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.

How Six Voices, One Story Came To Be (For Those Writing Their Own Chapters)

Most of you reading this know about the new book written by the AO Advisory, Six Voices, One Story: The Heart of AmblesideOnline. Some of you may have already read it. What you may not know, although Donna-Jean hints at it in the introduction, is that this book took several years to go from “we could do that” through “are we ever going to do that” to “here it is.” We wanted to write something that was not only our story, but that would be a book of encouragement; not only about Charlotte Mason, but about the ways that God works in drawing people (many people!) together to act on small ideas; not only about how a curriculum came together, but also a deep friendship.

The project, as we originally envisioned it, was going to be a “let’s make this simple”  collaboration: you bring salad, you bring lasagna, I’ll bring dessert. Everybody contribute what they can, and we keep writing until we have enough pages.  But for some reason, the book kept stalling. We all had other things to do, sometimes very big things, and it seemed we would always have time enough to get back to it. Then, about a year ago, a new version of the book started to take shape. Instead of just a few long chapters, we began to pull some of our other writing together: talks, blog posts, even emails. It tells our story in a different way than we had planned, but that’s so often the way things have gone. It’s also a reflection of the way the Advisory have worked together: occasionally in person, quite often by video chat, but most often and always through daily writing.

The minutes of an Advisory meeting from about two years ago (yes, we are That Organized)  record that “We talked about the need for all of us to encourage those whose chapters are unwritten…” At the time, that referred only to ourselves, but as I look at that now, I think it is more about the fellow travelers, those whose chapters are partly written or who have just begun. As Wendi Capehart once wrote, “We pray that our efforts continue to be a legacy for others seeking to strengthen their own precious family bonds by educating their children using this beautiful philosophy of education popularized by Miss Charlotte Mason.”

(Six Voices, One Story is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle versions.)

A New Look at "This Country of Ours"

 

On AmblesideOnline's website, we say that "This Country of Ours is a classic work for which we have found no equal, and it is an important spine in the AO curriculum." We stand by that statement, and we recommend the book for the very end of Year 2, and for all of Years 3, 4, and 5.

H. E. Marshall's book was published in the United States in 1917, and it therefore has certain terms and expressions that are no longer in usage today. Over the years, I've wanted to update the book, and to add some notes and helps that would enhance the reading for a new generation.

That project is part-way done. I have completed Volume 1, which is chapters 1-28, in an "Annotated, Expanded, and Updated" version. Here are a few of the things that are added or adjusted in this version:

-the sources of Marshall's many quotes are listed, as accurately as possible.

-outdated or color-based terms for Native people are removed and replaced with the correct tribal name wherever possible.

-terms that are now considered offensive are changed (such as the term for a Native woman).

-new information that is pertinent is added (such as links to Viking discoveries, or how the Spotswood Peace Treaty continues to this day).

-there is a Pronunciation Guide for names of people or tribes, and there are now definitions of some words that are not easily understood in the context.

-in some places, a few sentences or paragraphs that explain more of the story are included, where it's helpful.

-there is enhanced punctuation, to make read-aloud easier.

-American spellings are used, rather than British spellings.

All notes are at the end of each chapter, so as not to disrupt the reading. (One additional change: the title of chapter 17 has been changed to "A Year to be Remembered, and the Peace of Pocahontas Ends.")

In the process of this project, I have been impressed once again by Marshall's passion for the truth, by her fairness, and by her gift of writing. The story of America is compelling, and she has done a worthy job of telling it. This version seeks to follow in her footsteps.

This version is now available in paperback, hardcover, and in an inexpensive Kindle version. Volume 2 will be available in a few months, with the third volume completed in a similar time period. Volume 4 will be original material, taking the story beyond 1917, for term 1 of year 6.

Charlotte Mason wrote, "It is never too late to mend but we may not delay to offer such a liberal and generous diet of History to every child in the country as to give weight to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his conduct; that stability, the lack of which has plunged us into many a stormy sea of unrest." ("Towards a Philosophy of Education," p. 179)

In this stormy sea of unrest, here is a new look at "This Country of Ours."

Please know that anyone can still use the original version of TCOO, and the free version online! But if you want the updated version, it is available on Amazon.

Excerpt from Revitalized

In this section, young journalist Miss Hagan returns to Miss Mason’s study, with the purpose of finding out more about the PNEU, particularly on the topic of school-books and how they “make for education.” This passage begins partway through their interview.

Miss Mason: Now, intelligent teachers today are well aware of the dry-as-dust character of school books, so they fall back upon the oral lesson, one of whose qualities must be that it is not bookish. 

Miss Hagan: Ah, isn’t it interesting that bookish then becomes a derogatory term. 

Miss Mason: And, to a degree, this can be successful. Living ideas can be derived only from living minds, and so it occasionally happens that a vital spark is flashed from teacher to pupil. But this occurs only when the subject is one to which the teacher has given original thought. In most cases the oral lesson, or the more advanced lecture for the older ones, consists of information got up by the teacher from various books, and imparted in language a little pedantic, or a little commonplace, or a little reading-made-easy in style. At the best, the teacher is not likely to have vital interest in, and, consequently, original thought upon, a wide range of subjects. So this approach often fails because of the natural limitations of teachers.

We wish to place before the child open doors to many avenues of instruction and delight, in each one of which he should find quickening thoughts. Our aim in education is to give a full life. But we cannot expect a school to be manned by a dozen master-minds, and even if it were, and the scholar were taught by each in turn, it would be much to his disadvantage. What he wants of his teacher is moral and mental discipline, sympathy and direction; and it is better, on the whole, that the training of the pupil should be undertaken by one wise teacher than that he should be passed from hand to hand for this subject and that. 

Miss Hagan: What is it that we are responsible to give them? 

Miss Mason: No, not quite give this time. We owe it to children to initiate an immense number of interests; “Thou hast set my feet in a large room” (Psalm 31:8) should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul; but we cannot give the children these interests. I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink; but what I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off, and say, and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. It is rather like keeping a boat anchored close to the shore, and complaining that we cannot catch enough fish, when the waters are full of them.

Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking–the strain would be too great–but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We prefer that students should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. 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? 

Miss Hagan: Is it not perhaps expecting too much of children to be interested in such things? Are these methods really suitable for the average student? 

Miss Mason: Of course there are highly gifted and precocious children, the ones who are reading at two years of age and composing at five, the Morrises and Macaulays. But all children are reasonable beings. Our grandfathers and grandmothers recognized children as persons of mind and conscience like themselves, but, needing their guidance and control, as having neither knowledge nor experience. This is the note of home-life in the last generation [Study 1]. So soon as the baby recognized his surroundings, he found himself morally and intellectually responsible. And children have not altered. This is how we find them––with intelligence more acute, logic more keen, observing powers more alert, moral sensibilities more quick, love and faith and hope more abounding; in fact, in all points as adults are, only more so; but absolutely ignorant of the world and its belongings, of us and our ways, and, above all, of how to control and direct and manifest the infinite possibilities with which they are born.

In her third volume, School Education, Charlotte Mason examined most of her educational principles: authority and obedience; the respect owed to personality; and the uses of environment, habit, and living ideas. She also compared the educational ideas of her Parents’ Union with other psychological thought and worldviews; explored the building of early affinities through literary examples; and provided specific application of those principles through samples of student work. In Revitalized, by Anne E. White, this rich treasure chest of thought has now been re-imagined for a new era, using formats such as letters and conversations, while attempting to remain as faithful as possible to the original work. Revitalized is available on Amazon, in print and Kindle formats.

In longest, darkest nights

 December from Calendar of Sonnets, by Helen Hunt Jackson

The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes
Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed:
Far fairer than when placidly it streamed,
The brook its frozen architecture makes,
And under bridges white its swift way takes.
Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed
Might linger on the road; or one who deemed
His message hostile gently for their sakes
Who listened might reveal it by degrees.
We gird against the cold of winter wind
Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep,
In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease,
And every shortening day, as shadows creep
O'er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find.

This poem is included in the AmblesideOnline Poetry Anthology Volume Three, along with poems by Helen Hunt Jackson and three other poets . They can also be read on the AO website.

A New Opportunity

 In its nearly 20 years of existence, AmblesideOnline has never charged for its online curriculum or forum. Our entire offering has been and will always be free. 

We have been able to pay for our work through  Amazon's Affiliate program, but we now have an opportunity to provide an additional way to support AO. 

Living Book Press publishes a number of books that are in AmblesideOnline's curriculum. LBP has several titles for which they've sought and gained reprint rights, and some that have never before been transcribed and republished. This is already a wonderful contribution to the Charlotte Mason community in general, and the AmblesideOnline family in particular. 

One of our objectives at AmblesideOnline is that of using the best possible books that are also readily available. On our site, we include links to free online sources where they exist. We suggest that our families buy used books for their home or group's library, and we also link to inexpensive Kindle e-books. 

As we list books for each year, we have provided links to Amazon. When you purchase a book through that link, AO receives a small percentage, as an Amazon Affiliate. This has helped us sustain the work of AO over the years, a work which we offer completely for free. 

In the light of recent concerns and as assurance regarding those concerns, and also because we are grateful for the work of Living Book Press, we have entered into an additional affiliate program - this time with LBP. On our website, you will see this symbol:  £,  which is a direct link to purchase that title through LBP. When you buy the book that way, AO will also receive a small percentage to help us with the ongoing work of AmblesideOnline. 

We will continue to link to both Amazon and Living Book Press (where applicable), in order to provide our AmblesideOnline family with as many options as we can. 

Equipping the Power

by Anne White

Charlotte’s primary-level students narrated a little at a time, to fully develop their powers of attention and their skill in telling back.

“[Attention] is the power of bending such powers as one has to the work in hand; it is a key to success within the reach of every one, but the skill to turn it comes of training.” (Formation of Character, p. 95)

They used the same stories for “telling back” as they did for other subjects, from mythology, fairy tales, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Bible; and they told about “how we know the world is round and a great deal besides; for all their work lends itself to oral composition and the power of such composition is innate in children and is not the result of instruction” (Philosophy, p. 191). Does that contradict what Charlotte said in Formation of Character? No, it is the attention, or the listening ear, that must be trained; but the power to tell (aside from a few basic instructions in what is expected) is a natural one.

The junior grades “wrote their little essays themselves.” “Little” seems to refer only to length, because oh my, the reading list... “We could do anything with books like those,” said an unnamed headmaster. Charlotte scolded him for missing the point, but I think he was at least half right: the ability to narrate well, and to turn that skill into written composition, does begin with the choice of books. Some writers can start from a point inside their heads, without any outside reference, but for most of us, that’s as hard as being handed a brush and told to paint, without having anything to look at. “Compose something,” my piano teacher once commanded, when I was about ten. But since I knew very little about listening to music, much less about creating it, the result was worthless, a waste of time. I knew my way around the piano keyboard, but I had no musical ideas, nothing to write music about; I did not understand even how to begin with the “major lines,” much less work out the details. And she never asked me to do that again. Why, similarly, do teachers ask children to shape composition bricks, but refuse to give them the right mud for the task, never mind straw?

"For right thinking is by no means a matter of self-expression. Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea, and ideas are stored as we have seen in books and pictures and the lives of men and nations; these instruct the conscience and stimulate the will, and man or child ‘chooses.’" (Philosophy, p. 130)

Excerpted from Ideas Freely Sown: The Matter and Method of Charlotte Mason, by Anne E. White

Networking

by Anne White

Education theorists talk about the recognition, strategic, and affective networks of the brain. The recognition network is how you process information, including your receptive skills. The strategic network is how you respond to information and express what you have learned. The third is the affective network, which has to do with how you personally engage with what you’re learning.

What are the most important things you can think of in a Charlotte Mason education? “Living ideas?” We get some of these seeds of inspiration from books or from oral teaching, but they are also a part of our everyday explorations. So for that, we access the recognition network. “Narration?” Probably the strategic network. “Children are born persons.” What does it mean for us to remember that grownups are born persons too? We listen to each other; we acknowledge that we have different points of view; but we try to work together to achieve shared goals and build community. You could say that that requires all three of our neural networks.

“Masterly inactivity?” This relates closely to “born persons,” by allowing learners to make their own connections and take responsibility for their own learning. One of my education textbooks says that the affective network determines “whether or not an individual finds what is being taught to be important, interesting, and worthy of attention or action.” In other words, “does he care?”

What about “Education is the science of relations?” The relationships we build with the world, and with others are also building us; and we don’t stop building just because our children no longer need us to do math with them. Again, I think, all the networks.

One of the things that  researchers are getting better at all the time is admitting how complex our brains are when it comes to learning. Back in the era when doctors started doing lobotomies, they thought it was a genius idea because they had perfectly mapped out (they thought) how the different parts of the brain were supposed to work and what they were supposed to do, and they didn’t see how one little change could affect the other functions. But we now know that it’s very hard to draw a permanent you-are-here map of what connects with what. Things change around, and functions are shared. The limbic system of the brain used to be associated with emotions, but neuroscientists now see it as more of a very complex communications center, and it’s responsible for a great deal of learning and memory. What that means for us is that if we engage with information in a way that stimulates us emotionally, for instance through a story, we are more likely to retain it.

Excerpt from Ideas Freely Sown: The Matter and Method of Charlotte Mason, by Anne E. White (to be published soon)

Charlotte Mason and the "Kindergarten Problem"

by Anne White

After that introduction, Charlotte goes on the warpath against Froebelian kindergartens, which were soaring in popularity at the time. Those of us who attended North American kindergartens in the late twentieth century might not quite understand her objections; we might think of singing along with the teacher’s autoharp (or boom-box), or of playing at the sand table, or painting with drippy paints at an easel; and of the whole thing being rather fun, at least in comparison to the higher grades; but the early kindergartens were not quite like that. Children were led through programmed activities involving boxes of geometric shapes, and other materials such as “folded paper and woven straw.” Sometimes they sat at little tables, sometimes they stood in circles and moved as prescribed (think of the actions for “I’m a Little Teapot”). (If you really want to know more about the purposes and methods of kindergartens at that time, see if you can find a copy of Norman Brosterman’s book Inventing Kindergarten.) When Charlotte Mason quotes Anne Sullivan as requesting not to be sent any more kindergarten materials for Helen Keller, she is rebelling not so much against the nice craft supplies as against the ways that they are supposed to be used.

“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think, whereas if the child is left to himself he will think more and better, if less showily.” (Anne Sullivan, quoted in Home Education, pp. 195-196)

There was one more twist to the “kindergarten problem,” and that is that Froebel (like Pestalozzi before him) was undoubtedly a genius, with a deep desire to pass on his vision of the universe. A child who played with his wooden cubes, and made designs with toothpicks and dried peas, might have ended up with, at least, an amazing sense of artistic design. (Frank Lloyd Wright was apparently one of those.) But Froebel had died in 1852, when Charlotte Mason was ten years old; and by the era of Home Education thirty-plus years later, his own writings (dense and difficult) were skipped over by busy young teachers. His methods had been adapted and restyled; the activities were kept, but the understanding was lost. The kindergartens of Charlotte’s time might be called merely Froebel-ish.

And that is the context in which she wrote,

“…[if a child participates in too-structured early learning],during the first six or seven years in which he might have become intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural object within his reach, he…can distinguish a rhomboid from a pentagon, a primary from a secondary colour, has learned to see so truly that he can copy what he sees in folded paper or woven straw,—but this at the expense of much of that real knowledge of the external world which at no time of his life will he be so fitted to acquire.” (Home Education, p. 179)

The early-years curriculum described here is one which produces skillful hand-eye co-ordination, and also teaches children to think “showily,” to quote Anne Sullivan; but which misses out on heart. It is the equivalent of learning scales without music, or capitals of the world without people. It might even be read as an echo of St. Paul’s “If I do this or that good thing, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Ironically, those who recommend such a structured program (or its contemporary equivalent) might say that they are, in fact, providing “real knowledge of the external world,” perhaps in the same way that Eustace Scrubb was raised to enjoy pictures of grain elevators. Charlotte Mason, on the other hand, describes fortunate children whose early years allowed them to become “intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural object within [their] reach”; whose parents realized that they could pick up most of the common shapes-colours-numbers lessons simply by living, working, and playing. Playing included playing outdoors, as often as possible, and not only on playground equipment, or at soccer practice, but by climbing (trees, preferably), touching, digging, splashing in creeks or at the shore, listening, looking; particularly looking. “The child’s observation should be directed to flower or boulder, bird or tree; that, in fact, he should be employed in gathering the common information which is the basis of scientific knowledge” (p. 177). The goal is, like that of the kindergarten, to teach children to “see so truly”; but the eyes are focused here not on rhomboids and weaving straws, but on objects which will be theirs for a lifetime.

Excerpt from Ideas Freely Sown: The Matter and Method of Charlotte Mason, by Anne E. White (to be published soon)

Setting Yearly Goals for Written Narration

by Karen Glass

I did write extensively about the whole process of learning to write through written narrations in Know and Tell, but that big picture has to be broken down into individual school years, and semesters or terms, and—of course—individual weeks. What will we do about written narrations this year? What do I need to do this week?

I’m going to try to break this down into steps that you can use to evaluate your student, set realistic goals, and create a plan that will allow your child to make progress this school year—just this school year—without worrying too much about the Whole Thing. I’m assuming you understand the purpose of oral and written narration, and that you desire to make narration the foundation for a significant portion of your child’s writing instruction (there’s room for some outside resources, but that’s not what this is about). Let’s figure this out.

Okay, the first thing you need to think about is what your child is doing right now. What was the norm when you left off at the end of last school year? If you’re just getting started, the obvious place to begin is at the beginning, with one written narration per week. But maybe you’ve already been doing written narrations, and last year your child was doing two per week, or three. That’s where you start now. For the first four to six weeks of this school year, just let your child get back into the rhythm of doing what he already knows how to do. Don’t ask for anything else just yet.

As you think about this—where your child is with written narrations—there are two things to think about—how frequently the written narrations are done, and how long they are. As children make the transition from oral to written narrations, the earliest written narrations may be much, much shorter than oral narrations. Don’t worry about that. Some children can just barely write a sentence or two when they begin, while others are ready to write multiple paragraphs. No matter what your child is doing when you begin written narrations, accept what they can do.

What I never said plainly in Know and Tell, but wish I had, is that it is better to increase the frequency of written narrations first, and then work on asking for longer narrations. A child who can write three sentences will find it easier to write three sentences twice a week, and eventually every day, than to be pressed to write five sentence. Once he is writing three sentences every day (and that’s just an arbitrary example), the extra practice will be the best preparation for writing five sentences, or half a page, or five minutes longer, or whatever method you find most effective when asking for longer narrations.

Once you have determined where your child is with written narration skills, the second step is to think about where you’d like to be at the end of the school year. This is a goal that cannot be set by any arbitrary rule. You must think about your child’s age, inclination to write, and the amount of educational years still in front of you. If you are just starting written narration with a 9-year-old, begin with one per week, and maybe your goal will be three written narrations per week by the end of the school year. If you divide your school year into three terms as AmblesideOnline does, you can plan to spend the first term doing one per week, and add the second narration per week at the beginning of term two, and the third one at the beginning of term three.

Or perhaps your child is just starting written narration at age 11. You can start with one per week, but you would like your child to be writing daily by the end of the year.  Add a second narration per week within three or four weeks, and another one every eight weeks or so, so that you finish the year with a child who is doing daily written narrations.

Or maybe you finished up last year with a child who had gotten up to daily narrations, but they are still short, only 30-50 words. Your child is 12, and you’d like to finish up the year with a child writing 100-150 words per day. Maybe you’d also like to introduce editing and correcting before the year is over.  Let your child have a few weeks of writing what he is comfortable with, and bump up your expectations about 25 words at a time, every eight weeks or so. As the narrations get a little longer, introduce editing during the second semester with just one narration per week. (Just a note—my preference is to ask for a certain number of words and my children have responded well to that. You may prefer to increase length more generally—“half a page, a whole page”—, or by number of sentences, or by the amount of time spent writing. Choose the method that causes the least stress for your child.)

No one can decide what your goal should be, but you definitely want to have one for the school year, because that helps you to break down the process of getting from where you are to where you want to be into manageable increments.

The third step is to revisit your goal once or twice during the year. Maybe your child has already reached the level you were aiming for by Christmas break. That’s great, but you’ll probably want to thoughtfully move forward during the second half of the year. On the other hand, maybe your 9-year-old is still having a meltdown every time it’s written narration day. Perhaps changing the goal from “three narrations a week” to “two narrations a week” or even “one narration a week without a meltdown” is more realistic. Maybe your 11-year-old is already doing daily narrations and is ready to work on lengthening them a bit. Maybe your child needs a bit of a challenge with creative narrations or would benefit from reading a book on the craft of writing. Another thing I haven’t discussed, but which can be a part of your narration goals for the year, is mechanical correctness. Some children readily begin sentences with capital letters, and others don’t. Keep the “rules” as few as possible, but as your children grow more adept at actually getting words on paper, it’s okay to say, “Please make sure you’ve ended every sentence with a period,” or whatever rule you’re hoping to make habitual.

And that’s it! Plan your work, then work your plan, as they say. Just three things to do, and I think if you do them at the beginning of each term or semester, you’ll find that they keep you on track. Assess what your child is doing now. Set a goal and figure out the steps that will get you there. Reevaluate midway through the process to see if the goal needs to be adjusted. You're on your way! You and your child have an individualized plan that you can fold into your homeschool week, and when the school year is over, you’ll be able to see definitely what progress was made. And then next year, you can do it again, from your new starting point.

There are some charts in Know and Tell that will give you an overview of the process that you can expect to unfold across the grade levels, but they are guidelines and suggestions only. Every child is different when it comes to writing, but if you set realistic goals and work purposefully toward them, this may be your best narration year yet.

Challenge 6

Previous challenges:

Challenge 1 is here.

Challenge 2 is here.

Challenge 3 is here.

Challenge 4 is here.

Challenge 5 is here. 

Last challenge we read about:  Hmmmm.  What did we talk about?  Take a moment to review in your own mind.  Something about conduct, character, reading, anything else come to mind? :-D

We ended with Mason asking this question: 

"We go round the house and round the house, but rarely go into the House of Mind; we offer mental gymnastics, but these do not take the place of food, and of that we serve the most meagre rations, no more than that bean a 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?"

Now we'll read her answer: "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."

No do this or that, but principles to consider, thoughts to think and ponder- and the practice will follow from carefully thinking through the principles. 

"The life of the mind is sustained upon ideas; there is no intellectual vitality in the mind to which ideas are not presented several times, say, every day. But [we may ask] scientific experiments, natural beauty, nature study, rhythmic movements, sensory exercises, are all fertile in ideas? Quite commonly, they are so, as regards ideas of invention and discovery; and even in ideas of art; but for the moment it may be well to consider the ideas that influence life, that is, character and conduct; these, would seem, pass directly from mind to mind, and are neither helped nor hindered by educational outworks."


So we want our children's minds to feast upon these ideas that influence the character and conduct of our lives.  Where shall we find this mind-food?

 "Every child gets many of these ideas by word of mouth, by way of family traditions, proverbial philosophy,––in fact, by what we might call a kind of oral literature. But, when we compare the mind with the body, we perceive that three 'square' meals a day are generally necessary to health, and that a casual diet of ideas is poor and meagre. Our schools turn out a good many clever young persons, wanting in nothing but initiative, the power of reflection and the sort of moral imagination that enables you to 'put yourself in his place.' "


Here are three specific goals of a CM education- initiative, the ability to do some self-reflection, and, again, the goal of imagination (as we saw in a previous challenge) is empathy.  In order to attain these goals, the children need a full and varied diet of ideas, in regular servings and generous proportions:


"These qualities flourish upon a proper diet; and this is not afforded by the ordinary school book, or, in sufficient quantity by the ordinary lesson. I should like to emphasize quantity, which is as important for the mind as the body; both require their 'square meals.' It is no easy matter to give its proper sustenance to the mind; hard things are said of children, that they have 'no brains,' 'a low order of intellect,' and so on; many of us are able to vouch for the fine intelligence by children who are fed with the proper mind-stuff; but teachers do not usually take the trouble to find out what this is. We come dangerously near to what Plato condemns as "that lie of the soul," that corruption of the highest truth, of which Protagoras is guilty in the saying that, "Knowledge is sensation."

Wait, who does she quote here?  PLATO?  But I was told.... oh, never mind. I won't be snarky any more. 

"What else are we saying when we run after educational methods which are purely sensory? Knowledge is not sensation, nor is it to be derived through sensation; we feed upon the thoughts of other minds; and thought applied to thought generates thought and we become more thoughtful. No one need invite us to reason, compare, imagine; the mind, like the body, digests its proper food, and it must have the labour of digestion or it ceases to function. But the children ask for bread and we give them a stone; we give information about objects and events which mind does not attempt to digest but casts out bodily (upon an examination paper?). But let information hang upon a principle, be inspired by an idea, and it is taken with avidity and used in making whatsoever in the spiritual nature stands for tissue in the physical."

 "Education," said Lord Haldane, some time ago, "is a matter of the spirit,"––no wiser word has been said on the subject, and yet we persist in applying education from without as a bodily activity or emollient. We begin to see light. No one knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education, and as soon as a young child begins his education he does so as a student."


Information vs ideas, thoughts, principles. 
  And what are we do to in this?

"Our business is to give him mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential. Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving. I am jealous for the children; every modern educational movement tends to belittle them intellectually; and none more so than a late ingenious attempt to feed normal children with the pap-meat which may (?) be good for the mentally sick: [This may refer to Montessori, who built her approach based on her experiences working with mentally ill children. Charlotte Mason was so alarmed at the way Montessori's ideas were sweeping the educational world, that she wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper, which you can read about here.] but, "To all wildly popular things comes suddenly and inexorably death, without hope of resurrection." If Mr. Bernard Shaw is right, I need not discuss a certain popular form of 'New Education.' It has been ably said that education should profit by the divorce which is now in progress from psychology on the one hand and sociology on the other; but what if education should use her recovered liberty make a monstrous alliance with pathology?"

Mason is definitely speaking of Montesorri here, but there are still greater principles for us to keep in mind.   The alliance with pathology here is likely a reference to the fact that Montesorri's method wer born out of her initial work with disabled children who were institutionalized, and thus needed some more basic approach to begin with.  Be careful that our cherished tricks and tips, too, do not come from a pathological view of children and education, but from a whole, sane, and sound foundation.

"Various considerations urge upon me a rather distasteful task. It is time I showed my hand and gave some account of work, the principles and practices of which should, I think, be of general use. Like those lepers who feasted at the gates of a famished city, I begin to take shame to myself! I have attempted to unfold (in various volumes [Home Education Series.]) a system of educational theory which seems to me able to meet any rational demand, even that severest criterion set up by Plato; it is able to "run the gauntlet of objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth." Some of it is new, much of it is old. Like the quality of mercy, it is not strained; certainly it is twice blessed, it blesses him that gives and him that takes,* and a sort of radiancy of look distinguishes both scholar and teacher engaged in this manner of education; but there are no startling results to challenge attention. [*Portia, from The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I] Professor Bompas Smith remarked in an inaugural address at the University of Manchester that,––"If we can guide our practice by the light of a comprehensive theory we shall widen our experience by attempting tasks which would not otherwise have occurred to us." It is possible to offer the light of such a comprehensive theory, and the result is precisely what the Professor indicates,––a large number of teachers attempt tasks which would not otherwise have occurred to them. One discovers a thing because it is there, and no sane person takes credit to himself for such discovery. On the contrary, he recognizes with King Arthur,––"These jewels, whereupon I chanced Divinely, are for public use."

And what are the results? 

"For many years we have had access to a sort of Aladdin's cave which I long to throw open 'for public use.' Let me try to indicate some of the advantages of the theory I am urging––It fits all ages, even the seven ages of man! It satisfies brilliant children and discovers intelligence in the dull. It secures attention, interest, concentration, without effort on the part of teacher or taught. Children, I think, all children, so taught express themselves in forcible and fluent English and use a copious vocabulary. An unusual degree of nervous stability is attained; also, intellectual occupation seems to make for chastity in thought and life. Parents become interested in the schoolroom work, and find their children 'delightful companions.' Children shew delight in books (other than story books) and manifest a genuine love of knowledge. Teachers are relieved from much of the labour of corrections. Children taught according to this method do exceptionally well at any school. It is unnecessary to stimulate these young scholars by marks, prizes, etc. After all, it is not a quack medicine I am writing about, though the reader might think so, and there is no IS. I 1/2d. a bottle in question!

Over thirty years ago I published a volume about the home education of children and people wrote asking how those counsels of perfection could be carried out with the aid of the private governess as she then existed; it occurred to me that a series of curricula might be devised embodying sound principles and securing that children should be in a position of less dependence on their teacher than they then were; in other words, that their education should be largely self-education. A sort of correspondence school was set up, the motto of which,––"I am, I can, I ought, I will," has had much effect in throwing children upon the possibilities, capabilities, duties and determining power belonging to them as persons. "Children are born persons," is the first article of the educational credo in question. The response made by children (ranging in age from six to eighteen) astonished me; though they only shewed the power of attention, the avidity for knowledge, the clearness of thought, the nice discrimination in books, and the ability to deal with many subjects, for which I had given them credit in advance.

 I need not repeat what I have urged elsewhere on the subject of 'Knowledge' and will only add that anyone may apply a test; let him read to a child of any age from six to ten an account of an incident, graphically and tersely told, and the child will relate what he has heard point by point, though not word for word, and will add delightful original touches; what is more, he will relate the passage months later because he has visualised the scene and appropriated that bit of knowledge. A rhetorical passage, written in 'journalese,' makes no impression on him; if a passage be read more than once, he may become letter-perfect, but the spirit, the individuality has gone out of the exercise.

An older boy or girl will read one of Bacon's Essays, say, or a passage from De Quincey, and will write or tell it forcibly and with some style, either at the moment or months later. We know how Fox recited a whole pamphlet of Burke's at a College supper though he had probably read it no more than once. Here on the very surface is the key to that attention, interest, literary style, wide vocabulary, love of books and readiness in speaking, which we all feel should belong to an education that is only begun at school and continued throughout life; these are the things that we all desire, and how to obtain them is some part of the open secret I am labouring to disclose 'for public use.'"

This is exciting stuff.  I get wriggly and happy every time I read it.  Think of all this delicious knowledge, the Aladdin's cave she is describing.  We want this for you and your families!



Challenges- This time, just for fun, I'm suggesting some points for each challenge and you add them up.

Reading- Charlotte Mason is a literature based curriculum.  There is no way to really get through this and do it well if we don't read.  It's okay to begin even if you aren't much of a reader, but to be honest, it's not going to be at all easy to continue if we don't work on this.  We cannot start any sooner than now, and we cannot work on this any better way than to read a little bit every day, steadily, consistently, over time, little by little, line upon line, precept by precept. 

• Read and then narrate the above post. 5 points, 10 if you leave a comment with your narration.
• Pick some mom-culture to read- it can be a Parents' Review article, something from one of Miss Mason's books, a book in the curriculum schedule or anything else.  Assign yourself a set number of pages to read a day and work toward that goal.  2 points for every day you meet your goal. 5 points if you meet your goal for the week (whether or not you met your goal each day). 

You need to aim for reading some of it every day, advancing week by week. 
Do this, and when you finish the book and choose the next one, I guarantee that you will find the next book easier than the one before.  And after that you will find the next book just a little bit easier than the one before.  And one day soon you will re-read that first book for pleasure and be surprised at how easy it is for you!

        Advice: In all of the suggested readings, please don't worry about the notion that you are not a reader, that you find this or that reading too hard, too challenging, very difficult.  "Not a reader' is who you were, it does not have to be who you are, forever.  You can change this.  This is what I want you to work on- pick something to read that is just a little more challenging, just a little harder, a bit more difficult than what you usually read.  For one person, this will be Shakespeare, for another it could be one of the Narnia books or Little Women, for another it will be this post, for another it will be Understood Betsy.  IT DOES NOT MATTER. Here is what matters:

It needs to be a living book

It needs to be more complex than what you normally read, but just challenging enough- not incomprehensible. 

AO Forum-   Why?  Because the most thoughtful, in depth, parent to parent discussions are found here in the forum and we care a lot more about your privacy than Facebook does.  Also, we have a teen discussion area, and if you have a teen, they just might love the chance to chat with other teens reading the kinds of books they are reading.

• Register.  Here.   Choose a log-in name and password you will find unforgettable.  Spend 20 minutes just browsing, looking here and there.  Don't try to do anything else. Just read, randomly scroll, click, read some more. 5 points

• Another day, visit the book discussion area and browse again.   To visit the book discussion area, click here-- https://amblesideonline.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=34  Six points
• 
  
• ANOTHER day, click on 'today's posts' (you'll find it on the front page of the forum a bit to the right of center, somewhere in the top 1/4 of the page, or click here- https://amblesideonline.org/forum/search.php?action=getdaily) and scroll down to see the latest posts people have made. The first column is the title of the thread or post that somebody has made, and the user name of the person who posted.  If you over your mouse over it, you can see the first line of their post.  The next column as the area of the forum, or its address, if you will, where that post can be found.  Don't stress over any of this, just browse, wander, read a little, skim a little.  Only spend about 20 minutes at at a time doing this until you feel more comfortable.  five points
• 
  
• If you want to post anything at all, go to the general Q and A section- click here: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=9 look for Post Thread (over to the right beneath the welcome area). ten points for posting!

Principles:

• Mason wrote a pamphlet introducing her methods to those who were unfamiliar with them.  Karen Glass would love it if you would read that pamphlet and answer a couple questions for her (feel free to comment to this post).  In your opinion, can you read it today and feel like you have a better understanding of the answer to the question "what is a CM education?" Would we be justified in suggesting to people in the future, "reading this will give you a good overview of CM's ideas and philosophy?" 20 points for reading.  Ten points for answering one of these two questions.

You can read the abridged version from Mind to Mind here:http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/BasisNationalStrength.html

You can read The Basis of National Strength in full here: https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol6complete.html#300

Practices-

• Plutarch- You are invited to come join us for a Plutarch book discussion on the AmblesideOnline Forum in the Book Discussion area of the Forum.

ETA: We will be starting Demosthenes on Monday, Oct 8, as he is this term's life. If that seems too quick, please plan to join us on Nov 12 when we start Cicero.

Sign in to the forum first in another window, and then come back over to this tab, rightclick one of these links and select open in a new window (or tab):
 https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=37474
 https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=37477
10 points for joining.  15 points for joining, reading, and commenting. 

Music: What are you singing?  If you've been following our challenges you should be doing a folksong at least three times a week now, and you should have done at least one of Heather Bunting's Children of the Open Air tutorials.  If you're keeping up- keep on keeping up.=) 

• Sing every day.  Try a folk song to wrap up a math lesson or when transitioning from foreign language to the next topic.  Every day!  If you use the youtube videos to learn the songs, remember that the kids do not have to see the video- they are to be listening and singing along, not watching. Print the lyrics, hand each reader a copy, and sing along together, weaning yourselves from the accompaniment as soon as possible.  1 point each school day (M-F) you sing a folk song.

Folksong youtube playlist:  Here's my folksong playlist for this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j-Ai4pQ4f0&list=PL2IR3x_bkyR55kU2uGplZrY5b3gq-bXRR

• Hymns: http://amblesideonline.org/Hymns.shtml  Follow our line-up, print out or write out a copy of this term's hymn(s), listen to it on youtube while trying to sing along. Once you have a good idea of the hymn tune, turn off the computer and sing.  This should take maybe five or ten minutes at most.  Try taping copies of the hymn lyrics to your kitchen wall near the sink or stove, on the refrigerator, in the bathroom on a door or near the mirror, over the bed, on the kitchen table under some plastic protective covering- any flat surface convenient to you, so you can easily sing out your new hymn at other times.  Hymn singing is a great transitional activity after Bible or science studies. 2 points for each day (M-F) you sing a hymn.

• Children of the Open Air: Sol-Fa Subscribe to Heather Bunting's Children of the Open Air youtube channel.  Pick a tutorial and watch it a couple of times this week. 5 points for watching once, an additional point for each additional watch.

Nature study:


Most of us know that we tell mammals from birds by certain characteristics- fur or hair vs feathers, live births vs eggs, nursing young, etc  Plants are also identified by sorting out a few basic characteristics, which sounds a bit daunting, but once you get started, it's not as difficult as you imagined.  It's a matter of pattern recognition, and God wired our brains for pattern recognition. It's just that most of us never got past "what colour are the flowers?" so it's unfamiliar.  The unfamiliar always sounds scarier than it is, so we're working on making it familiar. 

The colour of the flowers is the most visible, but it's not the most important thing to know in order to learn to identify plants.  In order to develop our plant I.D. skills, we first need to notice some other plant characteristics. In these challenges, I've been asking our players to notice some of these other important characteristics.   Things you need to notice include characteristics such as the shape of the leaves, the way the leaves grow on the stems, the shape of the stems (all plants in the mint family have a basically square shaped stem), the number of petals on a flower (all mustard family members have four petals and six stamens, 4 tall and 2 short) and the edges, or 'margins', of the leaves.

• Identify smoothe, wavy, and lobed leaves in your area.  If you do not live in the tropics, add toothed or serrated to your identification.

To aid in this pattern recognition, above you'll see a handy chart of leaf margins- or edges. Look at the edges of the leaves of the plants, trees, shrubs, weeds available to you first hand. Look at a few plants in your yard, neighborhood, local park, plant nursery, or visit an arboretum. See if you can identify how the edges of the leaves would be described. Find a leave with smoothe or 'entire' margins. Find a lobed leaf. Look for a wavy or sinuate leaf. This is not much more complicated than learning the difference between a triangle and a rhombus and you did that once, so know that you can do this, too. We believe in you!

These two sites may help you as well: https://home.onehowto.com/article/the-different-leaf-margins-and-their-names-5969.html

https://home.onehowto.com/article/the-different-leaf-margins-and-their-names-5969.html

However, nothing at all will help like getting outside to look at an actual tree and the real leaves on real plants. That is far more important at this stage then memorizing terms. 

Interesting sidenote: If you live in the tropics, you probably won't see many serrated edged leaves. In a year and a half of living in the Philippines and looking at trees and other plants several times a week, often some of the same trees at least once a week for the last year- I have not noticed that, but now that I think about it, it's true! 

See what you notice outside near your own home (Hint: If it's very hot, do this in the morning or evening, bring out a chair and a fan and a dishpan of cold water. Gather leaves, sit in the shade (use an umbrella if you need to bring your own shade, have the fan blowing and your feet in the dishpan of cold water and sort your leaves by their margins.
Points for Nature study:
Five points for each day you go outside.
Ten points for identifying a new plant, insect, or bird, 5 points for trying but failing.
One point each for each category of leaf you find.
Ten points for drawing in a nature journal.

I've added a point system to this post just for fun (Thanks, Leslie, for the idea!)

120 or more points:  You are a SKYLARK!  Keep on soaring and singing.

100-119 points- You are an adorable baby skylark chick.  Keep on growing!

75 to 99 points- You are a beautiful, shining, precious egg.  Stay warm, safe, and nourished.  You'll hatch soon if you just continue with what you are doing.

40 to 74 points-  You've got a great nest started! You can work on the egg next.  Keep on building and growing.  You can do it!!

19-39 points-  In the hole, there was a tree, the prettiest tree you ever did see, and the tree was in a hole, the hold was in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around, and the green grass grew all around!  That's a habitat, an environment you've been creating, and it's a good start.  You can't have the bird without the tree and the green grass and grubs for the bird to eat, so this is a great start. Just keep going from where you are now.

1 to 18 points-  You've got the green grass, and the hole, and now it's time to work on that tree!

0 points- We love you.

Seriously.  As I typed this I've prayed- let this not be a discouragement, but rather, a bit of laugher, a cheering up, a warm helping hand, and for those who have had those rough horrible weeks (or years) that I, too, have experienced, Lord, love them, lift them, nourish them and let them feel and know your love and infinite compassion.  Healing, Lord, I beg of you, healing of lacerated spirits and souls, worn down and worn out with seriously hard things, with medical diagnoses that turn the knees to jello and the bones to zero at the bone, with hardship and heart-ache of every kind, whether it be relationships, sickness, sadness, poverty, disaster or all the other painful realities of this world.  What matters most is, of course, your relationships- first and foremost with your creator, then with your family and those around you.  God bless you and yours in those most important fields.

This little quiz does not define anybody, of course.  It's just meant to be a fun little exercise to help with the challenges.   Even within that narrow restriction, what matters most is not racking up all the points, but considering whether or not you would have more points this week than previous weeks or months  if you awarded yourself points in the same way?  What would the trend look like if you made a graph? Are you reading a bit more than you were six months ago? Is the reading you do now more challenging than the reading you did six months ago?  Are you singing more?  Are your children singing?  Do you know a plant in your area that you did not know last year or last month?  And how much do you care?  Keep on working and growing with us, feeding your mind regular servings of nourishing food, and a wide variety!

NEW GIVEAWAY!! CONSIDER THIS, by Karen Glass!!

Teacher@Home, YOU WON! Please email us with your address. And to everybody else, my abject apologies for the delay in getting a name drawn. I really have no excuse except conference business putting this task right out of my head. I am ashamed. Karen will have one free copy of her book mailed to the lucky winner of our next drawing! Our drawing for her book works the same way as our previous giveaway (except I'll be using a random number generator to choose our lucky winner)- share the conference!

  http://amblesideonline.org/2016Conference/Conference2016.html

To present your name for consideration for our give-away, please share the above link to our conference page on social media- FB, Twitter, Instagram, your blog, a homeschooling group you're in, Tumbler- whatever and wherever is out there that you are comfortable sharing our conference link. Then come back here and tell us about it in the comments, leaving a link to your share in the comments if possible. EACH time you share is one entry in a drawing.   So share on twitter, tell us about it, and that's one entry.  Share on FB, tell us about it, and that's another entry.

I will draw the name of the winner of our giveaway when we have fifty comments, or on Friday if we get fifty entries before then.

And congratulations to Amy Boesl, who won our giveaway of a mug and totebag, which we will mail right after the conference!