It has always resounded deep within me, that life is a very serious thing. So from the point in my life when I first was considering having children, I have always endeavored to be intentional. To be consistently intentional in life is a struggle because life is also filled with unpredictable chaos. A quote from Charlotte Mason highlights that balance of chaos versus control. “No other part of the world’s work is of such supreme difficulty, delicacy and importance, as that of parents in the right bringing up of their children.”
Taking great care and trying to find the right path for my family has brought me to meet Charlotte Mason and increasingly admire her principled life. I love that she based her principles on Scripture and her time spent with children.
I went to college with interests in languages, culture, architecture, writing, math and many other things. I couldn’t really narrow down what i most was interested in and ended up deciding that, for me, it would be better to get started having kids and teaching them what i already knew (without student loans) than it would be to get narrowed down to career level (with loans and no longer afford to be at home).
So my varied interests and my husband’s varied interests have led us into many adventures. We live on 5 acres with 3 children. We have had cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, guinea fowl, and rabbits living alongside us at different times over the years. And when it came to educating our children, I felt called to walk closely with them through life, educating ourselves together side-by-side. “Self-education is the only possible education, the rest is mere veneer on the surface of a child’s nature.” We, as parents, want to have a deep impact on our children, don’t we? But teaching is *not* molding them to a shape we want or trying to paint over their flaws. Teaching them is introducing them to ideas and letting them be educated by the Holy Spirit. So my interest in Loft and Field is in finding and collaborating with like-minded parents to lead our children to a full smorgasbord of living ideas and living books. We can cheer one another along on this journey of education that truly never ends… and so must be wide and deep and varied. Let it be based on life. Life in its chaos and seriousness and also it’s joy and the habits we choose.
“The only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.”
“Give your child a single valuable idea, and you gave done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.”
Ok, I will stop quoting Charlotte now because if you are reading this, I know you’ll be wanting to come, meet with us and read her volumes.