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.
We think of school as paper, pencils, and books, but Mason’s delectable feast included innumerable other learning opportunities. We try to hit the highlights here of the vastly underrated world of things that can be considered critical to the well-rounded education.
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“The children I am speaking of are much occupied with things as well as with books, because ‘Education is the Science of Relations,’ is the principle which regulates their curriculum; that is, a child goes to school with many aptitudes which he should put into effect. So, he learns a good deal of science, because children have no difficulty in understanding principles, though technical details baffle them. He practises various handicrafts that he may know the feel of wood, clay, leather, and the joy of handling tools, that is, that he may establish a due relation with materials. But, always, it is the book, the knowledge, the clay, the bird or blossom, he thinks of, not his own place or his own progress.” (6/31)
“At the same time, here is the mother’s opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul of the child, which shall germinate, blossom, and bear fruit, without further help or knowledge of hers.” (1/44-45)
“At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold.” (6/43)
“every hour spent in the open is a clear gain, tending to the increase of brain power and bodily vigour, and to the lengthening of life itself.” (1/42)
“The only sound method of teaching science is to afford a due combination of field or laboratory work, with such literary comments and amplifications as the subject affords.” (6/223)
“The work is arranged on the principles which have been set forth in this volume; a wide curriculum, a considerable number of books for each child in the several classes, and, besides, a couple of hours’ work daily, not with Books but with Things.” (3/271)
If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent’s Review articles that would be helpful for this episode’s topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.
School Education (Vol. 3), Chapter 21
Towards a Philosophy of Education (Vol. 6), Book I, Sections II and III
Charlotte Mason increased the feast both in variety of lessons and length of lessons as the children grew, but how does one teacher with multiple students in multiple grades manage? This episode explores many of the possibilities for combining children of different levels. Creative structuring and a knowledge of what each needs is key, and there are lots of options at every stage for sharing lessons.
Another season of Charlotte Mason episodes is around the corner. Want to know what series we will be doing, what new projects we have to offer, and what to expect? Emily, Nicole, and Liz give some sneak previews.
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Charlotte Mason’s Short Synopsis (Found at the beginning of each of her 6 Volumes)
ADE’s Discussion of the Short Synopsis starts here
This Charlotte Mason podcast episode addresses three short topics: the lists of attainments for six and 12-year-olds, what age is right to start school, and memorization. Liz, Emily, and Nicole each tackle one of these and gives you the short and simple advice from Charlotte Mason.
School Education, Appendix III (What a Child Should Know at Twelve)
Home Education, Part V, Chapter VII, “Recitation”
“a full six years of passive receptive life.” (1/43)
“At six or seven, definite lessons should begin, and these need not be watered down or served with jam for the acute intelligences that will in this way be brought to bear on them.” (1/193)
“When children have begun regular lessons (that is, as soon as they are six)…” (1/308)
“We (of the PNEU) begin the definite ‘school’ education of children when they are six; they are no doubt capable of beginning a year or two earlier but the fact is that nature and circumstances have provided such a wide field of education for young children that it seems better to abstain from requiring direct intellectual efforts until they have arrived at that age.” (6/159)
“Children of seven are promoted to Form IA in which they remain for a couple of years…children are in Form IA from 7-9…” (6/174…191)
“The child of six goes into Class IA [which is the previous name for what we now call Form IB].” (3/372)
“…now offers a fairly complete introduction to methods of teaching subjects fit for children between the ages of six and nine.” (1/xxiv)
“period of a child’s life between his sixth and his ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education, and of the habit of reading for instruction.” (1/xxiii)
“…the normal child of six listens with delight” to his Bible lessons (6/160)
“Every scholar of six years old and upwards should study with ‘delight’ his own, living, books on every subject in a pretty wide curriculum…Children between six and eight must for the most part have their books read to them.” (3/214)
“And now let us take our child of five and a half or six when he should first enter the home schoolroom and begin his real lessons. What does he know and what can he do? He should, we believe, be an interesting, and interested little pupil. His will is trained to ready, cheerful obedience; he has the habits of attention, of quick bright observation, of accurate description, of neatness & promptitude. He is eager to learn, lessons have no terrors for him; he wants to know, and he is not afraid of work. He has an intimate and loving every-day acquaintance with the names and habits of the flowers, birds, and insects around him. His ear, hand, and eye have had definite training. In fact, the ground has been prepared for good teaching and he has been put in the right attitude towards the good teacher. Can he read and write? Not always. I do not advocate definite instruction other than what has been sketched out before the child is six.” (Henrietta Franklin, Home Training of Children)
“One of the most obvious facts about children is that, while their memories are usually strong, their powers of reasoning and abstraction are weak. Hence has arisen a theory of education, according to which, we should use the years while memory is strong to store the mind with materials for use when the power of acquisition grows relatively weaker, and the understanding, on the contrary, more vigorous. This was the basis of the old system,… This neglect of the understanding is a mistake from which modern education is much freer, though not altogether free. … deal only with memory, content yourself with exacting merely a verbal repetition of lines that are never thought about or understood-what happens? Not simply that observation, imagination, and understanding are not trained, are lying fallow. Oh no, you have been injuring them. You have been accustoming them to lie idle and uninterested, when you should have shown them how to be up and doing. You have been training your child to be stupid and unintelligent.” (R. Somervell, “Lessons Before School”, PR 7, 1896)
“Memory is the storehouse of whatever knowledge we possess; and it is upon the fact of the stores lodged in the memory that we take rank as intelligent beings.” (1/154)
“They cram to pass, and not to know, they do pass, and they don’t know.”(1/155)
“Recitation and committing to memory are not necessarily the same thing, … and it is well to store a child’s memory with a good deal of poetry, learnt without labour.” (1/224)
“The purpose of so-called object-lessons is to assist a child, by careful examination of a given object, to find out all he can about it through the use of his several senses. General information about the object is thrown in, and lodges only because the child’s senses have been exercised and his interest aroused.” (2/180)
In Charlotte Mason’s book addressed to students, she wrote them a chapter on vocation. This episode concludes our series on the first book of Ourselves and is an informal chat about our calling in general, our children’s callings in particular, and some of the ways we can encourage them to follow theirs.
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Ourselves (Volume 4), Book I: Part IV
All quotes below are from Ourselves, Book I, pages 204-210
“What sort of person is of use in the world?” [she noted] — not necessarily the most “brilliant and handsome of your friends”.
“Everyone has immense ‘chances,’ as they are called; but the business of each is to be ready for his chance.”
“…his calling, or, if you like to name it so, his chance, comes to the person who is ready for it.”
“All callings have one thing in common––they are of use”
“…intention to be of use is not enough. We must get the habit, the trick, of usefulness.”
“…you may depend upon it that the useful members of a family have had much practice in being of use, that is, they have looked out for their chances.”
“…every time we do a thing helps to form the habit of doing it; and to do a thing a hundred times without missing a chance, makes the rest easy.”
“God…does not leave us blundering about in search of the right thing; if He finds us waiting, ready and willing, He gives us a call.”
