Aug. 14, 2008 - Scheduling CM

Category • Charlotte Mason

When we started Ambleside's Year 1 last June (2007), I had to figure out how to take the weekly assignment list and turn it into a usable schedule.  I had seen other schedules, but none seemed to fit our way of doing things.  DD needs to feel some ownership in this process, some control over parts of it, in order not to be rebellious, so a micro-schedule with each reading assigned to a specific day would not work well for us.  Also, we had a new baby coming and two other little ones with their own needs and activities, plus the usual interruptions that life brings along.  A very specific schedule would be hard for us to stick to.

I knew we would school in the afternoon during naptime when we could be relatively interruption-free and could count on being at home regularly.  That gave us approximately 2 hours each day, although once we got in the swing of things we didn't need anywhere near that much time.

In the end, I took the Ambleside weekly schedule for Year 1 and added to it the other items I wanted to be sure to get in each week.  Next to daily items I put 4 or 5 little underlines, some items got 3 little underlines, and the weekly items got 1 little underline.

That's it!  That gave me a place to check off the items as they were completed, and an easy way to see at a glance what remained for the week.  I could make notes to the side to record what was done or what needed to be done.  If a subject (like nature study or drawing) was missed for a couple of weeks I could see that and make it a priority the next week.  And dd could choose for herself what readings to be done each day.  I often specified *how many* had to be done, but she selected them from what remained on the list.

This year, for Year 2, we are using the same schedule format.  To that, I've also added an organizational help.  I have one doing K and one in Year 2, so they each have a bin that contains all their school materials.  I keep it right next to the kitchen table where we school, so that I never have to get up to find the right supplies (well, almost never).  This has helped us speed up the flow tremendously.

• 15 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:20 PM

Mar. 19, 2008 - Flower Garden

Category • Charlotte Mason

In Volume 1 (titled "Home Education") of her six-volume series, Charlotte Mason talks about the kindergarten, which at the time was a new concept.  She discusses this new approach to educating small children in terms of its educational value and then in terms of its philosophical value.  She had concerns about both.  In this post I'd like to look at her second area of concern, the philosophical underpinnings of the kindergarten. 

CM criticizes the "garden" concept as setting up a false analogy--children are not flowers and the sort of care effective with plants does not work well for children.  "The outcome of any thought is necessarily moulded by that thought, and to have a cultivated garden as the ground-plan of our educational thought, either means nothing at all, which it would be wronging the Master to suppose, or it means undue interference with the spontaneous development of a human being."  Vol 1, p. 189

I believe she is saying that these "gardens" give each child the same treatment, expecting the same result at the end for each child.  There is no recognition that children are actually "born persons" (remember the 20 principles?) and that they may have natural bents that differ from each other and even from what we've planned for them.  But CM always recognizes that children are people from the very beginning and that we must work with them as they are, in their individuality.  She goes on in the following paragraph and decries the organized activities for infants that are so popular even today.  What is her concern?  That the natural, sweet play of mothers with infants is being supplanted by something less when we substitute  pre-planned games for spontaneous play.  She follows this by decrying the unnatural arrangement which puts many children of the same age together for hours on end every day.  Then she explains, with two points:

1) "It is possible to supplement Nature so skilfully that we run some risk of supplanting her, depriving her of space and time to do her own work in her own way."  Vol 1, p. 191

God made us to grow in a certain way.  Sometimes, when we try to help the process along, we actually interfere.

2) "Nature will look after him and give him promptings of desire to know many things; and somebody must tell as he wants to know; and to do many things, and somebody should be handy just to put him in the way; and to be many things, naughty and good, and somebody should give direction."  Vol 1, p. 192

On the other hand, children can't just be left on their own to grow without direction.  Parents are there to answer their questions and help them learn to do things and to help direct their moral development.  We must not interfere overmuch, but we must not let them alone altogether either.

"The educational error of our day is that we believe too much in mediators."  Vol 1, p. 192

We can make this error at home just as well as it can be made at school.  If we try to control the environment and development, hoping that in doing so we are ensuring a positive outcome, we are trusting in ourselves as mediator.  (This can be, in fact, a form of idolatry.)

Sometimes as homeschoolers we think we are avoiding many potential pitfalls by bringing our children home to educate, but I think the problems CM has with the kindergarten are often replicated in our own homes, even in homes where Charlotte Mason's principles are being followed.

I believe this happens because so many of us find it so easy to slide into the "system" approach to homeschooling/parenting rather than using CM's principles as a "method". For those who don't know what I'm talking about, this is covered in Volume 2, where CM explains that she is giving a method (essentially some general principles to follow) rather than a system (a lined-out set of rules).

I believe that if you are viewing CM in terms of general principles that should be applied in a way that suits your particular child, you aren't gardening.  At least, what I see CM telling me to watch for and diligently apply myself toward is very different from the externally-focused efforts that so many programs emphasize.

*But* if I instead try to outline her principles, look at the PNEU programs, see what others are doing, and then compile them all into a template that I can use in my home, and if I think that by following this template I will inevitably receive on the other end the sort of people I hoped for, then I'm making CM into a system, which was not her intention at all. 

I think one big culprit in this is the popular books about CM that really describe her philosophy in terms that easily become a system, a checklist of activities and experiences.  Another big culprit is our natural human tendency to prefer systems to methods.  Systems are easier and require less from us, and they also leave us with less responsibility.

Charlotte Mason calls us to be much more than gardeners, much more than mediators or gatekeepers.  She is calling us to exercise our God-given role, with the help of our intellect and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to assist in the work God is already doing with our children.  We can't shirk our responsibility or foist it off onto someone else (a teacher at school or the creator of a curriculum), but we also shouldn't believe that we are solely responsible for the outcome or that we can, by completely controlling the situation, ensure the results we desire.  The results we desire will come only by the grace of God.

• 4 Comments • Post A Comment! • 3:12 PM

Mar. 18, 2008 - Where Do I Start?

Category • Charlotte Mason

It seems like the biggest obstacle faced by parents thinking of implementing a CM homeschool is figuring out how to get started.  This is especially true if they are thinking of using Ambleside, because Ambleside doesn't come in a nice neat package with a teacher guide.  This is magnified by the confusing array of websites and books professing to guide parents in implementing a CM education--in many cases these end up replacing CM's method with a system.

Carol H., a wise and knowledgable contributor to the Ambleside Yahoo group among others, has a website full of helps for beginning Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, particularly those using Ambleside.

The various CM Yahoo groups can be helpful as well.  Many different curricula can be implemented using CM's principles, but none will be completely successful if those principles are not understood.  You can't just follow a teacher guide.  Reading and discussing CM's volumes with others on one of the Yahoo groups helps clarify what a CM education really is.  The CM Series group always has one or more volumes being discussed.  The CMason group discusses implementation.  The Ambleside Year 0 group discusses applying CM's methods to preschool and kindergarten (and is more of a general CM group than a specifically Ambleside group).  The Ambleside Online group helps answer questions specifically about implementing that curriculum.

Start where you are, and implement as much as you know.  You can learn as you go, but don't be afraid to start.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 10:49 PM

Sep. 9, 2007 - Suggestion

Category • Charlotte Mason

From CM Volume 1, Preface:

This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may 'will' again with added power. The use of suggestion--even self suggestion--as an aid to the will, is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.

Diversion, giving ourselves something else to think about for a little while, is ok. Suggestion, which according to Wikipedia means to "guide the thoughts, feelings or behaviour", either of oneself or of someone else, is not ok. Trying to manipulate the child, or get the child to manipulate himself, out of the undesired behavior into the desired behavior is not recommended because it does nothing to train and
strengthen the will. Instead, we must work with diversion, which requires us to be creative in coming up with diversions, and take our chances that sometimes we will fail. Failure may be necessary as part of the learning process.

Pages 82-83 of Volume 6 (the following parts of the passage, beyond this quote, also deal with suggestion):
'Suggestion' goes to work more subtly. The teacher has mastered the gamut of motives which play upon human nature and every suggestion is aimed at one or other of these. He may not use the nursery suggestions of lollipops or bogies but he does in reality employ these if expressed in more spiritual values, suggestions subtly applied to the idiosyncrasies of a given child. 'Suggestion' is too subtle to be illustrated with advantage: Dr. Stephen Paget holds that it should be used only as a surgeon uses an anesthetic; but it is an instrument easy to handle, and unconsidered suggestion plays on a child's mind as the winds on a weathercock.

Pages 129-130 of Volume 6 (there is more about suggestion in this section than what I am quoting):
From the cradle to the grave suggestions crowd upon us, and such suggestions become part of our education because we must choose between them. But a suggestion given by intent and supported by an outside personality has an added strength which few are able to resist, just because the choice has been made by another and not by ourselves, and our tendency is to accept this vicarious choice and follow the path of least resistance. No doubt much of this vicarious choosing is done for our good, whether for our health of body or amenableness of mind; but those who propose suggestion as a means of education do not consider that with every such attempt upon a child they weaken that which should make a man of him, his own power of choice.

When you enforce a natural consequence, that allows him a choice. I can be quiet and hear a story, or I can choose to make noise and miss the story. "Suggesting" a better course of behavior is not "suggestion" in this sense. It's ok to suggest things. It's not ok to use the specific tool of suggestion to try to manipulate a child. Stumped for a better explanation, I just called my dad, who has a degree in psychology. After talking with him, here's my best attempt at a definition:

Suggestion is using irrational fears or hopes to coerce a desired behavior.

Examples:
If you don't eat your broccoli, you'll grow up to be sickly.
If you eat your spinach, you'll grow up to be strong like Popeye.

Those are silly, but they hopefully convey a bit of the sense of it. The child isn't eating the food because he should but because he is afraid of some bogeyman or hopeful for some unnatural reward (being strong like Popeye is not a natural consequence of eating spinach nor is being sickly a natural consequence of not eating broccoli). Natural consequences allow the will to become stronger, and they respect the personality of the child and his right to choose, even if his choice carries with it negative consequences.

I'm not entirely satisfied with that explanation, though.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 6:50 AM

Sep. 9, 2007 - CM Volume 1 - Preface

Category • Charlotte Mason

Here are some thoughts I had while reading.

But we have no unifying principle, no definite aim; in fact, no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth; and perhaps this is the reason of all the fallings from us, vanishings, failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records.

This is true of many homeschoolers as well. I try to emphasize to new homeschoolers the importance of settling on a philosophy first, before choosing a curriculum and starting school, but they usually look at me like I'm crazy. But your philosophy determines the assumptions from which you are working and the priorities you will have. Different assumptions and priorities will lead to different choices about what to do, when, and how.

And the path indicated by the law is continuous and progressive, with no transition stage from the cradle to the grave, except that maturity takes up the regular self direction to which immaturity has been trained.

Not to belabor the point, but to my mind (and feel free to contradict me here) this quote shows one place where CM parts company with Classical trivium-based curricula. The trivium presupposes different stages of education, with a different focus at each stage. CM here explicitly rejects that idea.

I think #18 is my favorite:
18. We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

But just in proportion as a mother has this peculiar insight as regards her own children she will, I think, feel her need of a knowledge of the general principles of education, founded upon the nature and the needs of all children. And this knowledge of the science of education, not the best of mothers will get from above, seeing that we do not often receive as a gift that which we have the means of getting by our own efforts.

It is common for people who criticize CM to fault her for not having children herself and yet daring to suggest to us how we should raise and/or educate our children. I think the above quote explains something of why merely having children does not give us everything we need to be able to raise them and/or educate them as well as we might. God expects us to do our part, which means learning all we can about best practices, what works, what doesn't work. Trial and error with our own families, which even for the biggest families means no more than ~20 individuals, will not necessarily provide us with enough experiences to make the best judgments about what works and what doesn't, and certainly relying on personal trial and error means that we will make some mistakes that might be costly and
that could have been avoided if we had learned from the trial and error of others.

CM certainly gives honor to us as parents and expects that we will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, make the best judgments about our own children. She is merely passing on to us the accumulated wisdom of years of working with many, many children, so that we can consider it and see how it might apply to our own situations.

This period of a child's life between his sixth and his ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education, and of the habit of reading for instruction. During these years the child should enter upon the domain of knowledge, in a good many directions, in a reposeful, consecutive way, which is not to be attained through the somewhat exciting medium of oral lessons.

Some parts of Volume 1 will not apply to Year 0. They will apply to years 1-3, when a child is from 6 to 9 years old. 

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 6:12 AM

Mar. 14, 2007 - Charlotte Mason's Volume 2 Chapter 18 - Feelings Educable By Parents

Category • Charlotte Mason

Here are some thoughts I had while reading Chapter 18 of Volume 2.

This part really reminded me of one important reason why we go outside, and why we make the effort to go to beautiful places:

"We have in these few lines a volume of reasons why we should fill for children the storehouse of memory with many open-air images, capable of giving them reflected sensations of extreme delight. Our constant care must be to secure that they do look, and listen, touch, and smell; and the way to this is by sympathetic action on our part: what we look at they will look at; the odours we perceive, they, too, will get."

CM spends quite awhile talking about Wordsworth's poem "Tintern Abbey" and what that has to say to us about how important memories of beautiful places can be, and how those memories can evoke later feelings that have a positive effect on us even if we don't realize it.  (You know, when *I* read "Tintern Abbey" in college, I just thought it was boring.    CM shames me with her understanding and appreciation of poetry.)

Another part that really struck me was her warning about preventing children from getting wrapped up in themselves:

"So long as the feelings remain objective, they are, like the bloom to the peach, the last perfection of a beautiful character; but when they become subjective, when every feeling concerns itself with the ego, we have, as in the case of sensations, morbid conditions set up; the person begins by being 'over sensitive,' hysteria supervenes, perhaps melancholia, an utterly spoilt life."

She talks about this again in the last section of the chapter.  I was recently reading a blog post about the new Winnie-the-Pooh with a girl instead of Christopher Robin, and the author, who has a young daughter, was observing that all the characters she watches on T.V. are just like her; they're all excruciatingly relevant.  In another place, perhaps in Volume 5? or was it earlier in Volume 2?, CM warns us to put off as long as possible the time when children read books that are *about* other children, because that begins to create in them a self-consciousness that is not entirely healthy.  In fact, CM refers to it as a kind of Fall, a loss of innocence.

CM reminds us that our feelings come from within us and so reflect our character, and that by changing the feelings we change the person:

"But our feelings, as our thoughts, depend upon what we are; we feel in all things as 'tis our nature to,' and the point to be noticed is that our feelings are educable, and that in educating the feelings we modify the character."

But we have to use tact as our primary tool to change the feelings, and oh, how hard that is for me, so woefully deficient in tact.  We in fact need to use *no words* but only subtlety of look and expression.  And again I am reminded that I am so lacking in certain graces that ladies used to learn at an early age.

"The instrument to be employed in this culture is always the same––the blessed sixth sense of Tact. It is possible to call up the feeling one desires by a look, a gesture; to dissipate it entirely by the rudeness of a spoken word. Our silence, our sympathy, our perception, give place and play to fit feelings, and, equally, discourage and cause to slink away ashamed the feeling which should not have place.

Beware of Words––But let us beware of words; let us use our eyes and our imagination in dealing with the young; let us see what they are feeling and help them by the flow of our responsive feeling. But words, even words of praise and tenderness, touch this delicate bloom of nature as with a hot finger, and behold! it is gone."

This chapter is actually quite helpful, although it may seem at first glance to be too philosophical to be of practical use.  I need to think on it more.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 10:56 PM

Feb. 19, 2007 - Charlotte Mason: A Method, Not a System

Category • Charlotte Mason

In Charlotte Mason's Volume 2, Parents and Children, in Chapter 16, Discipline, she talks about the difference between a system and a method.  She is presenting a method of education rather than a system.  Here are some thoughts on the difference, from an online discussion of Volume 2.

Think of caring for babies.  Some baby care manuals are systems, where you are given very specific instructions for exactly when to feed, diaper, play with, ignore, bathe, etc. the baby.  Some baby care manuals are methods, where you are given some general principles but you have to use your own judgment to apply those principles to your specific baby.  I've noticed that the systems are very popular, and I think in part that's because they help us feel like we are doing the right thing when we don't feel confident in our own judgment.  What happens, though, if your baby has special needs or doesn't fit the standard "baby mold" that the system expects?  The system stops working.  Some parents have the good sense to recognize this and adjust, while others don't and face serious problems. Even for "normal babies" the system often needs tweaking, and if the tweaking doesn't happen you can still face problems.

I hope that seems clear without stepping on toes.  I am seeing, as I look at Charlotte Mason discussion and commentary on the web (and especially at commercial or almost-commercial sites), a distressing tendency to systematize her method.  Instead of principles we're given specific checklists.  Instead of guidelines we're given schedules.  Schedules are good when used as a tool, and looking at others' schedules can be very helpful, but having a "CM schedule" is not the same thing as applying her
principles in the home.  In some ways I think that the List of Attainments has become a systemization of CM for some of us as we work to check off the items on the list rather than focusing on applying the broader principles.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 8:18 PM