If you’ve been following along with our series on Charlotte Mason Geography lessons, you likely have some lingering questions. We’ll address many common queries that we hear from parents and teachers about this expansive subject on today’s podcast.
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Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…
Nicole
…Nicole Williams…
Liz
…and Liz Cottrill.
Emily
At the end of each of our subject series, we like to take some time and answer questions that pertain to across multiple forms or you know, like a whole family unit, maybe some things that we haven’t gotten to address.
So, Nicole, why don’t you start us off with the thing that everybody always wants to know first? Where can I combine students?
Nicole
Yes. Well, when it comes to combining, for the most part, students really do need to stay in their own form level with Geography because each stage builds on the one before it and keeps moving forward. But there are a few places where we can talk about it.
First, within any form itself, you can combine without any trouble. So there’s sometimes we talked about, well, Form 1B does this and Form 1A does that, but really if you have a student that is in the older stage of that form, the younger student can jump in where the older student happens to be and then just pick up the rest of the cycle as they come back around. You don’t have to start at the beginning.
Form 2 works the same way, so within the form, they can start at any point. Yeah, they can combine that way.
Then there’s Forms 3 and 4, which combine nicely with each other because they’re doing similar work. And we even combined those in our podcast episode because they’re really working on a similar level. It’s good to note that this is also where a newcomer could come in. If you have a high schooler who’s coming into this method for the first time and hasn’t done any of the earlier Geography, they can join right in here at the Form 3 level.
Emily
Sure.
Nicole
So one thing to know however is that an older student will still need to do the map questions. We talked about that in our last episode. At 10th grade, Form5, students would stop doing that. But if your student is new, they should just keep doing that.
Emily
Yeah.
Nicole
Since they wouldn’t have had those yet.
Where it doesn’t work is to bring a student up a form level. Once a student has done their continent study in Form 3 and moves on into the high school years, you don’t fold, you’re not folding students together there.
Emily
Only if they’re brand new and haven’t done the previous years.
Nicole
Yeah. I do think those later years we said there is some flexibility of which continent you studied first. You could, you know, have a student who finished their own continent jump in wherever the older student was if that was a thing. So really each child kind of has to follow the sequence.
Emily
Right. It’s like, think about it three years at a time. Anyone within those same three years, but you’re not going to combine Form 1 to 2 kids.
Nicole
Yeah.
Emily
They’re doing different things and for very different reasons. And mostly ’cause it fits their developmental stage.
Nicole
Right. And it’s good to know that there’s a lot of independent work that can be done in this. So maybe stop thinking about it like how am I, mom, going to do all this? No, the children are going to be in their form level and do their independent work.
Now, the exception to this is Physical Geography. And there is that hands on Physical Geography, especially the outdoor object lesson little experience that we do there that combines well across many forms. In particular, Forms 2, 3, and and up, but even the younger children, you know, as far as they can could participate in those.
Emily
Yeah. I do that with our nature club once a month, and we have kids from preschool up through high school. So everybody and yeah, the little kids get much less. Sometimes the high schoolers are like, yeah, I know all this already, you know…they’re still participating or helping a little bit.
Nicole
Exactly. Exactly.
Emily
Well, the next question kind of kind of piggy backs on some of the things you brought up. The question we’re often asked is where do I place my child? And really I think we just have so much FOMO, right? And and I think as a culture but also homeschooling parents, we are keenly aware like once we come into Charlotte Mason and we’re convinced this is the way we wanna go, we just lament and give ourselves so much guilt about what we missed.
And so I always wanna stress that the content doesn’t build sequentially. Like because they didn’t get their little overview of all the continents doesn’t mean that they cannot just jump into the study of their own country for three years in Form 2. They should just do the content work. We talked about the variation of that because they’re doing continents in turn, they could easily do the continent that you would do with your Form 3. If they’re new to the method in high school, they could everybody could do Europe at the same time, right? or North America or whatever you decide to do.
But the skills do. So you are going to, well, they haven’t had two or three or four or more years of map work with the map questions. I’m not gonna have them filling in from memory on a blank map, like they should be doing at Form 4, right? If they’re brand new to this Geography. I’m gonna spend at least a term where they’re just answering the map questions from the map, and then I might spend another year on answering the map questions from memory after we do that, right? And then I might add that in. So you might add it quicker than year seven and eight of their education, but we’re not going to do that.
Liz
So follow the same progression but speed it up.
Emily
Sure. Yes. And then and I think that they can do the map exercises, the 10 minute map exercises, even if they haven’t had the other, because you’re going to be tailoring those to your child anyway. So I would do the content, but just pay attention to those skills and definitely don’t expect them to do something that only was possible because they’ve been doing that for several years in Charlotte Mason.
Nicole
That’s a good point.
Emily
So yeah, just do that. I think that covers all of my advice on that topic.
Liz
And you guys have covered a lot of the common questions when we bring a family to this method especially if you haven’t been doing it.
A lot of moms get distressed because all the children in different forms are doing different things. But I just want to encourage you that that is not really a problem in this subject, especially if we’re gonna have atlases out all over. We can all be doing our own particular questions. If you have non-readers, then obviously you have to focus your attention on them, but they can be studying…even their Geography lesson could often happen at the same time while they’re doing different, you know, what’s appropriate for their form.
Emily
Right.
Liz
And yeah, I think you did a good job of just if they have not done anything, where would you jump off? I just always encourage you to try to do what’s appropriate for their age level. So even if Asia is the first thing they’ve done, they can still learn to focus on the kinds of questions and drawings that they would have done.
Emily
Sure.
Liz
And of course the big question always is the out of date information and older books…it’s still valuable information. And if they’re older they can look up news information and otherwise you can fill in with a few more salient points.
Emily
Yeah.
And one idea about if you have multiple non readers in different forms. With my Form 2 son this year, I would have my Form 1 students like finishing their handicraft or maybe they were on a break, a play break, their ten minute play break. I would do his map questions with him first.
Liz
Yes.
Emily
And then he would go read with you know, it could be an audio recording or with another sibling and then I would work with the younger ones. Because the lessons being different times does help to stagger those a little bit if you can arrange your timetable.
Liz
Right.
Emily
The other thing we like to cover in these cumulative culmination episodes is how to assess progress. And I think that’s something that’s always nagging at the back of our minds. How do I know if my child is doing good work? The first thing you would say is how are their narrations? Are they actually getting any ideas from their Geography lessons? Do they get interested when something comes up on a TV show or, you know, another person brings up another place that they’ve studied in Geography and then you know what, they’re actually caring about and maybe they’re not narrating super well, but they do have a connection with it. They remember something and they’re engaged with it.
Because of course our goal is not how much does the youth know when he has finished his education, but how much does he care? so I would say that that is a good sign that they’re getting more out of your job or out of their Geography lessons than you might previously know.
Do they demonstrate that under their understanding of Physical Geography ideas? With all of this field work, there’s ample opportunity for them to actually demonstrate that they do understand how you would calculate the height of a tree that you can’t measure because we’re doing comparative Mathematics with measuring something that we can measure the whole length of something, right?
How are their sketch maps? Do they show that they’re actually getting a grasp of what they’ve been studying? So we have a lot of assessment tools just really built into our Geography lessons at this age. The big…not that they’re rendering a perfect map, but does it show that they have an idea of where things are in relation to one another? And when you say, you know, can you draw me a quick sketch map of Europe? Are they getting the big countries in the right places, you know?
So I think those are all helpful things to look at for you to know that there…and then I always like to say think back on your own Geography education or think back on any of subjects in your education and how much you still retained or how much you were interested in it and then use that to be encouraged that your students are more interested and engaged than you probably were.
Do you have any thoughts to end us out?
Liz
Well I you know I would just say that we think of this perhaps as an old fashioned subject. And with all our technology today that it’s maybe not as important for our kids to be involved. I would say the exact opposite is the case.
And truly with our modern technology and communication, we are all much more in touch with the entire globe than was common in the past. And with all the conflicts that are so readily heard about in the news and so on. We need even more compassion and understanding of other cultures. and I think like Charlotte Mason said, it’s a shame to live in a world that is so diverse and so interrelated and complex and it has so many people and not be curious about it, not know about the wonders that you’re mentioning.
And like she said, using the place you live for your own purposes and having no thought of your neighbors and that we need to get beyond this utilitarian idea and that Geography is just a subject where we memorize some key facts to pass a test to later to get into college or something, and to start to see the beauty of other cultures and places and just gain a deep respect for our neighbors around the world.
Emily
Well that brings us to the end of our series of episodes on Geography lessons. We have a treat in store for you. We’re releasing two talks from past ADE at Home virtual conferences that we know will be an encouragement to you. So we encourage you to tune in for the next couple of weeks.