Family Lore Blog

Free Copy of Talking of Dragons

2011-09-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

Get a free copy of my book, Talking of Dragons: The Children's Books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. As we near the release date of my wife's Coupon Quick Start Guide, Angela is sponsoring another giveaway. This time she's offering my 2005 Christian Focus Publications book on the children's writings of Tolkien and his friend C.S. Lewis. You can find more details at this link.

Coupon Quick Start Website Launched

2011-09-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

The official website for Coupon Quick Start Guide: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries, was launched last night. This eBook, written by my wife Angela (with some co-authoring help from my very own self) will be available for purchase next week, on September 28. You can buy it in several formats: PDF, Kindle, and ePub (ePub can be read on any digital reading device, including Apple's iPad and iPhone, Sony Reader, Nook, and Adobe Digital Editions).

You can read a free chapter of the book at the new website. What's that? I haven't given you the link yet? Well, say no more: www.couponquickstart.com. Other information is also available there. Check it out.

The book will be available, I say, on September 28. But you can also take advantage of several opportunities to get it for free. Just mosey on over to the Coupon Quick Start Guide fan page on Facebook for a chance to win the book, as well as some other great prizes (different prizes each day, between now and the 28th).

Angela's Book-Affiliate Program

2011-09-15T23:22:00.001-04:00

Okay, Blog Friends and Facebook Folks, we need your help - and we fully intend to reward you for that help. Angela's book releases in about thirteen days, and we have just launched an affiliate program for the book. If you have a blog or website (or even if you don't - hang with me for a minute), you can become an affiliate to help get this book into as many hands as possible. Sign up, and you'll make 30% commission on every book sold on your site.

I've got more details below. Even if you don't have a blog or site, you can get in on the fun, too. You can even make this available on your Facebook page, or via emails you send to friends or family. If you'd like to find out more about how to do that, email Angela at couponquickstart at gmail dot com. You can also get two copies of the book for free (one for yourself, and one for hosting a giveaway on your site), if you sign up for our Review Special (more on that below). Meantime, here's the details I promised, from Angela's website:

A number of folks have asked for affiliate information on my new eBook, Coupon Quick Start Guide: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries. The details are below: I hope you’ll consider offering Coupon Quick Start Guide on your blog or site. I think you’ll find it worth the time and effort!
If you’d like to join the affiliate program, click the link below:

Join our Affiliate Program!

When you sign up, a registration code will be sent to your email address. Use this to register for the affiliate program.

For every copy of Coupon Quick Start Guide you sell through the link on your site, you’ll earn a 30% commission. The book will sell for $4.99, so you’ll make about $1.50 on every book sold.

In the Affiliates Admin (on the eJunkie website, where we’re hosting the affiliate program), click the “Get Affiliate Code” button, and you will be given html code to paste into your website or blog. This will place a link on your site which will lead your readers to the website where they can buy the book (only if they click through this link will you be able to earn a commission for the sale). DO NOT post this code until September 28th so that you will not have any confusion from buyers.

You can join the affiliate program now, but note that the book will not be available until September 28. But hey, that’s less than two weeks away!

I’ve presented the material in this eBook to thousands of people in my Coupon Makeover 101 classes, so I know what a powerful impact it can be in the lives of ordinary people, desperate to save money in a crumbling economy. So help me get the book into as many hands as possible, and make a nice commission for yourself while you do it!

For those interested, I am also offering a Review Special: if you agree to read the book and post a review (on your website, and, preferably, on Amazon as well), I’ll send you a link to get two copies of the book, absolutely free. Keep one yourself, and use the other to host a giveaway on your site, blog, or Facebook page. As you know, one of the best ways to increase traffic to your site or blog is to hold a giveaway.

If you’d like to participate in the Review Special, just send me an email at couponquickstart at gmail dot com, with your Name, website address, and Facebook page. I’ll send you a link and a special code so that you can get the book for free. And although Coupon Quick Start Guide does not officially release until September 28, the free books will be available to you in the next couple of days (hopefully by tomorrow, Friday, the 16^th), so you can read, review, and host your giveaway in conjunction with our marketing campaign, leading up to the launch date in less than two weeks.

Here are more detailed instructions on how to sign up as an affiliate:

Click the “Join our Affiliate Program!” link. For convenience, here it is: Join our Affiliate Program!

In the “Register” section, enter your email address twice, and choose a password.

Click “submit.”

This will open the “Activate” dialogue, with a field to enter an activation code. To get your activation code, check your email inbox. There will be a message there from eJunkie.

Get the code, and return to the eJunkie website.

Enter the code in the “Activation Code” field. Click “Submit.”

This will open the “Required Profile Settings” page. Enter your email, password, business name, and PayPal email address. There is also an optional field for entering your website URL.

On the “Manage Your Affiliate Account” page, click “Get Affiliate Code.”

Follow any remaining instructions; but the next main place you should end up, the good Lord willing, and the creeks don’t rise, is the “Manage Your Affiliate Account” page.

Click “Get Affiliate Code.”

Under “Select Merchant” you should see “Coupon Quick Start Guide.” Click the “Get Affiliate Code” button below.

You will now see a field called “Get Common Affiliate Hop Link (Recommended)”. In the box below, you will see a line of html code. Copy this, and paste it into your website or blog. The result will be a link that looks like this:

Click here to visit Coupon Quick Start Guide.

You can also imbed this in one of our buttons (available soon). You might already know how to do this, but if not, shoot me a quick email at couponquickstart at gmail dot com. I’ll be glad to show you how.

Thanks so much for your interest and participation!

Angela's Book-For Free

2011-09-14T23:29:00.000-04:00

Want to win a free book? If Angela can get a hundred "likes" tonight before midnight, she'll be giving away a copy of her forthcoming Coupon Quick Start Guide eBook. She's at 85 right now, and there are 32 minutes remaining. Just give a like to her Coupon Quick Start Guide Facebook fan page, and leave your name and a brief message. If you don't win, note that the book comes out on September 28, and will be available in PDF, or you can get it for your Kindle, iPhone, or your favorite eBook reader.

Coupon Quick Start Ebook - Press Release

2011-09-14T20:00:00.001-04:00

Below is the official press release for Angela's new eBook, Coupon Quick Start Guide. Why don't you give a visit to the book's new Facebook Fan Page? She's holding a mess of giveaways, including a number of chances to get the book for free.

And while you're at it, take a gander at the cover design:

Contact: W. Chad Newsom
Tel. 336/644/3733
Cell Phone: 336/549-0027
Email: familyloreinfo@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COUPON EXPERT RELEASES NEW EBOOK

Angela Newsom’s Coupon Quick Start Guide Promises Readers “The Easiest,
Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries”

Angela Newsom, founder of the Coupon Makeover website, has announced the publication of her new eBook, Coupon Quick Start Guide: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries. The new work is the first in a projected series of books, written by Newsom, on coupons and the moneysaving lifestyle. Slated for release on September 28, the book’s publication is timed to coincide with the highly-anticipated new season of TLC’s popular reality show, Extreme Couponing.

The book is the first release by Family Lore Publishing, a new home publishing venture founded by Angela
and her husband, author William Chad Newsom.

“Coupons are the talk of the town right now,” said Newsom. “This recession has converted millions of people to a more frugal, thrifty lifestyle, and people are eager for any information that will help them learn how to save money.”

The book was written, Newsom says, to fill a gap among the current crop of coupon books. “There are a lot
of good books out there with a lot of helpful information,” he said. “But for those brand new to couponing,
many of these books have too much information or too little: either they bombard the reader with expert-level data, or they strip it down to such a simple level that important details are left out. Coupon Quick Start Guide strikes the balance, covering needed information thoroughly but succinctly. The result is that a new couponer can get started saving money much more quickly and with less hassle.”

Angela’s Coupon Makeover website features various helps for coupon enthusiasts, and she teaches regular
classes in the North Carolina Triad area. Her work has been featured in such media outlets as The Greensboro News & Record, Seek the Triad magazine, and on Fox 8, News 14 Carolina, and the award-winning video blog, Bargain Sense.

###

If you'd like more information, or to schedule an interview with Angela, please call Family Lore Publishing at
336/644-3733, or e-mail Chad at familyloreinfo@gmail.com.

Coupon Quick Start Guide

2011-09-14T00:08:00.000-04:00

The time is drawing nigh for the first release by FamilyLore Publishing. My wife’s ebook, CouponQuick Start Guide: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and FreeGroceries, will be available in a little over two weeks. The release date,September 28, was chosen because it is also the air date for thehighly-anticipated second season of TLC’s hit reality show, Extreme Couponing. Seemed like a gooddate to release Angela’s book: many who watch the show will be interested in learningmore about how to do that crazy stuff they just saw on the tee-vee.

Well, Coupon Quick StartGuide is just the thing for those who want to learn how to do thiscouponing thing. But there is a difference between Angela’s book and the“Extreme” approach. First, Coupon QuickStart Guide is designed primarily (though not exclusively) for newcomers tothe coupon lifestyle. Those who want to start saving money without spending alot of prep time will find it a most welcome handbook.

But also, Coupon QuickStart Guide can be seen as something of a critique of the Extreme approachto couponing. While the book is designed for the neophyte, Angela did includean Appendix, “Fast Track to Extreme,” for those who want to move to a moreadvanced level. On the whole, Angela’s take on Extreme Couponing is appreciative, as the show has certainly helpedencourage lots of people to look into coupons as a way to help them save moneyduring the current recession. The show has also featured several couponers who give away lots of their grocery stockpile to those less fortunate. All to the good.

But Angela does not hesitate to point out problems. Rememberthat “extreme” can sometimes mean “going too far;” and many couponers have beendownright outraged by things they have seen on the TLC show. Angela will tellyou why some of this stuff is problematic, or even wrong. Along those lines, sheincludes an important chapter on ethical couponing, strongly encouraging herreaders to stay within the limits of the store policies, legal guidelines, andmost, importantly, God’s law.

Check out Angela’s Coupon Makeover Fan Page on Facebook forregular updates (check back here at Family Lore as well). Angela will behosting giveaways in the coming days, including a number of chances for you toget the new book for free. And save the date: September 28, 2011, marks thelaunch of Family Lore Publishing, and of the great new ebook, Coupon Quick Start Guide: The Easiest,Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries.

Family Lore Press Release

2011-09-08T13:42:00.003-04:00

My wife, Angela, and I, have launched a new home publishing venture, Family Lore Publishing. Our first project is slated to release in less than three weeks. Below is the official press release for our venture. Note especially the purpose of this venture, as stated in the press release: "the desire to produce works that help to repair the ruins of the modern family, which is culturally adrift, spiritually starved, and financially broke." To achieve that goal, I write novels (particuarly for young readers), and my wife writes practical books on issues related to family, particularly moneysaving ideas (she's a Coupon Consultant by trade). Feel free to give us a like or a tweet.

Here's the press release:

FAMILY LORE PUBLISHING LAUNCHES WITH PUBLICATION OF COUPON EBOOK

Home Publishing Venture Announces Release of Coupon Quick Start Guide

William Chad Newsom, author of several books, including Talking of Dragons: The Children’s Books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and his wife Angela, founder of the Coupon Makeover website, have launched a new home publishing venture. Family Lore Publishing will feature books written by Chad and Angela, beginning with Angela’s new eBook, Coupon Quick Start Guide: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries.

Coupon Quick Start Guide is the first in a projected series of books, written by Angela Newsom, on coupons and the moneysaving lifestyle. The book is slated to release on September 28, to coincide with the highly-anticipated new season of TLC’s popular reality show, Extreme Couponing.

Family Lore also plans to publish a new series of novels for young readers, written by Chad Newsom. The first book in that series is projected for release some time next year. In the immediate future, Family Lore will publish a new eBook by Chad around Thanksgiving of this year. How to Make Your Children Love Stories continues the work begun by Chad’s 2005 book, Talking of Dragons, which presented families with a plethora of ideas for building a storytelling culture in their homes.

“Angela and I have different emphases in our work,” said Chad. “Through her classes and website, Angela has taught thousands of people how to save money on their grocery bill. My writing focuses on storytelling and its relationship to kids and families. But the common thread that runs through both is the desire to produce works that help to repair the ruins of the modern family, which is culturally adrift, spiritually starved, and financially broke.”

Family Lore Publishing exists to create stories, poems, and non-fiction writings that honor and celebrate the great Story, and its wise Storyteller

# # #

If you'd like more information, or to schedule an interview with Chad or Angela, please call them at 336/644-3733, or e-mail Chad at familyloreinfo@gmail.com.

Abigail's Birthday

2011-08-16T23:28:00.001-04:00

Abigail Christiana is my youngest daughter (unless our unborn child usurps that role), and she is three years old today. God be praised for her: she is a joy to her family. As some of you know, I have been in the habit of writing poems or stories for the kids and my wife on their birthdays. In honor of Abigail, and in thanksgiving to God for my child, I thought I'd post the poem I wrote for Abigail today.

As background, you should know that Abigail, almost from the time she was born, has identified herself as a princess. I even recall one afternoon when she was...ah, when she was...well, receiving the due reward for her misdeeds, shall we say. As the moment of temporal justice neared, she filed various appeals with the Court, all to no avail. And just as she found herself bent over the parental knee, she made one last attempt to escape her fate by saying, "but I'm a princess!"

Needless to say, this last appeal was also denied by the Court, though the Court very much appreciated it on other terms. But it was with such memories as these that I wrote Abigail's birthday poem, which is as follows:

Princess Abigail

By Her Father, on Her Third Birthday

16 August 2011

I sometimes wonder why it is that little girls are all

United in desire to be a princess at a ball?

Why is it, though they disagree on fifty other things,

All see themselves as daughters born of Emperors or Kings?

Now Abigail, my youngest-born, is princess through and through;

And so upon her birthday I have authored this review

Of that which true nobility on noble lives lays claim,

That those who would be princesses may not be put to shame.

A princess, first, is under Law; for Law has given her

The name of "Princess" (which she could not on herself confer);

Thus princesses must early learn to honor and obey

Their Father-Kings and Mother-Queens; renewed in love each day.

A noble princess next must learn the art of sacrifice:

For Love and Truth and Honor all exact a royal price.

A princess endures hardship, loss, and danger valiantly,

And of the treasure of her heart, she gives abundantly.

Her merry heart is quick to laugh, no less in days of want,

When meals are thin, and treasure scarce, and faces pale and gaunt.

A princess scorns the company of fashion-monging boys

(Or girls), and is not much impressed with adolescent toys.

She seeks the friendship of the Wise, to learn their holy ways;

And loves her God above all else; her lips are quick to praise.

A noble daughter; someday, by God's grace, a noble wife;

For Goodness, Truth, and Beauty are the canon of her life.

So Abigail, my princess, learn to love all that is good,

And hate all that is evil, as a noble princess should.

Then, though your father may not be the image of a king,

The praises of his princess he will never cease to sing.

Anniversary

2011-08-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my marriage to Angela, my glorious bride. Truly I was blessed far beyond my deserving in this marriage, and I thank God from my heart for her. I have written a number of anniversary poems for my wife over the years. This year’s poem is somewhat different, and I don’t think I’ll publish it here. However, in honor of Angela, here’s one I wrote for our fifteenth anniversary three years ago.

Fortune’s Fool

A Poem for Angela on our Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary

By Her Husband

Alas for me! For I am Fortune’s Fool;

The Slave of Fate, of Circumstance a Tool;

A blind and stupid Stumbler in the dark,

Whose eyes have never noticed Wisdom’s spark.

Yet on the Day whereof Today doth speak,

The Fool found joy he’d had no sense to seek;

And Blessing fell upon a witless head,

Upon the Day when thou and I were wed.

Though foolish still, I know enough to see

The Providential Hand—Divine Decree

That gives to Fools that which we sorely need:

To know ourselves for Fools—poor fools, indeed!

And so I bless the One whose Blessing gave

Thy jewelled heart unto a prating knave;

And so ennobled thy poor husband’s span,

That others see a wise and noble man.

14 August, 2008

Director’s Commentary

2011-08-14T00:59:00.002-04:00

Here’s a dilemma I've pondered quite a bit over the years: should parents just let good books and stories work their magic on kids, without commentary from Mom and Dad? Or should they pepper stories with pearls of parental wisdom?

Let’s put it in terms many Christian parents will understand: should you point out to your kids that Aslan is really Christ?

There are two schools of thought (and why is it always two? One of Life’s Great Mysteries): first, there’s the Don’t Spoil It By Talking About It school. These folks think that the story can do its work quite well, thank you, without parental involvement. Indeed, if parents point out things about the story that the kids wouldn’t have picked up on themselves, they (the parents) are thereby shredding the story’s effectiveness as a story, turning it into just so many disconnected proverbs.

Doing so, they believe, is really despising the story itself - using the story, if you will, as a mere pulpit from which to preach to kids. Is preaching bad, then, some will reply? No, say the Don’t Spoil It crowd, but there’s a time and place for everything. And if you turn a story into nothing more than a setting for your moralisms, you have (1) guaranteed that the power of the story to affect the minds and hearts of your children is almost completely destroyed, and (2) turned the story into little more than propaganda.

For some reason, I’ve heard these folks at their most vocal when it comes to the aforementioned Aslan, and The Chronicles of Narnia. There is a cottage industry of books written to explain the Christian meaning of the Narnian tales (I myself have written one of them). The Don’t Spoil It folks think it almost abhorrent that a parent would actually tell their kids who Aslan is (though it’s worth remembering that Lewis himself said that kids almost always figure it out quickly; adults, almost never).

Then there is what we might call the Never Miss a Teachable Moment school. Such parents think that a story (be it movie, book, poem, audio drama, or whatever) must always teach virtue and morality to kids; some would say that’s their only real value. And if we fail to draw out these lessons from every tale, we have, by our silence, turned the story into mere entertainment. On this view, it is the duty of parents to serve as Interpreters of the Story.

Both school have their strong points: the Don’t Spoil it parent is certainly right that there is a peculiar power that stories have to shape our loves and loyalties, quite apart (or at least distinct) from the explicit moral lessons that may be there. And I do think it is possible to overdo the teaching: if you find yourself stopping every couple of paragraphs to say, “now, kids, what this means is…”), then you are probably destroying the enchantment of the story, the ability of children to enter into the Story-world. Imagine Cecil B. DeMille popping out from behind the curtain every ten minutes of The Ten Commandments (instead of just at the beginning) to explain what just happened. Or imagine watching every movie with the Director’s Commentary running.

But it’s also true (as the Teachable Moment folks correctly point out) that parents have a real responsibility to teach their children, and there are many lessons in stories that can help children learn how they ought to act or react in various situations. The wise parent will insist that children not miss these lessons (more on this anon).

But both Schools can also go to seed, of course. Don’t Spoil It parents can end up being the type that never discuss anything with their kids (“can’t we just enjoy the movie without turning Family Night into Philosophy Class?”). These are the families who utter that unspeakable heresy, “it’s just a story.” Oh, no it’s not. It may be many things. But it’s never “just” a story.

On the other hand, the Teachable Moment Dad can easily turn into QWERTY from Veggie Tales, spitting out context-less Bible verses while Mom sings, “And so what we have learned applies to our lives today…” Bleh. Or like Chris, that perky host of Adventures in Odyssey, who always comes along at the end of a story to share a relevant Bible passage and encourage kids to learn the appropriate lesson from the episode. I love Odyssey, but I can’t help feeling that the show would be better off without the Max Lucado-type Life Lessons at the end.

What to do, then? Perhaps I’m tipping my hand, but I’m going to attempt to settle this dispute by…quoting a Bible passage. Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed? Nathan the prophet later comes to David, with the explicit purpose of what we may describe as Teaching David a Lesson. He comes, in fact, to drive David to repentance over a very specific moral problem. And how does he do it? He tells him a story:

There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. (II Sam. 12:1 – 4)

Now, first of all: does the story, as a story, have the desired effect, without Nathan having to say, “In today’s story, we learned…”)? I think we can say, “yes.” As proof, consider David’s reaction:

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. (v. 5 – 6)

Here we see clearly the power of Story to move and change us. And yet…it is just at this point that Nathan steps in with the Director’s Commentary:

And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. (v. 7)

Then he goes on for the next six verses (so much for QWERTY’S aversion to anything longer than a verse or so) describing exactly how David was the rich man who stole the poor man’s lamb.

Should he have left David to figure it out? Or was there something much more powerful in his, “Thou art the man”? Here, both elements have their place: the power of Story, and the duty of fatherly instruction and interpretation. As parents, we must not miss this critical point: there will be times when, having read the story of traitorous Edmund, or arrogant Eustace, or bratty Rosamond (from George MacDonald’s The Wise Woman), we must turn to our child and say, in effect, “Thou art the kid.”

I think it’s all in how we provide such commentary, not whether it’s okay to do it or not: I agree with the Teachable Moment parents that we have a duty to serve as Interpreters of Stories and Teachers of Moral Philosophy. It is also true that silence on our part is really little better than abdication to the story’s author, whose ideas and worldview will therefore rule the day by default, whether they ought to or not (for the author is certainly doing his share of teaching).

To the extent that the Don’t Spoil It parents subscribe to the idea that “kids should be left to form their own ideas,” Christians should of course reject them utterly. Parents are required by God to teach and instruct (and truly they do teach, whether they intend to or not); they are, in this sense, the “directors” of their children’s theological and moral education. Combine that with the fact that kids are going to ask questions, anyway, and we are left with the inevitability of the Director’s Commentary. But perhaps we should remember that, while watching our DVDs and Blu-Rays, we normally turn on The Director’s Commentary the second time through.

Omnibus

2011-08-11T23:50:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, while working on my second book, Talking of Dragons, I decided to send the manuscript to Doug Wilson, a pastor and writer I have much admired and appreciated for a number of years. I sent an email to him, asking if he would be willing to read the manuscript, and, if he liked it, to consider writing an endorsement to appear on the book’s cover. I didn’t know Doug, and didn’t expect much from sending the book his way, knowing how extraordinarily busy someone in his position must be.

But I was wrong. Doug replied, stating that he would be happy to read the book, and that, moreover, he might be able to point me in the direction of someone else who might be interested in my work. I didn’t know at the time what that meant, but I was greatly encouraged by the email, so I sent him the manuscript. Doug did read it, and wrote a very kind blurb that did appear on the book once it was published later that year (you can read Doug’s endorsement here).

Then I found out what Doug had been talking about as far as pointing me towards his contact. He sent his blurb via email to Marlin Detweiler, founder of Veritas Press, and publisher of the Omnibus great books curriculum for 7^th – 12^th graders (Doug is one of the editors of the series, and had listed my book in the recommended reading section of a couple of the essays he had written for Omnibus II). Doug suggested to Marlin that I would be a good writer for Omnibus. Long story short, I was invited to write for Omnibus III: my task was to write the introductory material and general essay for Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

Since then, I have also written essays and class sessions for Omnibus V (Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Marco Polo’s Travels, and Shakespeare’s Othello), and, most recently, the final volume (due out sometime this year), Omnibus VI (C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy, McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, and Melville’s Moby Dick).

I love and highly recommend the Omnibus series (and not just because of my involvement in the project). Omnibus (meaning “all-encompassing”) is an integrated approach to the study of theology, literature, and history. A student who goes through all six years of Omnibus will get a thorough education in the great books of the Western world, as well as going through every book of the Bible. The historical eras of our civilization are covered twice in the six years, following this pattern:

Omnibus I: Biblical and Classical Civilizations

Omnibus II: Church Fathers Through the Reformation

Omnibus III: Reformation to the Present

Omnibus IV: The Ancient World

Omnibus V: The Medieval World

Omnibus VI: The Modern World

We educate our kids at home, and my oldest child, Grace, is ten. When she’s about twelve, we plan to start her in on Omnibus I. I for one am greatly looking forward to it. This series provides great benefits to adults as well. A friend of mine recently told me he was planning to start going through Omnibus on his own, just to have a good guide through many of the great books that he has always wanted to read—and we are reminded here of Mark Twain’s true witticism (though he was quoting someone else) that a “classic” is a book that everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read.

Each chapter in Omnibus focuses on a single “great book” or “classic.” The chapter begins with a Prologue, which is a “hook” to get the reader interested: sometimes written in fictional form, sometimes just invoking a fascinating question or scenario, as a way to spark the interest of the reader.

Then follows several General Information sections: Author and Context, Significance, Main Characters, and Summary and Setting. This is then followed by the main “meat” of the chapter: the Worldview essay, which explores the work from a Biblical and Christian worldview. The chapter concludes with the class sessions (question answers and additional material are available on the teacher’s CD-Rom, included with the teacher’s edition of the book).

The classes encourage discussion, deeper delving into the artistry, worldview, and historical context of the book, and often creativity on the part of the student (through writing assignments, including poetry and short stories, and the like). This was challenging for me, as an Omnibus writer, because, if I assigned, say, a short story in one of the classes, I had to write one myself, to serve as an example for inspiration.

The number of class sessions depends on whether the book is a Primary or Secondary book: “Primary” books are the Biblical books, books of history, and literary or theological works of particular significance. “Secondary” books are those works that, while important, are not quite as central as the Primary books.

Students are always reading two books at the same time (well, you know what I mean): one Primary book, and one Secondary book. Omnibus is a serious education in itself, drawing students into the Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Worlds, but with a critical eye: there is no slavish bowing before important books just because they are ancient, or written by Greeks, or whatever. Students learn to think: to think like Christians, about every aspect of the world. As Christians, we hope to raise, not just kids who can grow up to get a cushy job and make a good living, but kids who can grow up to be dangerous: who can leave their mark on the world, for the glory of God. Omnibus is a key part of our family's strategy for doing just that.

Writing for Omnibus required a high level of excellence from me as a writer. I hope I produced chapters worthy of this fine project. My thanks to Doug Wilson, Marlin Detweiler, and editors Ty Fischer and Gene Edward Veith for the opportunity to be involved in such a worthy endeavor.

I strongly encourage every parent to make Omnibus a part of your child's education, whether you homeschool, or just want to supplement what they're learning in the classroom. Check out a free preview of Omnibus III (including my chapter on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea) at Google Books.

And when you're ready to go for it, you can pick up the books at Christian Book Distributors.

Family Lore Publishing

2011-08-10T23:39:00.003-04:00

"There was a curious local character, an old man who used to go about swapping gossip and weather-wisdom and such like. To amuse my boys I named him Gaffer Gamgee, and the name became part of family lore..."

J.R.R. Tolkien

"Family Lore," which I got from the Tolkien letter quoted above, is a phrase that has stuck in my mind long enough for me to finally use it in some way. It seems to capture perfectly what this new publishing venture is all about. "Family" of course indicates that this is a family venture (or adventure); also that the things we write and publish are written by and for the family (that ancient, venerable, and beleaguered institution).

"Lore," is a less-often used word these days, but it calls to mind images of stories and ancient wisdom. Tolkien used it a lot, as in this bit of poetry from The Lord of the Rings:

Learn now the lore of living creatures
First name the Four, the free peoples...

Thus Family Lore Publishing. You can learn more about us by clicking on this About Family Lore Publishing link. Today begins my first blog post under the name of this new publishing venture (though as you can see I've used the blog for other things in the past).

There's more to it than mere definition of words, however. I write because I'm a writer: it's what I do. But a writer ought to spend his time writing about things he cares deeply about. Under God and His Church, the thing I love most in this world is my family. My wife and I are about to celebrate (this weekend) 18 years of a good and happy marriage, for which, God be praised. And in January, God willing, we will see the arrival of our sixth child (four are with us; one is with God, having departed a brief life in a miscarriage).

My writing has tended to be, for the most part, oriented towards my wife and children. I've written stories and poems for them (some of which you can find on this blog). I am deeply interested in "moral philosophy" (a thoughtful approach to the development of virtue and character), especially in children and families. In particular: is it possible for children to be noble and virtuous, or is that expecting too much? Is "well, you know how kids are" the best that can be hoped for? Must we wait until they become teenagers (or older) before we see strength of character in them? And what about parents? Can we fight the tide of selfish mediocrity that marks so much modern parenting?

I believe stories and storytelling are at the heart of true moral philosophy. That's the kind of thing I will be blogging about here. Look also for book reviews and movie reviews that will help your family navigate the often treacherous waters of modern entertainment. So that's the kind of thing you'll find here on our blog, along with updates on the progress of Family Lore Publishing.

Speaking of that, our first project is moving along quickly, which is all to the good, since the release date of September 28 is fast approaching. This book, written by my wife, Angela, is quite a bit different from the sorts of things I write about. The title says it all: Couponing ABCs: The Easiest, Fastest Way to Serious Savings and Free Groceries. Angela is an expert in coupon use, and, through her Coupon 101 classes, has taught thousands of people how to use coupons to get groceries for pennies or free. Coupons are all the rage these days, of course, but more to the point, they are a small way to exercise wise and prudent stewardship over the resources God has given us.

And wise and prudent it is: using the principles Angela will teach you in this book, you can easily cut a $100 grocery bill back to$20 or even less. Some of you may have seen the hit show Extreme Couponing. This show focuses on the hard core experts, but Angela's book is for the coupon neophyte: while other books will give you chapter after chapter of extraneous material, or information too overwhelming for the newbie, Couponing ABCs is a true "quick start guide." (But for those of you who like to live on the edge, there is an Appendix with some principles for becoming an "Extremer.")

If you are interested in scheduling a class, or learning more about coupons, take a trip over to Angela's website, Coupon Class 101. I'll wait.

We'll be talking a lot more about this book as the time nears. Look for special offers and giveaways, including the chance to get this helpful new book for free.

In the meantime, you can learn more about my books by clicking on the images over to the right and left. You can even buy a copy in our online store. The Crown of Fire is a historical novel for young readers based on the true story of Polycarp, disciple of the Apostle John, and leader of the early Church. Talking of Dragons is a non-fiction, family-oriented guide to the children's books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Site Unseen

2011-03-30T22:28:00.000-04:00

To those who were readers of the previous, home education incarnation of this blog (you know who you are), you are not in the wrong place. The focus of this blog has changed, but all of the old material can still be found here (browse through "Categories" on your right or use the search function to locate something specific).

The new focus is on stories and how they shape our lives, particularly in the context of the family. This has been a recurring theme in my writing for a number of years, and as it is a particular point of interest for my family, and as I hope this site will grow into a venture that involves everyone in the household, it seemed a natural and even obvious move. Our interest in home education has not waned; if anything, it is stronger. But storytelling is perhaps the most vital element of our homeschool efforts, and so in a very important way, the new website is a continuation of the old.

For more information on what we're up to now, click the "About Family Lore Publishing" tab at the top, or, more conveniently, click here.

The Choice: School or Freedom?

2010-08-25T18:45:00.000-04:00

Feeling heavy-hearted for parents who have to send their little ones off today for the first day of school, losing so many amazing moments in the best years of their life. And for the little ones who have to go through it all. Remember Narnia in its decline: "'We'll be able to make Narnia a country worth living in. There'll be...roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons - oh, everything.'

"'But we don't want all those things,' said an old Bear. 'We want to be free.'"

(From The Last Battle)

Classical Education

2010-08-24T23:10:00.001-04:00

If you’ve been around the homeschool world more than a few days, you’ve probably heard about something called the Classical Education model. What is it, and should Homeschoolers make use of it?

My family has chosen to follow the Classical model, and in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that my books are carried (though not published) by Veritas, one of the major Classical publishing houses. I have also written for several volumes of the Veritas Omnibus series, a Classical theology/history/literature curriculum. And one of the blurbs on the cover of my book, Talking of Dragons, was written by Douglas Wilson, considered by many to be the father of the modern Classical Christian movement. So what follows may be considered biased in some ways. But keep in mind that, like you, I had to wade through the various philosophical and methodological options available to Homeschoolers (see this post for some thoughts on the process of choosing), and all this was before I had ever met Doug Wilson, or worked with Veritas.

That said, our family’s approach has several important elements in common with Classical Christian Education, yet is also distinct in a few respects.

We can be considered classical in the sense that we believe there is much wisdom in the Medieval Trivium. For those new to Classical education, the Trivium refers to three stages of learning: Grammar (learning the facts, rules, and principles of each subject; roughly ages 5-11), Logic (learning to think through, question, and understand the facts, rules, and principles of each subject; roughly ages 12-14), and Rhetoric (learning how to speak and write in eloquent ways in defense of the facts, rules, and principles of each subject; roughly ages 15-18).

We particularly appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers’ application of the Trivium to childhood learning and development (in her essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”). Sayers points out that children develop naturally along the lines of the Trivium: from ages 5-11, they love and have a great capacity to memorize and chant facts, dates, declensions, tables, songs, and poems; in a Classical education, they are given plenty to memorize during the Grammar stage. From ages 12-14, they love to question and argue; they are given plenty of scope for this (albeit in a guided and disciplined way) during the Logic stage; and from ages 15-18, they love appearance and presentation; they are given opportunity to present their ideas in beautiful ways in speeches, essays, and debates during the Rhetoric stage.

So we love the Trivium, but we have modified it a bit using some valuable insights from theologian James Jordan. Jordan points out that there are other learning and developmental stages, both before and after the Trivium. The two stages before the Trivium he calls the Assurance stage (birth to age 2, when children need comfort, love, and assurance from their parents) and the Storytelling stage (ages 2-5, where children most love stories). This is wise and insightful, and since it has always been a concern of my wife and I to educate our children from birth (not just from “school age”), we incorporated this concept into our version of the Trivium, which we call the Quintivium, as it includes five stages (note for Latin scholars: I believe it would be more accurate to call it the Quinqueivium, but it just didn’t have the same zing) .

We can also be considered Classical in that we favor language-based learning over visual/video approaches. Not that we don’t sometimes use videos as supplements, but they are not central. Another affinity we share with Classical education is an emphasis on history; but unlike, for example, the Well-trained Mind approach (as popularized by Susan Wise Bauer), history is not central for us—the Bible is—yet it remains very important. The fact that we teach Latin is another area of common ground.

How are we different? Well, the difference depends on how you define “Classical Education.” For some, to be Classical means a heavy emphasis on the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome, the history, philosophy, and literature of those cultures. Some classical advocates view Plato, Homer, Virgil, etc, with deep reverence, and would never think of questioning anything in their works. For others within the Classical movement, these are considered great writers; yet they are to be received, not with reverence, but with a questioning eye: “should this work really have had such a huge influence on Western civilization? What’s good about it? What’s bad?” This is our approach, and the Veritas Omnibus series does a good job here, scrutinizing each work in light of Christian truth, pointing out problems, rejecting falsehood and evil.

Our family sees the great civilization of Christendom as much more important than that of Greece or Rome (though of course one cannot understand Christendom without at least some knowledge of Greece and Rome). We put off reading pagan authors (not just the Greek and Roman ones), until the children are older, better prepared to deal with them. This is not because we think there is nothing of value in these writers, but because we want our children to first be immersed in and strengthened by the literature and thinking of our own Christian culture (church fathers, Medieval writers, the magisterial Reformers, etc) before they are exposed to literature that is in many ways antithetical to the faith and doctrine of Christendom.

Yet we recognize that a thorough understanding of the New Testament (written in Greek, set in the Roman Empire) is impossible apart from understanding something of the history, language, and even literature of Greece and Rome.

Even classical critics like Gary North believe children should be taught Shakespeare; but apart from the fact that many of Shakespeare’s plays either treat on classical subjects (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra) or are set in classical cities (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), they are also packed with classical allusions and references. A teenager with no exposure to Greece and Rome who reads the Duke of Exeter’s speech before the French court in Henry V will not understand what he means when he says,

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove...

Who’s Jove? Sure, you can look it up, but if the teen has read some of the Roman myths, he is more likely to appreciate the fullness of the simile. A good knowledge of Shakespeare requires some knowledge, at least, of Greek and Roman culture.

Still, this would be my word of caution to fellow Classical advocates: beware of a disproportionate influence of non-Christian writers on malleable young minds. Later, when they are stronger and wiser, they can take on Plato and Homer, not to mention Darwin, Marx, Hitler, and Dawkins. But make them strong before sending them out to the battle; or rather, set them fighting now, but in battles suitable to their strength and wisdom.

These are but basic and introductory thoughts; more later on the Classical method.

Friday Movie Reviews: Darby O'Gill and the Little People

2010-08-20T13:16:00.002-04:00

At a recent talk I gave at the Veritas Press Teacher Training Conference, some of the participants asked questions about watching movies, and what some recommended films might be. We talked about how movie-watching can be a part of a family storytelling culture. My good wife has a website over at This Parenting Adventure, and on Fridays, she posts a movie review, covering family favorites we've collected over the years. And for good reason, for Fridays have been designated (happily, if not too originally) Family Movie Night in the Newsom household. So I thought I would draw from her reviews, and give the Fatherly perspective, particularly as these films relate to the idea of building a family culture of storytelling, which, as will be known to any of you who have read my books, is a major point of emphasis for me.

Angela recently reviewed Darby O'Gill and the Little People. This was a film produced by Disney in (if memory serves) 1959. One of a string of successful (and mostly excellent) live action films that had begun with Treasure Island, Darby O’Gill is possibly the best thing old Walt ever put on film. From an excellent script to outstanding comic performances, to ground-breaking special effects (forty years later, Peter Jackson borrowed the forced perspective techniques used in Darby for his Lord of the Rings trilogy), this film has it all. It’s clever, hilarious, even a bit scary in places. The movie is based on the book by Hermione Kavanagh, but Disney’s story is original (though drawing heavily from the characters, lore, and language of the book); whereas the book tells tales of a young Darby, the film picks up with Darby as an old man.

Darby (masterfully played by Albert Sharpe) has a long history of interaction with “the Little People,” better known as Leprechauns. The film tells the story of Darby’s friendly battles of wits with Brian O’Connor, King of the Leprechauns (just as masterfully played by Jimmy O’Dea). The interaction between these two is what makes the film. I won’t go deeper than that into the story: I’d rather let you experience it for yourself, while I spend the time I have talking about some of the more interesting elements, at least in the opinion of your humble correspondent.

First, there is a twist in the portrayal of a basic belief in “magic” or the supernatural, versus rank unbelief. The cliché is well-known: young people believe in magic, but once they grow old, they lose that belief. It’s been used in hundreds of books and movies. But Darby O’Gill stands the cliché on its head: here, it is the youth who mock their believing elders. The idea of “growing up” into a naturalistic unbelief is one the great G. K. Chesterton knew well; he dealt with it effectively, in his typical rapier-writing:

WHEN the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud…My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery…The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic.

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Just so in the Chestertonian Darby O’Gill. While the young laugh and jeer at those who believe in the Little People, the old grimly nod, knowing that there is more to this world than meets the eye.

Another striking feature of the story is the strong influence of the Church. Fairies and humans alike fear to take on the noble Father Murphy. Darby threatens King Brian that he will “have Father Murphy curse you with a blessing” that will shrivel up the little monarch. And later, Pony Sugrue, the town bully, is obstinate in pushing his way around in the local tavern, until the proprietor says, “I’ll have Father Murphy forbid you to come here at all,” on which the big fellow backs down. Do any of us even remember a time when the Church had the strength to keep the peace, whether among stubborn parishioners or stubborn kings? Look for that day to come again, as it surely will. Maybe not until our children (or grandchildren) are old and gray, but if we tell them stories of the days when it was true, they’ll be more ready for it.

More importantly, they will want it. Of course, in our day, far too many Christians don’t want the Church to have such social influence. This is a major problem, and beyond my scope in this article. But we’ll have to return to it some time.

Finally, the movie is just plain funny. It’s worth the price just for the humor. One of my favorite bits is when Darby and King Brian engage in singing “The Wishing Song,” while enjoying a cup or twelve of poteen (whiskey). The idea of the song is to make it up as you go along, following a standard format of a rhyming couplet that begins with, “Oh, I wish…” Darby, for example, begins with,

I wish I had time to sing you a song,
But once I get started, I sing all night long.

Not so hot, of course, but they get better through the eighty or so verses (not all shown on film!) that the two rivals make up during the night. King Brian comes up with some of the best, including this one:

Oh, I wish all barmaids were like Mary McClusky:
When she serves you a drink, well, she serves you good whuskey.

But Darby comes up with a few zingers of his own:

Oh, I wish all the gentry were like our King Brian:
If he can’t beat you drinkin’, he’ll fall down a-tryin’.

For all its strengths, there’s an issue or two that need addressing with children: there’s a bit of superstition that gets mixed in with the Christian thinking (wearing holy medals to protect against witches, and such). The best definition of superstition I ever heard (and the one my kids know) was from Doug Jones’ great children’s novel, Scottish Seas: “believing that magic, and not Christ, rules the world.” Teach that definition to your kids, and they will know how to recognize superstition when they see it.

Also, the scenes with the banshee (the spirit of death) can be a bit intense for younger viewers, so judge this based on what you know of your own kids. Ours were a bit younger when they first saw it, and were a little scared; but they got over it pretty quickly.

All in all, though, one of our top favorites. Five Stars to Darby O’Gill and the Little People.

Imaginative Bible Teaching

2010-08-19T12:53:00.000-04:00

One thing we have experimented with is encouraging our children to imagine themselves as characters in whatever story we are reading. This can obviously be overdone, to the point where you’re almost ignoring the story itself, but in moderation, it can be helpful. We have tried it with Bible, in particular. As theologian James Jordan points out, there really are not two “Testaments” (Old and New) in the Bible, there are four. These four “canons” or testaments, were books revealed and written during a span of time, and followed by a “silent” period, during which no new revelation was given:

First Canon: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua. This Canon was completed in am (anno mundi, “year of the world”) 2553, with Joshua just a few years later. Following this was a gap of 350 Years.

Second Canon: Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Canticles (Song of Songs), Ecclesiastes. This Canon was written over about a century, from am 2905 to 3020. Following this was a gap of almost 200 years.

Third Canon: Isaiah, Kings, Jeremiah-Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, The Twelve (minor prophets), Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah (what Jordan calls Greater Chronicles). This Canon was written over 300 years. The following Gap was about 400 years, until around ad 30.

Fourth Canon: books of the New Testament.

During these “gaps,” where there was no new revelation, the only Bible the people of God had was whatever had come before. So we talk to our children in this way:

“Imagine yourself as a righteous priest in the days of the Judges. The people of Israel have turned away from God…again. You desire to turn back to the One who brought you and your people out of the land of Egypt. You search for him in the Scriptures, the Bible. But what is the Bible, to someone living during that time?”

“Or again, imagine you live during the time of the divided kingdom of Judah and Israel. What Bible would your people have?”

“Or if you lived during the 400-year ‘intertestamental’ period? What would be the Bible you would hear read on the Sabbath?”

Now as we do this, we don’t ignore the books that came later: after all, we are blessed with a complete Bible, and part of our teaching consists in showing our children how Christ is in all of Scripture. But it is interesting to think of going through the loss of a loved one without Psalm 23; or bringing up boys without the aid of Solomon’s Proverbs; or suffering persecution without the comfort of Revelation.

God’s revelation to us is progressive, and we are given what we need when we need it. Even today, the Church is not yet as wise in our understanding of the complete Bible as we will be some day. We live now with the insights that have been given, not those that will be given. If we remember our brothers and sisters from past ages who did the same, we will be encouraged, and our understanding of God’s Word will be deepened.

Little Dragon Eyes: A Poem for Abigail

2010-08-18T13:13:00.000-04:00

Here's my last post for Abigail's birthday. This is her new poem, just written the other day for her second birthday. It's very different from the usual sort of thing I've written for birthdays and anniversaries, but expresses the burdens of the hour for me. Time is an important underlying theme of the poem, and I was hearing a clock ticking in my head while writing it, which accounts both for some of the wording and the rhythm of the poem. Though it may not be obvious at first, the basic idea of the poem was inspired by recent readings of the Puritan John Owen (The Mortification of Sin) and the Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Idylls of the King). I don't usually explain this much with my poems, but I feel compelled to point out that the creatures mentioned herein are symbolic of sins or sinful tendencies; and their size is indicative of the fact that such sins can seem small and harmless (even cute) in our little ones, but they grow into quite ugly son of a guns.

Little Dragon Eyes

A Poem for Abigail on Her Second Birthday

Given By Her Father

16 August 2010

Tick-tock, one clock, there upon the wall;

You’re there—beware: some desire your fall.

Dark spies, red eyes, little dragons wait;

Bick’ring, Snick’ring, planning out your fate.

What now? But how? You are only two!

Would they? Could they? They are after you!

Creping, peeping, “Get them while they’re young!”

Find you, bind you: heart, and eyes, and tongue.

Heart’s door: watch for little dragon eyes;

Find them, bind them, lest they spread their lies;

Each day: fight, pray; mortify your sin;

They knock, you lock: never let them in.

Tick-tock, one clock, time is not your friend,

If they do stay, growing without end;

But they’ll grow pale, sicken, pass away,

If you vow to hasten their decay.

Here now, I vow, on your birthday morn,

That I will die for my youngest born;

And live to give light to pierce the guise:

Expose all those little dragon eyes.

Our Philosophy of Homeschooling

2010-08-18T13:03:00.003-04:00

I linked to this post on the Raising Homemakers website for their link-up day. Please visit them sometime. So many interested in the art of homemaking are also interested in the art of homeschooling. For us, educating our little ones at home is an integral part of creating a home of goodness, truth, and beauty. In the article below, I give the basics for why we homeschool.

***

In this post, I want to discuss the educational philosophy of Saint George Academy (our family homeschool). It’s important for everyone to know why they do what they do. Many who have opted for other educational methods often wonder why people make the choice to educate at home. They see a variety of potential problems with homeschooling (some legitimate, some, eh, not so much), and even those considering homeschooling themselves worry about some of these potential problems.

So it’s worth answering the foundational question of why we do it. Later, we can talk about objections to homeschooling, and deal with those potential problems. But first we need to establish that home education is a legitimate choice; and in fact that it is much more.

People from a wide variety of religious (and “non-religious”) backgrounds homeschool their kids, so I need to establish here at the beginning that what follows is written from our family commitment to the historic Christian faith. We are what some would call “conservative” Christians, which means we believe in the truth of the doctrines and history of Christ and His Church. We believe the Bible as written, and take the historical sections (including accounts of the supernatural) as history, the poetical sections as poetry, and the whole Bible as the Word of God, without error and without anything that should worry or embarrass faithful Christians.

With that said, our philosophy of education—why we do what we do—begins in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Here is the basis for all education: "thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."

Moses here commands the people of God on this wise:

1. Education consists in teaching children to love (v. 5) and obey (v. 6-9) God.

2. Education is the responsibility of parents (v. 8).

3. Education is an all-day, every-day enterprise (v. 7).

Let’s unpack each of these briefly. First, there is wisdom here for those struggling to figure out the content of education: what shall we teach? In any subject, whether Bible, history, math, English, science, or whatever, we should be asking: “are we, through this subject, teaching our children to love and obey God?” This, by the way, is not an argument for neglecting any of these subjects: all of them can be taught in such a way that fulfills the requirements of the Scripture passage quoted above.

Second, it is parents who are called to this work. Not the State (which rules out public schools; more on that anon), and not even the Church, here (though there is more to say on that subject some other time). It is parents: “thy children.” It’s worth noting that only in home education are parents actually doing what this passage requires. There is of course the question of distribution of labor and delegation (such as in a Christian day school), which we will discuss in due time. But at the very least, applying this passage to the question of method, we can conclude that home education is, if not the only, then at least the best-suited, method for putting these principles into practice.

Third, according to this passage, education is not limited to normal “school hours.” It is always taking place. The unofficial motto of Saint George Academy is, Always Open. We should be speaking to our children, day and night, at home and away, of God, His Word, His Law, His Love, His Judgment, His Story. Our normal frame of mind should be watching and listening for opportunities to tell God’s story to our children, and to help them see where they fit in it.

Next, we turn to Ephesians 6:1-4:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Paul expands on Moses somewhat, teaching us that:

1. Fathers in particular are charged with the education of their children (v. 4).

2. The Education fathers are to provide encompasses all of life, all subjects, spheres, and disciplines (v. 4).

3. The Education fathers are to provide must be specifically Christian (v. 4), as seen by Paul’s phrase, “of the Lord.” Fathers are not just to provide an education, but an education "of the Lord;" that is, a Christian education.

The second point in the list above may seem puzzling to some readers. How do we know that Paul has in mind an education that “encompasses all of life, all subjects, spheres, and disciplines”? We know this by Paul’s use of the Greek word paideia, here rendered “nurture,” often translated “instruction” or “discipline” in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament). To the Greek mind, this expansive word would have included everything from formal academic instruction, to athletics, domestic life, politics, warfare, art, and indeed everything that touched on human life. Doug Wilson explains, in his essay, “The Paideia of God:

“So the word paideia goes far beyond the scope and sequence of what we call formal education. In the ancient world, the paideia was all-encompassing and involved nothing less than the enculturation of the future citizen. He was enculturated when he was instructed in the class-room, but the process was also occurring when he walked along the streets of his city to and from school. It included walking by the temple for the gods of his people. That too was part of the process. If we bring this down into the present in order to illustrate what it would mean to us, paideia would include the books on the bestseller lists, the major newspapers, the most popular sitcoms and networks, the songs on the top forty lists, the motion pictures seen by everyone, the architectural layout of most suburban homes, and, out at the periphery, the fact that all our garden hoses are green.”

So we have here a point-blank requirement to provide a specifically Christian education: the paideia “of the Lord.”

Implications of this passage:

1. Government/Public school education is thus ruled out for Bible believers, since public schools today are avowedly secular and agnostic, not Christian.

2. The education required by Paul cannot be provided by mere Sunday School participation, since the paideia must encompass all of life, including Monday through Friday formal schooling. It is also worth noting that Sunday School would not exist for nearly 1800 years after Paul penned these words.

3. Homeschooling is again seen as the best option for fulfilling these requirements, since delegation to a school makes it difficult (though perhaps not impossible) for fathers to provide the paideia of the Lord.

4. But this also means that fathers must be involved as directly as possible, even in a homeschool education. This of course is the major concern of this website. Many homeschool fathers think that because their wives are teaching the children at home, that they, the fathers, have faithfully discharged their Ephesians 6 duty. But this is not so. Fathers need to explore creative ways to be involved in the education of their children. We’ll be taking a very close look at this subject in the near future.

Third, our educational philosophy is founded on Matthew 22:36-38:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

The aspect of the commandment that requires us to love God with all our mind presupposes the educational requirements of Deuteronomy 6 (which also, it is worth noting, begins by commanding us to love God). If we would love God with our minds, we must train our minds to think His thoughts after Him. This means thorough training in Holy Scripture, of course; but also, when taken together with Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 6, requires us to teach our children how to think Christianly about all of life.

Fourth, we turn back to the beginning, Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

This is the dominion mandate, or cultural mandate, in which God gives man the task of exercising dominion over the earth. This clearly encompasses everything from technology to the arts, all of which are things man has learned to do by exercising dominion over the earth. And this mandate presupposes a rigorous education, for we cannot exercise dominion over the earth unless we have a great deal of knowledge about it.

These four passages yield the following foundational points in our philosophy of education:

1. Education is God-centered: we care much more about raising children who love and trust God than about raising intellectuals (though the two are not necessarily in opposition).

2. Parents, especially fathers, are God’s chosen teachers: the education of our children is our responsibility, and we cannot blame anyone else if it does not turn out the way it should.

3. We are required by God to provide a thoroughly Christian education for our children: Holy Scripture itself rules out the secular and agnostic government school option.

4. We are required by God to raise our children for participation in a Christian culture: they must be trained to think as Biblical Christians about every aspect of life; they must also be trained to take dominion in the world by hard work and superior knowledge and wisdom.

5. Education must be rigorous, for the work is great and demanding; yet also joyful, for God has promised to bless our work.

What about you? Whether you educate your kids at home, or in some sort of school setting, what ideas or principles drive what you do in the education of your children? Leave a comment, and continue the discussion.

Public School Quotes

2010-08-17T20:54:00.003-04:00

Here are a few interesting quotes. Let's see if any of you out in Facebook Land or Blog Land agree:

"That erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence....Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues, and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else." - H.L Mencken, The American Mercury, April 1924

“Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening…The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role." - U.S. Commissioner of Education William Torrey Harris, 1889

"A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body." - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

"Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them." -- Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677)

So, do you agree, or not so much? Is public education really just a way for the government to produce cookie-cutter citizens who can't think for themselves?

If so, what are the implications for your family, if any? It's a controversial subject, sure, but discussion and learning are the best parts of this online world we're all a part of.

A Birthday Poem for Abigail

2010-08-17T12:49:00.000-04:00

That's Abigail in the picture above, climbing our Magnolia tree at home. Continuing with celebrating the birthday of my two-year-old daughter (let’s see if I can get this right, Homeschool Moms: dd2?), here’s the poem I wrote for her on her first birthday (for those of you just waking up, that would be last year). Around the time this was written, I was reading N.D. Wilson's Notes From the Tile-a-Whirl, which I highly recommend to you. The ideas in my poem were influenced by his book, which in turn was very deeply influenced by my favorite writer, G. K. Chesterton (who I would recommend to you, if there was any point; but if you've never read Chesterton, there's just no hope for you!).

Hokay, Jupe, here we go:

Abigail’s First Poem

Given on Her First Birthday

By Her Father

Your hair is curled, your eyes are blue,

You love to dance, for you are you.

You might have been another child,

Who hated dance and seldom smiled;

Or one with hair that doesn’t curl;

Or one who’s even not a girl;

Or doesn’t eat each thing she finds;

Or one of many other kinds.

But you are you, I say again:

Your Maker thought you should have been.

And so you’re here, for all to see,

He spoke, and you could not not be.

You’re learning words (at least a few),

But listen: this is strange, but true:

You are yourself a spoken word

(And one I’m very glad I’ve heard).

Your God is talking all the time:

Sometimes in prose, sometimes in rhyme,

His words, unlike the ones we say,

Turn into worlds, make Night and Day;

His words are hills and skies and wood;

And boys and girls (the bad and good).

His words are sharp, like sword or knife;

His words are real, they come to life;

His words are Story, spinning tales,

Of love and war, and crosses’ nails.

And you, my daughter, you yourself

Are in His Book—but on no shelf:

This Story’s always being told;

We watch each day the Tale unfold.

Which character is Abigail?

A faithless girl who won’t prevail?

Or will you be a noble lass,

Whose virtue no one can surpass?

Will you be mean? Or true and kind?

A noble woman who can find?

Your story’s still in Chapter One:

The scene is set, the tale’s begun.

Story: Abigail's Birthday Adventure

2010-08-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

Today is the birthday of my youngest child, Abigail Christiana Newsom. She is two years old. Her name means, "joy of her father," and I don't know any better way to describe what she means to me. Happy Birthday, Abigail!

I have mentioned before that for several years I’ve had a tradition of writing poems or stories for my wife and children on birthdays and anniversaries. For the next few days, I’ll be posting things I’ve written for Abigail.

Before I do, let me again encourage parents (especially fathers) to do something like this. Homeschool Dads need to engage their children’s imaginations, and one great way to do that is by creating things just for them. Not everyone has the same talents and gifts, of course—there’s a very good reason I don’t paint pictures for my kids on their birthdays. So this kind of creative endeavor can take many forms: songs, poems, stories, pictures, letters, sculptures, hand-carved toys, or tree-houses. Maybe it’s as simple as buying your son a new camping knife and putting a good edge on it. But whatever you do, use it to bless and encourage your family. This was the practice of G. K. Chesterton’s father, and it left a profound mark upon his son, who would go on to shake the world:

“One of the sports of the imagination, a game I have played all my life, was to take a certain book with pictures of old Dutch houses, and think not of what was in the pictures but of all that was out of the pictures, the unknown corners and side-streets of the same quaint town. The book was one my father had written and illustrated himself, merely for home consumption…He was the sort of man who likes to try everything once. This was the only book he ever wrote; and he never bothered to publish it…the same sort of invention created for children the permanent anticipation of what is profoundly called a Surprise…His den or study was piled high with the stratified layers of about ten or twelve creative amusements; water-colour painting and modelling and photography and stained glass and fretwork and magic lanterns and mediaeval illumination…He never dreamed of turning any of these plastic talents to any mercenary account, or of using them for anything but his own private pleasure and ours. To us he appeared to be indeed the Man with the Golden Key, a magician opening the gates of goblin castles or the sepulchres of dead heroes…If my father had been some common millionaire owning a thousand mills that made cotton, or a million machines that made cocoa, how much smaller he would have seemed…All the things that happened in the house, or were in any sense done on the premises, linger in my imagination like a legend…”

The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton

Now that I’ve ridiculously prefaced my own work with Chesterton’s, here at last is Abigail’s story. It says many things that I want her to know, especially for one just starting out on the journey of life.

A Birthday Adventure

A Story for Abigail on the Occasion of Her Birth

By Her Father

This story happened when Abigail, who was the youngest of the children in those days, had just been born. Mother was lying back in bed, weary but very happy, and Father was beaming like that sun-face on the Raisin Bran boxes. The older children (Abigail had two older brothers—Nathanael was two and William was five—and a seven-year-old big sister, whose name was Grace) were trying to get a peek at the newest initiate into the World of the Little People, and Nurse Waters was talking to Mother about Weight and Length and What a Good Strong Voice She Has.

The whole thing started when William accidentally knocked his plastic cup of water off the table in the corner. It was one of those great and terrible Moments for a five-year old, fraught with the kind of temptation and hidden danger that fills even the most ordinary events with unexpected grandeur and nobility. But William of course didn’t know all that, nor would you or I if it happened to us. For him it was a rather commonplace temptation: no one saw him spill the water, and he didn’t much feel like cleaning it up. He hesitated, perched on the edge of a cliff that was a good bit higher than he realized, his Spider-Man tennis shoes sending bits of broken rock plunging into the unseen abyss below. He glanced up, saw everyone’s heads turned the other way, and walked away from the spilled water, upon which his young conscience begin to pelt him with rocks from the gorge, a process it would continue for the next hour or so.
The rest of the family and friends would be coming in shortly, but Doctor Fontaine had a few tests to run on the newborn first, and so Father and the older children kissed Mother and Abigail, and left them alone to rest for a half hour or so. Father would officially welcome Abigail into the family when everyone was gathered around, a ritual he had begun with the birth of their oldest nearly eight years before.

The lights had been turned off, and both mother and child had dropped off to sleep instantly. Abigail was lying in a crib beside the bed, the little plastic armband identifier firmly in place to prevent those tragic switch-ups that one reads about now and then. There was no noise but the soft beeping of the heart monitor beside the bed, and the occasional drip of the IV. It was a couple of hours or so before dawn and even the noises from the hallway were minimal.

A ray of moonlight sliced through a grey cloud and found its way behind a slightly pulled-up curtain and into the very corner of the room, where it came to rest on the little pool of spilled water. There it remained, happy to have found a reflective surface, however small, to radiate its beauty into the room, even if there was no one to notice.

About ten minutes later, the pool of water began to shiver, as if someone with heavy boots had shaken the floor around it, but of course there was no one walking nearby. This continued for a minute or two, and then, a sort of dark shadow covered the spilled water, as if a cloud had covered the moon—but it hadn’t. Then something happened that…well, at any rate, I’m glad Mother and Abigail were asleep.

A hand appeared, rising straight out of the puddle of spilled water. It was small, about the size of a child’s, but thicker, and covered with hair, and it was wet. A silver ring with a black stone was set on one finger. It continued rising, and was followed by an arm, again, short, and thick. The arm was covered with a dark red garment of some kind, and it too was wet. Then—I’m not sure whether the pool of water grew larger, but somehow, the arm and hand were followed by an entire body, which rose from the water until it simply stepped out of the puddle and stood on the floor of the hospital room.

If the person had been standing in shadows you might have mistaken him for a child, for he was about that height; but the moonlight covered him, and this is what he looked like. He was short, probably three feet tall, but thick and strong-looking. He had a long, flowing beard, almost blue, or so it seemed in that dimly lit room. He was wearing a red mantle, trimmed in gold, and had a steel cap on his head. A dagger hung from a belt around his waist, sheathed in a richly-ornamented scabbard. His eyes were a deep black, just like his boots. His overall appearance was neat and clean, though he was just a bit wet, as if he had walked a little too close to a waterfall. But the left arm of his red cloak was soaked.

He blinked and looked around. A slightly bewildered look wrinkled his face, and he scratched his beard, evidently in a state of puzzlement. He took a few steps into the room, taking in the various bits of electric and computerized equipment, which he had evidently never seen before. But his gaze was not one of blank stupidity, as if he were one of those displaced fictional cavemen in the movies who always end up in New York, gawking at taxis and marquees. No, this person looked on all the strange, blinking, beeping gear as if they were curious to him, but not particularly attractive. Clearly he wondered what they were, but didn’t imagine they held any particular use or beauty that was worth long thought.

Instead, his bewilderment seemed to come from the fact that he was not where he expected to be. But almost immediately after his eyes left the monitors and wires and red numbers, he saw Mother and Abigail. Then, a new look lit his face, and he breathed out what looked for all the world like a sigh of relief, as if he’d found what he’d come for. Mother was deeply asleep, her face nearly buried beneath the sheet and blanket, and Abigail stirred ever so slightly in her sleep. The man, if man it was, took three silent steps to the crib, and looked down on Abigail. She stretched out her hand, reaching up to someone in an infant-dream perhaps, and the stranger, instinctively, it seemed, moved his ringed finger towards her, and let her grasp it. She was quiet, then, and still, settling back down into her slumbers.

Without another word, the blue-bearded stranger reached into the crib, picked up Abigail, and held her close to his chest. He looked around again, still with a bit of perplexity, until he saw a door. Perhaps he didn’t remember that he’d come into the room through the puddle of water, but at any rate, he went to the door and opened it. It didn’t seem to go anywhere, but the silvery metal of the faucets caught his attention, flashing in the small bit of light that entered the bathroom over the stranger’s head. This intrigued him, and he reached out his hand to touch the odd device. Somehow he managed to turn the handle, and water flowed out instantly, causing him to jump back a bit, nearly waking Abigail. He ran his hand under the water for a moment, and this seemed to interest him far more than the electronic gadgets in the main room. Several times he turned the handle on and off, but finally, he seemed to think he’d better be going, and, turning the water off, he backed out and closed the door. Mother was still asleep, though she tossed about a bit, and moaned softly in her sleep.

There was only one other door in the hospital room, and this one the stranger took. He found himself in a long, dimly-lit hallway, with lots of doors nearly like the one he was coming out of, except that some had long ribbons of pink or blue on them. The nurse’s desk was at the far end of the hall, and no one was in sight. He clearly did not know where to go, and pondered his course for some time; but eventually, realizing that neither way is better if you don’t know where you’re going, he set off to his right.

***

Father and the older children were on their way to the drink machines. The others had not yet arrived, but more than one had phoned to say they were on the way. Father stopped by the nurse’s desk to ask whether the tests for Abigail were complete, and was told that they hadn’t gone to get her yet. Father nodded, and was about to walk away, when he saw something moving in the hall, farther down from Mother’s room.

“You know,” he said to Nurse Waters, “I think there’s a kid walking down the hall up there, and I don’t see an adult with him. Might be lost.”

The nurse peered down the hall and caught a glimpse of a small form just turning the corner. “I think you’re right,” she said. “I’ll check on it. Thanks!”

Father and the children returned to the waiting area, and Nurse Waters hurried up the hall to see if she could help the lost child. She turned the corner, and followed the corridor past several side hallways, looking down each one, trying to catch a glimpse of the child. But she never did see him again, and finally returned to the desk, thinking that he’d likely found his way back to the room he was looking for.

***

Abigail nestled comfortably in the arms of her red-cloaked kidnapper, and remained asleep, though her facial expressions revealed a dreaming child. The stranger strode through the halls, all of which looked nearly the same, and the worried look above his beard began to grow. Finally, he found himself back in front of Mother’s room again, which he recognised from a series of odd figures written on a paper on the door that he’d noticed when he left a few minutes before. He went back inside, and looked around again, hoping, perhaps, for some new light or wisdom to point the way. The room was nearly dark except for the strand of moonlight in the corner, and, since it was near a window, the stranger decided this should be his next destination. He walked, without a sound, to the corner, and his black boot stepped directly onto the puddle of water that William had spilled earlier.

The obvious danger, of course, was that he might slip, and Abigail might have been hurt, but this didn’t happen. Instead, both baby and kidnapper went down, straight down, into the water, just as the stranger had come up from the water a few minutes before. They slipped completely into the pool and disappeared. Mother, now alone in the room, tossed and turned in her sleep, troubled by bad dreams. Abigail had been taken, and no one knew she was gone.

***

A moment later, the short man in the red cloak and blue beard found himself in nearly total darkness. But after a minute, his eyes melted away the foggy vision and he could see a bit. Even if he hadn’t, the sound told him enough to know that all was well. It was the sound of rushing water, quite close. He breathed another sigh of relief and shook his head, as if to shake from it the bizarre things that had just happened to him. He looked behind him at the bedchamber he knew was there, but could see nothing clearly in the darkness. But no matter. He knew where he was now. He made his way down a very short hallway to the left, then down an even shorter stair, where the noise of the waterfall was at its loudest.

Yes, it was a waterfall, indeed: an underground river in an immense cavern. He shielded Abigail from the spray as he walked behind the waterfall with his back to it. The ledge behind the water was big enough for three to walk abreast, but he still got a bit wet whenever he went through it to enter the Queen’s chambers beyond. Past the waterfall, he made his way down another, longer stair, and so into the throne room, where the King sat, awaiting him.

The throne room was filled with light, and torches were set in iron brackets in many places around the walls. A great throne sat on a raised platform near the further end, but no one was sitting on it. The King had commanded a high feast and all were seated at a long table in the center of the room. The King himself sat at the near end. He was slightly taller than our blue-bearded friend, and his own beard was a silver-white. There was a great crown of gold on his head and he was dressed in flowing robes of purple and gold. Around him were seated many more Dwarves (for that is what they were, of course), but on the King’s right hand was seated someone much taller than the others: someone with a noble-looking face, and long, flowing white hair. But though his hair was white, his face was young and strong, with no wrinkle or blemish. He was clad in a mantle of green and white, and his eyes were green.

The King looked up and saw the Dwarf who had kidnapped Abigail. His eyes grew wide, and he stood, and everyone in the hall stood with him.

“She is here!” thundered the King, and he began laughing with a great joy. “Bring her here, Riverbeard!” Musicians began to play and everyone at the table cheered.

Riverbeard the Dwarf, who had taken Abigail from her Mother’s side, now entered the chamber, brought the sleeping child to the King, and set her in his arms. Another great cheer was raised by the feasters, but the King at once silenced them, lest they waken her.

“You lot of thundering great idiots!” he fumed. “You’ll wake my little Silverbrook, princess of the Mountain Kingdom.” He smiled and caressed her tiny hand.

“This is a time of joy and thanksgiving,” he said to those assembled, “for, as you know, many long years have passed, and no child had been granted to me and my Queen. But now there is great cause of rejoicing, for she is here at last!”

Again, he had to calm a potentially rousing cheer. He sat in his great chair, and everyone got back to their plates. It was after this that he happened to look closer at the child in his arms.

“Riverbeard,” said the King. Riverbeard had been standing off to the side, with a curious and not altogether happy look on his face. He now came forward to the King and bowed.

“Yes, Lord?”

“Why have the women dressed my princess in such curious clothes? And what means this strange bracelet upon her arm? For surely she must wear nothing but the finest gold from our mines.”

“I do not know, King Goldenmere,” said Riverbeard. “To speak plainly, my Lord, there is something strange about…well, something strange happened, Sire, when you sent me to fetch the newborn child, after we had heard from the midwife that she had been born.”

There was a dark look in the King’s eyes at these words. “Say on, faithful steward.”

“Well, my Lord, I departed from your presence, and made my way to the Queen’s chambers, there to fetch the child, as both the custom of our people, and the rights of my office, prescribe. But when I had passed through the water that guards the Queen’s doors, I found that the room was…well, much different than I remembered. There were strange and curiously-wrought devices, with long cords tied to them, and then stuck fast into the walls. To tell the truth, it looked like a different room altogether. The midwife was gone, but there was the Queen, asleep on the bed, which was also much smaller than I’d remembered. And in a glass cradle by the bedside, there was the princess, also asleep.”

Then Riverbeard told the King the rest of his adventures, which you already know about. And so it was that little Abigail was mistaken for the princess of the Dwarves, and still her family did not know that she was missing, nor did the Dwarves know that they had the wrong child.

“This is a strange tale you tell, Riverbeard,” said the King. “And it darkens my heart, for it seems as if some bad spell or evil omen has encircled the birth of my long-awaited child. What shall we do?” The King was more than a little worried, for among the Dwarves of the Mountain, the presence of bad magic at important times was thought to be a sign of coming trouble.

The tall visitor with green eyes then spoke. “If it please the king, let us visit the Queen’s chambers and learn what we can, for it does indeed seem as if some strange magic is at work here.”

The King nodded in agreement. “Very well, Lord Willowlake,” he said. “Maybe your wisdom may help us, for surely it is no accident that brought the Minstrel-Counsellor of the Elves to my door during the very time of our uncertainty.”

So Riverbeard led the way, and the King and his Elven guest followed. They passed behind the waterfall, and arrived in the Queen’s chamber (having first received permission to enter, of course). It was a large place, carved out of the rock, as was everything in this under-mountain kingdom, but beautifully appointed, after the fashion of the Dwarves, with much gold and precious stone to be seen. There were three or four lamps lit, and several Dwarf-women were bustling in and out. Here they found the Queen sitting up and holding in her arms a newborn baby.

“What is this?” cried the King in dismay.

“This,” replied his wife, “is your new daughter. Come and see! Though I wonder why you have broken our old custom of having your chief steward come to bring her to you.”

“I did not break the custom, my dear Queen Rivulet,” said the King, “and Riverbeard has been here already, and brought to me this child, which he found here, behind the waterfall, in your chamber.”

In answer to the Queen’s astonished and frightened look, the King told her what had happened, while Willowlake the Elf walked around the room, looking for…well, even he didn’t know quite what he was looking for.

There was no doubt, it seemed, which of the two children was theirs, for the little princess was wrapped in the clothes and blankets common to her people, and the Queen was quite certain that she had never before seen Abigail. There remained only the questions of how such a thing had happened, and what they ought to do about it.

Willowlake returned to the King’s side. “There is more to this curious business than even friend Riverbeard’s story has revealed,” he said.

The King looked at him for a few moments, and then nodded. “You are wise and subtle, minstrel,” he said at last. “Let us hear your wisdom, then.”

The Elven counsellor bowed. “Such wisdom as I have is merely the guess of the Wise, for though I have heard of such things before, I never met any who could speak of what he had seen with his own eyes. It has long been known to the Wise that there are lands that cannot be reached by horse or sea-vessel, but only by magic. Other countries, other worlds, with other Peoples living other lives. Elves and Dwarves, perhaps, or maybe even Men. Or other beings of whom no word has yet reached us.

“Only by magic, I said, but it is a magic of which we know little; yet in our ancient lore, there are tales that tell of doors between the worlds—doors that burst open without warning. These doors may remain open for days, or years, or they may shut of their own accord within hours.”

“But what causes these doors to open at will?” said the King.

“We know not for certain, but the tales suggest that there are three elements that must join together to open the doors between the worlds.

“First, there is what the Wise call erinale, or ‘Event,’ ‘Happening.’ That is, a certain thing must happen that is common to both worlds.”

“But what thing happened in both worlds in this case?” asked the King.

“That is plain enough,” answered Willowlake, “the birth of two children, perhaps at the same moment. The second element is aurienth, our word for ‘Symbolic Matter’—which I suppose requires some explanation these days.” (He said this because the looks on the faces of the King, the Queen, and the Steward were blank with puzzlement.)

“Symbolic Matter in this case means simply a thing, an object, but one of great meaning to both worlds. It might be a tree, a book, or a loaf of bread, but even better are things like water, or even light itself.”

“And what do you think the thing is in this case?” asked the King.

“I think,” said the Elf, “that it must be water.”

“Why so?”

“Because there is a small pool of it on the floor of this chamber.”

They looked and saw a little pool of water—exactly the size and shape of the water that William had spilled back in the hospital room, though of course they didn’t know that.

“My Lady, how came this water to the floor of your chamber?” asked Willowlake.

“I do not know,” answered the Queen. “I’m sure it was not there an hour ago, when I gave birth. But perhaps Stonespring will know.” They called in the midwife then, but she was even more adamant that they would never have spilled anything without cleaning it up afterwards. Nor had she seen the puddle of water earlier, while helping the Queen.

“Then water is the common thing, the thing that has meaning to both worlds?” said Riverbeard.

“Yes, I think so,” said Willowlake.

“But then what meaning has water for that Other Place?”

“We know not,” said the Elf. “For us, of course, the meaning is clear—do not all our peoples pass through the cleansing waters of the Falls of Mithradell after birth, as a sign of thanksgiving and blessing? But for that Other World, who knows what value the sign of water may be? But that it has a value to them, I am certain, for by it, the chasm between the worlds was bridged. Doubtless there is a small pool of water in that Place, like this here, and you, Riverbeard, stepped into it, or upon it, and thus found your way back here.

“And so, two children were born, worlds apart, and water was cast forth from that place. But I have not yet told you the third element that is needed for the Doors to open, and that is velia, or ‘Time.’ For the doors to open, or so say the old tales, the children must have been born at the same moment, and the water from that world must have been cast forth at the same moment that water was cast forth here.”

“The puddle of water on the floor,” said the King. “But how came it here?”

“That only Riverbeard can answer, I think,” said Willowlake.

Riverbeard glanced up at them. “Well,” he began, “now that you mention it, there is something. I did of course pass through the waters of the falls to reach the Queen’s chambers. I have done so before, as messenger to my Lady, and all, and I’m always careful not to get in the water. Of course, it always sprays me a bit, but that’s to be expected. But—and I’ve only just remembered this—I slipped while crossing over, and put out my hand to steady myself. My other arm flailed out, and got wet. I noticed it just as I entered the chambers—I had called out for permission to enter, but got no reply, and I figured her Ladyship must have been asleep. I had just noticed—” here he began to get excited, as he remembered what had happened—“I had just noticed that I was dripping water onto the floor, when I felt something pull on me and thought I had slipped and begun to fall. Then I saw the strange changes to the room, and forgot all about the water.”

“An understandable reaction,” said the Elf. “But what had really happened was that you had, as it were, cast forth water at the same moment as someone in the Other World, and thus opened the Door between the worlds. When you thought you had fallen, you had actually passed through the door into that Place, whatever its name might be.”

“Then all this means,” said the King in a breathless voice, “that this child—” and here he glanced down in wonder at Abigail, still sleeping in his arms—“this child belongs to someone in that Other World.”

“Oh, dear,” said the Queen, “and the poor mother no doubt frantic with worry, not knowing what has happened to it, and—”she gave a little gasp—“and we with perhaps no way to get the little thing home again!”

At that, Willowlake took Abigail from the King, and looked closely at her. “This strange bracelet may tell us something,” he said. “There is writing here, though I do not know the language. Perhaps it is the child’s name. Her clothing is strange, and has images upon it of a comical bear holding a large jar or pot. It is not much, yet we must try to take her home.”

“But how?” said Riverbeard.

“The same way you passed into and out of that Place. Through this tiny pool of water—if the Door is still open, that is.”

“It’s a heavy thought,” said Riverbeard, “to think that I might have gotten stuck in that Place, with no way to get home.”

Willowlake took several steps toward the mysterious pool of water.

“What,” said the King, edging cautiously along behind him, his voice barely above a whisper, “what are you going to do?”

Willowlake looked back at him and smiled. “I know of nothing else but to step into the water,” he said.

“But what if you cannot get back?” said Riverbeard.

“Then I shall go on with the adventure that is given me. But if the door is still open now, I think it may stay open a bit longer. I do not plan to stay long, for I have a duty to my family, and to the Elven King, to return home, if I may.”

“Good luck, then,” said Queen Rivulet, softly, “and thank you.”

Willowlake bowed and turned his back on them. He took the remaining steps to the water, and without a moment’s hesitation, stepped into it.

King Goldenmere, his Queen, and Riverbeard, all saw the Elf and the Child fall straight down, as if they had plunged over a cliff, and then disappear into the pool of water. Each looked at the other, and their eyes revealed their unspoken hopes that the noble Elf would be able to return.

***

For Willowlake, it did not feel like falling, but like sitting up in bed after awakening. There was darkness for a moment, and then the dimness of the hospital room, lit only by the silver shaft of moonlight, which had grown a little bigger since Riverbeard had been there. He heard the soft beeping of the heart monitor and the slow drip of the IV, and marvelled at the wondrous machines before him. He longed to examine them, to learn of their purposes and inner workings—and more, to explore this strange new world—but he knew there was no time to do so. He was entrusted with high office, and could not run off on wild adventures just to sate his own curiosity, his taste for glory and honor. And so, he knew, he must return, and quickly, for he did not know how long the door would remain open.

He looked around him. There was a lady asleep in a bed, and beside it, an empty glass cradle, just as Riverbeard had said. He moved to the bed, and looked closer. On the Lady’s arm was a bracelet much like the one worn by the Child, and when he examined it closer, he saw that it had many of the same words as those on the smaller bracelet. Then, on a small table beside the bed, he saw a tiny nightcap, and there were pictures on it—pictures of the same funny bear holding a big jar.

He smiled. These things told him enough to know that he was in the right place. He kissed the child on her forehead, and set her in the cradle. Then he lifted his hands and softly spoke words of an Elvish blessing upon the Mother and her Child, and turned his back, however unwillingly, on the Other World. He walked to the corner of the room.

At that moment, Mother woke up, startled out of her sleep by a dream that Abigail had been taken away from her. Her heart pounding, she sat up, and looked into the crib. No, there she was, safe and sound, and still asleep. Just a bad dream. Mother caressed the tiny cheek. She did not look behind her, where Willowlake was still standing, perfectly still and quiet. She laid her head back down on the pillow and went to sleep again. Willowlake smiled, and immediately stepped into the moonlit pool of water on the floor, and disappeared back into his own place—though he thought he heard the sound of a door opening as he departed.

***

Father opened the door and walked into the hospital room. There was someone standing in the corner—Doctor Fontaine, perhaps? But he didn’t look like a doctor. He was taller, for one thing, and wore a strange, long cloak of green, and his hair was long and white, though he looked to be a young man, by his face. Or was he? It was hard to tell. But no—there was no one there, after all. Father shook his head, and rubbed his weary eyes. He looked again into the room. No one. He smiled at his own silliness, but there was a strange look on his face. Up all night. Must be more tired than I think. Moonlight was shining into the corner; working in alliance with the Darkness in the rest of the room, the Man in the Moon had played tricks on his eyes.

Then he noticed Abigail. She was lying in the small crib with her head towards the door. He recalled having laid her there himself, with her head towards the bed, so he supposed the doctor had already taken her, and run his tests, and it was therefore okay to bring the rest of the family back to visit now. He walked to the nurse’s desk to confirm that fact.

“No,” said Nurse Waters, “the Doctor got called away for another delivery; but he’s finished now, and already on the way back. He hasn’t come to get Abigail yet.”

Father looked puzzled. “Really?” he said. “But Abigail is turned around, so someone must have picked her up and set her down again since I’ve been in there, and her mother is still asleep.”

“Well, I’m sure no one has been in there since then,” said the Nurse. And they talked about it for another minute or two, but never could figure it out.

***

A half hour or so later, Doc Fontaine was all finished with the child.

“She’s healthy and strong,” he said to the baby’s parents, “in fact, I’ve never seen a child in such vigorous good health before. You know, she doesn’t really look like a newborn, she looks like a three or four month old child—not in size, but in her eyes, in her expressions. And she’s even changed since I saw her after her birth. Also, there is this—she seems to have a strange birthmark of some sort, but…well, it’s kind of hard to tell.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mother.

“Well, it’s just that you can’t always see it,” said the Doctor, with a nervous little laugh, as if he were afraid they wouldn’t believe him. “It’s right here, on her forehead.”

Both parents leaned in close for a look, but shook their heads. “I don’t see anything,” they both said.

“I know,” said Doctor Fontaine. “Neither do I. But watch this. Nurse Waters first noticed it when she gave Abigail a bath.” The Doctor took up a cup of water he had brought for just this purpose, and dipped his fingers into it. Then he gently rubbed the water onto Abigail’s forehead. Immediately there appeared the image of a tiny star. It was only slightly paler than Abigail’s skin, so that one had to look closely to see it, but there was no doubt that it was there.

“You see?” said the Doctor, who seemed relieved that they’d seen it too. “And it disappears when her skin dries. It’s already fading, as you can see.”

“Very strange,” said Father, whose mind had inexplicably jumped back to the cloaked stranger he’d thought he’d seen in the hospital room. “You don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about, do you?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t worry. I’ve run a few tests on it, so we’ll see, but I don’t think any harm of it. Just an unusual mark, I suppose.”

***

At that moment, William approached his Father and looked up into his eyes. He tugged on his shirt.

“What is it, son?”

William pointed to the cup and pool of water in the corner. “I spilled my water,” he said, simply.

Father smiled and nodded. “Well, you did the right thing by telling me. I think you’ll find a towel in the bathroom there. Go ahead and clean it up.”

“Okay.” He smiled and went for the towel.

***

A few minutes later, all the family was gathered around the bed, along with the Doctor and Nurse. The ritual of welcome was performed, and Father read to Abigail her first story. He was silent for a moment, then, and everyone waited patiently for him to conclude the ceremony. But Father was thinking of the stranger in the corner, and Abigail facing the wrong way in the crib, and the star on his daughter’s forehead, and he even thought about the small shadow in the hallway that he’d taken for a child, and wondered if it was tied up in all this, somehow. He shook his head, smiled, and spoke to the newborn infant, who was looking up at him with eyes as big as the sky.

“Welcome to the big world of God, little one,” said Father, as thoughts of mystery floated in his head. “I can promise you little more than the comfort of love, the possibility of honour, and the certainty of adventure, but what of that? For joy as well as fear comes with adventure. It is a world of surprises and miracles you are born into, my girl; dangers and wonders alike may lie around every corner.”

But Abigail already knew that!

The End

On Learning Styles

2010-08-12T22:53:00.002-04:00

The Homeschool Village is promoting a Link Up today on the topic of learning styles. So I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the subject.

For the past thirty or forty years, there has been a great deal of theoretical work done on the idea that people have individual learning styles. The models take various forms, but probably the most recognizable is some variation of the VAK model, which categorizes learning styles something like this:

1.    Visual Learners.
2.    Auditory Learners.
3.    Reading/Writing Learners.
4.    Tactile Learners.

This is the version I am most familiar with, having encountered it for years at work. I only write books and such at night and on Saturdays: on weekdays, I work for an insurance company in the training and development department. A lot of discussion goes on about adapting our classroom environment and methods to appeal to this variety of learning styles.

And we do live in a time when our ability to cater to a variety of learning styles has greatly increased. This is a good thing, on the whole: we homeschoolers should (thoughtfully) take advantage of at least some of the new technologies out there. One example is virtual or online classes, some of which, like the Veritas Press self-paced courses, are ideal for those who enjoy learning via a more visual approach.

The concept of learning styles, from one perspective, is based on the simple fact that people are different, with various strengths and weaknesses. This in itself is certainly true, and wisdom would require us to pay attention to such things.

However, I do not think we should quickly accept the idea of learning styles as neutral data, nor as unchanging fact, nor yet as unmixed blessing. Let’s say a child is classified as a visual learner, with a real weak spot when it comes to auditory learning: should a parent simply accept this designation, as if we’ve found a label stuck on the child’s soul? Or should we seek to help him overcome his weakness, developing more of an ability to learn through conversation?
This is especially important for Christian home educators, since home education in Scripture is primarily conversational/auditory: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:7, emphasis added).

So while it’s not a problem to make use of various methods and ideas (after careful examination), we should never do so at the expense of a walk-along, talk-along discipleship model.

There is also, I think, a danger of labeling a child as one thing or another. What if a child is told that she just can’t learn well from a book? Are we not setting her up for a lifetime of thinking, “well, I’m just not a reader”? Adam was called to name the animals, and that naming—the art of calling things by their proper names—is still part of our work as Christians today. There is great power in naming. Tell a child often enough that he is stupid, and he will come to believe it. Just so, tell him that he is not a reader, and he will believe that, too.

It’s also worth noting that the whole idea of learning styles is controversial and disputed. I don’t think anyone doubts that people are different, and that some gravitate more towards certain things than others. But that adapting our educational models to accommodate various learning styles (of whichever model one may choose) makes a significant difference in how well a child learns, is certainly a doubtful point.

Be that as it may, a good Homeschool family will certainly use a variety of means to communicate truth, goodness, and beauty to children. While conversation is the Biblical means, the fact that God gave His Word to us in written form certainly validates reading as a key way to learn. And since Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), we may therefore conclude that teaching by visual means, being one way that God has taught us, is also right and proper.

One good thing we can take away from the whole learning style movement is that we need to know our children well. Find out what interests them, strengthens them, weakens them, excites them. Then talk to them, read to them, and show them the truth.

Charlotte Mason Review Part II

2010-08-12T13:19:00.001-04:00

Continuing our review of the Charlotte Mason philosophy/methods, Susan Wise Bauer notes that, “Writing continues to be a weak area in the larger home school community; we need more, not less, explicit teaching in this area.”

Classical and Charlotte Mason are at odds here, as Charlotte Mason advocates minimal grammar and writing instruction (suggesting that children can learn by absorbing good literature), as well as waiting until the children are older to begin; while Classical advocates like Bauer want more, and earlier, writing instruction from the parents. I agree with Bauer here contra Charlotte Mason.

A few other suggestions that Bauer says are compatible with both Classical and Charlotte Mason: “choosing quality reading material, reading adult level books to children, making narration rather than testing the central method of evaluating learning…”). These ideas seem good and wise.
Another interesting point by Bauer on the two methods: “My problems with the method only have to do with the degree to which it might be interpreted as “unschooling”; for example, Levison writes that it isn’t necessary to tie subjects together, because “we have total confidence that the child will make the connections unassisted.” Some children undoubtedly will, but classical education’s emphasis on the difference between grammar-stage and logic-stage learning recognizes that making connections between subjects (and events) is a critical skill that should be taught; parents often have to lead the way in showing their budding critical thinkers HOW to make those important logical connections…”

Again, I agree with the Classical approach here.

Bauer again, contrasting “Charlotte and Dorothy:” “The shorter lessons allow for the student to cover from 15-21 different subjects per week, even in elementary school; the sample ‘Charlotte Mason’ schedules in the back of More Charlotte Mason Education have third graders doing Old Testament, New Testament, Writing, Printing, Drawing, Reading, French, Picture Talk, Natural History, Handicrafts, Math, Music, Dancing, and Geography each week. This seems rather frantic to me. I would encourage parents of young children to concentrate instead on the core skills of reading, writing, grammar, and mathematics, drawing in history and science once the child is reading fairly well. Other subjects should be done as you have time – but don’t neglect those core skills.”

This is an important point, and I will deal with it more extensively in a future post.

Bauer on the difference between the methods during the Grammar stage: “I wonder whether the ‘clash’ that many people seem to find between Charlotte Mason methods and classical education has to do with a misunderstanding of what classical education is. Yes, classical educators do concentrate on the absorption of facts in grades 1-4. But we never suggest treating children as ‘memory machines.’ Memory work is one part of classical education for the grammar stage; absorption is also achieved through reading, narration, experimentation, projects, drawing, and many other methods which Andreola [another Charlotte Mason advocate] describes with approval. And Andreola herself writes in a later chapter, ‘Certainly we should drill children on the simple facts they need to memorize – arithmetic facts, important dates in history, Bible verses, scientific terminology. Short daily drills will not dampen the children’s school day.’ Classical education would merely expand this to include important speeches and poetry (also recommended by Mason herself), and define ‘short’ as 15-20 minutes daily. Why is this so incompatible with Charlotte Mason methods? In any case, classical educators don’t try to establish a “true intellectual life’ using memorization alone; the ‘intellectual life’ is developed over twelve years of education that includes work in logic and rhetoric as well.”

We’ll get into this more when we talk about Classical education in a future post.

More: “Spelling. Andreola describes a method of spelling that uses lists of constantly misspelled words and refers to rules only when they are needed to explain the spelling of these ‘trouble words.’ This is certainly a valid way of customizing spelling to an individual child’s need, but there is also great value in a ‘workbook’ type spelling program that also covers dictionary skills, syllabification, alphabetizing, and the other skills that we may sometimes forget to teach.”

This gets back to the Charlotte Mason weakness of assuming children will just pick up these things without the formal aspect of teaching.

These are just a few examples from specific academic subjects, to give you a sense of the issues. So in summary: I do not know how seriously modern Charlotte Mason educators take their founder’s humanistic philosophy of children. Maybe it’s not an issue. I know at least one family whose theology is perfectly sound on that point, yet they use the Charlotte Mason methods. No doubt this is perfectly fine and workable, but we should be aware of the cracks in Mason’s first principles, and watch for problems they may cause in methodology (such as the application that “children are wise and can learn on their own”). My family uses the Classical method (with some modifications; more on that later), but again, we do make use of some of the overlap methods that Charlotte Mason folks would also use: living books over textbooks, narration, and so on. If you are interested in the Charlotte Mason philosophy and method, my recommendation would be to read the series of articles on this website (from which many of the quotes in this post have been drawn) that compares and contrasts Charlotte and Dorothy, pointing out strengths and weaknesses in each.

Charlotte Mason Review Part I

2010-08-11T12:47:00.003-04:00

This post begins a series of articles on figuring out your homeschool philosophy. Note that there are a variety of options here: the “unschool” approach, which pretty much lets kids drive the educational process with little in the way of formal training. Then there’s the self-taught approach, which is much more academically rigorous, but with an emphasis on children learning to teach themselves. Another option is the Classical approach, which, though variously defined, places an emphasis on history, favors language-based study over image-focused study, and follows the pattern of the Medieval Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric).

Then there’s Charlotte Mason, which we will be considering today. Charlotte Mason was an early twentieth-century educator who developed a philosophy of teaching that is followed by many home educators today. First, we should note that Charlotte Mason was herself a classical educator, so this method has much in common with the modern Classical movement. I recently gave a talk at the Veritas teacher training conference, and one of the other workshops was on the similarities between “Charlotte and Dorothy” (Dorothy L. Sayers, whose seminal essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” birthed the modern revival of Classical education).

So there’s a great deal of overlap between the two philosophies, and as we will be dealing with Classical education in a series of future posts, we’ll not cover all that ground now. But here is a brief summary of the Charlotte Mason philosophy, from Susan Wise Bauer, Classical home educator and author of The Well-Trained Mind (note that she is drawing this summary from the writings of a contemporary Charlotte Mason advocate):

“In her first chapter, Levinson summarizes the Mason method as relying on narration, rather than workbooks; on whole and living books, rather than textbooks; and as utilizing short morning lessons with the afternoon and evening free.”

Here are a few other details, from a popular Charlotte Mason website:

“Charlotte’s students used living books rather than dry textbooks. Living books are usually written in story form by one author who has a passion for the subject. A living book makes the subject ‘come alive.’ She taught spelling by using passages from great books that communicate great ideas rather than just a list of words. She encouraged spending time outdoors, interacting with God’s creation firsthand and learning the living ways of nature.”

There is much good here, and home educators should consider these concepts.

At St George Academy (our family homeschool), we do use some of these methods, but do not embrace the Charlotte Mason philosophy unreservedly. Indeed, I have some real concerns. Consider this, from Charlotte Mason’s A Philosophy of Education (emphasis mine):
1. Children are born persons.

2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these principles are foolish and unbiblical: “as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’” (Romans 3:10-12).

This includes children, certainly, as David makes clear: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)

Moreover, according to Mason, we must not “encroach” upon the personality of children “by the direct use of…fear or love, suggestion, or influence”? What on earth does this mean? That we must not directly try to influence our children, either by appeals to love or fear? Surely not. Again, the Bible teaches otherwise, pointing out that fathers are to rebuke and chastise children who sin. And of course, we remember that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10).

Perhaps some Charlotte Mason advocates out there will tell me I have not understood what she means here. If so, I welcome the interaction. But it does seem to me that so many of the prevailing homeschool philosophies out there seem not to take into account the fallen state of humanity, even in our children.

Here’s more from Mason: “Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas.”

We answer, with the Westminster Divines, that, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Acceptance or rejection of ideas comes (logically) later, and is indeed part of the intellectual work of the Christian. But without the light of Christ and His Word, we will not be able to see clearly which ideas to accept and which to reject.

Clearly, then, Christians cannot simply cut and paste the Charlotte Mason method into a Christian homeschool setting, since her philosophy of education (at certain points) flies in the face of Biblical teaching. She did have some good ideas, though, which we can and should take, and, mutatis mutandis, incorporate into our home education program. Examples of this would be the emphases on living books and narration.

Another concern I have with Charlotte Mason (as well as other “three Rs” approaches, such as the Robinson curriculum, A2, etc), is the relative lack of parental involvement. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis from another context, if you give a child an open door, he will go through it. In this case, I mean an open door to error, false doctrine, bad philosophy, and so on. Parents should be actively involved in the process of passing on the Christian worldview to their children: cf. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, and the idea that education involves teaching children right emotional responses to actions, ideas, works of art, etc. Neglecting this element of training in the “ordinate affections,” Lewis contended, resulted in the raising of “men without chests.”

We want children to love things that are true, good, and beautiful, and to hate things that are false, evil, and ugly. And I think the Classical method offers a good correction to Charlotte Mason here. Bauer says this: “…a predominant theme in Mason education is, ‘Don’t get between the child and the book, don’t talk too much, and don’t lecture.’ There’s a delicate balance to be found here…very young children (1-4) need plenty of guidance, and…the parent should not be afraid to teach explicitly what the child needs to know…”

Bauer once again on Catherine Levison’s book, Charlotte Mason Education: “Levison’s writings also require balance. Her suggestions often seem to veer close to an attitude of, ‘Children are wise and can learn on their own.’ Yet the book lists she offers – Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare for six to nine year olds, Dickens for eleven-year-olds – certainly require the parent to explain and clarify.”

This is no doubt true, but there is something else that is apparently (for I have not read Levinson) missing, at least in Bauer’s critique: if we are assuming that “children are wise and can learn on their own,” then not only are we failing to guide them in their intellectual understanding, we are also failing to take into account what Wilson calls “The Student in Adam,” i.e., the fact that children, cute and seemingly innocent as they may be, are actually fallen sinners. This is true not only in their behavior but in their thinking (what theologians call the noetic effect of sin). Without proper guidance from Holy Scripture and sound Christian doctrine and commentary, they will certainly not arrive at orthodox teaching on their own. They must be guided into truth, especially if, as Bauer and other Classical advocates insist, they are to read Greek, Roman, and Enlightenment-era American and English philosophers.

Bauer says, “Read to the child, explain where necessary, and discuss those things that seem important, but don’t try to make every text an opportunity for a lecture, or you’ll lose the child’s attention.”

This is partly right, but misses something important: a Walk Along, Talk Along discipleship model (Deuteronomy 6) need not involve “lectures.” It’s more about conversation: asking children questions, guiding them in the answers, and hearing their own questions.

***

Tune in tomorrow (August 12 2010) for Part II of this Review of Charlotte Mason Home Education.

I have added a link to this post on the Raising Homemakers "Homemaking Linkup," which I discovered through my wife's parenting website, This Parenting Adventure. Give 'em both a look.

The Vision of Home Education

2010-08-10T12:20:00.001-04:00

Here's some worthwhile thoughts from Doug Phillips of Vision Forum:

"As R.J. Rushdoony has pointed out, 'Education is inescapably a religious discipline'...while many Christians have correctly focused on the religious nature of the content of education, they ignore the fact that the Bible also speaks to the methodology of education. Methods are not neutral. The rise of the home education movement is not merely a response to the failure of government education; it is an affirmation of a distinctively Biblical approach to both the methods and the objectives of Christian education.

"Unlike the peer-driven culture of the classroom, with its unbiblical approach to age segregation as a basis for training, home educators benefit from the one-on-one tutorial approach which allows parents to walk alongside their children while communicating faith, virtue, and knowledge, in that order. Home education, with its emphasis on relationship-driven training, is a distinctively Hebrew approach to education, while the modern classroom, with its emphasis on efficiency, is a distinctively Greek and pagan approach to education."

If Only I'd Known All This Fifty Years Ago...

2010-08-09T12:26:00.002-04:00

I am linking this post to the "Works for Me Wednesday" link up over at the We Are That Family website. Give them a visit, sometime, eh, what? The idea is to link to a post that gives advice or tips that made life easier in some way. The article below details some thoughts and ideas that have made our lives as homeschooling parents easier.

***

Those considering home education might be daunted for a variety of reasons, some legitimate, some vague and probably unfounded. But those who have actually tried it are tempted to a host of specific worries and concerns. One of the most real and pressing of these is the question of which home education philosophy or method to follow. Charlotte Mason? Classical? What about the “unschool” philosophy? Perhaps something geared more towards self-directed learning, like the Robinson or A2 curricula? Or should we take the “school in a box” approach, with scripted lesson plans for every subject, instructional DVDs for the hard stuff, online games and quizzes, and blueprints for building an Egyptian pyramid in your back yard without slave labor?

Our family has certainly had our share of this sort of uncertainty. And I have brooded and fretted over the years—more than I should have—over which direction to take. There are two reasons why it was hard for us to settle on an approach to Homeschooling with which we felt a reasonable measure of confidence. The first was the simple fact that there are so many options, both in terms of philosophy, and of methodology, from which to choose. And even within each philosophical or methodological option, there are a myriad of practical choices to make, in terms of books and curricula. For instance, even if you settle on, say, a classical approach, will you use the books and curricula of Veritas Press, or those based on the “Well-Trained Mind” approach? Or something else entirely? Will you use Shurley Grammar, Rod and Staff, or Beka? Saxon Math or Math-U-See? Institutes for Excellence in Writing or Writing with Ease? In many ways, this can be simply overwhelming.

The second reason why it was hard for us to settle on an approach to Homeschooling was the realization that the Home Education movement is in about year 30 of what we hope to be a multi-millennial project. We are the infants of the Home Education movement. Our descendants a hundred, or five hundred years from now, will look back on us with (hopefully) thankfulness and honor; but also with a more mature wisdom than we now possess. They will have figured out a lot of things that are (or should be) dark and mysterious to us. A lot of the things we feel certain of now will be proven, by our descendents, to have been wrongheaded, or perhaps simply wrong.

But ironically, this second realization was what brought a measure of peace to us. It suddenly struck me like a thunderbolt that we cannot know what we cannot know. And with this insight came freedom. I cannot now possess the wisdom that will only come to our people a hundred years from now. I cannot now act on the insights that will only occur to our children three generations hence. But neither am I called to do so. God wishes me to lead and educate my children, now, with the wisdom and insight He has given to our generation, and to those who have gone before us whose wisdom we do have access to. And He has called me to do this in faith, believing that He is capable of bringing up a people of imperfect wisdom into Biblical and cultural maturity.

As I said, this realization brought freedom to us: freedom to work hard, to bring such wisdom as we have to bear on our educational choices; to actually make those choices; and to live confidently and faithfully with what we have chosen, making adjustments or even wholesale changes as new light is received. If I live to be, say, eighty or ninety, doubtless I will look at the advances of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the arena of home education, and say, if only I’d known all this fifty years ago… But I trust I will also be able to laugh at my own folly, and praise the obvious grace of God in the generations that have succeeded and surpassed me.

Chad at the Veritas Teacher Training Conference

2010-07-26T21:14:00.001-04:00

Attention parents, homeschoolers, teachers: last chance to enroll for the Veritas Press Teacher Training Conference this Wednesday through Friday. I will be speaking at the conference on Thursday (11:30-12:30 EST) on the subject of "How to Make Your Children Love Stories." Other speakers include Steve Demme (Math-U-See), Brian Godawa (award-winning screenwriter), Douglas Wilson (pastor and author of numerous books), and many more.

Topics include "Making Literature Come Alive," "Can Classical Education Change Culture?" "Juggling the Schedule (Homeschool Wife and Mother)," "A Defense for Biblical Science," "Dad's Role in Education," and many more.

Go to this page for registration details. I assume the audio for all these talks and workshops will be available at some point after the conference, so I will post details on that as soon as I have them. Looks to be a great conference, and I hope many of you can join us.

The Key, The Captain, and the Corsair

2010-07-22T18:58:00.001-04:00

Here's a story I wrote for William last year, when he turned six. Again, the idea here is to cast your children as the heroes in stories, teaching them what goodness, nobility, courage, and so on, really look like. Love to hear any comments or thoughts on this or the other postings this week.

The Key, The Captain, and The Corsair

William Chad Newsom

Written for my son, William Alfred Alexander Newsom,
on the Occasion of His Sixth Birthday

This is a story that happened when our hero, William, was eight years old. William and his family had taken their vacation that year in the tiny port-town of Trelawney on the North Carolina Coast. Along with the usual beach activities, they were set to visit the Old Pirate Ship, which had been turned into a museum many years before. So William and his parents, his brother and two sisters, along with a camera or two, headed off that Friday morning to visit the Ship.

The Ship was called The Corsair, which as you may know, can mean either ‘pirate,’ or ‘privateer,’ and she was a captured, second-rate “man of war” ship with 90 guns. William loved her at once and couldn’t wait to get onboard.

Just beside the plank walkway that led to the ship, they met the Docent, or tour-guide, who was to take them through to see the sights. His name was James Benbow and he was a kindly, white-haired man of about sixty years of age, dressed in eighteenth-century sailor clothes. He smiled as he greeted them and took them aboard.

As they went along, he told them stories of the ship. The Corsair had been commanded by the famous pirate, Captain Jonas Flintlock (a well-known though underappreciated figure, in the Docent’s view). ‘‘Used to be a preacher in his young days, if you’ll believe me,’ he told them. ‘But God called him to take the good word to the Chinese, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with them at any price, no one knows why. The Captain was a most gentlemanly pirate, kind and considerate, even to those he plundered, though he could be fearsome enough in battle. Indeed, he often pretended to be a privateer, on the lookout for enemy ships, sailing for the King of England. Before we begin, let me also tell you something that you may or may not know. Today marks the two hundred and eleventh anniversary of the capture of The Corsair and the death of Captain Flintlock. Now, ladies and gentleman, we will begin our tour of the ship. And when we get back outside, I’ll have a question to ask you about Captain Flintlock, and if anyone answers it right, they’ll be awarded a very special prize.’

Mr Benbow was a most wise and knowledgeable guide. Indeed, as they would learn through his stories, he was a former sailor himself, and a leading scholar, not only on Captain Flintlock, but on English and American sea-history in general. More than just a tour guide, he was also the curator of the museum. But he loved guiding the tours so much he never gave it up, except when other responsibilities kept him from it.

He showed them the fo’c’s’le first, then the quarter deck, and even climbed the main mast to the crow’s nest to show them how it was done. Then they walked back in the direction of the poop deck, but Mr Benbow stopped at a particular spot on the middle deck. ‘Here,’ he said, resting his hand on the gunwales, ‘is the spot where Captain Flintlock fell in his last battle. “Surrender sir!” shouted Admiral Edwards of The Grandfather, the ship that brought the Captain’s pirating days to an end.’

‘Do we know what the Captain’s last words were?’ asked one of the folks in the tour group, a middle-aged man.

‘Ah, yes, we do,’ said Mr Benbow, with a strange look on his face. ‘And they have puzzled historians ever since. Just before he was taken down, Captain Flintlock shouted, “Curse the child!” Then he charged into the circle of his enemies and was killed. No one knows what he meant, to this day. Some scholars think he was referring to his son, who had turned against him years ago, and become a rival to his father. Perhaps the Captain was still bitter about that, even in the moment of death. No one knows for certain.’

Mr Benbow showed them the galley, and the hold, and the bilge, and the crew’s quarters as well. Then he took them to the quarters of the Captain himself. Here they saw many interesting relics of the old pirating days, and the Docent showed them what he said was his favourite thing on the whole ship. It was a small but beautifully-carved keyhole right in the middle of the wall of the Captain’s quarters.

‘It’s not part of a door, and it doesn’t lead anywhere,’ Mr Benbow told them. ‘It has long been a mystery to those who have studied the history of the ship. Why was it carved? No one knows for certain.’

‘Maybe it was just for a joke, or for no reason at all,’ said a woman in the tour group. ‘Maybe it was never meant to lead anywhere.’

That’s silly, thought William. Where there’s a keyhole, there is, or was, a key to fit it.

‘Maybe, maybe,’ said Mr Benbow, stroking his beard thoughtfully. ‘It certainly seems that way, at least. Now, then, these here are the shards of the Captain’s cutlass, broken in his last battle…’

As the Docent continued talking, William knelt down to examine the cupboards in the corner. He loved exploring and ‘looking into things,’ as he called it. He was at the back of the tour group, the line of adults forming a wall around him, so no one saw him. At the back of one of the cupboards, one of the boards was out of line with the others, sticking up just a little. He cleared away some cobwebs, and pressed down on it; it moved easily. Then he slipped his finger under the board and lifted gently. The board came up enough for him to put his hand underneath. Here he felt dirt: a fine, but damp, soil. William then dug into the dirt as far as he could at that angle. Nothing. He moved his hand farther to the right, inching the board up a bit more as he did so. Then he began exploring in the dirt again.

His fingers touched something hard. It was impossible to tell what it was. Very carefully, he extracted it from the dirt and pulled his hand from beneath the board, which eased back into place. The object was about four inches long and caked with dirt. William looked around and saw that the tour was moving on into the next room, but no one had noticed him. His heart began racing faster, though he hardly knew why. He knocked the stiff dirt away and found something that he had almost—almost—expected to find: it was a key, old and rusty. A flake of rust fell off, but instead of revealing dark iron below, there was a flash of gold. William began peeling the rust away and soon a beautiful, golden key shone up at him.

He knew what to do with it, of course, just as you would have. He glanced at the group ahead: the tour was moving out of the room and the Docent’s voice could be heard in the chamber outside the door. Everyone was listening to the Docent (except one pudgy boy who was absorbed in a small video game he’d brought along), and even William’s parents had not yet noticed he was not with them (in fairness, all this had happened in about a minute’s time). ‘And,’ the Docent was saying, ‘Captain Flintlock hid the directions to the treasure, in, of all things…’

But William did not hear the rest. He had already walked quietly over to the small keyhole. It was surrounded by pure Wall, no cracks or lines to indicate a door. Still…well, there was only one way to find out. No one was looking his way, and the last of the tour group (the boy with the video game) was only just visible outside the door, so William did what I’m sure you will agree was the only sensible thing to do. He put the key into the mysterious keyhole and turned it.

Part of the wall seemed to give way and the outlines of a door appeared. William’s hands were trembling as he pulled gently on the key. The door began to open, noiselessly. It was big enough for William to walk through. He removed the key and put it in his pocket. On the other side, he saw bright sunlight, and seawater lapping against the sides of the door. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a beautiful, white beach, with green trees growing beyond it. In a daze of wonder, William stepped through the door and into the water. It was shallow, and, moments later, he was on the beach.

He suddenly felt a bit worried and turned around to look where he’d come. The door was nowhere to be found.

***

Now he began to grow afraid, for he had no idea how to get back. Tears came to his eyes as he thought of his family. Would he ever see them again? But he’d read the stories, and the children usually got back from these adventures. But what story was he in? And which character was he to be? These thoughts gave him a bit of hope to go on, but he quickly decided he ought to do something else. More than this, he realised he wanted to do the thing he’d just thought of, and that was to pray. William had been praying all his life, of course, being brought up to it by his parents; but in the past year or so, he had been learning the art of prayer for himself. Now he sank to his knees on the sand and called out to his God:

‘Lord, forgive me for being so foolish, if it was foolish, to open the door. But somehow I think it wasn’t. Please help me to find my way home again, and to be brave and noble in this adventure you’ve given me. Amen.’

He looked around and saw that he was in a sort of bay or harbour, with land jutting out into the sea about a couple hundred yards away on either side of him. He then sat on the beach for a while, not knowing what else to do. Soon he would have to seek food and water, but for now he just sat and gazed on the sparkling Ocean.

A few minutes later he was startled to see a man walking towards him along the beach. He was old and thin, and dressed like a sea-faring man in the old pirate stories. He hailed William as he drew closer.

‘God save ye, young man,’ he said in a cheerful voice. He sat down beside William and smiled at him. William wondered whether he was a pirate or even, maybe, a fairy. After all, what did one expect after going through a magical door?

‘Are you…a pirate?’ he asked.

But the old Sea-dog would tell him little. ‘Maybe I am a pirate,’ he said, ‘but if I am, my plunder is neither gold nor silver, and I take only such things as I’ve a right to steal. Or…maybe I put off my sky robes today, taking the clothes and likeness of a swain, coming as swift as the sparkle of a glancing star—to help you.’

‘Did you?’ William asked in a whisper.

‘I said maybe,’ said the Old Man, his eyes sparkling like the star of which he spoke. ‘But I am here to help you, William. Look, yonder on the Sea. See that black spot in the distance? It’s a ship, as you’ll see soon enough. A ship called The Corsair. Do you know it?’

William’s eyes flashed. The story was unfolding at last. ‘Captain Flintlock’s ship?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Then…what year is this?’

‘1798, lad.’

‘Then this can’t be Fairyland at all. I’ve gone back into the Past!’

The Sea-dog smiled. ‘The Past is merely a small garden in the west of Fairyland,’ he said. ‘But you will soon meet Captain Flintlock for yourself. And hear ye: Captain Flintlock will offer to take you on board his ship. You must do so, if you want to find your way home.’

And with that, the old man was gone, as if he had never been there. Now William took a deep breath, and tried not to be afraid, for he knew he must take ship with a crew of bloodthirsty pirates. Or…must he do that? He could hide in the woods until they had gone. But the Old Man had said the only way home was by taking that ship.

Soon enough the ship came into view, and there was no doubt that it was indeed The Corsair. William made his choice and remained sitting on the beach as the ship pulled into the harbour.

When the crew saw William sitting there, they began calling loudly for the Captain to come and look. Then a landing party, led by the Captain himself, took to their jolly boat and rowed ashore. The pirates formed a circle around William and looked at him with suspicion and even anger in their eyes. William fought down an urge to run into the woods.

As for the Captain, he looked just like the pictures William had seen in the ship-museum, except that he smiled more. He greeted William with courtesy and friendliness, and bowed to him.

‘I am Captain Jonas, sailing my ship The Journeyman here under Letters of Marque in His Majesty’s service,’ he said, and William remembered that Flintlock often pretended to be working for the king to keep folks from knowing he was a pirate. ‘How came you to this remote place, lad?’

William could think of no way to explain what had really happened, so he simply said, ‘I was marooned here.’ True enough, in its way.

The Captain’s eyes grew wide. ‘Thunder and Murder!’ he said. ‘To think of that—marooning a child!’

The Captain talked to him for a long while and William found he liked the old buccaneer. But Mr Benbow, the Docent, had said as much: ‘The Gentleman Pirate’ he was called, after all. And the Captain seemed to like William too, for he offered to rescue the boy from the island.

‘On one condition,’ said the Captain. ‘All men who board my ship must earn their way with a bit of work. I find myself in need of both a cabin boy and a powder monkey. If you’ll come aboard and learn the ropes, I’ll set you down back in England when I return.’

William knew what he had to do, though he didn’t want to do it. But there seemed no other way. He had travelled back in time on the Captain’s ship, and on that same ship he may hope to find his way back to his own time and place. He agreed to work for the Captain, and, the next morning, The Corsair being watered and victualled, William sailed away with Captain Jonas Flintlock, the notorious pirate.

***

For the next three weeks, William worked harder than he ever had in his life, learning how to be a cabin boy, and a ‘powder monkey,’ which was a boy who would run gunpowder to the crews during a battle. He had learned to work hard at home, so he didn’t mind that so much; what he did mind was knowing he was working for thieves and murderers, and he resolved to get away from them as soon as he could. These were evil men, and he could see signs of it each day. The pirates seldom spoke to him and they seemed, for the most part, a humourless lot, bereft of laughter, unless it were after a cruel prank on one of their fellows; William never so much as heard a single ‘Yo, ho, ho’ during his whole time on board, though he did see more than he liked of the famous ‘bottles of rum.’

But there came a day when the Captain took him aside and spoke with him. ‘You’ve worked hard and well,’ he told him. ‘But the time has come, lad, for you to really prove yourself a worthy sailor and become a true member of the crew.

Now as I told you, the Captain had lied to William about his ship’s crew and purpose, telling him they were merely privateers (and indeed the ship bore the brave colours of the Union Jack). Now, the crew had just spotted a famous merchant ship whom no pirate had ever been able to board. And Captain Flintlock proposed a plan to William: William would pretend to be sick, and they would flag down the merchant ship, and ask for help from her ship’s doctor.

‘Why would I do that?” asked William.

‘Well, you see, matey,’ said the Captain, ‘the ship’s doctor on this here craft—fellow by the name of Whitefield—was once a pirate, and he stole some things from me, long ago. I’ll not waste me time in fretting over the gold he took, but it goes hard parting with me old father’s Bible, it does.’

‘He stole your father’s Bible?’ said William.

‘Aye, that he did. Out of spite, I supposed, for what value could the likes of him set on the Holy Book? But I’m hoping you might help me get it back. It’s a black book, with a cross and rose painted real pretty-like on it. And further, I believe this here ship may in reality be a certain French privateer that we’ve been looking for nigh on two years. She’s looted many of His Majesty’s ships, and if these prove to be the same swabs, why, we can take ‘em by surprise.’

Of course, as William already knew, it was Captain Flintlock who was the pirate, planning, no doubt, to plunder the ship and kill its crew; but the Captain did not know that William knew this.

William’s heart thumped in his chest like a bodhrán. If he refused, the Captain would realise he knew the truth, and would probably have him clapped in irons, beaten, or perhaps killed. It’s a good thing, he considered, to owe no debt of truth to thieves and liars; and he thought of Jim Hawkins, playing the part of friend to the sea-faring man with one leg. ‘Yes sir, Captain,’ he said, with a smile, ‘I’ll help in any way I can.’

‘Thunder and Murder!’ said the Captain. ‘I knew you were just the lad for such an important mission.’ And he clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly way and laughed.

But William resolved to think the matter over before the time came.

***

Now this merchant ship was what they called a ‘first-rate’ Man of War, bigger than The Corsair and outfitted with more than a hundred guns. The Captain’s crew flagged the ship down, and ahoyed them until they got an answer; then they brought The Corsair around broadside. ‘We’ve a sick boy here, and our doctor was lost overboard,’ shouted the first mate. ‘Can you help us?’

Admiral Patrick Edwards, captain of the ship, agreed to take William on board and had this done as quickly as could be managed. He then had William carried down to the doctor’s room.
Doctor John Whitefield was a kindly man, and very gentle-spoken. He had William laid on his own bed.

‘Well, you don’t look too sick to me,’ said the doctor, with a smile. ‘Very strange clothes you wear, I must say, though I mean no offence, of course. Now, you just lie quietly while I—’

But William sat up and interrupted him. ‘Doctor, you’ve got to warn the Admiral. That ship I came on—it’s no privateer, but the ship of Captain Jonas Flintlock!’

The Doctor took a long, hard look at William, and believed him. William then told him the Captain’s story about his having taken a Bible from him.

‘That part of the story is actually true, or partly so,’ said the Doctor. ‘I was ship’s doctor for another vessel nearly a year ago, and we were boarded by The Corsair. As it happened, Flintlock and I ended up fighting one another with swords. I knocked him down once, and the Bible fell out of his pocket. But I knew that Bible, for it had belonged to a friend of mine, another doctor, who had been captured by Flintlock a few years ago.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Why, he was marooned, if the stories we’ve heard are true. No one knows where. Well, I snatched up the Bible and told the Captain I’d return this to my friend’s family. I’ve not yet returned home to be able to do so.’ The doctor opened a drawer and took out a Bible. It was black leather with the emblem of Luther’s Rose on the front, and the owner’s initials engraved in gold at the bottom.

‘It was unique, custom-designed by my friend, and I knew it at once,’ said the doctor. ‘I wondered at the time why that old marauder would have kept this. Now that I know he is trying to recover it…well, I shall have to take a closer look at this Bible, and see why Captain Jonas Flintlock thinks it so important!’ The Doctor then rushed out to tell Admiral Edwards what he’d learned.

***

Now Flintlock’s plan had been to open fire with his guns as soon as William returned with the Bible, if he could get it. But having been warned, Admiral Edwards and his men armed and prepared to fight. But Flintlock was a wily old pirate: he had always known there was a danger that William might have found out who he was and warned the ship. So he was prepared. As soon as he saw his enemies running around on deck, he knew what had happened.

‘Thunder and Murder!’ he shouted. ‘The boy has betrayed us! Open fire, men!’ The Corsair still had a slight advantage, but the Captain had lost the element of surprise he had hoped for.

It was a hard, bloody battle, and good men were lost in it. But in the end, thanks to William’s warning, the tide began to turn in favour of the Admiral and his crew, many of whom had already boarded The Corsair. Here, on his own deck, Captain Flintlock was fighting against Admiral Edwards and four of his men; and looking up, he caught sight of Doctor Whitefield, fighting nearby. Knowing that the day was lost, he grew angry. While still fighting with his sword, he pulled out a pistol and aimed it right at the doctor, whose back was to him.

Meanwhile, William (against the doctor’s orders, it must be said) had obtained a pistol and dagger, and had joined the battle, swinging on a rope over to the deck of The Corsair, bullets whistling by him, his heart pounding. He dodged a knife thrown at him by one of the pirates (who had recognised him) and fired his pistol, catching the man in the leg.

Then, he saw Flintlock’s pistol aimed at Doctor Whitefield’s back.

‘Doctor Whitefield! Behind you!’ The doctor jumped out of the way only just in time.

Enraged by his missed shot, and by William’s shouted warning, Captain Flintlock, already shot or cut more than twenty times, had his sword knocked from his hand. ‘Surrender, sir! In God’s name, surrender!’ shouted Admiral Edwards.

‘Curse the child!’ Flintlock shouted, looking straight at William as he spoke; then he pulled his dagger and rushed headlong into the press of his enemies and was killed. So perished this legendary pirate, though he took two more Christian souls with him and wounded Admiral Edwards in his final charge.

***

After the battle, the prisoners secured, and the dead being taken care of, Admiral Edwards gathered his men and spoke to them. He had found seven gold guineas on Flintlock, and had decided to bestow these gold coins as small rewards on those whose bravery had earned them a special recognition. And so he gave these to the second mate, and the master gunner, and even the cook, and two of the able-bodied sailors, and one also to Doctor Whitefield. The final piece he awarded to William himself, for his timely warnings that had saved the ship, as well as the Doctor’s life. But the Doctor later gave his own coin to William as well, in gratitude for saving his life. William smiled at the shiny gold coins in his hands. Real pirate treasure!

Besides, as the Doctor said, ‘I already have all I want from Captain Flintlock: this Bible. I wonder why he wanted it so badly?’

***

William then joined Admiral Edwards, the Doctor, and others, as they searched through Captain Flintlock’s ship for anything else of value. They found little in the way of gold or other treasures. But William soon slipped away from the others, and found his way into the Captain’s quarters.

There it was: the little keyhole. He took the golden key from his pocket and looked at it. He wanted to stay, but he knew that, if he could get home, he’d better do so. By this time, everyone must be terribly worried about him. So he tried the key in the lock, and opened the door. This time, he saw no island, but what looked like a mirror image of the room he was in. He walked through the door and closed it behind him.

***

He felt as if he’d walked straight into the same room he’d just left (which of course he had). But the modern sign hanging in the room, ‘Captain Flintlock’s Quarters,’ and the broken sword on a rack on the wall, told him he was back in his own time and place.

To his surprise, he saw the tour group just ahead, still inching out of the room. There was the same little boy with the video game, still not listening to the Docent. As for Mr Benbow, his voice could be heard in the next room. Somehow, William had managed to arrive back at the same moment he’d left, and no one would be missing him after all.

Well, almost no one. He saw the curly head of his little brother, Nathanael, peep around the corner just ahead. ‘Come on, William!’ he called. William smiled and quickly rejoined the others.

***

Now, outside The Corsair once more, the old Docent concluded the tour. ‘One other interesting fact,’ he said. ‘As I told you before, the Captain had hidden his directions to the treasure in a Bible.’

William perked up a bit: he hadn’t heard that part.

‘And,’ continued Mr Benbow, ‘the Bible was recovered by Doctor Whitefield, ship’s doctor of The Grandfather, the ship that finally defeated The Corsair, and brought Flintlock to justice. By examining words in the Bible that Flintlock had underlined, as well as mysterious notes he’d written in the margins, the good Doctor was able to work out the location of the treasure.’

So that’s it, said William to himself, nodding his head, his eyes wide and intense. That’s why Captain Flintlock waited to attack. I wondered about that – why not just open fire once he’d got broadside of them? It was because he was hoping to get the Bible back first, with the secret to the treasure, before it got destroyed in the battle, or someone figured out what was in it.

Mr Benbow continued. ‘Doctor Whitefield became a wealthy man. But he always said, to the end of his days, that he owed both his life and wealth, under God, to a young boy who had come, he said, from The Corsair itself, and had disappeared soon after the battle. He never would say anymore about it, except that the boy wore strange clothes.’

William felt very strange himself when he heard this.

‘But,’ said Mr Benbow, ‘I think it’s at least possible that it was the same boy the Captain had been talking about in his last words: “curse the child!” It’s quite a mystery, that’s for sure. But that brings me to the very last part of our adventure today.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out a beautiful, but old, coin. The tour group murmured in approval as he showed it around to them.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is a real English guinea taken from Captain Flintlock’s treasure. For over forty years, I have offered it to each group of folks who has come to see our old ship, as a reward to anyone who can answer my question. It’s a very hard question, to be sure, but it’s also a very good reward. In forty years, no one has ever gotten it right, and, as you can see, I still have the coin, which I have never had to give away. Here’s the question: old Captain Flintlock had a favourite catchphrase he liked to say whenever he was surprised or angry or…well, any time, really. What did the Captain like to say?’

The people of the tour group were thinking hard, but it was obvious no one knew the answer. William’s heart began beating rapidly: he knew the answer, of course, though he somehow felt he’d had an unfair advantage. Should he tell what he knew, and claim his prize? As he said this, his hand went into his pocket, where he felt the golden coins given him by Admiral Edwards and Doctor Whitefield, still there.

William cleared his throat. ‘Thunder and Murder,’ he said in a thick, nervous voice, gripping the coins in his pocket tightly.

The tour group gasped at this, and no one was more surprised than William’s parents. No one, that is, but the old Docent, Mr Benbow. His face showed such astonishment that he looked a bit comical. But soon he broke into a smile, and shook his head with curiosity and wonder.

‘That,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘is exactly right, young fellow, though how on earth you could have known that is beyond me. Most scholars don’t even know that little fact, which I discovered in a rare book I found many years ago. Well, well. It seems this golden coin will now leave my hands at last.’ He laughed, and there was genuine delight in his voice as he spoke these words, and handed William the coin.

The people clapped and cheered for William, who felt a bit embarrassed.

‘But might I ask how you knew the answer, my friend?’ said Mr Benbow.

William kicked nervously at a pebble on the ground. ‘Oh,’ he said at last, ‘it’s just something I picked up somewhere.’

***

Now as we finish our story, I should tell you that William stayed around to talk to Mr Benbow afterwards. As the sun was setting, he told the Docent the whole story, and gave back the key, which of course did not belong to him; and Mr Benbow’s coin, which he felt he didn’t really deserve. ‘And besides,’ he said, ‘I have these.’ And he showed him the golden guineas that Admiral Edwards and Doctor Whitefield had given him. And Mr Benbow did not laugh at him, or tell him to stop playing games – indeed, he did not say anything at all for a few minutes, but stood thinking, and sometimes looking up at William or back at the ship. Finally, he smiled, and said, ‘I believe you, William.’ And they went back to the Captain’s quarters to try the key, but it did not work this time. But Mr Benbow was not discouraged by this, for he had a sort of an idea. He put the key away, and the next year, when the anniversary of the capture of The Corsair came round again, he tried it once more. This time it worked. And so it was that Mr Benbow learned that the key only opened the door on the anniversary of Captain Flintlock’s death. Before he went through the door, he mailed two letters, both of which he had written days before. The first was to William, to tell him all about it. The second was written to such surviving family as he had (he had never married and had no children), saying that he was off to do a bit of exploring in the world, and did not expect to be in touch again. And it is a fact that Mr Benbow was never seen after that. He left all his books to William. And years later, after he had grown up, William found an old book in Mr Benbow’s collection. In it, he discovered a list of all those who had served on Captain Flintlock’s crew. And among the names, he found this entry: ‘James Benbow, Quartermaster.’

THE END

Another Birthday Poem

2010-07-20T19:15:00.000-04:00

Continuing with posting things I've written for William (whose birthday was yesterday, you'll recall), here's a poem I wrote for William two years ago, when he turned five. His mother put on a "Robin Hood" themed birthday party for him; thus the subject matter of this poem. If you read yesterday's poem, you will note, after reading this one, a theme of nobility running through them. My heart's desire is that my children will be noble - by which I mean godly, Christlike, honorable, chivalrous, brave - now, not just when they grow up. It seems we always expect kids to be bad, but hope they'll grow up to be good. Then we're surprised when they don't.

I am nowhere near the father I want to be; I am merely sharing my desires, the things I am aiming for. And what I aim for is children who, young though they be, can withstand such pressures and temptations as their tender ages may encounter. That they will not be deceived by the same foolish lies that other children their age believe; that they will not be enamored of the same pathetic music and pop stars of their peers; that they will be repulsed by the same evils that attract many children of our culture. That they will love with fierce loyalty all that is good, true, and beautiful; and, of necessity, that they will hate all that is evil, false, and ugly. That is the motivation behind my writing for them. In this poem, I hope to provide another hero to inspire William's loyalty: Robin Hood, defender of the weak, loyal to the true king, enemy of the tyrant. These things I want and expect and look for in my children, even now, in their childhood. May God in His kindness grant these things to my family and to yours.

William Hood
A Poem For William on His Fifth Birthday

His King’s away, or so they say,
Yet I am not so sure…
That knight in black—is Richard back
From yon Crusading tour?

But since he left the throne bereft
Of lawful king and lord,
His brother John has set upon
The land with tax and sword.

Now Robin Hood, in green Sherwood,
Has taken vows to save
All poor and cursed—but fight and worst
The tyrant and the knave.

The Church—God’s Truth! he loves, forsooth,
As Friar Tuck has said
(Shalt bid that priest hold rite and feast
His Marian to wed!).

No more depart, great Lion-heart—
Return and hear us sing
Of one so good, our Robin Hood,
So loyal to his King.

***

Your King’s away, or so some say,
But don’t you be so sure!
Do you be good, my William Hood,
Be holy, brave, and pure.

Defend the weak, God’s blessing seek,
And knightly honour win;
Give every breath to fight to death
The tyrannies of sin.

In honour, dare, for Lady Fair,
And never trust to luck;
Your Marian you’ll marry in
The church of Friar Tuck!

With horn and drum, that Day will come—
Your King will reappear
To smite the foe, and overthrow
The overlords of fear.

Be valiant, son, till all is done,
Keep close your bow of wood;
An outlaw in this world of sin,
My noble William Hood.

By Alan-a-Dad

William's Birthday Poem

2010-07-20T00:08:00.000-04:00

Today is the seventh birthday of my oldest son, William Alfred Alexander Newsom. Some years back I began a tradition of writing either a poem, song, or story for my wife and children on their birthdays. Throughout this week, I’ll be posting such poems and stories written for William (and maybe for some of the others). We’ll begin with this one, written for William’s seventh birthday today. This one is also for Nathanael, my younger son, who turned four on May 3. We’re doing combined birthday parties: one each year for the girls, one for the boys. So this year I combined Nathanael’s and William’s poems into one for the brothers.

As a side note, I encourage parents (especially Dads) to do something like this. You don’t have to be a great poet (if you read any poetry, you will quickly see that I am not) or storyteller. But just do this: write a simple story, whether in verse or prose, with one or more of your children as the protagonist (hero). Put them in situations in which they must choose to be noble in the face of temptations to do otherwise. You would be surprised how even the simplest tales take on new meaning to your children when they begin to see themselves as characters in the story. This is an important way to build a storytelling culture in your home, and, by doing so, to build character in the lives of your children. In a story-shaped home, the virtues, the fruits of the Spirit that you wish to see them develop will begin to seep into their bones. They will know them: not just the rote knowledge of memorization (important though that is), but a knowledge that is woven into their very souls.

Anyway, happy birthday to my son, William, who is growing into the noble boy I have always dreamed about.

Band of Brothers
A Poem for Nathanael, on the Occasion of His Fourth Birthday (May 3, 2010); and William, on the Occasion of his Seventh Birthday (July 19, 2010)
Given With Love, By Your Father

Nathanael:
Well, here we are, just me and you,
There’s only two of us.
We boys, I mean: there’s only two;
Two brothers: we are small and few;
Whatever can we hope to do?

William:
Now, don’t despair, don’t fuss!

It’s true that we’re not army-size:
We can’t besiege a town.
But like the knight who charges, dies,
With noble luster in his eyes,
That gold and silver never buys;
And takes the foeman down.

So you and I are richly blessed
With courage from our Lord;
I’ve seen you, brother, sorely pressed,
Yet rise with valor, meet the test;
And you and I shall meet this Quest,
Come fire, death, or sword.

Nathanael:
Thanks, brother; now I’m set to try
To take the heights above;
For just two brothers—you and I—
By God’s dear grace may crack the sky;
We may not win but we can die,
To save that which we love.

As Jonathan and his servant went
Against a mighty crew;
So now two brothers have been sent,
To force the wicked to relent;
‘Til all heart-treasures have been spent;
And hearts are piercéd through.

William:
Well said, my brother! Now look to
The sword of steel you wear;
Whatever can we hope to do?

Nathanael:
Nay, here were are, we happy few:
A band of brothers, small, but true;
A noble cross to bear.

Narrator:
Then bursting through the door to Hell,
Where Sorcery held sway,
Two brothers with a mighty yell,
Sent serpents spinning, beasts pell-mell;
And drave the Devil, tales do tell,
And nobly won the day.

Thus set they free their sisters twain,
Who, captured in the wood,
Refused the wizard’s cup to drain;
To keep their hearts from every stain;
And were enchanted for their pain,
For clinging to the Good.

And now the four walked hand in hand,
Walked in the dying gloam;
And knew not all that yet was planned:
Of twinkling stars and grains of sand;
That more would join their little band,
To grace their little home.

Baptism Day

2010-07-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

DELMAR: "Me and Pete been baptized and saved."

EVERETT: "Baptism! You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers."

So speaks George Clooney's character Ulysses Everett McGill in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? But the story proves the wisdom of Pete and Delmar, and the foolishness of Everett. And Everett does get baptized in the end, even if it's rather against his will.

Our culture still scorns Baptism today, laughing at the thought that a bit of water can be in any way significant or efficacious. Today we had the privilege to celebrate two "dumb" baptisms: my nephew Landan, son of my brother Chris and sister-in-law Angie; and Aidan, son of my cousin Stefanie and her husband Doug. Many of you, especially old friends who are reading this on Facebook, will join me in rejoicing over these baptisms, though you may feel a bit strange when I tell you that both of these boys are between the ages of 2 and 5 months old.

I won't use an occasion of great joy to argue against my Baptist brothers and sisters. After all, I grew up Baptist, and have a great deal of love and respect for that noble part of Christendom. I simply offer you a passage of Scripture, and an invitation to discuss this further with any who wish to do so:

"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children..." (Acts 2:38-39, emphasis mine).

Blessings to Landan and Aidan on this day, on which God has claimed them as His own. In their baptisms, God the Father, just as He did on the occasion of another baptism, has said, "this is my beloved son...." Blessings to their parents as they begin the work of believing the Father.

Something I Need to Remember Every Day

2010-07-10T11:50:00.000-04:00

This brief scene recently unfolded with my four-year old, Nathanael, who came to me with his arms raised, wanting to be picked up:

NATHANAEL: Daddy, I need you.

ME (after picking him up): What do you need, son?

NATHANAEL: Just you.

Children Who Love the Standard

2010-07-08T12:46:00.000-04:00

What is the practical goal of parental discipline? Obviously, the Christian goal is children who love God, and live holy lives. But we set up a Standard of expected behavior for our kids: with respect to that Standard, what is our goal? Here’s the best answer I’ve heard:

“The goal is not to get children to conform to the standard: the goal is to get children to love the standard.”

Thus Doug Wilson, in more than one place, I believe (don’t have the source at hand). And I agree wholeheartedly. We want our children to love the Standard of goodness, truth, and beauty we set before them. When they do, we know we truly have their hearts. We know they are not just outwardly conforming, but inwardly seething (“just wait until I’m old enough to blow this place!”). It’s fairly easy to get kids to outwardly obey. It’s much harder to get them to love obedience, to love being good, for its own sake. The question of course is, “how do we accomplish this noble task?”

I wrestled long with this, agreeing with the principle, but somewhat uncertain how to put it into practice. Here then are some beginning thoughts towards this end.

First, a thesis: the goal of children who love the Standard is achieved through wise, loving, consistent discipline. This is obviously simplistic, but it will serve as a starting place. It is based on the observation that children cannot love what they do not know. They have to see that we love the Standard, first. But if we are lax, complacent, inconsistent in our discipline, they will never, ever believe that we love the Standard—because we don’t. If we did, we would show it by getting up off the couch the first time the child disobeys. Instead, too many of us go with, “If I have to tell you again…” or “I’m counting to three, and then…” Such language is the hallmark of those who do not truly love the Standard.

Then, too, if we do not achieve at least conformity to the Standard—if we do not have generally well-behaved children, and peace in the home—they will never even see the Standard in actual practice. Many children grow up never having even seen the Standard of their parents lived out. But if we achieve discipline and obedience, then, even if the child does not at first like it, he will, in time, grow to love it, for he will live it; and in the living, he will know peace and joy, interrupted only by the occasional need for discipline. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, emphasis mine). Peace and harmony will be the pattern, with problems only an occasional exception.

Children will only love the Standard if their parents love it first. Wise, loving, consistent discipline shows that the parents do love the Standard, and creates an environment in which children can see the Standard lived out.

Independence and the Last Bastion of Freedom

2010-07-03T13:00:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow is Independence Day in America, but my family will be celebrating it today with a cookout, games, maybe some music, and hopefully some good political and historical discussion. As we head for the ultimate American celebration of freedom, I find some thoughts brewing under my cap with regards to what I call the Last Bastion of Freedom in America—Home Education.

This may sound like a rash or extreme statement, but I stand by it. Here’s why.

First, though, know that I am writing from the perspective of a conservative (by which I mean “believing”) Christian. Conservative in theology. As to politics, I am not a groupie for the Republicans, but I could at least possibly vote for some of them, while my Christian faith would by no means allow me to vote for a Democrat, at this point in history. I don’t like the historical context of Right/Left distinctions, but have no problem also being labeled as politically “conservative,” provided the word is not used as interchangeable with “Republican.”

Most of my family and close friends are also conservative in theology and politics, including many Christian acquaintances from a number of different local churches. Which is why I have a hard time understanding why so many of these conservative Christians send their children to be educated by liberals.

But if their children are enrolled in public schools, that is exactly what is happening.

There are two responses which my friends often make: first, they say that the teachers in their kids’ schools are not liberals, and in some cases are even conservative Christians themselves. No doubt this is true. But these teachers don’t make the rules, and they don’t run the system. The institution of public schooling in America is radical and socialistic, and has been since the days of Unitarian Horace Mann and Humanist John Dewey (see former public school teacher and New York teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto’s books The Underground History of American Education and Dumbing Us Down for more on this).

The teachers may be Christians, but they have to teach their subjects as if they are unbelievers. As if God does not exist. They cannot teach as if Christ rules the world, and so their students (including all the conservative kids) are being taught that God is (at best) unnecessary to the study of history, English, math, science, or literature. Some of them are also being taught to sing praise songs to Obama; but even those who are not are still being taught to accept the socialistic ideas of Obama. But that’s been happening for many years, long before Obama was even heard of—how else have we transformed from the old America of the Eisenhower days to the crass, immoral, government-worshipping society we are now? The answer would not have surprised Mann and Dewey: public schools.

Second, my Christian friends say that their kids are “missionaries” in the public schools. I do like the courage behind this idea (though I wonder why they never send them to secular private schools—somehow it’s always the free schools to whom God calls these missionaries). But the simple answer to this is that the Bible does not allow you to send your children to be educated by atheists and agnostics. In Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6, God requires a specifically Christian education for Christian children, so sending your children to officially agnostic public schools is forbidden by Scripture. More on that in a future post, but if you’re interested in reading on the subject now, I can recommend Douglas Wilson’s Excused Absence as a good place to start. Further, would you send your kids to a foreign country to be missionaries? No, because they need training first, right? Training that can only be obtained via a Christian education. Then they will be strong enough to be missionaries; as it is, they are growing up and becoming just as secular and faithless as their friends at school. Why are we surprised?

If you Republicans out there reading this want your children to grow up to become good socialist Democrats, then by all means leave them in public schools. That’s what these schools were designed for. Otherwise, get them out, now. The Homeschool movement has long recognized this, and that is one reason we have chosen to take the burden of teaching our children on ourselves—to preserve liberty for future generations.

The radicals on the Left have birth-controlled and aborted their children out of existence, for the most part. They are, quite literally, a dying breed, at least when it comes to birth rates. They need (and they know this) a next generation to pass on their ideas to, or they will be gone in a generation or so. But since they don’t have these kids at home (the average radical liberal house is not exactly ringing with the laughter of children), they have to get them somewhere. And of course where they are getting them is from the homes of Christian conservatives (among others). That’s really a sweet deal for them: they not only gain soldiers for their side, but they gut our armies at the same time.

Some may say, “my children won’t turn liberal; my children won’t abandon the faith;” but that’s a pipe dream. According to a number of research surveys, some two thirds of kids from conservative churches are leaving the church on reaching adulthood. Worse, most of them state that they first began to doubt their faith, not when they got to their first Darwinian college biology course, but long before that, back in high school or junior high (see Ken Ham and Brit Beemer’s book Already Gone for an in-depth analysis of one such study).

Maybe your kid will beat the odds. Maybe not. But you’re playing a risky game: it’s hard to undo the damage done by six to eight hours of godless instruction, not to mention the overwhelming influence of youth culture and peer pressure. You’re risking your child’s very soul; and again, the Bible stands against rendering to Caesar the things that our God’s: namely, our children.

The education establishment as a whole stands firmly against home education (and Christian schools, but that’s a subject for another post), because they believe that children belong, not to parents, not to God, but to the State. You who fear the government may come for your money, your health care, your guns, your freedom of speech—does the government already own your most precious possession: your children? If your little ones are enrolled in government-run public schools, the answer is yes.

In government schools, kids are taught that government is the solution to every problem, whether crime, health care, education, or the environment. They are trained up to be loyal, unquestioning servants of the State. But the Home Education movement, by and large, is a Christian and conservative effort, and we teach our children that God alone is the Savior of the world, and the answer to all our problems. We teach them the true history of America, both the good and the bad. We teach them that the liberties we enjoy are a direct blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that men who have not been made free by Christ cannot build or sustain a free society.

Your children cannot learn that in a 30-minute damage control session every night over supper (if you even eat together as a family, which is itself a disappearing custom). Those who hate God and hate freedom control the education of the next generation: this is why I say that Home Education is the Last Bastion of Freedom in America.

So I would ask all my conservative and Christian friends out there to join me in celebrating Independence Day in a new way this year: declare your independence from liberal, statist education, and give your children the blessings of the Last Bastion of Freedom. But do it before it’s too late.

If you have questions on this subject, leave a comment, send me a message through Facebook, or email me at williamchadnewsom@gmail.com.

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

ACCS Conference

2010-06-20T18:52:00.000-04:00

Just returned yesterday from a magnificent time in Durham at the ACCS conference. I had a vendor table there, selling copies of my books, as well as CDs of The Newsom Kids Radio Show, a new production by my kids, my wife, and myself. I’ll post more about that in the near future.

For those who don’t know (and why don’t you, perzactly?), ACCS is the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. This organization was founded by Doug Wilson, who I’ve been privileged to work with on a few occasions, most recently on Omnibus V, due out in August (more on that in a future post).

Plenary speakers for this conference were Doug, along with the always brilliant George Grant, and the always practical Matt Whitling; the keynote speaker was Os Guiness, probably the best-known author and speaker there. Multiple workshops were also conducted, led by the plenary speakers, and a host of others, including Marlin and Laurie Detweiler, publishers of Omnibus through their Veritas Press, and N. D. Wilson, author of the must-read Random House fantasy series, 100 Cupboards.

Wilson’s two workshops were the best, in my opinion, but that’s probably my writer’s perspective coming out. Wilson is always entertaining, always engaging. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes from his two workshops:

“Most of the pop stars out there today singing dirty pop songs got their musical training in the church singing Amazing Grace. In a weird sort of way, we’re further ahead culturally than we think.”

“Life choices are aesthetic choices: ‘which choice will make a better story? Which will make me a better character?’”

“’The Highwayman’ and Romeo and Juliet are just prepping kids for Mormon teen vampire fiction.”

How I wish every Christian family out there weeping over Twilight could hear those two lectures!

Anyway, it was a great time. Also present was the fine Christian singer and songwriter Jamie Soles, who we were privileged to have stay with us during the three days of the conference. If you haven't looked into his music for kids, you really should. His tagline says it all: "music for real children."

I’ll be blogging more about the conference and related topics in the near future, God willing, so stay tuned.

Veritas Press Scholar's Academy

2010-05-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

And here's a convenient page with links to both parts of the Veritas Press Scholar's Academy audio.

Veritas Scholar's Academy Author Discussion Part I

Veritas Scholar's Academy Author Discussion Part II

Veritas Press Scholar's Academy Author Discussion Part II

2010-05-14T00:10:00.001-04:00

Veritas Scholars Academy Author Discussion by William Chad Newsom
Download now or listen on posterous

Newsom_Veritas_Scholars_Academy_Author_Discussion_II.mp3 (23456 KB)

And here is Part II of the Veritas Press Scholar's Academy discussion, as detailed in the last post.

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

Veritas Press Scholar's Academy Author Discussion I

2010-05-13T23:55:00.001-04:00

W C Newsom Discussion - 12/10/2009 21:02 by Veritas
Download now or listen on posterous

Newsom_Veritas_Scholars_Academy_Author_Discussion_I.mp3 (13697 KB)

Marlin Detweiler and the good folks over at Veritas Press have been jolly decent to me as a writer. They have carried my books in their catalog for years, and have graciously invited me to write for a couple of volumes in their outstanding Omnibus history / literature / theology series (I plan to do a post or two devoted to the Omnibus series in the near future). Last year, Marlin called and asked if I would participate in their series of author discussions for the Veritas Press Scholar's Academy. Now, I also plan to devote a post or two to the Scholar's Academy some time, but in brief, this is an online classroom environment where homeschool families can get instruction in everything from Latin to Logic to Rhetoric to Omnibus to even things like Worldview and Film. So for those of you who are looking for a solution as to how you can give your kids an education in those subjects you feel are beyond you (and we all have some of those), while keeping them at home, I highly recommend the Veritas Press Scholar's Academy as an excellent option.

Anyway, several times a year, they bring in an author for a discussion with the students. My turn at bat came in early December. It was really a fun hour: after some introductory matter, the students, who were listening live in the "classroom," began to type their questions in a chat box. Then Bruce Etter, host for the evening (and administrator of the Scholar's Academy), asked the question, and all kinds of good discussion would ensue. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the kids asked some really interesting questions that I don't normally get in the interviews (few though they be) that I have done.

So for an introduction to the Veritas Press Scholar's Academy, and for a really interesting discussion on books, stories, Tolkien and Lewis, and lots more, take a listen. This is Part I, and I will post Part II separately.

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

St Anne's Pub

2010-05-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

So back in 2005, when Crown of Fire and Talking of Dragons first came out, I wasn't exactly burning up the interview circuit. I did a few things: a local TV show, our local newspaper, and such like. One of my favourites was with St Anne's Pub, a very entertaining theology and culture audio journal out of Washington State. They do interviews, stories, reviews, and lots more, on subjects ranging from the economy to chocolate to fatherhood to death. In this interview, we talked about myths and fairy tales, dragons and books, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, and about how to build storytelling cultures in our homes. We even talked about Santa Claus. Here are the links to all three parts of the interview:

St Anne's Pub Part I

St Anne's Pub Part II

St Anne's Pub Part III

St Anne's Pub III

2010-05-10T21:18:00.001-04:00

Lewistolkein3
Download now or listen on posterous

Chad_on_St_Annes_Pub_3.mp3 (11434 KB)

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

St Anne's Pub II

2010-05-10T20:26:00.001-04:00

Lewistolkein2
Download now or listen on posterous

Chad_on_St_Annes_Pub_2.mp3 (13556 KB)

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

St Anne's Pub I

2010-05-10T20:07:00.001-04:00

Lewistolkein1
Download now or listen on posterous

Chad_on_St_Annes_Pub_1.mp3 (16046 KB)

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

Media Page

2010-05-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

This is just a landing page for all the media events in one convenient location. This is a good place to start if you're wanting to know more about my work and writing, or why I do what I do.

St Anne's Pub (audio interview)

The Greensboro News and Record (newspaper interview)

Veritas Scholar's Academy (audio/chat interview)

The Good Morning Show (TV interview)

Connections (newsletter interview)

Contact

2010-05-03T18:44:00.000-04:00

For more information, or to have me speak at your church, homeschool group, or other event, email me at williamchadnewsom@gmail.com.

Talking of Dragons

2010-04-26T14:44:00.003-04:00

Here's some information on my book, Talking of Dragons: The Children's Books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. You can also buy the book in our online store.

'This readable book is excellent for parents who wish to have a deep quality of communication with their children. It will also be very useful for librarians and primary school teachers, and those in churches who have responsibilities with children. The author has a firm grasp of the books of Tolkien and Lewis for children, and why they are such powerful examples of Christian writing for today’s world. William Chad Newsom reminds us to savour and treasure the work of two great storytellers who were masters of incarnating Christian meaning in powerful and enduring symbols..." (Colin Duriez, author of The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Story of a Friendship, Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, A Field Guide to Narnia, and The C.S. Lewis Chronicles)

"Mr. Newsom offers us many excellent insights into the minds of Tolkien and Lewis. Most importantly, Newsom understands the meaning of story for a Christian…Stories—along with words—contain immense power, and we should use that power, aided by Grace, wisely. When we do so, Newsom reminds us, we pursue the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. And, the words we read—for good or ill—have power…Therefore, we must always be vigilant—as parents, teachers, and Christians—about the books we read, the books our children read, and the books our friends read. As long as we rely on the Grace of the Logos, we will do well and good, and the whole of western and Christian civilization may very well be renewed, refreshed, and reformed. Armed with imagination and devout dedication to Christ, Tolkien, Lewis, and Newsom are leading the way. Swords drawn, let us follow…and slay dragons." (From the foreword by Bradley J. Birzer, author of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth)

"William Chad Newsom has accomplished some very important work with this book. Many modern Christian parents do not grasp the importance of story to their children's spiritual and moral health. But not just any story will do. Using the stories of two of the twentieth century's most gifted and important story-tellers, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Newsom provides very shrewd and practical help to parents who want to grow in their love of story, along with their children." (Douglas Wilson, pastor of Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho, author of Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Christian Education, Reforming Marriage, and the CD study series, What I Learned in Narnia)

Talking of Dragons is available via Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, or your favorite online book store. You can also buy the book in our online store.

The Crown of Fire

2010-04-26T14:41:00.001-04:00

Here's a little information on my first book, The Crown of Fire, which is a young readers' historical novel based on the life of Polycarp, second century bishop and martyr. You can also buy the book in our online store.

"A stirring read for young people." (Reformation Heritage Books)

"...very well researched and blends fact with fiction to make an exciting adventure story..." (Evangelicals Now)

"...well written and chock full of fascinating history and well researched facts." (Catherine Mackenzie, Children's Editor, Christian Focus Publications)

"In working with a highschooler for English and world history, this book provided perfect reading material, especially the spiritual aspect of the book. She is racing through the book and gaining a good bit of Church history at the same time! I'm excited to add more books to her reading pallet." (Reader review from Grace and Truth Books)

"Reading Polycarp: The Crown of Fire was well worth it...Upon reading the end of the book early this morning, even after having slept only a few hours in the last few days and with a myriad of thoughts about school planning rolling around in my head like steel balls in a pinball machine, I was captivated by the dialog Newsom powerfully crafted between Polycarp and his earthly judge, Statius Quadratus...Consider adding Polycarp: The Crown of Fire (Newsom) to your personal, or school, reading list." (Reader review from Seasonal Soundings)

The Crown of Fire is available on Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, or your favorite online book store. You can also buy the book in our online store.

Connections

2010-04-23T23:30:00.000-04:00

By day, I am a mild-mannered communications specialist on the training and development team for a life insurance company. They're a good bunch of folks to work with, not least because they seem to take a real interest in one's life outside the workday. As an example, when my colleagues heard that I had published a couple of books, they showed support in several ways, including setting up a couple of in-house book signings, and by publishing the article below in The Connection, an in-house newsletter.

This dates back to 2006, I believe, but may be helpful to those new to this blog who may want to know what it's all about. So, in the bio category, here it is (thanks to Liz Plummer for a fine article and for permission to reprint):

Spotlight on William Chad Newsom, Author

We’re all familiar with New Year’s resolutions and the process of setting personal and professional goals. Some goals are perennial favorites – lose weight, exercise more; others are a bit more unusual. William Chad Newsom, a Customer Service Training Specialist, set a personal goal five years ago, to work on getting a book published. And he’s succeeded – twice, so far.

Chad has always had a strong interest in storytelling, and has been writing poetry, songs, short stories, and novels since childhood. After completing some projects and submitting manuscripts for consideration, he researched a publishing website and noticed that they were looking for authors to complete a series of youth books on Christian martyrs. He submitted a proposal for a book on the life of Polycarp. The publisher asked for a few chapters, liked what they saw, and sent him a contract to complete the book. The result is Polycarp: The Crown of Fire.

Next, Chad ventured into Narnia and The Shire:

“I had an idea to write a book on C.S. Lewis and his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Originally it was an idea for a biography, and that idea ended up changing a lot. I’ve been a fan of both writers since I was a kid, and I enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings and some of their other writings – they both wrote in a pretty wide range of categories.” Chad wrote an entire manuscript called Talking of Dragons: The Children’s Books of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and submitted it to the publisher for review. This non-fiction book explores The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, as well as some lesser-known works by both authors. Chad also discusses the authors’ personal friendship and the Christian themes that wind through their collective works.

“I’ve described it as a family book, in the belief that one of the best ways to teach our children is through good stories, and therefore that we ought to try to create a culture of storytelling in our homes. This book takes the children’s writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and uses them as a starting place. They’re a great place to start; these authors lived only a few decades ago and are pretty accessible to modern readers. And they’re a good starting place to go from there to get into some other great tales and make that a great feature of family life. The book takes these stories and introduces them to families. At the end of every chapter we have some family activities, suggestions for ways to take these stories and let them spark creativity in the home, to get kids interested in writing their own stories or creating other works of art, doing things with the family.”

Some writers spend their entire adult lives trying, without success, to sell a manuscript. How did Chad manage to get 32 articles and two books published? Apparently, it’s not as easy as he makes it seem: “It’s a process of much rejection and a little bit of success. You have to do a lot of homework, you have to dig into what’s out there, which publishers publish what kind of book, what their requirements are for submission of a manuscript. You have to know what kind of book you’re writing, who publishes it, and you just have to be fairly diligent in sending out manuscripts. I remember reading about one writer who sent a book to 26 different publishers and got rejected every time, and the 27th sent him a contract.”

Chad recently completed a contribution to Omnibus, a series of books that Chad describes as “a classical school literature curriculum.” Veritas Press will publish Omnibus III, including Chad’s contribution, later this year [Note: this was in 2006; Omnibus V is currently in the works]. In addition, he’s also working on a series of “board books” – those short, colorful cardboard books for toddlers. “Even little kids can understand stories and the flow of a narrative – people don’t give them enough credit. I’m writing a series of board books on the great legends, everything from Robin Hood to St. George and the Dragon, told on a very simple level, just as an introduction, and then maybe in a few more years, they can graduate to a more thorough rendering of the story.” And Chad is working, along with his father, on his first adult novel, which is in the very early planning stages.

Chad has also found time to create his own website, called [Talking of Dragons]. This site features a variety of articles and interviews, including an interview with John Granger, author of Looking for God in Harry Potter, which explores Christian themes in J.K. Rowling’s series of Harry Potter books.

-- Liz Plummer

Greensboro News and Record

2010-04-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

Here is an article from our local paper, The Greensboro News and Record, for which I was interviewed. The article came out just before the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe hit theatres, and the reporter asked me many questions regarding the Christian theology behind the Narnian tales. It was a great opportunity to talk about things often left undiscussed, particularly in a secular publication. Joe Killian, a reporter for the Life section of the newspaper, interviewed me regarding my book Talking of Dragons, the upcoming Narnia movie, teaching Christian doctrine to children through fairy tales, the Harry Potter stories, and more. This article was run on 6 December, 2005, as the centrepiece of the paper's Life section. The entire text of the article is included below, with one correction: the copy editor at the paper confounded the terms "incantational" and "invocational," and I have altered that here.

Article published Dec 6, 2005
Narnia's message to young people
By Joe Killian
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO -- When is a children's story more than a children's story? When it's "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe."

This week, the film version of C.S. Lewis' book will premiere in Greensboro, and excitement over the movie -- a fantasy epic on the level of the Academy Award-winning "Lord of the Rings" films -- has sparked renewed interest in the original books.

There's plenty of anticipation (and some controversy) in the Christian community, where the books are often praised as religious allegories. But in a new book, one Triad author explains why the Narnia books, like most great children's literature, are more than heavy-handed morality tales.

"There's no denying these are Christian works," said William Chad Newsom, author of "Talking of Dragons: The Children's Books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis."

"Lewis was very clear on that. But they're also enormously popular books and have been for years. I think it's true that a non-Christian moviegoing audience will get something out of this, too. The idea of facing danger with courage, of overcoming sorrow with love and compassion -- these are universal things."

Newsom's book takes a look at the way in which Tolkien and Lewis -- fantasy authors who were also good friends -- used elements of traditional fairy tales to breathe new life into biblical stories. Although Newsom said the books are first and foremost great stories, he said they're also good tools to help parents talk with their children about spirituality.

The book, the first in Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series, is the story of a group of English children who travel through a magical wardrobe into the land of Narnia. The children join forces with Aslan, a magical lion, to defeat the evil White Witch and save Narnia. Lewis intended the story to be a thinly veiled retelling of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, complete with references to God, Jesus, Judas and St. Peter.

"Lewis' friend, (the author) Dorothy L. Sayers, always said that the problem with teaching children the gospels and the story of Jesus is that we have, over the years, made the most exciting story of all time the most boring," said Newsom.

"Lewis thought that if he could take Christian stories and strip them of their stained glass and Sunday school associations, he could get children to understand the emotions they were supposed to take from the Christ story."

Throughout Lewis' life he exchanged letters with fans -- many of them children. Once, said Newsom, Lewis got a letter from a mother who wrote that her son was distraught. After reading Lewis' books, she said, her son worried he loved Aslan more than Jesus. Lewis wrote back that her son should not worry -- if he understood his love for Aslan, he understood the way he should love Jesus.

It is, according to some parents, a phenomenon that's still happening now."We have read all the Narnia books with our oldest children, and we're doing it again with our youngest," said Margaret Hanes, a Greensboro mother of three. "You'd be amazed how quickly they pick up on the spirituality in the books without any help from an adult. It makes it easier and a lot more fun to talk to them about God and Jesus than giving them a lecture on what they should believe. It helps them understand that on their own, through a story they enjoy."

Hanes was just one of many Narnia fans at a Greensboro Barnes & Noble where handsome reissues of all the Narnia books are on display in advance of the movie.

"With the movie coming out, I believe they're going to be hot Christmas items," said Susan Carroll, a bookseller at the store. "We do have people coming in asking for them, and we're selling a number of different Lewis titles, including all the Narnia books in one volume."

There has been some controversy over recent movies based on children's books, such as "The Hobbit" and the Harry Potter series, that use magic, witches and wizards to teach moral lessons to children. Ironically, explicitly Christian works, such as the Narnia series, are sometimes lumped into lists of books with "occult" messages. But, said Newsom, fairy tales historically have used veiled Christian symbols and morals to teach children right from wrong.

"I think part of the problem some Christians have with magic in stories like these is in differentiating between magics," Newsom said. "There's a very good book called 'Looking for God in Harry Potter' in which (Christian writer) John Granger explains the difference between 'invocational magic' and 'incantational magic.' When someone in a story is doing invocational magic they are calling upon dark spirits in a Faustian deal to gain powers through magic. Incantational magic comes from within a person and is often a gift from God. Many prophets and other characters in the Bible are given this sort of magical power.

"That's the sort of magic you'll see from heroic characters in the works of Tolkien and Lewis, and there's always that distinction," said Newsom.

Newsom, who lives in Liberty and works in Greensboro at Jefferson Pilot Financial, also has written his own children's book, "Polycarp: The Crown of Fire," which uses fairy-tale elements to teach children about Christian history. He is reading the Narnia books to his 5-year-old daughter who, he said, already understands and loves the tales.

"One of the themes of my book is that one of the best ways to instill these lessons is to turn the home into a storytelling culture," said Newsom. "Filling the home with great literature and fairy tales -- the great stories of the world -- can help our children understand what it means to be a good Christian and a good person. The best children's stories are fun to read but they also incarnate truth."

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or jkillian@news-record.com

The Good Morning Show

2010-04-23T18:53:00.000-04:00

Here's an interview I did almost five years ago when The Crown of Fire first came out. Not great quality, but it's audible, watchable, and all I got. This was numerous pounds ago, unfortunately, but what can a chap do?

Newsom Kids Radio Show

2010-04-20T00:09:00.002-04:00

The Newsom Kids Radio Show No. 1 by The Newsom Kids
Download now or listen on posterous

Show_#1_FINAL_04-07-09.mp3 (13181 KB)

Hopefully, we'll have much more of this as time passes. But as a starter, here's my kids in their first episode of The Newsom Kids Radio Show.
This was a homeschool project, in which we all learned a bit about scriptwriting, acting, audio production, sound design, music, etc. With the exception of a couple of the short music clips, we wrote and performed all the music. My daughter Grace even wrote the theme song, which she calls Festive Harmony. She and I played it together for this episode. The audio quality is not as great as I hope it shall one day be, but it's a start. Look for more once our podcast launches.

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

Audio Test

2010-04-18T21:55:00.001-04:00

The Lord Christ Is Our Deliverer by Chad And Chris Newsom
Download now or listen on posterous

The Lord Christ is Our Deliverer.mp3 (4364 KB)

This is a test post to see how this audio thing works. As a thank you for stopping by, take a listen to my brother and me performing at our family Christmas reunion this past year.

Posted via email from williamchadnewsom's posterous

Pictures of Polycarp

2008-12-03T01:20:00.000-05:00

Below are the various incarnations of the cover art for my first book, Polycarp: The Crown of Fire. I was not in on the decision-making on the cover art for Talking of Dragons, but was somewhat involved for Crown of Fire, helping to select a scene from the book, and voting on which of the two drafts I preferred. The drafts are first: rough cover images drawn by the publisher's artist. Next is the cover for the English version. Finally, we have the cover art done for the Turkish translation.

Hannah Montana Guide for Parents

2008-11-29T23:40:00.000-05:00

Talking of Dragons is a blog about stories and families. So in part I'm hoping to be of some help to parents. In token of this, let me refer you to the video below, created by those well-known family counsellors Rhett and Link. This one will tell you everything you need to know about that teen phenomenon, Hannah Montana.

Continue Reading

2008-11-29T12:54:00.000-05:00

Here's another test run on a new feature. Many of my posts will be in the form of longish articles, stories, poems, and so on. To avoid taking up too much space on the front page of the blog, most of the post will be hidden, and readers will be able to click on a link (should show up as 'Continue Reading,' below) to read the full text.

Hopefully, you clicked on the 'Continue Reading' link to get here. Thanks for test-driving the new feature!

RefTagger

2008-11-29T06:10:00.000-05:00

RefTagger is an amazing little web tool that allows instant access to any Scripture references on a website or blog. I have just added this feature to Talking of Dragons here, so this post is for the purpose of testing how well it works. Essentially, any time you see, oh, say, Genesis 24:60, or even, for instance, Deuteronomy 6:6-9, or, to take just one more example, Ephesians 6:4, the biblical references should show up as a link that takes you right to the Logos Bible website. Also, if you just let your mouse pointer-thing hover over the reference, a little window should pop up with the Scripture text, without your having to even click a link. So try it!

C.S. Lewis' Calormen: Exacerbating Ethnic Tensions?

2008-02-28T15:59:00.000-05:00

Above: Aravis of Calormen and Shasta (Prince Cor) of Archenland

Back in December 2005, as the release date of the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe began to get excitingly close, USA Today ran an article: ‘Is that Lion the King of Kings?’, which specifically examined the debate over whether these stories are Christian, whether non-believing audiences can enjoy them, whether even Christians should take the trouble to lead their children to see whatever Christian elements are there (Note: for an article in which I give my views on this subject of the book and film, check out The Greensboro News and Record right here).

A sidebar article raised the issue of possible productions of the other Narnia books, and of possible problems that might arise. Andrew Adamson, Wardrobe director, said that, if he were to direct a film version of The Horse and His Boy, he would change one thing, at least: the portrayal of the Calormenes (a kingdom south of Narnia) as a Muslim culture (as Lewis does in the book).

Adamson, and others interviewed, believe that to follow Lewis at this point would be to ‘exacerbate ethnic tensions and prejudice against Arabs’ in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists. Adamson said he would recast the Calormenes as another race entirely, probably something not even human.

Adamson, for what it is worth, doesn’t actually say that Lewis was a racist, but expresses concern over depicting an East-West civilisational clash on screen. (Not that it’s such a depiction in itself that most people would mind: as the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven made clear, you can show Muslims and Christians fighting each other – but you evidently have a moral obligation to depict the Muslims as noble and trustworthy, and the Christians as corrupt and self-serving.)

But many others have charged Lewis (and Tolkien, for his similar portrayal of the southern Haradrim in The Lord of the Rings) with racism.

Two points are in order: first, the Narnia books themselves have never been changed on this point, and yet, despite sales of nearly 100 million, there is no evidence they have caused ‘ethnic tensions’. Perhaps a popular movie will be different, but I see no reason why the Calormenes cannot be portrayed as they are in the books, highlighting not only the crueler aspects of their culture, but those worthy of emulation as well – indeed, Lewis, on one occasion, anyway, portrays one characteristic of Calormene culture as superior to its Western counterpart: namely, its storytelling.

Second, I think this boils down to a failure to understand what Lewis was doing. Anyone who thinks Lewis created the land of Calormen out of some sort of racial vainglory truly does not understand Lewis at all. In the same USA Today article, Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College (a Christian institution), weighs in on the controversy. ‘I think Lewis thought he could draw on the ancient tradition in Europe of fearing the Ottoman Empire,’ Jacobs said. ‘So he changed the name, but kept all the imagery of the dangerous Middle East, something everybody in his generation could recognize and respond to. But then things changed, and in the 20th Century all the threats to Europe were internal. And so that whole tradition was swept away.’

What’s wrong with this analysis? On the face of it, Jacobs seems to think that Lewis wrote The Horse and His Boy (the first book in which the Calormenes play a significant part) before he realised (‘But then things changed’) that the greater threats to Europe were going to be internal (Germany, say). This of course is not true, as Jacobs knows: Lewis published The Horse and His Boy in 1954, nearly a decade after the end of World War II, and nearly forty years after Lewis himself fought the ‘internal threat’ of Germany in World War I.

However, I don’t think that is what Jacobs was saying. As it happens, I just finished reading his fine biography of Lewis, The Narnian. Here, he again addresses the subject of the Calormenes, but somewhat more fully than in the USA Today excerpt:

On the face of it, this seems odd: after all, the chief enemies of England in the lifetimes of Tolkien and Lewis made a cult of their blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryanism. But the imaginations of those two men were shaped before the great wars of the twentieth century: they belonged indeed to an Old Western culture to which the chief threat, for hundreds of years, had been the Ottoman Empire.

Here it is clearer that Jacobs is stating, not that Lewis wrote the book before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, or the rise of internal European threats, but rather that he drew from the older tradition of the ancient enemy of Christendom, the Mohammadens, or Muslims. And if such a choice seems a bit dated from a 1954 point of view, it is, of course, absolutely prescient from a post-2001 point of view.

But more importantly, I think Lewis’s Calormenes are intended to make, not a racial, but a theological point. Consider this: Lewis wrote an almost-forgotten work called Williams and the Arthuriad, a commentary on his friend Charles Williams’s cycle of Arthurian poetry (Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars). In that work, Lewis comments on one of the poems, The Coming of Palomides, and on Williams’s use of Palomides, a Saracen knight. Williams used the Muslim, according to Lewis, as a symbol of ‘all religions that are afraid of matter and afraid of mystery, [of] all misplaced reverences and misplaced purities that repudiate the body and shrink back from the glowing materialism of the Grail’; in short, because ‘Islam denies the Incarnation.’

A full treatment of Lewis’s, and Williams’s, point would be beside our point. It is enough to say that neither man expressed any racial animosity towards Arabs or Muslims at all. Indeed, during his discussion of The Coming of Palomides, Lewis describes Muslims as ‘strong, noble, venerable; yet radically mistaken.’ That is, he admired the people, but disagreed with their doctrine.

This is consistent with Lewis’s own use of the Calormenes in The Horse and His Boy, and later, The Last Battle.

Indeed, the Calormenes, far from being a despised race, completely foreign to their Northern neighbours (Narnia and Archenland), are actually close cousins. In his book, A Field Guide to Narnia, Colin Duriez notes that, ‘Calormen originated in the Narnian year 204, when outlaws fled south from Archenland.’ This fact means that the Calormenes are originally blood relatives of both Archenlanders and Narnians (Archenlanders, like Narnians, were descended from Frank I, first king of Narnia (see The Magician’s Nephew). Thus, Narnians, Archenlanders, and Calormenes all descend from the same man, which is as much as to say, God ‘made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth’ (Acts 17:26).

Moreover, Lewis gives us, in the Narnian tales, two noble Calormenes: Aravis (in The Horse and His Boy) and Emeth (in The Last Battle). Granted, their nobility consists, in part, in their rejection of certain aspects of Calormene culture (Aravis leaves an oppressive life in Calormen for freedom in Archenland, and Emeth ultimately rejects the worship of Tash, the Calormene god), but the point is that their nobility, and their acceptance by the ‘white’ Narnians, has nothing to do with their ethnicity or the colour of their skin. In The Last Battle, Jewel the unicorn says of Emeth, ‘By the Lion's Mane, I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better God than Tash.’ Here again, race or skin colour are irrelevant, and only the man’s words and deeds are taken into account. Critics may still cringe at even this 'theological supremacy,' but they may not with any accuracy describe it as racism.

Nor is this all: we could point to the fact that the Calormene Aravis marries Prince Cor of Archenland at the end of The Horse and His Boy, and so, later, becomes the Queen of that country; or that, in The Last Battle, Calormen, and Tashbaan, its capital, are revealed to be a part of Aslan’s true country. No writer with a racist agenda would have included such things in his book.

In short, as Jacobs notes in The Narnian, ‘readers…can tell the difference between, on the one hand, an intentionally hostile depiction of some alien culture and, on the other, the use of cultural differences as a mere plot device.’

C.S. Lewis Page

2008-02-28T15:58:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Talking of Dragons C.S. Lewis page. More will be added in time.

C.S. Lewis' Calormen: Exacerbating Ethnic Tensions?

Lewis and Tolkien: An Introductory Reading List

J.R.R. Tolkien Page

2008-02-28T15:57:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Talking of Dragons J.R.R. Tolkien page. More will be added in time.

Tolkien's Books for Children

Lewis and Tolkien: An Introductory Reading List

Tolkien's Books for Children

2008-02-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

Below is a sample chapter from my book Talking of Dragons: The Children's Books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Chapter Four

Starting at Home: The Children's Writings of J. R. R. Tolkien

It is true that the age of childhood-sentiment has produced some delightful books (especially charming, however, to adults) of the fairy kind or near to it; but it has also produced a dreadful undergrowth of stories written or adapted to what was or is conceived to be the measure of children's minds and needs. J. R. R. Tolkien

It seems strange to imagine, but the very idea of children's books is a recent historical invention. The late Kathryn Lindskoog, who wrote many books on the writings of C. S. Lewis, notes that, for most of history, "...there was no such thing as a children's book. There were no children's writers at all. People told stories to children, but no one wrote a storybook for them to enjoy until 250 years ago. Books for children came along like an afterthought in the book world."

There has not always been a "market" for such books, and for a very good reason: storytelling was once primarily the domain of the family. Fathers and Mothers told stories to their children, who in turn told them to their children. Stories were a major part of the culture that was passed down from generation to generation.

This notion of a storytelling culture, handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, may seem strange to those of us raised in the modern world. After all, our diversions and amusements come packaged according to highly specific demographic categories: Dad reads his mystery thriller, Mom her paperback romance, brother his Harry Potter, and sister her Sweet Valley High book. Each member of the family has his or her own music, movies, clothing styles, magazines, schedule, and life. We are no longer families, with unique family identities; we are merely loosely connected groups of individuals who happen to live under the same roof.

It was not always so. Families once read together, enjoying the same stories, songs, and foods. They were themselves a part of a larger culture that supported them in this, but each family was itself a little culture, developing its own traditions, rituals, and memories. Today, Mom and Dad have no stories that were handed down to them (except maybe their memories of Disney films), and so they have nothing to pass on to their little ones. Today, many children's books are written by "specialists," who may or may not have children of their own. Child psychologists write books that are the product of much research, ensuring that each reader will have age-appropriate storylines, themes, characters, and vocabularies. Never mind that the stories are often as thin as the paper they are printed on: the scientific age has declared its findings, and one discovery is that parents are no longer capable, apart from professional assistance, of telling stories to their children.

One of the goals of this book is to encourage a culture of storytelling in families, and a good way to do this is by highlighting those authors who wrote, not only for "children" as a class, but for specific children, whose names and faces the author knew (usually because they belonged to his own children). This was once more common than now: A. A. Milne wrote his famous Pooh stories for his son, Christopher Robin. George MacDonald, the famous nineteenth century Scottish novelist and fairy-tale writer, read to his children, and his stories, in addition to their wider publication, were handed down through his family as well. His granddaughter remembered, 'My love for my grandfather's Fairy Tales was started at an early age - about five, I think - because my father (Bernard MacDonald) read them to me at night as bedtime stories. As I grew older, the children's books...became very familiar to me and my small friends.'

One of the best examples of a children's writer who wrote primarily for his own children is none other than J. R. R. Tolkien. All of Tolkien's published children's writings were, in their origin, stories he made up for his own children. Indeed, several were not published until after his death, when demand for his writings had increased dramatically. Tolkien made up stories for his children in a variety of situations: when his eldest son, John, could not sleep, he told him stories about Carrots, 'a boy with red hair who climbed into a cuckoo clock and went off on a series of strange adventures.' Every year, as Christmas neared, he would compose a letter from Father Christmas, addressed to the Tolkien children. These letters were posthumously collected and published as The Father Christmas Letters. The Tolkien family's purchase of their first automobile sparked the tale of Mr Bliss, who has a series of misadventures related to his car. When his son, Michael, lost a favourite toy dog on the beach, Tolkien spun a tale about just such a dog who, having been turned into a toy by a wizard, is lost by a little boy on a beach, and then embarks on a variety of adventures on the moon and under the sea. This story was published in 1998, twenty-five years after Tolkien's death, as Roverandom. And of course, the most famous of Tolkien's children's books is the story of Bilbo Baggins, and his adventure recapturing the treasure of the Dwarves from Smaug, the Dragon--a story known to the world as The Hobbit, and which later led to the creation of his master work, The Lord of the Rings.

It is worth noting that Tolkien had no desire to be a 'children's author' as we usually define it, once stating that he had no particular interest in writing for children. Yet, as we have seen, he did have an interest in four children, in particular: John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla Tolkien. To them, not to children considered as a target readership, he gave his ever-expanding gift for tale-spinning. But his views on writing for children did change over the years. When he wrote The Hobbit, for example, he was still under what he saw as a modern fallacy - the idea that fairy tales are especially, or perhaps uniquely, for children. In his famous essay, 'On Fairy-Stories' Tolkien attacked that notion, and his more mature reflection resulted in the fairy-story known as The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's approach turns modern wisdom on its head: his children's writings would probably be judged, to some extent, as 'over the heads' of most children (sadly, there may some hint of truth in this) because of the vocabulary and perhaps even the themes. On the other hand, The Lord of the Rings, certainly much more of an adult book than its predecessor, and, by the author's own admission, not written for children in particular at all, seems, nevertheless, to hold an appeal for children. Tolkien once wrote that he had heard of even young children reading or listening to The Lord of the Rings, and expressed his hope that it would help build their vocabularies. As a life-long reader of Tolkien, I can testify to both the appeal to children, and the aid to vocabulary. I had read The Hobbit (far and away the favourite book of my youth) some nine times by the time I was twelve, at which tender age I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time.

The worthiness of Tolkien's children's stories is in part a result of the covenantal context that led to their creation - again, writing for the children of one's own blood rather than attempting to break into the market of kid's books. But writing stories for one's own children is counter-intuitive in the Age of Specialists. Whereas modern child psychologists argue, in a sense, from universals to particulars ('this is what children, as a class, want and need; therefore, individual children, whoever they are, will like it'), Tolkien worked from particulars - his own children - to universals - children in general. That is, the stories were a success with John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla, who, as normal, typical children, turned out to be very good indicators of what millions of other children would like. Not, of course, that Tolkien told the stories as some kind of advance market research; he just wanted to delight his children. And because this was his aim, he was able to write stories that delighted many others as well.

Lewis & Tolkien: An Introductory Reading List

2008-02-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

Here's a list of books on Tolkien and Lewis that were helpful to me in researching and writing Talking of Dragons, or that may be interesting to the general reader. Also included are a few audio and print resources that may be helpful. To this list could be added other books that have since been released, such as The Narnian by Alan Jacobs, The Way Into Narnia by Peter J. Schakel, and Planet Narnia by Michael Ward.

Books:

Bradley J. Birzer
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth

Devin Brown
Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware
Finding God in The Lord of the Rings
Finding God in the Land of Narnia

Humphrey Carpenter
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography
The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends

David Day
A Guide to Tolkien

Colin Duriez
A Field Guide to Narnia
The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and their Friends
Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship
The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook: A Concise Guide to His Life, Writings, and World of Middle-earth

Paul F. Ford
Companion to Narnia: A Complete Guide to the Enchanting World of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia

Kathryn Lindskoog
Journey Into Narnia
C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian
Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis
How to Grow a Young Reader: Books from Every Age for Readers of Every Age (with Ranelda Mack Hunsicker)

George MacDonald (the author that C. S. Lewis called his ‘master’)
Phantastes
Lillith
The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie
At the Back of the North Wind
The Gifts of the Child Christ & Other Stories and Fairy Tales

Michael D. O’Brien
A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle for You Child’s Mind

Joseph Pearce
Tolkien: A Celebration

Frederick Rebsamen
Beowulf: A Verse Translation (Beowulf was one of the most influential writings in the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien)

Tom Shippey
The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

Mark Eddy Smith
Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of The Lord of the Rings

Turgon (from theonering.net)
The Tolkien Fan’s Medieval Reader (Texts of many of the Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, and Celtic tales that shaped Tolkien’s stories)

Audio:

R. C. Sproul, Jr.
Further Up and Further In: Studies in Narnia (CD set)
Basement Tapes #24: You Don’t Know Jack (CD set on C. S. Lewis)

Douglas Wilson
What I Learned in Narnia (CD set)

Periodicals:

Christian History Magazine, Spring 2003: 'Tolkien: Man Behind the Myth'

Credenda/Agenda: Volume 13, Issue 5: 'Jack: A Reformed Appreciation of C. S. Lewis'

St Austin Review, January, February 2003: 'Tolkien Revisited' (see especially Bradley J. Birzer’s fine article, ‘Grace and Will in Tolkien’s Legendarium’)

Websites/web articles:

theonering.net (Tolkien Fan site)
lordoftherings.net (Official Lord of the Rings movie site)
narniaweb.com (Narnia movie news)
Narnia.com (Official Narnia movie site)
Into the Wardrobe (Good C. S. Lewis site)
The Tolkien Library (The books of Tolkien)
Christianity Today (Interview with Colin Duriez, my editor for Talking of Dragons, on the friendship of Tolkien and Lewis)
Why the Lord of the Rings is Dangerous (Fascinating email conversation between Bradley J. Birzer, who wrote the foreword to my book on Tolkien and Lewis, and Mark Eddy Smith)

2006-07-24T13:00:00.001-04:00

I recently completed a manuscript for a series of books for younger children, Legends for Little Ones. These books, inspired by a reading time with my son, William, are simple retellings of great legends from history and literature, aimed at children anywhere from birth to around five or six years old. They are intended to be read to children by their parents, and for young readers to read on their own. The first twelve cover legends from the lives of Ignatius of Antioch, St George, St Patrick, St Brendan, King Arthur, Cædmon, Boniface, Alfred the Great, Robin Hood, Robert the Bruce, and Martin Luther. I am currently talking to two publishers, both of whom have very kindly expressed an interest in the series. And I have been wonderfully blessed to receive an endorsement of the books from one of my favourite authors and speakers, Dr George Grant. I will post more about Legends for Little Ones later, but for now, here are Dr Grant's gracious words:

"In an age where heroes are few and far between and when the great stories of our Christian legacy are either lost and forgotten or despised and repressed, Legends for Little Ones is a rich gift to us all. These stories are, as you will soon discover, both timeless and timely. So, curl up in a big chair, pull your little ones into your lap, and discover anew the glories of our magnificent legacy of beauty, goodness, and truth."

Dr George Grant, director of The King's Meadow Study Center, and author of The Christian Almanac, The Micah Mandate, and The Patriot's Handbook.