Defending methods?

We do it only for scripture study (and technically each child has scriptures to hold, so they still have something.

Here are my thoughts –

– Where in real life will they be expected to sit and be still and listen now? And does that apply when they are adults? For example, my children do need to sit and be still at church. And will also do that as adults. However, many (most?) jobs do not require a person sitting still with nothing in their hands. Even in business meetings/board meetings you would have paper and pen and could take notes or doodle while listening. We try to work on sitting still with nothing to do where it will be appropriate, and not worry about the rest.

In traditional schooling the focus is not on sitting still and doing nothing while listening to a teacher read aloud. The child is usually handed a pencil and something to do (workbook/worksheet/etc) and reading aloud is short IF it even happens. So his argument doesn’t quite fit. They are two different methods.

– For writing versus mom taking dictation: I take dictation from mine when the point of the subject is content understanding (history or science, I want to see what they know, not how well they can write). When the point of a lesson is how well they write (composition) then they do the writing. When the point of a lesson is how neatly they write (copywork) then they do the writing. Does that make sense?

So maybe what your husband would like to see is actual writing assignments at least once a week where your son is given a prompt and writes it himself. Then you spend the next several days gently focusing on editing sentence structure (word choice, punctuation, etc) and the last day of the week or the next week he writes a nice copy.

You did mention cursive struggles – we don’t do cursive unless the child wants to learn it on their own. School assignments are written in print unless they have mastered the mechanics of cursive (or italics or any other style). When a child has to focus on how to form each letter they are going to struggle to hold onto a train of thought and compose things. Separate tasks! Not to mention thinking about the spelling of something or the punctuation to use, etc. So another possibility could be to take your son’s dictation and type it into a program like Startwrite to make it cursive. Then print it out with space/lines for him to then use it as copywork (or print it in cursive and he can write on another sheet of paper with that as his example).

Hope those ideas help a bit!

Oh this is tough, but I think the best advice is to pray that God would open your husbands mind and heart to the bounty CM has to offer your family. Prayer really does change things.That said, I have some ideas to approach things with your hubby. Just take what works for your family (if anything) and leave the rest.

I would make sure that you tell your hubby how much you appreciate his perspective and value his insights. Everyone likes to be appreciated, especially hubbys. 😉 There is something to be said for developing self control and learning to sit quietly at times, perhaps this is something you can work into your day. It can be done gently without taking the joy out of your children’s education.You can start with just 2 or 3 minutes at a time and make a game out of it as they build up the ability to sit and listen quietly, and it doesn’t need to be every single time you do any schooling. You will be teaching yoru children a valuable lesson about honorong your hubby.

Meanwhile, I would try to gently tell your hubby *why*  you have been doing things the way you do them in your home. Share your philosophy of education, and what you hope to gain from it. I’ve noticed people who have been through institutional schools often think their experience is the only “normal” one out there, but can often see other opportunities when exposed to the how and especially *why* and begin to see the benefits of other options. He is probably having insecurities because he saw or heard something, or he’s getting some pressure from someone and he’s trying to meet expectations. You can help him overcome his fears by loving him, affirming him and sharing with him the wonerful freedom and joy you have in CM education.

I have no advice or ideas, but I will be praying for you both.

When we first began homeschooling, I read both of Catherine Levison’s books on CM as well as Karen Andreola’s A Charlotte Mason Companion. If I found something that really stuck out to me, I would mark it and read it to my husband later. He was completely fine with however I chose to home educate and still leaves all the schooling decisions related to books, materials, style, etc. up to me. But I wanted to give him some of my reasons and confirmations for choosing the CM style. He would listen to my reading and ask questions, but ultimately always tell me that it was up to me and that he supported me in whatever I chose.

If you have a chance to read your husband some selections about CM, perhaps that would clear things up for him and give him more understanding as to why you’ve chosen this method. I think others often listen better to what others say (authors, pastors, teachers, etc.) than they do to the people they love because the pastors/teachers/authors provide some level of credibility, if that makes sense.