Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: delight directed, hs, middle

This topic has 4 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 2 months ago by waynesweakervessel.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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February 23, 2015 at 11:00 am
Joanne Downing
Participant
Is there room within the cm methods for a student to narrow down his focus if he finds something he delights in or should they always stick to the broad feast? My boys are late middle school and i think my hope is that they (one day – please Lord!) will hit on something they are interested in and may become passionate about and will want to follow maybe as their vocation or future job? If they are allowed to follow a ‘spark’ to fan it in to flame – do you stop everything else for a while? Do any of you have experience with this yet? I love the advise on here but find the glimpse of middle/highschool – the daily doing of it examples , aren’t as frequent as the younger years advise/ testimonies. What does your older schooling look like with cm?- especially with a mind to not just turning out ‘cm clones’ that have all read the same books,on the same subjects from the booklists here or AO – when and how does it get personalised for them and their possible future life choices?
Background – i have been absent from here for a while as i tried a unit study approach in a panic because of a new baby arriving ‘sigh’ , yet again for the umpteenth time since pulling the older ones out of public school I am coming back with my tail between my legs wishing i would learn! There are 4 boys ages 13, 12, 5, 7 months. All advice and experiences gratefully received – I have effectively lost half a year of schooling by having a baby, moving house and trying the unit study approach (disaster!) desperately trying to get things ready to start back on monday for the first time in months.
Blessing from Devon , UK – Jo
February 23, 2015 at 1:20 pm
MissusLeata
Participant
My kids aren’t that old, but I definitely believe you can do delight directed CM schooling. There’s actually a book written about it called something like, Heart of Wisdom. That book was one of my first introductions to Charlotte Mason. But, I wouldn’t put everything else aside (the author doesn’t encourarge that, either).
My hubby was homeschooled and when his family found his delight (programming) they gave him a lot of time to pursue it while still covering all the other things he needed to learn. I think it’s totally do-able and is what I would hope to do when my kids are older.
February 23, 2015 at 1:24 pm
suzukimom
Participant
Hi Jo
I’m actually working through the same question – I just posted on my thoughts on Junior High / High School. I’ve also been struggling with AO because my kids don’t have the time to follow their own pursuits doing AO and I feel that kids should have some options, especially in their later school years. I do think it can work well with CM principles (although I seem to be leaning to a bit more text-bookish now) but not with everything AO is saying to do.
February 23, 2015 at 5:00 pm
RobinP
Participant
Absolutely they should, but not at the expense of the feast. Charlotte scheduled afternoons for just such pursuits. Mornings were for their school subjects and afternoons were for their interests and other things. You can find schedules on the AO site to give you an idea of the scope of their studies and the time it took.
February 23, 2015 at 5:13 pm
waynesweakervessel
Participant
YES! The three I have already graduated used their afternoons for what we called “Productive Free Time”. They each (with my help) had a list on the refrigerator that they could pick activities from. It ranged from going out and setting traps on our land to sewing a skirt to building a forge to creating a complete chain-mail shirt out of thousands of tiny hand bent rings. We never thought he’d finish it but he did! Wow was that a lesson in perseverance!!! He is now an engineer! 🙂 They had at least an hour or two each afternoon to work on this stuff.
Then when they were in 10th grade we had each go through a workbook titled “Choosing a Career that Fits You” by Larry Burkett. First they went through it on their own and then again with me to help with clarification of what the author was looking for in their answers. I HIGHLY recommend this book. It helped ALL of my older children to be in careers that God wired them to be in. They all enjoy thoroughly what they are doing. I will most definitely be using it again with my 3 littles when they get there.
Public school wastes a lot of time and their students are only there for 7 hours. If my highschoolers are working steadily for 5 – 6 hours a day they are coming out ahead and have PLENTY of time for personal interests!!