This immersion lesson demonstrates how to combine children of different ages and levels of learning during a single math lesson with Charlotte Mason’s method of teaching. Emily Al-Khatib and her three sons give a dynamic picture of how a sunshiny atmosphere, order and discipline, and living ideas make math a productive and enjoyable lesson together.
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Math at the Ready: Emily’s Handout with Independent Work Ideas
Charlotte Mason is to be thanked for introducing young children to the beauty of art in school lessons. This episode of Charlotte Mason in our homes is an interview with Matthew Milliner, art history professor at Wheaton, College, whose children are being taught at home with Miss Mason’s method and who is learning to apply her pedagogy in his college classroom.
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“The wonder that Almighty God can endure so far to leave the very making of an immortal being in the hands of human parents is only matched by the wonder that human parents can accept this divine trust with hardly a thought of its significance.” (1/333)
“You will see at a glance, with this Captain Idea of establishing relationships as a guide, the unwisdom of choosing or rejecting this or that subject, as being more or less useful or necessary in view of a child’s future. We decide, for example, that Tommy, who is eight, need not waste his time over the Latin Grammar. We intend him for commercial or scientific pursuits,-what good will it be to him? But we do not know how much we are shutting out from Tommy’s range of thought besides the Latin Grammar. He has to translate, for example,-‘Pueri formosos equos vident.’ He is a ruminant animal, and has been told something about that strong Roman people whose speech is now brought before him. How their boys catch hold of him! How he gloats over their horses ! The Latin Grammar is not mere words to Tommy, or rather Tommy knows, as we have forgotten, that the epithet ‘mere’ is the very last to apply to words. Of course it is only now and then that a notion catches the small boy, but when it does catch, it works wonders, and does more for his education than years of grind.” (3/162-163)
“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day , out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents. The mother would be able to hold herself in ‘wise passiveness,’ and would not fret her children by continual interference, even of hand or eye-she would let them be.” (3/33-34)
“The question is not,-how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education-but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?” (3/170-171)
Parents and Children, Charlotte Mason
Mornings in Florence, John Ruskin
The Descent of the Holy Spirit Fresco here and here
Episode 3: The Role of the Teacher
Matt’s Lecture including the Spanish Chapel (He mentions Charlotte Mason and discusses the frescos in Florence around 15 minutes in)
Charlotte Mason’s vision for children spread throughout the world. A special celebration called “The Children’s Gathering” occurred a few times, a holy holiday for experiencing learning together, including with parents and teachers. This episode explores highlights of the camaraderie experienced there as they worshiped, studied, played, danced, paraded, displayed and explored the treasures of the surrounding countryside in a lovely kaleidoscopic, nostalgic, and inspirational picture.
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Winchester Gathering: Parents’ Review Volume 23
Whitby Gathering: Parents’ Review Volume 31
Canterbury Gathering: Parents’ Review Volume 36
Ambleside Gathering: Parents’ Review Volume 47
Charlotte Mason’s method of education impacts our lives on many levels. This episode of short topics includes ideas for collections from our physical world, ideas for getting more out of books beyond the usual narration that expands our intellectual world, and some of the many, many benefits we who use her method have in common with others that we would not have shared before to widen our social world.
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School Education (Volume 3), Chapter XVI, pp. 174-180
“To make collections of wild flowers for the several months, press them, and mount them neatly on squares of cartridge paper, with the English name, habitat, and date of finding of each, affords much happy occupation and, at the same time, much useful training: better still is it to accustom children to make careful brush drawings of the flowers that interest them, of the whole plant where possible.” (1/52)
“To make collections of leaves and flowers, pressed and mounted, and arranged according to their form, affords much pleasure, and, what is better, valuable training in the noticing of differences and resemblances. Patterns for this sort of classification of leaves and flowers will be found in every little book of elementary botany.” (1/63-64)
“I would not teach them any botany which should necessitate the pulling of flowers to bits ; much less should they be permitted to injure or destroy any (not noxious) form of animal life.” (1/62)
“Neatness is akin to order, but is not quite the same thing: it implies not only ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place,’ but everything in a suitable place, so as to produce a good effect ; in fact, taste comes into play.” (1/130)
“This, of getting ideas out of them, is by no means all we must do with books. ‘In all labour there is profit,’ at any rate in some labour ; and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine ; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher.” (3/179)
“There is much difference between intelligent reading, which the pupil should do in silence, and a mere parrot-like cramming up of contents; and it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description, the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument, correctly, after a single careful reading.” (3/180)
“This is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series ; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact ; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books ; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselve.s in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.” (3/180)
The feast Charlotte Mason spread for the children included generous portions of history, geography, and modern language, but in the upper forms the news of the day was another important aspect for study. How do we navigate the current events in our turbulent, partisan, and often shocking times? Liz, Emily, and Nicole discuss the purpose of current events in the program, as well as sources of news and applications of world events in the education of our children.
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“There has seldom been a time in recent years in which the events of the day would not give an interesting parallel to some event of the past. [Recent news stories are] full of incidents which might…help a teacher to present the past as a more living reality. The things that are going on round us in the world are real: these are in everyone’s mouth : they touch many families directly : the linking of past and present by the teacher relieves the flatness of past events and makes them stand out as actual and distinct. … undoubtedly where children are taught to understand the nature of the political and national struggles which are going on round us, and the principles which underlie them, they are far more likely to grow up to understand what was involved in the history of the past.” (Sing, Rev. Canon. Parents’ Review 10, p. 758)
“He must have a living relationship with the present, its historic movement, its science, literature, art, social needs and aspirations. In fact, he must have a wide outlook, intimate relations all round” (3/162)
And having these relationships prevents our students from “leave[ing] school with no ideas, [about our present time] hopelessly ignorant of what is taking place in the great world outside,” (Mais, S. P. B. English In The Public Schools. Parents’ Review 25, p. 101)
“We must read our newspaper, of course––newspapers on both sides; but he who founds upon his newspaper is an ignorant patriot and an illiberal citizen. His opinions are no more than parrot-like repetitions of other men’s sayings; whereas he who dwells with dutiful interest upon the history of his own country, distressed over her ignominies, proud when she has shown herself great; who has pondered the history of another great empire––admiring the temperate justice with which its distant colonies were administered, and scrutinising the causes of its fall––he gradually acquires some insight as to the meaning of national life. He is able to express an opinion which is not a mere echo, and gains convictions which will certainly be of use to his country, even if they are known only to the people about his own fireside.” (4/2/75)
“The child’s range of sympathy must be widened, his love must go out to far and near, rich and poor; distress abroad and distress at home should appeal to him equally; and always he should give some manner of help at real cost to himself. [and she points out that one way this is facilitated is that] When he is old enough, the object-lessons of the newspapers should be brought before him.” (2/266)
“One of the most effectual methods of inculcating patriotism in the home is judicious newspaper reading. (Stephens, Winifred. Patriotism In Education. Parents’ Review 18, p. 101.)
“He who reads history in this way, not to pass examinations, nor to obtain culture, nor even for his own pleasure (delightful as such reading is), but because he knows it to be his duty to his country to have some intelligent knowledge of the past, of other lands as well as of his own, must add solid worth to the nation that owns him. It is something to prepare for the uses of the State a just, liberal, and enlightened patriotism in the breast of a single citizen.” (4/2/75)
“We can only plead again that partial knowledge and ignorance breed fear, where true comprehension and sufficient pains in explanation would cast it out. But there are other dangers. The candour and broad-mindedness of young people would be injured, some think, by the study of events of which in the nature of things they will only hear one side. The nationality, politics, and even religion, of their parents or teachers will so affect the view taken of the passing day that in recording its events to the child, only one narrow aspect will reach them.
Well, better that than none at all; though where children are allowed to listen to rational conversation on current topics instead of having all the talk brought down to their level, they may on the contrary learn to respect many points of view” (Pennethorne, R. A,. The Teaching Of Contemporary History. Parents’ Review 12, p. 275-76.)
“But we may run no needless risks, and must keep a quiet, matter-of-fact tone in speaking of fire, shipwreck, or any terror. (3/185)
“Calumny, we all know, is the speaking of injurious words about other people. We must keep our tongues from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering; and Wesley says that to speak evil of another when it is true is to slander, and when it is false, is to lie. Such things as these, about the people we have dealings with, are lightly said, often without intention; but two things have happened––our neighbour’s character has received a wound; and Truth, perhaps the most beautiful inmate of the House of Heart, has also received a hurt at our hands.” (4/1/152-153)
“The class of literature to which I refer will be obvious to everybody. I mean that sort of paper, daily or weekly or monthly, which is conducted on purely commercial principles, and consists of isolated scraps of a sensational or scandalous or gossipy nature, each paper endeavouring to outbid its rivals by an intenser appeal to the gape and itch of an idle or prurient curiosity. Such papers propose to themselves no object of enlightenment or culture : they are bent simply upon hitting and indulging the vulgar taste, and therefore by an inevitable law upon accentuating and debasing it.” (Mills, J. Saxon. Character and the Modern Press. Parents’ Review 7, p. 282)
“This is the opportunity to keep the young people informed upon the topics of the day,––who has made a weighty speech; who has written a book, what its merits and defects; what wars and rumours of wars are there; who has painted a good picture, and what are the characteristics of his style. The Times newspaper and a good weekly or monthly review will furnish material for talk every day in the week. The father who opens the talk need not be afraid he will have to sustain a monologue; indeed, he had better avoid prosing; and nothing is more delightful than the eager way the children toss the ball to and fro. They want to know the inns and outs of everything, recollect something which illustrates the point, and inevitably corner the thing talked about for investigation––is it “right,” or “wrong,” “good,” or “bad”; while the parents display their tact in leading their children to form just opinions without laying down the law for them. The boys and girls are engaged with the past, both in their school-work and their home reading, and any effort to bring them abreast of the times is gratifying to them; and it has a vivifying effect on their studies.” (5/231)
“Now every argument for the teaching of history as a whole applies doubly to the history of our own times. … No great movement, no convulsion of nations or of society is sudden; the causes of to-day’s events must be sought, not only in last year’s, but in yesterday’s, and to-day’s doings are profoundly affecting to-morrow.” (Pennethorne, R. A. The Teaching of Contemporary History. Parents’ Review 12, p. 273)
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