Ways that Charlotte Mason is misinterpreted/misunderstood today

[birchbark]

This is kind of a spin-off of the Consider This thread. A few people mentioned how easily we modern thinkers misinterpret what CM said due to our very different culture, religious perspective, homeschooler assumptions, etc. 

 

For instance I was fascinated with what Bluegoat said about CM reading Scripture in a way that is foreign to fundamentalism. I would like to hear more about this. I am not familiar with Anglican thought. 

 

KeriJ mentioned CM grammar lessons that appeared similar to a textbook's.

 

Did CM believe in/teach evolution?

 

What about whole language reading?

 

I am not a CM expert and have only read a portion of her original writings, but after reading the overview that Consider This offered, I was surprised at how hands-off her method of education seemed. She really trusted children to learn on their own. This is a bit different from most modern CM curricula, which are generally quite teacher-intensive. 

 

So for those of you who have read CM and thought this out, in what ways do you think she is misinterpreted?

 

 

 

 

[Zoo Keeper]

:bigear:

 

 

I'm still thinking and reading my way through some CM. 

 

I'd love to hear some other people's thoughts as well...

[Jean in Newcastle]

She said that evolution was one (the?) biggest idea of her day and was enthusiastic about it.

 

I think she understood that families would have cooks, servants and governesses as would have been common in her day for people of the educated class.

 

 

[tmstranger]

 

I am not a CM expert and have only read a portion of her original writings, but after reading the overview that Consider This offered, I was surprised at how hands-off her method of education seemed. She really trusted children to learn on their own. This is a bit different from most modern CM curricula, which are generally quite teacher-intensive. 

 

So for those of you who have read CM and thought this out, in what ways do you think she is misinterpreted?

 

I am not even close to an expert on CM...or TWTM or any other "style" of homeschooling.  I read Consider This and didn't get the impression that she was "hands-off" at all.  Yes, she trusted children to make the connections and to get what they need out of the material, but the teacher is responsible for planning/presenting the feast.  I loosely use parts of AO, so not a full CM curriculum in our house at all, but I don't find what I use to be teacher intensive.  I think the most intensive part is for me to stay on top of the reading, so I can be prepared to hear the narration and know if the child got anything out of the reading.  Does that make sense? 

[Bics]

I am trying to flesh out the writing.  I have read volumes 1,2, and 3 of CM's works in a mother's book study.  I have skimmed the book study leader's library of Andreola et al stock of "this-is-how-you-do-CM" authors.  While there is a lot of good there, I wasn't impressed with the writing instruction/practice that I gleaned from all that.  I stumbled on the progymnasta and haven't looked back, but now I see from Kfamily that there was more to CM narrations/composition.  Narrations are not just a retelling/rewriting of every detail--and I am curious.  I don't know how yet, and I am not willing to stumble around with my children's written communication to figure it out, but I hope to concurrently figure it out while they are learning to write through the progym.  Maybe someday I can figure out what PNEU was really doing in composition, and use it if I think it will work better for them.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Whippoorwill

[eternalsummer]

She said that evolution was one (the?) biggest idea of her day and was enthusiastic about it.

 

I think she understood that families would have cooks, servants and governesses as would have been common in her day for people of the educated class.

 

 

Well, and we do, in many ways - we have dishwashers and prepared foods and freezers and microwaves and washing machines and vacuums.

 

It is still a lot of work, though.

[eternalsummer]

It really bugs me when her idea of 'living books' is interpreted to mean old books.

 

There are some really wonderful modern living books out there! In all my years of using CM methods with dd19, I think we used books published prior to the 1970's maybe 10% of the time ? (Other than literature studies, of course).

 

Do tell where I can find a list of modern living books

[eternalsummer]

hah, that will work :)  Or you could take a photo and crop it.

 

[BooksandBoys]

hah, that will work :) Or you could take a photo and crop it.

I'm hoping for that photo too!

[Farrar]

I'm not enough of a CM expert to know what to pull out exactly (and I read most of the Consider This article, but got intimidated by reading through the thread), but when I read her ages ago, I thought it was interesting that she was very interested in what current science had to say about child development and tried to work that into her philosophy and practice. But when I see CM people writing today, they seem to cling to her words specifically, not the spirit of them in this case, which would be - I can only assume - looking at what the science *now* says about development, even if it contradicted what she said about it then. She seemed pretty forward thinking in some ways, but some of her followers seem to have her stuck in the past.

[KeriJ]

I'm not enough of a CM expert to know what to pull out exactly (and I read most of the Consider This article, but got intimidated by reading through the thread), but when I read her ages ago, I thought it was interesting that she was very interested in what current science had to say about child development and tried to work that into her philosophy and practice. But when I see CM people writing today, they seem to cling to her words specifically, not the spirit of them in this case, which would be - I can only assume - looking at what the science *now* says about development, even if it contradicted what she said about it then. She seemed pretty forward thinking in some ways, but some of her followers seem to have her stuck in the past.

Yes! I have thought the same thing.

[quietchapel]

I am glad I took the time to read the article. I think I understand Charlotte Mason for the first time, and her philosophies seem closer to Waldorf or Montessori than to classical- to me at least. Thanks for sharing.

[Bluegoat]

As far as religion goes, she didn't have a fundamentalist approach to reading Scripture - her approach was one that might be seen as closer to a patristic approach.  And she didn't see scientific or philosophical knowledge as opposed to that  - to reject natural revelation as contrary to special revelation would have been seen as a serious theological error, as if God was divided.

 

I agree with the above that people get caugt up in the idea that living books must be old.  There are good reasons a CM approach might use more older books (the ubiquitousness of Usborn type books for example or the difficulty finding real narrative history) but new books were introduced regularly in her schools.

 

I'm not sure I would agree that her methods assumed a mom at home with servants, and more than other methods of educating.  PNEU schools operated much like other schools in terms of involvement.

 

One thing people often muck up of is the idea of "masterly inactivity" and I think this might be from Karen Andreola.  They think it means time for children to play and explore without being guided.  Mason believed in that as an important thing, but it isn't what was meant by masterly inactivity - that was something that the teacher did.  Essentially, not over-teaching, and trusting that the child is what God made her - someone with a mind that could develop a relationship with God, the world, and ideas, on its own terms.  (Trust in God's creation is a big aspect of Mason's thought IMO that doesn't sit well with many of the American interpreters, particularly AO comes to mind.)  The thing is, by doing too much, Mason felt that teachers and parents could actually end up indoctrinating or passing on their own ideas rather than giving the child a chance to develop - this was something she saw as very tempting for teacers and avoiding it depended on a deep trust in the child and in God. 

 

I think this is also where CM sometimes goes in a different direction from neoclassical approaches which can seem very much about producing the "right" worldview in the student.

[birchbark]

One thing people often muck up of is the idea of "masterly inactivity" and I think this might be from Karen Andreola.  They think it means time for children to play and explore without being guided.  Mason believed in that as an important thing, but it isn't what was meant by masterly inactivity - that was something that the teacher did.  Essentially, not over-teaching, and trusting that the child is what God made her - someone with a mind that could develop a relationship with God, the world, and ideas, on its own terms.  (Trust in God's creation is a big aspect of Mason's thought IMO that doesn't sit well with many of the American interpreters, particularly AO comes to mind.)  The thing is, by doing too much, Mason felt that teachers and parents could actually end up indoctrinating or passing on their own ideas rather than giving the child a chance to develop - this was something she saw as very tempting for teacers and avoiding it depended on a deep trust in the child and in God. 

 

I think this is also where CM sometimes goes in a different direction from neoclassical approaches which can seem very much about producing the "right" worldview in the student.

 

Yes! This is exactly the feeling I was getting after reading CT and more of CM's own writings. I can now see why beginning with respect for the child is so important to her philosophy. One will never be able to back away and trust the process without it. And you really hit the nail on the head with your last statement. It reminds me of an article by Hirsch I read once about the difference Romanticism made in education.

 

My question would be, can we trust every single child to learn this way, in this day of media overdose and LD's? And it also seems to me that this trust/self-learning aspect would be more for the content areas, and not for skills (3R's)? 

[Bluegoat]

Yes! This is exactly the feeling I was getting after reading CT and more of CM's own writings. I can now see why beginning with respect for the child is so important to her philosophy. One will never be able to back away and trust the process without it. And you really hit the nail on the head with your last statement. It reminds me of an article by Hirsch I read once about the difference Romanticism made in education.

 

My question would be, can we trust every single child to learn this way, in this day of media overdose and LD's? And it also seems to me that this trust/self-learning aspect would be more for the content areas, and not for skills (3R's)? 

 

I do think it applies more to content, though there is an application to skill as well I think - in terms of meeting the child where he is and realizing that skills without content are not that meaningful. A child that struggles with reading shouldn't be denied real access to literatur and the ideas and beautiful language it presents, for instance.  And we shouldn't place unreasonable expectations on the child in terms of skills - we have to take them as the people they are, not who we want them to be.  The goal isn't to create someone in our own image.  I think this would speak to LDs as well - I've never felt that Mason taught that it was wrong to respond creatively to those kinds of challenges.

 

I know in the schools that used her methods, children from difficult backgrounds were seen as maybe more especially needing real content and respect for them as persons.  I think it would be fair to say that in her view, whatever learning occurs separate from these things will not be education in a real sense.

 

As far as media - I actually don't think trusting the child or process means letting them have unfettered access to things like media any more than Mason would have wanted them to be allowed to spend all their time reading Sweet Valley High novels - I would say it is a legitimate part of the role of the parent/teacher to clear away those kinds of distractions and keep some balance.   

[quietchapel]

Great thoughts. Can we trust every child to learn this way? I think yes, but not if we sacrifice her principles for the methods of implementation she advised. I am thinking of my ASD- type child here. I would not be honoring my dd if I insisted that it was more important for her to learn to spell via copywork and dictation than for her to learn to spell. Copywork and dictation is helpful, yes, but what helps my daughter is oral spelling drill.

 

. I think people misinterpret CM when they refuse to acknowledge that some children need adaptations on her methods in order to implement her principles. I appreciate the work of the AO advisory,m. However, my heart hurts when I read posts there about how someone's dc 'still can't read, spell, write a complete sentence' etc, and the parent is told that they are not doing some part of the method well enough, they just need to trust more, and that whatever modification the parent is asking about 'is not CM'. This has always struck me as a very fundamentalist/ literal approach to Mason's philosophy, which ultimately can fail at being 'CM' at all.

[Mrs. A]

. I think people misinterpret CM when they refuse to acknowledge that some children need adaptations on her methods in order to implement her principles.

^^^^^This! A thousand times this.

[Bluegoat]

Great thoughts. Can we trust every child to learn this way? I think yes, but not if we sacrifice her principles for the methods of implementation she advised. I am thinking of my ASD- type child here. I would not be honoring my dd if I insisted that it was more important for her to learn to spell via copywork and dictation than for her to learn to spell. Copywork and dictation is helpful, yes, but what helps my daughter is oral spelling drill.

 

. I think people misinterpret CM when they refuse to acknowledge that some children need adaptations on her methods in order to implement her principles. I appreciate the work of the AO advisory,m. However, my heart hurts when I read posts there about how someone's dc 'still can't read, spell, write a complete sentence' etc, and the parent is told that they are not doing some part of the method well enough, they just need to trust more, and that whatever modification the parent is asking about 'is not CM'. This has always struck me as a very fundamentalist/ literal approach to Mason's philosophy, which ultimately can fail at being 'CM' at all.

 

YES!  CM was not a person who was a fundamentalist about doing things only one way, if something doesn't work in a particular circumstance.  Reccomended methods are always a bit of a generalization. 

 

I used Sequential Spelling with my oldest, because she really wanted something more targeted than copywork/dictation - she was frustrated when she was writing.  SS seemed like it would be a good fit because it didn't include a lot of busywork compared to many spelling programs and would support out other LA work very effectively and satisfy the problem my dd was having.  To me, that's well within what her methods are looking for.

[LindaOz]

CM's writings are not a holy text, and one should feel free to adapt as it suits you/your child :)

This!! Totally agree.

 

I think the saying 'Teach the child, not the text' can also apply here. We are not teaching Charlotte Mason, we are teaching our children. She had some really good methods - some of which I utilize at times - but I need to teach my children.

[mellifera33]

CM's writings are not a holy text, and one should feel free to adapt as it suits you/your child :)

 

You mean the ghost of CM is not going to lurk around my house and smack the Magic Treehouse book out of my son's hands?  :laugh: 

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