I’ve been learning a lot about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education lately, and without having had an opportunity to put it into practice, I’ve fallen in love with a lot of her principals. I do hope to use some of the good teaching strategies I’ve learned from her in my homeschooling, but that’s not what I want to write about today. Today, I’ve been thinking about how to apply Charlotte’s philosophies at church - for myself, for children in my care, and for other church going families.
Right now I am a mom of just one small child, and so I acknowledge that any ideas I propose for families with multiples or older children are only hopeful proposals. I know that as a parent you really don’t know what you’re talking about except with your own unique children and family situation, however I am passionate about children’s education and about helping families to train up their children in the Lord, so in setting forth my ideas here it is only with the hope that some might find it helpful, and with the intent of returning to it myself in the future when my own child (or future additional children) are older.
Currently I have a two year old who doesn’t seem very capable of remaining calm in a worship service for more than 5 minutes. At home we’ve attempted quite faithfully to tell Bible stories to him, and sometimes this is successful, but other times it just isn’t. On the other hand, he loves singing and dancing to Bible songs, so we try to capitalize on that for teaching Biblical truths. He also, remarkably, does pretty well with short prayers. He folds his hands and sits pretty still most of the time, so I try to keep our prayers together short, and to the point (so I won’t lose the good thing I have going) and also use it to sneak in some Bible truths here and there. ("Thank you, God, for loving us," "Thank you for creating the world," "thank you for always being with us," etc.)
My son also loves to color with me for short periods of time. This is something that I haven’t yet used much for spiritual instruction, except that sometimes while I’m in the nursery with him at church I will draw things from Bible stories and talk about it with him as we color.
My son loves to DO things physically, so this is something I’m starting to learn to capitalize on this for Biblical Instruction, but I need to sit down and brainstorm/plan for it better. Recently I told him the story of the battle of Jericho, and we marched around his pack n play singing the song and then fell down at the end. He loves it, and wants to do it every night now. In between verses we talk about how it was GOD who made the walls fall down because GOD is POWERFUL. Then we sing the song again saying “God fought the battle of Jericho…” (instead of “Joshua fought…”)
As I said above, church hasn’t been easy with my son. Because we currently attend a church without nursery staff so I (or my husband) have to stay with him in the nursery or bring him into the service - which never lasts long. I’ve thought about being more persistent in attempting to teach him to stay still and quiet in the service, but at this point he’s SO squirmy, that I just don’t see it as worth the effort. Maybe in a year or so we’ll give that more of a shot. For now, we usually end up with him in the nursery through the whole service. I do want to work on coming up with some reenactment tpye Bible lessons that I can do with him in the nursery, so we’ll see how that goes… I just haven’t had time to put toward it yet. I do think that over the course of the next year or two that sort of lesson along with active songs and picture drawing will be key to teaching him from God’s word.
Now, on to Charlotte Mason.
As I’ve been learning about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education I have naturally related it to my experiences as the children’s ministry director at Cross Creek, and the many many Sunday School and Children’s Church lessons that I taught. Also, I’ve related it to the battle that many parents encounter trying to help their children engage with the sermon, and, frankly, the battle that many adults like myself encounter when it comes to paying attention to and learning from sermons. Listening for long lengths of time (and by long, I mean more than a few minutes at a time) is not something that people in our society tend to be very good at. Life is so fast paced and varied now, with a million and one distractions vying for our attention at all times that sitting still and focusing for 45 minutes or longer on one speaker, can be quite challenging for us - regardless of the speaker’s talent or topic (though these things certainly do play a role in our propensity to focus).
One of the fundamentals of Charlotte’s educational philosophy was narration. She advocated for a LOT of reading, and for reading to frequently be followed up by narration - orally, written, or even drawn or acted out. Anyone who has every taught something to someone else knows that in order to explain a concept, you have to know it pretty well yourself, and that the mere act of explaining solidifies things in your mind. So with a student who was new to narration she would begin by reading the first sentence of a book and then ask the student to tell her what the sentence was about. Then she might read the entire first paragraph, and follow that by another narration. Eventually she would be able to read him a chapter at a time before requesting that he narrate what he had heard. She wouldn’t interrupt or correct during his narrations, but simply listen to what he had to tell her. The point of the narration wasn’t assessment, but it was a tool to help the student pay attention and to help the information sink in as he recounted it to her.
It seems to me that narration is something that could be incredibly useful for helping anyone to pay attention and learn from a sermon or a church lesson. If I know I’m going to be telling someone about the sermon afterward, this will help me to pay attention, and might encourage me to take a few notes as well. Then, through telling someone about what I heard, the ideas will take hold better in my mind and memory.
In a children’s class at church, a teacher could slowly develop this skill in her students by initially asking for short narrations after very short reading from the Bible (yes, the actual Bible). As the students become adept at it she could go for longer readings. Children will eventually learn from listening to the narrations of their classmates and come to enjoy the opportunity to narrate to the teacher and his peers.
For very young children, a teacher could help children to narrate via small pictures as she tells the story. This is actually the sort of teaching style that I found to be the most effective with the 6 and 7-year-olds during my time at Cross Creek. The teacher would draw small representative pictures while telling the Bible story, and the children would copy the pictures on their own paper. At the end of the lesson, I would sometimes ask the children to use their pictures to retell the story, and they were usually very good at it.
So much time in Sunday School and Children’s Church tends to be devoted to busywork which is just that—something to take up time. Yes, the busywork may be related to something in the Bible, but if it doesn’t require a child to think, or doesn’t accomplish something useful, then what really is the point? Now admittedly there are times in life when teachers and parents really do just need to occupy their child. No one can be on their game 100% of the time, so there is a time for busywork. But reading, listening to, recounting, and discussing ideas that matter is so much more valuable. Even very young children like to talk about things they are learning. So much so, that many teachers find themselves devoting a lot of energy to getting the children to STOP talking. Instead, what if we gave them opportunities to talk and tell us what they have heard. If a child sees that he has your attention, he will likely be happy to start talking about just about any topic you want to discuss.
Now, the average children’s class that I led tended to be about 45 minutes long. Another of Charlotte Mason’s fundamental principals that I resonate with was that young children should have very short lessons. The lesson should end before their attention ran out so that they would be left wanting more. That might sound crazy, but if we stop a lesson while the child is still engaged, they will be much more likely to mull over it’s ideas in their heads after the lesson ends. They will continue to think about it and benefit from it after your lesson time is finished.
So how do we apply that to 45 minute Sunday School classes? We stick to short Bible readings and short narrations, and then move on to another activity. Very young children love to move and create, so having children get up to do a song with motions or act out the Bible story would be great ways to have the children stretch, move, and take a break from the listening/narrating activity. Also, you could give each child a sheet of paper and a pencil to do some free drawing for 5 minutes or so. If this is not the closing activity, however, I would strongly suggest agreeing with the children on a transition signal for when the free drawing time is completed. After a short time of more kinesthetic activity, you could draw the children in again for a short story from your life about an answered prayer, and then take prayer requests and do a short prayer time (either led by the teacher, or by having each child pray for his neighbor after a short prayer is modeled by the teacher). After this interactive prayer time the teacher could preview the sermon passage for the students (more on this below) and invite the students to tell their neighbor what they think the pastor will say about the passage. At first, this type of discussion will probably need to be modeled by the teacher as well.
To learn more about narration, here are a couple of great free podcast episodes by some homeschool moms. These podcasts are specifically talking about narration in homeschooling, but I think a lot of it could be applied to narration in a children's church class or after a sermon.
For the sermon, I think I would encourage a family to start out with just mom and dad learning to narrate. The drive home from church (if it’s a long enough drive) or the supper table later that day would be great opportunities for mom and dad to practice narrating what they heard to the family. Then, gradually, they could require their children to do short narrations as well. They could encourage their children to draw or write anything that would be helpful during the sermon for use during their narration later. All of this narration by the various family members would be excellent review and could potentially spark some great discussion as well.
To learn more about narration, here are some great free podcast
episodes by some home-school moms. These podcasts are specifically
talking about narration in homeschooling, but I think a lot of it could
be applied to narration in a children's church class or after a sermon.
Narration, The Act of Knowing by A Delectable Education
Narration Q & A by A Delectable Education - particularly the 2nd half
The Mason Jar #2 with Guest Kim Neve
The Mason Jar #7 with Katie Hudgins
Another thought I’ve had, which I actually had begun to implement at Cross Creek (even before all of my study of the Charlotte Mason method) was the practice of preparing for the sermon during Sunday School classes. I would have Sunday School teachers take a few minutes to preview the sermon passage for that day with her students, to prep them for attentiveness during the following hour. This practice certainly helped me with my preparedness for listening well, and I think it probably helped my students with this as well. This sort of preview could easily be done at home as well of course, but due to the business and hectic scramble that so many families experience trying to get everyone dressed, fed, and out the door to church, I think facilitating this in Sunday School is probably a better plan. This could be done in children’s classes and adult classes alike.
I’ve always found that I’m way more interested in seeing a movie that I’ve watched a trailer for. I’m also more interested in ready a book that a friend has told me about (or that I’ve read a positive review on). One doesn’t need a huge investment in a book, movie, or sermon, to listen to a short preview about it. One would likely be more willing to commit his attention to a 3 minute preview than to a 45 minute talk. However, after hearing the short preview, our minds begin to wonder about it and project what the full thing might include. Then, as a result, we find ourselves more willing to listen to the real thing so as to find out what we don’t know about it.
The great thing about a sermon preview is that all a teacher really needs is the sermon passage. You could preview it by giving a short intro to the plot if it is a narrative passage (like movie trailers do), or you could preview a more ideological passage by asking thought provoking questions about ideas in the passage such as, “why do you think Jesus would say to love our neighbors?” “How do you think we’re supposed to exhibit gentleness?” and then providing a few minutes for responses and discussion.
Do any of you use narration or sermon previews with your families or church classes? I’d love to hear about it!
- Laura
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