Day 7 Attention

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';”

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“…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.”

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“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.”

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“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

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“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.”
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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​

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