One autumn morning, I was sitting on my couch nursing my firstborn when my husband entered our tiny apartment. He’d returned from being at a bookstore. I’m sure I was holding a book about the care and feeding of children. I was, after all, a new mom and was still trying to figure out the basics of motherhood.
I will never forget the way he looked at me that day. He stood calmly and with a sheepish smile said, “I’ve been reading a lot about education. And, it seems that the best thing for our daughter is to homeschool. Since you would be the one to do it, would you mind just taking some time to look into it? You don’t have to make any decisions yet.”
I didn’t know it, but while I was learning about the nursing and sleeping patterns of babies, my husband was researching local schooling options and the best way to educate a child. I told him in response: “But I’m not qualified.” I agreed to look into it, and that is how my education began.
In the midst of my self-paced crash course on homeschooling, my mom mailed me two little books that have inspired not only the education of our children but our family life.
Those two books, For the Children’s Sake and the second book, For the Family’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay introduced me to the ideas of Charlotte Mason. It was then I started to learn how to offer my children an education, unlike the one I received in public schools. What’s incredible is that 14 years later, I’m still learning and growing with my children.
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(Picture: Homer, Hark! A Lark!)
“What is a Charlotte Mason education?” you ask.
This little question inaugurates you into an entire new way of looking at education, homemaking and living well.
Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
As we explore Charlotte Mason’s ideas about education, you will find that you, my friend, are the heir to a vast kingdom. You want a better education for your children than the one you received. Me too. Mason gives us a map to follow so we can provide our children not only a robust academic education, but a full life. As we work through the ideas, principles, and methods Charlotte Mason discovered, you will see that the atmosphere, discipline and life she lays out are within reach of every home, in every time and place. That means you can learn and grow with your children. As a primer, today, we will look at two typical pitfalls we encounter when working out a Charlotte Mason education in our homes. With each pitfall, a supporting principle will help us stay focused on life-giving practices and ideas. We will explore the pitfalls of mistaking Charlotte Mason for unschooling and how the unschoolers view of self-education can help us apply Ms. Mason’s principles in our homeschools. Next we will address the common struggle every Mason Mom faces with being overburdened by all the lovely ideas. Don’t worry, there’s hope for us here too because we have tools to help guide us out of the muck. Finally, we will go over how you can start using the habit of attention to set your children up for connecting with all these lovely ideas. In later episodes we will get into the nitty gritty of the home library, nature study, and how it all fits into modern family life. We have a lot to cover, but we have plenty of time to get through each one. This, of course, is only the beginning. Are you ready? Let’s get started.
CM is not Unschooling, but we can learn from the unschooler.
As we start our journey into the ideas of Charlotte Mason, the first pitfall we run into is confusing this method with unschooling. Unschooling is a child-led approach that trusts the natural curiosity in each child. Unschoolers believe children will learn all the time and teach themselves without formal instruction. Unschooling principles overlap with Mason’s method in that children must self-educate in order to gain knowledge. (More on this later in the episode.) But, the unschooler doesn’t plan or select what the child will learn ahead of time. Instead they follow the interests of the child. That is different in a classical education that Charlotte Mason offers which intentionally brings children in touch with great minds, and offers an array of subjects and interests to whet their appetite for learning. Where the unschooler leaves the children to learn for themselves, the Mason educator continues to expose them to the great minds and the great art forms that have been discovered and created and human history. We keep a sober view of the limits children have because of their immaturity and work to help them expand and grow through bringing new ideas before them.
Even though Charlotte Mason’s ideas offer a child more structure than the unschooler’s approach, some overlapping principles will support us. John Holt is one of the founders of the unschooling movement and he can help us understand the self-educating aspect of a Mason education. We can learn from him how to respect a child as a person and how to cultivate and encourage their natural curiosity. His book Learning all the Time is a great primer on how self-education works. It’s helpful for us to understand what it looks like when a child’s curiosity is captivated and how to support their learning when this happens. The unschoolers understand this. Their freedom can help us be less rigid about all the truth, goodness and beauty we want to bring before our children.
The goal is not to simply get through All The Books. We want the process of getting through the books they can to be joyful and to ignite their passion for knowledge so that they will take up the torch of their own education. We do want them to make connections and we do want them to make the knowledge their own. The trouble with unschooling can be that the child’s experiences are necessarily narrow and naturally oriented inward, to think of themselves first. It is up to us to point our children toward God and His world and to be in living sympathy with others. We don’t want children to think about themselves which would cause them to atrophy and stultify their growth. We honor their personhood and want them to have many interests and delights. But we are leading them outside themselves to receive this nourishment. As Mason reminds us, “Iit is the book, the knowledge, the clay, the bird or bottom blossom, he thinks of, not his own place, or his own progress.” Charlotte Mason and the classical tradition will lead a child to not think of themselves but to think of others, and to look at our Creator and His works, and to always be pointing children toward the good, the true, the beautiful that they will think of the lovely things of God. Their minds will be full and active, but not oriented inward.
A great example of what we are aiming for with self-education can be found in the tale of two piano teachers. Our family began taking piano lessons at the beginning of the year with a teacher who took us through our books faithfully and at a pleasant clip. She gave us homework to practice and drills to complete. At the next lesson, we would perform what we'd been practicing and learn the next lesson from the book. I had to manage practice time and be sure each child had completed their assignments. It was like pulling teeth to get them to practice. Our schedules changed and I needed to find a new piano teacher. The first question our new teacher asked each child was “what do you want to play?” He still takes them through a lesson in the book, but that progress is slower and more precise. But my children are ALWAYS on the piano. I even had to make a rule about not getting on the piano when they are supposed to be doing other school work. They fight over piano time because they each have a song they are working out and want to perfect. Their curiosity has been sparked and they want to know how to make the piano play that song. They are happy to play it over and over again until they “get it.”
Now, piano lessons are not something my children asked for. They are required to take them as part of our homeschool. Where the classical educator would simply enroll a child in piano lessons as part of their education, the unschooler would wait for the child to ask for lessons and then allow them to choose the instrument. But I can use the teacher who will drill and take them through the book or I can use the teacher who will find a way to make a connection with each child and show them how to play music that captivates them and draws them back to the piano all day every day. The work of the teacher is then to help a child make the connection so they will teach themselves.
Though it is important to lead children to enjoy their work and discover many things for themselves, we aren’t leaving a child to discover everything on their own. Mason shows us that because of the great heritage we have in books, handcrafts, art, music, mathematics and more, it’s our duty to bring these treasures before children in the form of books and real life experiences. We respect the child as a person with many interests, aptitudes and talents. We seek to support a child in their weakness by presenting them with new ideas, helping them when necessary and being their guide, philosopher and friend. And then we find ways to challenge them in their strengths to encourage their growth as a person. Balance is achieved by honoring the person and offering guidance through laying out a thoughtful program of study.
Which brings us to the next pitfall often encountered by the diligent Charlotte Mason educators: to carry a burden too heavy for the work at hand. It should not be a burden to the mother or child. It should bring life and vitality into the home. Often we can become overwhelmed when we focus on the lists and the tasks and all the books that need to be read and the long list of things that need to be done. The lists take a lifetime to complete. The tasks are never done. The books will never all be read. However what we hope to do with our education, with our home life, with our family is to bring a little taste of the glory of God through showing our children, the best paintings, through reading the best books, through observing the great paintings, and listening to the best music that humanity has created over time. And we do this one moment at a time. Here a little, there a little. Through these little efforts and small moments we develop a vast ocean of knowledge.
A tragic tale is often repeated of the mother, who works hard to read all the books each day, and checks off all the boxes, and leads her children on nature walks only to find that she was miserable and they were miserable, and no one took any joy in any of it. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for my family either. But it is the great temptation to focus on the utilitarian means of education and miss nurturing the souls and being in relationship with not only our children but with the ideas that illuminate our hearts with the things of God. Overburden can be combated in two ways: Prayer and Love.
Prayer allows us to come before the Father and ask: what is the work you have put before me today? Then we can remove those things that are not the priority and rest in the limits he gives us through our resources, relationships, circumstances and preferences. Remember, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If you feel like you are drowning, call on Him. He will answer and show you the straight path.
The next way we can combat our being overburdened by using love. This is the sort of love that oozes with curiosity for God’s world and all He’s done to make a stage for us to live a full life. It is the love you have for your child when they are singing softly while playing. It is the joy of life found when we thrill at a beautiful sunset or cry at a wedding. If we can take our curiosity and exuberance, and our joy for life it will ignite the entire homeschooling project to breathe the glory and joy and rest that is needed to do the work that is before us. Who can resist a mother who is thrilled at the prospect of joining George Washington as he crosses the Delaware? What child would scoff at the energized mother-teacher who flies out of the house at dusk to watch the bats at their work? Surely our children will join us when we love in this way. The teacher who loves the subject and also loves the student will surely live fully and bring her children into full life.
I will pause here to acknowledge that at this point you were probably thinking how can I do this when I have a newborn and a toddler in tow? Or what about laundry and meals and cleaning the house and going to church picnics and having friends over for supper? Well, yes, dear friend, all those need to happen as well. But don’t worry. You will grow in your capacity. We can add “more and more” to our homelife and school subjects as year follows year. It’s a life-long pursuit of knowledge. This year you may start with reading books aloud and nature walks. Next year you may add singing games and Plutarch. We can add to our work at home and school “here a little, there a little.” Some years we can add more and some we have to take away to make room for a new baby, family crisis or what have you. It all adds up to a rich education and a full life.
Now we are ready to dig into some of Ms. Mason’s ideas that help us set our children up for learning and living well. One of the basic principles in Charlotte Mason education is that you need to secure the attention of the child in order for them to learn, and if the child hasn’t learned how to pay attention, then you won't be able to present them with new knowledge. So let’s look at how we can help a child learn to pay attention. The power of attention allows a person to look at a thing or hear an idea, to internalize what it is and to be able to use our words to express what is seen or to tell back what is heard. When we are able to respond to something that we’ve heard, or seen or experienced then that shows that we’ve moved it from an acquaintance to knowledge. This knowledge becomes something we embody. This new idea takes roots and grows like a seed planted in our soul. The habit of attention is one of those relational components of homeschooling. It is relational because the teacher has a role in securing the habit of attention from the child. And the child has a role in learning how to have self control and put their focus on the task at hand. So the role of the teacher and securing attention is to remove distractions from the room and set the scene for the new ideas. But this is more challenging for the modern homeschool mom when you have a toddler or a baby and multiple interruptions. When this is the case, short lessons are your allies.
The simplest way to teach the habit of attention is through the study of nature. When we come across a fuzzy caterpillar or a crazy looking spider, or a beautiful flower, and we can draw the child's attention over and ask them to tell us what they see, do you see the eyes of the caterpillar? Can you see how it’s munching on that leaf? Can you see its mouth? How many legs does it have? Is it fuzzy or smooth? All of these questions help the child pay attention to all the details of the caterpillar. Now they might start asking questions themselves or start to point out more things and more details that they see. And this first little lesson given hundreds of times in early childhood helps to grow that power of attention. It shows the parent that they can secure it, and it shows the child they can implement it, so that they can draw on that power to learn about something new.
Another way that we can help a child secure their attention is to give them a little preview before the lesson begins. We offer them a big idea to help them start making connections with things they already know. This helps to connect things that are known to the new idea that builds upon their knowledge. The teacher who understands the child’s experiences and loves the child then brings them into this new connection with a new idea. We are whetting the appetite and stoking their divine curiosity to learn new things and to connect with the world. CharlotteMason calls this the science of relations that everything is connected to everything else, and it is through these connections that we learn and grow. But in order to learn and grow, we need to categorize these ideas into boxes with things we’ve already met along the way. And it is then up to the student to make the connections with what they will, and to bring those ideas into their soul, and to allow them to do their work.
What if you present an idea, by setting the stage and reading something beautiful and the child rejects it?This has happened to me many times but don’t worry. It is normal for a child to fail to make a connection or for new information to glide over their heads. And we trust that the child will grow and learn, as is their nature. And this way we are trusting the Imago Dei in the child. We are allowing the Lord to work in their spirit to learn and grow. We are doing our part to bring beautiful, true and good ideas before our children to set them up to receive that information by removing distractions, and presenting an idea to them, in connection with something they already know, but this is not a formula for getting all of this information into one child. Each child will take something different. In fact, you can teach a group of children and each child will come away with a different point or a different set of ideas from the same lesson that captured their imagination. This is how we know that the education we’re offering is living and is not the regurgitation of facts.
Remember, we don’t need to fill their heads with information. We want to introduce our children to great minds through books, to the vast array of beauty found in nature, and the Creator himself. We are bringing them into RELATIONSHIP with the past, nature and the Holy Scriptures. It is a tall order because this sort of education is unlike anything we’ve encountered in our performance-based world. Will we stumble along the way? Most certainly. But little by little we can grow our capacity, stretch our thinking and bring a full life of rich ideas into our homes, not because it is easy, but because it is right. As your children teach themselves and start to pay attention to the world around them, I hope you will remember to rest in your limits and pray for help. As we energize our homeschools with our love and enthusiasm for our children and for the world God has placed us in, we can’t help but see that however imperfectly we apply these ideas, we are leading our children into a full life.
I’ll be back in two weeks.