Wild + Free Among Other Philosophies (Part 2)

I wanted to take a second look on Ainsley Arment’s The Call of the Wild and Free [1] to look at how her philosophy of education relates to others. Last time we looked at Arment’s approach to education with a focus on how she views education, the child, human nature, and the goal of education.

Not all of the approaches to education which I have looked at over the years rise to the level of a philosophy. Some, like unit studies, are methods which, while they do have some presuppositions behind them, can be combined with other philosophies. To be a philosophy proper I am saying that an approach must a) have some degree of cohesion and present a unified system of ideas; and b) answer some big questions about human existence, questions like: Who are we? and Why are we here? By these standards, many of the approaches we have examined are philosophies, including the Charlotte Mason approach, unschooling, Montessori, Waldorf, and many incarnations of classical education. Arment’s approach also meets this standard.

As she lays out her philosophy, Arment uses the pronoun “we” a lot as in: “WE BELIEVE that childhood is a time to foster wonder, creativity, and discovery through play and exploration” (p. 311) [2]. We all already know, she tells us, that we must leave behind the old model of schooling (p. 149) and embrace the “values that unite us” (p. 150). Now this use of the first person plural may be a rhetorical device to draw in the reader or it may be that Arment, whose approach has spawned a community, is addressing those who do already share her vision and values, but I want to push back a little on the assumption that we homeschoolers share common values and ideas.

Perhaps the boldest claim Arment makes is that her philosophy can be combined with any other:

“We can be Wild + Free and follow the classical, Charlotte Mason, or Waldorf approach. We can be Wild + Free as well as Montessori based, Reggio inspired, or radical unschooled. What makes us Wild + Free is not dismissing these styles but believing in the fundamental truths that have guided the growth and education of our children since the beginning of time.” (p. 228)

Note again that “we” appeals to a presumed common ground, one not just recognized among modern homeschoolers but which apparently transcends the centuries: “the fundamental truths that have guided the growth and education of our children since the beginning of time.” Now if there is a way that children grow and learn, then I suppose that that has not changed. But I do think we need to pause when we read this and acknowledge that it is a pretty big claim (not that other philosophies don’t make similar ones [3]).

The first part of this quote also deserves some attention. Arment says, not just here but throughout the book, that her philosophy can be combined with other approaches. On one level, this is true. Many homeschooling parents do take from many different approaches. They may call themselves eclectic or they may develop their own personal approach [4]. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, I would encourage it. But where I would push back is this: as Arment presents her philosophy, it is not one among many equals. Hers is the overarching philosophy– one on which it is assumed we all agree — and the other approaches can be mined for their methods. She looks to the others for some big ideas but does not treat them as what they are — whole, unified systems of thought. I am not a so-called Charlotte Mason purist, but I do agree with those who say that her approach to education is more than a method. Like any philosophy, because it is a unified system, if one tweaks and alters it, it quickly becomes something else and will not hold together and work as intended. Additionally, the methods that each philosophy espouses have developed out of its big ideas. The manipulatives Maria Montessori developed or the fact that she taught writing before reading both arose out of her ideas about who kids are and how they learn. If, for any of these philosophies, we answer the fundamental questions differently, does it even make any sense to adopt their techniques? Can we divorce the methods from the reasons behind them? (These are actually serious questions, not rhetorical. I think this is an area we could explore more.)

Arment gives a fairly good explanation of a number of other approaches and speaks to the ideas they hold in common. What I would like to do is to see where each of these other philosophies does or does not fit with Arment’s Wild + Free approach. [5]

School-at-Home

For Arment this is the one model which is incompatible with her philosophy. I don’t know if the school-at-home model ever rises to the level of a philosophy [6]. Perhaps for some it does, but most of the time I suspect that is not the case. Though the general tenor of her approach is that whatever works for you and your family is right, Arment clearly rules out this approach as an old model (p. 149) which has left been behind (though the many, many users of Akeba, Bob Jones, and the like might be surprised to hear this).

Classical Education

Modern classical education, in both its secular and Christian forms, is really more of a collection of like-minded approaches than one unified theory [7]. Perhaps two of its most distinctive beliefs are 1) that there are stages of learning through which a child passes and 2) that there is a common body of knowledge which all should learn.

Arment talks a little about the grammar, dialectic, and rhetorical stages and how they can gel with her approach. On one hand, there is no reason that a belief that children move through stages of learning is inherently incompatible with her approach. On the other, many of the practices which Arment specifically rejects — memorization of facts and dates, for instance (pp. 6, 303) — are characteristic of the first, grammar, stage of classical.

Arment’s approach is also very much driven by the child’s interests which seems at odds with classical’s belief that there is a common body of knowledge which all should learn. She gives the example of a mom who combines her approach with classical and teaches her kids Latin but she does not address what a Wild+Free/classical hybrid mom should do if her child simply refuses to learn Latin or any other core subject. Presumably in such a situation, one or the other philosophy must win out. Either we are committed to providing the common body of knowledge or we are committed to child-led learning. One may perhaps go for a while without conflict, but the two are inherently incompatible approaches.

Montessori

Arment notes one of the incompatibilities with the Montessori approach — it requires a classroom situation in order to be fully implemented (p. 165). This is not at its root an incompatibilty with her Wild+Free approach but with homeschooling in general [8]. The biggest disjuncture I see between Wild+Free and Montessori is that the latter is very much about a proscribed or manufactured environment which Arment explicitly rejects (p. 53). The things that Arment argues for — free play and time in nature — are not compatible with Montessori which is very much not a play-based approach and which gives children freedom but only within certain prescribed tasks. For example, the child in a Montessori classroom can have his choice of its much-lauded manipulatives BUT he must use them only in the manner in which they are intended. [9]

Waldorf

There is a lot of common ground between Arment’s ideas and those of Rudolf Steiner, the creator of the Waldorf philosophy. Both see childhood as a special time and both see a kind of internal trajectory within the individual child that, if rightly developed, determines his future course. For Arment, however, the child is already fully human — it is not that children are set apart from adults but that childhood is set apart as a unique stage — while for Steiner the child undergoes an evolutionary process and is born in successive stages. If there are practical incompatibilities which result from these differences, I do not know enough about either to pinpoint them.

Unschooling

Unschooling also has quite a lot of resonance with the Wild+Free approach. The biggest commonality I see is in the perception of the child and the role of the child’s nature which for both rings so much of Rousseau. As we saw last time, Rousseau believed that the child is innately good and that it was society which corrupts him. The best education for the child, particularly the young child, is in Nature. This we see reflected in both Wild+Free and Unschooling. If there is a difference, it is is that Arment tempers the freedom of unschooling just a bit, allowing for more influence from the parent-teacher’s passions and a little more pushing and encouragement along the way (p. 240). One might say that Unschooling lays heavy stress on the “free” side of Wild+Free.

Charlotte Mason

One of the reasons I felt I needed to read The Call of the Wild and Free was that more and more I saw it mentioned in Charlotte Mason (CM) homeschooling circles. After the reading the book, I can understand why advocates of Wild+Free feel they have a lot in common with CM. I haven’t counted references, but I would venture to say that Arment cites Mason’s methods more than any other. And in terms of method, there is a lot of overlap here. Both advocate lots of outdoor time. Both favor nature study and the use of story. Arment introduces her reader to CM concepts like living books and narration. Perhaps more significantly, both view the child as a person.

But there are some significant differences as well. Arment’s is very much a child-led approach. Charlotte Mason, though it is often misrepresented as such, is not. Mason believed children needed a well-rounded, broad education. The role of the teacher for Mason is to provide a broad intellectual diet. The child is not allowed to specialize until at least the teen years lest he become eccentric and his personality be warped. The individuality of education comes, for Mason, not in what is studied but in how the individual responds to what he is presented with [10].

Though the two may use many of the same techniques, I feel also that there are slight differences in implementation or emphasis. Nature is the primary means of education for Arment; stories are secondary. I would say this is reversed for Mason. History, which is told through narrative, is the backbone of a CM education. Arment describes Charlotte Mason’s concept of “living books,” but she seems to miss (or at least doesn’t say) that these books don’t have to be fiction. Non-fiction books, for Mason, can be just as living. I am not sure her description of narration and its uses is quite in line with Mason’s ideas either though I struggle to put my finger on exactly how they differ.

Arment quotes Mason’s motto that “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” She brings in the atmosphere and the life but completely misses the discipline which for Mason comes through what she called habit training. Habit training presumes that there is something in the child which needs to be trained. While I have argued repeatedly that Mason saw the potential for good, actual moral good, in every child [11], it was for her more of a potential which could be realized or not. Habit training was one of the tools Mason used to cultivate character in children. For Arment, the child may not be perfect but neither is there any mention of discipline. Misbehavior is blamed on forces external to the person (pp. 18, 67, 86). While I personally think Mason is much too positive about the child’s potential for goodness, she at least maintains the Christian idea that the evil we do comes from within and does not, like Arment, Rousseau and others, see evil as something external to the human being. And this, to bring us full circle, is why Mason’s philosophy is not child- or interest-led, because she does not trust to child’s nature to always guide him aright. [12]

Can you combine different approaches to homeschooling? Absolutely. I encourage all homeschooling parents to be thoughtful in considering how they will educate. Part of that thoughtfulness, ideally, includes recognizing that the techniques of a particular approach arise from its deeply-held convictions. If Arment’s Wild+Free philosophy matches her personal beliefs, then I think it has a lot to commend it. But we also need to recognize that this may not be the philosophy for every homeschooler and that there are some significant differences between philosophies, differences that matter because they reflect deep-seated beliefs about who we are as people and where we are headed.

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Notes:

[1] Arment, Ainsley. The Call of the Will and Free: Reclaiming the Wonder in Your Child’s Education, A New Way to Homeschool. HarperOne, 2019.

[2] This is the beginning of a list of “we” statements with which Arment ends the book, but she uses this kind of language throughout.

[3] Charlotte Mason, I believe, also would say that she has found how children learn. The same is likely true for Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner (of the Waldorf approach).

[4] I have done so myself. You can read my philosophy of education here.

[5] In addition to the philosophies I discuss here, Arment includes Reggio Emilia. Because I have less familiarity with it and because it is less well-known, I am not going to include it in my analysis.

[6] To the degree that school-at-home is based on what happens in the public schools which themselves are based on the ideas of John Dewey and others, there are some big ideas behind it about who kids are and how they learn.

[7] See Sorting Out Classical  and Characteristics of Classical Education.

[8] Many homeschoolers do use Montessori’s methods at home. I can’t speak to the authenticity of this.

[9] See these earlier posts: Montessori, the Ideas Behind Her Philosophy; Ideas, part 2; CM vs Montessori, a Comparison of Principles; and addendum.

[10] See Myth: Charlotte Mason is Interest-Led.

[11] See CM’s second principle: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

[12] As somewhat of a side note, Arment at one point (p. 275) quotes Mason as saying childhood is a quiet growing time. This did not sit right with me so I tracked down the quote. In Home Education Mason says: ” . . . perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life . . . ” (Mason, p. 43). As this quote shows, for Mason, it is not the whole of childhood which is to be a “quiet growing time” but the first six years of life which, for her, are the time before formal education begins.