How to Use School Books
Now that we understand the purpose of education, we can ask ourselves, "what is the inspiring idea our children are engaged in with this study?" For we know that the purpose of education is not to develop our faculties. Our faculties will grow as a positive and welcome side-effect.
Imagine if we could recognise that we should get in touch with people of different professions, countries, and times through education. Our books will be like windows into these other worlds and minds. History will be an exciting insight into how people lived; their fears, their diet, their clothing and their thoughts,
What are the best books? There a probably a million and one book lists on the internet. Here are some guiding principles to choosing good books
1) We owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of an appropriate book. A child should be able to make his deductions from a book.
What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in and is rarely assimilated - Charlotte Mason
2) Good books inspire ideas. They put us directly in touch with the mind of the thinker.
3) Good books can quicken the mind and full of living ideas about its subject.
How do we use good books? We need to be careful not to come in between a child and a good book. The child needs to make generalisations, classify, infer, make judgments, visualise and discriminate information from a book. His mind can process the ideas from a book, sort them and decide which ones to assimilate or reject. In the end, he's the one who decides what he'll get out of a book, not his teacher.
I'm sure you have questions. You probably wonder how we can tell that our children understand what they are listening to/reading.
The answer is Narration. We require our children to retell the contents of a paragraph or a chapter after a single reading. Through Narration, our children learn to sequence events and convey these events in their own words. They also master the habit of attention because there is no opportunity for do-overs.
There is no cramming because the ability to cram is not an actual test of knowledge. Even though giving a narration is challenging, our children acquire this ability with ease, provided they have the opportunity for lots of practice.
Children also can determine cause and effect, discern peoples' character, get life lessons and living knowledge from books. When they use books in this way, we can say they are truly getting an education.
What is our role as teachers and parents? Our part is to be a guide by asking leading questions. Our job is to ensure that our children put in mental effort. We must, however, be careful of coming in between a child and a good book. The lesson is often forgotten when we get carried away with creating activities. The living thoughts from a book should be at the forefront of every class.
In the words of Milton:
"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. As good almost kill a man, as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a good reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself––kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye."
Remain blessed,
Olufunmike.