Was Charlotte Mason in fact a classical educator?

It depends on what you mean by “classical educator.”  Do you mean someone who educated children largely in the tradition of Western European civilization, using the best books and (mostly) traditional methods?  Then, yes, she largely was.  If you  mean, however, “Modern Trivium-Susan Wise Bauer-Dorothy Sayers style 3 “stage” classical education”, then, no, I don’t really think so.

So it depends.  We’ve tackled this before, and it might be useful to review some of what others have said.  My own take is that classical and CM share many methods and books and techniques, but do them for very different reasons, for the underlying assumptions about who children are, what education is, and what the role of the teacher is are VERY different.  I have some links for perusal included below, but do search the forum and see what others have said; I’d hate for you to just read me.  LOL

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/charlotte-mason-education/

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/the-classical-side-of-charlotte-mason/

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/faq/mason.html

http://circeinstitute.org/2012/01/towards-a-defense-of-charlotte-mason/

http://thoughtsaftergod.blogspot.com/2012/04/is-charlotte-mason-classical-follow-up.html

There, enlightened?

To me, narration and the Socratic Method are two different things. 

So, I sat here and read all the links that bookworm posted.  Some of them I had read before.  I can’t say I understand it all, but I will continue to try to figure it out.  🙂  Makes me even more want to read Charlotte’s books for myself.  I think that would make things much clearer.  

Gina- you said, “And this site has narration ideas/questioning.”  What site??  Are you talking about SCM?  I am becoming very excited about narration!  I would like to improve in this area.

Curious what made you, Bookworm, choose CM over Classical?  Maybe that question is not the best way to phrase it after reading the articles??  By classical, I mean the way that most homeschoolers currently think of it?

Yolie

Thank you, HiddenJewel.  I really liked the Narration bookmark!  I hadn’t seen that before.  I think that would be very helpful.

yoliemiller, I at first DID choose classical.  I was educated by Jesuits who use a very “old-school” classical method, and I was good in school and enjoyed it, my kids were bright, and it seemed like the logical thing.  Only thing is, we HATED it.  Especially my kids.  They would moan when I announced it was time to do school.  I started wondering why this was.  So I read lots of books on classical homeschooling.  Then I joined a living-books list, and was exposed after a bit to Charlotte Mason.  At first I didn’t think much of what I “heard” about it,  because it seemed kind of frou-frou, KWIM?  Tea parties.  No REAL science.  No outlining entire chapters of science texts at 7 years old!  No memorizing all the tsars of Russia!  Where would we be!!!  LOL  But then I decided to actually READ some of Charlotte’s writings, and it occurred to me—SHE knew my kid.  Dorothy Sayers did not.  Dorothy Sayers said my 7yo son was a “poll-parrot”–who delighted in memorizing for the sake of memorizing, but did not have the capacity to reason or to do much else.  I watched my little boys.  They were NOT poll-parrots.  They were complete little people.  Sometimes they enjoyed memorizing little things.  They actually had a tremendous reasonong capacity–it was “different” than my adult reasoning, but it was reasoning indeed!  They had very open senses.  They THRIVED on time outdoors.  They were endlessly curious.  They were wiggly and active.  They had a natural affinity for gentle religious teaching.  They ate up IDEAS, not lists of tsars.  I first became convinced that Charlotte Mason described my children better than The Well-Trained Mind or Dorothy Sayers ever had.  Then I started re-evaluating what I thought “education” meant–and found I agreed much, much more with Charlotte Mason there, too.  Then I tried it out, and found that CM was NOT frou-frou, it was real education, real work, real MEANING, and I was much more comfortable with my role as a teacher in the CM framework than I had been in the classical framework.  So here I am after 13 years.  🙂  I’ve road-tested both, and found CM to be the road-worthy, long-haul framework for my family. 

Me too, Tanya! Thank you Bookworm, for taking the time to share your wisdom and experience with the rest of us…especially those of us with little ones who are just on the starting end.

Jen

I popped in for a break from tagging things for a garage sale – what an interesting thread! I really think Bookworm hit the nail on the head when she said that while CM and Classical share methods/books/techniques the underlying philosophies are not at all the same. At least not from what I’ve read! Just glancing over CM’s 20 principles (inside her books in the preface, also online at Ambleside here) there are some big differences. The first one “children are born persons” not blank slates or empty boxes with the potential to become a person – they already are one. I wonder if that came from her work with very young children including babies? And from #11 “But we believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care only that all knowledge offered him is vital, that is facts are not presented without the informing ideas…” Memorizing is important and but with CM we’re memorizing scripture verses and poetry, in other words and idea – not a list of just facts. I think we underestimate and short change a child by assuming they are incapable of reason, logic, or forming their own thoughts even when young. 

I’m really not trying to knock Classical education at all, it ran neck in neck with CM while my husband and I considered which approach to take. I think it has some great things about it and produces some amazing results, but for our family we’d rather achive those results by educating using CM’s ideas. The other thing that bothers me about Classical education is it seems it is can easily squash the love of learning, just as textbooks can. What are textbooks but a collection of facts anyway? A CM education, in my own opinion, is much much more likely to keep that spark, joy, and love of learning that ALL CHILDREN already have! I have never met a preschooler, kindergartener or even a first grader who wasn’t curious and eager to learn. By second grade….well it’s fading. And then it’s gone. I want to keep my children’s desire to learn intact so they leave home with ability to educate themselves.

Sometimes I wonder if Charlotte Mason is a current craze, it almost seems that homeschooling companies like to stick the CM label on things just because they “narrate” or do “nature” or “book of centuries”.  “It’s CM friendly!” after all right?  But it’s really so much more than that. I also think the many CM blogs and websites are incredibly nice and helpful, but it’s like looking at a landscape painting and not the landscape yourself in person. It is these dear people’s sincere application of Charlotte Mason. Hence the famous word to end all words on anything Charlotte Mason – “gentle”. And I have to agree with everyone who already said it’s so much easier to understand Charlotte Mason when you read HER words yourself. I love SCM and all they do! I wouldn’t trade my SCM books for anything, I might have missed out on CM entirely if I hadn’t stumbled across an article by Sonya – she and the SCM team have truly blessed myself and my family. But reading CM in her own words, I’ve had many an “ah-ha!” moment! There really is no subsitute!