“Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s heart is beating 156 times per minute as he lands the lunar module on the moon with only 45 seconds left of fuel. He opens the hatch. He climbs down the ladder, slowly. One-fifth of the Earth’s population are sitting in front of their TV sets, holding their breath, as Neil Armstrong carefully sets the first footprint in the lunar dust.”
It’s a scene some of us witnessed live on TV. Some of us have looked back in history to see man walk on the moon.
“Meanwhile – on the other side of the moon – a small spacecraft orbits in the darkness. Inside the silvery craft sits Michael Collins. He will never walk on the moon. His task is to maneuver the capsule and wait while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land the lunar module. He can’t even hear Neil and Buzz over the radio. No one is father away from Earth than he is. For 14 lonely turns, Michael Collins circles the moon. Each time he reaches the far side of the moon, he spends 48 minutes without radio communication. The only thing between him and outer space is some insulation and a thin sheet of metal.” – Excerpt from The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon by Bea Uusma Shyffert
Wow, what a passage. And so began our school year exploring space for science.
Honestly, the thing that I love the MOST about homeschooling is reading excellent living books with my kids and learning and wondering along the way with them.
Before reading this book, I had of course heard of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but I had never heard of Michael Collins. Until I read this book, Michael Collins was just a name at the end a triad with not much detail about who he was or what he did.
Living Books
Not all books are written equally. Some are truly dry as toast. Some are cheesy and entertaining but lack substance behind the silliness.
“They must grow up upon the best. There must never be a period in their lives when they are allowed to read or listen to twaddle or reading-made-easy. There is never a time when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told.” Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, pg. 263
What are “Living Books”?
- Books are “living” when they are written in literary language that isn’t dumbed down for children.
- Living books have big ideas that gives readers something to think about, wonder, imagine, or ponder long after the story is over.
- The characters in living books are not perfect but they try to make the right choices, or there are consequences for poor choices. In short, they are virtuous.
- Living books are written by authors who are passionate and inspired by their subject and their enthusiasm flows from page to reader.
- Living books are narrative in that you can read them and then easily tell back what you read. They flow and are often written as a story.
- Living books are generational- they are the books that have been loved by your parents and your grandparents. They are books that adults and children enjoy reading together.
There are so many wonderful books in the world – and not nearly enough time in my life to read them all. There are so many things to learn and so many people to learn from. Humanity is blessed to have some truly great minds who push the boundaries of what is possible, and we can learn of them through books – great books.
“We owe it to every child to put him in communication with great minds that he may get at great thoughts; with the minds, that is, of those who have left us great works; and the only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books” – Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education p. 12
(For more on living books, I’ve written about some of the more recent brain science behind living books.)
The Science of Relations AKA Making Connections
So you’ve filled your life with great books – now what? You read them, of course – but have you learned? There is another piece to education other than just reading in isolation – and that is what Charlotte Mason called “The Science of Relations”. She writes,
“We have shown that the mass of knowledge, evoking vivid imagination and sound judgement, acquired in a term from the proper books, is many times as great, many times more thoroughly visualized by the scholars, than had they waited upon the words of the most able and effective teacher. This is why we insist upon the use of books. It is not that teachers are not eminently capable but because information does not become knowledge unless a child perform the “act of knowing” without the intervention of another personality.” – Charlotte Mason Philosophy of Education p. 271
Essentially what Charlotte Mason is arguing here is that information remains information and does not become knowledge (which the child knows) if they do not filter it through their own mind – by taking the information and applying it to other things they know (the science of relations) and explaining it in their own words.
When we read living books – we are offered appetizers of wonder and imagination. And when we think about the content, putting into our own worlds and contexts, we learn it. Charlotte Mason wrote this over 100 years ago and I do see it still being true today. At least, I recognize that there is not much that I remember from my days of cramming information in to regurgitate on a test. I was “informed” in organic chemistry – but not “knowledgeable” or “wise” and I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. It was never applied or connected to anything else beyond the syllabus.
The Science of Relations in Practice
My son has been reading another book, “A Black Hole Is Not a Hole” by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano and one day he said he thought we could do a science demonstration to demonstrate a black hole. He had an idea to take a parachute and a marble, stretch the parachute out and then because the marble was so heavy it would create a dent in the parachute and draw other lighter objects toward it. The parachute demonstration didn’t work as envisioned, so we tried a Twister mat, but that didn’t work either – both were too thick to have any size of dent from the marble. But again, my son pivoted and suggested saran wrap, which we clung loosely between two chairs and rolled a marble across until it sank in the middle. Then he demonstrated other objects coming towards the black hole’s event horizon and how once they entered the black hole’s intense gravity, they were sucked in towards it.
By relating what he was reading to what he knew about the world (materials like the parachute, marbles, the twister mat, and saran wrap) as well as to other books he had read, and physics demonstrations we had watched – he was able to come up with his own demonstration and understand black holes better than I could have ever endeavored to explain it. Sure, I could stand in front of him and give a scintillating lecture about black holes – firing a bunch of information at him – but it probably wouldn’t become part of what he knows. I could assign a pre-digested lab experiment to him and he could go through the motions of filling it out – but without that relational spark connecting it to something he cares about (something he already knows), the information will be gone as soon as the test is taken.
Connecting the Dots
Going back to Michael Collins – I was hooked by the way the author, Bea Uusma Schyffert wrote about him. She started with writing something I was familiar with – man’s first walk on the moon, and then connecting it to something new – the story of Michael Collins, orbiting up there all by himself in the dark.
Later, the author writes, “The President calls Neil and Buzz on the moon. No one calls Michael. When he is on the far side of the Earth, radio transmission from earth is not even possible.” I connected emotionally to Michael Collins’ experience to something else I know and fear – fear of isolation, fear of loneliness, fear of being left out, fear of the dark. This passage has stuck with me for months.
It made me wonder…Who are the Michael Collinses in my life? Who are my mission critical individuals who are under-appreciated for their contributions to my daily existence?
Michael Collins said, “On the backside of the moon, on the night side, you can’t see the surface. The moon is defined simply by the absence of stars.”
It made me wonder…What is right in front of me but I can’t see it simply because I am too close?
Of course, my 9 year old son took different things from this book. He applied it to what he knows and that is learning too.
That is the power of living books – they can be read by many people of many ages and experience and inspire different thoughts and ideas in them. We take from them what we need at the time, and the next time we will take something else.
“A small English boy of nine living in Japan, remarked, “Isn’t it fun, Mother, learning all these things? Everything seems to fit into something else.” The boy had not found out the whole secret; everything fitted into something within himself. (Philosophy of Education, p. 156-57)
I just love the last part of that quote: “Everything seems to fit into something else.” But “the boy had not [yet] found out the whole secret; everything fitted into something within himself.”
Such is learning and such is life.
-Heather
ps: This post contains Amazon affiliate links from which I receive a small commission on qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting my blog! I am a real person writing every word myself.
Enjoyed this post? Check out some of my other recent posts!
- The Power of Learning with Living Books and Making Connections
- Cat Books for Kids
- Colorful Eclectic Family Room
- Books for Boys Resistant to Reading
- Hosting a Mother-Daughter Craft Club
Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe to my mailing list and receive an email when I publish something new.