Spreading the feast of the Charlotte Mason method of education through weekly podcasts. Join us for short discussions that provide information, examples, and encouragement to the homeschool parents putting CM's ideas into practice in their homes.
Charlotte Mason thought geography a vital subject in the feast, but where do maps fit into the lessons and what are the most effective ways to use them? Emily unpacks her most recent research and dispels some popular myths about map work.
Listen Now:
“Geography should be learnt chiefly from maps. Pictorial readings and talks introduce him to the subject, but so soon as his geography lessons become definite they are to be learnt, in the first place, from the map. This is an important principle to bear in mind. The child who gets no ideas from considering the map, say of Italy or of Russia, has no knowledge of geography, however many facts about places he may be able to produce. Therefore, he should begin this study by learning the meaning of a map and how to use it. he must learn to draw a plan of his schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field, consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means of the sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth’s surface, east or west, north or south.” (1/278)
Student Atlases: These are the most inexpensive option but have severe limitations. Their price makes them useful in purchasing the most up-to-date information.
Middle-Level Atlases: These are a step up from student atlases and these in particular are good because they include more details of non-US countries rather than simply continents
Comprehensive Atlases: These are beautiful, and large, and robust.
National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition, National Geographic, 2007. (This is not the latest edition, but very reasonably priced copies can be found used. The Tenth Edition was published in 2014, and can also be found used less expensively than a new edition.)
Oxford Atlas of the World, Twenty-Fifth Edition, Oxford, 2018. (This is updated annually, and is more reasonably priced than the one above, but again, recent editions are even more reasonable used)
The scope of the subject of geography matches the size of the world it covers and Charlotte Mason’s approach to this subject is likewise vast and multifaceted. This podcast episode discusses the purpose of geography study, the variety of resources used for learning, and gives a broad overview of the progression throughout forms I to VI.
Listen Now:
“Geography is, to my mind, a subject of high educational value; though not because it affords the means of scientific training. Geography does present its problems, and these of the most interesting, and does afford materials for classification; but it is physical geography only which falls within the definition of a science, and even that is rather a compendium of the results of several sciences than a science itself. But the peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas, and to furnish the imagination with pictures. Herein lies the educational value of geography.” (1/271-72)
“[G]ive him…intimate knowledge, with the fullest details, of any country or region of the world, any county or district of his own country. It is not necessary that he should learn at this stage what is called the ‘geography’ of the countries of Europe, the continents of the world–mere strings of names for the most part: he may learn these, but it is tolerably certain that he will not remember them. But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind’s eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is let him follow the adventures of a traveler; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps.” (1/274-75)
Living ideas flow from the living books Charlotte Mason assigned for school lessons and life lessons. This episode examines the purpose for the selection of literature for those after-school hours, and how to encourage this life-giving reading habit.
Listen Now:
“People are naturally divided into those who read and think and those who do not read or think; and the business of schools is to see that all their scholars shall belong to the former class; it is worth while to remember that thinking is inseparable from reading which is concerned with the content of a passage and not merely with the printed matter.” (6/31)
“From one to two hours, according to age and [form], are given in the afternoons to handicrafts, field-work, drawing, etc.; and the evenings are absolutely free, so that the children have leisure for hobbies, family reading, and the like.” (From “Suggestions” accompanying Programme 42)
“The evening reading is not task work. It is not important that many books should be read; but it is important that only good books should be read; and read with such ease and pleasant leisure, so that they become to the hearers so much mental property for life…One other point: it is hopeless and unnecessary to attempt to keep up with current literature. Hereafter, it may be necessary to make some struggle to keep abreast of the new books as they pour from the press; but let some of the leisure of youth be spent upon ‘standard’ authors, that have lived through, at least, twenty years of praise and blame.” (5/223)
“The evening readings should be entertaining, and not of a kind to demand severe mental effort; but the long holidays are too long for mere intellectual dawdling. Every Christmas and summer vacation should be marked by the family reading of some great work of literary renown, whether of history, or purely of belles lettres. The daily reading and discussion of one such work will give meaning and coherence to the history ‘grind’ of the school, will keep up a state of mental activity and will add zest to the general play and leisure of the holidays…Far better would it be that the young people should seek out their own pastures, the parents doing no more than keep a judicious eye upon their rovings. But the fact is young people are so taken up with living, that, as a rule, they do NOT read nowadays; and it is possible that a course of spoon-meat may help them over an era of feeble digestive powers, and put them in the way of finding their proper intellectual nourishment.” (5/227)
“The P.U.S. time-tables are arranged for Home Schoolrooms for the hours of morning school only. [The lighter portions of the Literature (novel, play and poems), are read for amusement in the evenings and also in the holidays. Music, Handicrafts, Field-Work, Drawing, Nature Note Books, Century Books, are taken in the afternoons.] Elementary Schools will therefore have a wide margin for other necessary work. It is desirable that children should buy their own copies of Scott, for example, or Shakespeare–whatever may be set for reading and recitations–so that these may be read at home as well as school.” (Public Elementary Schools, PNEU Pamplet, see below)
“To attempt a list of books suitable for the family lecture would be as hopeless as it is unnecessary; but it is possible to discuss the principles on which the selection should be made. In the first place, to get information is not the object of the family reading, but to make the young people acquainted with the flavour of, to give them a taste for a real “book“––that is, roughly speaking, a work of so much literary merit, that it should be read and valued for the sake of that alone, whatever its subject-matter.
“This rule makes a clean sweep of the literature to be found in nine houses out of ten––twaddling story-books, funny or “good”; worthless novels; second-rate writing, whether in works of history or of general literature; compendiums, abstracts, short sketches of great lives, useful information in whatever form. None of these should be admitted to the evening lecture, and, indeed, the less they are read at all, the better. A good encyclopaedia is an invaluable storehouse of facts, and should be made use of to elucidate every difficulty that occurs in general reading; and information got in this way, at the moment it is wanted, is remembered but it is a mistake to read for information only.
“Next, the book must be as interesting, amusing, or pathetic, as may be, but not too profound; the young people have been grinding all day, and now they want relaxation. One is sorry for girls and boys who do not hear the Waverley Novels read at home; nothing afterwards can make up for the delight of growing up in the company of Peveril of the Peak, Meg Merrilees, Jonathan Oldbuck, the Master of Ravenswood, Caleb Baiderstone, and the rest; and every page is a training in righteous living and gentlemanlike feeling. But novels are not the only resource; well-written books of travel are always charming; and, better than anything, good biographies of interesting people; not any of the single-volume series of “Eminent” persons, but a big two-volume book that gives you time to become at home with your man.
“Important historical works had better be reserved for the holiday, but historical and literary essays by men of letters afford very delightful reading.” (5/222-23)
Charlotte Mason has given us a method of education. What does this imply? Was it based on tradition? science? natural or divine law? And, what in all practical use, do these questions have to do with the day-in and day-out teaching of our children. How much do we consider the evidence of modern research and measurement in determining our curriculum or our teaching techniques? Join the rousing discussion between our friend, Art Middlekauff, and Emily, Nicole, and Liz as we wrestle with the true goal of education and the push and pull of modern convictions.
Listen Now:
An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), pp. 9-17
“Method implies two things––a way to an end, and a step by step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end or object to be arrived at.” (1/8)
“[T]he fact is, that a few broad essential principles cover the whole field, and these once fully laid hold of, it is as easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge of such facts as that fire burns and water flows. My endeavour in this and the following chapters will be to put these few fundamental principles before you in their practical bearing.” (1/10)
“I began under the guidance of these Anglo-Indian children to take the measure of a person and soon to suspect that children are more than we, their elders, except that their ignorance is illimitable.” (6/10)
“A book may be long or short, old or new, easy or hard, written by a great man or a lesser man, and yet be the living book which finds its way to the mind of a young reader. The expert is not the person to choose; the children themselves are the experts in this case. A single page will elicit a verdict; but the unhappy thing is, this verdict is not betrayed; it is acted upon in the opening or closing of the door of the mind.” (3/228)
“We become aware of an altogether unnatural and irreligious classification into things sacred and things secular…” (3/129)
“We do not merely give a religious education, because that would seem to imply the possibility of some other education, a secular education, for example. But we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education (which may, at the same time, be reached by a little child) is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection.” (3/95)
“We do not sufficiently rejoice in the wealth that the infinite nature of our God brings to each of us.” (2/273)
“We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual Helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life.” (“Principle 20”)
“We do not mean that spiritual virtues may be exhibited by the teacher, and encouraged in the child in the course of a grammar lesson; this is no doubt true, and is to be remembered; but perhaps the immediate point is that the teaching of grammar by its guiding ideas and simple principles, the true, direct, and humble teaching of grammar; without pedantry and without verbiage, is, we may venture to believe, accompanied by the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, of whom is all knowledge.” (2/274)
“Code of Education in the Gospels.––It may surprise parents who have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that they should do no sort of injury to the children: Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDER not––one of these little ones.” (1/12)
Charlotte Mason had children feasting on books, which means we teachers have questions about them. This month’s Q&A podcast episode addresses questions about children who are sensitive to certain books, how to find great living books, and, when they come home, how to organize those books.
Listen Now:
“The Feelings should be Objective, not Subjective––Nor is this the only charge that ‘the feelings’ have to sustain. So long as the feelings remain objective, they are, like the bloom to the peach, the last perfection of a beautiful character; but when they become subjective, when every feeling concerns itself with the ego, we have, as in the case of sensations, morbid conditions set up; the person begins by being ‘over sensitive,’ hysteria supervenes, perhaps melancholia, an utterly spoilt life.” (2/195)
“What are commonly called sensitive feelings––that is, susceptibility for oneself and about oneself, readiness to perceive neglect or slight, condemnation or approbation––through belonging to a fine and delicate character, are in themselves of less worthy order, and require very careful direction lest morbid conditions should be set up.” (2/202)
