Nearly at the end of my rope with Apologia Biology…

Agreeing with Bookworm, whole heartedly. It’s now or later if college is on the horizon. However, I know it’s a jump to these types of courses so use whatever tools needed to get it.

Unfortunately, my dd is in the same boat.  I realize now, that she doesn’t have those skill, either.  I did fine in high school and college but I honestly don’t remember how I learned note- and test-taking skills so I really don’t know how to go about teaching them to her.  

Bookworm, I would love to have some suggestions for books for teaching how to study, take notes, etc. as you were describing.  Thanks in advance!

Michele, thank you for sharing. I read the article and have forwared it to dd12 to work through. I will also look for the book to keep as a reference. Christie

Ladies, this question is for those who have been using charlotte mason methods for years. First let me say, I have been homeschooling for 13 years and have graduated one child. In the past I have used an eclectic approach, but have really come to believe, for many reasons I won’t get into now, that the charlotte mason method is the way to go. Now having 2 of my children struggle with Apologia science I was not encouraged after reading this thread. The question that I have and don’t understand about high school science, and in particular Apologia and the charlotte mason method is two pronged. First, I have really been reading about cm methods and although she states she uses some textbooks, i just can’t see Apologia being truly Charlotte mason. Yes, it is more conversational than some, but it is still a textbook. Somewhere in her writings ,although I can’t point out exactly where, she said not to narrate textbooks. And my understanding is narration is foundational to a Charlotte mason education. My next question, which is the one that concerns me most, has to do with CM methods being being used from the beginning and whether or not her methods are preparing kids for this high school science that so many just don’t seem to be prepared for. My frustration with the high school curriculum and my own children’s struggles is what has moved me toward charlotte mason. I have read many charlotte mason forums and conversations about frustration with high school science and particularly Apologia so I know this is not an isolated event. It seems to me the goal is learning. I realize that colleges have their requirements and classes are structured exactly opposite of Charlotte mason methods, but it seems to me if they really aren’t learning it and understanding it, you would not want to use it. I could teach my kids how to pass the test, but that shouldn’t be the goal. So, with all that said, does CM methods, implemented for years, prepare kids for high school science, in particular Apologia? If not, and there seems to be many CM’ers who have struggled with this, what is the answer? I have younger children that I plan on using cm methods with, and if it doesn’t prepare them for high school science, I want to know before I start school with them so I can figure out a different plan. Thanks, for listening and I look forward to your responses.

OK.  I’m going out on a limb here, too.  CM methods work.  They really do.  But . . . YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY USE THEM.  Many of us are giving our kids “easy passes.”  We seem to be under the impression that kids are getting everything they need while we don’t do much actual WORK.  We seem to have gotten a very off impression that CM means “easy, effortless and painless.”  We think CM methods mean we only really have to read nice stories and we are DONE.  Real labor?  Real effort?  “Not CM.”  How we can possibly have gotten this idea is far beyond me.  The point of CM methods is TO DO VERY HARD WORK WHILE MAKING IT AS PLEASANT TO THE CHILD AS POSSIBLE.  “Real” CM methods are NOT effortless!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Just reading the essay test answers in some of the Original Series should disabuse us of this.  Real narration is HARD WORK.  Really getting at meaning and understanding, understanding to the point of being able to really explain it to someone else, is very difficult!!!  We are talking serious brain workout here.  Many of us do not really expect the very best out of our children here.  Our kids don’t really like narrating, at least the part that involves hard work, so they skim along the surface, we accept it, and go on.  Only to find that at age 15 they are really good at reading pleasant stories, but because we have the impression that CM is not really WORK, they don’t really understand HOW to work intellectually.  There IS a jump when learning information-dense texts.  It is very much like learning a foreign language.   What prepares your kids to learn? Tough narrations.  Lots of foreign language work.  ESPECIALLY LATIN.  If you can learn Latin, you can learn biology.  Just saying.  My kids have already gone through “culture shock” in realizing that they aren’t going to be allowed to coast forever, when I introduce Latin.  🙂  Charlotte’s kids LEARNED LATIN.  They really worked!  It was NOT all tea parties and drawing wildflowers (although those things are nice!)  When you do science in earlier years—I don’t memorize tons of vocab.  But I DO make them work.  My kids have to memorize and learn dozens of species of trees, butterflies, birds.  I expect them to learn to identify clouds.  They need to be able to tell me exactly what happens during a butterfly’s life cycle.  They know this because they have made a great number of observations over time.  They LIVE it, they get to KNOW these species, we take careful note.  Which trees lose their leaves first?  What birds are still here?  What bird is that, singing now?  Frogs?  What frog can we hear tonight?  How many birds are in that flock?  I expect complete attention and effort while they are learning.  I expect serious effort in observation.  I don’t accept barebones, drab, weak narration.  We memorize foreign language vocab and grammar.  We diagram sentences.  We parse.  (CM also used these methods!)  We learn 3 languages by graduation.  You can learn a language in two ways (or at least use some combo of these two ways.)  One is immersion.  But immersion takes TIME.  It can’t happen in twenty minutes three times a week.  Maybe if you had 10 hours a day.  😉  So most of us also need to learn.  OK, let’s say the bad word–to MEMORIZE.  Do our kids start memorizing poetry and scripture at early ages?  Do they continue with longer and longer passages, more and more languages?   THIS IS CM.  Can a child read a science passage and identify what is most important and what is most necessary to know?  THIS IS CM.  Can a child easily read and write Latin?  THIS IS CM.  Do your children recite poetry in Latin, in Spanish, in French?  THIS IS CM.  Do your children regularly read (and are expected to be able to ferret out) passages in Shakespeare, in Plutarch?  (I had one kid comment, when I asked if their Apologia text was going OK, that it was much easier to read and understand than Plutarch!)  Can your twelve year old read and figure out a passage of Plutarch!  THIS IS CM.  Can your children take the mental acuity developed over eight years of serious work to tackle their biology text, with just a few added skills?  THIS, TOO, IS CM.  Charlotte Mason’s methods ARE joyful and delightful.  But NOT because they are easy.  They are delightful because, if you do the work, you get the incredible gift of knowledge and mental capacity.  You can KNOW.  But you have to do the work!  There is no easy path, no shortcut.  It’s all work.  The insight of CM is that there can be joy IN the work.  Not in the absence of it (that is only momentary pleasure.)  When your child takes joy in doing what he OUGHT?   THAT IS CM.

“So, with all that said, does CM methods, implemented for years, prepare kids for high school science, in particular Apologia? “

The easy answer is yes. The hard answer is the parent must direct the study of science to ensure that her children are exposed to a wide variety of science topics in the elementary years through consistent nature study and consistent reading of living books.

I talk with many moms at conventions, and read on this forum quite frequently, that science/nature study is one of the first things to get cut from the schedule when the school day is getting long. It is usually the easiest thing to drop from the schedule because 1) many moms are not “sciencey”, 2) nature study takes more effort because it usually means packing up all of the kids and leaving the house, and 3) many moms don’t understand the importance of studying science.

Personally, I did not use any formal science courses for the elementary years, only living books and nature study. My children were well prepared for Apologia’s high school level courses and had no problem understanding them. Beyond science, the Charlotte Mason method prepared my children well for reading college level textbooks on other topics and other non-living informational books because they had learned how to read attentively.

I forgot to add this earlier—I think 8 years of “I am, I can, I ought, I will” to pretty much be sufficient preparation for ANYTHING, from Apologia biology, to new motherhood,  to Marine boot camp, if it is LIVED CONSISTENTLY.  But that is the key.  CM isn’t magical learning fairy dust.  🙂  It is a set of tools that works with a child’s mind, that makes the heavy lifting easier, but that does NOT eliminate work.