Philosophy of Education vol. 6 Chapter 2

Children Are Born Persons.

This chapter opens with a look at how wondrous a child is. That from birth to age three the amount of things they learn is amazing. Charlotte believes that within the first two years of life a child goes through more intellectual effort than any following two years. The child’s mind is the ‘instrument’ of his education and it is important to know that education does not produce the mind. From a young age the child displays imagination, reasoning by asking questions, displays of temper. Displays of temper are often mislabeled “strong will” but this is in fact the opposite. The ‘will’ is used when the child is able to stop these types of behaviors and restrain himself. Charlotte refers to this as “learning the art of obedience.” She says that “no one can make a child obey unless he wills to do so”
Charlotte gives the example of the brain being the “instrument’ of the mind just like a piano is not music but the instrument of music. Once we see this in young children we can get a better grasp of how to educate them when they are ready for formal schooling. In order to reach the “mind” to educate we do not need to focus on: the environment of the classroom, playing, or beautiful motion. All of these things are desirable to give children but to truly educate we need to give the mind contact with ideas from great minds of others. The “idea” is the thought: “how can this be?” and then the mind has the desire to figure it out. Children experience what they hear and read about. She says “these thoughts enter into them and are their life” This is how she explains how ‘ideas’ feed the mind.
We need to prepare their minds by showing children many pictures of great artists. This will feed the imagination so when we read a passage in a great book about crossing a mountain they can picture it in their minds.
Not only is a child’s mind fully active from birth but so are their hearts. They can display love to all. We see them show tenderness to family and friends and even to old beat up toys no one could love. We see that their conscience is alert: “is this true?” “Are they a good person?” It is this conscience that alerts him when he has disobeyed. Charlottes says that “as he is trained, the will, comes to his aid and he learns to order his life.”
When we begin to see our children as fully functional humans we begin to realize we must teach them differently. Dry lectures and textbooks are not going to feed their hunger for knowledge.