[forty-two]

Originally Posted by knitlove

I think it is worth this first principal that cm is so divergent from classical. Though they can look similar in how they work in a home.

Interesting, as reason 2 that CM is part of the classical tradition (per the link I posted above) is *because* of her first principle:

Had a high view of mankind, as reflected in her glorious conception of the human as person, an idea distinctly Christian and therefore Christian classical more than Greek or Roman classical.

~*~

WRT children are persons, I tend to think of that as children being *fellow* persons - that they are as fully human as anyone. Everything that is necessary to the human experience, children already have when they are born. They are lacking in experience and in *developing* their faculties, but they *have* all the essential human faculties - they aren't lacking in anything essential to being human. They think, they feel, they trust, they desire some things and seek to avoid others. Their worlds are small, but they interact with them in a fully human way - children are rational beings, too.

WRT teaching, children being persons means that I don't require them to do things that I myself don't do (or haven't done). I don't teach them things that are just fit for kids, but not for adults; rather I teach them things that are fit for *humans*, all humans (me included). I was re-reading The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis, and he was talking about the difference between education-as-inculcation and education-as-indoctrination. The difference revolved around whether you saw children as being part of the same species as you (which, since we are people, is another way of saying whether you see children as persons (like you) or not). If you saw children as persons, as the same species as you, then the relationship between teacher and student was like that of an adult bird and a baby bird. The adult nurtured in the child what the child needed to grow up to be a full adult - he gave to the child the best of what he had, so that the child could grow up to be a full adult like him.

But if you saw children as a different species, then the relationship between teacher and student was like that of a poultrykeeper and the birds he raises. The poultrykeeper raises and teaches his birds for *his* benefit, not for the birds' benefit. He teaches his birds to act in ways that he himself does not act, and to live in ways that he does not live, and to do so for reasons that the birds do not know or share in. He's not raising up birds to be good birds by bird standards, but to be useful birds by human standards. That's indoctrination - teaching kids to follow principles you yourself don't follow, to believe things that you yourself don't believe. IOW, something that's the result of *not* considering children as fellow persons.

For us, that means that dh and I "follow our own rules", as we say in our house . The things we tell the kids to do apply to us, too. And the things we tell the kids to do are meant to help build up good habits not just for now, but for *life*. And us adults are persons, too - we need good life habits, too . So our snack rules aren't just a kid thing, but are (supposed to be, trying to be) a good guideline for how to fit snacks into life for everyone. Ditto our fledgling screen rules - it's not just about protecting the kids from undue screen influence, but about figuring out how screens should and shouldn't fit into our lives, *all* our lives. It also means, wrt school, that I don't require subjects that I am unwilling to learn myself. If Latin is good for my kids to learn, then it's good for Mom to learn, too .

~*~

I also think of "children are born persons" as meaning humans are *persons*, not machines. We have souls, we are more than just the material, we are not just special, better computers (or, increasingly, inferior computers ). Computers just aren't a good model for human thinking. People aren't computers with emotions tacked on. People are *persons*, people seek to know the *essences* of things, to know what things *are* and what they *mean*. Human logic is so much bigger and grander and *real* than computer logic. And grammar-study-for-humans is so much bigger and richer and meaningful than grammar-rules-for-computers. Yet today we use computer logic for humans, and not just computers; we teach grammar to humans like we teach it to computers; and in so doing, we destroy the ability of humans to study the humanities. (That's been my project of the past few months - breaking out of the logic-for-computers trap, and learning what a human logic looks like; and learning how humanistic grammar is rooted in meaning and *reality* (as opposed to grammar-rules-for-computers, which can be used and parsed without any understanding of what you are saying), and generally trying to learn how to study the humanities like a human.)