Don't Give Your Kids Twaddle!!!!! Part 2 (Textbooks or Books?)

I can't talk about the issue of twaddle without talking about textbooks.  People, some of the worst twaddle is found in the textbooks we give our children to read.  (Please stay with me, I don't mean to offend anyone.)  Textbooks are among the least interesting and literary pieces of writing available.  Textbooks are filled with facts, places, names and dates-not interesting, literary writing.

One of the problems with using textbooks is that textbooks don't inspire.  The point of education is not to cram all the information possible into a child's heads in twelve years and then hope that they will remember it all.  Twelve years is a relatively short time of their lives and it is impossible for them to learn everything there is to learn.  The point of education is to foster a LOVE for learning, a LOVE for reading.  If my child is inspired in his reading he will love reading and love learning and that will last a lifetime.  Think about most of the textbooks you used in school...did they captivate your imagination, thrill you and make you want to read more, or did they bore you to tears?  If you would not want to read it, why give it to your child to read?  Instead, give your child a thrilling book and he will devour it.

We learn best from stories.  Humans have selective memory, which is why you can remember vividly a scene from when you were four years old but can't remember what you had for dinner last night.  Hey, I'm lucky to remember what I had for lunch today!  Why do we remember some things and not others?  It all has to do with emotion.  We remember things that impact us emotionally.  What happened to you when you were four impacted you emotionally and your dinner last night didn't.  Its that simple.  That is why the use of stories and good books in learning is SOOOOO important.  Children will NOT remember boring facts. They will, however remember a good story, and in remembering the story they will remember the facts that went along with it.

Jesus taught this way.  I am in no way a Bible scholar, but I think it was pretty rare for Jesus to teach anything without telling a story.  In hearing the story his listeners made an emotional connection and through that remembered the teaching.  That is why preachers use illustrations while they are preaching.  They know that unless the audience connects emotionally with their sermon, the likelyhood of them remembering it all the way out to their cars is pretty slim.

Let me give you an example.  Breck loves our Geography time.  Its not because he has an obsession with maps or even because I'm a great geography teacher, truth be told, I'm rather poor at geography.  He loves it because of the BOOK we are using.  The book, "Paddle to the Sea" by Holling C. Holling, is the story of a Canadian Indian boy who carves out of a piece of wood a canoe with an Indian in it.  He names the canoe "Paddle to the Sea" and sets it on top of the snow-covered mountain so that as the snow melts it will carry Paddle to the river and from there to the Great Lakes and on out to the Sea.  As you read the adventures of Paddle not only do you learn about all the geography surrounding the Great Lakes, but you also learn about logging, how saw mills work, the coast guard and how they help to rescue people from ship wrecks, the Soo Locks, how it works and why it was built, freighter ships, forest fires, tides, winter on the Great Lakes and soooo much more.  Its Geography Plus and its written in an interesting and literary manner.  And Breck LOVES it!  He has made an emotional connection with the little canoe and will remember the facts as he remembers the story.  What a great way to learn!!

So tell me, which way would YOU rather learn?

Don't Give Your Kids Twaddle!!!!! Part 1

People may say that Dog is man's best friend, but they are wrong.  Books are man's best friend.  There is nothing better to do on a cold day than to curl up in a chair with a hot cup of tea and a good, worn book... ahhhh, bliss.

I can hardly begin to state the importance of books in our lives.  Books mold our thought processes.  From the earliest years, through fairy tales we learn of good versus evil; we learn about morality: right and wrong.  We form our opinions and beliefs.

Books also teach us how to read, write and speak and therefore are (or should be) the foundation of a child's education.  I can not underemphasis the importance of choosing the right books to give our children to read.

I am not just talking about getting books that are morally correct.  I'm talking about something that Charlotte Mason called "twaddle."   An outdated word, to be sure, but give the lady a break, she lived over 100 yr. ago!   Twaddle is simple language, incomplete sentences, unimaginative writing, "UNLITERARY" writing..... you get the idea.  We've all seen this type of writing.  The library is full of such books.  That's why its important to be selective.

Here is an example from a reading book I had picked up for Breck and had not checked over carefully:

"Rushing down the highway, rolling down the road. Truck Stop."


What was that?  That's not a sentence.  Breck was totally confused.  He could tell that  "rushing down the highway, rolling down the road" was not a complete thought.  Needless to say, we will not be finishing the book.


On the other hand, here is an example of good literary writing by Rudyard Kipling.  This is taken from the beginning of one chapter from his book, "Just So Stories."

"Once upon a most early time was a Neolithic man.  He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why.  He was a Primitive, and he lived cavily in a Cave, and he wore very few clothes, and he couldn't read and he couldn't write and he didn't want to, and except when he was hungry he was quite happy.  His name was Tegumai Bopsulai, and that means, 'Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry'; but we, O Best Beloved, will call him Tegumai, for short.  And his wife's name was Teshumai Tewindrow, and that means, 'Lady-who-asks-a-very-many-questions'; but we, O best Beloved, will call her Teshumai, for short.  And his little girl-daughter's name was Taffimai Metallumai, and that means, 'Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked'; but I"m going to call her Taffy  And she was Tegumai Bopsulai's Best Beloved and her own Mummy's Best Beloved, and she was not spanked half as much as was good for her; and they were all three very happy."

That's good writing.

All I'm saying is think about what you give your children to feast their minds upon.  What you read is what you become and for what you will develop an appetite.  I regularly read books to my children that are hard for them to understand.  Sometimes I have to stop every sentence or two to explain what is happening or explain new words that they don't understand.  THAT'S OKAY!  They are learning.  Their minds are being challenged and are expanding with new understanding every day.

There is one more reason for not allowing a constant diet of fluffy material, and that is because the main reason we teach our children to read is so they can read the greatest literary masterpiece ever written-the Bible.  How can children be expected to grow up and read the Bible consistently, revere it, love it, and at least somewhat understand it if they have been fed twaddle all their lives.  I'm afraid I've been around far too many Christians who stumbled around trying to read a passage from the Bible.  The Bible is a difficult book to read, so we better be preparing our children.


Something to think about.