The April Q&A episode discusses the usual variety of questions: Did
Charlotte Mason use textbooks? Is her parenting advice valid? How
can we get more rest? Plus, strategies for lesson planning.
Listen Now:
“I shall touch later upon the burning question of a curriculum which shall furnish children, not with dry bones of fact, but with fact clothed upon with the living flesh, breathed into by the vital spirit of quickening ideas.” (3/124)
“The interpreter is too much with us. We lean on him-whether in commentary, essay, sermon, poem, critique-and are content that he should think for us.” (4/84)
“My endeavor in this and the following volumes of the series will be to sketch out roughly a method of education which, as resting upon a basis of natural law, may look, without presumption, to inherit the Divine blessing.” (1/41)
“What is education? The answer we accept is that Education is the Science of Relations.
“We do not use this phrase in the Herbartian sense, that things or thoughts are related to each other and that teachers must be careful to pack the right things, in together, so that, having got into the pupil’s brain, each may fasten on its kind, and, together, make a strong clique or apperception mass.
“What concerns us personally is the fact that we have relations with what there is in the present and with what there has been in the past, with what is above us, and about us ; and that fulness of living and serviceableness depend for each of us upon how far we apprehend these relationships and how many of them we lay hold of.” (3/217-218)
“…it is possible to bring up a child entirely according to natural law, which is also Divine Law, in the keeping of which there is great reward.” (1/135)
“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)
For the Love of Physics, Lewin
Green’s Short History of the English People
I’m planning on listening to this soon but while I have a few seconds, I wanted to ask two questions I have, which maybe you’ve covered in another episode and I’ve missed, but they are: When I’m so passionate about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, how do I share what I’m learning with other parents without seeming like an inexperienced know-it-all? And, we have about a year before my oldest is 6, and we are looking forward to implementing Miss Mason’s philosophy and methods into our homeschool. I found your podcast on preschoolers to be very helpful, but are there any tips you have specifically to help us create a rhythm that transitions to a school day later on? I feel like younger children have the advantage of slipping in and out of school before they join, as hard as that can be on the parents, but with a first homeschooler, I’d like to have some of that structure in place for us, without lessons, but somehow. Thank you!
Amanda,
It is wonderful that you consider these questions now. We have addressed, at least once if not a few times (I’m thinking particularly of Episode 95), how to share your CM excitement and knowledge without coming across as superior. I think the best way is to live it out and answer people honestly when they ask questions. Try to find out what it is they want for their children and you will find a bridge that leads to Mason’s ideas.
I, like Mason, do not think the very young need much preparation for school out of good healthy home life habits, hearing many stories and including the Bible, and much free time to play, experience the
outdoors for hours every day, and a chance to serve and learn household responsibilities.
Liz