May we have a Home Education discussion?

I’m interestly reading this as I’ve never read any of Miss Mason’s books (yet).  The blog Dana is referring to is Handbook of Nature Study.  This is my first year trying to implement CM emphasis into my homeschool and our only second year homeschooling.  We did some nature study in the fall, however it’s very wet in the Pacific NW and on top of it, I too am not an outdoor person.  I’m trying to get over that tho.  I’ll be watching this thread with interest and join the discussion when I can.  I wish I could push “pause” on life so I could read all her book (and a lot others too), so I could implement them before my kids get any older.

I remember Linda (aka missingtheshire) saying that in England there are no ticks, snakes, mosquitos. LOL, if that’s true then no wonder Charlotte Mason said what she did about regularly walking in the fields. 🙂

Linda, would you like to respond?

We live in different times and most of us in totally different part of the world. I try to remember this when I feel pressured to be more “country-fied”. I have some close friends who run a successful organic farm in the country. After observing how hard their real farm life is,

I’m thankful for my hubby’s 8 to 5 job. Everyone’s different though, and we all have different callings. And I KNOW I’m not a farm girl.

Nature study is great, but some moms will just be better at this than me. I’ve learned to accept it and be happy. My passion is art, so my kids do more museums than nature walks. 🙂

I was just writing a PM to Lindsey about something else, and I wrote the following in response to what she was wondering about.

I went to a CM primary school, the teacher took us out every afternoon to see the nature in our village rain or shine – she let us ramble about the village and see what we could find, she did not teach us, just told us to look for nature and then when we got back in class after a couple of hours we narrated to her what we had seen and pehaps did a drawing. She did not tell us what to look for and did not direct out study – we were allowed to learn for ourselves. She did tell us the proper botanical name of the flowers and weeds we found – but that was later in the classroom. We brought samples back to look at and show, and then she would name the item if we did not know. I still have the little wildflower dictionary she gave me so that I could identify these things myself – all the children got one. Most of the nature study my own girls did was in our garden or in the neighborhood and again, I let them learn to observe things for themselves. Nicci started keeping caterpillers that she found and raised them into butterflies – she just asked me for a habitat one day – I gladly got one, but left her to it, and she did a fantastic job growing parsley to feed them and then letting them loose when they hatched. She kept a journal and all that was by herself. I believe that children learn best when they learn and are motivated themselves, especially in nature study. Our CM teacher was adament that we were allowed to explore without interference or interjection, and it worked for me, because I have loved nature and gardening and all that every since. Not everyone wants or can be outside, so don’t worry about it. Oh one funny story, my daughters found a couple of snails when they were little, and they asked me for some string, later when I went out they had made little snail harnesses and the snails were pulling leaves in a race – leave them be and they will come up with far better things than I could have. Back then (eons ago) we were not bothered with mosquitos, ticks and things of that nature, though there were plenty of stinging nettles and brambles to get into….got bitten by the odd noseeum as well. We do have the adder snake and grass snake but nothing like you have here and they don’t do much damage. England is fortunate to have very little in the way of unpleasant bugs, ticks are on the rise there and we get more mosquitos now than we did when I was young it seems. I think if you love the outdoors great and if you live in an area where the wee beasties are not so evil as to harm you then that is great too…but this country is a little different, and we have to adapt to what we have nearby and the conditions we find ourselves in. The US is certainly not the place that Charlotte Mason had in mind when she wrote her books, she was writing from a place of great natural beauty, where you could freely walk for miles and come to no harm and see a myriad of things. We are not in that time or place, and so we must do what we can without worrying that we are doing it wrong. My whole attitude to nature study has always been, freedom to do what the child find fascinating, leaving them to discover (in a safe way of course) and above all teaching them a respect for all of God’s creation from the most beautiful creature, flower to the most humble of weeds, some of which are very healthy for us – to me that is the main thing and what I learned all those years ago. Even though the girls spent their first 13 years in Europe and England they could not enjoy quite the same experiences as I had, times had changed, you could not let your child just go wandering off into the countryside, and things were a lot more built up where we lived, but they still managed to grow up with a real love of nature, that is still with them today.

Ladies please don’t be discouraged – I have had a messy house and things not done as I would have liked, I have not done anything in what I would consider the right way, but it has turned out well. I have been purging years of our school things, and sorting out writing the girls did for them to keep. These writings are from years ago as well as more recent – when I sat and read some of their early work I must say I was amazed at the maturity of and wisdom in their writing, and their drawing – looking at samples from throughout all these years made me finally realise that – wow even with me as their mother – imperfect, occasionally bad tempered, a little ADD, and being somewhat disorganised a lot of the time, they have done really, really well. I don’t believe we can ruin them, I think we are allowing them to fly and to learn and to learn with joy…keep your chins up, carry on and don’t worry – if I have managed, then all of you certainly can…and remember you are in the year 2012 in the USA and not in the Lake District in England many moons ago – times and things are different, but can be equally as good, there is no one way….

Sorry for the ramble…I am wordy too, another fault..lol. Linda

Well said Linda, thanks for chiming in!

Lindsey, I do want to add that I have done some little things of nature that have made a BIG difference to my kids. Just be encouraged to do what works for YOU. One thing we have loved is a bird feeder in our back yard that is observable from our kitchen table. The kids have grown very fond of the different birds we have, and even recognize their unique songs and chirps. Very fun, and EASY. 🙂

Another thing is just having a small garden of flowers and such. We can change out the plants according to season and it’s enjoyable and beautiful.

I also let my kids run free in cold months in our backyard creek. Too many snakes in the warm weather, but they enjoy it in the colder months just as much. We recently discovered a beaver dam there.

Other than that, I don’t worry too much about it. Often times the kids will find a “treasure” to save from outside, and I try to just go with the flow on such things. Sometimes I look up scientific names, but most times I let them look it up on their own in little reference books.

@Lindsey, I certainly do not think that you have lost much time cultivating excitement in nature for your kids.  They are still young, compared to mine anyway, and mine are still pretty young compared to some on this forum.  And, I think that you are very fortunate (and your kiddos) for having found CM as early as you did, especially for the areas that you do excel in.  I found CM much later (but early enough for my 2 younger boys) and have some serious regrets for my oldest boy.  Oh, the memories of our early hs days are just miserable.  We have made much progress, thanks to this forum/site.

What I had been giving my kids, per their education, was textbooks/workbooks, and then more of the same.  I had no patience and could not see what I had before me, my precious kids.  We were not having read alouds, any nature study (at all), field trips (unless with our co-op), hymn, picture, composer, poetry, good, wholesome books, character study, narration, etc. CM has given me so much to then give my kids, even if I don’t accomplish everything, in every way, that she prescribed.  If you are even trying (like most of us are) to expose your kids to these wonderful things, then you are doing a much better job than what they would’ve received in ps (well, that’s a given, lol) or what you might have been doing if you had not been exposed to CM.  Trust me, I know.  And, I’m not trying to bash other methods, but what I was doing was not good, let’s just leave it at that. My dc have learned to LOVE literature, audio books (from Lamplighter, Jonathan Park, Librivox), the Millers, which would’ve never come into play (at least not like it is now) if I had not stumbled upon this site.  The amount of books we have (and their quality) would never have been readily available to them, and for that, I am so thankful.  The good that my kids are able to think on, because of their exposure, has been such a blessing, especially since there is plenty of bad for their young minds in this world. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is, think on the things that you are doing (and possibly wouldn’t be) since you have embraced the CM method.  After that, trying to do one thing here and there that you may not spend as much time on (nature study if that’s what it is) is still better than not doing it at all.  I would love to have our Nature Study time/experience to be much like what I have read on here and Handbook of Nature Study site, but it’s just not, not now, and maybe not ever (and I’ll probably have some serious regrets about that).  But, I am trying.  We have a yearly pass at our local zoo and I have started a very small CM-inspired Nature Study group who meet 1-2 times per month.  Does it look like all of what I’ve seen/read, probably not, but we’re trying….just that fact alone (that we’re trying) has been more than our kids had had before.  Our kids do spend alot of time outside in the summer and we camp, swim, dad takes kids for bike rides/fishing, etc., and I’m happy with all of that, too.  Now, if I could just get their notebooks looking like I’d like them to look….we’re working on it.

In a perfect world CM’s ideas would all just work out perfectly and I do think they are wonderful ideas worth pursuing, but, they are just ideas (wonderful as they are), not gospel. I think that if she knew that you were gleening anything from her writings and they sparked something in you, her goal has been met.  Didn’t she advocate that??  Reading some “living” idea and have it work itself out in the minds of our dc is what we try to do, and, I believe, that’s all we can ask of ourselves.  I think she’d be happy to know that we find her thoughts valuable, but to think on them too much (as if they were gospel) and to invoke guilt would not be helpful, to anyone. 

BTW, I totally get your desire to create what she has written.  I see so many other examples of hsing kids’ creations (especially nature notebooks, among other things) and I want that so badly for my kids.  But instead of feeling guilty I need to actually encourage what I’d like to see and just make it happen, then be happy with what we’ve created, and try not to compare.  Also, I have noticed that the more time I spend outside, the more I love it.  That’s  just a side note.

This is much longer than I had planned, so bless you if you made it through my ramblings.

One thing to keep in mind that while I think Charlotte’s overall educational philosophies are timeless, I’m sure that her actual day-to-day would look different today than it did in her time.   I fully want my children to love nature and we do strive to get outside each week away from everything else, but sometimes they are more fascinated by a motorcyle they see or the GPS the park ranger is showing us than the nature around them.   Other times, they are fascinated by moss and mushrooms growing on a tree. The key is they are still learning and taking in their surroundings.  I have noticed the further we get from civilization and the more time we spend immersed in the outdoors, the more they enjoy nature, if that makes sense.

But I can’t let them go spend hours everyday outside unless I am with them and that’s no always feasible.  That is something that would’ve been more easily attained in Charlotte’s time and place.  We, instead, live on a very busy street and since we live in a parsonage, that’s not changing anytime soon.  You work with what you’ve got.  We’ve put in a bird feeder, we garden almost year-round, we go for bike rides, we walk to the park, we go camping a couple of times year, etc.  

Bird feeders, bat houses, ladybug houses and parsley plants for caterpillars are all good options in the right gardens. Also a toad abode is a neat thing to have, the only problem with that is the local snake came to my garden and bit the toad and it died! Also don’t forget water for the birds, I have feeders and waterers in our garden and also hummingbird things for that time of year. We also have a couple of trees, and so the girls one year photographed and journaled the life cycle of the tree throughout the year. If you get caterpillars, pop them in a habitat and feed them parsley and carrot tops – give them sticks to climb and wait for them to cocoon – later in the year and in some cases the following year, you will have beautiful swallowtails to let loose in the garden. We also had a praying mantis one year that was so interesting to watch. I also plant for bees, so we get lots of bees as well to observe. All this in a normal suburban yard – nature is everywhere around us and easy to discover. The birds often nest in our nesting boxes and so then we have chicks to look at, and a hawk also visits, because he knows birds are in my yard, and he gets the odd snack, which is after all part of nature – and he sure is beautiful. Even popping a large rock somewhere in the dirt in your garden and then leaving it, will have interest – a few months in, pick up the rock and see what is underneath, all kinds of interesting creepies…..lots of things for the children to observe and do. Growing Zinnia’s is easy and so pretty, they flower for ages, and the more you pick the more you get, sunflowers as well – Linda