The Holy Spirit as Supreme Educator

Continuing my series of posts on Charlotte Mason, today's topic is God as the Supreme Educator. Charlotte believed that our efforts to educate children would only be fruitful so far as we are willing to cooperate with the Supreme Educator of all. She held that every fruitful idea, every new scientific revelation, every true and worthy thought was inspired by God Himself, regardless of whether the person thinking, discovering, or receiving such things acknowledged His role or not. This truth was the "Great Recognition:" that there is no separation between "spiritual" and "educational," for God made all things and by Him they live. We cannot understand the truth about anything (either spiritual or physical) apart from His light shining upon our minds. If this is true, then it follows that education is not possible without Him. In her book Parents and Children she says, "God, the Holy Spirit, is Himself the Supreme Educator of mankind. How? He openeth man's ear morning by morning, to hear so much of the best as the man is able to hear." The teacher's job is simply to diligently provide access to the best Educational Materials and experiences that they can provide. 

As the beating heart of Charlotte's philosophy is the idea that a person's soul must feed daily on ideas, even as the body is nourished by food. The question is not "will the children gather ideas," but, "what ideas will the children gather?" There are good and wholesome ideas and impoverished, wrong, or even evil ideas which the child takes in, just as she takes in the food that is given her. These ideas are the "atmosphere" the child is raised in. For this reason, Bible Teaching was not just a subject but the whole foundation that Charlotte would have the children build upon. Charlotte believed that because the child comes to us from God, and that same God was deeply involved in the child's individual life, it is not the place of the adult to talk down to the child, preach at the child, or even convince the child; rather, when we put fruitful stories and ideas before the child the Holy Spirit will move in them to receive so much as they are able to receive at the time. Our portion begins and ends with the presentation of the wholesome idea or word (either Scriptural or otherwise). This is not to say that there should be no discipline involved, far from it! "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life" she tells us. The child is not given an "opt-in" or "opt-out" when it comes to lessons, but rather there is an expectation that The Holy Spirit will be present in each lesson, intimately involved in whatever growth is to happen. The teacher is admonished not to get in the way of what the Holy Spirit wants to teach to the child, so teachers are not to ask leading questions or to lecture the child about what they are supposed to receive from the study. Because the Holy Spirit is the Supreme Educator, the teacher does not have to be. Many students surpass their teachers in wisdom and understanding, and this is not something to fret about; it is simply a result of God working in us. As I have studied Charlotte's philosophy I have been given a peace that "passeth understanding," knowing that my efforts are but a small portion of the inheritance that my children will grow to receive: what a relief! I want to do my best, but the faith in God as Supreme Educator helps me to strive towards doing my best without anxiety or fear of the future. I am not worried about what is going to happen when my children surpass me in understanding, or take an interest in something that I have no particular interest in. God already knows the future and He will provide avenues of growth for my children where He desires to. What a peace! I hope that this encourages my readers in your educational efforts and will leave you with a quote from the teacher herself: 

 "But it is not only with high themes of science, art and poetry that the divine Spirit concerns Himself. It sometimes occurs to one to wonder who invented, in the first place, the way of using the most elemental necessaries of life. Who first discovered the means of producing fire, of joining wood, of smelting ores, of sowing seed, of grinding corn? We cannot think of ourselves as living without knowing these things; and yet each one must have been a great idea when it first made a stir in the mind of the man who conceived it. Where did he get his first idea? Happily, we are told, in a case so typical that it is a key to all the rest:–– 'Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.'––Isa. xxviii. 24, etc. 'God doth Instruct.'––In the things of science, in the things of art, in the things of practical everyday life, his God doth instruct him and doth teach him, her God doth instruct her and doth teach her. Let this be the mother's key to the whole of the education of each boy and each girl; not of her children; the Divine Spirit does not work with nouns of multitude, but with each single child. Because He is infinite, the whole world is not too great a school for this indefatigable Teacher, and because He is infinite, He is able to give the whole of his infinite attention for the whole time to each one of his multitudinous pupils. We do not sufficiently rejoice in the wealth that the infinite nature of our God brings to each of us."