 "Reading a Letter," Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky “I am anxious that this work should be tried in the poorest school by the poorest teachers, at first--these will work mechanically on a convenient routine but teachers, as well as children, develop amazingly.” ~ Charlotte Mason As we practice the art of teaching with 19th century British educator, Charlotte Mason, we realize the truth of the Zen master’s saying, “If you walk in the mist, you will get wet.” Consistent engagement with the best books and Mason’s inspired timetable does change us, along with our students. Malcolm Gladwell made this idea of steady growth through repetition popular recently by asserting expertise to be a matter of practicing for at least 10,000 hours. Left in the Mason classroom, teachers do develop amazingly, but Mason’s heart is always searching for ways to make “definite,” to expedite our study beyond the incidental misting. “It is only those who have read who do read,” she observes enigmatically. James Clear, who analyzes the relationship between habits and change, confirms that those who attain the distinction of “World-class” in their fields have discovered a secret beyond showing up for the practice of a particular skill or profession; we humans can avail ourselves of the leverage of being “deliberate.” “I like the 10,000 Hour Rule,” Clear writes, “because it is a reminder that you have to put in your reps. But it’s not as simple as working for a long time. It has to be vigilant work. And in many ways, you have to be continually obsessed with building upon your current skill set in small ways.” He offers the example of his father helping him learn to throw a baseball. The youngster could have simply thrown the ball hour after hour in the backyard hoping to improve or, as it happened, a knowing person could have stood by for a few weeks, noticing his position, and saying, “Elbow up, Elbow up, Elbow up,” until an unconscious competence grew, and mastery was achieved. This standing by is the gift Charlotte Mason offers us. She discovers the one inflection point at which every other thing will begin to change and whispers: meditate, meditate, meditate. On our way to becoming substantial teachers, we will still want and need our 10,000 hours but our proficiency will begin to increase incrementally each day as we consider with care the many “small things” of our stance. It is a profound and life-changing invitation because Mason’s unrelenting Christ-centeredness leads her to posit nothing less than an educational revolution. What appears a simple Christian orthodoxy on the surface, is a complex and nuanced reading of that “unique philosophy” which reveals just how many of our ideas about teaching are unexamined, often resting on the latest fad or technique contrived in the rush to accomplish curricular objectives. Though we are without malice, many of our handed-down classroom practices are seeded in behaviorism, utilitarianism, and the residues of Enlightenment thinking. How they are antithetical to our faith is awaiting our recognition. Although circling this invitation for more than thirty years, since the publication of Studying to Be Quiet I have undertaken a cross-volume search for Mason’s principles and their outworking for these standing-aside nuances to highlight the “education written into the nature of things.” These are some of my study notes. Each day in this collection of meditations underlines a growing hope that under her mentorship, particularly in the Church, our method can become inseparable from our message. Honoring persons by walking out the revolutionary ways of Jesus, Mason illuminates a comprehensive, viable, and fruitful practice which is nourishing to children and fully grown people alike. In studying her distinctive work on human flourishing not only do our classroom undertakings come into sharper focus, but we also rediscover the treasures of our ancient faith for an education that is a way of reading the world and in its very essence, a practice of the presence of God. “If anyone does study....” Does she waver momentarily? Mason is imploring us, not only to learn to speak this language fluently, word by word if necessary, but to protect it, and to pass it on. I have provided the first one hundred standing aside words. There are myriads more. Are you ready to take up this Vigilant Work? ~~~~~~~ I am anxious that: Essex Cholmondley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, New e. edition (Child Light Ltd, 2000). If you walk: Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones “Expanded Edition with a Preface and Interview with the Author,” n.d. Malcolm Gladwell made: James Clear, “How Experts Practice Better Than the Rest,” James Clear (blog), November 4, 2014, https://jamesclear.com/deliberate-practice-strategy. Mason’s heart is: Cholmondley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, 45. It is only those: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education: Developing a Curriculum, vol. 3, The Original Homeschooling Series (Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale House Pub, 1989), 234. James Clear, who: Clear, “How Experts Practice Better Than the Rest.” She discovers the one: Charlotte M. Mason, Scale How Meditations, null edition (lulu.com, 2011), 11. What appears a: Charlotte M. Mason, The Revival: The Saviour of the World - Volume VI, 1st edition (Routledge, 2018), Preface. Although circling this: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards A Philosophy of Education, vol. 6, The Original Homeschooling Series (Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale House Pub, 1989), 14,157 etc. If anyone does: Essex Cholmondley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, 110. Mason is imploring: Cholmondley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, 143–44. 100 Words Invitation copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025
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 Sister Kim Ok-sun's Holy Fire: Don't worry “We believe that Christ rose again the third day and ascended into heaven; or we accept the far more incredible hypothesis that 'there is no God'; or, anyway, the God of Revelation, in his adorable Personality, has ceased to be for us. There is no middle way.” * “Faith is, then, the simple trust of person in Person.” * “We are inclined to make our religious aims subjective rather than objective. We are tempted to look upon Christianity as a scheme of salvation designed and carried out for our benefit; whereas the very essence of Christianity is passionate devotion to an altogether adorable Person.” * “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” ~ G. K. Chesterton * “Gentlemen, this is a football.” ~ Vince Lombardi Examen: Good educational design answers two questions: “Who is education for?” and “What is education for? Charlotte Mason has spent her life answering these questions from her robust Christianity: Education is for the “children’s sake,” and its project is a clear sightline to the Adorable Person. How do I answer them? ~~~~~~~ We believe that Christ: Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, 2:99. Faith is, then,: 2:135. We are inclined: Charlotte Mason, School Education, 3:145. Let your religion be: G. K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi, ed. Chesterton Books (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011). Gentlemen, this is: James Clear, “Vince Lombardi on the Hidden Power of Mastering the Fundamentals,” James Clear (blog), January 30, 2015, Who is education for: April 6 and 2023, “Replacing Bad Systems with Bad Systems,” Seth’s Blog, April 6, 2023, Day 1 Adorable Person meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Two Studies of a Woman and Child, Rembrandt “What if, instead, were given to (the child) the thought well expressed in the words, ‘The all-forgiving gentleness of God’?” * “We all know how soothing is the presence of a gentle person in a room….” * “I was lost in a happy reverie––how I might sometime come to show her that her mother's ever-ready forgiveness was but a faint picture of what someone calls the ‘all-forgiving gentleness of God,’” * “But no mere assertion of authority will do: it is the old story of the sun and the wind and the traveler’s cloak. It is in the force of all-mighty gentleness that parents are supreme; not feebleness, not inertness––there is no strength in these; but purposeful, determined gentleness, which carries its point, only ‘for it is right.’ ‘The servant of God must not strive,’ was not written for bishops and pastors alone, but is the secret of strength for every ‘bishop,’ or overlooker, of a household.” * “I remark that Christ would have his people excel all others in gentleness” ~ Spurgeon “Here is a text, words spoken by Jesus, that keeps this in clear focus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. We can’t proclaim the Jesus truth but then do it any old way we like. Nor can we follow the Jesus way without speaking the Jesus truth. But Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor. In the text that Jesus sets before us so clearly and definitively, way comes first. We cannot skip the way of Jesus in our hurry to get to the truth of Jesus as he is worshiped and proclaimed. The way of Jesus is the way that we practice and come to understand the truth of Jesus, living Jesus in our homes and workplaces, with our friends and family.” ~ Eugene Peterson Examen: What does “purposeful, determined gentleness” look like in the classroom? Where am I trying to do Jesus’ work in a non-Jesus way? With what or whom am I striving for the sake of a particular outcome? ~~~~~~~ What if, instead: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:345. We all know: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:42 Bk.I. I was lost: Charlotte M. Mason, Formation of Character, 5:85–86. But no mere assertion: 5:201. I remark that Christ: Charles H Spurgeon, “A Call to Holy Living.,” n.d. Here is a text: Peterson, The Jesus Way, 4. Day 2 All-forgiving Gentleness meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  God Judging Adam, William Blake, 1795 (see also Adorable Person, All-forgiving Gentleness) “Now listen to what goes on in many a nursery: ––'God does not love you, you naughty, wicked boy!' 'He will send you to the bad, wicked place!' and so on; and this is all the practical teaching about the ways of his 'almighty Lover' that the child gets! ––never a word of how God does love and cherish the little children all day long, and fill their hours with delight. Add to this, listless perfunctory prayers, idle discussions of Divine things in their presence, light use of holy words, few signs whereby the child can read that the things of God are more to his parents than any things of the world, and the child is hindered, tacitly forbidden to ‘come unto Me,’––and this, often, by parents who in the depths of their hearts desire nothing in comparison with God.” * “God presented to Children as an Exactor and a Punisher. ––‘If we think of God as an exactor and not a giver,’ it has been well said, ‘exactors and not givers shall we become.’” * “It is a very sad fact that many children get their first ideas of God in the nursery, and that these are of a Being on the watch for their transgressions and always ready to chastise. It is hard to estimate the alienation which these first ideas of the divine Father set up in the hearts of His little children.” * “The God I was told about in church, and still hear about from time to time, runs about like an anxious schoolmaster measuring people’s behaviour with a moral yardstick. But the God I know is the source of reality rather than morality, the source of what is rather than what ought to be. This does not mean that God has nothing to do with morality: morality and its consequences are built into the God-given structure of reality itself. Moral norms are not something we have to stretch for, and moral consequences are not something we have to wait for: they are right here, right now, waiting for us to honor, or violate, the nature of self, other, world.” ~ Parker Palmer * “Theologians have done more to hide the Gospel of Christ than any of its adversaries.” ~ George MacDonald Examen: How has God been presented to me? Could I be presenting a Cosmic Measurer instead of the Adorable Person in either words or actions? ~~~~~~~ Now listen to: Charlotte M. Mason Home Education, 1:20. God presented to Children: 1:346. It is a very sad: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:145. The God I was: Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation By Parker J. Palmer (Hardcover, 1999), 50. Theologians have done: George MacDonald, “Unspoken Sermons Second Series,” n.d., 46. Day 3 Angry God meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  The Lacemaker, Vermeer, c. 1699-1670 “The Habit of turning out Imperfect Work. ––'Throw perfection into all you do' is a counsel upon which a family may be brought up with great advantage. We English, as a nation, think too much of persons, and too little of things, work, execution. Our children are allowed to make their figures or their letters, their stitches, their dolls' clothes, their small carpentry, anyhow, with the notion that they will do better by-and-by. Other nations––the Germans and the French, for instance––look at the question philosophically, and know that if children get the habit of turning out imperfect work, the men and women will undoubtedly keep that habit up.” * “Most people associated with us (P.N.E.U.) know something of the treatment of sensations, the direction of the will, the treatment of temper, the psychology of attention, the desires and affections which are the springs of conduct, and other practical matters concerned with the management of one's life. We hear people who use that fine old nursery plan expressed 'change your thoughts' with method and success in the case of cross, or even delirious, or morbid patients. We (of the Parents' Union) feel as if we had a tool in our hands and knew how to set to work. The principle, anyhow, we perceive to be right, and, if we blunder in its application, we try again, whether for ourselves or for our children.” * “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep me both outwardly in my body and inwardly in my soul, that I may be defended from all evil thoughts which may assault and may hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. +Amen” ~ Book of Common Prayer Examen: Where have I made a habit of thinking I will do better by-and-by? Is there a handicraft that draws my attention to the fallacy of “any old how?” How does that relate to the craft of teaching? ~~~~~~~ The Habit of turning: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:159. Most people associated: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:87. Almighty God, you: “Collects: Contemporary (Seasons of the Year),” accessed June 3, 2024, https://bcponline.org/Collects/seasonsc.html#lent. Day 4 Anyhow meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Marie Madeleine Franc-Nohain tous deux étaient seuls “In the first place, we (of the P.N.E.U) have no system of education. We hold that great things, such as nature, life, education, are 'cabined, cribbed, confined,' in proportion as they are systematised. We have a method of education, it is true, but method is no more than a way to an end, and is free, yielding, adaptive as Nature herself. Method has a few comprehensive laws according to which details shape themselves, as one naturally shapes one's behaviour to the acknowledged law that fire burns. System, on the contrary, has an infinity of rules and instructions as to what you are to do and how you are to do it. Method in education follows Nature humbly; stands aside and gives her fair play.” * “Teaching must not be Obtrusive. ––Half the teaching one hears and sees is more or less obtrusive. The oral lesson and the lecture, with their accompanying notes, give very little scope for the establishment of relations with great minds and various minds. The child who learns his science from a text-book, though he go to Nature for illustrations, and he who gets his information from object-lessons, has no chance of forming relations with things as they are, because his kindly obtrusive teacher makes him believe that to know about things is the same thing as knowing them personally; though every child knows that to know about Prince Edward is by no means the same thing as knowing the boy-prince. We study in many ways the art of standing aside.” * “The art of standing aside to let a child develop the relations proper to him is the fine art of education.” * “Certainly, work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.” ~ George MacDonald * “There is therefore in a really good lesson only one place for the teacher, and that is the background.” ~ Miss R. A. Pennethorne Examen: We study the “the art of standing aside.” How many of Mason’s classroom postures am I able to list that would fit under this heading? Can I identify obtrusive teaching – having either received it or practiced it? How is sacred idleness counter-cultural? ~~~~~~~ In the first place: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:169. Teaching must not: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:66. The art of standing: 3:67. Certainly, work is: “Wilfrid Cumbermede, by George Macdonald,” accessed June 3, 2024, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9183/9183-h/9183-h.htm. There is therefore:“AO Parents’ Review Archives AmblesideOnline.Org,”accessed October9,2024,https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR10p549PNEUPrinciples.shtml. Day 5 Art of Standing Aside meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Carl Larsson, Christmas Morning, 1894 “…habits of gentleness, courtesy, kindness, candour, respect for other people, or––habits quite other than these, are inspired (i.e. inhaled) by the child as the very atmosphere of his home, the air he lives in and must grow by.” * “… education is an atmosphere––that is, the child breathes the atmosphere emanating from his parents; that of the ideas which rule their own lives.” * “It is not an environment that these (children) want, a set of artificial relations carefully constructed, but an atmosphere which nobody has been at pains to constitute. It is there, about the child, his natural element, precisely as the atmosphere of the earth is about us.” * “School, perhaps, offers fewer opportunities for vitiating the atmosphere than does home life. But teaching may be so watered down and sweetened, teachers may be so suave and condescending, as to bring about a condition of intellectual feebleness and moral softness which it is not easy for a child to overcome. The bracing atmosphere of truth and sincerity should be perceived in every School; and here again the common pursuit of knowledge by teacher and class comes to our aid and creates a current of fresh air perceptible even to the chance visitor, who sees the glow of intellectual life and moral health on the faces of teachers and children alike.” * “The fault has been in the atmosphere and not in the work; the teacher, perhaps, is overanxious that her children should do well, and her nervous excitation is catching.” * “The mind lives by means of knowledge; stagnates, faints, perishes, deprived of this necessary atmosphere.” * “The whole atmosphere of the house (House of Education) was so extraordinarily good - nothing ignoble seemed natural within its doors, and moreover the actual surroundings, the books, the pictures (reproductions of the old masters), the simple furniture and the wild flowers for decoration everywhere were a revelation in themselves in those days when the world either lived in a crowd of ancestral treasures or in the unutterable hideousness of the Victorian Age when prosperity had to be apparent.” ~ Essex Cholmondley Examen: What does my physical space speak to my learning community? Is there something more I can do in my classroom to encourage its occupants to be their best selves? ~~~~~~~ ...habits of gentleness: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:137. ...education is an atmosphere: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:247. It is not an environment: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:96. School, perhaps, offers: 6:97. The fault has been: 6:98. The mind lives: 6:324. The whole atmosphere: Cholmondley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, 74 Cholmondley suggests Mason’s reliance on “Simplicity” as informing the design of her classrooms and the House of Education (283). Day 6 Attention meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Жуков В. В. девочка на окне. 1960 “Attention, we know, is not a 'faculty' nor a definable power of mind but is the ability to turn on every such power, to concentrate, as we say. We throw away labour in attempting to produce or to train this necessary function. There it is in every child in full measure, a very Niagara of force, ready to be turned on in obedience to the child's own authority and capable of infinite resistance to authority imposed from without. Our part is to regard attention, too, as an appetite and to feed it with the best we have in books and in all knowledge. But children do it 'on their own';” * “…no intellectual habit is so valuable as that of attention; it is a mere habit but it is also the hall-mark of an educated person.” * “We are aware that our own discursive talk is usually a waste of time and a strain on the scholars' attention, so we (of the P.N.E.U.) confine ourselves to affording two things, ––knowledge, and a keen sympathy in the interest roused by that knowledge. It is our part to see that every child knows and can tell, whether by way of oral narrative or written essay. In this way an unusual amount of ground is covered with such certainty that no revision is required for the examination at the end of the term. A single reading is a condition insisted upon because a naturally desultory habit of mind leads us all to put off the effort of attention as long as a second or third chance of coping with our subject is to be hoped for. It is, however, a mistake to speak of the 'effort of attention.' Complete and entire attention is a natural function which requires no effort and causes no fatigue; the anxious labour of mind of which we are at times aware comes when attention wanders and has again to be brought to the point; but the concentration at which most teachers aim is an innate provision for education and is not the result of training or effort.” * “We can think of attention as the leader of our brain. Wherever our attention goes, the rest of the brain follows. Whatever we pay attention to the brain amplifies.” ~ Amishi Jha * “I make it my priority to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I maintain a simple attention and a fond regard for God, which I may call an actual presence of God. Or, to put it another way, it is an habitual, silent, and private conversation of the soul with God.” ~ Brother Lawrence Examen: “What do you understand by ‘attention?’ How would you train a child in this habit?” What is the educational inference?” “Describe from Brother Lawrence one way in which the highest relationship may be initiated.” ~~~~~~~ Attention, we know: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:75–76. ...no intellectual habit: 6:99. We are aware: 6:171. We can think: Amishi Jha, “The Science of Taming the Wandering Mind,” Mindful, June 16, 2017, https://www.mindful.org/taming-the-wandering-mind/. I make it my: Brother Lawrence, “THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD,” n.d., 14 Mason esteems Br, Lawrence. 3:212,268. What do you: “AO Parents’ Review Archives AmblesideOnline.Org,” Syllabus I. Examination 2. Describe from Br. Lawrence: 3:268. Day 7 Attention meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  “What are we to do? Are we to waste time in discussing with children every idle and blasphemous proposition that comes their way? Surely not. But we may help them to principles which should enable them to discern these two characters for themselves.” * “…but young people who have been brought up on this sort of work (the reading of literature concurrently with a chronological study of history and current events) may, we find, be trusted to keep themselves au fait with the best that is being produced in their own days.” * “The response of the young students to such a scheme of study is very delightful. What they write has literary and sometimes poetic value, and the fact that they can write well is the least of the gains acquired. They can read, appreciating every turn of their author's thought; and they can bring cultivated minds to bear on the problems of the hour and the guiding of the State; that is to say, their education bears at every point on the issues and interests of everyday life, and they shew good progress in the art of becoming the magnanimous citizens of the future.” * “Forms V and VI are expected to keep up with the newspapers and know something about places and regions coming most into note in the current term.” Examen: How am I feeling about "the problems of the hour?" Do I feel that the curriculum must be continually updated? What are the sources of the pressure to make sure that students encounter all the issues of the day and read the latest literature? How does Charlotte Mason's “we may help them to principles” answer this? ~~~~~~~ What are we: Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:148. ...but young people: 6:184. The response of: 6:194. Forms V and VI: 6:230 i.e. older students. Day 8 Au fait meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Snezhana Soosh “A child cannot have a lasting sense of duty until he is brought into contact with a supreme Authority, who is the source of law, and the pleasing of whom converts duty into joy.” * “It is brought home, too, to most of us who are set in authority, that we ourselves are acting under a higher, and finally, under the highest authority.” * “'Thou art about my path and about my bed and spiest out all my ways,' should be a thought, not of fear, but of very great comfort to every child. This constant recognition of authority excites the twofold response of docility and of reverence. It is said that the children of our day are marked by wilfulness and a certain flippancy and want of reverence; if this is so, and in so far as it is so, it is because children are brought up without the consciousness of their relation to God, whom we are taught to call 'Our Father.' This divine name reminds us that authority is lodged in the Author of our being, and is tender, pitiful, preventive, strong to care for and wise to govern; as we see it feebly shown forth even in the best of human fathers.” * “'Managing' People. ––There is also a special danger attending the love of power––a danger to others rather than to ourselves. If we are bent upon taking the lead, we do not allow others fair play or a fair chance. We cheat our fellows out of a part of their lives, out of that fair share of power which belongs to them. We grow strong at their expense, and they wax feeble in proportion as we wax great. Few characters are more ignoble than those who are always trying to manage others, always manoeuvring to get power into their own hands. The best way of watching against this evil is to wait always until we have 'greatness thrust upon us.' Let us not take the lead, but wait until it is given to us, and then let us lead for the advancement and help of others rather than for our own.” Examen: How is my authority expressed in the classroom? When do I find myself most at risk of managing people? p.s. Authority is a hard word for some of us, especially those who have had less than perfect childhoods. Clicking on the image above reveals a beautiful depiction of what I think Mason has in mind -- " tender, pitiful, preventive, strong to care for and wise to govern." ~~~~~~~ A child cannot: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:137. It is brought home: 3:137. Thou art about: 3:138. Managing People: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:72 Bk.I. Day 9 Authority meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025 |
