Charlotte Mason, Another Look

After being so quick to bash her techniques in an earlier blog post, I decided I needed to go back and review the subject more.  Before I say another word, I just want to be clear, just because I feel uncomfortable with the idea of habit training and I feel some of her concepts are rather outdated (which further research showed exactly why she sounded like something out of the Victorian era!) doesn't mean I feel her whole system should be scrubbed.

I'll admit freely that I didn't know much about the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling.  I'd heard it mentioned now and again, but I'd never been able to get a full story of what it's really about.  My first instinct was to write it off because it's Christian oriented, but it's easy enough to write out the Biblical portion and substitute another spiritual path and mythology instead.  I've come to believe that spirituality, and it doesn't much matter what, is an essential part to raising children.  I've noticed that all of the more successful families I know (not based on income level, but on how well the family really functions together) have some strong sense of spirituality, even if it's a truly spiritual connection with their family and the world around them.  It seems like the magic equation for a happy family, well, at least one of the factors.

After reading everything I did about habit training and avoiding what she considers to be dumbed down materials for kids, I have to admit, I was kind of turned off by the whole thing.  While I do see far more value to reading classic literature to my kids, or stories that have become more classic, like Nancy Drew, I don't see a problem in them reading a book that really doesn't engage them as well as the classics might.  After all, if they can read it themselves, isn't that valuable?  And I grew up reading books about My Little Ponies and other non-engaging literature and I've grown into a woman who is getting into Shakespeare (a HUGE fan of the bard...), Alcott, Hawthorne, Austin, Dickens, and Twain.  I'd take the classics over trashy romance novels and fad-fictions like Harry Potter and Twilight any day.  I like my books to be engaging and brilliantly written, even if they are all about facts and educational subjects.  Who says non-fiction books on any subject need to be dry and dull?

I guess the impression I got was that everything I did with my kids had to be very grown-up and there was no room for pointless things.  Between habit training, a focus on adult material, nature walks, journaling, and everything else, I felt like the general feel was to take all of the childishness out of childhood!  Does that seriously mean I shouldn't let my son watch Transformers because it's useless drivel that doesn't actually teach him anything?  I think my little man would be crushed!

As with Waldorf and many other styles of homeschooling, I think the answer isn't really all in.  If it was an all or nothing requirement, I doubt I'd be able to homeschool at all and would simply throw my hands in the air and give up.  I'm finding I don't like any system well enough to incorporate it 100%, though Waldorf tends to be the closest, but it's completely unreasonable to use the Waldorf system in it's truest nature in this country.  That would mean not taking my children anywhere until they're older because there's recorded media everywhere!  How could I work on music for my dance shows?  I guess that would mean using headphones all the time.  Well, you get the point, that to follow it to the most exacting little piece is simply unrealistic for my family, the same goes for any system.

On a serious note, let's look at our kids here.  How many of them fit into these pre-determined molds other people think they should fit into?  How many of our kids really work in a standard way, you know, predictable by society?  They're not little automatons here and they really have a lot of individuality.  Add to that all the differences we face in culture and standards of society and it shouldn't be shocking that any one system won't flawlessly fit all the needs of any family.  Keeping that in mind, any system I choose for homeschooling my kids is going to require a lot of thought and careful adaptation to make it work for my family, and just because it works for mine doesn't mean it will work for someone else.

In an attempt not to "throw the baby out with the bath water", I kept looking into the Charlotte Mason theories behind homeschooling.  Already I could see the value in teaching what's been referred to as "living books" and not dumbing down educational material for my kids.  While I don't think her theory on "twaddle" (being anything that's dumbed down for kids) being useless works for my family, I do think that education should be about, well, educating!  I already use that in my homeschooling just as a factor of who I am.  I have a habit of using words my children couldn't dream of understanding when I talk to them, especially on educational subjects, and then I have to go back and clarify just what I mean.  I don't see this as a bad thing!  After all, how else would my children learn to use these kinds of words.  When a three-year-old can say he doesn't understand something, that's a good thing!  When they can use a variety of words to describe any situation, that's kind of what I'm about.  As time goes on, I'm sure that trend will continue, and maybe they'll end up teaching me new words at some point!  So I have to say, on a base level, I do know there was some I did find worked for me, some of which I was already using, so perhaps this would be worth more research.

The whole idea of reading the classics to my children, to be honest, I'd been doing that without direction from some outdated authority on homeschooling.  The fact that she and I completely agree on reading classic literature with complex sentence structure and stories that positively come alive and engage the imagination, that doesn't really surprise me, and goes to prove that some things never change.  The inclusion of the works of Beatrix Potter simply spoke to my heart, as those were some of my favorite stories as a child, and still are when it comes to children's literature.  Obviously she and I would get along on some things if we both considered classic literature a part of a good education, after all, my daughter and I have already listened to a very good audio telling of A Tale of Two Cities, Frankenstein, Little Women, and Turn of the Screw.  We sat down together to read Through the Looking Glass and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, two of my favorites, and were just working through Peter Pan when moving prevented the finishing of the story and I'll have to dig it out again.  Not only do these works encourage a higher reading comprehension and literacy, but they're also simply wonderful stories.  There's a reason they're classics!  While I'll admit, some of them are a little old for my daughter (and I didn't even realize she was listening in on them with me until she started to comment on the stories!), at least she's interested!

Looking further into the system Charlotte Mason suggests, I'm finding that a lot of it is things I'd already set out to do, and for many of them, were things I was already doing!  Some of it got dropped for practicality reasons with moving and all of that, but much of it falls under my idea of what an ideal homeschool system would be.  For example, back to the books, she encourages use of living books and whole books, since excerpts and abridged versions leave so much of the important meat of the story out.  I totally agree, and the idea of living books just makes learning fun.  If you're reading the book and it truly captivates your interest, you're going to turn the page and keep on reading, but if you find it dry and dull, you'll put it down and never want to go back.  We had an old book called The Way Things Work when I was a child.  I can still remember reading something in there about how a toilet works.  Yes, it was a science book, but it was a science book that was interesting to read.  It's one of the reasons the Idiot's Guide and For Dumbies serieses sell so well.  They present the information in a way that's a lot more interesting than a tech manual, easy to digest, and a fun read.  If all educational books were that way, I bet everyone would enjoy them! It's not just what is read, but how it's read too.  I mean, any book, no matter how interesting the story, would sound dull if read in Ben Stein's classic monotone drone.  However, with a good, engaging reader, the story gains depth and color, allowing the imagination to truly do it's work.  Again, this is why I can appreciate the bardic ideal held so strongly with Waldorf educations.  When the reader knows the story by heart, they can tell it from the heart, making it truly come alive.

The whole concept of narration is something I've been drawn to do with my kids, and I think it's got something to do with the way I was raised.  I'd read a section of the book and turn to my daughter saying, "Uh-oh...what just happened there?" and excitedly she'd tell me what was going on.  We also started a thing with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, given that the kids know my partner by the nickname of "Oz".  She would joke that he was really the Great and Powerful Oz, so she would have to tell him every detail of the story after we'd read it.  She would draw pictures of our family as a part of the story sometimes, or would simply draw out scenes from the story.  We would be walking down the street and she'd suddenly launch us into our journey to find the Great and Powerful Oz (who was walking with us the whole time in disguise, but we didn't know that).  She'd be telling us about every piece of the story, showing off just how much she'd really gotten out of it.  I could always tell when she'd really gotten into a story because it would come up time and time again throughout the day.  When I was younger my mom used to have this series of Native American stories that she would use at Girl Scouts.  I need to track down copies of them because I think those stories were also a part of the reason why I'm so drawn to the idea of using something other than words to express the ideas in a story.  Each of the stories was followed by a craft project that directly related to the story.  Keepers of the Night, Keepers of the Earth, and a couple other titles were on that list.  I'm sure my mom could tell you the whole list of them!  She probably still has them all.

Nature walks and daily walks were both things I used to incorporate at one point in time, and hope to pick up again.  For a while we would take once a week trips out to somewhere with actual nature and go for a walk.  Unfortunately, we've found many of the local nature trails and hiking trails to be rather lacking in, well, nature.  We're looking for new outlets for that, but apparently Central Texas doesn't value it's wild areas like they do back home.  We would also take walks every evening.  The excuse was to walk the dog, but the whole family would go out for a nice long evening walk.  It was beautiful in the evening, not too hot and not too cold, though in the winter daytime walks were better.  The habit left us as my older two's father got home from deployment the first time, then again when we moved into the country and high speed roads with no sidewalks got in the way.  Again, these are two concepts I'd incorporated without even know this Charlotte Mason woman even existed!

Handcrafts was something I'd always wanted to incorporate, but was truly encouraged into it when learning about the Waldorf system of learning.  They're valuable life skills!  Well, some of them are these days.  Basket weaving, knitting, embroidery, and even sewing to some extent are no longer necessary in our machine made, take-and-toss culture.  However, I do feel they have value, especially with this turn towards harder economic times.  If I make something, it has more value, both in the time spent occupied in making it, and in the physical quality of the item versus a store-bought one.  There's that personal value too, which makes the item something special, and it's far more worth it to fix than to simply throw it into the trash.  Most importantly, it teaches children that there is more to do in leisure time than playing video games and playing.  They learn a productive and valuable skill.

In reading her ideas, I've found other inspirations with Charlotte Mason that I hadn't previously thought much about either.  Art appreciation, for example, was something I'd highly overlooked.  Of course, that's with good reason.  When I go to an art museum, I spend all of a minute or two glancing at each particular work, then move on.  I was never taught to study, to have an in-depth interest.  I'd like my children to be able to truly look at art for it's complexities and the emotions it stirs up, not simply think, "It's pretty".  I love the idea of nature journals.  I almost wish someone had encouraged me to do the same when I was younger, as with the idea of a journal in general.  I used to keep one, so as soon as my children master enough writing skills for it, I think it would be wonderful for them too.  It would give them a chance to look back and see how much they've grown, learned, and how much more complex they become over time.

Overall, there's a good chance an earlier version of me would have looked at the works of Charlotte Mason and thought it wasn't for me or my family.  I would have written it off on her idea of habit training and the emphasis on copy work and dictation, two things I think are incredibly dull and wouldn't likely inspire a love of learning.  I would have ignored some of the wonderful aspects I would love to incorporate into my current style of homeschooling, and definitely wouldn't have seen the parallels with what I'm already doing!

Over the years, I've really evolved as a homeschooling mother.  I went from flitting from one system to the next because I had no idea what I was doing to trying to settle down with one system after the next on a long term basis, only to find some of the requirements completely impossible for my lifestyle and financial status.  I'd decided to scrap it all and just make it up as I go along, ignoring tried and true methods.  Now I think I've finally found where I belong, and the more I learn about each style of educating the brilliant young minds of tomorrow, the more I realize I have to pick an eclectic path.  It shouldn't surprise me with the way I like to pick and choose on what I do in every other aspect of my life.  I need to take the good and recognize where a system is too restrictive for my tastes and families, or when I find them absolutely ridiculous.  When I write something out (for example, the habit training), I need to write in something else (such as this no-punishments, no-rewards parenting I've been trying to work into our lives for the past three years and keep dropping the ball!) so that everything is covered.  I can blend in what I like if I find something that's non-essential, but I think would work incredibly well for my family.

All in all, as outdated as Charlotte Mason is, I can understand why she's still used as such a wonderful resource today.  Just because some of her concepts, in my mind, are so largely replaced with more balanced modern concepts, such as in discipline and proper behavior, much of it can be included flawlessly into a modern household.  Even the ideas that aren't outdated, like the habit training I harp on so much, can be adapted very well to work with the standards I've set.  For example, I may not be all for training my children to have a long attention span from birth, but rather than training them to be attentive, instead I'm trying to encourage them to have interest in a wider variety of things.  In a way, isn't that kind of the same thing?

After having been so brutally bashing against the habit training idea the other day, I thought it would be worth it to go back and take a look at the whole system.  Without a look at the greater system, I'm sure I come off as totally uneducated about Charlotte Mason and completely biased against anyone with an idea or two I don't like.  On top of that, just because I don't agree with one aspect doesn't mean I don't value any of it.  This deeper look at Charlotte Mason was truly something I think I needed at this stage in my life.  It's just one more moment to prove I really am on the right path.