Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

Any Charlotte Mason Homeschoolers?

I've been wanting to discuss the Charlotte Mason Principles somewhere. Like one a week. Any takers?

I was thinking start with the first principle and discuss, share ideas, share articles/blog posts we have found that say something important about the principle.

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Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

I’ll participate :)

ETA: I’ve read most of several of her books, and we use Ambleside Online.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

We just switched from unschooling to Charlotte Mason. I'm still trying to figure it all out and discussing it really helps me absorb concepts.

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Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

Right now I'm just, you know, unschooling K with a bit of structured reading and math thrown in. But I'd be interested in following a Charlotte Mason discussion thread.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

I have read some of her works. We are charlot Mason inspired in our house. ( I would love to do more but early bird naturally falls closer to classical so we leave that way right now )

I would love to talk about her principles.

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Quite a few people in my online hs circles (some kind of connection to classical) talk about the significant overlap between CM and classical. Some consider her to be actually working within the classical tradition. I think CM and classical work well together - they have a lot in common.

I read some of CM's works back in the day, and I found them very inspiring - I'd love to discuss putting her principles into practice.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

we use simplycharlottemason.com with a sprinkling of ambleside. I'd be interested in the discussion although I feel like I'm not quite getting it.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

From everything I've read I've come to the opposite conclusion. Charlotte Mason and classical education (such as Classical Conversations) are antithetical.

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---------- Post added at 07:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:28 PM ----------

I'll start the Discussion.

The First Principle in original wording followed by a summary/modern rewording.

Children are born persons


Children are born persons - they are not blank slates or embryonic oysters who have the potential of becoming persons. They already are persons.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

I think it is worth this first principal that cm is so divergent from classical. Though they can look similar in how they work in a home.

For me this it means that I try to give even my small children a chance to tell me what they are thinking, or give me a clue of what is going on in there head.

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Here is the Merriam - Webster dictionary's definition of person.

Definition of person
1 : human, individual —sometimes used in combination especially by those who prefer to avoid man in compounds applicable to both sexes chairperson spokesperson
2 : a character or part in or as if in a play : guise
3 a : one of the three modes of being in the Trinitarian Godhead as understood by Christians
b : the unitary personality of Christ that unites the divine and human natures
4 a archaic : bodily appearance
b : the body of a human being; also : the body and clothing unlawful search of the person
5 : the personality of a human being : self
6 : one (such as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties
7 : reference of a segment of discourse to the speaker, to one spoken to, or to one spoken of as indicated by means of certain pronouns or in many languages by verb inflection

---------- Post added at 07:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:40 PM ----------

I believe parts 5 and 6 of the definition are what is relevant to this discussion.

5: the personality of a human being: self
6: one (such as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties

What is included in personhood? What is implicit in nature vrs countered/encouraged in nurture.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

Interesting :think. I don't know a lot about Classical Conversations. I'm on the "wisdom and virtue" side of traditional classical ed, though, and I just read a pertinent article from someone who takes a similar-ish view of classical ed: Six Reasons Why Charlotte Mason was Part of the Classical Tradition.

I suspect it depends a lot on what you mean by classical education - it's a pretty big umbrella term these days. And maybe it also depends on what you emphasize from CM - I know in discussions, classical-leaning CMers have talked about how a lot of the intro-to-CM books tend to focus on the younger years and the less structured parts of her method, and don't get into the fact that CM, in her works, advocated pretty rigorous academic work in the later years. Maybe it depends on which side of classical you draw on, and what parts of CM speak most to you, whether general you find CM and classical to be overlapping neighbors (as I have) or to be rather different things :think.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

I’m Charlotte Mason inspired and have used My Father’s World for my oldest and/or Ambleside for years 0 to 2 (DD2 listened in though she wasn’t formally required to narrate until this year). This year has been interesting in that I was given Abeka curriculum and tried to make it work, but put it aside and went back to learning through living books. I’d like to go back to Ambleside Online since dd2 is 7 and I want her to know the formidable lists of attainments by age six.

I’ve only read parts of Karen Andreola’s A Charlotte Mason Companion.

With respect to children already being persons, for me, I try to pay close attention to my children and the characteristics they exhibit from babyhood, not assuming or requiring that any of them be exactly like the other or like any other person. My first child has always been very different than me so I learned early on to allow her to be the person that she already is. I believe that they are influenced by their surroundings, but I think their response will be unique and influenced by who they already are. I hope that makes sense. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you....” Jeremiah 1:5

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

Personhood.
The person you are, in spite of circumstances?
The outgoing, the person who always sees the glass as half full.
Tallents and strengths.
Improvement of weaknesses is always possible, but strengths will always be strengths.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

You can find people who state that Classical Conversations isn't classical. I don't know enough about it to have an opinion but there's some who do.

Re: Charlotte Mason Principles Discssion Thread
 

Interesting, as reason 2 that CM is part of the classical tradition (per the link I posted above) is *because* of her first principle:
~*~

WRT children are persons, I tend to think of that as children being *fellow* persons - that they are as fully human as anyone. Everything that is necessary to the human experience, children already have when they are born. They are lacking in experience and in *developing* their faculties, but they *have* all the essential human faculties - they aren't lacking in anything essential to being human. They think, they feel, they trust, they desire some things and seek to avoid others. Their worlds are small, but they interact with them in a fully human way - children are rational beings, too.

WRT teaching, children being persons means that I don't require them to do things that I myself don't do (or haven't done). I don't teach them things that are just fit for kids, but not for adults; rather I teach them things that are fit for *humans*, all humans (me included). I was re-reading The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis, and he was talking about the difference between education-as-inculcation and education-as-indoctrination. The difference revolved around whether you saw children as being part of the same species as you (which, since we are people, is another way of saying whether you see children as persons (like you) or not). If you saw children as persons, as the same species as you, then the relationship between teacher and student was like that of an adult bird and a baby bird. The adult nurtured in the child what the child needed to grow up to be a full adult - he gave to the child the best of what he had, so that the child could grow up to be a full adult like him.

But if you saw children as a different species, then the relationship between teacher and student was like that of a poultrykeeper and the birds he raises. The poultrykeeper raises and teaches his birds for *his* benefit, not for the birds' benefit. He teaches his birds to act in ways that he himself does not act, and to live in ways that he does not live, and to do so for reasons that the birds do not know or share in. He's not raising up birds to be good birds by bird standards, but to be useful birds by human standards. That's indoctrination - teaching kids to follow principles you yourself don't follow, to believe things that you yourself don't believe. IOW, something that's the result of *not* considering children as fellow persons.

For us, that means that dh and I "follow our own rules", as we say in our house ;). The things we tell the kids to do apply to us, too. And the things we tell the kids to do are meant to help build up good habits not just for now, but for *life*. And us adults are persons, too :giggle - we need good life habits, too :yes. So our snack rules aren't just a kid thing, but are (supposed to be, trying to be) a good guideline for how to fit snacks into life for everyone. Ditto our fledgling screen rules - it's not just about protecting the kids from undue screen influence, but about figuring out how screens should and shouldn't fit into our lives, *all* our lives. It also means, wrt school, that I don't require subjects that I am unwilling to learn myself. If Latin is good for my kids to learn, then it's good for Mom to learn, too ;).

~*~

I also think of "children are born persons" as meaning humans are *persons*, not machines. We have souls, we are more than just the material, we are not just special, better computers (or, increasingly, inferior computers :-/). Computers just aren't a good model for human thinking. People aren't computers with emotions tacked on. People are *persons*, people seek to know the *essences* of things, to know what things *are* and what they *mean*. Human logic is so much bigger and grander and *real* than computer logic. And grammar-study-for-humans is so much bigger and richer and meaningful than grammar-rules-for-computers. Yet today we use computer logic for humans, and not just computers; we teach grammar to humans like we teach it to computers; and in so doing, we destroy the ability of humans to study the humanities. (That's been my project of the past few months - breaking out of the logic-for-computers trap, and learning what a human logic looks like; and learning how humanistic grammar is rooted in meaning and *reality* (as opposed to grammar-rules-for-computers, which can be used and parsed without any understanding of what you are saying), and generally trying to learn how to study the humanities like a human.)