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.
Not only did Charlotte Mason include abundant novel reading in her curriculum feast and reference novels and characters from them continuously throughout her own writing, but she believed they were valuable for everyone–not just students. This week’s episode is a book discussion of Middlemarch by George Eliot, a novel she references and an author she admired. Whether you have read this novel or not, join in to hear not just what we thought of it, but how it reveals much about our Charlotte Mason education.
Today’s episode is a talk given by Liz at several conferences and events. She discusses the role parents play in the lives of their children–a topic much discussed by Charlotte Mason. We hope you enjoy this talk and are challenged and encouraged by the wisdom Miss Mason has to offer us parents.
Conference registration is now full. But you can use the registration form to add yourself to the waiting list if you would like.
Come join us in Bristol, TN for a simple, quiet, peaceful–even laid back retreat in our hometown area to refresh your spirit, renew your knowledge of Charlotte Mason’s teaching method, and receive both encouragement to continue and inspiration to grow in teaching. This conference is being put on by A Delectable Education and our local friends at a small, intimate venue.
We will present four plenaries (main sessions for everyone), three workshop sessions with two options at each, and two Q&A open forums. All sessions will include basics for CM beginners as well as new material for seasoned educators to go deeper. Three all-day immersion sessions, (choose from an in-depth exploration of geography, a hands-on consideration of composition through the Forms, and a complete morning of lessons), will precede the conference for those wishing to arrive a day early and receive extra instruction.
This conference will have a simple schedule including lots of space in which to relax and have conversations with other parents and with Liz, Emily, and Nicole. We rarely have time to simply chat and counsel with attendees at conferences and we want this to be a fruitful time of face-to-face interaction. There will be free times for nature walks, drawing and handicraft guidance, and an optional visit to Liz and Emily’s Living Books Library.
You will be required to make your own arrangements for lodging and food. (We have listed some local options on the site.) However, once we get closer to the conference date, we will offer sign-up for one or two meals to be enjoyed on-site together.
Individual EARLY-BIRD PRICE – $160.00 Individual AFTER MARCH 1 – $190.00 Spouse – $130.00 All Day Immersions – $75.00
Charlotte Mason included the study of great works of art in her regular school curriculum. This episode explores the many options for making picture study and picture talk more robust, richer, and engaging for your children with examples and ideas straight from the P.N.E.U.–ideas beyond just “look and tell.”
Listen Now:
“But there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books but pictures themselves. A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist’s life and a few sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little pictures are studied one at a time; that is, children learn, not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail. Then the picture is turned over and the children tell what they have seen…there is enough for a half hour’s talk and memory in this little reproduction of a great picture and the children will know it wherever they see it…
“It will be noticed that the work done on these pictures is done by the children themselves. There is not talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters comes in later life but the first and most important think is to know the pictures themselves. “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. In the region of art as elsewhere we shut out the middleman.” (6/214-216)
” In Forms V. and VI., a more organised study is begun with the help of books on the history and development of art. The girls may read to themselves a section on a certain say; then in class, after narration of the passage which has been read, we may take one of the principle painters. They study several reproductions of his works and then, choosing the one she prefers, each studies it for a few minutes, afterwards narrating it in writing or drawing. Later, an essay may be written on the particular school of painting with descriptions of some of the pictures.” (PR 42, pp. 443-444)
“Miss Parish advocated a variety in the manner of taking the ‘talk.’ Children might sometimes be allowed each to describe a picture so as to make the others see and recognise it.” (L’Umile Pianta 1907, p. 9)
Charlotte Mason insisted the teacher not take a “front and center” role, warned against the “talky-talky” teacher, etc. This episode addresses when it is appropriate for the teacher to explain, question, and even present the “oral lesson.”
Listen Now:
“When a child is reading, he should not be teased with questions as to the meaning of what he has read, the signification of this word or that; what is annoying to older people is equally annoying to children…He enjoys this sort of consecutive reproduction, but abominates every question in the nature of a riddle. If there must be riddles, let it be his to ask and the teacher’s to direct him to the answer.” (1/228)
“Of the means we employ to hinder the growth of mind perhaps none is more subtle than the questionnaire. It is as though one required a child to produce for inspection at its various stages of assimilation the food he consumed for his dinner ; we see at once how the digestive processes would be hindered , how, in a word, the child would cease to be fed. But the mind also requires its food and leave to carry on those quiet processes of digestion and assimilation which it must accomplish for itself. The child with capacity, which implies depth, is stupified by a long rigmarole on the lines of,-‘If John’s father is Tom’s son, what relation is Tom to John?’ The shallow child guesses the riddle and scores; and it is by the use of tests of this kind that we turn out young people sharp as needles but with no power of reflection, no intelligent interests, nothing but the aptness of the city gamin.” (6/54-55)
“…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)
“…we believe intellectual spoon-meat to be the only food for what we are pleased to call ‘ little minds .'” (3/171)
“…an inspiring idea initiates a new habit of thought, and hence, a new habit of life; we perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas.” (3/173)
“The oral lesson, which at its worst is very poor twaddle, and at its best is far below the ordered treatment of the same subject by an original mind in the right book…The lecture, commonly gathered from various books in rapid notes by the teacher ; and issuing in hasty notes, afterwards written out, and finally crammed up by the pupils. The lecture is often careful, thorough, and well-illustrated; but is it ever equal in educational value to direct contact with the original mind of one able thinker who has written his book on the subject?” (3/242)
“Though the part of the teacher should, in a general way, be that of the University tutor who “reads with” his men, the oral lesson, also, is indispensable, whether in introducing a course of reading or as bringing certain readings to a point. Oral lessons, too, give the teacher opportunities for the reading of passages from various books bearing on the subject in hand, a sure way to increase the desire of the children for extended knowledge. Some subjects, again, as Languages, Mathematics, Science, depend very largely upon oral teaching and demonstrations. It might be well if the lecture, with its accompaniments of note-taking and reports, were cut out of the ordinary curriculum, and the oral lesson made a channel for free intellectual sympathy between teacher and taught, and a means of widening the intellectual horizon of children.” (3/328-329)
“Thus it becomes a large part of the teacher’s work to help children to deal with their books; so that the oral lesson and lecture are but small matters m education, and are used chiefly to summarise or to expand or illustrate.” (3/226)
