The Most Important Recognition of Every Educator

As I write this, I'm actually just trying to figure out how to motivate the whole world to go read this one chapter that Charlotte Mason wrote. Here Charlotte Mason points us to one of the most amazing metaphors education and how God works through the minds of men. She then takes that metaphor and applies it directly to our hearts as parents and educators. Honestly, it won't take you long. I read it out loud to my husband while he stood in the kitchen. He was just as awed as I was.

Have I convinced you yet?

Here's a link. 

Here are some snippets:

"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...

...His God doth instruct him and doth teach him. Let the mother visualize the thought as an illuminated scroll about her newborn child, and let her never contemplate any kind of instruction for her child except under the sense of the divine co-operation....

...Suppose we are willing to make this great recognition, to engage ourselves to accept and invite the daily, hourly, incessant co-operation of the divine Spirit, in, to put it definitely and plainly, the schoolroom work of our children, how must we shape our own conduct to make this co-operation active, or even possible? We are told that the Spirit is life; therefore, that which is dead, dry as dust, mere bare bones, can have no affinity with Him, can do no other than smother and deaden his vitalising influences. A first condition of this vitalising teaching is that all the thought we offer to our children shall be living thought; no mere dry summaries of facts will do; given the vitalising idea, children will readily hang the mere facts upon a peg capable of sustaining all that is needful to retain. We begin by believing in the children as spiritual beings of unmeasured powers - intellectual, moral, spiritual - capable of receiving and constantly enjoying intuitions from the intimate converse of the Divine Spirit."

This has me thinking about so many things. First and foremost is that recognition that this training and educating of my children is really not all on me. Incidentally, I read a section from Sarah Mackenzie's book Teaching From Rest just yesterday.

"We must drop the self-inflated view that we are the be-all and end-all of whether the education we offer our children is going to work out. We are too quick to feel both the successes and the failures of our job as homeschoolers. Our kids test well on the SAT and we pat ourselves on the back. They are miserable writers and we scourge ourselves for failing them. But He never demands that we produce prodigies or achieve what the world would recognize as excellence. Rather, he asks us to live excellently - that is to, live in simple, obedient faith and trust. He asks us to faithfully commit every day to Him and then to do that day's tasks well. He's in charge of the results....

....Because whether or not he becomes an excellent writer or a proficient mathematician is not your business to worry over. Your business is that single assignment today and loving him through it."

And here Sarah hints at what is required of me. It's the same lesson God's been trying to teach me over and over again the last few years. What's my part? To be faithful.

Come to think of it it's the same lesson God's been trying to teach His people from the beginning. 

Here are some of the best words on education ever written:

"Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children - how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, 'Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so." (Deuteronomy 4:9-10)

Watch yourselves carefully. Be diligent. Be faithful. The rest of he work is His.

"...that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth..." (Deuteronomy 8:16-17)

I'm just here to be the gardener. I can cultivate the plants, but I can't make them grow. I can provide nutrients and healthy soil and I can water. God is the instructor. Not me. But I am responsible for providing a living, active, vitalising atmosphere of education. My children are their own persons with a God who loves them and will instruct and teach them.

Lord, please create a clean heart in me. Please do a work in my soul. Please make this home a place that breathes life, a place of peace and rest, a place of remembering. Teach us to fear You. Teach us true humility. It's all Yours.

Narration - Thoughts from Charlotte Mason

As promised, I'm here to offer a brief introduction to narration. I feel like it's such a tricky thing to talk about. Because on one hand, it's so very simple and I don't want it to sound anymore complicated than it is. But on the other hand, there is so much to be said and I know I could never adequately cover it all. 

Narration is so very simple. You read a story and then you say, "Can you tell me back what we just read?" The child then tells the story back again. It is such a simple, powerful tool. 

We started practicing narration this summer in preparation for this school year. I had heard from a few different places that Aesop's fables were a great starting point. They're short (so they're easier to remember) and they tell complete stories (so it's much easier for a child to figure out what to tell).

After we finished reading it, I asked my daughter to tell the story back to me. And let me just paint an accurate picture for you: she absolutely hated it. She fought me very hard and in no way wanted to do it. I wasn't surprised by this. I know my daughter's personality. And I'd heard of this happening from others. 

Let me just pause right here and let you in on a secret. Narration is really hard - especially if you've never done it before. Right after I started doing it with my daughter, I started doing it for myself. I've always struggled to listen to Audiobooks. I used to say it was because I wasn't an auditory learner. Now, I've had to admit that it's really that I lack that "Habit of Attention." My mind wanders and I don't take any control over it. 

So I started listening to a couple Audiobooks (You were wondering how I manage to read all those books in the sidebar and clean my house, weren't you?). In the beginning, I paused the recording after every 5 minutes and made myself tell back what I had heard. 

Guess what! It works. And now I can get my house clean and my reading done at the same time. I'm so thankful.

Why does it work? I think there are a lot of reasons, but there are 3 that come to mind for me. First of all, starting with short sections is really vital. From the beginning I could pay attention for a short time. I've had to work to discipline my mind to keep paying attention. Setting the clock for 5 minutes gave me a manageable goal. Surely I can pay attention for 5 minutes at my age!! As I've continued to work on it, I've been able to lengthen that time.

Second, knowing that I was going to have to narrate helped me force my mind to pay attention. That accountability is vital. I've noticed that every time I start a new book I still have to work a bit harder in the beginning. But once I get into the book, I don't struggle nearly as much. 

The third reason starts to get into the power of narration itself. There's a quote I remember from a student in one of Charlotte Mason's PNEU schools. She said, "We narrate and then we know." I've found that to be so true. If all I do is just listen to the reading and then go onto the next thing, most of what I heard dissipates. But if I force myself to stop and process it in some way, it stays with me. I've been listening to Northanger Abbey on Audiobook. I started the book weeks ago (forcing myself to read this novel slowly). But I can still tell you what happened in each chapter. It's taking up residence in a deeper part of my soul.

Of course the same is true whether I read the words on a page or listen to the Audiobook. We have to stop and process the information somehow. This is something humans do naturally. Stop and think about the things that excite you the most. What's something you've learned and felt a passion for? Did you keep it to yourself? No, you went and found the next soul (willing or not) to tell all about it. And what happens after you tell something a few times? You know it.

So what did I tell my daughter when she didn't understand why she had to do this whole narration thing? I told her it was practice for telling stories (because it is). A fancy term for narration is "Oral Composition." Eventually, my daughter will be writing some of her narrations down. She will get all kinds of practice with Written Composition. But she's currently 6 years old. That means that her writing skills are in no way matched with her composition skills.

And this is why I love Charlotte Mason (Okay, it's not just this). My daughter is getting an education and grappling with big ideas - because she is perfectly capable of that. She doesn't have to wait until her fine motor skills catch up or her grammar knowledge increases. 

There's so much more I could say here. In a future post, I'm going to talk about how I take my daughter's narrations and turn them into opportunities for character development and relationship building. 

In the meantime, here's some more from the experts:

• This links directly to Charlotte Mason's short chapter on narration in her first book.
• This is a very helpful and practical guide to narration.
• Six Steps to the Narration Sequence
• Karen Glass is amazing. 
• Why you should never re-read the passage (because the habit of paying attention is crucial):
• A more thorough discussion of the single reading
• This is an article from 1924 written by someone who taught in the PNEU Schools that Charlotte Mason started.

What are living books? - Thoughts from Charlotte Mason

In today's home school environment, anyone who has done the slightest bit of research knows that a Charlotte Mason education is an education using "living books." In fact, when some say they're following Charlotte Mason, this might be the only point they're attempting to follow her on (and I'm not over here trying to draw lines in the sand over who is qualified to call their education "Charlotte Mason").

We touched on this topic as well when studying Principle 13 (see my previous post). I absolutely love how she describes “living books.” I think I love it so much because I’ve watched many attempt to define “living books” and struggle. The internet is filled with lists of “living books.” But how can you tell if they are really living? Some seem to think they just have to be books which are narrative. Charlotte Mason is grasping at something deeper:

“I do not know how to describe the sort of books that children’s minds will consent to deal with than by saying that they must be literary in character…. Children cannot answer questions set on the wrong book.”

See? That's why everyone's struggling. At best, it's incredibly hard to define. Charlotte Mason didn't even know how!

I purchased a couple of books already which I thought would be just perfect. Their description fit every description of “living book” out there. I couldn’t borrow them from the library so I had to purchase them without reading them (thankfully for not too much). I read some lovely reviews and was really excited about how much we were going to love them. We were a few chapters into the first book when I pulled it out one day to read it. My daughter sighed and said, “Not that one.” (We unfortunately read a few chapters more before I let go.) The books had great potential, but in the end they just weren’t literary.

Now, of course if a child is sighing about reading a book, that doesn't automatically mean you should throw it out. It might be a difficult book that they need to grow into. Their growth might depend on sticking it out. But in this case, these books were not living. It’s hard to articulate what was wrong with the books. A lot of it relates to another quote of Charlotte Mason’s:

“Children recognize with incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be told.”

These books were honestly just trying way too hard to make their points. They ceased to be authentic. It was wearying - that’s a good description. Ambleside Online uses Parables from Nature. The scope and purpose of Parables from Nature is actually quite similar to the books we were reading. But when I pull that book out, my daughter gets a sweet smile on her face and is excited to read it. The book deals with lessons on life, but I think Parables from Nature somehow respects us more as people capable of grappling with big thoughts. My 6 year old daughter is capable of much more than most modern books think she is.

Even in the PNEU schools, they sometimes struggled to find books which held up to the standard. They had examinations at the end of every 12-week term (as in all students in all the schools answered the same questions). They used these exams to evaluate their curriculum. If a vast number of students couldn't narrate from any of the books they had chosen, they knew those books needed to be replaced.

And this is why I love Ambleside Online. They’ve spent countless hours choosing only the best books. So I don’t have to waste our time and money figuring out which books are literary. Some wise women have gone before me. And it's been tested over and over again so if we're struggling, I can more easily determine if the book is the problem or we need to just keep working at it. All I can say is, “Thank you so very much.”

What is Knowledge? - Thoughts from Charlotte Mason

If you missed my previous posts on education, you'll want to go back and read those. So far I gave a brief introduction to Charlotte Mason and discussed why we're planning to use Ambleside Online.

Charlotte Mason wrote a lot. Most of her thoughts on education are contained in 6 Volumes commonly referred to as the Home Schooling Series. Her audience is both mothers schooling their children at home in the younger years (or more commonly hiring governesses to school the children at home) and teachers of children in the PNEU schools she helped found.

Toward the end of her life, Charlotte Mason took everything she’d thought and wrote about and attempted to consolidate it all into 20 Principles. Studying these 20 principles can be a great way to get started learning about Charlotte Mason. Brandy Vencel over at Afterthoughts created a wonderful guide for doing this. She developed a study guide to walk through the principles with her fellow homeschooling friends. For each of the 20 principles, she guides you through Charlotte Mason’s own words from her writings. If you’re new to Charlotte Mason, I highly recommend clicking here and purchasing her Start Here Guide. It’d be even better if you were able to form your own study group to go through it together.  

I’ve been studying through the 20 Principles with the Ambleside Online Forum community myself. A few weeks ago, we covered principle 13. I’ll type the whole thing out here so you get a feel for what the principles are like. Here it is:

In devising a syllabus for a normal child, of whatever social class, three points must be considered:

• He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.
• The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental diet does not create appetite (i.e. curiosity)
• Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form

In Volume 6, Charlotte Mason identifies 3 areas of knowledge: Knowledge of God (the most important), Knowledge of Man (History, Literature, Citizenship, Composition, Languages, Art), and Knowledge of the Universe (Science, Geography, Mathematics).

So those are some categories of knowledge. But what is knowledge? Here's Charlotte Mason herself:

“No information becomes knowledge to us until the individual mind has acted upon it, translated it, transformed, absorbed it, to reappear, like our bodily food, in forms of vitality. Therefore, teaching, talk, and tale, however lucid or fascinating, effect nothing until self-activity be set up – that is self-education is the only possible education, the rest is veneer laid on the surface of a child’s nature.”

I think this quote covers so very thoroughly what we do wrong in modern, progressive education. We work so hard to create knowledge for the students. We devise lesson plans. We plan out unit studies so that every subject is integrated with every other subject. We try to make as many connections as we can so that the students don't have to make those connections themselves. And after we go through that whole process, who has received the education?

A plethora of moms homeschool because they love learning along with their children. They truly love giving themselves the education they never received themselves. I think we have to be so careful that we're actually guiding our children to be receiving their own education. We can't do the work of education for them. Let them create their own projects and their own play. If we give them the proper nourishment for their minds and the time and space to work in, they will automatically give themselves the education they need. It is innate. Just read some stories to your children and then watch what they do with them. I find it to be amazing.

How does a Charlotte Mason education make this happen? That's a big question. In my next 2 posts in this series, I'll touch on two of the key components: living books and narration. 

Why I’ve decided to Use Ambleside Online

Last week I talked a little bit about my love for a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education and how we intend to use her methodology in our home. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely read that post first.

As promised, I’m going to begin sharing a bit at a time about what we’re using in our home. We’re just starting on this journey, but I’ve put a lot of research and thoughtful planning into what we’re doing. This definitely is one of my hobbies and one of the things I enjoy most.

Last spring, after already spending way too much time planning out exactly what I was going to do for school this year, I discovered Ambleside Online. Actually, it’s a place I’d been before and I had always been a bit confused by it. This spring, it all clicked and I began realizing what a beautiful plan it is.

These women have worked incredibly hard to develop a curriculum which pretty closely follows the exact books they used in the Charlotte Mason (PNEU) schools. They’ve contextualized it to America (Charlotte Mason was British) and our modern day a bit (She lived 100 a century ago), but they do use some of those same books. In short, it’s a treasure trove for finding all of the classic books you should read with your children and when you should read them – which is exactly what I was looking for. They only choose books which achieve an incredibly high standard of literary quality. And they provide all of this information free of charge. It’s amazing.

Anyways, as I was saying I’d already developed my plans for school before discovering Ambleside Online. Initially, I just used it as a resource and incorporated a couple of their Year 1 books into my plans (not a recommended way to do things obviously – but I already had made my plans). As I learned more about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education, I understood more and more why they use the specific books they do in their Year 1 curriculum, and I - one at a time - incorporated pretty much all of them.

Visit here to see the books we’re using in our homeschool this year. Keep in mind as you’re browsing that we also add music, art, memory work, math, copywork, foreign language, and nature study to what you see here. And we’re done by lunchtime every day! How is this possible, you ask? Watch for my future posts.

Seriously, the number one reason we're using this curriculum is because these books are just. so. good. I'd encourage you to check some out at the library to see what I'm talking about.

Note: Because my daughter is an avid reader, I've been able to add some more American History biographies. We've also made use of 2 old fairy tale books I already had on my bookshelf from my great grandparents rather than buying new ones. I'll go into detail about all of that soon. Stay tuned for my thoughts on history and science as well.

Also, if you're wondering how to make use of that book list, there's a 36-week schedule available here.

Some Thoughts on Education (OR Why a Charlotte Mason Education is Beautiful)

The main reason I started blogging again was on the encouragement from a couple of friends. These friends are fellow homeschooling moms and for some reason they love hearing about what I'm planning to use to educate my children. One day one of them said, "Lynette, you should just start a blog, then I could just go there and see everything."

Ahem. I already had a blog. I just wasn't utilizing it very well.

So my intention going forward is to gradually offer posts which will provide just that - an overview of what we're using.

But first things first. It's important before we get that far for you to understand where I'm coming from. If you start seeing the book lists and ideas of how we pursue education in this home, you might be a bit overwhelmed and confused if you don't understand how we're using these tools.

It would be so very convenient if I could somehow write a concise post of why we've chosen to homeschool our children and why we've chosen the educational philosophy we have, but there are so many facets to it all that I don't think it's quite possible to do it justice. This post will probably raise more questions than it will answer. But so be it. Hopefully, as I continue this blogging journey more things will continue to become clearer.

Over the last 6 years (I can mark it by how old my daughter is), I've had a complete paradigm shift in how I see education. I've been incredibly blessed by a number of talks from Andrew Kern - the founder and president of the Circe Institute. He defines education as "the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty." He also goes on to say: "It should be distinguished from training (for a career), which is of eternal value but is not the same thing as education." If you'd like to see a deeper fleshing out of that definition, you can find that here.

He didn't create that definition - components of that have been around for a couple thousand years. But he says it well and it encapsulates what I mean when I say that we're pursuing classical education in our home.

Within that context, about a hundred years ago there lived a woman named Charlotte Mason. She was a British educator who was really passionate about seeing children receive a true education. She lived in a time when classical education had been stripped of most of its truth, goodness, and beauty and progressive educators were coming along with their pragmatic visions.

Charlotte Mason believed that children were persons who deserved better. She started a number of schools which followed her educational philosophy and was especially interested in reaching the poor with a "living" education.

A Charlotte Mason education is focused on giving children real books which are written in a literary style. They're not just books which tell stories. They're books which tell stories well. There is a high value for nature study, literature, poetry, art, and music as part of the heart and soul of giving children's minds beautiful ideas to feed on. She believed that children should be given a feast of living ideas to grow with. History and Science are taught with the best books available - written by writers who know how to use language well and are passionate about their subject matter.

I remember when I first encountered Charlotte Mason - long before I had a very good picture of how it all worked - I read that children in Charlotte Mason schools weren't limited by their reading or arithmetic abilities. Children who were learning how to read would spend a little time each day working on that skill - and then they would have someone read to them so they could still take in all of the wonderful literature and ideas which are out there waiting to be explored.

After listening to a reading, children narrate back what they've heard. Children in the younger years do this all orally. Their education doesn't have to wait for their fine motor skills to develop and their love of learning to die. They get to engage with living ideas right from the very beginning.

This was held in such contrast to the education I had seen and experienced. Children who struggle with reading in today's schools are held at greater and greater disadvantages as they miss out on so much simply because they're taking longer to develop those skills. That picture of a child still being given a joyful, living education was absolutely beautiful to me.

If you'd like to read a little more about Charlotte Mason and what this education looks like, here is a great starting point.