3 and #4.

Task #8: North Side of Kitchen

I worked my hour or so in the kitchen, but I will admit there is still much left to do. While I was working on it, I came to the realization that for several years, survival lay in hurry. When I had small babies, cleaning the kitchen meant either zipping through at top speed for the 15 minutes he was looking at his mobile, or delegating kids.

Now that I have more time, my rushed habits yet remain. I am trying to be more respectful, more peaceful, almost more contemplative about doing these necessary and never-done things. It does not come easily to me -- housework and cooking are what you rush through so you can get to the good stuff -- reading, thinking, writing, talking. But the Kathleen Norris book is right -- too much of that leads to acedia. For now I resolved to at least dwell on one thing and try to make it beautiful. I liked what Anna at Pleasant View Schoolhouse wrote in Lessons from Vintage Fiction:

A room isn't finished until it reflects the homemaker's love of beauty. A pot of primroses on the dinner table, an embroidered bureau cover on the bedroom chest of drawers, a clean dresser scarf on the buffet in the dining room--creating a home takes attention to detail.

Now, here are some BEFORE pictures -- we have a music center in the kitchen -- no compartmentalization here : ):




I spared you the pan with the scrambled eggs remains. My kitchen looks like this every morning -- we're a family of nine!

Some of the "after" views will have to wait until tomorrow because I only got to about half of it. I find the kitchen extremely challenging for my sensibilities. I dislike grease, I dislike strong cleaning agents, I find it difficult to work very hard on a small spot and have it look only better, not perfect.

But here's what I worked on:

The stove -- scoured top, underside, surface. -- swept underneath and collected a lot of little things, some from way back when the 5 year old was a toddler.



Microwave area -- wiped a bit -- I will admit I didn't get to the interior of those cabinets. My husband made the doors of them a couple of years ago ;-).

If you take a look at the first "before" picture, this is the after -- inside the bottom cabinet.
Detail: the tea kettle. I worked on this for about 15 minutes, scouring and polishing. I tried to make it look like it was loved and respected. That was my little try at perfection in the details for at least one thing today.

Interlude in Household Journey

I have to run errands in town today, so this series today is a bits and pieces interlude. This is the top drawer of the hutch, BEFORE:



and AFTER.

It looks better, yes, but most of the changes are just cosmetic. I consolidated and stacked, I didn't really toss much or make many changes. Basically, yes, it's a junk drawer. I find these difficult to live without in my busy family, and have to admit I have a junk drawer in almost every room where I can throw all the odds and ends and sort through them at intervals. Next run through, I need to really decide where all these things out to go -- tapes to the audio cabinet, and so on.

This is a midway shot of my kitchen cabinet. I had dumped out all the books to sort -- give away, reshelve. Yes, I do keep books in my kitchen cabinet. I actually did get a good bag of give-away books out of the lot. There were about three times as many as you see here.


After -- still crammed. I put the wooden educational toys and kindergarten activity books in there. I plan to rotate them out -- they were out on shelves but were getting stale and ignored. The binders on the bottom are for (1) my lesson plans and resource lists (2) work accomplished.



Now, here I cringe because these are two before shots of my curriculum closet. Who needs a walk-in for CLOTHES -- DH and I keep all of ours in a couple of chests of drawers. This is my little storage space for hibernating curriculum gathered over 15 years teaching 6 children. I have gotten rid of boxes and boxes of resources through the years, but this is what I am having a hard time letting go of. I worked on it for a while this morning, mostly just consolidating all the curriculum into here so that I could sort through and organize.

This is a fully-fledged Dragon in my house and I am going to devote a good part of the summer to ruthless sorting and weeding. Since I know this will be difficult for me -- my weakness is books and curriculum -- I'm going to arrange a set of halfway boxes. I will put the curriculum in there and then have my shelves clear for the stuff I really like and will most likely use.

Divine Science?

I think you can argue towards the existence of a creator from the evidence of the natural world, though that is not the only argument for the existence of God. People have been doing that at least since King David. However, this is a religious and philosophical train of thought. It can incorporate scientific evidence but should not be incorporated INTO science, because it goes way beyond science's proper scope. I think that the only questions to do with evolution as proposed by Darwin and successors are whether the theories are verifiable or falsifiable, if they are the best explanations from the evidence, etc.

In other words -- there are areas that go beyond science, and there are areas about science that suggest something beyond itself, but those things oughtn't, I don't think, be brought into science as a sort of explanation. I think there are plenty of difficulties with evolution in the details, and plenty that the theories don't explain, but I hope and trust that as time goes on more WILL be explained, and if evolutionary theory proves incomplete or wrong in some points, as since Darwin's time it has in certain respects, future theories will move closer to the reality. That's the glory of scientific study, when it is done rightly. And it can never pose a threat to faith, not because faith is unreasonable, but because empirical science *by definition* can only deal with what can be measured, quantified, and ordered. It is inevitably a sub-set of known reality.

Now, you can argue the non-existence of a creator from the evidence of the natural world, too. At least, it is often done. Some evolutionists do this, thereby going into amateur metaphysics and (counter) theology but in the process going beyond the strict bounds of their field too. Philosophy is a human endeavor; it informs everything by default if not by intention. My problem with some non-religious scientists is that they fail to acknowledge that and fall into "philosophy by default", a dangerous thing which in their cases often results in a naive scientism.

Here is an example-- a panel of scientists and others at the John Templeton Institute answering the question: Does science make belief in God obsolete? A whole range of answers, very interesting. Of course, it may be how the question is posed, but too many of the scientists who answered some version of "Yes, it does" seemed to think that deities were needed to explain what was mysterious in the material world. Now that everything is explained, therefore, there is no necessity for a deity. This seems so trustingly childlike in its simplicity; you almost get the sense that Science is considered an object of faith. One non-theistic scientist even said that perhaps an alien civilization could have created the universe as we know it. For charm and imagination he gets a B+ at least, but in the thinking skills department I think he needs a redo. A middle cause is not a First Cause.

I am still thinking this through... the connections between the disciplines and how they ought to inform each other.

Task #7: Great Room

The job today covered much more space than usual but is simpler because it is our "minimal" area of the house. It is the first room people see when they walk into the house. The kids clean it twice weekly and I try to vacuum down there every other day.

My goal for it is: uncluttered, simple, spacious, shining. Needless to say it does not live up to that vision very regularly, but that's what I was aiming for this morning -- getting everything possible off the surfaces.

Preparation -- the day before

• Brendan brought the big box of printer paper upstairs
• I brought an old 3D Notre Dame Cathedral puzzle upstairs

Now, for BEFORE (this morning -- son doing his schoolwork in the foreground)




What I did (it's not going to really show up in the picture too much, but take my word for it -- it was a 2-hour task counting helping sons with math and grammar in the process).

• Broke down the boxes we use for firestarters over by the fireplace, in order to consolidate them into a smaller tidier space
• Collected miscellaneous books that were lying around and put them in a pile to reshelve upstairs
• Collected various toys, ditto
• Collected various blankets, ditto
• Swept carefully around the hearth
• Polished the newly cleared wooden surfaces
• Wiped and scrubbed the windowsills and benches.
• Cleaned and swept under the couch
• Changed, cleaned and refilled the barometer water.

After





Conclusion, Continuation

Still to DO, either today or next time around:

• Take the cardboard and newspapers out to the garage or basement (I am not doing that yet because it is perfectly possible it will still get cold enough to need our wood stove)
• Move the ugly taped-up light you see at the bottom of the barometer picture
• Oh, and that SPIDER WEB -- I didn't see it when I was dusting over there.
• Vacuum the floor
• Vacuum under the seat cushions (it doesn't get too bad because of the covers I keep over the sofas but still, needs to be done every now and then.
• Bring up the kids' schoolbooks -- they are in a box on the "hutch". That will be for the next pass through because right now we are still three weeks away from the end of the last term for our year.
• Straighten basket next to foyer ( a catchall for library books, keys, and whatever else)

Task #9:

The north side of the kitchen ... yes, this endeavour will have to be broken down.