This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Susanne Norris, a full-time homeschool mom and missionary. She has wise words to share with all of us, even if we’re not in full-time ministry!
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One of the distinctives of the Charlotte Mason Method is that it is relational education. The Method also applies to all of life, and so we start with the foundational relationship in our students’ lives: their relationship with their parents. In this episode of the podcast, we look at the two extremes, and learn from Charlotte Mason how to strike a balance that leads to life–for both parent and child.
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School Education, Volume 3 of the Home Education Series by Charlotte M. Mason, chapters 1-3
“…it is far easier to govern from a height, as it were, than from the intimacy of close personal contact. But you cannot be quite frank and easy with beings who are obviously of a higher and of another order than yourself.” (3/4)
“Parents and teachers, because their subjects are so docile and so feeble, are tempted more than others to the arbitrary temper…” (3/11)
“Autocracy is defined as independent or self-derived power…Autocracy has ever a drastic penal code, whether in the kingdom, the school, or the family. It has, too, many commandments. ‘Thou shalt’ and ‘thou shalt not’ … The tendency to assume self-derived power is common to us all, even the meekest of us, and calls for special watchfulness; the more so, because it shows itself fully as often in remitting duties and in granting indulgences as in inflicting punishments.” (3/15-16)
“Locke promulgated the doctrine of the infallible reason. That doctrine accepted, individual reason becomes the ultimate authority, and every man is free to do that which is right in his own eyes…the principle of the infallible reason is directly antagonistic to the idea of authority.” (3/5-6)
“[B]ut wise parents steer a middle course. They are careful to form habits upon which the routine of life runs easily, and, when the exceptional event requires a new regulation, they may make casual mention of their reasons for having so and so done ; or, if this is not convenient and the case is a trying one, they give the children the reason for all obedience-“for this is right.” In a word, authority avoids, so far as may be, giving cause of offence.” (3/22)
“[A]uthority is vested in the office and not in the person; that the moment it is treated as a personal attribute it is forfeited. We know that a person in authority is a person authorised ; and that he who is authorised is under authority.” (3/12)
“Authority is neither harsh nor indulgent. She is gentle and easy to be entreated in all matters immaterial, just because she is immovable in matters of real importance; for these, there is always a fixed principle. It does not, for example, rest with parents and teachers to dally with questions affecting either the health or the duty of their children. They have no authority to allow children in indulgences… Authority is alert; she knows all that is going on and is aware of tendencies…It sometimes happens that children, and not their parents, have right on their side: a claim may be made or an injunction resisted, and the children are in opposition to parent or teacher. It is well for the latter to get the habit of swiftly and imperceptibly reviewing the situation; possibly, the children may be in the right, and the parent may gather up his wits in time to yield the point graciously and send the little rebels away in a glow of love and loyalty.” (3/17)
“Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart.” (3/24)
“The constraining power should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man, which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened.” (3/31)
“We shall give children space to develop on the lines of their own characters in all right ways, and shall know how to intervene effectually to prevent those errors which, also, are proper to their individual characters.” (3/35)
“‘Wise passiveness.’ It indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action. But there is, from our point of view at any rate, a further idea conveyed in ‘masterly inactivity.’ The mastery is not over ourselves only; there is also a sense of authority, which our children should be as much aware of when it is inactive as when they are doing our bidding.” (3/28)
“Further, though the emancipation of the children is gradual, they acquiring day by day more of the art and science of self-government, yet there comes a day when the parents, right to rule is over; there is nothing left for them but to abdicate gracefully, and leave their grown-up sons and daughters free agents, even though these still live at home; and although, in the eyes of their parents, they are not fit to be trusted with the ordering of themselves: if they fail in such self-ordering, whether as regards time, occupations, money, friends, most likely their parents are to blame for not having introduced them by degrees to the full liberty which is their right as men and women. Anyway, it is too late now to keep them in training; fit or unfit, they must hold the rudder for themselves.” (2/17)
Living Book Press’ Charlotte Mason Volumes
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Episode 115: Authority and Docility, Part 1
Episode 116: Authority and Docility, Part 2
Episode 201: Short Synopsis Points 1-4
ADE’s Patreon Community
As we discuss ways to bring balance to our lives using the Charlotte Mason Method, our first focus is on our Priorities. We can fall off on either side of the horse: Making school all-important, or pushing it to the back burner. Miss Mason has excellent advice for how to avoid either extreme, and the ADE ladies share their own experiences with imbalance.
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“…this is a delightful thing to remember, 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.” (4/I/209)
“[H]e learns that one time is NOT ‘as good as another;’ that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time…” (1/142)
Living Book Press’ Charlotte Mason Volumes
Living Book Press — Our Season Sponsor
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A Delectable Education is back for its Tenth year! We have grown a lot over these past 9 years, and so has the Charlotte Mason Community. We are honored to be here sharing with you all still. In this episode we are sharing some big announcements like our 5th Annual Parents’ Educational Course Reading List, our 5th Annual Online Conference (coming February 2025) and new Teacher Helps and Training Videos to help your school year go smoothly. We’re glad you’re here with us.
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Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell — 2025 ADE Book Club selection. Living Book Press has produced a special edition just for our book club.
Living Book Press: Our first ever season-long sponsor!
Charlotte Mason Digital Collection
2024-25 Parents’ Educational Course: A suggested reading list curated for the modern CM educator
Teacher Helps: Products we’ve created to help you plan, forecast, and implement lessons
Physical Geography Teacher Helps
A Short Grammar of the English Tongue, Year 2
Good and Dangerous Books, Jono Kiser
CM Through High School, Nicole Williams
Instructing the Conscience, Jessica Becker
Form 1 Natural History Demo Lesson
ADE at HOME 2025: Our fifth annual {Virtual} Conference, check back for more details in November. Registration begins November 29, 2024. February 7-8, 2025 through May 7, 2025.
ADE’s Patreon Community
The end of the school year and the end of this podcast season is cause to pause and reflect. The ADE ladies review the past year and encourage you to not just slam the books closed, but pause to remember the good and give thanks. We also provide a great number of helpful episodes and resources as you plan for the upcoming school year. The episode closes with a fitting devotional to help you gain perspective on the value of the past year and inspire you for what lies ahead.
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“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.” (2/105-106)
Episode 241: Seasonal Reflections
Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method
ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference (First weekend in February each year, access for 3 months following)
Episode 232: Forecasting Lessons — How to plan
Forecasting Teacher Training Video
Form Overviews:
Episode 162: Creating Your Own CM Curriculum
Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Your Curriculum
Episode 33: Scheduling a CM Education
Awaken: Living Books Conference July 26-27, 2024