Dominion Family

Many people who try and read Charlotte Mason from a Christian worldview get bogged down right out of the starting gate. Charlotte’s first 2 points are:
1. Children are born persons.
2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and evil.
(From Preface to The Home Education Series book 1 Home Education)

This didn’t bother me too much. I believe children are born persons and that all children are born good and bad. Good because they are made in the image of God and bad because they are born with Adam’s sin nature.

In Norms and Nobility, chapter 3, Teaching the Father of the Man, David Noble discusses the teacher Isokrates.
“…..Isokrates’ educative aim was to form and adult, not to develop a child, and his method was to teach the knowledge of a mature mind, not to offer relevant learning experiences at the level of the student’s stage of psychological development.”

I personally believe that we develop strong character in our children when we respect who they will become in the future by avoiding insipid pandering. There is always a tension between whetting the appetite and feeding the monster.

Many problems arrive in older homeschooled children when they feel cheated of a good education. I began homeschooling with that anger directed at my own public education.
David Noble says, and I verify this to be true in all of my children so far,

“Children, he (Isokrates) recognized, want to be brought up; they do not want to remain 12-year-olds. The healthy child wants to become an adult, just as the mature adult wants to be and adult.”

It is very important that we recognize this need to mature in our children and that we do not impede it with idealistic expectations and a lack of respect.

It is no surprise that Ambleside Online uses Norms and Nobility to construct their upper levels. Charlotte would love that book.

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Yesterday I finished Norms and Nobility. I came away knowing I would be rereading this book again and again. Unfortunately, my thoughts are all tumbling over each other but I will make a few observations.

1. It was refreshing to read a book that discussed “Classical Education” which did not deteriorate into those overworn categories: grammar, logic, rhetoric.

2. I could never have written the book, but David Hicks says in 158 pages what I have come to believe about the soul of education.

3. This book has finally bridged the gap for me in my understanding of Christian education and classical education.

4. A Charlotte Mason education does more to meet the standards David describes than the typical WTM-type of structure.

5. Deputy-Headmistress is right: buy the book. The first few chapters are slow in laying the ground work but by the time you get to the end of the book it all comes together beautifully.

QUOTES:

Pg 130, ” Ecuation as paideia is not preparation for life, for college, or for work; it is our inherited means of living fully in the present, while we grow in wisdom and in grace, in conscience and in style, entering gradually into “the good life.”

pg 129, : The teacher’s true competence is not in his mastery of a subject, but in his ability to provoke the right questions….” Let’s hear it for homeschool moms !!

pg 127, ” Before he is 18, no one has time to do more than a few things well; therefore, better to teach a few subjects thoroughly than to force a child to be a mediocrity in many subjects, destroying his standards, obscuring the nature of mastery, and concealing the measure of his ignorance.” Ah, there is the rub. Those of you who conquer this monster will be the winners.

I would love to blog through each chapter of the book just to get my bearings straight but I won’t.

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<P>Today we took a nature walk. Alabama may be hot and humid but that is just the way we like it. Alabama has more wildflowers than anywhere I have ever lived. I think North Alabama has all the northern wildflowers and the southern wildflowers.

We also had fun eating warm blackberries as we walked. The children then decided the 3 inch spider they found was a brown recluse. He was neither reclusive nor small. They finally believed me when they saw an internet picture of a recluse on a quarter. Poor Benjamin!!! He was convinced the spider had bit him and I think he was imagining all sorts of glory.<BR></P>

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In thinking about the atmosphere of my home it is inevitable that the subject of scheduling comes up. This time of year I am busy building a skeleton of our schedule for next year. While I have always just naturally held to some sort of schedule I think you will be surprised by my thoughts.

Without a doubt scheduling is a tool. Like any tool it can be wielded with skill or it can clumsily cause destruction. There are men who can build furniture with kits and tablesaws and there are men who can build cabinets with a couple of handtools. We each have 24 hours in our day. A schedule will not give us more time. Sometimes a schedule can even steal that time.

If the atmosphere of your home is rich and varied, not filled with computer time, television, movies and gameboys, then you can build an atmosphere of learning without the help of a schedule. I have to admit that in many ways a rigid schedule is a crutch that makes a mother feel more productive. The truth is that you can lead your children to the subject at hand but you can’t make them learn. That is why creating an atmosphere of learning is a greater tool than a schedule.

Some of you are like me and feel safer with some sort of schedule in place and some of you tend more toward the bohemian. I believe the key to successful home education is not in the schedule but in the atmosphere of the home.

The real issue that Charlotte foresaw was not scheduling but dawdling. Now there is a major problem for all and sundry. Whether your child is scheduled from sun up to sun down or whether he is free to pursue his own interest the enemy of true learning is dawdling. Have you ever had a child that could do his math in 30 minutes one day and take 4 hours the next? Yes, Ha, now you think I am going to tell you how to cure the child but this blog post is already over long so I will leave you with the dawdler and suggest perhaps rereading Charlotte’s Ourselves.

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What she said:

The Common Room: Peer Pressure

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I have spent the day reading many of the Ambleside Online conference reports. This did prompt me to take a nature hike with the children. The Circe Conference was also last weekend at Stetson University and the Classed girls have been reporting on that. Since I am knee-deep in final preparations for our Aug 15 start date these reports have been inspiring.

The word of choice from the Circe Conference was “contemplation.”
We don’t want to keep ourselves and our children so busy that we don’t have time for contemplation. One point that hit home with me was that someone mentioned that catechising your children is not nearly as effective as giving them stories. That is not to say don’t catechise but don’t expect the knowledge of truth to penetrate the heart through the catechism.

Donna C of the Ambleside list has written up a detailed report of her weekend in TX. I am inspired just reading it. Other Ambleside blogs:

http://rusticanda.blogspot.com/
http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/
http://libertyandlily.blogspot.com/
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/bwktbarr/12105/

Do something today to contemplate the joys God has given you, especially in your children.

NEW LINK with pictures:
Ambleside Conference Pictorial

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It is a funny thing but teaching and learning are not the same thing. As a mother and a teacher I constantly fall into the trap of thinking if I konk someone over the head with information enough times they will learn. On the other hand, I err in assuming that if I don’t teach it they won’t learn it.

Yesterday was our first day of school and Andrew, who didn’t have a reading lesson all summer and is still in the phonics stage, somehow had a giant leap forward in his reading abilities.

I will never forget the first time my oldest took a standardized test. He was in 3rd grade and scored highest in the subjects we hadn’t even studied, like science.

Then there are the times when I throw out questions to the children and they know the answer without having been taught. Ladies, as M-MV says, “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”
And don’t forget, As Charlotte has said, “Children are born persons.”

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The Head Girl over at The Common Room has developed a quiz for the literature/history geeks among us. I was a little disappointed that I only got 27/30. I like to get 100’s :dunce_tb:

I expect Miss Colleen, Linda’s daughter might best me but then again she is probably too busy practicing her violin to take literature quizzes :smile_wp: I think I will make my two Ambleside year 7 graduates take this one.

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Ambleside Year 11

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It seems rather lame for me to talk of our nature studies over the years when I am looking out the window at high winds and driving rain and looking on the internet at the devastation of a natural disaster. At times like these I wonder why every Christian isn’t a Calvinist. Truly nature is an act of God.

The way we have approached nature study has been highly influenced by my original reading of Charlotte Mason’s Original Home Education Series some 15
years ago. I have never satisfactorily achieved what Charlotte describes which is why you may benefit from hearing what we have actually achieved.

My older boys all had nature notebooks that I bought from Greenleaf Press. When they finished one I would buy another. Timothy, Nicholas, James and Nathaniel had at times varying degrees a attractive nature drawings. Nicholas and Nathaniel are both talented artists. Because we were never successfully able to draw from specimens and we never got the hang of watercolors, per Charlotte’s suggestion, we would work from nature guidebooks.

During our morning time, when we reached the point that I was reading our “fun” book, the children would get out their nature notebooks and Berol pencils and draw. Our notebooks never reached the level of beauty that I have seen accomplished by some “girls” I know but some of the drawings were very nicely done. The real key, I believe, to a nice nature notebook, is time. I have found lately when I set aside “time” for nature drawing we feel rushed and our drawings look rushed but when the children draw while I read there is a sense of leisure about it. I am not sure why.

I am not entirely happy with our new nature notebooks which I bought from a Waldorf school. They seem more temporary and my younger children do not seem to have mature drawing skills. They are still constantly trying to draw houses against my instructions to draw nature. They will draw a garden and put a house by it instead of say an Audubon-type drawing. Speaking of which, Nicholas once drew this turkey to perfection. We frequently used Audobon’s Bird’s of America for model pictures. Our schooling has become too rushed for me to really help them correct this. This week I will be revamping our schedule to a more relaxed lifestyle in order to facilitate better drawings, perhaps adding in more read aloud time. Stephen Meader has a wonderful book that takes place in the NJ pine barrens, with Audubon’s Bird’s of America as part of the plot. Can you tell I have forgotten the name of the book ?

As I mentioned, we do take nature walks to point out flowers/wildflowers/herbs which I used to be quite an expert at, while my dh is an true expert on birds. Having been greatly influenced by British authors I truly regret that we have not yet got a handle on identifying trees. For some reason my brain cannot remember from one day to the next what certain trees are called. I personally feel knowing the names of trees is far more valuable information than many scientific facts we try to cram into children. While we do collect wildflowers for vases and some specimens that present themselves, our nature walks are generally informal ways to get the children to become aware of their surroundings. Then even their play time is filled with awareness. I believe firmly in letting children spend many hours out-of-doors, as Charlotte would say.

Finally, we have found joy in reading many books that enhance our knowledge of nature. This morning we just finished reading aloud Sam Campbell’s How’s Inky. While I didn’t enjoy the book from the beginning, it did grow on me and I think it was a great little nature volume. Perhaps in the next few days I can assemble a list of nature titles we have used.

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