CM's Paraphrases Are In Print (again)!

 I don't know if anyone else is like me, but when I first started this CM journey, I was not a huge reader. The first book I read about the Charlotte Mason method was For the Children's Sake, and the first time I read it, I read Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's text but skipped right over all the long CM quotes. They were just too long and difficult; I couldn't make sense of them. It wasn't until my third time reading For the Children's sake that I even attempted to read those CM quotes.

During my last pregnancy, I decided to read all of Charlotte Mason's volumes, and to make sure I didn't skip over anything that seemed cloud in my brain, I paraphrased each sentence as I read into easy language that even I could understand. That forced me to unravel the long sentences in my mind, try to make sense of vague concepts, and actually look up references that illustrated her point. By the time my daughter was born, Home Education was completely paraphrased. While she napped, I continued with Volume 6, then Volume 3, and on until I had been through the entire Series.

If you're like me and want to understand Charlotte Mason's ideas without having to first get over the language difficulty and more complex sentence structure of Victorian English, a paraphrase may be a helpful way to get from Point A to Point B. And now all six paraphrased volumes are in print and available directly from Amazon.com! Of course, they are still (and will always be) available to read online for free, and you are welcome to download them from the AO website and put them on your Kindle or other device, or print yourself a copy to read offline. But if you'd like to read them from a "real book," there are purchase links at https://www.amblesideonline.org/CMM/ModernEnglish.html.

Challenge 3

Challenge 1 is here. We read about Undine and a bit about the difference between interest in lessons and ardour for knowledge.

  Challenge 2 is here. We read about some of Miss Mason's principles.

Here we are with Challenge 3!  We will continue reading from volume VI:
 Miss Mason is writing shortly after WW1 and several years before WW2. Just as she previously used the story of Undine as an illustration for one aspect of her philosophy, now she compares and contrasts German and English approaches to education and the human mind.

 She is particularly concerned that education not be made utilitarian- a word I do not think we understand as Miss Mason understood it. So forgive me if I digress a moment to give some historical background:

 "a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness—not just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it. Such a theory is in opposition to egoism, the view that a person should pursue his own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some acts or types of acts as right or wrong independently of their consequences"

 "Bentham and Mill both believed that human actions are motivated entirely by pleasure and pain, and Mill saw that motivation as a basis for the argument that, since happiness is the sole end of human action, the promotion of happiness is the test by which to judge all human conduct."  taken from here. 

 Keep that definition of utilitarianism in mind as you read the next section from Mason's sixth volume:

 "We fail to recognize that as the body requires wholesome food and cannot nourish itself upon any substance so the mind too requires meat after its kind.(emphasis added)  If the War (World War 1) taught nothing else it taught us that men are spirits, that the spirit, mind, of a man is more than his flesh, that his spirit is the man, that for the thoughts of his heart he gives the breath of his body. As a consequence of this recognition of our spiritual nature, the lesson for us at the moment is that the great thoughts, great events, great considerations, which form the background of our national thought, shall be the content of the education we pass on. The educational thought we hear most about is, as I have said, based on sundry Darwinian axioms, out of which we get the notion that nothing matters but physical fitness and vocational training. However important these are, they are not the chief thing. A century ago when Prussia was shipwrecked in the Napoleonic wars it was discovered that not Napoleon but Ignorance was the formidable national enemy; a few philosophers took the matter in hand, and history, poetry, philosophy, proved the salvation of a ruined nation, because such studies make for the development of personality, public spirit, initiative, the qualities of which the State was in need, and which most advance individual happiness and success. On the other hand, the period when Germany made her school curriculum utilitarian marks the beginning of her moral downfall. History repeats itself. There are interesting rumours afloat of how the students at Bonn, for example, went in solemn procession to make a bonfire of French novels, certain prints, articles of luxury and the like; things like these had brought about the ruin of Germany and it was the part of the youth to save her now as before. Are they to have another Tugendbund?" 

 Note: The Tugendbund was a semi-secret society, loosely connected with a Masonic lodge, formed in response to the Napoleon empire for the purpose of reforming German society and freeing parts of what is now Germany from French control. According to Sparknotes,

"In June 1808, professors in Konigsberg started an anti-French, Prussian nationalist movement called the "Moral and Scientific Union", or Tugenbund (League of Virtue). Prussian national pride soared, the nation increased its resolve to fight Napoleon, and Prussia became a focal point for German nationalism." The members of the Tugendbund sought physical and military superiority in order to fight the French and win back the land they believed was rightly Prussia's. Toward that end it was utilitarian in nature, as the goal of all reforms and improvements was ultimately military strength as a nation.)
So Mason is concerned that this might be the direction Germany is heading again, and she does not want this for any country, and especially not for her own.  Rather than a 'Tugenbund,' she says,

 "We want an education which shall nourish the mind while not neglecting either physical or vocational training; in short, we want a working philosophy of education. 

I think that we of the P.N.E.U. have arrived at such a body of theory, tested and corrected by some thirty years of successful practice with thousands of children. This theory has already been set forth in volumes [The Home Education Series] published at intervals during the last thirty-five years; so I shall indicate here only a few salient points which seem to me to differ from general theory and practice,––
 (a) The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons; they do the work by self-effort. 
 (b) The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars. 
 (c) These read in a term one, or two, or three thousand pages, according to their age, school and Form, in a large number of set books. 
The quantity set for each lesson allows of only a single reading; but the reading is tested by narration, or by writing on a test passage. 
When the terminal examination is at hand so much ground has been covered that revision [review] is out of the question; what the children have read they know, and write on any part of it with ease and fluency, in vigorous English; they usually spell well.

 Much is said from time to time to show that 'mere book-learning' is rather contemptible, and that "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." May I point out that whatever discredit is due to the use of books does not apply to this method, which so far as I can discover has not hitherto been employed.

 Has an attempt been made before on a wide scale to secure that scholars should know their books, many pages in many books, at a single reading, in such a way that months later they can write freely and accurately on any part of the term's reading?"

Another editorial comment here- it is my opinion that she is rather specific about which part of her method has not hitherto been employed- it's not the whole approach, it's not the books used, it's not the subjects- it's the single reading and the method that ensures they can call to mind the material from that single reading months later.
 She continues with the parts of her approach which she believes differ most sharply from the educational practices more common in schools in her day:

 "(d) There is no selection of studies, or of passages or of episodes, on the ground of interest. The best available book is chosen and is read through perhaps in the course of two or three years. 

 (e) The children study many books on many subjects, but exhibit no confusion of thought, and 'howlers' are almost unknown.

 (f) They find that, in Bacon's phrase, "Studies serve for delight"; this delight being not in the lessons or the personality of the teacher, but purely in their 'lovely books,' 'glorious books.'

 (g) The books used are, whenever possible, literary in style. 

 (h) Marks, prizes, places, rewards, punishments, praise, blame, or other inducements are not necessary to secure attention, which is voluntary, immediate and surprisingly perfect. 

 (i) The success of the scholars in what may be called disciplinary subjects, such as Mathematics and Grammar, depends largely on the power of the teacher, though the pupils' habit of attention is of use in these too.

 (j) No stray lessons are given on interesting subjects; the knowledge the children get is consecutive." 

You might pause a minute or two here and try to narrate.
 One easy but effective idea is to set a timer for 3-5 minutes and write down as much as you can remember as quickly as you can.
You could make a list of the points that seem to you most important to remember, that you want most to apply.
 Or you could make a list of anything that stood out to you as quite surprising.
 Make a note of questions you have or things you want to think about more.

 Don't spend too long on this.   I don't want you to get bogged down.  I just want you to practice applying Mason's methods and to think about some of the key ideas in this method.  Come back and read more when you've written down some thoughts (you can jot them in the comments below if you like!) and when you have time to read more.

  Mason continues, pointing out the advantageous results she's seen with this method:

 "The unusual interest children show in their work, their power of concentration, their wide, and as far as it goes, accurate knowledge of historical, literary and some scientific subjects, has challenged attention and the general conclusion is that these are the children of educated and cultivated parents. It was vain to urge that the home schoolroom does not usually produce remarkable educational results; but the way is opening to prove that the power these children show is common to all children; at last there is hope that the offspring of working-class parents may be led into the wide pastures of a liberal education. Are we not justified in concluding that singular effects must have commensurate causes, and that we have chanced to light on unknown tracts in the region of educational thought. At any rate that GOLDEN RULE of which Comenius was in search has discovered itself, the RULE, "WHEREBY TEACHERS SHALL TEACH LESS AND SCHOLARS SHALL LEARN MORE."

That's quite an impressive list of results, yes?
For those wondering, " Who was Comenius?" A Czech educator and churchman born in 1592 According to Wikipedia, "was a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian from the Margraviate of Moravia and is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of Unity of the Brethren and became a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century. Comenius was the innovator who first introduced pictorial textbooks, written in native language instead of Latin, applied effective teaching based on the natural gradual growth from simple to more comprehensive concepts, supported lifelong learning and development of logical thinking by moving from dull memorization, presented and supported the idea of equal opportunity for impoverished children, opened doors to education for women, and made instruction universal and practical. Besides his native Bohemian Crown, he lived and worked in other regions of the Holy Roman Empire, and other countries: Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, England, the Netherlands and Hungary." Comenius was searching for an educational principle or method by which the students did more of the learning and teachers did less teaching- and Charlotte says she's found it.

 She read widely and deeply and did not develop her ideas without reference to these who went before her. She continues, further distinguishing the touches that she thinks are unique to her method:
"Let me now outline a few of the educational principles which account for unusual results.  

III PRINCIPLES HITHERTO UNRECOGNIZED OR DISREGARDED I have enumerated some of the points in which our work is exceptional in the hope of convincing the reader that unusual work carried on successfully in hundreds of schoolrooms––home and other––is based on principles hitherto unrecognized. The recognition of these principles should put our national education on an intelligent basis and should make for general stability, joy in living, and personal initiative." 

There is a somewhat silly notion passed about recently that Mason intended volume VI to be read only by those who were already familiar with her methods and who had already read all of her previous five volumes on education. There are many reasons why we can see this isn't so from her own words. The above section is one of them- she wouldn't need to explain these educational principles or convince the reader that 'unusual work is being carried out successfully' if her intended audience was only those who had already read the previous volumes.

 That last sentence is quite the high standard, isn't it?  When I am reading for personal study, that is the sort of thing I like to underline, highlight, or make a note of in the margins.

 "Education built on an intelligent basis."   Some of the goals for that education include: general (i.e. national) stability, joy in living, personal initiative. Hmmm. I find that when I compile such lists it gives me new ways of assessing what I'm doing, and new ways of thinking about how to work toward those ends, a clearer understanding of Mason's own goals and ideas.  Isn't it sad that some people consider this elitist? How far we've fallen.

 Mason continues, and here's another section rich with ideas to list, highlight, enumerate, underline, and think about:

 "May I add one or two more arguments in support of my plea,–– The appeal is not to the clever child only, but to the average and even to the 'backward' child."

['backward' child is very jarring to the modern ear, and even hurtful. It was the best term they had at the time for the child who lagged behind his age-mates for reasons they didn't fully understand. Don't let the Victorianisms and Edwardianisms get in the way of understanding the timeless principles.]

 "This scheme is carried out in less time than ordinary school work on the same subjects. There are no revisions (reviewing), no evening lessons, no cramming or 'getting up' of subjects; therefore there is much time whether for vocational work or interests or hobbies. All intellectual work is done in the hours of morning school, and the afternoons are given to field nature studies, drawing, handicrafts, etc. Notwithstanding these limitations the children produce a surprising amount of good intellectual work. No homework is required. It is not that 'we' (of the P.N.E.U.) are persons of peculiar genius; it is that, like Paley's man who found the watch, "we have chanced on a good thing."

Paley was an anti-Darwinist who presented the idea that if we stumble on a watch on the moor, we know that a designer of that watch is involved, and the natural world is complex and intricate enought that it indicates enough evidence of a designer as well.  Charlotte seems to be saying that these ideas are not original to her, they already existed, they are part of the wisdom built into the world by its Designer, and she and her fellow PNEU persons have found what God has already placed- like discovering gravity or the gulf stream.


 "'No gain that I experience must remain unshared.'
 We feel that the country and indeed the world should have the benefit of educational discoveries which act powerfully as a moral lever, for we are experiencing anew the joy of the Renaissance, but without its pagan lawlessness." 

Educational discoveries which bring joy as well as act as a moral lever.   Wow!!  Think about that for a moment or two, at least.


 * Regarding my bad habit of interrupting your reading with my commentary, it's probably okay. “Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden, Trabasso, and Basche (2001) studied the effects of influential reading comprehension questioning on students in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, as well as on college undergraduates. They found that questions posed during the reading of the text aided in shifting attention to specific information for older and more proficient readers. However, it interfered with the comprehension of the fourth- and seventh-grade students, who performed better when the questions came after, not during, the reading." (Fisher, Frey & Hattie, 2016, p. 38) Isn't that amazing? This is why we don't interrupt our students to have them answer questions in the middle of a reading- we read an episode, ask for a narration at the end, then,if we have any questions or comments we can add them. But for 'older, more proficient readers,' and I presume that includes all y'all, we can handle the little interruptions and can even benefit from them!

Well, that was a lot of reading.  What shall we do with it?

Here are a few questions- you can come up with your own questions (and answers), these are just suggestions for those who prefer to get a bit of a jump-start:

Mason talks about educating the poor Miners' children with these ideas.  who would be the equivilant of the Miners' children today? Are there any?

What are some of her claims for this method that you'd like to see in your families?

What does she mean by no selection on the basis of interest, and lessons in consecutive order?

Mason talks about each of these pieces of education (narrating, single readings, living books, etc) as part of the unified whole where teachers do less and learners do more of their own work of learning.  Homeschoolers are fiercely independent and we like to take things apart and put them back together in our own way- but sometimes, I think we take apart things before we fully understand their purpose and how they work together and what the parts are even supposed to do- so when we put things back together we end up with a different sort of whatcha-ma-callit that doesn't do everything we expected it to do.  If you are able to, consider putting back in something you've been leaving out and see how that works.  Ask some CM veterans if they know the purpose of this gear or that whats-it, and what might happen if you discard it.

Mason says the content of her education must be "great thoughts, great events, great considerations."  If this is true, what does it say for the notion that it doesn't matter what children read so long as they are reading?  Could we substitute Wisdom and the Millers for Pilgrim's Progress and expect the same results?  It's okay if something your child reads is obscure to him, if there are things he does not understand.  Elsewhere, she points out that we usually get far more out of a story we have to think about, ponder, and dig a bit in order to understand it. 

Keep in mind that Mason is talking about end results while many of you may be in your first year of homeschooling using her methods.  That could be discouraging if you expect to find these same pleasant results at the end of the first week rather than playing the long game and working toward them at the end of the year, or maybe even next year.

What do you think is meant by the following:  "The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars?"  How might that look in one of your lessons?




Challenges:
If you have not joined the forum yet, give it a shot.  Once you've joined, you might dip your feet in at entry level by just looking at the most recent posts of the day- click on the button toward the top right of center that says 'View Today's Posts', then scroll down and see what people are talking about.

Have you read Leslie's Patio Chats?  These are short vitamin bursts of CM information that will take less than 20 minutes to read.  You could subscribe to them at the forum: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=100

Continue singing at least twice this week- do you notice any change in the atmosphere of your school after singing?  Add singing to a third day of your week.  You could sing after a math lesson, while getting out the history or science books, or while transitioning from Bible to Literature.  It's a good way to clear the mind for the next subject.  Here's my folksong playlist for this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j-Ai4pQ4f0&list=PL2IR3x_bkyR55kU2uGplZrY5b3gq-bXRR

Go outside.  Pick any two plants you see and compare their: stems, leaves, and flowers if they have them.  Notice the shape of the leaves, as well as their placement on the stem- are they in opposite pairs, or do they alternate? Or do they sort of form a whorled pattern around the stem?  Are the leaves serrated at the edge, jagged like a saw or a steakknife?  Deep edges or small notches?  How many petals do the flowers have? What is their shape? What do the centers look like.?Only after you have noticed the different characteristics and the distinct characteristics of each plant should you attempt to identify it.  You can take a photograph of it and post it to our FB group, or there is a plant ID group on FB you could join.  Try and sketch them- remember the *process* is what is important here, not your artistic skill.  When you try to sketch them, see if you don't notice additional details you might have missed the first time.

If you are interested in or intimidated by Shakespeare and you have already joined the forum, you might want to read (and maybe join in!) the discussion of Twelfth Night!  You have to be signed in for this link to work

Mapwork help!  This thread is gold- how to create your own maps for your students using Google!




Digging Deeper, for those who want and have time for more:
Read Mortimer Adler on why we read great books.

Read more about the Prussian school model and how it compares to the American public school system today.

Parents' Review articles:

on Children and Books

Home-Training and Right Habits of Mind- starting from babyhood.

Parents as Inspirers

PNEU Principles as illustrated by teaching: ""We believe in an "open-door policy" for our children; the larger and nobler an idea, the more fit are the children to receive it, for their hearts and minds are like a great open porch, not yet bricked up by prejudices.

We therefore adopt a time-table calculated to give ideas and experiences in as many branches of our relationships as possible.

We don't want, for example, to teach children "all about Africa" in their geography lessons, we want to give them such ideas of the dawning continent as will send them to books of travel, and later to the place itself, to view its panoramas or take their share in its future destinies.... But the children are not to sit still and merely passively receive ideas.

No lesson is valuable which does not promote self-activity by making the child think, exercising its powers of narration or reproduction, or laying the ground-work for some future mental habit, making the idea given a well-spring of activity.

We can judge then of the value of a lesson by the amount of work which it gives the children to do.

There is therefore in a really good lesson only one place for the teacher, and that is the background.""

The Educational Value of Great Books: Homer

Challenge 2

Last week's challenge is here.

You have probably heard that Charlotte Mason’s method of education is a philosophy, a collection of ideas and principles.  You will find those principles in the front of each volume.  I suggest you read them in volume VI, because in this volume, her last one before she died, she expands the principles to 20.  

Rather than go line by line through those principles, I'd like to use them to demonstrate that a Charlotte Mason education really is for everybody, because those principles apply to the vast majority of the human race. For the sake of time, we'll just look at a few.

Her first principle, for instance, is that children are *born* persons. They are not born oysters, or empty sacs and we make human beings out of them. They don’t become people, they are people, individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses, bents and inclinations.  We definitely can help them along to be better informed people, and we can instill in them some helpful habits and knowledge about the world. but they come to us as fully human as you or I.  This is true for all children (and all adults- we, too, are born persons).  Of course, this is for everybody.  All human children are born persons.

Although they are born persons, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say because they are born persons, children are in need of assistance in the development of what used to be called character.  Mason says in her first edition of the Parents’ Review that “the formation of character” is “the essential function of education.” (here).  That goes along with the second principle:

“2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.”

As with all the other principles her meaning is fleshed out further in her books, particularly in the first part of volume VI, but in summary, here Mason is speaking to the idea of hereditary determination, that children inherited, infallibly, the failures, weaknesses, sins, or successes, of their parents.  Children of thieves would be born with a nearly inescapable propensity to theft and children born illegitimate were tainted forever by that stain as it came with the same weak character and lack of moral standards which had resulted in a pregnancy outside of wedlock in the first place.  Mason is pronouncing that theory bankrupt and stresses that children have equal possibilities for good or evil regardless of their birth circumstances.  This is true of all children.

” 3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––”

Authority and obedience are surely appropriate concepts for for all of us.

 “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 or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.”

Balanced application, don’t resort to manipulation based on fear or feelings (If you love me, you’ll….”)-  again, concepts appropriate for all.

 “5. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The P.N.E.U. Motto is: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”

Note the specific sphere of the application for this principle- “educational instruments.”

  In the course of their education, are there any children who do not benefit from an educational environment, good habits, or living ideas? Are there children who are harmed by a healthy home atmosphere conducive to learning. harmed by learning good habits, harmed by being presented with living ideas? No.  This education is for everybody.

 “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.”

Are there children who would *not* benefit from their parents taking into account the educational value of the natural home atmosphere?  

We can do this with most of the principles (you can read them all in full here)- look at the principle, and consider turning it into a negative.  Are there children or families or human beings who do not benefit from this idea, properly applied?

I'll share more on the specific principles later, but I want to say something else about them.

They are vitally important, however, you can get started on a CM education without making sure you are clear on each and every one first. You don't need to write a thesis on them. You do not even need to read a thesis on them, or understand them all thoroughly before you can begin.  You can pick them up as you go along.  It may even be a more helpful way  to learn them if you stop and consider one or more of them when you run across an area where your assumptions are contrary to CM practices- learning on the job, so to speak. 

There's something else to keep in mind about principles- while they may seem overwhelming and also over your head at first, Mason did not intend for mothers to be overwhelmed and burdened and made to feel inferior by those principles.  

Her organization, the PNEU, worked on reaching out to mothers without the benefits of the same education and reading that Mason and the middle to upper class teachers, parents, and societal leaders who were the first members of the PNEU.  She really believed that a liberal education is for *all*.  

Toward that end, in 1894 PNEU member Isabella Copeland penned an article for the Parents' Review on the topic of spreading the principles to 'those we call the poor.'  You can read it in full here.  I want to point to one particular sentence.  She urges those who would do this work to have a real, genuine love for the people they are trying to help, and to make sure they get to know their audience in meaningful ways so they truly understand how the people they want to help are living.  It is this combination of love and personal knowledge, she says, that

"--makes all the difference between giving advice well nigh impossible to carry out, and applying principles in such a way as to suit the circumstance of those who hear. "

So the principles have some flexibility- they can, they must be, applied in such a way as to suit your circumstances!   In some cases, perhaps some of also need to work to change our circumstances a bit, but you know yourself and your environment best.

wWe want to understand those circumstances even better so we can be better in our our efforts to encourage you to do what you can, to help you apply principles in such a way to suit your circumstances.  We know very well sometimes it's hard, and sometimes we are discouraged and beaten down.  Lift your hearts.  You can do this- but do it in such a way that it suits the circumstances you are in, and not the ones you wish you had, dear hearts.

__________

This week's challenges:

Click on the above links and read more on the principles (see also here)

Read up to page 5 of volume 6 and pay extra attention to what she has to say about mind, knowledge, education, and character.

Try narrating yourself if you haven't already- or even if you have.  Read something worth reading (the first pages of volume VI, for instance, or the PR article linked above). Set a timer for 5 minutes and write down as much as you can remember as quickly as you can before the timer beeps.

Sing this term's folk song, or one you prefer, at least twice this week.

Join the forum.  You don't have to do anything else yet if you don't want, just join.  Here.

Go outside. If it's too hot, go earlier in the morning or later in the evening.  Take out an electric fan and plug it in, sit in front of it with your feet in a bucket of cold water if that is what needs to happen for you to endure time outside.  Spread out a sheet and lay down on grass in the shade.   Have iced coffee or lemonade ready to sit outside and sip at breakfast- along with some fruit and bagels and cream cheese, or boiled eggs, or a steamed sweet potato, or onigiri/rice triangles or whatever is the simplest thing to do in your culture and area.

 Remember that what Miss Mason actually says is that these long hours out of doors should happen on 'suitable days between April and October- in the fairly mild English climate (mild compared to many other places. Here's the reference:

"Possibilities of a Day in the Open.––I make a point, says a judicious mother, of sending my children out, weather permitting, for an hour in the winter, and two hours a day in the summer months. That is well; but it is not enough. In the first place, do not send them; if it is anyway possible, take them; for, although the children should be left much to themselves, there is a great deal to be done and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open air. And long hours they should be;  not two, but four, five, or six hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till October. Impossible! Says an overwrought mother who sees her way to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements of the neighbouring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most town dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?"


Cling to that 'suitable day,'Aspire to improve, but don't beat yourself up, either. There's a nice space between burdened with guilt and defeatism, and attempting the impossible and risking health.

---------------

Digging Deeper for those who can:

About five years ago several of the parents in the forum went through a study of volume VI. You can read those discussions here:

Parts 1 and 2 of the intro: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2472
 (you must first be signed into the forum for the link to work).  Alternative method of finding it- go the forums, scroll down to CM study hall, then Charlotte Mason Series, then Volume 6 PHilosophy of Education, and under that last title, go to page 2 and look for:

 Vol. 6 Discussion: Introduction, Parts I and II

Here's an excerpt  of the introductory study there: "So how do we avoid getting to the point of such debased morality? The context of our education, she says, must be 'great thoughts, great events, great considerations.' She notes that when the Prussians were defeated by Napoleon, they returned and changed their education philosophy and approach. They filled it with history, poetry, philosophy to develop character, etc. But when Germany returned to a utilitarian type education, their morality fell. [If you're into reading John Taylor Gatto at all, he discusses in much detail the Prussian influence on the development of the US public school system.]

Miss Mason then presents some ideas that the PNEU had developed over the years to make sure that the mind was nourished well, while not neglecting physical and vocational training. She also notes that these particular points differ from general educational theory and practice of that day. Some general themes that I see in these 10 points are that the onus is on the student to learn --- it does not rely on entertaining lessons and teachers, or prizes, or threats of punishment. The students are quite capable of handling the large amount of material that they cover each term. They can tell back in a single reading, and can still tell back, without review, at a final exam. All this is not all student/delight-led; they do not select their own studies, nor are "diverting rabbit trails" (as Leslie puts it) followed. "(Kay Pelham)
Be sure to read the rest, and add to the discussion if you wish to- we revise old discussions all the time in the forum.


Preface Study: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2470


Another study went through the six volumes in 2 years.  Here's a comment from the study discussion on the preface and introduction (https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=12616&pid=183436#pid183436)
"The whole idea of the miner's DC being richly educated and able to learn as well as DC of educated persons reminded me of Dangerous Minds as well as the various articles in which teachers or schools find how well DC, even those in inner-city environments, respond and understand poetry and Shakespeare. How sad that we're still re-learning lessons of the past - that we still haven't gleaned the best ideas and kept them at the forefront of our minds! Of course, I know there's a lot more to this issue than just not remembering or knowing or truly believing that DC are capable persons, but much of the problem still seems to be that those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Also, we seem to often forgetting this, as evidenced IMO by the colleges that are partnering w/businesses & industries to produce skilled people, rather than keeping to the more traditional liberal education"

Have you read any of the Parents' Review articles? They can be nice, shorter readers for busy mums while still giving you something meaty to think about:

https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR11p772TheOpenRoad.shtml
Frances Blogg, who later married G. K. Chesterton, invites readers to consider that education is part of the journey of life for our children, and what that could mean for a liberal education. 
"To travel deliberately through one's ages, is to get the heart out of a liberal education."
R.L. Stevenson (Dedication of the Vol. Virginibus Puerisque)

A headmistress, a headmaster, and some others speak on Miss Mason's Liberal Education for All, both the pamphlet and how Mason's philosophy works in their schools.  Very informative, whether you are a beginner or an experienced hand:

"I think I must detain you for a moment with a few words on how Miss Mason's methods differ from others in use at the moment. Firstly, she does not assume that the boys dislike work, and it is therefore necessary to disguise work as play—or to give them coloured bricks in place of units. If a boy dislikes work it is often because it is made so dull and uninteresting that it would bore an angel. I can only speak from my own experience, but I find a very small percentage want any driving; far more want restraining from overdoing things.

Secondly—and this is the whole mainspring of the system—Miss Mason insists that children are really human beings: and must be treated as such. Failure in the past, complaints or inattention and laziness, all can be traced to7 the inability to recognise this fact on the part of reformers and teachers. Formerly, the children did not do the work—we did it for them. We separated what they should learn from what they should not learn, and then made them do it—by notes, by explanations, by special preparation, by any means the brain of man could devise, but always working on the principle that the child could not be expected to do anything but accept what we cared to throw him. Quite unconsciously, I honestly believe, the master so dominated the boys that the latter could not develop his own mind—he merely tried to produce what he thought his master appreciated, not what he wished to produce, or what he could have produced, had his mind not been really in subjection to another and stronger."

A few further studies of the principles: Children are born persons
    Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles side-by-side original/paraphrase version of the 20 Principles that boiled down CM's education-  how would you paraphrase those principles yourself?
    A Magical Expansion - A Study of CM's Principle 12 by Lynn Bruce
     An Imaginary Conversation with a Great Mind - A Study of CM's Principle 8 by Tammy Glaser
     An Oyster and a Jewel - A Study of CM's Principle 10 by Lynn Bruce
The Spiritual Octopus - A Study of CM's Principle 11 by Lynn Bruce
Some principles are practices, by Karen Glass
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Children are born persons

Children are born persons, and this is a great relief.

Several links related to principle 3 (authority, obedience):

• For the Children's Sake, Chapter 3, beginning at "Authority: A Balance" (pp. 48-ff in my copy--)

• Vol 3 Ch 1 Docility and Authority in the Home and the School, to 'Quick as Thought.' page 8/9
• Vol 2 Ch 2 Parents As Rulers
• PR Article: Authority by Mrs. Dowson
• PR Article: Docility and Authority, Part 1 by Charlotte Mason
• PR Article: On the Value of Authority in Moral Education by Charles D. Olive
• PR Article: Obedience by Henry Beveridge
• PR Article: Unreasoning Obedience (by CM? not sure of the author on this one)
• Authority in Perspective by Tara Schorr
• At School with Charlotte: Beginning with Authority by Brandy Vencel
• At School with Charlotte: How Authority Behaves by Brandy Vencel

Language Arts on the Fly

by Leslie Laurio

Language arts are probably the easiest part of educating with Charlotte Mason's methods. It's so deceptively simple that I've graduated three students who are proficient in language skills without ever purchasing a Language Arts program or cracking open a spelling book. In fact, one of my graduates went on to major in English at college and was the subject of a doctoral thesis on CM's language arts acquisition.

What's the secret? It's this: you learn to read by reading, and you learn to write by writing. Or, to amplify it a bit, you learn to read and comprehend and know what words look like by reading, and you learn to write and spell and punctuate by using those things as you write, and sometimes by noticing your own mistakes and mentally correcting them.

But what does that look like?

 It might look like you're not doing much in the way of language arts. :-) But there's more learning going on with CM's methods than meets the eye. The details will probably look a little different from one home to the next, but here's how we did it.

In the early preschool years, I read picture books to my kids. We did lots and lots of reading.

When they "started school" at age six or seven, they started daily copywork. I would write a word or two on a sheet of elementary-lined paper, and the child would copy it underneath. In some cases, the child would trace it first and then try to write it. Tracing was always more fun with a colored pencil or highlighter! Choosing a word to write was pretty straightforward: "You liked the Peter Rabbit story we read today where he sees the white cat twitching its tail; would you like to write 'Peter' today?" My son might say, "Can I write 'white cat' instead?" So I would write "white cat" lightly in pencil on a sheet of lined paper and he would trace it, and then copy it. Sometimes the child had definite ideas of his own about what to write. One child wanted to write "Happy Birthday" every day for the two weeks before his birthday. Another child wrote her own name a lot. One child went through a cowboy phase and wanted to write "horse" every day, so I let him. Usually there would be little doodles of horses or something, and those are articles of "schoolwork" that I still cherish (along with one son's written narrations which were always bordered with stick figures dueling with lightsabers . . )

Later, when copying a single word became too easy, we moved on to short sentences, which I would write on lined paper for the child to copy underneath. It was always easy to come up with something, either from something going on in real life, or from something we had been reading: "Balto is a good dog," or "I am seven years old." "Polly is my pet horse." I usually just came up with something relevant off the top of my head, or sometimes the child already knew what he wanted to write: "I want to write, '"Molly is our new cat!'"

When we moved up to slightly longer sentences, I started taking things from real print. This was never difficult, since we're homeschooling with real books and always surrounded with text. I would pick up a book, usually one we were using for school that day, open to what we had just read, and scan the text for a suitable sentence -- something in the general vicinity of the length I wanted without any complicated spellings (no foreign names, or regional dialect) or complicated punctuation. If the book would lay flat, the child could copy straight from the book. If not, I would still write it out by hand for him to copy. But since copywork at this point was still straightforward sentences, it was quick and easy for me to write it out -- it took all of maybe 90 seconds.

Sometimes I put more thought and organization into it. One year I collected Bible verses from the Children's Bible we were using and we used those, starting from the shortest verse and working our way to the longest. I picked out specific verses I wanted my children to internalize, about God's love and mercy, and verses about kindness, that sort of thing -- never verses chosen to chastise the child for some besetting sin. (Years later, I came across that list of verses, and they are currently posted on on the AO forum.)

Later, some of my children chose their own copywork. One transcribed entire chapters from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Two of my sons transcribed George Washington's Rules of Civility -- we used a modernized copy because I wanted them copying correct spelling, not quaint antiquated English (but my daughter, who is currently doing that, insisted on using the original). I remind the child to try to copy word by word, not letter by letter, since seeing the word as a whole is what teaches spelling. I have a collection of quotable quotes about books and reading that I collected from the internet and saved in a document, and if any of my sons didn't have anything specific to write, they could use one of those.

As each child got older, his (or her) copywork increased in length, but never took longer than ten minutes unless the child just liked writing.

Around the time copywork started getting to a point where I thought the child could write a sentence or two on his own, we started written narrations. My first child did one written narration a week (because he loved to write, took a lot of time and care on his one narration, and was doing a lot of writing on his own outside of school). With the others, I think we started with a couple a week, then once a day, and settled at two half page narrations a day around seventh grade. Whatever wasn't written was narrated orally. In high school (around 10th grade), I started assigning written essays -- I collected SAT-type essay questions from the internet, printed them and cut them out, and the child would draw one from the collection, and that would be his writing assignment that day.

Around the time written narrations started, we also added studied dictation. My general method: open a book, pick a sentence. Hand child the book to study, when he's ready, I read the sentence out loud and he writes it. Boom, we're done.

We started dictations slow and easy: "Learn this sentence so you can write it without looking." It might be only four words long. After that seemed too easy, I made it tricky: "Learn this short paragraph with three sentences; you'll need to be able to write one of them without looking." My youngest is in the middle of this process now, and as I scan our school reading for an appropriate dictation passage, I'm starting to look for passages with quotation marks and semi-colons. Today's dictation was taken from Northanger Abbey, the chapter we read this morning. I never choose something she can't do, and she almost never makes a mistake. If she was making mistakes, I would back off and choose sentences with fewer complicated spellings, less punctuation, shorter length -- the point is for her to succeed, not to catch her in a mistake. The whole process takes maybe 10 minutes, and she much prefers this to copywork (we don't do copywork on the days we do dictation, it's either one or the other). She's always happy when it's a Dictation day and not a Copywork day.

Does that sound too easy? It actually is that easy -- in fact, it seems so self-evident that I feel redundant even writing it out. I find language arts to be the quickest, simplest, most painless part of a CM education. There's nothing to buy, no complicated curriculum to follow, no lists of vocabulary or spelling words to memorize, no contrived creative writing assignments -- the whole thing takes 5 or 10 minutes a day, and writing has never become a dreaded, tedious chore. In fact, most of my children's writing happens outside of school. With the skills they practice painlessly during school, they take off in their own time and write their own stories or plays or songs. I believe in making as little work and fuss as possible, and language arts is an area where simpler is truly better.

Why Choose Charlotte Mason?

As a homeschool mom, do you find yourself dreaming of meandering in the great outdoors exploring nature with your children and snuggling with them on the couch for a good book, but also torn because you desire your children to have the advantages of the excellence that a classical education has to offer with its high standards and discipline? Are you torn between relaxed days where you can simply enjoy life with your children, and a rigorously structured plan that will enable your children to attain to any career goal they set for themselves?

Why choose one or the other? Did you know you can have both?

A Charlotte Mason education offers structure, ease and enjoyment because of its well-rounded, expansive cohesion. It recognizes that the child is a complete, whole person -- not a trainable, formable being who has the potential to be a person "someday," but a full-fledged person right now -- an individual created in the image of God, with a right to know and experience all that's worthwhile in the wide world. It recognizes that education is supposed to do more than prepare a child for a job: education should expose a child to the diversity and vastness of the universe and give him the tools to appreciate all the variety of beauty and delight that the world has to offer. It should prepare him to live a life graced with zest, and full of connections with all kinds of interests, and a wide range of relationships with people -- not just the people around him, but also those in faraway places, and even distant times. His education should encourage him to find joy in being a useful part of his community. It should teach him to know God. Preparation for a career is important, but it's only one part of a full, rich life.

How can an education fill such a tall order? By carefully arranging an unusually wide variety of subjects in brief time slots at regular intervals that make for shorter school days with less tedious drudgery, and yet still cover a wider range of topics every week than a typical school schedule can offer. A shorter school day allows down time for reflection and dreaming. It allows free time for pursuing interests that have been awakened from the vast array of school subjects.

How does a Charlotte Mason education do this? If you imagine school like a huge church pot-luck laid out fresh every day, the curriculum offers carefully planned and arranged dishes such as lush paintings, constellations and planetary orbits, inspiring symphonies, the seed cycle of flowers, a selection of classic literature rotated for freshness, multiplication and division, Scripture, historical heroes, language arts, principles of the laws of nature, hymns that have built the faith of generations, peeks at what life was like in past ages, the beauty of words arranged in poetry, right triangles, a view of how people live on the other side of the world. All of this delicious fare is served in manageable-sized portions that won't cause indigestion, and without rushing or harassment so that the meal can digest and settle comfortably. The parent/teacher isn't there to force feed anybody, but to serve up portions with a smile, to sit down and even enjoy the meal with the child.

Each child's approach to the table is as individual as his personality. Some children take a heaping pile of art and just a little bit of math. Other children return for second helpings of history, or go back to nibble at science later. The only rule is that every child has to at least try a bite of everything every day. These dishes aren't just facts and data to be choked down like a vitamin-enhanced diet shake. They're ideas that spark curiosity, inspire wonder, and perhaps even lead to life-long passions.

Does the number of subjects sound like the makings of a long school day? It doesn't have to be! A Charlotte Mason school day is typically only two to four hours, depending on the child's age/grade. How can that be? Encouraging focused attention makes these lessons effective, even though they're short. Interesting, narrative books take the place of boring textbooks and maximize time by doing triple duty as they teach, inspire, and offer role models. To make the biggest impact in a student's limited school time, only a few of the best books are preferred over a lot of mediocre ones. Children assimilate not only the best ideas from these books, but the language and vocabulary of excellent writers, too -- and without weekly vocabulary lists!

Does it take a lot of memorization for a child to remember what they learn? No! The key to Charlotte Mason isn't memorization, but narration. A child tells back or writes down what was heard or read in his own words, and the process of mentally going over the material as he clarifies, sequences, and re-creates it in verbal form is what transforms reading into real learning. Narration itself is where the learning takes place! Learning isn't a passive activity, it's something the child does himself by wrestling with fresh material. The parent/teacher's task is to set the meal table at regular times; the child's job is to attend, be engaged, and narrate for the short time school is in session. By recognizing that learning is the child's work, and that it's rewarding work (after all, who doesn't enjoy knowing and understanding things?), pressure is taken off the parent/teacher to make the child learn, and school can become a pleasure. A Charlotte Mason education is enjoyable and life-enriching for both the parent/teacher and the student, yet it provides the kind of knowledge that any classical scholar would envy.

Are you wondering whether you could ever afford this kind of education for your child? Yes, you can! AmblesideOnline offers all of this for free. All you need is access to a computer, some books, and an investment of time to grasp this approach to learning.

-- Leslie Noelani Laurio

_________________________________________


To read more about a Charlotte Mason education, see
http://archipelago7.blogspot.com/2015/03/defining-charlotte-mason.html

To learn more about AmblesideOnline, or to view our booklists, links to free texts, schedules, and additional resources, see http://www.amblesideonline.org/

Defining Charlotte Mason

by Leslie Laurio

I wrote in a previous post about trying to come up with a definition of the Charlotte Mason method by boiling it down to its principle components, and then wording those components without using any CM lingo so that even someone who never heard of CM would be able to understand it. This is what I came up with:

A Charlotte Mason education is distinct at its very core because it respects that the child is an individual made in the image of God, and he has a right to know and experience a variety of things, not for the purpose of making him suitable for some future employment, but simply because he is a Person, and is therefore entitled to a full life that includes knowing about everything that is good that the world has to offer that might help him to reach the potential that God designed him for.

This kind of education attempts to expose the child to a rich variety of knowledge in order for him to make meaningful connections with the world around him and develop authentic relationships with God, and with people both in his own direct environment, and from different times and places.

Because the child is entitled to learn about whatever the universe has to offer, his curriculum is carefully arranged for him with a goal of offering variety, much like a delicious, bountiful feast. Science, literature, the arts and practical skills are some of the mandatory dishes offered at this mental banquet. The teacher's role is to provide this well-planned feast, but the responsibility for partaking and digesting this food for the mind rests on the child. The teacher acts as a guide and fellow-partaker of the feast rather than as the authority dispensing knowledge, trying to lecture facts into the child's mind.

Training the child to maintain focused attention allows lessons to be kept short enough to keep his mind fresh and alert and still leave much of the day free to pursue his personal interests.

Ideas that encourage wonder and reflection from the greatest minds of all time are transferred through interesting, narrative books that spark life in the mind, instead of dry, dull textbooks. These books are so vital to this kind of education that the term "living books" is sometimes used synonymously with Charlotte Mason.

Rather than answering stock comprehension questions or outlining wearisome lists of facts, the child considers and clarifies for himself what he read and tells it back in his own words in order to make that knowledge his own. This is called narration, and, as a major part of the child's work in his own learning, is key to making this kind of education successful.

Language arts is learned, not through isolated workbooks and practice sheets, but integrated with his reading through role modeling by studying and copying well-written passages from the school books being used in other subjects.

Science begins with an emphasis on first-hand experience with the wonders of God's world. This direct observation and sensory participation in nature continues even after more focused science is added to the curriculum.

There is an emphasis on moral training, which includes putting oneself in someone else's shoes, and doing one's duty even when that's not the easiest or most convenient choice. Much of this is done through vicariously experiencing the consequences of right and wrong choices through classic books with substantial characters of depth rather than shallow, sentimental stories.

Students educated this way tend to be well prepared to pursue whatever path they choose, whether that be college, job, military or family. The AmblesideOnline homeschool community has many alumni who have graduated and gone on to successful adulthood. What makes a Charlotte Mason education distinct is that these students continue to pursue learning because their schooling has taught them that learning isn't a thing that ends with high school graduation, but something that adds vitality and meaning to their existence.

How Do You Define CM in 100 Words?

by Leslie Laurio

A few months ago, while I was waiting for my daughter's piano lesson, I thought it would be fun to challenge myself to get a definitional synopsis of CM squeezed into 100 words.

I was quite pleased with myself -- I got as close as 101 words:

"In a Charlotte Mason education, the child's dignity as an individual made in God's image is respected. His education connects him to the world around him, building relationships with God and people from various places and times. Outdoor life is emphasized. Focused attention at short lessons keep the mind fresh and leave free time for personal interests. Living books put the child in touch with vital ideas, and narration teaches him to process those ideas. Copywork and dictation are the bulk of language arts instruction. The educational course of study is teacher-directed, but learning is the responsibility of the student."

It's admittedly a bit choppy. One of the other AO AA (Ambleside Advisory/Auxiliary members) made an improvement that was not only smoother, but weighed in at only 97 words -- less than 100. Maybe I can convince her to share hers in the comments!

Not totally happy with my failure to get under 100 words, I wondered if I could do any better, squeeze it any further. And I did! This one is 63 words:

"The child's dignity as an individual made in God's image is respected. Education means connection between the child and the world around him. Outdoor life is emphasized. Focused attention at short lessons provide free time for personal pursuits. Living books and narration allow the child to process ideas. Copywork teaches handwriting. Course of study is teacher-directed, but learning is the student's job."

Still not satisfied, I pared it down to 27 words that would fit on a Post-It note:

"The child's personhood is respected. His education connects him to the world and ideas. The method includes outdoor life, focused attention, short lessons, living books, narration, copywork."

Nine months later, I'm revisiting this. Now that I had boiled down Charlotte Mason to its most crucial aspects, could I put it all back together without using any CM lingo? Could I explain CM thoroughly, yet in a way that even someone outside of the Charlotte Mason world could understand? I'll post what I came up with in a separate post. It's 599 words. :-)

I think this is a good exercise for anyone. What better way is there to prepare to answer questions about your homeschool method than by getting to its bare bones and then re-assembling those bones in your own words?

How would YOU define a Charlotte Mason education? If you take up the challenge, I would love to see what you come up with!

Pastor Chuck Smith, 1927-2013

Many of you may not know who Chuck Smith is. But if you use Ambleside Online, even if you use only the artist or composer rotation, you have directly benefited from his ministry.

Although I am the only "Calvary Chapelite" of the AO Advisory, I have been influenced by the Calvary Chapel movement for my entire Christian life. AO has the same top-down leadership model, with the Advisory making decisions: we seek to be true to our vision, rather than appealing to the changing whims of a user base. I don't often like to pull out the "AO was my idea" card because, although the initial curriculum concept was mine, the creation of the booklist was mostly the work of the more well-read members of the Advisory. My fantastic brilliance is not in putting together a curriculum, but in putting together the right people and convincing them that the project wasn't such a crazy idea, and convincing them that it was something doable. Then I mostly stepped back and relegated myself to webmaster. But I'm pulling out that card now. AO was my idea. And perhaps my biggest contribution, aside from recognizing who needed to be involved, was the insistence from its inception that it needed to be something anybody could use for free. Nobody had to pay us, or me, to utilize AO. AO was (and is) run by volunteers who view the project as a ministry. That is also Pastor Chuck's influence, modeled after his emphasis on blessing others as a ministry, not a profit venture, even though we recognize the obvious marketing potential of AO.

This is a more personal post, about my own history and my own life, which has been largely influenced and inspired by Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel. I became a Christian in 1983 while in the military in Okinawa. The group of young Christians I fell in with talked in glowing terms about this church called Calvary Chapel back in California that welcomed young people and taught straight out of the Bible. So when I ended up stationed in Oceanside, I naturally looked them up. The first time I walked into a Calvary Chapel (I think it was a mid-week Bible study), there was a guy with an acoustic guitar and a girl sitting on a stool up in front singing and leading worship. It seemed natural, no hype, and very real. It felt like coming home. The teaching was plain, no yelling, no theatrics, just a guy talking,  explaining the Bible in a way I could understand, and that was refreshing.

During the three years between military and marriage, I was a part of the congregation of Calvary Chapel Oceanside (at the time, they were meeting at the local YMCA and the pastor was Bob Dietz and we would hear YMCA announcements from the concession stand over the PA during church service: "Number 4, your pizza is ready!"). Every chance I got, I would go with friends to "Big Calvary" in Costa Mesa, about an hour away. Often that was their Friday night Christian concerts. We were also going to Thursday night Bible studies at Calvary Chapel Dana Point, where Chuck Smith Jr. was teaching, and I went to a women's study at Calvary Chapel Vista taught by Cheryl Broderson, Chuck Smith's daughter. Being young and single and a brand new Christian, I spent a lot of my spare time listening to sermons on cassette - mostly Chuck Smith. And when Calvary Chapel started a radio station - KWVE - I listened to a lot of Calvary Chapel teaching - Greg Laurie, Raul Ries, Jon Courson, Don Johnson. Thus, much of my understanding of what it means to live as a Christian was learned from Calvary Chapel -- either directly from Pastor Chuck, or indirectly from one of his students who had gone on to plant a church somewhere else.

During that time, I met a recently divorced guy at work who was interested in Christianity, so I directed him to the one Christian I knew at work, who was involved in a spin-off Calvary Chapel church called Horizon Christian Fellowship, pastored by Mike Macintosh. The guy ended up becoming a Christian and a year or so later, I married him and we went to his church, Horizon, and Maranatha Chapel, another Calvary Chapel spin-off where Ray Bentley was the pastor. Horizon was meeting in an old school the county was no longer using. When they needed a larger facility for Sunday morning services, they built a gymnasium at the church's expense on the school grounds that they could leave as a gift to the county when the county needed the school back. While the church was using the school grounds, they would allow kids from the neighborhood to use the gym when church services weren't going on. That act of generosity impressed me and modeled the ideal for me of how Christians should act towards their neighbors.

When we started our family a year later, we decided we'd like our children to grow up in a more rural area where they could have a more normal childhood, away from gang violence which was increasing in San Diego. We drove from San Diego to Tennessee with a 4yo and a 2yo. During the very long drive we listened to Praise Band music from Maranatha Music. We were confident we'd have no problem finding a church -- after all, we were going to be living in the Bible Belt. But it wasn't as easy as we had expected. There were plenty of churches, but nothing with the kind of Bible teaching we had grown accustomed to. We even found a church that was sort of a copy of California mega-churches. I think it would be considered a "seeker church" and they had rules they made new members read before joining about what wasn't allowed (no hand-lifting, for example) because "it might make new people uncomfortable." And, although anyone could walk in from the street and feel at home, the Bible teaching was not what we hoped for. We thought our hopes of finally finding a church would be realized, but we were only there for two weeks.

One morning during our search for a church family, I woke up and it hit me -- the natural, reverent, Spirit-seeking, Bible teaching kind of church that I had taken for granted for the past ten years was something I had left back in California and I would never experience that again. It was gone forever. At that point we began praying that a Calvary Chapel would be planted in our area, although the chances of that happening seemed remote. Eventually, though, it did happen after we met another family who had also moved from California and were praying for the same thing. We started our own little home Bible study, and that was the seed of the church we have been involved in for the last 17 years.

Calvary Chapel isn't the perfect church. In fact, I've had my own issues with a few things, mostly when homeschooling has changed me. As I learned about attachment parenting (Dr. Sears used to do a call-in radio show on KVWE, so even that resulted from Calvary Chapel's influence), I wished they were more family-inclusive, instead of segregating church, Bible studies and church activities into age groups. As I homeschooled (after hearing James Dobson talk about it, also on KWVE) and I read more because I was homeschooling, I noticed a slight anti-intellectual bias. It's not an official church-sanctioned attitude, but a church whose focus is on saving souls via street evangelism, and recovery of drug addicts, and group leaders and even pastors come from that background, is likely to have that side effect. So, the church is not perfect, but no church is, and I've found that the positives far outweigh the negatives.

So we've been involved in our local little Calvary Chapel, and made that our church home. But any time I had to miss church because of a sick child, I'd tune in to Calvary Chapel's live service and listen to Pastor Chuck. In fact, the last time I was home with a sick child and tuned in, that was the morning Pastor Chuck made the announcement that he had cancer. Maybe it wasn't just coincidence that I happened to stay home that morning, of all mornings -- maybe I needed to prepare for the inevitable. That was awhile ago, a year or two.

This past Wednesday evening we had a real treat -- Terry Clark, a musician we had known of from Horizon Christian fellowship in San Diego, gave a concert. At OUR little church in Tennessee! It was wonderful, like a taste of home. During the music, I had the inkling that there was a reason for the magical feeling of the worship -- almost like a last victory celebration, or a farewell. And I found out the very next morning that Pastor Chuck had died during the night, just a few hours after that concert.

Are you wondering what the point was in posting my life story? This actually does have an AO aspect. As I've mulled over Pastor Chuck's death and my own years as a Christian that have been entirely under his shadow, I've realized how much of Pastor Chuck's teaching has influenced my own actions, and I've also been struck by a couple of parallels. In the last few months, for the only time in the history of AO, I've seriously considered walking away a couple of times. AO has had its (small) share of critics over the years, as any organization does. Recently we've been alarmed to see our project re-posted, re-named, even sold, so we've had to be more responsible about protecting the work. As a result, I've heard AO come under some pretty severe attack -- mostly variations of AO being accused of being stingy because, even though we allow people to use it for free, we can't allow it to be copied, re-named, re-posted, or sold. During those times that I was tempted to defend AO, I would hear Pastor Chuck's voice in the back of my mind answering a question once asked in an interview about how he responded to those who criticized him or his ministry (and you know that a person in the limelight as much as he was probably had all kinds of things said about him). He said he refused to defend himself, that it was his job to continue doing what God had told him to do, and it was God's job to defend him if that was necessary. (And, as far as me walking away from AO, I've had the verses about "not being weary in doing good" pop up at uncanny times frequently enough over the past few months to convince me that I'm supposed to continue what I'm doing, so me walking away from AO is now off the table. That's no longer an option I'm entertaining.)

The other parallel is about the realities of all organizations. At the time we were praying for a Calvary Chapel to start in our rural area, we were told that the process of starting a Calvary Chapel wasn't as easy as the days I remembered, when anyone could rent a storefront and hang a Calvary Chapel sign on the door. There had been a lot of problems with spin-off churches bearing the Calvary Chapel name but being doctrinally off, so "Big Calvary" had started to require that Calvary Chapels be under the official organization and meet certain doctrinal standards. When I see AO going through some of the same growing pains, it's encouraging to know that even an organization as spirit-filled and well-intentioned as Calvary Chapel has had similar growing pains, though on a much larger scale, and they felt justified in protecting their vision and upholding standards of those who wanted to join them.

Calvary Chapel has lost the one who drove, inspired and directed it, and I'm curious to know what that will mean for them. Similarly, in 1923, Charlotte Mason died, leaving her project without the one who drove, inspired and directed it. Mrs. Steinthal, Mrs. Franklin, and all those others whose names I know from Parents' Review articles carried on the work for her successfully. Yet it wasn't the same. Without her wise but warm presence, listening and guiding with a smile but never any word that "left a sting," it couldn't be the same. Times were changing, the needs of the school system were putting pressure on the PNEU to make changes. Without Charlotte Mason there to hold firmly to the original vision, I'm sure there were things that were done that she would never have wanted, compromises made to meet the demands of modern educational board requirements. AO tries to model what a CM education would look like if CM was alive today, but we can't know for sure what concessions she might have made to accommodate today's society. Would she ban the use of computers for her students? Would she encourage BBC productions of Pride and Prejudice and Wives and Daughters? Even if one of the Steinthals or Franklins or others of her students were here to ask, they aren't her and they'd only be making an educated guess.

I tuned in to the live broadcast of this morning's service at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, and I've been listening as I've been typing. His son told a few anecdotes about him, and said that Pastor Chuck loved nature and knew the names of the birds and trees in his local area. Maybe he and Charlotte Mason will be taking nature walks in heaven. There's a thought!

I'll end with Numbers 6:24-26. Pastor Chuck ended all of his services with this; there's an audio of him singing it on YouTube.

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee;
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee,
And be gracious unto thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee,
And give thee peace.