Overwhelmed? Overwrought? Or, just over it all? This episode is a re-release of one of our top listened to discussions, because when the broad feast feels unachievable or suffocating, we all need encouragement and perspective.

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“There is no doubt that definite work, on a well-considered programme, with a given object in view, is a clear gain, leading to definiteness of purpose and concentration of effort and attention, the qualities that go to make a successful man.” (5/182)

“It is a wide programme founded on the educational rights of man; wide, but we may not say it is impossible nor may we pick and choose and educate him in this direction but not in that. We may not even make choice between science and the ‘humanities.’ Our part it seems to me is to give a child a vital hold upon as many as possible of those wide relationships proper to him. Shelley offers us the key to education when he speaks of ‘understanding that grows bright gazing on many truths.’ Because the relationships a child is born to are very various, the knowledge we offer him must be various too.” (6/157)

“We may not choose or reject subjects–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…But we do not know how much we are shutting out from Tommy’s range of thought…” (3/162-163)

“Sometimes, parents have the mistaken notion that the greater the number of subjects the heavier the work; though, in reality, the contrary is the case, unless the hours of study are increased.” (3/286)

“There are always those present with us whom God whispers in the ear, through whom He sends a direct message to the rest. Among these messengers are the great painters who interpret to us some of the meanings of life. To read their messages aright is a thing due from us.” (4/I/102)

“We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession––that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours.” (1/2-3)

“In the things of science, in the things of art, in the things of practical everyday life, his God doth instruct him and doth teach him, her God doth instruct her and doth teach her. Let this be the mother’s key to the whole of the education of each boy and each girl; not of her children; the Divine Spirit does not work with nouns of multitude, but with each single child. Because He is infinite, the whole world is not too great a school for this indefatigable Teacher, and because He is infinite, He is able to give the whole of his infinite attention for the whole time to each one of his multitudinous pupils. We do not sufficiently rejoice in the wealth that the infinite nature of our God brings to each of us.” (2/273)

Charlotte Mason Digital Collection

Charlotte Mason set her method firmly on the power of narrative. This episode is the book discussion of a novel from 2001: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Miss Mason kept up with current literature and said “our novels are our teachers.” This beautiful, symbolic, realistic, and panoramic novel is an excellent teacher. Emily, Nicole, and Liz have a grand time unwrapping some aspects that reveal some of its wonders.

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Peace Like a River, Leif Enger

So Brave Young and Handsome, Leif Enger

Virgil Wander, Leif Enger

Parents’ Educational Course Reading List

Charlotte Mason advocated a “method” of lessons, which included comments to the teacher about preparing for lessons. What is included in this practice, why is it necessary or helpful, and how do we implement effective planning? Lessons are far more than simply reading and narrating. Keeping students on track throughout a school year takes some vigilant and diligent work on the teacher’s part. Enjoy this re-release of a former episode with relevance for every single school week.

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“In the first place, we have no system of education. We hold that great things, such as nature, life, education, are ‘cabined, cribbed, confined,’ in proportion as they are systematised. We have a method of education, it is true, but method is no more than a way to an end, and is free, yielding, adaptive as Nature herself. Method has a few comprehensive laws according to which details shape themselves, as one naturally shapes one’s behaviour to the acknowledged law that fire burns. System, on the contrary, has an infinity of rules and instructions as to what you are to do and how you are to do it. Method in education follows Nature humbly; stands aside and gives her fair play.” (2/168)

“Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation, and, especially of forestalling the narrative. Then, she may read two or three pages, enough to include an episode; after that, let her call upon the children to narrate–in turns, if there be several of them…It is not wise to tease them with corrections…The book should always be deeply interesting, and when the narration is over, there should be a little talk in which moral points are brought out, pictures shown to illustrate the lesson, or diagrams drawn on the blackboard.” (1/232-233)

“The teacher’s part in this regard is to see and feel for himself, and then to rouse his pupils by an appreciative look or word, but to beware how he deadens the impression by a flood of talk.” (3/179)

“The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity.” (3/180-181)

“The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend ; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.” (6/32)

“Perhaps the chief function of a teacher is to distinguish information from knowledge in the acquisitions of his pupils. Because knowledge is power, the child who has got knowledge will certainly show power in dealing with it. He will recast, condense, illustrate, or narrate with vividness and with freedom in the arrangement of his words. The child who has got only information will write and speak in the stereotyped phrases of his text-book, or will mangle in his notes the words of his teacher.” (3.225)

“Our part is to remove obstructions and to give stimulus and guidance to the child who is trying to get into touch with the universe of things and thoughts which belongs to him. Our deadly error is to suppose that we are his showman to the universe; and, not only so, but that there is no community at all between child and universe unless such as we choose to set up.” (3/188)

“Teaching must not be Obtrusive.-Half the teaching one hears and sees is more or less obtrusive. The oral lesson and the lecture, with their accompanying notes, give very little scope for the establishment of relations with great minds and various minds. The child who learns his science from a text-book, though he go to Nature for illustrations, and he who gets his information from object-lessons, has no chance of forming relations with things as they are, because his kindly obtrusive teacher makes him believe that to know about things is the same thing as knowing them personally; though every child knows that to know about Prince Edward is by no means the same thing as knowing the boy-prince. We study in many ways the art of standing aside.” (3/66)

“Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.” (3/181)

Notes of Conference Lessons, here and here

Subjects By Form

Episode 33: Scheduling a CM Education

Nicole’s Scheduling Series

Lesson Planning in a Living Education Teacher Training Video

Scheduling Teacher Training Video

Charlotte Mason’s curriculum set appropriately short lessons in many varied subjects. Her programmes included timetables to help organize the short morning lessons. This episode is a discussion of how the teacher may prepare, predict, and plan for the upcoming term to accomplish covering the material. We call it forecasting–a flexible plan for success, a term  Charlotte Mason probably would have appreciated.

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“The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity.” (3/180-181)

“The children need your utmost freshness of mind and energy, so do not sit up late preparing lessons; what you seem to gain in preparation you lose by tiredness next day.” (The Story of Charlotte Mason, 150)

The Body, Bill Bryson

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ADE’s Schedule Cards

Paterson Smyth Bible Lesson Breakdowns

Teacher Helps

Dorothy Mills’ Ancient History Book Breakdown

Charlotte Mason made several statements that began, “Education is…” This episode teases out many of her definitions of education. Emily, Nicole, and Liz discuss her perspective on education and how it applies to us today.

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“It is the old story; utilitarian education is profoundly immoral, in that it defrauds a child of the associations which should give him intellectual atmosphere.” (5/313)

“The earlier reformers, notably Pestalozzi and Froebel, divide the faculties up with something of the precision of a phrenologist, and a chief business of education is, according to them, ‘to develop the faculties.’ … There is a certain pleasing neatness in this idea which is very attractive. We want to know, definitely, what we have to do. Why, develop the perceptive faculties here, with the conceptive there, the judgment in this lesson, the affections in the other, until you have covered the whole ground, giving each so-called faculty its due share of developmental exercise!” In case CM sarcasm eludes you, she was saying no to all of that. Instead she said, “The mind, like Wordsworth’s cloud, moves altogether when it moves at all.” (3/92)

“[W]e perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas. In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to modern thought, as the supreme Educator of mankind in things that have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been called sacred.” (3/173)

“But these principles are obvious and simple enough, and, when we consider that at present education is chaotic for want of a unifying theory, and that there happens to be no other comprehensive theory in the field which is in line with modern thought and fits every occasion, might it not be well to try one which is immediately practicable and always pleasant and has proved itself by producing many capable, serviceable, dutiful men and women of sound judgment and willing mind? (6/32)

“You perceive the point of view is shifted, and is no longer subjective, but objective as regards the child.” (3/186)

“There are good and evil tendencies in body and min, heart and soul; and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion.” (6/I/46)

Even Better than Eden, Nancy Guthrie

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Episode 4: Three Tools of Education

Episode 202: Short Synopsis Points 5-8

Episode 3: The Role of the Teacher

Episode 210: Short Synopsis Point 20