‘Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life’––is perhaps the most complete and adequate definition of education we possess. It is a great thing to have said it; and our wiser posterity may see in that ‘profound and exquisite remark’ the fruition of a lifetime of critical effort.
Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, p. 33
So writes Charlotte Mason, educational philosopher and herald for a new-but-old way of approaching education. Many would follow in her footsteps, championing the simplicity of the notion that an endeavor as complex as education can be defined using three basic elements: atmosphere, discipline, and life.
If Mason is correct, then all approaches to education, even ones we would not fully endorse here at Educational Renaissance, incorporate, in some way, these elements, or as Charlotte Mason called them, instruments. Let us take “life,” for example. All educational methods promote aspects of life. Rousseau insisted upon the uninhibited natural development of a child. Montessori highlighted her individual creativity. And Dewey prioritized learning through experience.
For Charlotte Mason, the instrument of life refers to the life of the mind and its need for nourishment through ideas. For a growing mind, facts and information simply will not do. It is ideas, and ideas alone, that will capture a child’s imagination and inspire a love for knowledge and life-long learning.
How about atmosphere? Again, if Mason is correct, then all methods of education implement some element of the instrument of atmosphere. The question is: what kind of atmosphere? You can imagine the atmosphere of a Victorian-era classroom in which the taskmaster-teacher institutes order throughout his tiny kingdom, yardstick in hand. Or the atmosphere of a freshman 101 course, crammed with students in a cavernous lecture hall as they await for their wiry old professor to take the stage.
In both cases, the instrument of atmosphere is present and has an impact on the educational method being deployed. We might describe the first atmosphere as strict, orderly, and intimidating.. We could describe the second as crowded and distant, yet full of energy.
In contrast to these two sketches, in this article, I will explore what sort of atmosphere Charlotte Mason had in mind as she defined education as “an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” Through this exploration, we will learn how to create an educational atmosphere befitting of persons, which will serve as a foundation for relationships to emerge and a conduit for passing on a Christian “paideia.”
An Atmosphere for Persons
Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education hinges on the premise that children are persons. So much so that if one could prove that children are not persons then her whole philosophy would fall apart. So what does Mason mean by “persons”? I think she has three big ideas in mind.
First, children have genuine thoughts and ideas about the world. School is not the first time they gain knowledge or begin to engage in intellectual activity. As soon as children are born, they engage the world in which they are born and seek to understand it. They are not empty buckets to be filled with grains of sand of information. They are living, breathing people created with the capacity to dynamically interact with God’s created world.
Second, children possess an internal and psychological capacity that requires development. Specifically, children are created with affections that desire and wills that choose. Both affections and wills can and are shaped over time through outside influences. Therefore, we can say that children have real agency in this world and cannot simply be set aside as robots.
Finally, children are creatures of relationship. Like all of us, they long to belong, to be affirmed, and to contribute to something greater than themselves. Consequently, all activity, especially education, contains a relational dimension. Education, therefore, is the science of relations, another way Mason defines the term. Real knowledge is touched with emotion and part of a wider web of relationships.
Built for Relationship
Now that we have Mason’s view of children as persons in view, we can begin to think about an educational atmosphere that would be appropriate for such persons.
In For the Children’s Sake (Crossway, 1984), Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, an early promoter of Mason’s philosophy, writes, “When teachers value and trust the individual, a special atmosphere is created. Here it is possible to have structure and yet suitable freedom. The atmosphere can be friendly, purposeful, relaxed. In fact, it can be an oasis for the child who finds it the only place where he is able to have a satisfying life” (73).
Here we see that an educational atmosphere befitting of persons begins with trust and respect. So often, a modern classroom can feel like either an industrial factory or amusement park. Extreme restriction or entertainment. But what if an atmosphere fit for persons offers a different way? We have all experienced managers who either do not care about their employees or do not want to take time to develop them. They become heavy-handed task masters constantly on the look out for errors or simply nowhere to be found when support is needed. Classrooms can feel like this, too, when teachers are too harsh on the one hand or disinterested to come alongside their students on the other.
Bill St. Cyr, founder of Ambleside Schools International, captures the heart of the caring teacher with the phrase “It is good to be me here with you.” In this relational context, an atmosphere emerges that will shape the child’s affections more than anything else. As Bill puts it, the children inhale the atmosphere that their teachers exhale. More than whatever the teacher has planned for the lesson today, the desire for goodness, truth, and beauty will be caught within the atmosphere, not taught. In short, a child will admire what the teacher admires.
Of the three instruments of education, it can be argued that atmosphere is the hardest to get right. Bobby Scott, a long-time leader at a Charlotte Mason school, points out in When Children Love to Learn (Crossway, 2004) that while discipline and life can be transplanted, atmosphere can only be built up over time. It is an atmosphere of relationship that begins with how we interact and treat children (73). It is then strengthened over time as teacher and students together engage in inquiry through their studies and love for God and His creation.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that while relationships are the core of an atmosphere, we cannot dismiss the significance of physical space. The thinking today is that a classroom’s physical atmosphere should match the maturity of the child. This is why modern classrooms are often decorated with cartoonish posters, glittery pictures, and the like. But if we begin with the premise that children are born persons, as Charlotte Mason encourages, then we will be led to build a different kind of space: one of beauty, nature, and order–an extension of real life, rather than an environment manufactured for children.
Passing on a Christian “Paideia”
In the classical tradition, education was always about passing on a particular culture. As Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain note in The Liberal Arts Tradition (Classical Academic Press, 2019), “The word the Greeks used for education was paideia, which meant not only learning intellectual skills, but also the transmission of the entirety of the loves, norms, and values of a culture” (211).
In fact, in Paul’s oft-quoted command in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”, the Greek word translated “discipline” is paideia. For the apostle Paul, parents have a responsibility to promote and pass on a God-centered culture as one of their parental duties. By extension, Christian schools come alongside parents by promoting and transmitting this culture as well.
There are several ways to think about what a God-centered paideia might look like, including fruit of the Spirit, membership in a local church, the centrality of scripture, a heart for evangelism, and a transmission of church tradition. Behind all of these, I want to argue is the concept of atmosphere. Teachers who want to engage in real paideia, should begin not with curriculum, but with atmosphere–how they relate to their students and what sorts of values and ideas they will promote in their classrooms.
In the last several decades, we can see how the obsession with testing in schools has led to a decline in real learning. To be sure, assessments are important and master teachers regularly check for understanding through both formative and summative methods. But a truly Christian paideia, I believe, is undermined when the greatest purpose of the classroom is test performance or competition. To truly form lifelong disciples, teachers do better when they build the sort of atmosphere in which hard work is celebrated, questions are praised, and the unified goal of the class is to grow in wisdom and love for all that is good, true, and beautiful.
Conclusion
Teachers can use the instrument of atmosphere in their classrooms to promote relationship, goodness, and a genuine love for learning. As we have seen, all classrooms effuse a particular atmosphere. The question we ask ourselves is “What kind?” and “For whom?”. The best classrooms I have seen are ones in which genuine belonging is detected, emanating from the teacher, and students are called up to do their best work as they seek to live out their identity as creatures made in God’s divine image. As we seek to pass on a particularly Christian paideia to the next generation amidst a growingly secular world, we can begin with the instrument of atmosphere.
Want to learn more about implementing Charlotte Mason’s principles in the classroom? Join my virtual workshop this fall, provided through the Society for Classical Learning. You can also subscribe to our Educational Renaissance weekly blog.
Thanks for reading!