Habit Training Part 1

Yesterday I went to a Charlotte Mason meeting in Portland.  There is a reason I drive a long distance to attend:  The wise and kind women in the group offer great insights.  Honestly, it was a pivotal moment for me.  Ultimately, what I keep coming back to with Charlotte Mason is habit training.  Ms. Mason said habits wear tracks in the brain like a train follows along tracks, whether they are good habits or poor habits. 

I think of my Father who has a negative track playing in his head for years.  There are probably many reasons for this but here is one as it relates to education.  My Dad is a highly intelligent, out-0f-the-box thinker who can build anything.  He was an electrician by trade but he hated school.  He does not like reading and writing and spelling.  In school he was not valued for what he *could* do, as a result he has always thought he is stupid which is not true.  I read this article called “Of Daffodils and Diesels” and thought of my Father immediately, school was not relevant for him.  There is more to what happened to my Father’s life than school, of course, but I think school did not help him.  Whenever I see negativity in my older son, I realize I need to help him change the track that is running in his brain or trying to run.  Charlotte Mason’s methods have helped tremendously with this already.  She believed that ”Habit is Ten Natures” (see selected quotes below). 

I do believe children forget much of what they learn in elementary school but now I can see that it is the skill and practice that is important, not remembering the content.  Barbara pointed out that this is much like a child who learns to speak a second language at a young age and then later forgets this language.  This person can re-learn this language quicker than someone who never learned it.  This is the reason children memorize poetry, because it is a skill they will use later in life.   Exposure to a variety of subjects, even subjects that do not interest the child will likely prove useful later in life in one way or another, sometimes with an unexpected benefit.  

I hope lessons and habit training can be done in a gentle way.  Gina suggests presenting one choice for the lesson after clearly explaining the goals of the lesson then letting the child think of a way to accomplish the same goals if they wish.  I can imagine that Hunter will do everything he can to think of another way to do it, so he can make it his own.  Barbara gives her students three choices or allows them to come up with a fourth way.  I hope to one day have enough ideas in my toolbox to *think* of three assignments for the same material.  Amazing.  Barbara’s Honeywood School reminds me of this PNEU school in the way children are given the freedom to learn in ways that work for them.  I wish we lived closer to her school.

Most of the meeting was about poetry and everyone brought great poetry books and insights to share.  I will compile the list in another post and also on the Secular Charlotte Mason website.  Beyond the cultural gems, poetry memorization and recitation is a good for habit training.

Selected quotes from Volume 1 Part III: 

Habit Rules Most of our Thoughts and Acts

Whether habits are planned and created conscientously, or allowed to be haphazardly filled in by chance, they are habits all the same. Habit rules 99 percent of everything we do. Parents aren’t turning children into creatures of habit, they already are creatures of habit, it’s part of our human nature. We think our usual thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through our usual routine without even thinking about it. Imagine if that wasn’t the case. If we had to think through each step and make a decision about each and every one, imagine how long it would take to eat a meal or take a shower. Life wouldn’t even be worth living. The constant stress of having to think through each step would be so tedious that we’d be exhausted. Thankfully, life isn’t that difficult because, for most of what we do, we don’t have to consider what to do next. We made a choice once in the beginning and now we just do it by habit. The matters that come up and need to be thought through and decided upon will happen in children’s lives as

pg 111

often as they do in our own lives. We can’t prevent those from occurring, and we shouldn’t try. What we can do is to make sure that they have habits that keep their routines orderly, proper and honorable instead of leaving the wheel of their train of life to make random ruts in dark places.

Growing Tissues Mold Themselves to the Way They are Used

Dr. Carpenter is part of the school that believes that human tissue is constantly wearing out and repairing itself by building new tissue. Even physical functions that we take for granted, like walking and standing up straight, are really the result of meticulous training. The things we learn, such as writing or dancing, are also learned with effort, but they become so automatic that we can do them naturally and easily. Why? Because the law of living, growing tissue is that it grows to accommodate whatever action is required of it. When the brain is constantly cuing the muscles to do a specific action, that action will become so automatic in the muscles that even a slight cue from outside will prompt them to respond without the brain having to consciously intervene. A child’s joints and muscles grow to accommodate holding and using a pencil. It isn’t that the child concentrates and wills with his mind to make the hand write with a pencil in spite of his muscles. It’s his newly grown muscles that form themselves to adapt to operating a pencil. And, in this same way, people can be trained to do all kinds of feats and tricks that look impossible to everyone else. Those things are impossible to everyone else, because their muscles haven’t been trained to do those amazing things with early training.