Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett-Griggs. School choice in North Carolina continues to grow, but not every family in our state has a lot of choices.
Well, today we're joined by Joshua and Hannah Centers, a Tennessee homeschooling family and founders of Chapter House and the blog Virtue and Wonder, to talk about the role of stories in education and what parents can do, even if their schooling options feel limited. Welcome, Joshua and Hannah. Thank you so much for having us on Tracy.
So tell us why are stories so important in the lives and education of our children that you devote so much attention to it? Because it activates the mind in a way that merely telling a child a lesson does not. It engages the imagination and the moral imagination and it helps them form their own conclusions. You know, anyone who's ever worked a job knows it's always best to let someone think something is their idea. And that's very much how stories work with children.
And there are stories that have shaped the moral imagination of the Western world for thousands of years. And so those stories are especially important.
Well, talk about Chapter House and your blog, Virtue and Wonder. How do those play into pushing this idea of storytelling?
So Chapter House began as a dream years ago. My wife, Hannah, has been homeschooling for the past six years, and she got really into the Charlotte Mason method, which is very story and literature based. And the only problem was so many of the books on her reading lists were long out of print. You can only find digital editions or a beaten up original, in some cases, a poor print-on-demand edition. And so, we have this dream of being able to republish these books in beautiful editions that would look amazing on a bookshelf.
And that's basically the origin of Chapter House. And so, the mission of Chapter House is to inspire virtue and wonder in children through classic stories of the Western canon for children in beautiful cloth-bound hardback editions with Smithstone bindings. And they're books that have important, not just important content, but they feel and they look important. And so, it's an aspirational product for children. Wow.
You know, I'm a Kindle girl, but there is nothing like holding a book, especially a beautiful book with the pages that feel good. There's just nothing like that.
So, what a great idea.
So, talk about your blog then to Virtue and Wonder. How does that combine with your publishing house?
So, Virtue and Wonder is an extension of Chapter House. It's where we post our thoughts twice a week on education and literature and other things. And it gives us a Way to connect with our readers and connect with our audience. And it's been incredibly successful. We had such a great response to our posts, and the people on Substack are very lovely.
That's nice that they're lovely. That doesn't always happen on social media, so good for you.
So, the title, Virtue and Wonder, I mean, those are two words I think that are so important in the lives of children, but not just children, adults.
So, why those two words? Virtue is what we should all be aspiring to. And for us, raising virtuous children is very important, as it should be to every parent.
So, when we were trying to think of what to call our substack, that was a natural choice. And then, wonder, of course, so many times the way that we educate our children just causes them to lose any kind of wonder about what's around them. And we hope to continue to inspire that in our own children and, you know, other people's children now as well.
So, that's how we arrived at virtue and wonder. Let's dig a little. Deeper on the virtue thing because I would like to think that every parent thought that was important. But I do think that it's possible people are like, well, you know, it's not utilitarian to be virtuous. You know, there's costs to it.
So, what's the payoff or what's the reason that that needs to be something that parents need to emphasize with their children?
Well, let's go back a little bit to the original purpose of an education. And if you read Plato or Aristotle or maybe the church fathers, such as St. John Chrysom, the original purpose of education was developing virtue. That was always the main intent. It's only recently that government schools have pushed what the ancient Greeks would call techne.
Of course, there's always been practical education. That's always been a big part of education. But without virtue, you know, all these skills are kind of meaningless, right?
So I'll give you a great example. I grew up with a young man who was very intelligent, you know, would read textbooks for fun, you know, memorized entire books, but then he never actually did anything with his life. He lived, last I heard he was still. living with his parents in his 40s. And so without that virtue of going out and having the courage to take action, without having that work ethic, then all this knowledge and all these skills you develop are completely useless.
I'm assuming then that these stories that you're putting into beautiful books push this kind of virtue and help teach that. Yes, they do. Whether it's, you know, by seeing an example of someone who was unsuccessful or who did not follow what they knew to be the right thing to do or hearing, you know, the stories of courage and bravery. All of those stories are valuable. Our first two box sets, we call these chapters.
So we have chapter one and chapter two here.
So I'll just give you a quick overview of what you can find in these chapters. Chapter one, we start with Aesop's Fables, which for thousands of years have been instructing children and others really in these short, simple lessons about life and the realities of human nature. And then we follow that up with A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales, which is a collection of illustrations. Greek myths. And the Greek myths teach so much about virtue.
A great example is the story of Icarus, who he makes this wing suit and ignores his father, and he flies too close to the sun and has tragic consequences as a result. In fact, Hannah was reading it recently to our youngest son. He's about seven, and he instantly picked up on the lesson. He didn't have to be told the lesson of obey your parents, obey your authority figures. He intuited it, right?
So that's sort of the power of story. And then also we have in this first chapter, 50 Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin, which is a collection of stories about various historical figures and literary figures and just great examples for children. And then in chapter two, which is meant for readers who are a bit older, we have Beowulf. And this is one of the problems with the modern children's publishing industry: they don't really publish things that boys are interested in. And so so many young boys and young men just don't read because there is nothing published for them.
We were recently at a homeschool convention in Texas, and one of my great joys. Was showing young boys who said they had no interest in reading Beowulf and the beautiful art we had commissioned for it. And they were instantly drawn into the book. You know, and this is why we talk about virtue and wonder, because you look at a hero like Beowulf, and here's someone who very boldly went up against this monster and defeated him. And that inspires wonder in young boys, and it helps give them the courage to, you know, for instance, I don't know, when they get older, ask a girl out on a date or apply for a job.
You know, there's so many young men of the Zoomer generation who are just terrified of the world. And oftentimes, they have good reason for being so. But we want to try to help correct that. And we have a couple other ones here. We have On the Shores of the Great Sea, which is the history of the world from Abraham to the birth of Christ.
And then also In the Days of Giants, and that's an interesting one. It covers Norse mythology, which is another one boys seem to really love.
So let's talk a little bit about how helpful this could be, because we know statistically that even though school choice in North Carolina has increased dramatically over the past decade or so, there's Still, the vast majority of people are in public schools. What does that mean for these parents as far as their ability to take advantage of some of these books? No matter how you choose to school your children, you can still read to them. And that is something that I feel like has fallen off. It's so easy in our modern day when children are over involved, I think, in after-school activities.
Not to say that there's anything wrong with that, but if you have something going on every single day, then you know, when do you have time to bond as a family? And my favorite memories with my children are the nights when my children bring me a book and then sit down on the floor with their Legos or a puzzle, and they just ask me to read to them. And it's just a beautiful way for a family to come together. And you can do that whether you homeschool or not. And you were a public school teacher for 13 years.
So one of the things you've always said is that the number one indicator of success in school is parental involvement. Absolutely. No matter how you choose to school your child, you need to stay involved with their lives. And reading these stories that don't spell out the moral, that don't, you know, beat you over the head with the lesson gives you an opportunity to talk to your children. You know, you read the story of Icarus and then you say to your child, what did you learn from that?
And you let them tell you. And it opens the door for a beautiful, meaningful conversation about what we should do in a situation like that. You know, Icarus and his father were stranded on that island and they needed to get off.
Okay, well, you know, what would we do in that situation? How would we handle that? For example, the other day, my oldest son, who is 12, we were reading in Aesop's fable about the crow and the pebbles and how the crow was dying of thirst and needed water. And my oldest son pointed out something that I had not really considered. He said that the crow remaining calm in that situation was what gave him success.
And I thought, wow, that's really profound. Just using your wits, it's the ability to stay calm in a really precarious situation.
So, you know, for my 12-year-old, that's what stood out to him. He taught me something that day.
So, yes, of course, you know, if you homeschool, you have lots of opportunities to have those kinds of conversations with your children. But even if you don't, it doesn't mean that there's not an opening for you to read these books and talk in that way with your own children. Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
So, you talked about your 12-year-old, and I'm assuming you were reading out loud to him. We used to do that, didn't we? We told stories to each other instead of watching TV or being on our phones individually.
So, it doesn't end when they can read for themselves, right? It can be a family thing. No, it should not end when they can read for themselves. It's such a great way to bond that you should never stop reading to your children. I still love being read to.
When we first started dating, one of the things that I used to ask him to do was read to me. He thought I was crazy, but I love it and I love audiobooks. I guess it's that ancestral memory of, you know, being around the fire and having the dedicated storyteller telling stories. You know, I think it's wonderful. It was only until relatively recently that it was considered bizarre to read quietly to yourself.
You know, the standard was reading out loud. And then when you read out loud with your friends and family, it gives you opportunity to further engage in the reading. You're not just decoding the words on the page. You're actually discussing it and debating it and actually having to engage your mind with the material.
Okay.
Well, help us imagine this then for families that are like, this is so foreign to them. What does this look like?
So tell us about, you said your kids were maybe on the floor playing with Lego.
So they're not necessarily like sitting in chairs looking straight at you. Tell us how you set that up so that it's something your children look forward to. If I could go back in time, that's one of the things that I would do differently with my oldest son. And I had it in my mind because I was a public school teacher and had gone through public school myself that he needed to. be perfectly still and engaged the entire time that I was reading.
And I would get really frustrated when he wasn't. But then it dawned on me years later that their ears don't stop working just because they're moving or doing something else.
So we encourage them to find something quiet to do, you know, Legos and puzzles and blocks, you know, quiet hand toys or like a handicraft. And so yeah, just find those activities that engage your mind in a way that also allows you to listen to reading. And we just gather around and everybody finds a comfy seat. We have a room that has a couple of couches in it and we take turns reading and it's a really fun thing. You know, keep the lights kind of low and just go for it.
The key thing is don't make it stressful. Yes. You know, don't try to impose order when order isn't necessarily required. Keep the children engaged. And even if you don't think they're paying attention, oftentimes they are.
So that's that's really the main thing. Don't make it a stressful event for them or for yourself. If you're not going to do it, and also keep in mind, especially in the beginning, keep a strict time limit. You know, make it maybe five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and then slowly push that boundary, slowly expand that out. But yeah, don't give yourself too much to start, or you'll just never do it.
For example, the other night, my middle son brought me Little Pilgrim's Progress and he wanted me to read. I read one chapter, they're fairly short, and he said, Another one. And he just kept doing that. And the next thing I know, you know, like an hour has passed and he's sitting in the floor doing something. His sister is working with her older brother on a puzzle.
And I didn't prompt any of that. That was totally them.
So, yeah, I mean, once you get in the habit, they come to find it enjoyable. And it's a really good bonding time for everyone. Yeah.
Well, thank you so much for that lovely picture. And I hope that people that are listening will be inspired by that. We're about out of time. Tell us where we can go if we want to learn more and see some of the books that you all have published. Absolutely.
So our website for the books is chapter.house. There's no.com. Just go in your web browser and type chapter.house. And then for our substack, you can go to virtueandwonder.com, virtueandwonder.com. All right.
Sounds good.
Well, thank you again, Joshua and Hannah Centers. Thank you for your good work and for being with us today on family policy matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org.
That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
