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Would you consider yourself a CM purist?
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Just taking a survey. I was curious to know who follows scm/cm all the way and who does not. What are your reasons?
I would say ‘mostly’. I didn’t do reading the CM way… and my oldest 2 who do spelling aren’t doing spelling the CM way either. I found I had to change spelling because of my son’s dyslexia.
I think everything else I do pretty darn CM….
In my head and heart, I tend to be an idealistic purist.
In following through on pure CM plans, I miss the mark.
Reasons: We’ve used things that have worked in the past prior to really digging into CM methods. They’ve worked well, so we kept going with them, but I tweak them to be as CM as possible.
Old habits die hard. I’ve been working on our plans for the next while and they will certainly be much more CM than most years in the past.
Our youngest will have the most CM education out of all five of our children. It gets easier to implement over the years and you get to leave behind quite a bit of the unnecessary for the beautiful. If you’re beginning with young children, I highly suggest not getting distracted with other methods. It makes it much easier to truly go deeper when you haven’t already set foot on a different road.
If you haven’t read Pocketful of Pinecones, by Karen Andreola, you might find it a helpful way to “see” a natural progression into CM methods.
I’m not. I’m a CM/Unit Study/with Closet Unschool tendencies. I love CM and SCM has been a wonderful encouragement to me. I appreciate their ideas, use some of their products and free guides, and love combining children into family studies. Living books are key for us, as is a broad feast of ideas spread before the children.
Tristan, I think we were separated at birth! I laughed about the “closet unschooler” we are the same way! I do have certain things I would like them to accomplish, but I am laid back about getting them there. They’ve been doing fine this way!
CM method is about spreading a feast and exposing them to lots of things, we do that, we have not been doing a lot a “family reading” the children have their own literature lists and I have been more lax with my ds on that. he has just began reading “seriously” this year so I do not overtax him with extensive reading assignments.
I am not a purist. 🙂
With my older kids (not graduated) I started out pretty textbooky, then we did a lot of unit studies mixed with some science unschooling and CM principals and methods and when I realized we were dealing with a lot of learning challenges we used some other alternative methods to try to help as well, with varying levels of success. As they finshed up high school we were back to being more textbooky because I felt they needed it to be able to funtion in college. My oldest never really took to academics so has not gone to college, but my other son has done well, in honor society, etc.
With my younger set of kids (preschool and K) so far we have been pretty pure CM but depending on how you define “pure CM” I doubt it will stay that way. I think Charlotte Mason got many, many, many of the principals of education right and I will likely stick with those and many of her methods are wonderful but the specifics, the details about how to apply those principals can happen in a variety of ways and still be true to the principals of a liberal education and wonerful childhood. While there are some things we will probably revisit with the younger set, I know there are other things we won’t do again!
Pretty much, yes. Of course I’m always learning and there are things I’m not as diligent about as I should be (I.e. nature study) but I’m trying.
I’m not a purist either. I don’t agree with her on every single thing. We do follow basic CM ideas such as living books, lots of subjects, short lessons, delayed grammar, etc. I totally fail when it comes to nature study.
My kids are lucky to spend an hour outside each day. We also add in writing instruction (in addition to narrations). I don’t agree with her totally on many theological issues. We also use many SCM materials. I pretty much follow the free curriculum guide with a couple of substitutions. I would like to follow her methods a bit closer than what I do, but life keeps getting in the way. We just had our 5th baby and I had to cut back on many of the extras this year.
These are such interesting responses!
Holly, so glad to hear you say that you had to cut back on the extras after having your fifith. We had our fifth the summer before last and sort of had to cut back some on the extras too. I don’t feel so guilty now
With which theological issues do you disagree? Not a huge deal – just curious. ( If you would rather pm me that is okay too.)curlywhirly-What things would you not do again?
tailormade- I have read Pocketful of Pinecones….would you recccommend the other one, Blackberry Inn? I am not sure if that is the right title or not but I think that it is something like that. I loved Pocketful of Pinecones.
Robin- How old are your kids? Could you tell me how often you do oral narration and written narration? Have you found that CM methods work for your family without doing extra writing programs in elementary and jr high?
Thanks in advance!
I truly love the Charlotte mason method although we are far from purists! I have been known to use whatever works for us and not be afraid to try something else if it doesn’t work. What I love most about cm is all the extras like nature study, composer study, art study. I love living books and going at a slower pace. I feel like I need someone to hold my hand and show me the way still but we are getting there. I have unschooling tendencies as well!
Yes and no. I really love the CM philosophy of education, although I fail miserably. Most of our education is very CM-like, but I am still trying to do better. With that said, I like to throw in some additional hands on activities to support what we are learning in history or science. The main things that struck me about CM from the first time I heard Sonya speak was that children are not a bucket to be filled with information, but they are whole persons. As a music teacher, I appreciated that teaching the arts is important to a CM education. I am lacking in doing much nature study with the kids. It is easier when the weather is nice for sure, but it hasn’t been as much of a priority as I need it to be. I want to have a more CM-like homeschool for sure.
I try to be as much a purist as possible, though I fail miserably. I will tweak when truly necessary, like for next year, I need my 6th grader to be as independent as possible on account of a new baby showing up in November. So I am getting a grammar and writing program that she can do mostly independently (of course I’ll check her work). I am trying to keep that to just this one school year, though, just while we adjust to a 5th child in the mix. But really, I love CM’s methods and principles, or I wouldn’t have chosen her method in the first place. I am an all-in type of person, though, too, so if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it all the way or not at all. 🙂
I don’t like the word “purist”. So I wouldn’t call myself that. 🙂 I do intend to use as much of the method as I can, as I think the results Charlotte got, one will not get if one leaves parts out or changes parts. I do intentionally teach my kids to learn from lectures and texts in the last few years of schooling, and I do believe in teaching logic, but as much as I can possibly manage of the rest, I do.
I love the CM method and I think she was so very intuitive as to how children learn. However, even if I wanted to be a purist, I don’t think it is possible. I am a modern American living in modern America. Some things are just different and I have decided that is okay. I am taking all that I possibly can of what Charlotte wrote and using it as much as I can. Which is a lot.
That is good enough. I used to feel like I was failing at CM, but really, I am just using the principals but adapting to my modern life and what works for us. For example, I belive children in Charlotte’s school had school on Sat. We don’t do that. Also, many of the homes that had a governess trained by Mason also had kitchen help and other house staff. I don’t have that- except in my dreams!! I know that home schoolers in the PNEU followed Mason’s ideas rather completely. Still, I don’t feel my life is the same as theirs and I would be putting undue stress on myself and my family if I tried to emmulate CM completely.
I believe that is part of what makes homeschooling so very special. I can adapt things and customize the best of the best for my children. Just my thoughts.
Lishie- things I would not do again:
- Buy desks, pencil cups, scissors, etc and have my kindergarteners spend 3 hours a day in their desks doing “school”. Torture would be more like it! CM has it right when it comes to younger kids.
- Worry about being “behind”. Behind is relative and my child is doing the best he or she can do and is right where they are supposed to be. We can only more forward from where we are and the stress of being “behind” will making it even harder than it is already.
- Hesitate to seek out help for any learning challenges I may suspect. My older kids had multiple learning challenges that I didn’t address effectively or in a timely manner. Given their backgrounds, my younger kids will also face challenges so this time I want to be on it early and persistantly so it doesn’t cast a shadow over their whole education.
- Allow education to be drudgery. If it isn’t at least generally pleasant they don’t learn as much and constant conflict hinders our family relationships. Life is too short to not enjoy it!
- Allow dwadling and its cousin, sloppy work. I still see the ugly fruit of that and they are both adults!
- I didn’t take time to savor the experiences and enjoy my kids- I was in too much of a hurry to get the next thing done so I could cross it off my list. This time I am reveling in these years of learning and growing- nothing could be more precious.
Please also pardon my typos- I was horrified when I saw my previous message! Typing on my tablet is apparently dangerous!
With which theological issues do you disagree? Not a huge deal – just curious. ( If you would rather pm me that is okay too.)
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