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 encouraged the habit of gratitude. This end-of-year season wrap-up episode is a collection of testimonials from mothers who have experienced the benefits of her method. Emily, Liz, and Nicole are encouraging every mother, before the books are tossed aside for the year, to take time to reflect on the past year of lessons. If you want to end the year with a song instead of a sigh, listen to be reminded of all that’s good.
Listen Now:
“May we recommend the following suggestion to Parents?––
A Mother’s Diary––”Parents and teachers should endeavour to answer such questions as these: When do the first stirrings of the moral sense appear in the child? How do they manifest themselves? What are the emotional and the intellectual equipments of the child at different periods, and how do these respond with its moral outfit? At what time does conscience enter on the scene? To what acts or omissions does the child apply the terms right or wrong? If observations of this kind were made with care and duly recorded, the science of education would have at its disposal a considerable quantity of material from which, no doubt, valuable generalisations might be deduced. Every mother, especially, should keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the moral; so that parents may be enabled to make a timely forecast of their children’s character; to foster in them every germ of good, and by prompt precautions to suppress, or at least restrain, what is bad.” (2/105-106)
As with every subject, Charlotte Mason’s method starts with ideas and continues with natural instruction according to her principles. Math is no exception. Guests Emily Al-Khatib and Heather Schultz unpack the underlying principles of Charlotte Mason’s approach to math and reveal a glimpse of the beauty and truth that will be revealed as Miss Mason’s method is applied to mathematics. Emily, Liz, and Nicole touch on the most common questions, concerns, fears, and perplexities teachers have about math with these enthusiastic math teachers.
Charlotte Mason’s counsel on education extends beyond academics to sound parenting advice. It’s wonderful to come to the feast, but what if the learners at the table have such bad attitudes that it spoils the meal? Liz, Emily, and Nicole discuss the reality of facing the challenges of children with bad attitudes and ways of dealing with them.
Listen Now:
“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.” (3/188)
“The mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body; there are no organs for the assimilation of the one more than of the other.” (6/218)
“There is no way of escape for parents; they must be ‘inspirers’ to their children, because about them hangs, as its atmosphere about a planet, the thought-environment of the child, from which he derives those enduring ideas which express themselves as a life-long ‘appetency’ towards things sordid or things lovely, things earthly or divine.” (2/37)
“They do not give their children the discipline which results in self-compelling power; and by-and-by…the time for training in the art of self-mastery has gone by, and a fine character is spoiled through indolence and willfulness.” (2/64)
“It rests with parents to make low the high places and exalt the valleys, to make straight paths for the feet of their [child].” (2/68)
“To give a child this power over himself — first in response to the will of another, later, in response to his own, is to make a man of him,” (3/20)
“Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend.” (1/118)
“…it is a mistake to suppose that the greater the number of ‘subjects’ the greater the scholar’s labour; the contrary is the case as the variety in itself affords refreshment.” (6/158)
“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.” Point 20 of the Short Synopsis
“It is a happy thing that the ‘difficult’ children who are the readiest to resist a direct command are often the quickest to respond to the stimulus of an idea.” (3/23)
Merry Christmas to all. This re-release of an early episode on picture study and music appreciation begins with a few tips and updates and is appropriate for a feast for the eyes, ears, and heart during this special season. For the not-to-be missed lessons, including art and music is the life-giving energy for the rest of the feast.
Listen Now:
“We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist has upon the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than we know in having really looked at even a single picture.” (Vol. 1, p. 309)
“They are never copied lest an attempt to copy should lessen a child’s reverence for great work.” (Vol. 6, p. 216)
“A great promise has been given to the world––that its teachers shall not any more be removed. 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. But this, like other good gifts, does not come by nature. It is the reward of humble, patient study.” (Vol. 4, p. 102)
“As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it.” (Vol. 6, p. 216)
“[F]or though every child cannot be a great performer, all may be taught an intelligent appreciation of the beauties of music, and it is a wicked shame to clang the doors of music, and therefore of endless channels of delight and inspiration, in a child’s face, because we say he has “no ear,” when perhaps his ear has never been trained, or because he never will be able to “play.”” (Miss Pennethorne’s PR Article)
“Hearing should tell us a great many interesting things, but the great and perfect joy which we owe to him is Music.” (Vol. 4, Book I, pp. 30-31)
“Use every chance you get of hearing music (I do not mean only tunes, though these are very nice), and ask whose music has been played, and, by degrees, you will find out that one composer has one sort of thing to say to you, and another speaks other things; these messages of the musicians cannot be put into words, so there is no way of hearing them if we do not train our ear to listen.” (Vol. 4, p. 31)
“Many great men have put their beautiful thoughts, not into books, or pictures, or buildings, but into musical score, to be sung with the voice or played on instruments, and so full are these musical compositions of the minds of their makers, that people who care for music can always tell who has composed the music they hear, even if they have never heard the particular movement before.” (Vol. 4, p. 31)
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.
Home Education, Part V, Chapter XXI
School Education, p. 239
Towards a Philosophy of Education, Book I, Chapter X, Section II: f
