Here's Where Charlotte Mason and I Agree

I read a little about Charlotte Mason's methods a long time ago. Although I liked her philosophy, I really couldn't follow anyone's methods but my own. However, one point she mentioned did resonate with me all these years. She insisted that children should get a chance to go outside and enjoy nature everyday. Although this is hard to do from a practical standpoint, I whole-heartedly agree that nature is one of the best teachers for our children, and that love of and fascination with nature must be instilled early in a child's life. I know many adults who, having been brought up in the city and never given a chance to appreciate nature while young, cannot comprehend the kind of joy and satisfaction many of us feel when immersed in nature. Theirs is a kind of superficial acknowledgement--Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, it is wondrous.--but not a deep-felt joy and abandonment, the kind of love and appreciation that make you want to "kiss the ground" and wrap yourself in its folds. They cannot understand Thoreau and his Walden.

I am grateful my sons love nature, perhaps in different degrees. During our afternoon stroll through Yosemite Valley, Poly could not stop marveling at how the light of the setting sun accentuated the fall colors in the meadows and the trees. He responded by snapping numerous, striking photographs. Chee-Chee's way of loving nature was to rush headlong into the open fields and to pick up whatever caught his eye: a pebble, a dried up twig, a leaf. He wanted to finger the dirt, climb the rocks, immerse in the leaf piles.

I hope our week-long vacation in Yosemite will stay long in their memory. I hope it makes up for all the days we did not go out of the house when burdened by school work. I hope they will always cherish a beautiful sunset and take notice of fall leaves and cloud formations. I hope they will always feel at home, right here in God's canvas.