We find that attentive engagement with the words of a text is a powerful means of coming into relationship (recall that for Mason, relationship is central to education) with the mind of its author—a mind that is sometimes separated from us by time, space, and culture.

When we ingest those words, and beautifully retell what an author has had to say (this is the process of narration), we have taken the first step toward a relationship with that author or the ideas brought forth in the text.

Amazingly, when we take the steps to participate in this fashion, and then we respond in some kind to the text, that author’s story becomes a part of our own. It becomes a part of us, of our spiritual being, in as much as a digested meal becomes a part of our physical being.

Narration is made up of the components that one would find in any good story—a detailed narrative, told in logical sequence, and lifted up by the use of beautiful language.

Though I have referred principally to narrative here—story communicated through the written and spoken word—the act of narrating or retelling is used at Calvary in subjects beyond literature, the Bible, and history.

A student can also engage in the act of retelling the subject matter and composition of a painting, in vividly describing the form and function of an object from nature study, in retelling in an organized fashion the structure of a scientific diagram, or in articulating the flow of a physical, chemical, biological, or geological process.

When we ask students to “tell back,” we invite them to participate more fully in something which is unique to mankind, more deeply connects us as people to one another, and more deeply connects us as people to the Author of all good stories—to the author of Gospel—that is the “good story” that the Word took on flesh and dwelt among us, and that we can come to know Him and have a deep relationship with Him.

“Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child’s mind, waiting to be discovered, and is not the result of any process of disciplinary education. A creative fiat calls it forth. ‘Let him narrate’; and the child narrates, fluently, copiously, in ordered sequence, with fit and graphic details, with a just choice of words, without verbosity or tautology, so soon as he can speak with ease. This amazing gift with which normal children are born is allowed to lie fallow in their education. Bobbie will come home with a heroic narrative of a fight he has seen between ‘Duke’ and a dog in the street. It is wonderful! He has seen everything, and he tells everything with splendid vigour in the true epic vein; but so ingrained is our contempt for children that we see nothing in this but Bobbie’s foolish childish way! Whereas here, if we have eyes to see and grace to build, is the ground-plan of his education.” (Mason, Home Education, 231)

As practitioners of Charlotte Mason’s pedagogy envisioned by Ambleside Schools International, we at Calvary do entrust to this innate and powerful tool the very ground-plan of the education offered in our classrooms, from junior kindergarten through the 12th grade.