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Kids scheduling their own work…how?
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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.
You know, Christie, my kids would like to eat the same thing all day every day….pizza. I personally hate pizza. But they would eat it exclusively if they could!
Thank you all for your comments and thoughts. It’s very helpful to me to see the various points of views and hear different ideas, and to have Charlotte’s words repeated. Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of it all, you lose sight of where you are or where you want to go. It’s lovely to have a group of like-minded people to give you direction and encouragement, while still accepting that each family does things differently from each other. I appreciate too, the examples and analagies because this is a discussion I want to have WITH my children, as I help them make choices for their own education and future. They need to understand why this way might be better than another, then weigh the options and try for themselves to see what kind of results they get. Then evaluate and determine if it’s a good option for them or not. If they can learn that now, in a safe environment, they will be so much better prepared for life, college, running a home, a business, whatever. The whole decision-making process, setting goals, and then evaluating them….grown-up stuff….
crazy4boys, I almost guarantee that if you let your kids eat pizza all day every day, they’d do it happily for a while. Then there’d come a day where one said “Do we HAVE to have pizza again?” and then a day would come that they could not STAND the sight or smell of a pizza and they would be willing to eat ANYTHING, ANYTHING but pizza. 🙂 Burnout and attention problems and much else come from this path. I used to think that I’d be happier if I could just structure my time as I wanted and read all day. BUT, one time, my kids and dh were all at Scout camp and I COULD have read all day—and it turned out that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted the variety, the rhythm of my days. Your kids really need that too, no matter what they think. There is a living, breathing pulse to the variety of a CM week, a nurturing of the many parts of your child and his mind. This is by design. Miss Mason is wiser than most of us suspect. 🙂
You know, Bookworm, I think I will let them eat pizza every day all day until they are sick of it. Then I’ll never have to deal with it again!
I hate the dilemma of pizza night because I just don’t like it, but they do (so does dh)….I just sit there looking at them, eating my salad or drinking my smoothie and thinking, “Y’all are so gross”. I do agree that variety is important. I LIKE switching subjects throughout the day. I NEED that change and I can tell my kids do too. I’m just wondering if, after talking with them and discussing the issue, I let them choose so they can see for themselves that an all-day one-subject day is not as fun as they might think it is. To let them experience that now when the stakes aren’t so high (like failing a college class or missing important deadlines at work). Is it a good learning experience? I know for sure one boy will go along with the ‘a little bit every day’ feast idea. He thrives on that. The other will for most subjects, but he might *think* he wants to read all his literature book (or others) in one day. It probably stems from reading oh say, Harry Potter….you just HAVE to keep reading to find out what happens next.
As an aside, we’re reading Little Lord Fauntleroy. The older two independently, the younger two with me. I handed the oldest boys the book, with the instruction to read one chapter a day (and narrate). 12-yr-old looks at the cover and says, “What? You want me to read this crap? No way. He looks like a freaking girl.” And other such things for which he got in trouble. But he read the first chapter and says, “You know. I really liked it. It was rather cool.” He’s talked about Cedric many times over the last week and how much he likes him. Yay for living books! And yay for going slowly so he can get to know Ceddie!
I really meant no offense by my non-CM thoughts. After I sent it I remembered that this view of mine isn’t in line with CM’s style. I do agree with many of these points (to not allow long stretches of time for one subject) and yet I know how much I would love some hours to focus on *one thing* at a time. (Also recognizing ‘several hours’ is not ‘all day’ and that I’m an adult, not middle or high schooler.) Keeping lessons short is something I struggle greatly with now with my 7yos. Anyway, I really appreciate the discussion and encouragement to stretch ideas!
Shannon…ditto missceegee. Also, I DO think there are times when it’s good to focus on one thing for a longer stretch of time. It would drive me crazy to spend 20 to 30 minutes planning the next year’s subjects/book lists and then move on to the next thing. Or cleaning a closet out. Or working in the garden. Or researching something. Or finishing a particularly exciting novel. We just need to find the right balance. There are times I DO set a timer for myself and rotate through the activities listed above, 20 minutes at each (or chores, or whatever) because that’s what I mentally/physically/emotionally need that day. And other times I go until I feel ‘ready’ to move on.
I hate the dilemma of pizza night because I just don’t like it, but they do (so does dh)….I just sit there looking at them, eating my salad or drinking my smoothie and thinking, “Y’all are so gross”. 
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