This morning I have been chewing on Charlotte Mason's observation that, " Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life."
No matter how large the scope of my teaching aspirations, the end result is merely the culmination of a life time of choices. Almost every minute of my days choices present themselves. Each of these decisions creates an atmosphere, reinforces a good or bad habit, and results in the unique culture of my family.
Atmosphere. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as, "a dominant intellectual or emotional environment or attitude". I choose to immerse my children in the written word. I decide to read poetry to them. I intentionally expose them to stories far beyond their realm of experience. Surrounding my little ones with books, audio cd's, verbal stories, and other resources is a means of creating an atmosphere in which they feed on ideas. Atmospheres like that do not just happen, they take work. It is not always easy or convenient to talk, to answer questions, to communicate ideas. Often I do not want to, but then I remember that Deuteronomy 6:6-9 does not allow me to ignore their questions:
"And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. "
The more I embrace this command, the richer and fuller will be the atmosphere that pervades my home.
But it is not just an atmosphere. Education is a discipline as well. There are mornings where I am so not in the mood to teach my six year old the difference between a diphthong and a digraph, or to train him to work promptly. There are certainly days when I have no desire to remind my five year old what 2+3= yet again. I have to remind myself that " All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." If I desire the fruit I must submit to the discipline.
When I embrace this calling to create an atmosphere, and to instill habits of discipline, the result is a life. A life of learning, of growing, of enjoying. A life of tasting and seeing and hearing and smelling and touching the goodness of the Lord. A family life where ideas are planted and grow and give birth to juicy, dripping, sweet tasting fruit.
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