Reminders to myself (and other interested persons)
From AmblesideOnline...
What Charlotte Mason is not:
CM is not unschooling, nor is it delight-directed. To illustrate the difference, imagine that you had a son who was interested in knights and wanted to learn more about them. With unschooling, you wouldn't plan any lessons but you would let your son read all the books he could find about knights, play knights games, look up knights on the internet. Then, you'd count those hours as school time. With delight-directed, you would note his interest in knights, and ditch your plans to teach about ancient cultures and US History, and instead plan a semester of lessons about knights. With CM, you would allow your son to learn all he wanted about knights in his spare time, but during school hours, you would continue to assign readings from chronological history and literature so he'd still be learning about ancient Egypt, Rome, US History, etc. because, as Charlotte Mason said, you never know what will ignite a passion in a child, so exposure to many topics is necessary. However, you would keep school hours short to give him plenty of time (and inclination) to learn about knights after school.
CM is not unit studies. Unit studies attempt to link knowledge in the child's mind by arranging lessons around specific topics. Charlotte Mason felt that this was an artificial way to create mental relationships based on a faulty concept of ideas as taught by Herbart. Children don't need unit studies to organize ideas for them. Their minds are perfectly capable of taking ideas from various unrelated sources and figuring out how they relate to each other on their own. Yet, if you look at the whole curriculum, there's no lack of hands-on activities--there are science experiments, handicrafts, nature notebooks and collections, making timeline books (for the older ones), etc. Children can also be asked to narrate by illustrating a scene from a story or by acting something out. Many children will go on to "play the stories" of what they've read or to do hands-on projects of their own. The point is that these should not be stage-managed by the parent--they belong to the children themselves.
CM is not Montessori. While Maria Montessori's goals were much like Charlotte Mason's (educating the whole person and creating an attitude where learning is enjoyed for a lifetime), CM isn't about creating an optimal environment to entice children to learn. Charlotte Mason felt that that children could and should learn by dealing with real things in their real world rather than an artificially manipulated environment. Montessori relies more on sensory, hands-on experience while CM's emphasis is on training the mind to process knowledge by focusing the attention. (To get an idea of Charlotte Mason's opinion of Montessori's method, read her letter to the editor of the paper.)
CM is not about making learning fun. Charlotte Mason felt that, although children enjoy being entertained, entertainment is a passive activity. Children need to apply their own minds to the effort of getting knowledge from their books and making their own mental relationships with the world around them. However, since humans have an inborn curiosity to learn things, the process of education itself, while challenging, can be enjoyable for its own sake.
CM is not vocational training. Although Charlotte Mason had nothing against students learning skills they might be able to use at a job, she was very much against vocational training when it replaced a broad, mind-enhancing education for the personal growth and enrichment of the student. She was also against focusing a child's education on math, or science, or any one subject, at the expense of a well-rounded education.
CM is not Classical Education in the way homeschoolers understand classical education today. Charlotte Mason did not adhere to the trivium idea of stages of a child's mind, although her method dovetails nicely with classical education. When trying to contrast CM with CE, Michelle Duker suggests "thinking through the following thought questions, which will require some reading of the two perspectives: 1. What is the view of a child in each method? What is a child? 2. What is the purpose of education? 3. What is the role of the teacher/parent?" Rather than having students read classics in dead languages for cultural literacy as traditional classical required, Charlotte Mason felt that there were just as many wonderful books that her students should be reading and reflecting on in their own native English language. (Read Karen Glass's article about CM and CE.)
First and foremost, Charlotte Mason is a 12-year Christian Character Building curriculum. Books are chosen not for cultural literacy so much as the literary quality with which they were written, and even more, their ability to develop the whole person and inspire his character. For all those years that children are getting a CM education, what's really being trained more than anything else is their character. Students receiving a CM education don't need any character building program because the entire curriculum is geared towards building character with the use of personal habits, quality books, teacher guidance, the work of the Holy Spirit and personal reflection.
What Charlotte Mason is not:
CM is not unschooling, nor is it delight-directed. To illustrate the difference, imagine that you had a son who was interested in knights and wanted to learn more about them. With unschooling, you wouldn't plan any lessons but you would let your son read all the books he could find about knights, play knights games, look up knights on the internet. Then, you'd count those hours as school time. With delight-directed, you would note his interest in knights, and ditch your plans to teach about ancient cultures and US History, and instead plan a semester of lessons about knights. With CM, you would allow your son to learn all he wanted about knights in his spare time, but during school hours, you would continue to assign readings from chronological history and literature so he'd still be learning about ancient Egypt, Rome, US History, etc. because, as Charlotte Mason said, you never know what will ignite a passion in a child, so exposure to many topics is necessary. However, you would keep school hours short to give him plenty of time (and inclination) to learn about knights after school.
CM is not unit studies. Unit studies attempt to link knowledge in the child's mind by arranging lessons around specific topics. Charlotte Mason felt that this was an artificial way to create mental relationships based on a faulty concept of ideas as taught by Herbart. Children don't need unit studies to organize ideas for them. Their minds are perfectly capable of taking ideas from various unrelated sources and figuring out how they relate to each other on their own. Yet, if you look at the whole curriculum, there's no lack of hands-on activities--there are science experiments, handicrafts, nature notebooks and collections, making timeline books (for the older ones), etc. Children can also be asked to narrate by illustrating a scene from a story or by acting something out. Many children will go on to "play the stories" of what they've read or to do hands-on projects of their own. The point is that these should not be stage-managed by the parent--they belong to the children themselves.
CM is not Montessori. While Maria Montessori's goals were much like Charlotte Mason's (educating the whole person and creating an attitude where learning is enjoyed for a lifetime), CM isn't about creating an optimal environment to entice children to learn. Charlotte Mason felt that that children could and should learn by dealing with real things in their real world rather than an artificially manipulated environment. Montessori relies more on sensory, hands-on experience while CM's emphasis is on training the mind to process knowledge by focusing the attention. (To get an idea of Charlotte Mason's opinion of Montessori's method, read her letter to the editor of the paper.)
CM is not about making learning fun. Charlotte Mason felt that, although children enjoy being entertained, entertainment is a passive activity. Children need to apply their own minds to the effort of getting knowledge from their books and making their own mental relationships with the world around them. However, since humans have an inborn curiosity to learn things, the process of education itself, while challenging, can be enjoyable for its own sake.
CM is not vocational training. Although Charlotte Mason had nothing against students learning skills they might be able to use at a job, she was very much against vocational training when it replaced a broad, mind-enhancing education for the personal growth and enrichment of the student. She was also against focusing a child's education on math, or science, or any one subject, at the expense of a well-rounded education.
CM is not Classical Education in the way homeschoolers understand classical education today. Charlotte Mason did not adhere to the trivium idea of stages of a child's mind, although her method dovetails nicely with classical education. When trying to contrast CM with CE, Michelle Duker suggests "thinking through the following thought questions, which will require some reading of the two perspectives: 1. What is the view of a child in each method? What is a child? 2. What is the purpose of education? 3. What is the role of the teacher/parent?" Rather than having students read classics in dead languages for cultural literacy as traditional classical required, Charlotte Mason felt that there were just as many wonderful books that her students should be reading and reflecting on in their own native English language. (Read Karen Glass's article about CM and CE.)
First and foremost, Charlotte Mason is a 12-year Christian Character Building curriculum. Books are chosen not for cultural literacy so much as the literary quality with which they were written, and even more, their ability to develop the whole person and inspire his character. For all those years that children are getting a CM education, what's really being trained more than anything else is their character. Students receiving a CM education don't need any character building program because the entire curriculum is geared towards building character with the use of personal habits, quality books, teacher guidance, the work of the Holy Spirit and personal reflection.
Susan
ReplyDeleteThank you! This was exactly what I needed to hear!
B