Ep 03 | Authority and Docility: Natural, Necessary, and Fundamental (Principle #3)
Moms know a thing about tension, about holding two things in balance: speaking and silence, instruction and waiting, pizza and broccoli. Understanding the complementary particulars of home life and nurturing children is kind of our job. As we head into the next principle, just remember: you’ve been training for this in so many ways before today. In her third principle, Mason shares two ideas that are natural, necessary, and fundamental to the homeschool but must be held in tension with one another: authority and docility.
Now, what exactly does that mean?
Video Resource | Let’s get practical.
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Principle #3: The principles of Authority on the one hand and Docility on the other are natural, necessary, and fundamental.
________
It’s hard for me to think of two terms that cause an eye roll or a raised brow in our day more quickly than authority and docility.
But here I am, ready to convince you that both are good and necessary.
Now, if you’re like me, the lady in residence in a house of young children, you already know that a house filled with small persons will crumble without authority and docility—or, for our purposes today, we’ll call docility, obedience. I have a good feeling that this audience is not the general public who doubts authority and obedience as good things. But, I also have a feeling that you, like me, might struggle with these two ideas, how to hold them together without becoming a dictator, how to be the authority while under authority, how these things relate to read alouds and handicrafts. You know, the way these weave their way through the fabric of life as a home educator.
What I love about Mason’s principles is that they aren’t just the musings of a 19th-century educator; they’re founded in the natural order of God’s world. Mason lays first the eternal foundation before building upon the classical tradition. Her writing reminds me that God intended for us to understand the principles of education just as we understand the principles of gardening or weather phenomena. He’s made his world make sense and we can make sense of it. Remember: this is the classical way. So when we think about educating our children, we don’t jump to perfect pens and math books, we start with how children learn and how we teach. And for that, we’re going to need to wrap our hands around authority and obedience to set the tracks in our home long before our formal schooling years begin. And, honestly, I expect we’ll be revisiting this long after they begin too.
So, from the very beginning, we’ve had authority and obedience. This is true for every person in every time from the Garden of Eden to today. God wrote authority and obedience into every part of creation, including the heart of man. This is what Mason means when she says it’s natural; it’s part of God’s created order. What’s interesting is that people have chosen not to believe this, with great trouble, since the very beginning too. But I mean, even an anarchist has to admit that authority and obedience exist, he’s just transferred all authority to himself and obeys only himself.
Anarchists can be 50 or 5, the consequences are usually pretty similar.
Now, a society, a school, or a family cannot thrive without authority and obedience. Let’s agree right here that ultimate authority belongs to God, but remember that we do have authority given to us as mothers. We hold an office or position created by God which holds authority inherently in the position or work. It’s like being a king, a commander, a police officer, or a team captain. The title holds the authority. People just know you have it. But, you, it needs to be said, are not the authority. You must obey the ultimate Authority in how you fill your role.
And when you don’t obey, it’s not easy for others to obey you. We’ve probably all been under the authority of someone who abused their position above us and we’ve probably all been that authority too. Our lack of obedience can be a terrible stumbling block for our own children. Who doesn’t struggle to follow a mom who arbitrarily makes up rules, leaves you guessing on her reaction, and quips, “Because I said so,” as a reason for randomness? No one wants to obey that kind of authority.
Mason points out two pitfall roles that moms (or dads) can assume: the arbitrary and the authoritarian parent. Both forget they’re in submission to God, but the arbitrary find authority in themselves, not the office of motherhood; and the authoritarian abuse their power on the hearts of children.
We have to hold the right kind of authority in our home and homeschool.
But what about the second part of this principle: docility or obedience? Well, we’re all called to obey, which in its etymology can be defined as to hear. I really like that because it taps into the habit of attention in a way that motivates action. If we truly hear the call of authority—God’s call, our mom’s call—we are rightly attuned to God’s order, which is the preceding step to right living. If we can’t hear, we can’t know. If we can’t obey, we can’t truly live.
Because education is about learning how to live.
Sometimes people ask me questions that imply their vision of classical education and home is one of strictness, duty, and nary a smile in sight. It sounds like a total dictatorship which they rightly understand to be burdensome, lifeless, and awful. This almost pains me, because it’s so far from the truth.
God is one of authority and requires docility, he’s one of order and rhythm, and yet we know his boundary lines for us fall in pleasant places, that the path marked by light is one of joy, one that will, someday, be only delight and laughter. Order gives us a clear line to know what we can or cannot do, and when that line is based on God’s definition of good, it gives everyone in our home true freedom. Mason seemed to think this principle would create a closeness between parents and children. So, authority and docility in our homes—however imperfectly we manage to practice them as a family—should generally lean towards joy.
Towards merriment. Towards jollification. Towards a really, really good time. Because Mason is pointing us to the ways of God, and they can only be good.
One of my favorite facts to tell people is that the phenomenal GK Chesterton married Miss Mason’s PNEU general secretary. I love when worlds of goodness collide, and the fact that Chesterton and Mason are so linked in ideas and practices delights me.
But, anyway, Chesterton points out in The Man Who Was Thursday, that chaos is unremarkable, but order is magical:
The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria.
The order of authority and docility is an invitation into something wonderful.
And that’s where this principle starts to flesh out in the day-to-day, how it more obviously relates to the schoolroom.
Mason says that we, as home educators, have the task of finding the middle course that keeps a child in their proper orbit. She likens it to the tension that holds the earth in orbit–you need the draw towards the sun and the force that pulls towards open space.
How do we act like both sun and open space? Well, the key is freedom in our homeschools. Now, hang with me, it’s not exactly what you think. Children should be governed by authority but in a way so clever that they don’t really realize it. They should feel like the rule is “Do what you’d like,” but the actual reality is, “Do as you’re told.”
I understood this better when I thought about my own life. Most of the time, I feel like I’m doing whatever I want: I choose the food, I set up the house, I decide that we spend our days hiking, reading, playing, cleaning, and learning. It feels like the rule is “Do what you’d like, Autumn.” But, I know that it’s not “do what you’d like,” but rather “do as God bids.” And knowing how to obey what God has bid, so to speak, gives me an immense amount of freedom in doing as I’d like within those bounds.
It’s what Mason calls ordered freedom.
I’m finding the more I lean into Mason’s principles, the more I love her vision of a mother. Learning to find the right time for masterly inactivity, for authority and guidance, for allowing Nature to teach, for staying quiet, for helping with a habit, for letting my children have a quiet growing time—doing all of this is a lot more delightful than feeling like I’m the no police upon whom every burden falls. Certainly being the mom is not without responsibilities and a whole lot of work, but it’s not the frantic, controlling, overwhelmed picture we hear and see and can be. We’re not running a house or educating a child based on ‘because I said so,’ which is an unsure footing for any mom.
We point to and follow God whose reason is ‘because it’s right,” believing that his ultimate Authority is trustworthy and we can submit to his patterns for formation—for our kids, and for us.
Now, I know you’ve heard this point before. Mason weaves ‘the reason for doing something’ into many of her principles, but especially in these first few. But here, she begins to expand it. We don’t want to manipulate a child into right behavior, because, without their happy hearts, it doesn’t form them towards anything worthwhile. We want our children to understand doing something because it’s right because it allows them the joy of finding dignity in obedience or docility. It becomes a matter of pride and respect to do what God says is right.
When writing this episode, I kept thinking about Downtown Abbey. Have you seen it? Well, I remember being struck by the way Carson, the butler, clearly felt great pride in his service of the Crawleys. He made it clear that his every motivation was to think, speak, and act in a way that honored the Crawley family, which reflected well on the house. His docility and service were a matter of distinction, an accomplishment worthy to pursue.
This is the picture we want to give our kids in their pursuit of what is right, in what is true, good, and beautiful. Their docility, or obedience, is done with great dignity when done in service to God.
And this is true in their schoolwork as well.
Once we begin formal schooling with our kids, we’re not only asking for obedience to our position as moms, but also to the homeschool’s rules and the situation at hand. Now Mason gives another word for docility in her chapter for this principle, she also uses teachableness, which I want to introduce as we move deeper into the schoolroom because teachableness is obviously necessary for the schoolroom.
Let’s get an example here to show how authority and docility work together in a child’s studies. Say you tell your child he needs to read a book passage; it’s not just that he needs to read it, he also needs to give it his full attention, cheerful attitude, and promptness in reading that passage. That’s what obedience or teachableness would look like in respect of your authority. But it also requires self-authority to enact that obedience.
Remember, a child’s education isn’t something we bestow upon them, no they have to come and get it. Like I’ve said before, we can lay the feast of food, but only they can come, sit, notice, eat, and digest.
Proper home education requires a mother to know her authority, a child to respect that authority while growing in self-authority, and for a child to be obedient or teachable. A child cannot come and eat at the table, otherwise. This is why Mason says the principles of authority and docility are also fundamental. Without them, nothing grows, nothing builds.
While your duty is to rightly present the best of ideas in a generous curriculum, it’s your child’s responsibility to learn. I think I’ve said it before but: you can’t force your child to learn, because you can force them to pay attention.
They need both self-authority and docility to do that.
The foundation of authority and docility is what lays the first tools of formal learning because they give children the tools to chase their curiosities and fulfill their duties. Children experience the double delight of knowing something and satisfying their own curiosity with that knowledge. Remember: Attention is not something the brain has, it’s something the mind does but only at the discretion of the child. It’s a self-commanding, self-compelling kind of force to be able to make yourself pay attention, to make yourself know something. It’s a remarkable superpower. And it’s impossible without self-authority to focus it.
Isn’t that amazing? But the third principle does not come without its takeaway warning for us to review.
Mason warns against four things:
First, don’t believe you’re the superior being because you’re in the position of authority. I’m tempted to think I’m the smart one when I’m teaching my kids something but then they make a connection I’d never think of, or observe and remember something I’ve forgotten, or show that they paid better attention to the read aloud while building magna tiles than I did while doing the read aloud—and then I remember they’re minds are equipped with what they need to learn, and while they may be immature, we’re learning together.
Second, don’t assume a child can’t stay in step with a literary vocabulary. Try to avoid over-explaining and paraphrasing things; just give it to them straight. Mason says not to offer explanations unless asked to, and I’d add, depending on the child, if they actually seem confused. Otherwise, wait and see what their minds do. I tested this idea once by reading the real Pilgrim’s Progress out loud and was delighted to find that my kids could tell me about the story even with its Old English.
Third, we don’t have to capture the attention of a child with persuasion, dramatics, pictures, or visual models. A child’s mind is not waiting for a gimmick or trick; the very best of ideas, you know those that speak to the souls of persons, will spark the imagination, call to their curiosity, and capture their minds.
Fourth, don’t undervalue knowledge. Back in Mason’s time, people thought children needed two things: to have a skill to earn a living and to know how to behave. It sounds a lot like today, doesn’t it? Go to school to get a job and just do what you’re told. But Mason pushed back and I want to join her: haven’t we learned that the quality of a man’s work, of our calling and vocations, is in proportion to how complete we are? How nourished we are in mind, body, and soul?
So, authority and docility. We need them, our kids need them–it’s necessary, natural, and fundamental to a proper education. Because, and this is always the thing in classical education, it goes so much farther than the homeschool graduation day. This is about the formation of a person, equipping them with the tools that will help ground them in all that is true, good, and beautiful, which is the fruit of God’s authority and our docility.
I’m actually going to let Mason close us out today with an apt observation about the formative effects of education as seen in the cares and appetites of the young. I can’t say it better, and even though she’s talking about young men and women from 100ish years ago, it’s spot on for today. I hope it encourages you in this endeavor of home education. She says:
What we have reason to deplore is that after some eight or twelve years' brilliant teaching in school, the cinema show and the football field, polo or golf, satisfy the needs of our former pupils to whatever class they belong. We are filled with compassion when we detect the lifeless hand or leg, the artificial nose or jaw, that many a man has brought home as a consequence of the War. But many of our young men and women go about more seriously maimed than these. They are devoid of intellectual interests, history and poetry are without charm for them, the scientific work of the day is only slightly interesting, their 'job' and the social amenities they can secure are all that their life has for them.
The maimed existence in which a man goes on from day to day without either nourishing or using his intellect, is causing anxiety to those interested in education, who know that after religion it is our chief concern, is, indeed, the necessary handmaid of religion.
I’ll see you guys in two weeks.
