I recently saw a Facebook discussion about 4-day-a-week public schools. There were the usual pros and cons from teachers and parents that had experience with it, including one person claiming that 4-day-a-week students had problems with retention. I found that claim odd for a couple of reasons: Just one more day off makes this difference? If so, what do they do with the whole summer off? After these questions, I immediately thought of just what is it that is being expecting to be retained, and how is it being delivered to the children. Do these people even understand what a child is and how the mind works?
I just wrote this post a few days ago, sharing a bit of how the Charlotte Mason philosophy eased my job as teacher, as well as how it gave my son an education to last a lifetime. One of those things is understanding how the child, like all of us, has a mind that feeds on ideas. It is a mind that is constantly at work, even when we’re not aware. Charlotte Mason taught that the mind needs its proper food. And when given this proper food, the mind will still be working on it even when away from the desk or schoolroom. In fact, it may be that the down time is the time when the real work of these living ideas is happening. They need this time for the images from the lessons — whether they be a story, history, nature lore, geography, science, math, art or music — to do their magic. What goes on in our minds is really of a spiritual (as in not material or physical) nature. The work and events of the mind cannot be weighed or measured — or very well given a grade, for that matter. And often the results are not immediate. But, again, it requires the proper food, and I would bet these kids are underfed to the point of malnutrition.
Then arose the question,––Cannot people get on with little knowledge? Is it really necessary after all? My child-friends supplied the answer: their insatiable curiosity shewed me that the wide world and its history was barely enough to satisfy a child who had not been made apathetic by spiritual malnutrition. ~Philosophy of Education, p. 11, 12
The mind that is expected to do this retaining of informationis a spiritual organism (again, meaning not material or physical) that needs to be fed, and as with any organism that we wish to be healthy, it needs its proper food. But we tend to think of it as a big brain, more of a machine or computer, doing all this storing of information, analysis and logical work, when much more is going on that has to do with the Imagination, a mysterious realm that has little to do with our conscious efforts of analysis and argument. The mind must be fed with ideas from a wide range of subjects that spark that imagination.
C.S. Lewis, mostly known today as a Christian apologist, spent his youth and up to the age of 32 as an atheist. A year after coming to terms that there is a God, he became a believer in Christ. He talks about the moment when he came to belief in Christ as happening on the way to the zoo, when he claims he was giving it no thought. When I read about that this morning, I thought, Isn’t that so like education? Isn’t that how the mind of a child, and all of us, works? All the thoughts of a lifetime, especially those from his recent talks with his friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, were at work even in that moment when he wasn’t giving it a thought. What he said later was that he had to stop arguing, using his rational mind, doing all the logic tricks, and just experience it. He still couldn’t grasp the idea of redemption, but he chose to accept it without understanding it. If you read his works of the 1930s, after his conversion, you find some that illustrate his struggles, but few that bring you to the conversion. It took him nearly a decade to begin to line up the sequence that led him there. And then what follows is two decades of massive writing, fiction and non-fiction, inspired by his new understanding, before his death on November 22, 1963, a week shy of his 65th birthday.
The problem with retention over a 3 day weekend, or a Christmas break, or a whole summer, is not the child’s problem. And no rescheduling of school — more days, longer days, start ’em at 2 and keep going until 21 — will fix it, either. It is about what you get (proper food, rich banquet of ideas) and how you get it (I’ve got a list of wrong ways, if you’re interested) when you are there.
Now how will the schools of any kind go about fixing that?
In May of 2021 my son graduated from high school, after being “home”schooled from birth. Home is in quotes as an homage to the many activities and communities he was a part of outside of our home throughout his schooling years. Having had four years now to reflect on that experience, and continuing to stay involved in the world of education and to witness other families that are “still in the trenches”, I realize that my own homeschooling tenure had frustrations and fears aplenty, yet there was something always there that kept me on course and out of the mental ward.
First, let’s talk about those frustrations and fears. I will list only a few, which I’m pretty sure most every parent, homeschooling or not, can relate to. (I would like to note here that I found most schooling frustrations and fears were parenting frustration and fears.) After I share these, I will give you just a sampling of the wisdom that encouraged and strengthened me, and helped me grow in the resilience I needed to get back up and finish each task to the end.
My 2nd grader struggling for an answer. See picture further down to see the fruit of these early math wars
Although I was a bit older than the average first-time mom, I was plagued with all the worries of what family and friends would think of how and what I was doing. It was also hard not to compare myself, my child, my home to other moms and their picture-perfect children and homes, mostly seen on social media.
Speaking of home life, throughout my son’s first 18 years our living situations were not always ideal. Probably our most stellar was the year we lived on 20 acres with bluffs and canyons across the road to explore. That’s the year he was 8.5 to 9.5. What followed that, though, was about 7 months moving from place to place on the other side of the country, staying in some fine homes, but still nomads. Then on our return, our son spent his final school years in a tiny city apartment. Not ideal for casual nature study, nor for a boy who had previously preferred to be outside, especially digging.
You might notice I’ve been saying “my son”, and yes, that’s it. My son is an only child. (You can hear me talk to Cindy Rollins about homeschooling an Only Child here.) Some people, overwhelmed with their large family, might say, Lucky You! But hopefully you can also acknowledge the difficulty, awkwardness at times, of schooling an Only. It could be, well, lonely for the only. I’d see friends talking about their children play-acting stories they read in school, singing folk songs and hymns together as family, and see those beautiful pictures of the family together at a table busy at school work, and over here ― just me and my son. (You can listen to the podcast with Cindy to find out more about that, and ways we adjusted to meet his “special needs”.)
Perhaps there was extra pressure on my son, extra anxiety for me, with him being my “only hope”, my only chance to get it right. I did spend a lot of time worrying about his future. You know that thing that happens as soon as your head hits the pillow ― all your failures of the day, looming brighter somehow in the darkness, weigh on you and have you tossing and turning. Is it enough? Am I giving him enough to give him a strong beginning as he launches out into the world? What didn’t we get done that day? I’m sorry I was so frustrated or whatever my bad behavior throughout the day was. Did I even feed him enough?
My son was a brilliant kid from birth. For real. He was very active, very inquisitive. Lots of energy and lots to say from the time he could put a sentence together before he was two years old. He was also not always compliant, and we went through a period of reminding him to not be contrary ― so much so that when he was about four years old, he volunteered to say the prayer before the meal at a large family gathering. In his prayer he said, “And God, please help me not to be contrary”, after which the cousins, all older, turned to their parents and said, “What’s contrary mean?” I tell you all this to say that “doing school” with my son wasn’t always sunshine and roses, with the boy saying, “Oh, mumsy let me narrate beautifully what you just read to me.” “Oh, yes, I see this and that in that painting.” “Look! I have finished filling out all these addition problems in 15 minutes with joy in my heart.” Nope. There was a lot of “Why are we doing this?” “I don’t know what I just read.” “Pardon me, I fell asleep.” There was a lot of me feeling tolerated by him with what I was trying to give him.
These were the doubts and stresses and nigglings I felt throughout, and I realize now that it’s remarkable that I didn’t crash and burn under the pressure of it all. But that brings me to the point of this post!
What Charlotte Said
After spending most of our years feeling like a Nature Study failure, my adult son now delights in taking his mother for a spin around the pond, asking her what she sees and teaching her the Why.
I’m going to now tell you some things that Charlotte Mason said. But I want you to know this did not all come solely from me reading her words; it came from daily online interaction with my fellow Mason homeschoolers, especially the Advisory and users of AmblesideOnline, and Cindy Rollins. These women remain my most trusted friends to this day.
Diet for the body is abundantly considered, but no one pauses to say, “I wonder does the mind need food, too, and regular meals, and what is its proper diet?”
I have asked myself this question and have laboured for fifty years to find the answer, and am anxious to impart what I think I know, but the answer cannot be given in the form of ‘Do’ this and that, but rather as an invitation to ‘Consider’ this and that; action follows when we have thought duly.
Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 24
Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) was a British educator who spent her entire adult life observing and considering what we are as humans and how we attain knowledge. By the time she is writing her sixth volume, Towards A Philosophy of Education, she has been at this for fifty years, as she says in the quote above. It was published the year of her death. She was 81. She was no 20- or 30-year-old ‘influencer’ looking for an audience. (Her first volume, Home Education, based on a series of lectures, was published when Mason was 44.)
My friends and colleagues of the AmblesideOnline Advisory and Cindy Rollins have carried Charlotte’s work into the 21st century. They continue to ‘Consider’ this and that, and even in their own retirement as homeschool moms, they are full-time studying the philosophy and counseling others in its use. The AmblesideOnline curriculum, put together with much research and continual refining, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next year. Cindy Rollins has so many projects training young mothers and keeping the older ones encouraged that I’d take up the rest of the space here to list them and tell you about them. These women have been my constant companions and words of wisdom in my ears for two decades. All due to the work of Charlotte Mason a century ago.
1. Children are born persons. ~Charlotte Mason
Do you know what a relief it was to me to know that I didn’t have to make him learn? I just needed to provide the proper diet.
Lynn Bruce at AO: Deep in the Heart of Texas, 2016. I believe I captured the very moment when she said, “We did this so you wouldn’t have to.”
With the help of her colleagues in the Parents’ National Educational Union (PNEU), Mason developed a list of 20 Principles, the first of which you see above. What exactly did they mean by this, and how did this help me in my daily life with my son? Notice the word born. Whatever this is, they come this way. They come with a mind capable of learning and working on whatever is put before them. From birth. In Principle 9 we are told that “the child’s mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather…a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.” Do you know what a relief it was to me to know that I didn’t have to make him learn? I just needed to provide the proper diet. And that’s where the work of the AO Advisory comes in. Those women laboured for thousands of hours, reading books, keeping some and tossing others. They gathered the best of music and art for those studies. They built a website that organized all of this by school years, provided discussion forums for help, and loaded that website with hundreds of other articles and lists. As Lynn Bruce said at AO’s 2016 gathering in Texas, “We did this so you wouldn’t have to.” Those moments when my son didn’t seem to be responding, I could have peace because I understood that my student’s mind would be at work. His mind was feeding on the banquet of books and music and art and poetry that the AO Advisory had provided for us. And I can tell you that four years after his graduation I am seeing the fruit of that mind-work. He may not remember specific books and stories, but the thoughts of those writers’ minds did their work in his ― in spite of his seeming resistance at times.
6. When we say that “education is an atmosphere,” we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child’s level.
Talk about a relief here! Remember that tiny city apartment I mentioned? It’s not about having a picture-perfect home nor schoolroom. It’s not about having all the extra posters and plastic, bright-coloured ‘learning’ paraphernalia. In fact, we are told that it stultifies a child to bring down his world to the (so called) ‘child’s level‘. There are plenty of stories from my fellow CM educators, even the AO Advisory, about less-than-ideal living situations. Read Cindy’s book Mere Motherhood to see a lot about that. But what did they all have in common in their natural home environment? They had what Charlotte called a “bracing atmosphere of truth and sincerity“. You can read more about atmosphere in my post here.
10. Such a doctrine as e.g. the Herbartian, that the mind is a receptacle, lays the stress of education (the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels duly ordered) upon the teacher. Children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher’s axiom is,’ what a child learns matters less than how he learns it.”
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, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes our principle that,––
12. “Education is the Science of Relations”…
Hear me and Cindy and our friends shout it out — No Unit Studies! Those little packaged studies can be awfully attractive, especially if you think you are responsible because the student isn’t capable and can’t be trusted to make all the necessary connections. And don’t little dioramas or whatever that often come with these studies really impress Grandma. How else can we prove we’re doing school? I am grateful for the time and money that was saved because I kept being reminded that my son was born with a mind, as any normal person is, that constantly is at work making connections across all the ‘subjects’ — even ones from a month ago, a semester ago, a year or more ago. Giving him a full and generous curriculum (Thank you, again, AO!) was all that I needed to do. The ‘magic’ I experienced over the years as the ‘subjects’ might vary in historical time period or place, but connections were made by my student, gave witness to this wisdom from Mason. And if it is lasting knowledge that we’re going for, why would I choose any other way than letting his own God-given mind make the connections?
As an afterthought to that last paragraph: For an hysterical look at a Robinson Crusoe unit study, see what Mason said here. That woman was a scream!
14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.
Narration! What a saver of paper, time, and money! No workbooks. No reading comprehension quizzes. It is enough. Will he notice all the things I noticed or think he should notice? It doesn’t matter. He will take what he will take. What strikes him, not me. He is his own person, after all, with his own capable, very hard working mind. And when the day comes for writing ‘original’ composition, he will have something to say. He was not bogged down by learning structure before he had substance. It’s a saver in the day’s schedule, too, to not have a ‘writing lesson’ for my young student. Read, narrate. Look, narrate. Listen, narrate. It is enough. For more on narration, see AO Advisory Karen Glass’s Know and Tell. (I realize more could be said here about the awkwardness and uncertainty in the beginning days/years of narrating. Those two-word narrations, or even three ‘I don’t know’, can sure get on a mom’s nerves. I plan to write more on this later, including the connection between narration and caring, but do check out Karen’s book and her blog and other places that she writes about this.)
Let us try, however imperfectly, to make education a science of relationships––in other words, try in one subject or another to let the children work upon living ideas. In this field small efforts are honoured with great rewards, and we perceive that the education we are giving exceeds all that we intended or imagined. ~School Education, p. 163
The question is not,―how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education―but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? ~School Education, p. 170, 171
This many years after the end of our school days, the worries and frustrations have faded a bit, and it’s hard to remember why I fretted about this or that. But I do want to remember. I want to remember what it felt like because I know so many of you are still raising and teaching your children and dealing with being overwhelmed with doubts and fears, and I want you to know that you are ‘normal’, and not crazy or weaker than others. I want you to know that you can trust the words of Mason, a very seasoned thinker about and worker with children. She saw them in their home settings, as well as in school. You can trust the counsel of those that have kept her work alive and continued in their own research. AO Advisory members Karen Glass and Anne White have authored several books. You can find them on podcasts, speaking about the areas that they have mastered. Two of the Advisory members, Lynn Bruce and Wendi Capehart, have passed away, but their thoughts and counsel remain available in essays and discussions that you can find on the AO website and Forum. Karen and Anne, as well as Donna-Jean Breckenridge and Leslie Laurio, are available on the AO Forum. The words of all of these women are available in their memoir Six Voices, One Story.
And I hope you can trust me. I have truly been there, done that, and come out not just surviving, but thriving twenty years later. (My son is currently 22. It was when he was two that I found Wendi Capehart, Charlotte Mason, and AmblesideOnline.)
However imperfectly (see quote above) has become associated with Donna-Jean since 2019 when it was the title of her address at AO Camp Meeting in Tennessee. She has spoken about this idea on podcasts and online talks. She also has counseled and comforted with the words It is enough. Having successfully educated her own 4 children, she now homeschools 2 granddaughters for her widowed daughter, and Donna-Jean is no spring chicken. But she is a very beautiful one. She is one of the most faithful women I know, who has endured so much loss ― since 2020, her husband, son-in-law, mother, father, and her dearest friends, Wendi and Lynn. She knows that through all the hardships (many preceded this string of deaths) and through all the far-from-perfect hours, days, weeks, and years, the result is an education that exceeds all that we intended or imagined.
…the result is an education that exceeds all that we intended or imagined.
James, quite the mathematician at 16, has a lengthy and outstanding discussion with a dear family friend ― 30 years his senior, and high-end mathematician. It was lovely to hear the two in a talk for “the love of the game”, and not for the pride of the thing.
How much does he care?How full is the life he has before him? (See quote above.) To be honest I never cared for, nor was impressed by, all the memorizing and chanting of lists, or other presentations of the so-called classical educators. (We memorized beautiful things like poetry, songs, and Scripture.) And two decades down the road, having evidence of what Mason said was the outcome of such a focus, I know we made right choices. My son didn’t have a Virtue-focused curriculum, and yet he is a virtuous young man. He is humble and not driven to impress you with what he knows. He truly loves his Math for the beautiful thing that it is. He truly cares about many things. I told you about resistance in some of our school days, but there was also much very good conversation — about the reading, even! And those conversations continue now four years out of school. Yes, a Charlotte Mason education is about Knowing (“Science of Relations”), Knowing and Telling (narration), but ultimately it is not about how much he knows, but about how much he cares. That is the essential thing that kept me sane, kept me from losing course when I feared that people would think less of us because we weren’t doing that, or meeting their expectations — or even my own.
If you enjoy the way stories are taught on The Literary Life Podcast (currently #1 in homeschool podcasts), or are tired of modern, psychological analysis of books ― or worksheet approaches to literature that suck the life right out of a rip roarin’ tale, this live, in-person class is for you!
Kay introduces Story, Rhyme, & Song on The New Mason Jar Podcast with Cindy Rollins. September 12, 2024. Click image to listen.
Prior to our modern era, in pre-“Enlightenment” times, humans all the way back to ancient times knew how to hear or read a story imaginatively or metaphorically. They knew how to be “enchanted by story,” which Stratford Caldecott says, “is to be granted a deeper insight into reality”. In studying the old stories, folklorists like the Brothers Grimm found that there was a consistent use of story patterns, images, and metaphors throughout the world. Authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis focused on this literary tradition in their own research and teaching, and eventually decided to show it with their own stories.
Despite the efforts of Tolkien and Lewis, our modern culture remains largely utilitarian and didactic in its writing and its use of story, losing the richness and transformation that can come from reading imaginatively as our ancestors did. But all is not lost; we can still get it back! We can learn to hear a story the way the Medievals would have heard it!
Kay teaching A Wrinkle in Time to Middle and High Schoolers. Spring 2025.
In the four days of my Fairy Tale Camp, we will go through a dozen or so of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. (I’ll send hyperlinks to the stories online, and you can read them at home before class.) I will teach you story shapes, patterns, motifs, and images used in these old tales. All of which you will discover in the novels that are written in this literary tradition, even up to our day. With each introduction to a pattern and particular images, I will guide you through a reading of a fairy tale, so we can watch together as these ideas play out in the story.
This class is an excellent primer to the way that I teach my literature classes. These cram-packed and engaging four days will help a student be best prepared as we journey through longer works together. It is a way of teaching that is very, very rare today. No worksheets looking for comprehension. No “personal application” necessary. No psychological analysis. Symbols galore, but it ain’t Freud!
The Fairy Tale Camp is completely FREE! Consider it an introduction to my Fall 2025 course offerings, which will be 12-week courses, covering longer works. Students who participate in the Fairy Tale Camp are entitled, during the Camp week only, to register for Fall classes at a 15% discount. (Courses to be announced shortly.)
Please see the graphic above for Where and When. Go to the Contact Page to find ways to RSVP and to get more information.
Thursday, June 19, 2025 6:00pm ― 8:00pm Park City, MT Admission: Free
Kay teaches A Wrinkle in Time in Spring 2025.
It’s not uncommon for homeschool teachers to hear about some particular “Charlotte Mason curriculum” and immediately ask for a book list and schedule. What, How, and When are great questions to ask, but after two decades of experience in a Charlotte Mason education it is my firm conviction that the most effective teachers are the ones who also know the Why. In these twenty years in the homeschool world, observing many different curricula, I have found that Charlotte Mason is the only one that comes with the Howand the Why.
My intent for this event is to give you some background of the Philosophy (the Why) behind all the well-known aspects of a Charlotte Mason education: Living Books, Narration, Nature Study, Composer Study, etc.
Story, Rhyme, & Song. 2023.
The goal is to give you a solid foundation from which to consider the Charlotte Mason approach on the whole, and with which to inform all the book choices and activities you plan for your students. The approach has certainly been a blessing to me throughout the years, making my choices clearer and the less-than-stellar periods of homeschooling easier to overcome. Where the Why might have seemed like a burden to a newcomer in homeschooling, I can see looking back just what a great friend it has been!
Charlotte Mason. 1842-1923.
There’s a reason Charlotte Mason is still popular 100 years after her death. Even so, many still don’t know what all the fuss is about, or they might be hung up on some of the popular misconceptions about her philosophy. For example, some will suppose that the Charlotte Mason education is not rigorous enough to prepare the modern student for the global market. But the results are in! Thousands of students, both from home schools and private schools that employ the CM philosophy are thriving across a wide variety of careers, as well as in their personal lives and character.
Won’t you please join me for this two-hour seminar? I’ll speak to all this and more, and answer your questions in a comfortable setting with refreshments. I’ll also be able to show you the books I used through the years homeschooling my son, a 2021 graduate, with the CM method. Further, I can show you the schedule we used, and discuss the great flexibility of it.
■11:00 – 12:00 Story, Rhyme, & Song Sampler (for students ages 5 to 8)
■12:30 – 1:30 Growing in the Literary Tradition Sampler (for middle and high school students) [There are two GLT classes scheduled for this new term, but one sample session will represent both.]
This beautiful, little book is the first publication from Cassiodorus Press. Let’s start with the little part: it was the intention of the publisher to provide a ‘pocket-size’ book that one could slip in his purse, large or small, and have with him wherever he was. The beautiful part: I’m going to say one of the things that makes me crazy when people say it of others — It is ‘beautiful inside and out’. Seriously, I usually hate that phrase. It’s like I feel guilty for praising your outward appearance, so I’ve got to get all spiritual. Anyhow, this little book has a beautiful cover, with illustration by young artist Gabriel Chou. The beauty inside is provided by the layout and, of course, Jason Baxter’s very poetic way of delivering his ideas.
I had to laugh at some initial criticism by a couple of people about the font size because it actually proved some of Dr. Baxter’s points. Here’s what I found the font size did for me: I had to slow down. Oh, horrors! Our modern (or post-modern) consumer culture has made us expect things to be smooth and fast. Two things that are illustrated from the start of this beautiful, little book. I could do a whole lot of pointing the finger to other people and our society but could feel that I am complicit also, as I felt compelled to hurry the reading to meet my goal to have it read and reviewed by the end of the weekend in which I received the beautiful, little book in the mail. (I went 3 days past my goal.)
I was particularly struck by how much a high-minded scholar such as Dr. Baxter could be so familiar with contemporary pop culture. When you read his words, it is obvious that these are observations he has made as he goes along with his daily life. He did not go looking for unfamiliar (to him) songs, art, or stories that he could negatively criticize to prove his point — something that other writers do that comes across laughable and ineffective, like old Senators questioning tech people in hearings about things they haven’t a clue about. Because Dr. Baxter lives a life of observation, contemplation, and caring, he comes across as way more authentic than most. His purpose is pure.
Many, many kudos to the staff of Cassiodorus Press for this debut production. I look forward to seeing Angelina Stanford, CP’s Founder and Publisher, “among the regal and magnanimous souls on Dante’s Jupiter”, as Dr. Baxter predicts in his Acknowledgments.
Thank you, Dr. Jason Baxter, for this beautiful, little work, that will be carried about with me in my purse, ready to re-read many, many times. Slowly. Thoughtfully.
One of the hallmarks and ‘must haves’ of a Charlotte Mason education is Narration — first in the form of oral narration and then into written narration as the practice of oral narration is continuing. Without Narration it is simply not a Charlotte Mason education, nor is it, if you will allow me to take it further, a Classical education, with Mason deriving much of her philosophy and practice from the ancient traditions of learning. Narration has the honor of being the only practice that is part of her 20 Principles. You can figure out how to personally put the principles into practice in your own unique schools and families, but to not include the practice of Narration is not an option.
As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.
Principle #14 from the Preface to Mason’s Vol. 6 A Philosophy of Education
Narration in whatever form is not easy — especially when first beginning. But it’s also not hard and is very much related to our natural humanity. It’s the rare child who doesn’t want to come tell you about the fight the neighborhood kids had, to tell you all about the cartoon they just watched or the game they just played. It is very human to process what you just saw, read, or heard and to work that out through telling. The question is — what happens to us along the way from childhood that stops that natural processing?
I’m not going to presently write a treatise on Narration, nor go into every passage on narration found in the Mason volumes. What I want to do at the moment is to share a very encouraging experience I had during Cindy Rollins’ 3-week Advent Discipleship group this past month. For the 3 Friday zoom meetings, Cindy invited the children of the moms involved to join us in the first 30 minutes to recite the Bible passage and poem memory work, to sing a Carol, and to narrate our painting for the week. Cindy gave them 1 minute to look at the painting and then asked for volunteers to narrate.
The Annunciation to the Shepherds by Nicolaes Berchem
I was floored by the hands that went up, from the wee littlest ones to teenagers. And they did share when they were called on. “I saw this….” “I noticed that…” “It reminded me of…”, they so eagerly shared. There was no pushing or prompting by the mothers. The little ones wiggled and scratched, with an occasional swipe of the nose, and they all used their hands expressively. I could tell that this was a common practice in all their homes. These weren’t polished presentations, but they were delivered by kids who are accustomed to having adults care about what they see and connections that they make.
Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them ~Jesus
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. ~Jesus
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ~Jesus
It may surprise parents who have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that they should do no sort of injury to the children: Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDER not––one of these little ones. So run the three educational laws of the New Testament, which, when separately examined, appear to me to cover all the help we can give the children and all the harm we can save them from––that is, whatever is included in training up a child in the way he should go. Let us look upon these three great laws as prohibitive, in order to clear the ground for the consideration of a method of education; for if we once settle with ourselves what we may not do, we are greatly helped to see what we may do, and must do. But, as a matter of fact, the positive is included in the negative, what we are bound to do for the child in what we are forbidden to do to his hurt. ~Mason, Vol. 1, p. 12,13
A serious study on Narration will show you the many benefits, and will also open your eyes to the ways we are hindering, and yes, harming, our children by neglecting the practice and, instead, substituting other things such as —-
Of the means we employ to hinder the growth of mind perhaps none is more subtle than the questionnaire [quizzes, worksheets]. …..The child with capacity, which implies depth, is stupified by a long rigmarole on the lines of,––”If John’s father is Tom’s son, what relation is Tom to John?” The shallow child guesses the riddle and scores; and it is by the use of tests of this kind that we turn out young people sharp as needles but with no power of reflection, no intelligent interests… ~Mason, Vol. 6, p. 54, 55
Okay, again, I do not mean to write a dissertation. There’s time for that later. I just wanted to share that even though I’ve spent two decades in the Charlotte Mason world, I can get discouraged by all the negativity about Narration — it’s too hard, my kids resist, they’re too short, they don’t tell me everything, it gives me nothing to show [off] on paper, answers on worksheets are easier to assess — but when I saw these ‘babies’ eagerly sharing, I was given hope. I just wanted to reach through the screen and hug each one of them and they mamas. These mothers have followed the injunctions of Jesus. They do not hinder their children, nor do they offend the fully capable persons that they are, nor despise the minds given them by our Creator.
This brother and sister especially won my heart. Do you think their mother will let me adopt them? In the top photo they were raising their hands to share, as were all the children around them. The bottom photo is when little sister was sharing. Brother did not interrupt but shared when it was his turn. I love these kids. I want them to move to Montana! [Permission was given by their mother to share their image.]
Thank you, Cindy Rollins, for doing what you do. Thank you for believing in and continuing to fight for Narration. Thank you for believing in the personhood of children. Thank you for recognizing in the words of Charlotte the very truth of our humanity and our responsibility to our God and to our Christ. I did not know at the time I witnessed these children narrating (and asked permission to write about them) that Cindy would be offering a level of her Patreon as a narration club for children. It became available this week, and you can find all about it here. This is a great opportunity for your child to get to share with someone other than Mom. I wish I had had this for my only child. You do not want to miss this.
My homeschooling Mom days have ended, as have Cindy’s, but she continually inspires me to not neglect what I have learned from Mason and my own experience through all these years. In fact, I often feel the learning is just beginning as I see the outcome of our schooling choices, as well as others. And so I created the Story, Rhyme, & Song classes because I believe very much in children and the essential nature of the building blocks of story and song to their future learning and to their very souls. Included in the SRS class is narration of one or more of the stories that I read to the class. I am currently preparing for the new semester starting in February and witnessing what I did in Cindy’s group gave me so much inspiration to carry on.
Fairy tales, (Andersen or Grimm, for example), delight Form lB, and the little people re-tell these tales copiously, vividly, and with the astonishing exactness we may expect when we remember how seriously annoyed they are with the story-teller who alters a phrase or a circumstance. Aesop’s Fables, too, are used with great success, and are rendered, after being once heard, with brevity and point, and children readily appropriate the moral. Mrs. Gatty’s Parables From Nature, again, serve another purpose. They feed a child’s sense of wonder and are very good to tell. There is no attempt to reduce the work of this form, or any other, to a supposed ‘child level.’ Form IA (7 to 9) hears and tells chapter by chapter The Pilgrim’s Progress and the children’s narrations are delightful. No beautiful thought or bold figure escapes them. ~Mason, Vol. 6, p. 180
Oh, boy! I was just about to close, but I do have to say one more thing because I fear many of you won’t pursue this idea of Narration on your own, and you may already be pooh-poohing it even from the description above — and that is this: Did you notice what Charlotte said at the end of that quote above? “No beautiful thought or bold figure escapes them.” Whether it is a painting, music, writing, or nature itself that we put before them, it must be of the highest quality. Look back at the painting above that the children narrated. They can handle the Masters…of art and music and story. And this is what inspires the narrations that Charlotte describes. That is what inspired the narrations I heard a few weeks ago. Do not despise the children. Give them the best. And watch them respond with eagerness.
Below are pictures from my two Story, Rhyme, & Song classes, as well as my Growing in the Literary Tradition classes. Last year the GLT class got “the fairy tale class”, which is a primer for reading metaphorically, and in the spring we read the first two Narnia books and The Hobbit.
You can see more about these classes at my Story, Rhyme, & Song page at Facebook.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Scenes from 2023-24 classes
For the past few months I have weekly produced a graphic, with a lot of help from my husband and son, to post each Monday, which include a quote from Charlotte Mason. This weekend as I was preparing the graphic that you see below, I was scrolling through tons of pictures of my son to find a relevant one as background for the quote. So many pictures, and I could only choose one. This picture journey through time, though very tiring, encouraged me greatly in the fact that through all the times of feeling I was failing and not living up to some ideal of mothering and teaching my son, my son had been in contact with many parts of the world around him as Charlotte describes. However imperfect each day or week was, viewing it from this end, it was perfect in many ways.
Because I could not include every picture, you lucky readers are going to get a bit of that journey through time that I took yesterday. And then I will end with more of the context of the quote from the graphic.
A Captain Idea for us,––Education is the Science of Relations.––A child should be brought up to have relations of force with earth and water, should run and ride, swim and skate, lift and carry; should know texture, and work in material; should know by name, and where and how they live at any rate, the things of the earth about him, its birds and beasts and creeping things, its herbs and trees; should be in touch with the literature, art and thought of the past and the present ….He must have a living relationship with the present, its historic movement, its science, literature, art, social needs and aspirations. In fact, he must have a wide outlook, intimate relations all round; and force, virtue, must pass out of him, whether of hand, will, or sympathy, wherever he touches. This is no impossible programme. Indeed it can be pretty well filled in by the time an intelligent boy or girl has reached the age of thirteen or fourteen; for it depends, not upon how much is learned, but upon how things are learned.
She helped bring him into the world. I thought it appropriate that he should help carry her out.
It is true. I wish I had pictures of my childless sister Karen as she stayed in the delivery room with me, making her usual jokes, and watching those machines to tell me when to push. The pictures were in my mind as I read all the machines she was hooked up to in her last weeks on this earth. What an honor it was to have her in the room helping me birth my son 21 years ago, and what an honor it was to sit with her in her final hours, and what an honor it was to see him carrying his Aunt Karen out.
I wanted to share some other things I observed while sitting in Karen’s hospital room with my sister Rita, brother Mike, sister-in-law Judith, niece Lovie, and in that last hour, our cousin Laura.
I have developed in the past few decades a distrust of those in the medical profession, but what I witnessed in that room gave me a glimmer of hope for that profession. With each of their visits they treated Karen with such respect. I watched them look at the machines, talk about the numbers, use all the big words, but then physically reach out to Karen and speak so tenderly. There were doctors who stopped in to check on Karen who had been with her for many years in this battle with her blood disorder. They showed me a wonderful blend of science and humanity. Often the nurses would reach out to lift Karen’s gown back up to her shoulders even after she was heavily sedated with either the oxygen mask or the tubes down her throat. They really cared about her dignity even in her condition. I pondered the contrast between this care for dignity and “the freedom” to show skin in the world outside that room.
I was raised in a very strong spiritual family who has always handled death in an emotionally and spiritually stable way. Along with the death of grandparents, we have lived through the loss of our youngest sibling at age 31, our dad at age 97, my daughter at 3 weeks (as well as other pre-birth losses amongst us), and all of our uncles and aunts and several cousins, and friends outside the family. I’m not saying it was not hard to watch Karen die — when they first unplugged all the machines that were keeping her breathing (as we had planned, so I knew it was coming) I let out a gasp which was followed by the tears and hugging of family in the room. When the monitor turned off because her heart had stopped beating, I felt mine would stop, too. She will be so missed, but she’s done with suffering, and we are secure in knowing she is in a better place, and we all imagined her being greeted by Dad and James and Grace and cousin Wanda and….
I realized also in this time what a difference my last years of studying Story has made in my spiritual stability, especially these past two years in the House of Humane Letters Fellowship. It is through the stories told in the literary tradition and being exposed to the thoughts of literary critics like Northrop Frye, C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien that I have come to believe more strongly in the transcendent, the unseen world. To be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. I felt even more connected to my sister Karen because of her love for stories, and I’ve grown to appreciate the story-telling of her favorites like Andy Griffith, Perry Mason, and all the westerns, especially, of course, John Wayne. I could be at peace that it was Karen’s ‘time to go’ because I had watched her live life to the full here, and I’m confident in that ‘other world’ waiting for us. No, not back to Eden, but on to the New Jerusalem.
At Karen’s funeral I spoke about favorite memories from childhood to adulthood. Karen was there for me always, whether we were sharing that groovy basement bedroom or living across the country from each other. I read two poems from Karen’s favorite poet Emily Dickinson. (We got to visit Dickinson’s home in Amherst, MA together .) And then I sang Wonderful Words of Life, with many voices in the room joining me. (I realized some days later I had just done Story, Rhyme, & Song! How appropriate for Karen and for me.) I was blown away by some of the people that had travelled quite a distance to remember Karen with us. So many childhood memories with friends and cousins in the room. I felt like Karen was blessing me all over again when a mutual acquaintance, whom Karen had worked with locally in music and I had only met online, said to me, “You changed my life” (not in regards to music, but to educational philosophy). So many parts of my whole life came together in that room, and it was because of Karen.
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
Sing them over again to me, Wonderful words of life; Let me more of their beauty see, Wonderful words of life; Words of life and beauty Teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life; Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life.
