Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Willa
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Posted: Jan 25 2007 at 4:22pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Helen wrote:
Has the discussion begun?
I can't make a long post now, but on the very first page of Volume Six, the Synopsis, I was reminded of the Catholic psychologist, Dr. Conrad Baars...
Maybe more later


I would love to hear more, Helen. Please share when you have time!

The introduction to Vol 6: A Philosophy of Education is online here
and the whole book is here

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 8:28am | IP Logged Quote Mary G

So, should we start with the introduction today?

I think that much of her introduction can be applied to the education system in the US. In her intro, CM talks about the Germans taking Darwin's theories as permission to take over (this would be just after WW1 she's writing about).

Now, the public system (and in fact many Catholic and private schools I've seen) have embraced this idea of separation of faith and reason, separation of the material from the spirit would be how CM would explain it. As we've seen, this doesn't work! If you pull out the reason, the spirit, you also remove morals, natural law and TRUTH. The result is interest in books/movies like The DaVinci Code where truth is changeable....

This is one of the reasons I have my kids learning at home. I don't want to separate faith and reason; I want them to understand the TRUTH which is the sum of the Catholic Church....I want them to love learning becuase my kids are humans who have been given a free will that must be trained to the good, to seek the Truth and to live and learn with these .....

Am I babbling here?



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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 9:24am | IP Logged Quote Maryan

Thanks Willa for the link -- because my books never came! So I'm reading the introduction at Ambleside...

CM, in introduction: "We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance, men's souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge: but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. "

Please humor me -- my mind doesn't function as well as it used to --

So Mary, CM is saying that a soul cannot be awakened to the love of knowledge if faith and reason are separated. That's why the "modern soul" is not awakened? Is that what these sentences are saying?? That school can only be "pleasant," but not not something to be passionate about if it's devoid of the fullness of truth found in Faith and Reason together?

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 9:28am | IP Logged Quote Maryan

Mary G wrote:
In her intro, CM talks about the Germans taking Darwin's theories as permission to take over (this would be just after WW1 she's writing about).


Also - I can't claim to be a good reader, and I'm reading on-line while nursing, then leaving to play with kids, come back etc....

But I can't find the part about the German's and Darwin in the Intro... am I reading the wrong thing?

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 4:44pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

I see -- the author's preface is labelled as the Introduction at Ambleside.   The Introduction is in fact here
-- so my former link is only to the preface, which is a different thing altogether.

Make sense? (I seem to be joining the migraine-sufferer host recently..)



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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 4:50pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Helen has her hands full, I am thinking, so here is a link to Dr Conrad Baars website
and here's the wikipedia article about him.

A bit more about him with some links at theotokos.org

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Posted: Jan 29 2007 at 8:10pm | IP Logged Quote Maryan

Whoops! Thanks for getting me on track!

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Posted: Feb 07 2007 at 6:38pm | IP Logged Quote Natalia

I just finished the introduction. I am behind. I thought it was a great summary of her education.
I was left though with a feeling of failure. I don't think I have fed my dc ideas in the sense she talks about. I am especially not good at "getting out of the way" and let them interact with the ideas.When I started reading this book I was realizing that even though we have been studying history for a long time now. i don't know how much my kids have retained. I always have consoled myself with the idea that they are being "exposed" to the material and to a way of thinking. But she seems to say that education is an intentional pursuit of knowledge. She talks about how "her kids" know the material. Well, I feel that my kids don't know the material, they have an idea but the deep knowledge she is talking about? I don't think so.
So, is there value in exposing them to ideas instead of requiring knowledge?

Her method seems great and she says at the end of the introduction how the results can only be seen if we adhere to her method "not more or less but strictly"
Maybe that is why I haven't seen the result that she expected from her students. I have been inconsistent in the use of her method, narration especially. Then I also find her principle of letting the student interact with the ideas elusive. I guess it is because it requires a complete trust in the capability of the student to do the interaction. And I guess that brings us back to her first premise: kids are persons with all the capabilities of persons. Ideas and the interactions with them is not easily quantifiable, seems to me.


well, I have to go now. i hope it doesn't matter that I got back to the introduction...

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Posted: Feb 10 2007 at 5:57am | IP Logged Quote Paula in MN

Mary G wrote:
Am I babbling here?



Not at all! In fact, I had even highlighted this part of her synopsis: "We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and spiritual life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life."

She really said it right there. Almost like a mission statement!

I also like some of her comments in the Introduction:

"A great future lies before the nation which shall perceive that knowledge is the sole concern of education proper, as distinguished from training, and that knowledge is the necessary daily food of the mind."

and:

"Children have a natural appetite for knowledge which is informed with thought."

I had not read any of her books up to this point, only Elizabeth's and Karen Andreola's and things online. I am so glad we are doing this -- I love her writings!


Oh, and Natalia -- I went back farther than the Introduction!

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Posted: Feb 10 2007 at 1:05pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Natalia wrote:

Her method seems great and she says at the end of the introduction how the results can only be seen if we adhere to her method "not more or less but strictly"
Maybe that is why I haven't seen the result that she expected from her students. I have been inconsistent in the use of her method, narration especially. Then I also find her principle of letting the student interact with the ideas elusive. I guess it is because it requires a complete trust in the capability of the student to do the interaction.


I know that the first time I read "not more or less but strictly" in her book I was left with a bit of discouragement, too.    I'm not entirely sure what she meant by it. It seems to me that if you follow a method "strictly" with a fearful sense that it's the only way to go, it becomes what she called a "system" and wooden. You have to be able to make it work for your own circumstances.   

Elsewhere she seems to imply that the crucial part is to absorb true principles and then the method will follow from there. So maybe she was saying that following her method without really paying attention to the principles won't lead to success.   For example, if you use CM methods like narration but still rely overmuch on grades and rewards rather than the "desire for knowledge" (just using that as an example).   

Maybe another example would be appropriate. There was a letter in the Parents' Review saying that one teacher was using narration, but she would have the children each give a whole narration rather than starting from where the last child left off.   Basically, the repetition was boring and the lesson failed in its effect.   Concerning Repeated Narration

Anyway, reading that passage about "more or less" doesn't bother me quite as much now because basically, you can only go forward from where you are now.

It might help to concentrate on what you have now -- and I'm sure you do have a lot of good things going on in your homeschool -- and then focus on where you want to go now in light of what you know now.   At least, that sometimes works for me to short-circuit my melancholic/idealistic all or nothing tendencies.

BTW I think it's great to be able to go backwards to earlier parts of the discussion -- I think that's one of the reasons that Mary G thought it would work better to post the separate chapters as separate threads -- for easier retrieval and also so people could pick up where they are and comment as they get to that part.

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Posted: Feb 12 2007 at 11:45am | IP Logged Quote Joann in AL

Oooh, oooh, so glad to find this. I JUST last week received CM's books and I am so glad that there's a book discussion going on!!!!!

I so empathize with everything all of you have said here.

But I wanted to comment on the "faith and reason" comments above. Last week or maybe the week before our dear Holy Father spoke about how separating faith and reason leads to a cultural schizophrenia. I think that's exactly what's been happening over the last several decades. I'm reassured by his naming this cultural malady, it gives me great hope that children who are taught that faith and reason are inseparable will realy be in a position to do good and fight evil.

I'll pop over to the Chapter one discussion now. But I wanted to read the Intro discussion first.
SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!
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Posted: Feb 13 2007 at 4:08pm | IP Logged Quote alicegunther

I just read the introduction this afternoon, and so many things struck me.

No time to write now, but so happy to be on board for this discussion!

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Posted: Feb 13 2007 at 9:06pm | IP Logged Quote Helen

WJFR wrote:
Helen has her hands full, I am thinking, so here is a link to Dr Conrad Baars website
and here's the wikipedia article about him.

A bit more about him with some links at theotokos.org

So sorry!!
Nothing like arriving really late for a party

I haven't gotten further than the "Short Synopsis"
(I'll try to do better )

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon, whether by the direct use of fear of love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon anyone natural desire.”

With this Miss Mason concludes
“Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments – the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.”

In the little reading I’ve done with Dr. Baars works, he seems to remark often of the harm that can be done to children by using fear. I think the quote from Miss Mason’s synopisis sums up very well the sentiment of Dr. Baars. (No expert here)

Do you think this quote from Dr. Baars on moral training is similar to the educational philosophy of Miss Mason?
“But in the matter of morals the child needs to be educated as to what is moral and what is immoral, and why this is so. With proper education offered at the right time—and this always varies from child to child-the child’s love and desire for the good have an opportunity to develop, and likewise a dislike and aversion for the evil. And it is this growing combination of emotional liking and desiring the good, together with the will to do good, that leads to true will power, and also to experiencing true joy in doing what is good."

“The child needs the daily, living example of parents who live a moral life.”

Feeling and Healing Your Emotions (Logos International: 1979), 44.

A separate question…
In the synopsis
2. Children are not born good or evil but with possibilities for good and for evil.

Has this been discussed?

I can see why some Catholics become uncomfortable with other Catholics using Charlotte Mason if they read this line and don’t go any further. The wording is not Catholic wording but is it Catholic in content? Does she mean the same thing that Catholics believe, that we are basically good but with a flaw?


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Posted: Feb 14 2007 at 1:33pm | IP Logged Quote Joann in AL

I haven't read all of CM's books. But what I've read (almost all of Character Formation, half of Home Ed, two-thirds of Phil. of Ed.) rings quite true to what I know of our Faith.

I believe she is simply saying, "Children are born persons with free will and parents need to train the child's will."

I don;t if I agree with every method. Mostly I wonder if I disagree because I have not thoroughly trained my own will. And therefore don't always have the patience with my children that I ought.

Joann

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Posted: Feb 14 2007 at 2:33pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Helen wrote:

A separate question…
In the synopsis
2. Children are not born good or evil but with possibilities for good and for evil.

Has this been discussed?
The wording is not Catholic wording but is it Catholic in content? Does she mean the same thing that Catholics believe, that we are basically good but with a flaw?


Helen, very glad to see you.
I worried about this when I first came upon it in her writings. As you say, the way it's said is not Catholic. I thought about it quite a lot.

My guess:
She is speaking as an educator here. Not rephrasing even an Anglican catechism but just referring practically to how we come into the world. A newborn is not a reprobate nor a saint, per se.... but could become either (there is the "possibilities" part.

I think she was subtly discarding two heresies.
One, that a child is born a little angel and the world corrupts him (a la Rousseau).
Two, the Calvinist one that children are born with "total depravity".

Both heresies/false hypotheses lead to errors in philosophy which lead to errors in child-raising and educating.
\
In Chapter 3 which we haven't gotten to yet in our discussion, she writes:

A well-known educationalist has brought heavy charges against us all on the score that we bring up children as 'children of wrath.' He probably exaggerates the effect of any such teaching, and the 'little angel' theory is fully as mischievous. The fact seems to be that children are like ourselves, not because they have become so, but because they are born so; that is, with tendencies, dispositions, towards good and towards evil, and also with a curious intuitive knowledge as to which is good and which is evil.

Here we have the work of education indicated. There are good and evil tendencies in body and mind, heart and soul; and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion.


To me this seems pretty close to the traditional Catholic, philosophical view expressed most recently in the CCC.    What do you think?   Do you or anyone see any troubling elements?

Also I have read in different places that in her time, people tended to believe that children from poor homes were somehow categorically different and lesser in virtue than rich, gently brought up children.   I find it difficult to believe that Bible reading Christians could actually simplistically fall into such an error but perhaps there was some general feeling in the air that poor people were somehow responsible for their own poverty -- you see that nowadays in Ayn Rand's philosophy.

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Posted: Feb 14 2007 at 8:00pm | IP Logged Quote Helen

WJFR wrote:
Helen wrote:

A separate question…
In the synopsis
2. Children are not born good or evil but with possibilities for good and for evil.

Has this been discussed?
The wording is not Catholic wording but is it Catholic in content? Does she mean the same thing that Catholics believe, that we are basically good but with a flaw?


Helen, very glad to see you.
I worried about this when I first came upon it in her writings. As you say, the way it's said is not Catholic. I thought about it quite a lot.

My guess:
She is speaking as an educator here. Not rephrasing even an Anglican catechism but just referring practically to how we come into the world. A newborn is not a reprobate nor a saint, per se.... but could become either (there is the "possibilities" part.

I think she was subtly discarding two heresies.
One, that a child is born a little angel and the world corrupts him (a la Rousseau).
Two, the Calvinist one that children are born with "total depravity".


Willa, I think your reasoning is very well founded. I didn't even include CM's first precept
A child is a person
Who needs to say this today?

The opposite exists. We need to explain why parents should have something to say about a child's decisions and education.

(My battery is low, I'll have to run) but can I read her statement:

Children are not born[totally] good or [totally] evil but [rather good with a flaw which endows them] with possibilities for good and for evil.

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Posted: Feb 14 2007 at 8:09pm | IP Logged Quote alicegunther

Well done, Willa and Helen. I really appreciate this and think your reasoning makes perfect sense.

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Posted: Feb 15 2007 at 9:37pm | IP Logged Quote Genevieve

Thank you Willa for starting the ball on this! I'm enjoying these thread immensely.

"it does not matter what a child learns but only how he learns it"

This thread seems to be prevalent even today. Even if knowledge is not obtained, at least the child has "learned to think" and picked up good "study skills". I'm not saying these are not good things in itself. However, I believe critical thinking skills & ability to "study" well should be the servant to knowledge. For what use would these tools be if there were no substance to apply them. I wish she would carry on the importance of knowledge to loving and serving our Lord. For it seemed as if we have come to a dead end. For what purpose is knowledge for isn't it also a means to an end. Doesn't classical education refer to the "free man"? Yet even freedom to think, similar to the freedom God gave us, is so that we can freely choose God. Am I making sense?

"teacher shall teach less and student learn more"

I am a little trouble with this. How does lesson planning fit into this? Rabbit trails and even narration prompts seem directed to teach. It seems like CM wanted children to draw their own conclusion and connections. She prescribes that often it is better for the teacher to step aside and allow the idea (books, art, music, nature) to "speak" directly to the child. Yet we can't hope that the child can figure the laws of physics all by himself. it seems as if there is a fine balance between serving ideas and connecting all the dots for them. How do lesson planning and directed questions fit into this?


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Posted: Feb 17 2007 at 8:04pm | IP Logged Quote Willa

Genevieve wrote:

"teacher shall teach less and student learn more"

I am a little trouble with this. How does lesson planning fit into this? Rabbit trails and even narration prompts seem directed to teach. It seems like CM wanted children to draw their own conclusion and connections. She prescribes that often it is better for the teacher to step aside and allow the idea (books, art, music, nature) to "speak" directly to the child. Yet we can't hope that the child can figure the laws of physics all by himself. it seems as if there is a fine balance between serving ideas and connecting all the dots for them. How do lesson planning and directed questions fit into this?


Well, CM said that lessons have to be carefully prepared and carried out. I think she would have agreed with you that it would be inefficient to let a child figure out the laws of physics without any help.

First of all, she said that some of the things we as teachers do to help children learn actually make them more passive.    I've certainly seen this at times with my own kids.   You can learn to do a worksheet without ever really thinking about it or actually retaining much.   So she was saying her methods were simpler and more natural than many of the more complex methods that teachers use if they don't respect the child as a learner by birthright.

I think the other thing is some of her methods provide a framework that can be built on it later years. For example, lots of natural, free experience with the laws of physics helps the child to understand the more formal ideas when they are presented.   I see my little ones pouring water or sand... as they get older they understand gravity, displacement or whatever because they have already seen it in effect.   CM said a child who has seen a river can imagine one that he has not seen.

Finally, CM thought that usually even the very best teachers usually didn't have the expertise or real understanding of a given subject that the author of a "living book" would have.   If my child reads "Brendan Voyage" he's reading about something that I could never impart to him from MY experience.   So letting them learn as much as possible from living books gives them a wider education than a teacher can give them speaking just from his or her own personal knowledge.

She said a teacher who taught her way would still have plenty to do, but her position would be more that of a guide, mentor and fellow-traveller than the "expert" or repository of all knowledge in person.   SO it makes a teacher's job less burdensome if she can rely on great books, on Nature, and on the child's own mind and imagination which assimilates and digests.

Sorry it's so long.... hope someone else can chime in and be a little more concise.

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Posted: Feb 17 2007 at 10:36pm | IP Logged Quote SuzanneG

WJFR wrote:
Helen wrote:

A separate question…
In the synopsis
2. Children are not born good or evil but with possibilities for good and for evil.

Has this been discussed?
The wording is not Catholic wording but is it Catholic in content? Does she mean the same thing that Catholics believe, that we are basically good but with a flaw?


Helen, very glad to see you.
I worried about this when I first came upon it in her writings. As you say, the way it's said is not Catholic. I thought about it quite a lot.


Willa: Your explanation that followed this helped me a lot (about the disguarding of the two heresies of the time - a la Rousseau and Calvinist).

I still don't understand why the statement "Children are not born good or evil but with possibilities for good and for evil" is not exactly Catholic. This made me go to CCC 406-409 to help remind me exactly how it is worded in here. I'm still confused. What would the Catholic statement be?

WJFR wrote:
In Chapter 3 which we haven't gotten to yet in our discussion, she writes:

A well-known educationalist has brought heavy charges against us all on the score that we bring up children as 'children of wrath.' He probably exaggerates the effect of any such teaching, and the 'little angel' theory is fully as mischievous. The fact seems to be that children are like ourselves, not because they have become so, but because they are born so; that is, with tendencies, dispositions, towards good and towards evil, and also with a curious intuitive knowledge as to which is good and which is evil.

Here we have the work of education indicated. There are good and evil tendencies in body and mind, heart and soul; and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion.


To me this seems pretty close to the traditional Catholic, philosophical view expressed most recently in the CCC.    What do you think?   Do you or anyone see any troubling elements?

I don't at all. I feel like i'm beating a dead horse, but I just want to see where the people who think CM was anti-Catholic are coming from.

Genevieve wrote:

"I wish she would carry on the importance of knowledge to loving and serving our Lord. For it seemed as if we have come to a dead end. For what purpose is knowledge for isn't it also a means to an end. Doesn't classical education refer to the "free man"? Yet even freedom to think, similar to the freedom God gave us, is so that we can freely choose God. Am I making sense? "

CM wrote this (same quote as above - i'm not good with my mulitple quotes yet )

"and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion. "

Hmmmm....what do you think Genevieve? Is this what you're talking about? She doesn't elaborate, but maybe she will later....it's not like she's at a loss for words for furthering a point (six volumes!!!)


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