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Leonie
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The thread on excellence in education has me re-reading Home Education and some of my CM influenced homeschooling books.
It makes me wonder - what brought you here, to an attraction to Charlotte Mason's ideas?
For me, Reading For The Children's Sake in 1991, articulated the vision I had for education and for my children. I was already using living books and looking at the arts - I just needed a push to include nature study! At that time, I didn't know any other Catholic homeschoolers and was refreshed by CM's focus on faith, even though she was not Catholic. These ideas provided a nice balance to my John Holt books on homeschooling, too.
What brought you to CM? Just curious. 
Leonie in Sydney
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Robin
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It was definitely reading For the Children's Sake about the year 2000 and I had been homeschooling for a year before that. I remember thinking THIS IS IT!!! Before then I only knew the classroom method of teaching and my limited intelligence would never have risen above the textbook/workbook drudgery on it's own. Not too many days went by until I found the CCM group on the internet (which was new to me also) and the rest is history...
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Robin Dupre
"If we become what God intended for us to become, we will set the world on fire." ~ St. Catherine of Siena
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Mary G
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I have to say it was reading Elizabeth's book, "lurking" on the CCM list and then reading CM's writings; Mater Amabilis is an added benefit as I can see how experienced moms plan for their kids -- what works, what doesn't and at what level.
I immediately saw the benefits to CM's methods as it is the way I would have LIKED to be taught, rather than with the workbooks -- I actually flunked 2nd grade spelling because I refused to do the speller! I still can see Sr. Janet, explaining to my mother that "Mary Clare can do it, she just won't"
Blessings (and thanks Elizabeth for "Real Learning")
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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Kelly
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Add to Leonie's recommendation of "For the Children's Sake", Susan Schaeffer Macauley's "For the Family's Sake". After reading so much CM literature, FTFS really seemed to me to describe the CM approach as it applies to the family, the whole CM lifestyle. This book really appealed to me, even tho we are far from being the soft-spoken, gentle family she seems to evoke!
Kelly, loud and obstreperous in FL
PS I also really liked "Surviving the Applewhites"!!
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mary
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I read many of the books already listed, but the one that really grabbed me was Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola. Elizabeth's tea time led to my reading her book and here I am.
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MacBeth
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My college debate partner wrote an article for Parents' Review (after I had suggested she homeschool!) and gave me a copy; it all just made sense. I had been leaning to the unschooling side of things anyway. CM was the perfect balance between excellent content and relaxed atmosphere. 
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
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MacBeth's Blog 
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Cheryl
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A friend of mine let me borrow the Charlotte Mason Companion. I think she said the Charlote Mason method was her ideal, but not exactly how she homeschooled. I was attracted to the living books, short lessons, no tests, picture study, composer study, and nature study. Then I searched online and found Catholic Charlotte Mason. It was very encouraging.
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Cheryl
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Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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Marybeth
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In reading Charlotte Mason's writings, I just fell in love with her philosophy and how she set up her school. I wish that was the type of school I was able to teach in after college. It is such a gentle loving approach to education. It makes me sad how much I missed out on with my students. 
I am hoping my ds education will be filled with living books,nature study, and many fun and fascinating rabbit trails! Thank you all for inspiring me on our homeschooling journey!
God bless,
Marybeth
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cathhomeschool
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We had been informally homeschooling for a couple of years before someone (can't remember who) mentioned Charlotte Mason to me. I had recently read The Well Trained Mind and was using some of their ideas, but was quickly figuring out that my children would never enjoy life if I followed their schedule! I started digging on the internet for info on CM and discovered that Cindy Kelly's group was about to host the first Houston CM conference. I went and just soaked it up! I've been hooked ever since. 
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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juliecinci
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I started with For the Children's Sake too. I had been to L'Abri in Switzerland during college and right after college. I loved Edith Schaffer's books. So when I began homeschooling, I discovered Susan's writing and it seemed like the natural extension of what L'Abri was all about.
That book, though, is more of a weighty philosophical tome. My church in California (the Anaheim Vineyard) used it as a Bible Study tool for the Women's Bible Study during 1992. It was wild to see all these moms reading and using that book, even when they weren't homeschoolers!
I really came on board with CM when I bought her original homeschooling series for myself. I also discovered Karen Andreola's book and set up a weekly breakfast discussion with three homeschooling friends. We did that for a year. It was the highlight of my week. I started going to art museums again, started listening to classical music, re-discovered the joy of reading fiction as an adult (not just the Sonlight books), discovered bird watching, a passtime I continue to this day.
I can't underestimate the value of the online yahoo groups that were devoted to CM teachings. I remember the voume of posts and the slowness of my computer. I learned so much back then, though, and still have a file of old posts from those years.
Charlotte Mason's vision for life, not just education, took me by the shirt collar and shook me awake. I credit CM with calling forth the real me that somehow got lost in missions, marriage and babies.
Then I moved to Ohio.
I was worried that I wouldn't find any other CM-ers. Silly me. I went to one homeschool meeting and found out that Catherine Levison was coming to Dayton the next weekend for a CM workshop. I attended. Catherine's books were great too.
I met a whole group of CM ladies in Dayton who met monthly to discuss CM's ideas and share ways to implement them. This group took me in and I quickly became one of the contributing members. (My writing business started around the same time.)
I spent three years with this group. We even trekked to MN to hear Susan Schaeffer-MacAuley speak at the L'Abri conference up there (a bit of a disappointment, actually, but a good conference nonetheless and I got to see Edith one last time before she died).
CM has had the most profound influence on my life as a home educator, as a teacher of language arts and as a real human being - someone who can and does want to continue my own growth in the liberal arts in addition to catalyzing it in my children.
I've read most of the homeschooling series and have been a part of and led discussions related to several of the books. She's a gem, even when her writing is in desperate need of a good edit. 
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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Willa
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Like most everyone else, it was "For the Children's Sake" that led me to CM. I had started into homeschooling reading John Holt, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Nancy Wallace's book (I think it is called "better than school", and early issues of the unschooling magazine "Growing without Schooling". These books gave me a vision of a companionship model of learning which reminded me of the best of MY childhood.
But I didn't know how to translate all that into everyday life, and when we formally started homeschooling, DH and I agreed on Seton, the only Catholic homeschool program we knew about at the time.
Though I learned a lot about my new Catholic faith in the Seton books, I found myself struggling through workbooks and record-keeping and having little time left over for my original "vision". Then I discovered Susan Schaeffar's book and it crystallized and clarified for me, the solution to the confusion I was experiencing.
That was back in 1994. I didn't really meet any other CM homeschoolers until I got online in 1998, when I found the Catholic Charlotte Mason group -- and the rest is history...
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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ALmom
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I learned about CM from For the Children's Sake. I devoured it along with several other books. Like Willa, I read the Holt book and also the Moore book, "Better Late than Early". I also didn't know quite how to put things all together in practical terms and planning and decision making have never been my strong point. I didn't know my faith very well and I wanted to be sure we didn't leave anything important out here - so I ordered everything - lives of saints (and read them all through in one night), etc. We did ok the first 4 years. Our dd taught herself to read, we took long walks, watched the birds, etc. Our oldest will tell me how much fun "school" was until 4th grade. Around this time our 2nd was approaching 9 and had shown no interest in anything but playing outside. We eventually discovered a vision problem which required intense therapy and left me exhausted with little time for the others and our oldest still would not do much writing even in areas of great interest except to write 2 stories. She didn't seem to grasp any kind of history sequence and we began to worry as they grew older. I seemed unable to elicit much in narration and only knew people who were doing traditional approaches. Panic set in. We did eventually discover that our oldest also had some vision issues which made her sick to her stomach after 20 minutes of reading/writing so no wonder she never seemed to want to advance beyond children's picture books and didn't like writing. We didn't know all this at the time and just kept trying different things. Between my insecurity and years of intense full - curriculums followed by years of nothing, I fear we have done a great disservice to our oldest who is about to begin her last year of high school. We've been doing vision therapy with a number of our children, and trying to keep our heads above water since then - even in desperation reverting to 10th grade Seton which has left us exhausted and burnt out and frustrated since our children have a finely developed memory and once they figured out that the way to do well in Seton was to memorize - they just stopped trying to learn in order to memorize and be done with it. I must admit this was my feeling as well although I had hoped the lesson plans would give me some sense of sanity.
You guys who have been there and back - Please give me some ideas of where to start. My gut says to find some really sweet and easy lesson plans that would let us finish quickly with the absolute necessities - whatever those are and then we could all relax and follow interests etc. My boys would like to study and identify wild plants right now, my one daughter is interested in middle ages and anything with lots of action and the oldest is so burnt out but very active in music and will be pursuing a music performance degree. You all seem to know where lots more resources are than I am aware of. I just found this site at the end of this school year. I will have 2 in therapy with one waiting so my time is limited. Thanks for your ideas
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Willa
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ALmom wrote:
| You guys who have been there and back - Please give me some ideas of where to start. My gut says to find some really sweet and easy lesson plans that would let us finish quickly with the absolute necessities - whatever those are and then we could all relax and follow interests etc. My boys would like to study and identify wild plants right now, my one daughter is interested in middle ages and anything with lots of action and the oldest is so burnt out but very active in music and will be pursuing a music performance degree. You all seem to know where lots more resources are than I am aware of. I just found this site at the end of this school year. I will have 2 in therapy with one waiting so my time is limited. Thanks for your ideas |
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Maybe we can start a brainstorm-for-next-year/debrief -from-last-year type thread? I know I'd like to get some ideas for next year as well. We could share what's worked and what we hope for in our future....
I could relate to your story, Janet. The individualized "real" learning path seems so scary and meandering sometimes, while the "one size fits all" mode of education feels like we're betraying our children and our own teaching authority and our sense of what learning is.
Quite a few homeschoolers I know have gone the Mother of Divine Grace route MODG as their children grow older and the family size increases. I've made use of their syllabi for a couple of my high school children in order to cut down on my own prep time and to give my teenagers a chance to work independently without having to come for me for new instructions all the time.
The syllabi are relatively simple, and usually combine a spine textbook with very good literature lists. We usually flex and tailor the syllabi when we use them but it just helps to give us something to work with. We also are enrolled with Kolbe and use their recommendations as a sort of baseline, though more the literature than the textbooks.
What you said about covering the necessities so you could pursue interests is sort of what we do in my house, though I certainly wouldn't claim that we've always been successful. St Thomas Aquinas calls it "Disciplina" vs "Inventio" (structured learning vs discovery/exploration) -- the Clarksons in their CM-oriented book "Educating the Whole HEarted Child" call it Discipline learning and Discovery learning.
So like you said, I try to choose a few subjects I really want to keep track of, usually math and a couple of others, and then the others can be more exploratory and interest-based.
I am afraid that is too general to help much, but it does help me a bit to start with a few core subjects that I consider crucial and then branch out from there. My oldest son is graduating from high school this year and was able to qualify for the college of his choice but I still have six to go, all very different from each other, and their mom isn't quite as young as she used to be! <sigh> I think I would burn out fast going to either ALL-structure or NO-structure, so I try to pace myself and find the happy medium where I feel our homeschool is functional if not perfect Mom has to be considered there too somewhere, especially when there are multiple ages and special needs involved.
Anyway, {{{{}}}} I tried to find the hug emoticon but for some reason my browser isn't cooperating. I'm glad you found the board -- I always am impressed by your insights.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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ALmom
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Willa,
Thanks so much for the support (including the hug) and the reminder that we strive to do the best we can and accept the fact that it isn't perfect. Boy, the more we get into homeschooling, the more aware I am of my faults (perfectionism is another one). I guess God wanted us to homeschool as much for my sake as for the children's.
One mom described the end of the year as a sort of parent-teacher conference with yourself which can sometimes end up seeing all the failures instead of the successes. I like the idea of having an opportunity to re-evaluate and plan for next year with other moms like you guys - so supportive!
I'm really glad I found this site - its been such a blessing - and often see just what I need even if I'm not in on the conversation.
Thanks all!
Janet
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Leonie
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Janet,
I woke up this morning with an unsettled feeling about my homeschool. And I have been homeschooling over 16 years, and with CM's ideas since 1991. I think , as Willa says, we all strive to do our best and , yes, that isn't always perfect.
Perhaps this is what attracted me to CM - I don't have to be perfect, I can use short lessons for the basics if I want and I can rely on nature and art and living books for the rest.
In "Pocketful of Pinecones", Karen A, writes of Carol, the book's character. Karen A. says that Carol starts with one or two of CM's ideas and then adds in another - and that she uses a workbook for arithmetic and then relies on living books and narration and copywork and nature study. Perhaps starting with one or two ideas is a help for you in your planning?
I am reflecting on my homeschool and why we are so "busy" and why this makes me unsettled - perhaps a reflection is good, for me and for you . As Willa suggested, that might make a good topic for a new thread.
Leonie in Sydney
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: What attracted you to CM's ideas?
