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.
This week’s Charlotte Mason podcast episode is a re-release of a fundamental subject: writing. There is far more to composition than mechanical knowledge. This episode reveals the progression from oral narration to the polished compositions of the upper forms and includes a discussion of grammar, written narration, and composition.
Listen Now:
“[G]rammar, being a study of words and not things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it.” (Vol. 1, p. 295)
“Children will probably be slow to receive this first lesson in abstract knowledge, and we must remember that knowledge in this sort is difficult and uncongenial. Their minds deal with the concrete and they have the singular faculty of being able to make concrete images out of the merest gossamer of a fairy tale.” (Vol. 6, p. 210)
“But a child cannot dream parts of speech, and any grown-up twaddle attempting to personify such abstractions offends a small person who with all his love of play and nonsense has a serious mind.” (Vol. 6, p. 210)
“Our business is to provide children with material in thier lessons, and leave the handling of such material to themselves…They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose, later, readily enough; but they should not be taught ‘composition.'” (Vol. 1, p. 247)
“It is not enough that a child should learn how to write, he must know what to write.” (Vol. 6, p. 234)
“In fact, lessons on ‘composition’ should follow the model of that famous essay on “Snakes in Ireland”––”There are none.”” (Vol. 1, p. 247)
“If we would believe it, composition is as natural as jumping and running to children who have been allowed due use of books.” (Vol. 1, p. 247)
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.
Home Education (Volume 1), Part V, XIII
An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Chapter 10, Section II: Knowledge of Man: Composition & Knowledge of Man: Grammar
For Charlotte Mason, poetry was a life giving instructor and inspirer of the children. This podcast episode includes special guest, Jono Kiser, a lover, writer, and teacher of poetry. Together the ADE ladies and Jono attempt to scratch the surface of the vast scope and value of poetry. If you love it, or are unsure, unfamiliar, unenthusiastic, or unconvinced, enter into this conversation and know delight is waiting for you.
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.
Listen Now:
“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 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.
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.
Listen Now:
“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)
