Found this gem in CM's Vol 6, while I was reading about her high school ideas

[justamouse]

Reading some CM this morning, Vol 6, about high school and came across some really enlightening passages. pg 172

 

 

"The child of 6 in IB has, not stories from English History, but a definite quantity of consecutive reading, say, forty pages in a term, from a well written, well-considered, large volume which is also well illustrated. Children cannot of course themselves read a book which is by no means written down to the 'child's level' so the teacher reads and the children 'tell' paragraph by paragraph, passage by passage. The teacher does not talk much and is careful to never interrupt a child who is called upon to 'tell'. The first efforts may be stumbling, bit presently the children get into their 'stride' and 'tell' a passage at length with surprising fluency. The teacher probably allow the other children to correct any faults in the telling when it is over. The teacher's own really difficult part is to keep up sympathetic interest by look and occasional word, by remarks upon a passage that has been narrated, by occasionally showing pictures, and so on. But she will bear in mind that the child of six has begun the serious business of his education, that it does not matter much wether he understands this word or that, but that it matters a great deal that he should learn to deal directly with books."

That shed a lot of light on what before confused me in the CM idea that we should not read the child books, so, perhaps, she in that previous part is talking about story books? Obviously, if this is how she advises to go about lessons.

[Tullia]

Reading some CM this morning, Vol 6, about high school and came across some really enlightening passages. pg 172.....That shed a lot of light on what before confused me in the CM idea that we should not read the child books, so, perhaps, she in that previous part is talking about story books? Obviously, if this is how she advises to go about lessons.

 

That's how I resolved the apparent contradiction but I am not sure if I'm correct in thinking that way. What the child is capable of doing should be the province of the child. The sustained reading in a more difficult book is something that a child of that age would not be expected to accomplish without guidance.

 

FWIW, I often had a hard time untangling the threads in the CM books so I usually used two bookmarks; one in the text and the other in the TOC. The apparent contradictions can often be resolved by pulling back and looking at the big picture. I tend to think of much of CM's advice as being goal directed--so if you keep in mind that she would have different strategies for achieving different goals it's easier to understand her aims. She writes about different strategies/goals in different places but keeping track is sometimes difficult.

 

For example, there is her wise perception that the child who feels the need to constantly "embroider" life or "tell stretchers" should be given an extra measure of imaginative literature but should be required to be truthful in everyday life. The standard Victorian practice was to deny such children access to the imaginative side of life. And, from what I am told by my parents' generation, that habit of mind was also present during the Great Depression. Times were hard and many parents (mistakenly, IMO) thought that too much imagination was a waste of time or would lead to disappointment.

 

As for me, on my best days, I might have earned a grade of "C" for the practice of masterly inactivity. :laugh: