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“Jumping In” with a 5th and 6th grader
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Hi ladies of wisdom! I am new to this group and have some questions I hope you can answer. I have loved the Charlotte Mason method of teaching for a long, long time, however, I have been standing on the outside of the mirror, afraid of what is on the other side far too long. I have two girls, one in 5th grade and one in 6th grade (and a son in 11th but, he’s too close to graduating to switch to CM now), and we don’t have the peaceful learning environment I want for them to have! I have homeschooled for nine years but, as you well know, what works with one child, doesn’t with the others and I am finding that out more and more and more with my girls versus what worked with my son. My girls just sigh and fuss and moan every time they are told we have to do school today and it just shouldn’t be that way! But, my concern is….first of all, WHERE IN THE WORLD DO I START? I know the first step is letting go of my “textbooks” and being willing to accept something new but, I am completely overwhelmed and feel like I am not equipped to jump in to the CM method with them at this late stage in the game. I feel especially overwhelmed now, when I was speaking with a friend of mine today, a TRUE CMer….and she said she does 18 subjects a week with her first and second grader! GEEZ! We’re lucky to get four a day completed without tears! HELP….please HELP~! I am so afraid they are going to “miss something” if I switch them over to the complete CM method. Any advice?????????/
THANKS!
Blessings,
Kim
First of all take a deep breath and relax! 🙂 It sounds as if you have been drawn to CM methods for a long time but are afraid to take the first step. Switching to CM does not have to be all or nothing; you can switch gradually. Start with something you know your girls will enjoy, perhaps nature study or literature. Gradually add in more subjects as you become used to not relying on textbooks.
Have you looked at some of the getting started information here on the site? Our Charlotte Mason method getting started pages and free Education Is e-book might be helpful.
Some of our past discussions on the forum may also be helpful:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/another-question-hope-i-am-allowed-to-ask http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/charlotte-mason-saves-time
Another thing to remember is how seamlessly many subjects can be woven throughout the day or within each other. It’s not just sitting for a designated amount of time for each “subject”. Listening to your composer’s music throughout the day or in your car, hanging the art from your artist’s work in a conspicuous place, adding a hymn to your morning devotional time. Literature is a delightful way to end your day with your entire family, no one is ever too old to enjoy a good book together while working on their individual handicrafts. Geography is part of almost every subject. Art is covered while you sit under a tree during your nature study time, drawing, painting or coloring the perfect day lily.
Consider what little time many take, reading a poem and memorization activities take only moments.
This is referred to as the “gentle art of learning”. I couldn’t agree more. As Karen suggested, start small with those things your family enjoys. And as you begin to add things in, you’ll see how peaceful and easy those transitions are and you’ll wonder how you ever lived any other way. It truly becomes “living”, education becomes a natural part of your life!
Hello Kim,
I can relate to how you are feeling. I was a public school teacher for 8 years and made the decision to stay home and homeschool my sons (3 and 9). The three year old has taken to this new found idea beautifully. We are learning the letters and sounds, counting, shapes, and colors. It is seamlessly woven into our day. Completely natural–we read books, listen to music, go outside alot, etc. Most preschool learning is completely natural and parents do it without even thinking…after all we are excellent teachers as mothers. We have taught them how to suckle, smile, walk, talk, develop bladder control, and so on. We have been teachers from the beginning.
But school age, comes at quite a surprise. Most of society believes we must build our children’s brain as much as possible with worksheets, books, and lots of academia. It’s American to think this way–after all mass education has been instilled into us as a society. I too was in your shoes
I would recommend to you to read a couple of resources: read about unschooling–and open your mind to a less traditional perspective. Try Laying Down the Rails. [Edited by moderator. Laying Down the Rails is not a free e-book. It is a copyrighted work by Sonya Shafer and is sold here at Simply Charlotte Mason. We do offer a free sample version for download.]
But the best book I will personally ask you to read is Home Grown Kids by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. This book will take you from your mindset to a different one. Think about this one thing:
Education without true character building is not beneficial to a child’s being. There are many very educated people in the world that lacked character and they were a menace to society. Think Hitler.
The most important gift I can give to my children is to build their character–and help them to become good wholesome simple people. Charlotte emphasizes these simple character habits in her books-Laying Down the Rails might be a good place to start.
It is very difficult to pull away–but it is worth it. You have so much invested in your traditional method and it is an ingrained habit. Therefore pulling away is very difficult.
Just start small with building your habits, character, and bible story (verses,etc). Then build a little bit more each time. You are probably already doing this. Then start to break away from one subject at at time, replacing it with a natural one. Yes it is going to feel like you are not “really teaching”. Think of it more as leading.
Rome wasn’t build in a day and neither are your children, your teaching style or their learning style.
I think you are a very brave soul for going out of your comfort zone. You are brave to give up the mass idea and go back to your roots. Good for you!
Go out onto the limb-it’s where the fruit is.
K
Laides,
Thanks so very much for your thoughtfulness and advice. I really appreciate your time and wisdom! One other question I have though is…..as we move into the older grades (7th and up) how does the CM method adjust and still provide the requirements they need for high school credits? Is there a point where you stop using the “gentle art” and have to be more “agressive” with your approach to education to ensure they will receive the credits they need to graduate?
THANKS AGAIN!
BLESSINGS!
Kim
Kim,
By high school, the thing that really changes is the content and the depth of response you require from them. Having learned this way, they will be more attentive to the details of what they are learning and be able to communicate them. Some of the content though, as they follow God’s plan, may need to come from high quality text books. So, for instance, my hs children are in math texts and science texts, they read original source documents, they are assigned essays, and they have student teaching responsibilities within our home. Everything else is pretty much the same as the younger children, just on a much higher level.
Blessings,
Cindy
Kim,
I finally tracked down the e-book (it is actually a collection of summaries from Charlotte Mason’s original writings in various education journals). I was refering to the part which Charlotte herself calls Laying Down the Habits–not rails as mentioned in my earlier post— in which she compares it to laying down railroad tracks! Sorry about that.
It can be found free thru google books or thru this direct link. It gives you a very good no cost run-down of Charlotte’s various thoughts and philosophies on all kinds of activities and learning. This might help you to know whether you want to delve deeper into her method for your children.
Sincerely,
K
[Moderator’s note: I’m so sorry to edit another post. Unfortunately, Ambleside’s site says that you must read and agree to their license agreement to use the materials on the site. That license agreement then states that you can only link to their home page and not to other pages within the site. They also say that you must have permission to link to their home page.
We want to do our best honor their wishes so I removed the link. You can find it on their site by navigating the the summary on the Charlotte Mason in Modern English pages.]
I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve been in touch with @boysinthenest about the post I edited above. It was a simple mixup of titles when she mentioned Laying Down the Rails. She was thinking of some of Charlotte’s writings about habits that appeared in some old school journals. Those sound interesting so I hope we’ll hear some more about them.
Sorry for any confusion and welcome to @boysinthenest.
Well I’m just in all kinds of red-tape here! Misquoting a book, trying to link to another site! LOL
For anyone that would like to easily look thru old education journals, google books is wonderful! You can look thru TONS and TONS of very old education journals from the 1800’s to the 1920’s. You can also download them up until 1923 because they are in the public domain…. Education, Education Journal, the Journal of Education are good ones. Guess what? Charlotte and Emma are both mentioned in MANY of them, even along with Edmund (the author of Jack’s Insects, Tommy Smith’s Animals, etc).
ENJOY looking–you are going to be there for a while! Enough reading for years there! Just go to Google and then under Google Books (I won’t provide the link since that might get me censored! LOL)
Sincerely,
K
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