Mystie and Brandy are glad to have Karen Glass back on the show to help us kick off Season 8. Karen is the author of Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition and Know and Tell: The Art of Narration and a member of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, mostly grown and married, who were homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. Karen has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years
For this episode, Brandy, Mystie, and Karen discussed division — what it is, how people do or don’t cause it, and whether it’s always wrong.
Brandy Vencel has been known to excite opposition on Instagram
Mystie Winckler tells her kids that what is true matters more than how they feel
Our special guest today is one of our favorite people, Karen Glass! Karen Glass has been homeschooling her children for 25 years, and she’s not quite finished yet. She is one of the founders of the AmblesideOnline curriculum project and has delved deeply into Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. She has lived in Poland, where her husband ministers, for over twenty years. In the last few years, she has begun writing books to share some of the things she has learned along the way.
Mystie has been taking another crack at this book, along with watching YouTube videos, so she can explain the wars of the roses to her highschool english class.
Brandy things this semi-postappocolyptic novel is interesting, and an brings up interesting questions about education.
What is being divisive?
If the definition of divisive is “tending to cause disagreement or hostility between people” where there’s not an intent to cause hostility it might not be inherently negative. Christ was divisive, so we can’t say that it’s always wrong.
“When something becomes divisive it’s because you’ve lost sight of the connection, you’ve lost sight of the relationship, and you’re deliberately trying to sever something”
Karen Glass, episode 47
It’s possible to be divisive by trying to shut other people out, but you can also be divisive by cutting yourself off or taking your bat and going home.
It’s much easier to call someone’s opinion divisive and leave than it is to actually engage with them or their idea and think through why you disagree. Of course, there are times when it is unproductive to stay in a group or discussion, and we do need a lot of discernment in sorting out this issue.
Care about truth
Separating between truth and opinions is a great place start with knowing when you need to divide from people. Differences in opinion are much more easily overcome than differences about absolute truth. When someone says something, practice hitting pause and asking yourself (or your kids) weather it’s absolutely true, or just their opinion which we still have to respect, but it’s not binding on us in the way that truth is.
Not being easily offended is part of love.
Surrounding yourself only with people who already agree with you doesn’t help with growing in understanding. Being able to defend your opinions and support those opinions with truth
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions[a] are at war within you?[b]2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
This is, however, a fantastic conversation we had with Abby in which we jump off of Neil Postman’s thoughts on the need to not just take in information, but also take action, and apply this to the reading and thinking we do in our scholé time.
I literally just started listening to this and already want to comment and thank you for opening dialogue about the issue of divisiveness. Just this morning I experienced this very thing. Someone posted in a statewide homeschool support group and said, “If you ever question your own homeschooling just look at what the public school in my town is doing today…” (my own paraphrase because the subject he was complaining that they were doing really doesn’t matter…) I challenged his opinion and a few comments later he either blocked me or deleted his post. No idea which. Why can’t people disagree civilly?
I explained all this to my husband and he challenged me to ask if it’s OK if I share my opinion or to ask if it’s OK if I share another outlook before I comment on anyone’s post from now on. His suggestion made me think. I am 100% going to do that from now on before I comment on anyone’s anything… it will give me time to really think about what I want to say instead of just being a keyboard warrior and it will give the other person a chance to decide if they want to be open minded or not…
Ooh! I like your husband’s recommendation a lot. I’m going to try that sometime.
So this is just my $.02…but I do not think The Consolation of Philosophy has to be read before, or even along with, How To Be Unlucky. I read it last year without having read Consolation, and it was no problem. In fact, it was probably my top read of last year, as it helped me think through some theological issues that I have been wrestling with over the last few years.
I am reading the Consolation now with my 16yo and I am re-reading Unlucky along with it, and I suppose there have been a few things that make a little more sense, but not dramatically so. I highly recommend How To Be Unlucky!
Ooh! Thank you!
You are actually the second person today who has told me what a great book it is, so it’s definitely moving to the top of my wish list! ♥
This was a most excellent episode! I’ve been pondering something similar lately and this was just so very timely. You all gave me much to think about! I had never thought of the connection between love in 1 Cor. 13 to the part about recognizing that we can only know it part at this time. I’m embarrassed to think of all the discussions in which I have not loved my neighbor in this way. Also, the idea of our ruffled feathers in disagreement as an indicator for idolatry or areas where we are finding our identity somewhere other than Christ. Powerful powerful stuff! It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?
I guess this is silly, but I was hoping the show notes would have links to the youtube videos about early monarchs that Mystie was watching. 🙂 Any chance?
I will ask Mystie if she can give us any direction. 🙂
You girls. Every time. If I could wish a group of women to appear around my kitchen table and discuss over coffee all the things in my head and on the pages in front of me, you’d be it. You tackle so much of what matters to homeschool moms and book lovers, and you do it with grace, balance, and humor.
(Also, I gave up slogging through Alison Weir’s “Eleanor of Aquitaine” a few years back, and you’ve successfully shamed me into revisiting it with new resolve! The sisters love it! So must I!)
Thanks, and carry on!
I literally just started listening to this and already want to comment and thank you for opening dialogue about the issue of divisiveness. Just this morning I experienced this very thing. Someone posted in a statewide homeschool support group and said, “If you ever question your own homeschooling just look at what the public school in my town is doing today…” (my own paraphrase because the subject he was complaining that they were doing really doesn’t matter…) I challenged his opinion and a few comments later he either blocked me or deleted his post. No idea which. Why can’t people disagree civilly?
I explained all this to my husband and he challenged me to ask if it’s OK if I share my opinion or to ask if it’s OK if I share another outlook before I comment on anyone’s post from now on. His suggestion made me think. I am 100% going to do that from now on before I comment on anyone’s anything… it will give me time to really think about what I want to say instead of just being a keyboard warrior and it will give the other person a chance to decide if they want to be open minded or not…
Ooh! I like your husband’s recommendation a lot. I’m going to try that sometime.
So this is just my $.02…but I do not think The Consolation of Philosophy has to be read before, or even along with, How To Be Unlucky. I read it last year without having read Consolation, and it was no problem. In fact, it was probably my top read of last year, as it helped me think through some theological issues that I have been wrestling with over the last few years.
I am reading the Consolation now with my 16yo and I am re-reading Unlucky along with it, and I suppose there have been a few things that make a little more sense, but not dramatically so. I highly recommend How To Be Unlucky!
Ooh! Thank you!
You are actually the second person today who has told me what a great book it is, so it’s definitely moving to the top of my wish list! ♥
This was a most excellent episode! I’ve been pondering something similar lately and this was just so very timely. You all gave me much to think about! I had never thought of the connection between love in 1 Cor. 13 to the part about recognizing that we can only know it part at this time. I’m embarrassed to think of all the discussions in which I have not loved my neighbor in this way. Also, the idea of our ruffled feathers in disagreement as an indicator for idolatry or areas where we are finding our identity somewhere other than Christ. Powerful powerful stuff! It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?
I guess this is silly, but I was hoping the show notes would have links to the youtube videos about early monarchs that Mystie was watching. 🙂 Any chance?
I will ask Mystie if she can give us any direction. 🙂
You girls. Every time. If I could wish a group of women to appear around my kitchen table and discuss over coffee all the things in my head and on the pages in front of me, you’d be it. You tackle so much of what matters to homeschool moms and book lovers, and you do it with grace, balance, and humor.
(Also, I gave up slogging through Alison Weir’s “Eleanor of Aquitaine” a few years back, and you’ve successfully shamed me into revisiting it with new resolve! The sisters love it! So must I!)
Thanks, and carry on!
Here are some of the ones I watched:
https://youtu.be/uNcBrrMoyL8
Best one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iavbCuSRsb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8usSAMpuSVI
and this is the royal family tree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilalzTsVp_Q
lol, I did like that one! But I have a fascination with medieval British monarchy. 🙂