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When you think back to your school days, you probably have some mental images of sitting at a desk, listening to a teacher talk about something you weren’t really interested in, and wondering why you had to learn it. I think the term “unschooling” was coined to envision the exact opposite of that formal school scenario.
If you’ve ever started exploring something and trying to learn more about it for no other reason than that you’re deeply interested in it, then you’ve experienced the joy of discovering for yourself. Self-education is a wonderful thing, but it has limitations.
If all of your learning depends on your particular interests, you can have huge holes in your unschooling education. What if you never get interested in multiplication? That lack could hamper you in your adult life. On the other hand, what if you never learned about music theory or about chemical reactions or about Leonardo da Vinci or the land of Brazil? There might be ideas in those studies that would really interest you, but if you’ve never heard of them, you would never learn about them. You simply wouldn’t know that there is such a thing.
Balance is a key. A person needs both time to pursue personal interests as well as a guide into the vast array of ideas that could be explored in this wide world of ours. And that’s what a Charlotte Mason education offers: a beautiful balance between the two. I’ve talked with many parents who wanted to incorporate that beautiful balance into their home school and decided to make the switch from unschooling to a Charlotte Mason approach. If that’s you, here are some ideas that can smooth the way.
If you’re switching from an unschooling approach to the Charlotte Mason Method, here’s a little advice to keep in mind. First, I want to talk about three tendencies you might discover within yourself—three actions or mind-sets that may unknowingly come along with you from your unschooling days (or years) and could make the transition to the Charlotte Mason approach a bit bumpy.
Tendency #1: only following your child’s interests
A large part of your role as teacher will be to introduce to your child a wide variety of subjects and lots of living ideas that will broaden his horizons and feed his mind.
The first tendency is that you may find yourself automatically looking at your child’s current interests to give you direction when you are making your plans about what to teach. Unschooling depends a lot on following the child’s lead. But a Charlotte Mason approach is different. A Charlotte Mason educator is careful to give the student a wide variety of ideas, including several subjects that child probably doesn’t know about yet. We have to remember that a child doesn’t know how much he doesn’t know. He doesn’t realize the multitude of topics and ideas that are available to us, because he has a limited experience in his few years so far. So a large part of your role as teacher will be to introduce to your child a wide variety of subjects and lots of living ideas that will broaden his horizons and feed his mind. Spread the feast.
Tendency #2: finding it challenging to plan
For the second tendency, depending on how spontaneous your unschooling days were, you might find it a challenge to make a plan and work that plan. Some homeschool parents forget to plan the work; others might go ahead and make plans but then they neglect to do the work. Especially if you’re coming from an unschooling mentality, you might be so used to spur-of-the-moment activity each day that you aren’t in the habit of following a carefully laid-out plan. May I encourage you with this one thought when it comes to planning your work and working your plan: You will be helping your child to cultivate a valuable life-habit if you guide him in this kind of self-discipline.
Charlotte Mason defined self-discipline as doing something even when you don’t feel like it. That habit is so crucial for accomplishing anything in life. So, try to model self-discipline for your student in this area of planning and doing the work. Help him learn firsthand how beneficial it is to put forth—as Charlotte said, “regular prescribed effort“—consistent effort toward a plan, and also help him experience the principle of alternating work with regular rest and recreation. If you don’t plan it, that balance can get off one way or the other. So plan your work and work your plan.
Tendency #3: Undervaluing book-learning
Tendency #3 also depends on what your unschooling looked like. If your days were spent mainly in hands-on activities, then you might struggle with devaluing the book-learning. An emphasis on good books is an intrinsic part of a Charlotte Mason approach. If your student (or you) are not in the habit of reading much, that emphasis on good books may feel a little different, and you might wonder how valuable book-learning can be. Well, let me reassure you that the books we use in a Charlotte Mason education—living books—will “take your child there.” He will experience events and historical lives through those readings. And don’t forget that living books are used for only some of the subjects. Your child will still have opportunity for firsthand experiences with nature and art, music and handicrafts and more. Books and life experiences complement each other. The best education offers both.
You might find that you have one or two of those tendencies or all of them or perhaps none. Whatever your situation is, let me give you three practical tips that I think will help you make the switch smoothly from unschooling to a Charlotte Mason approach.
Tip #1: give the best of both worlds
First, remind yourself that, in a way, you’re giving your child the best of both worlds. You are spreading a wide feast of new ideas, working your way through a well-thought-out plan systematically, but you are also giving your student time to further pursue his personal interests. Charlotte Mason lessons are usually done by lunch time, so your student should have the afternoons to explore any topics that interest him. You are helping your child to cultivate the habit of self-discipline with the teacher-directed learning in the mornings and helping him to cultivate the habit of initiative by allowing time for student-directed learning in the afternoons. That’s a great combination!
tip #2: don’t switch everything at once
The second tip is to remember that you don’t have to switch everything at once. You don’t have to go from fully unstructured to completely structured all in one day. You can ease into a full schedule of lessons in the morning. Maybe it will work better for you to focus on getting each subject going one at a time rather than try to get everything going at once from Day One. If you think it might work better for you and your family to make the transition in stages, check out this series:
Stage 1: Two Foundational Charlotte Mason Methods
Stage 2: Weekly School Subjects You’ll Love
Stage 3: Two Ways to Feed Your Children’s Minds Every Day
Stage 4: Three Subjects You Need to Check
Stage 5: Add Variety with Four Interesting Subjects
tip #3: set out your materials the night before
This is a simple thing, but I think it can make a big difference: gather your materials and books the night before and set them out where you will see them in the morning. This new way of planning and teaching is basically requiring you to form some new habits. And new habits come easier when there is a “trigger” or a “cue” that reminds you of what you want to start doing. So having that visual reminder of a stack of books, set where you will see them in the morning, should help you to form that new habit of teacher-directed learning every morning. When you walk into the kitchen or the living room and see that stack of books, it will help fire the neuron path in your brain: “Oh yes, we’re doing teacher-directed learning in the mornings.” And the more often that path of neurons fires, the more that idea will become a habit and the easier it will become. So just take three or four minutes the night before to take a look at your plan for the next day and gather the resources you will need. Set them out where you will be sure to see them in the morning, and you’ll be starting your day on the right track for a smooth transition.
If you would like help with your plans, the Simply Charlotte Mason curriculum is easy to use, and you can implement as much or as little of it as you want to.
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