I know not everyone here is CM purist, but I think it is worthy, here on a Charlotte Mason focused forum, to say again that Charlotte believed in spreading the feast before children and allowing them to take what they are ready for. That feast included LOTS of subjects taken in relatively small chunks at a time. This might look different at different times, but consider the breadth of subjects to cover from Math to Bible, Foreign Language to Science, Music to Life Skills, History to Natural Science, Handicrafts to Habits. I do believe Charlotte was on the right path in how she approached these many subjects.
@ CULlamaGirl – I’m not sure how you were homeschooled,
I was encouraged to jump more into discussions and to stop lurking 😉 So here goes!
Welcome to the forum. It is a wonderful, encouraging place. I don’t know how you were homeschooled or how familiar you are with a CM education, meaning the full philosophy. There are a few things that lead me to think that perhaps you have a misunderstanding of some key CM philosophy ideas.
My name is Kati and I am a home school graduate who is currently attending college. Personally one of my greatest distates for college is that instead of focusing on a topic or two intensly for a shorter amount of time, I am expected to take many (six this semester) for 3-4 months. Classes are multiple times a week and I can never truly focus on each class.
College experience will likely never mirror a CM homeschool experience, unfortunately.
Instead of being able to mentally focus I am required to mentally multitask what is due when. When I was home schooled I found myself learning, enjoying, and retaining what I learned better by doing all of on subject at one time. I think that it is because if I focus for a small amount of time I get distracted eaiser, but if I focus for longer amount of time I have less difficulty retaining my focus.
This is training for life. Running a home, managing finances, shopping and cooking meals, nurturing children and perhaps homeschooling them, managing appointments. Life requires that we be able to manage many things at once. One of the most heard criticisms about collge aged homeschoolers is that they lack in time management skills having been given perhaps a little too much freedom in their younger years.
The habit of attention is practiced in small, incremental doses, building up to longer periods of time. Nothing about your current experience is CM in nature from what you’ve shared and you find that taxing.There are certain things that are nice to focus on for longer periods of time, for me that would be handicraft and life skill type things because once I start, it’s easier to finish than clean up and start over at a later time. When it comes to education, smaller doses chewed on and ruminated over makes for better long term retention. For example, I’m about to begin leading a CM book study. I would never encourage someone to sit down and read Charlotte’s writings for 2 hours. I would encourage a brief reading time, followed by a narration (even if to yourself), and then more time to think on what you’ve read and how it could be applied. Same thing with math, I wouldn’t sit down and do 2 hours of math to avoid it the rest of the week. Same thing with history, we need some time to think on what we’re reading and learning.
That said, I can see spending a term on Apologetics, another term on Hermeneutics (sp?), Greek all year because it’s a language, etc. Again, not practical in college, but no less valuable.
You are studying many very similar topics all for very long periods of time. It seems like you would benefit from shorter, more varied lessons. (I know in college, this isn’t possible, but the point is no less valid.) What would your days be like if you had perhaps 2 of the Bible type classes this term, but interspersed something comepletely different. Often times a change is as good as a break.
So I guess it is your choice if you want to give your student the freedom while at home to learn in a manner that works best for them or if you want to prepare them for what they need to expect in college. However, I think that since your are teaching CM, you would choose the former as the majority of majors do not use living books (however this is not true for my major, Biblical Studies) either.
Most of us will choose to do both. I want my children to love learning, but also be able to meet deadlines. This is an important life skill. It is freedom giving to spread the feast and let the child take what he or she is ready for. Some things they will take bigger bites of at a time, others.
A CM homeschool will not always have every subject every day or every subject every term, but the variety is always important. Again, I think Bookworm’s analogy is perfect. I would never feed my child all on one thing one day and one thing another day. A varied diet for body and mind are important.
I hope this post whas helpful and I did not step on anyone’s toes!
No worries. This is a wonderful spot for respectful dialogue.
I will try to return later to share some of Charlotte’s words on this topic, but I’m short on time at the moment. I’ll end by agreeing that scheduling is a learned skill and a very valid one. While none of our schedules will look the same, if we wish to see results as Charlotte did, then we must take in the whole philosophy and not just bits and pieces here and there.
Blessings,
Christie
PS – I have tried to reread and make sure I’m not sounding confrontational (because I don’t mean to be), but my brain fog and lack of sleep make my brain weary.
