Ella Frances Lynch

[ElizaG]

Looking through the scan linked above,I think we might have even more need to look for excellent literary excerpts, because Italian sounds so much more beautiful to start with. For instance,

 

"Serra la credenza grande," 

 

which I think translates as

 

"Lock the big cabinet."

 

:laugh:

[ElizaG]

Okay, I've made some more progress.  (Staying off the boards is apparently key to using this approach.)

 

Since we're lacking the Orbis Vivus, and I'm also lacking in patience and organizational skills, I'm just going to go ahead with the materials we have, and try to follow this basic daily plan for foreign languages. 

 

1) Gather everyone together.

 

2) Easy games, very basic vocabulary & phrases, or video (~5 min.); dismiss little ones

 

3) More games, conversation, exercises (~5 min.); give simple assignments to elementary children & dismiss

 

4) Work individually with middle schooler (~10 min.)

 

For Latin, we're going to use classical pronunciation for the lessons, because that's what my middle schooler has ended up using (old version of Artes Latinae), and because there's a better selection of audio recordings available.   I need all the help I can get.   

 

They'll all still be learning prayers, hymns, and Bible verses in ecclesiastical Latin as part of their religious education.  I think having two pronunciations will work out okay in the long run.  If it doesn't, they'll just have to tell their Latin therapist about how I messed them up. 

  

Also, I've made a plan for my eldest's secondary studies, from Grammar 1 through Rhetoric.  It includes religion, four languages, math, and art.  The only things missing are some of the literature selections (for areas where we aren't using anthologies or textbooks), and the list of "content subjects" that we'll be learning about as a group.   I'm sure this home-grown ratio studiorum will be modified as we go along, but at least I no longer have the feeling that I have no idea what we're doing, let alone the recurring urge to enroll with Seton.  ;)  

[ElizaG]

Here's an overview that's similar to our plan (not exactly like it), since I know some people were interested in this sort of thing. 

 

Grammar (age 10-12 to 14):

 

Religion:  7th through 10th grade religion texts

Latin:  Henle; Oerberg's Familia Romana as a supplement

Greek:  Athenaze

Modern language:  Grammar-oriented textbooks; multimedia; native speaker materials used a few grades behind

English:  EFL and Fr. Donnelly methods; 7th through 10th grade literature anthologies; additional selections; grammar textbook in the last year

Math:  Life of Fred (and/or AOPS), pre-algebra through geometry

 

History, Geography, Science, Art, Practical Skills:   Group activities with family; independent reading & activities

Music, Sports:  Extra-curricular classes

 

 

Poetry:  Fr. Connell's poetry text; Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, additional readings (in translation if needed); trigonometry; catechism

 

Rhetoric:  Fr. Coppens' rhetoric; Fr. Donnelly's editions of Newman, Cicero, Demosthenes; additional readings (in translation if needed); calculus; catechism

 

Philosophy:  11th grade literature anthology; college writing text; readings in history, philosophy, and modern literature (in translation if needed); physics; electives or independent study

 

Spirituality:  12th grade literature anthology; college writing text; Bible and Christian spiritual classics (in translation if needed); chemistry; biology; electives or independent study

 

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

 

The philosophy curriculum that followed the traditional classical course lasted for two years, but most students didn't pursue it. I took the idea of the final "spirituality year" from Kolbe, who probably took it from the Jesuits' own formation.  It seems like a good idea.  :001_smile:

 

This plan would go through age 18, which is fine with me.  The alternative would be to move the curriculum down, and do poetry at 14 and rhetoric at 15, but I think there are solid developmental reasons to try to avoid that.

 

A US high school transcript could be put together from the last four years, and some of the foreign language and math from the Grammar years.  The social science credits would have to be pieced together from the readings, or done as electives.

 

Anyway, just putting this out there, FWIW. 

[ElizaG]

I don't think the Connell text came up before.   It's this one:

 

A Text-book for the Study of Poetry by Francis M. Connell, SJ (1913)

 

It seems to have been the standard book of precepts at the time, but I haven't looked into this part of the curriculum in depth, so I'm not necessarily recommending it.  Just using it to fill one of those insecurity-producing gaps.  :laugh:  

[ElizaG]

Totally pulling this part out of the air, but for a child who'd been doing EFL's primary system all along, I think it would make sense to plan for a transitional period of a year or two between the "bookless lessons," and the book-heavy plan described above. 

 

Maybe something like:

 

Latin: GSWL [ETA:  and maybe the beginning of Oerberg or Cambridge, if you haven't gone there already]

 

English:  Pick one year of a solid upper elementary curriculum, crossing out any parts that seem unnecessary or too repetitive; we liked CtGE 5 for this, although I'd prefer to use something non-consumable next time

 

Modern foreign language: Just start on the materials you'll be using, going slowly

 

Math:  My older ones were required to finish Saxon 54 -- every single problem, done neatly -- before I let them switch to LOF (starting at Ice Cream, as recommended).  Hmm, I wonder if this is part of the reason for their love of Fred, and diligence in getting it done every day... they know what the alternative would be.  :lol:  

Edited May 15, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

There was some discussion of Fr. Donnelly, and the 19th century US classical curriculum (Catholic and Protestant versions), in one of the other EFL threads.

 

LostCove's friend scanned the teacher's guide to Model English for us; there's a link in that thread.  Fr. Donnelly wrote the guide for all teachers of writing, with students of any age, whether or not they were using the textbooks.  It would definitely be the place to start, if you're interested in learning about those methods.  I guess you'd have to print it, but IIRC it's not that long. 

[ElizaG]

I don't mind reading these types of books on screens.  I usually use the viewers at archive.org or HathiTrust (or just look at Project Gutenberg, if it's on there), or save the PDF to read on a tablet when I'm waiting somewhere.  

 

Using a phone crosses the line for me.  Though even there, I'd probably make an exception for an especially interesting discovery, in an especially dull situation.  :001_smile:

[LostintheCosmos]

Thanks for sharing this plan, ElizaG - looks great! I'm excited to hear how it goes.

 

How do you guys read these vintage texts? Do you print them? Can you send them to Office Depot and them printed there? 

 

 

If I want to read it carefully, I send it to my kindle. A very few things I want to be able to consult easily and plan on using a lot (like EFL's Bookless Lessons), I've gotten printed via an Espresso Book Machine (last I checked, shipping was cheapest from Shuler Books).

 

[ElizaG]

Thanks for the description and links, ltlmrs!  :001_smile:

 

For the younger children, I guess I'm still "planning one day ahead."   If that!   I came up with a daily schedule over the weekend, and we more or less followed it today (making changes as the day went on, to fit with reality), but it made me realize that I need to spend more focused time on the little ones.  Their lessons are short and enjoyable, but they seem to be the first thing that gets dropped if we're falling behind.   Reading your descriptions has me wishing I had the day free to do more things with them. 

 

On the other hand, the stage of being at home with only younger children was really hard for me.  It's great to have older ones, and to be developing a family culture -- or rather, to watch it developing itself.   They're actually starting to drag me along in some areas where I'm inclined to be less active, such as going to daily Mass.  Thus our need for a more efficient schedule.   

 

Here it is, in outline:

 

Breakfast & related chores - 1 hour

Mass - 1 hour

 

Older children's group and individual lessons / Younger children's free time - 1 hour

Tiny break for mommy (with NO INTERNET!) - 5 minutes

Younger children's individual lessons / Older children's free time - 15 minutes

 

Everyone's free time - 45 minutes, if the above was done on time

 

Lunch & related chores - 1 hour

Quiet time - 2 hours, SWB style (but the eldest can go outside, for the fresh air, and also because we don't have enough rooms to separate them all indoors)

 

Regroup & tidy up - 15 minutes

Music practice / free time - 45 minutes (will try to do some things with the little ones during this time, as I still have some patience left) 

Snack - 5 minutes

Geography or other group activity - 25 minutes (could be longer, or could be skipped entirely, depending on outside activities)

 

Everyone's free time - 45 minutes (also variable, depending on outside activities)

 

Drive children places, if applicable

Evening routine

 

------

 

This gives them about 4 hours of free time (1 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon).  My older children were disappointed that they wouldn't have time to finish all their schoolwork in the morning, but they understood that the Mass is an immovable object.  They do also have the option of early morning "study hall" before breakfast.  I'll probably be doing that myself, if I'm to have any hope of learning Greek.   

 

I'm not sure where we're going to put the weekly art/literature workshop.   The only place it could fit would be in the late afternoon, and I'm too tired by that point.   There might be room for it early on Saturdays, if we stick to our weekday morning schedule, which actually suits me.  I'm not really a morning person, but I've always been a Saturday morning person.  The day is full of so many possibilities.  How could anyone choose to sleep in?  (DH doesn't tend to see it this way, alas, but maybe I can lure him into our educational gathering with a fried breakfast.   ;) )

Edited May 17, 2016 by ElizaG

[SweetandSimple]

Thanks for the description and links, ltlmrs!  :001_smile:

 

For the younger children, I guess I'm still "planning one day ahead."   If that!   I came up with a daily schedule over the weekend, and we more or less followed it today (making changes as the day went on, to fit with reality), but it made me realize that I need to spend more focused time on the little ones.  Their lessons are short and enjoyable, but they seem to be the first thing that gets dropped if we're falling behind.   Reading your descriptions has me wishing I had the day free to do more things with them. 

 

On the other hand, the stage of being at home with only younger children was really hard for me.  It's great to have older ones, and to be developing a family culture -- or rather, to watch it developing itself.   They're actually starting to drag me along in some areas where I'm inclined to be less active, such as going to daily Mass.  Thus our need for a more efficient schedule.   

 

Here it is, in outline:

 

Breakfast & related chores - 1 hour

Mass - 1 hour

 

Older children's group and individual lessons / Younger children's free time - 1 hour

Tiny break for mommy (with NO INTERNET!) - 5 minutes

Younger children's individual lessons / Older children's free time - 15 minutes

 

Everyone's free time - 45 minutes, if the above was done on time

 

Lunch & related chores - 1 hour

Quiet time - 2 hours, SWB style (but the eldest can go outside, for the fresh air, and also because we don't have enough rooms to separate them all indoors)

 

Regroup & tidy up - 15 minutes

Music practice / free time - 45 minutes (will try to do some things with the little ones during this time, as I still have some patience left) 

Snack - 5 minutes

Geography or other group activity - 25 minutes (could be longer, or could be skipped entirely, depending on outside activities)

 

Everyone's free time - 45 minutes (also variable, depending on outside activities)

 

Drive children places, if applicable

Evening routine

 

------

 

This gives them about 4 hours of free time (1 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon).  My older children were disappointed that they wouldn't have time to finish all their schoolwork in the morning, but they understood that the Mass is an immovable object.  They do also have the option of early morning "study hall" before breakfast.  I'll probably be doing that myself, if I'm to have any hope of learning Greek.   

 

I'm not sure where we're going to put the weekly art/literature workshop.   The only place it could fit would be in the late afternoon, and I'm too tired by that point.   There might be room for it early on Saturdays, if we stick to our weekday morning schedule, which actually suits me.  I'm not really a morning person, but I've always been a Saturday morning person.  The day is full of so many possibilities.  How could anyone choose to sleep in?  (DH doesn't tend to see it this way, alas, but maybe I can lure him into our educational gathering with a fried breakfast.   ;) )

 

I've been reading this thread with interest. Thanks for sharing your schedule-- it is really helpful to see how all of these ideas turn into a real schedule & plan. I so want to change how things have been going at our house!

 

I'm curious, though-- when do your older children finish their schoolwork? Is that during quiet time for them, or is the quiet time more of a "free reading" time?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[ElizaG]

I've been reading this thread with interest. Thanks for sharing your schedule-- it is really helpful to see how all of these ideas turn into a real schedule & plan. I so want to change how things have been going at our house!

 

I'm curious, though-- when do your older children finish their schoolwork? Is that during quiet time for them, or is the quiet time more of a "free reading" time?

 

Thanks!

For the purposes of the schedule, "free time" just means that there's nothing scheduled, and the children can choose how to spend it -- e.g. finishing schoolwork, prayer, music, cleaning their rooms, pet care, games, or hobbies.   "Quiet time" is the same, except that they have to stay in one room, by themselves, and do something quiet. 

 

In EFL's system, the children should end up with several hours each day, outside of their required academic study, for work or hobbies that are chosen by them.  For our family, this would include many of our out-of-home activities, since the children really want to do them.   If we counted their "free time" in that way (adding the scheduled time spent on chosen extracurriculars, and subtracting the unscheduled time spent on schoolwork), it would actually be more like 5 hours.  

 

If the children weren't being intentional about the use of their unscheduled time, I'd take a good long Montessori look and see what adjustments needed to be made.   This time is meant to help the older children develop the work habit, not just spend endless hours on imaginative play, chasing each other around the back yard, reading stories, etc.   

 

From what I've seen so far, if they have just the right amount and type of required studies and chores, I find that they're able to get that balance on their own -- neither overexcited ("just sprung from jail"), nor apathetic ("bored, nothing to do").  :001_smile:

[SweetandSimple]

If the children weren't being intentional about the use of their unscheduled time, I'd take a good long Montessori look and see what adjustments needed to be made.   This time is meant to help the older children develop the work habit, not just spend endless hours on imaginative play, chasing each other around the back yard, reading stories, etc.   

 

From what I've seen so far, if they have just the right amount and type of required studies and chores, I find that they're able to get that balance on their own -- neither overexcited ("just sprung from jail"), nor apathetic ("bored, nothing to do").  :001_smile:

 

Aha! Thank you for clarifying! I can see that it might be tricky to find the right balance, and I have one who is not intentional at all about his time. I have some thinking to do...

[ElizaG]

So it's turning out that with EFL's methods, teaching a small amount of material to three children takes more than three times as long as teaching it to one child.   :huh:  I think this is because:

 

1)   You still have to talk to each of the children, to ensure mastery, and

 

2)   Since there's less opportunity for eye contact, you can't be sure that they're all with you the whole time.   Which means that you're likely to have to repeat yourself, or even backtrack to figure out where one or more of the children spaced out.   

 

Of course, the other children also have to wait around during all this.  Just for 15 seconds here and there, but it adds up.  While the teacher-mother's daily store of patience slips away, like sand through an hourglass.  :nopity:

 

So, no group work, unless it's something we're doing for enrichment, and it doesn't really matter if their learning is kind of patchy. 

 

That was sort of what I was aiming at, but I did end up trying to sneak a few regular lessons into the group meetings.  Those will be removed right away.

 

ETA:  For the older children's catechism, we're still going to read the book together, but I'll give them their assignments during their individual lessons.

 

Edited May 17, 2016 by ElizaG

[Tress]

Did you guys ever have a discussion here about Fr. Donnelly's methods? You're referring to the priest who wrote Model English, correct? I've seen it referred to in this threads but don't recall a thread where it was discussed.

 

I've seen the PDF of Model English but haven't read it yet. I really hate reading PDFs on my computer.

 

How do you guys read these vintage texts? Do you print them? Can you send them to Office Depot and them printed there?

I too hate reading pdfs on a screen and I don't want the children to see me at a computer too much. I do have an e-reader but the epub files of EFL's books are really bad.

 

I finally caved and ordered both of EFL's books from Forgotten Books Classical Reprint Series. Bookless Lessons arrived today....and it is aweful. :crying: Counting quickly, at least 20 pages are only partially printed. So now I'm sitting here with a book that's missing page 10, 32, 34, 82, 88, 130, 138 etc. Grrrrrrr.

 

I canceled my second order and I'm going to send a pretty angry email asking for a refund.

 

So whatever you do, don't order from Forgotten Books!

Edited May 18, 2016 by Tress

[ElizaG]

I too hate reading pdfs on a screen and I don't want the children to see me at a computer too much. I do have an e-reader but the epub files of EFL's books are really bad.

 

I finally caved and ordered both of EFL's books from Forgotten Books Classical Reprint Series. Bookless Lessons arrived today....and it is aweful. :crying: Counting quickly, at least 20 pages are only partially printed. So now I'm sitting here with a book that's missing page 10, 32, 34, 82, 88, 130, 138 etc. Grrrrrrr.

 

I canceled my second order and I'm going to send a pretty angry email asking for a refund.

 

So whatever you do, don't order from Forgotten Books!

That's too bad, Tress!  I've bought reprints of some other books from them, including Educating the Child at Home (though I usually just end up reading it online), and they've all been okay. 

 

I guess most of these companies are hit and miss.  They probably just have machines that do it all automatically, and then we have to be their "quality control."  :tongue_smilie:

[LostintheCosmos]

Thanks for all the updates, ltlmrs and ElizaG. Hearing what y'all are up to is helping me with some troubleshooting here. I've been so anxious not to divert my precious, limited energy into inappropriately early academics when I feel like we should be focusing on chores and obedience and whatnot, but I think it's actually legitimately time to step things up on that front and that it might even help with the other areas at this point.

 

I've been thinking a lot about how to better manage my "nervous energy," as EFL would say. I think the most frustrating manifestation of sleep-deprived mommy brain for me is seriously that I retain pretty much nothing and seem to doomed to a Groundhog Day of self-knowledge (at least I hope I can blame this on mommy brain and there's not just something wrong with me :laugh:). EFL's comments about how slowly children learn and how they need to see something from a variety of vantage points to really get it seems to apply to me also.  :001_rolleyes:

[ElizaG]

Oh wow, ElizaG, you actually make it to daily mass?  We make it once a week on Fridays to the home school mass and even that is hard for me. 

Don't get too impressed; I just made the schedule a few days ago.   ;)   Ask me in several weeks, and I'll let you know how it's going.   If we don't keep it up, though, the children will be disappointed.  And if it's due to my own failings, then I'll feel like a huge hypocrite teaching them about the importance of the liturgy, which is the focus of our religious education this year.   So that's a pretty big motivation.   

 

It helps that on some days, DH works from home in the morning, so I can leave the slow eaters behind if needed.   They seem to be the biggest challenge to our schedule.   (45 minutes to eat a bagel and a scoop of cottage cheese, and you're still not done?  What on earth?   Are you my child, or are you actually one of those small rodents that never stops eating?!!  :D )

[Tress]

You are blessed to actually have daily Mass! I'm seriously envious.

 

The only Mass we have is on Sunday and we are blessed to be the designated 'liturgical center', which means there is always a priest to celebrate Mass. Most cities/villages around us do not have a priest every Sunday. (Our parish priest is responsible for 16 churches.)

[ElizaG]

You are blessed to actually have daily Mass! I'm seriously envious.

 

The only Mass we have is on Sunday and we are blessed to be the designated 'liturgical center', which means there is always a priest to celebrate Mass. Most cities/villages around us do not have a priest every Sunday. (Our parish priest is responsible for 16 churches.)

I'm sorry to hear that, Tress.  Will try to remember to offer up prayers for your family when we're there, as well as thanksgiving that we have this opportunity.   See, now I'm even more motivated.  :001_smile:  

 

Although we did miss it today, as I had to take some medication last night, and was still groggy this morning.   Classes are also canceled, as I have laryngitis.   This is a pattern that started last fall, when we really got going with EFL.   Mentally and spiritually, I was doing well, but physically, I got sicker than I've been in years, and completely lost my voice for a while.   I didn't have it back completely for months, and it still goes off again with the slightest sign of allergies or a cold. 

 

I tend to think that there are no coincidences, so I'm seeing this as a way of forcing me to be more patient and watchful, use more non-verbal communication (especially with the little ones), and think over my reactions to make sure they're positive (especially with the big ones and DH).   Beause apparently I need some forcing in those areas... I'm certainly not doing the speediest job of improving on my own.  :001_unsure:

 

I think the most frustrating manifestation of sleep-deprived mommy brain for me is seriously that I retain pretty much nothing and seem to doomed to a Groundhog Day of self-knowledge (at least I hope I can blame this on mommy brain and there's not just something wrong with me :laugh:). EFL's comments about how slowly children learn and how they need to see something from a variety of vantage points to really get it seems to apply to me also.  :001_rolleyes:

 

As we were leaving mass yesterday, it occurred to me that on future days, we could just stay a few minutes longer and walk around outside the church while I do the younger ones' observation lessons.  This sort of thought has occurred to me in the past when reading about EFL's methods, but only in a vague, theoretical "I guess we could do that!" sort of way.  Now, it just seems like a sensible and obvious thing to do.  Which fits in with what you're saying here, about how it takes some of us a long time to really learn things.   

 

For me, the reason for this problem seems to be not so much sleep deprivation or memory loss, as lack of integration.  This also touches on the question of abstraction.  If we're just handed concepts from outside, and they're not part of our lives, then they're just going to be sort of lurking around in the background like unsolved mysteries, unless and until we've reached the point where they fit into place.  This applies to our own learning, just as it applies to what we're teaching the children. 

 

Getting back to a more concrete level, this also reminds me of Catherine Doherty's exhortation (a variation on St. Therese) to "do the next thing."   Since starting to homeschool, my spiritual interests have been moving steadily toward the Carmelites, but I've never been able to figure out what that means in a practical sense in terms of education.  This is, I think, because Carmelite spirituality is something you really have to live out.   You can't really tell what you're being called to do, until you're right in the middle of it.   Although the schedule helps a lot.   And the Marian consecration of de Montfort -- which is not Carmelite per se, and is probably not going to appeal to non-Catholics, but I'm convinced that without it, I would never have discovered EFL's work, to say nothing of carrying it out.   The Carmelites were a major influence on the French spirituality that, in turn, influenced 19th century American Catholic life and education, especially the Sacred Heart schools, such as the one that EFL's mother attended. 

 

I don't think we can just adopt that system whole, even if we're Catholic, because it developed in response to the needs of a different time.  But there's a lot to be gained by studying it, and by looking to its roots. 

 

Also, I really appreciated the quotation from Fr. Bull's article that you posted in the GB thread.  I hope you don't mind if I put it here as well:

 

 

'[To say that an educational system is "formalistic"] means merely that the student is to be put in contact with the "forms" of the great masters. It means that their whole experience is to be re-presented (i.e. to be present again) in the inner life of the student. He is to become instructed not only in the fact of who the author was; nor of what he thought; nor even of what he imagined and felt. The student is bent toward trying to experience within himself that totality of idea, imagining, and feeling of which form in the sense of mere extrinsic style, is but the externalization. If he is interested in the style predominantly, it is because the style in this full sense, is the man. And man, not thing, must be the object of literary study'

 

Right before you shared that, I had been thinking that I still don't really know what success looks like in this sort of education. My children seem to be puttering along not looking at all impressive most of the time, but then we have moments that surpass anything I could have hoped for.   And I know those moments are genuine, because they happened without anyone masterminding them.  (I'm the only one who would have been in a position to do it, and I'm way, way too tired to mastermind anything right now!) 

 

They've also been happening in many different areas -- academic, social, physical, spiritual, creative.  But mostly with my oldest ones.  The younger ones, for the most part, are still in the stage where even their best efforts look kind of mundane.  Sort of the caterpillar stage.  And I'm definitely with Montessori rather than CM on that point.  Children are born persons, but not in the way CM seems to suggest, i.e., with minds that are the same as those of adults, but need to be filled up with ideas.  This just doesn't seem right to me.  Caterpillars have their own genius.  :001_smile:  

 

And these thoughts about success also had me wondering about what worthy people of the past were like, in their day-to-day life, when they weren't doing something that would be recorded in the history books.  Who are our models for success in traditional education, and do we really understand what they were like? 

 

So this is all sort of connecting with what Fr. Bull is saying about literature as a holistic model. 

 

And now I have to get back to supervising chores, via hand gestures.  :D

[ElizaG]

A booklet from Catherine Doherty:

 

The Duty of the Moment

 

(For those who are drawn to de Montfort, there's also a booklet from her on The Secret of Mary.  It's a powerful and humbling reflection on how we, as mothers, are the "mold" for our children.)

 

The bishop who first blessed Doherty's "Friendship House" was Neil McNeil of Toronto - here's another booklet about his final words to her.  

 

Archbishop McNeil is quoted in some of the magazine advertisements for the League of Teacher-Mothers.  He ordered copies of EFL's Bookless Lessons for every church in his diocese, to be used for parent education classes.  :001_smile:  

Edited May 20, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

1)  Do y'all school year round?  I'd always planned on it, but now I'm trying to figure out if taking a long (as in 4-6 week) break might not be good.  We're kind of way behind with the garden and other outdoor chores because of the chaos of the past several months, maybe we should do some purely physical work for a while...  But, we're not really tired of the school work or anything, it's just become such a natural part of our day.

We've always schooled year round, though we have times with very minimal formal work, even less than our usual basics, so the children can do more outdoors.  

 

Whatever you do, I'd recommend sticking with some sort of daily verbal face-to-face lessons.  In my experience, it's very hard for both parent and child to get back into the routine of doing this.  Much more so than with workbooks, since they're less intense, and they provide a consistent visual and physical reminder of what we're supposed to be doing. 

 

2) Catechism.  What am I supposed to do now that Ladybug's received her First Communion?  Should I just go on to the Baltimore Catechism?  I was actually thinking of holding off on catechism lessons and just sticking to our Latin work, but I don't want to miss some Golden Window of Catechism Memorization.

Congratulations on her First Communion!   It's a whole new stage for your family.   :)

 

I don't know about developmental windows, but in the 1920s, before religion textbooks (such as those of Fr. Laux) became popular, the catechism was still studied by students of high school age.   The books were pretty hefty by that point.  So they can clearly still learn something, even when they're so advanced in years.  :D

 

I think, somewhere, EFL recommends starting catechism lessons around 6 or 7.  Judging by some of her newspaper columns, the traditional Q&A was part of the daily memory work.  How this worked in practice, though, I'm not sure.

 

The big 20th century innovation in catechetics was the "Munich method" or "psychological method," which I'm too worn out to explain right now, but you can look it up online if you're interested.   It's based on the theories of Herbart, which influenced many of the public school methods of the 19th century.  I'm very curious as to what EFL would have thought about it.  On the one hand, it seems to make sense -- certainly more sense than having the child memorize something he doesn't understand! -- and the lessons I've seen done this way (using only the Baltimore Catechism, not a special text) appeared to be effective.  On the other hand, it's very different from the way she teaches poetry.   So this is something I've been puzzling over.

[ElizaG]

Can we talk about spelling and the Aesop work?   One activity that my older ones did a lot with, but the younger ones have somewhat missed out on, is the movable alphabet.   We've tried various versions over the years, including Unifix, fridge magnets, and felt-backed letters, but they all seem to fall victim to the "fling, fling, dump" (as it was described in a now-defunct Montessori homeschool discussion group).  

 

With the EFL tiles, we can just make more.   Or have the child make more, although that might contribute to bad feelings toward the sibling involved.   I have to admit, though, I like the idea of the ready-made cardboard tiles that were available in her day.  Even blank ones would be a help.   But when I try to search online, I only see loads of fancy scrapbooking shapes and punches, and no cheap little cardboard squares. 

 

How have you handled this activity?   Who, what, where, when, how?  :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

I don't think the history of catechesis is something that needs to be researched in depth.  Unless you want to!  :001_smile:  The basic question is:

 

Do we have them memorize the catechism word-for-word, and only then teach them what it means, deepening the explanation over time?  (Martin Luther's method)

 

Or -- for each topic -- do we give them a carefully worked-out lesson that starts with examples, then brings out the points of doctrine, and only then presents the formula, as a "crystallization" of all of this?  (Munich Method; also found in many religion texts that combine narrative lessons with the traditional Q&A at the end of each chapter)

 

Or something else?

 

I sort of found an answer last night.   The General Directory for Catechesis (1997) says that there's no single method for catechesis.  At the same time, it says that the material to be memorized should be explained first, and their description of this process sounds rather like the Munich Method. 

 

But then it quotes JPII's Catechesi Tradendae:

 

"We must be realists. The blossoms, if we may call them that, of faith and piety do not grow in the desert places of a memory-less catechesis.  What is essential is that the texts that are memorized must at the same time be taken in and gradually understood in depth, in order to become a source of Christian life on the personal level and the community level."

 

which seems more flexible, and also more EFL-ish and CGS-ish -- in the sense that you do some age-appropriate teaching from the beginning, but you also give them the space to engage with the material on their own, and develop their understanding over time.   

 

It's probably also worth noting that Luther's method was meant for parents, and the Munich Method was meant for classroom teachers.   It does seem impractical to have each lesson fully prepared and presented, as if our home were a CCD class.   And, to me, there's a definite feel of the "elevator" about it.  

 

So I think we can just make sure they have an understanding of the meaning of the words, in whatever way seems reasonable (if we go with EFL's poetry method, I suppose this would just mean answering their questions :001_smile: ), but not necessarily worry that we have to do all the teaching up front, lest we somehow harm them for life by exposing their little ears to the formulas prematurely.  ;)

[ElizaG]

This relates to Herbart, since the Munich Method was based on his work.  He's best known among homeschoolers for CM's criticism of his "sac theory," but I think she actually agreed with a lot of his work, including his rejection of traditional ideas about training the mental faculties.   I still don't have a full sense of what he was all about, though. 

 

Here's an interesting and not-too-long book that I found last night:

 

Herbart and the Herbartian Theory of Education by Alexander Darroch

 

So far, my very limited understanding is along these lines:

 

Herbart:  The mind doesn't actually do anything; it's just a place where ideas can gather.  The ideas go into the mind and join up with similar other ideas that are already there (skitter-skitter-scatter, glomp glomp).  

 

CM:  The mind, or soul, does have powers, and they're already developed from birth; it just needs to feed on ideas to live and grow.  These ideas don't come through the senses, but are taken in as ideas (slurp, munch, munch, munch).

 

Which both seem strange to me.   When I think of Herbart, I get the image of the mind containing a bunch of greyish grapes, and with CM, it's inhabited by a sort of little fluffy round green anteater.  :laugh:

[ElizaG]

I took out a trial subscription to the NYT to read Fr. Donnelly's obituary, so I'm taking this opportunity to look up references to EFL.

 

The June 20, 1915 "Books and Authors" notes that Harper has had substantial orders from Japan for Applied City Government, A Rational Banking System, Educating the Child at Home, and "other books of serious nature," which points to a new market for "thoughtful literature" from American publishers.

 

I had noticed on Worldcat that there's a copy of Beginning the Child's Education at a university library in Tokyo, and was wondering if it was evidence of significant interest.  I guess so!   :001_smile:

[LostintheCosmos]

Whew, I can't keep up with y'all these days. I've tweaked things to up our lesson time here - now just to be consistent! We'll see how it goes. I'm re-reading Bookless Lessons to help keep me motivated (I re-read EtCaH in the fall - I might just make this an annual routine).

 

I'm also thinking about the problem we seem to have here of running out of steam before we run out of week - I'm sure some of this is just we need to keep doing things and it will slowly get easier and thus we'll be able to persist longer. But I'm also wondering if I should plan for it, at least for the time being. I've thought about having two different kinds of days and alternating - say really mom-intense days on MWF and then a more independence-encouraged days on TuTh? The downside of that is the loss of momentum from day to day perhaps. It might make more sense to just plan a four-day week, lesson-wise, and then on Friday focus on the other stuff I'm finding hard to fit in/am too tired to do the rest of the week (ahem, cleaning). Oh, who am I kidding? There is no way I will have the energy to motivate myself to clean house at the end of the week. 

 

 

Couple of questions:

1)  Do y'all school year round?  I'd always planned on it, but now I'm trying to figure out if taking a long (as in 4-6 week) break might not be good.  We're kind of way behind with the garden and other outdoor chores because of the chaos of the past several months, maybe we should do some purely physical work for a while...  But, we're not really tired of the school work or anything, it's just become such a natural part of our day.

 

2) Catechism.  What am I supposed to do now that Ladybug's received her First Communion?  Should I just go on to the Baltimore Catechism?  I was actually thinking of holding off on catechism lessons and just sticking to our Latin work, but I don't want to miss some Golden Window of Catechism Memorization.

 

1) I think where we'll land on this is a lesson-heavier schedule in the winter and summer, with longer breaks and/or lighter schedules in spring and fall to enjoy the weather and work more outdoors. Our summers are pretty brutal and B&M schools start quite early here also, so I think we will always do a fair bit of schooling in the summer.

 

2) For a while, I'd been eyeing some pre-Council Liturgical Movement-influenced religion textbooks, but after learning a bit more about what was going on then, I'm thinking we'll just memorize the Baltimore Catechism instead, with discussion as appropriate. My kids also do CGS.

 

 

As we were leaving mass yesterday, it occurred to me that on future days, we could just stay a few minutes longer and walk around outside the church while I do the younger ones' observation lessons.  This sort of thought has occurred to me in the past when reading about EFL's methods, but only in a vague, theoretical "I guess we could do that!" sort of way.  Now, it just seems like a sensible and obvious thing to do.  Which fits in with what you're saying here, about how it takes some of us a long time to really learn things.   

 

For me, the reason for this problem seems to be not so much sleep deprivation or memory loss, as lack of integration.  This also touches on the question of abstraction.  If we're just handed concepts from outside, and they're not part of our lives, then they're just going to be sort of lurking around in the background like unsolved mysteries, unless and until we've reached the point where they fit into place.  This applies to our own learning, just as it applies to what we're teaching the children. 

 

Getting back to a more concrete level, this also reminds me of Catherine Doherty's exhortation (a variation on St. Therese) to "do the next thing."   Since starting to homeschool, my spiritual interests have been moving steadily toward the Carmelites, but I've never been able to figure out what that means in a practical sense in terms of education.  This is, I think, because Carmelite spirituality is something you really have to live out.   You can't really tell what you're being called to do, until you're right in the middle of it.   Although the schedule helps a lot.   And the Marian consecration of de Montfort -- which is not Carmelite per se, and is probably not going to appeal to non-Catholics, but I'm convinced that without it, I would never have discovered EFL's work, to say nothing of carrying it out.   The Carmelites were a major influence on the French spirituality that, in turn, influenced 19th century American Catholic life and education, especially the Sacred Heart schools, such as the one that EFL's mother attended. 

 

I don't think we can just adopt that system whole, even if we're Catholic, because it developed in response to the needs of a different time.  But there's a lot to be gained by studying it, and by looking to its roots. 

 

Also, I really appreciated the quotation from Fr. Bull's article that you posted in the GB thread.  I hope you don't mind if I put it here as well:

 

 

Right before you shared that, I had been thinking that I still don't really know what success looks like in this sort of education. My children seem to be puttering along not looking at all impressive most of the time, but then we have moments that surpass anything I could have hoped for.   And I know those moments are genuine, because they happened without anyone masterminding them.  (I'm the only one who would have been in a position to do it, and I'm way, way too tired to mastermind anything right now!) 

 

They've also been happening in many different areas -- academic, social, physical, spiritual, creative.  But mostly with my oldest ones.  The younger ones, for the most part, are still in the stage where even their best efforts look kind of mundane.  Sort of the caterpillar stage.  And I'm definitely with Montessori rather than CM on that point.  Children are born persons, but not in the way CM seems to suggest, i.e., with minds that are the same as those of adults, but need to be filled up with ideas.  This just doesn't seem right to me.  Caterpillars have their own genius.  :001_smile:  

 

And these thoughts about success also had me wondering about what worthy people of the past were like, in their day-to-day life, when they weren't doing something that would be recorded in the history books.  Who are our models for success in traditional education, and do we really understand what they were like? 

 

So this is all sort of connecting with what Fr. Bull is saying about literature as a holistic model. 

 

Thanks for all this, ElizaG, and I hope you are feeling better! I read a while back about how apparently one major function of one portion of the sleep cycle is to move things from short to long term memory, so I actually do think I'm just not remembering some things (DH would agree :laugh:). But what you said about concepts lurking in the background also really resonates. It's a very different way of looking at personal change than seems to be commonly found in our culture today. The more I let go of my impulse to just make and execute a plan, set some goals and break them down into action steps, pick a habit to work on for 30 days or anything like that (not that I was every any good at all that), the more peaceful I feel. And I'm at least not less effective. 

 

Our use and accessibility of the moveable alphabet varies a lot depending on how old the youngest member of the household is. Right now it is mostly a supervised activity done up on the dining room table where the newly-toddling baby can't reach. When not in use, it is stored on a high shelf in a room the kids are supposed to ask for permission to access. We've actually gone several months now without a moveable alphabet dumping thanks to these measures. :laugh: It's not as accessible as would be ideal, but it's more accessible than if I had thrown in out in a fit of Montessori-materials-mess-induced rage, so yeah.

 

We have a cursive one from one of the discount Montessori suppliers. It's lovely, but also has just five of each letter (ten for vowels), so only the 5yo is using it currently since she's spelling out individual words still. I keep meaning to at least print out more copies of a smaller one (like this) - maybe on cardstock? maybe laminate them? maybe not bother and just reprint as needed? - so we can use it for longer sentences and such. I need to figure out a storage container for those once I do, though.

[ElizaG]

Sounds like a good plan, LostCove.  For Montessori materials, I'd vote for the thickest cardstock that will work in your printer (ours can handle "index"), but not laminating them.  In schools, where the full set of cards gets heavier use, laminating might make more sense.  But in the home, it's usually only a few cards that get damaged.    And it really bothers me if we have a change in plans and end up throwing out laminated materials. 

 

We have a sort of art area, where the younger ones like to sit to do their copywork and arithmetic.  The toddler has a highchair, and doesn't seem to mind just watching and listening to them for short periods.  It would probably make the most sense to keep all of the alphabet and writing materials there.   Although I might still have to shelve them out of reach of the preschooler.   (We've had some children who were quite responsible with materials at this age, and some who weren't.    :001_rolleyes: )

 

I think running out of energy is normal with children that age, especially if your family tends to be more intense.   Even with big ones to help, it still happens to me whenever there's anything extra to deal with (illness, special events, broken appliances, etc.), or even if I do a really satisfactory amount of work on the house.   The idea of aiming for the "full program" on two or three days, and just one short session of individual work on the other days, seems like a good one.    

 

I think we might end up going to three full days, and three lighter days (including Saturday).   We could keep a closet (or just a list) of things like audio books, board games, and paper cutting for the lighter days, and also for times of illness.   The most important work to keep up on a daily basis, I think, would be foreign languages, and just the discipline of the face-to-face lessons.   After all, they'll still be hearing and speaking English, and perhaps also reading and writing it, in their free time.  

 

This is for the younger ones.  Older ones who are doing "book lessons" would be expected to keep doing them on their own.   We haven't had much trouble with that, except when I've neglected to check for a while.  At that point, you never know what you're going to find.   It could be done very well, or it could be chicken-scratch, or it could be pictures of horses frisking merrily across the tops of blank pages. :laugh:

[ElizaG]

Two more books on Herbart's theories that look worthwhile (I haven't read these yet, just flipped through them).

 

The Doctrines of Herbart in the United States by George Basil Randels

Herbart and Education by Instruction by Gabriel CompayreÌ

 

There's a lot of confusion about his teachings among homeschoolers.  One prominent CM blogger has claimed that the idea of "mental faculties" was invented in the Enlightenment, and that Herbart and CM, by rejecting it, were returning to the traditional perspective.   The real history is more the opposite.  The rejection of the "faculties" was one of the first claims of modern psychology, and was one of the biggest reasons for the decline of classical education.  

 

I think the whole idea of "The Well-Trained Mind" must be anti-Herbartian, since you can't train a sac.   What he was after was more "The Mind Filled With Well-Agglomerated Apperception Masses that Play Nicely Together."  :laugh:  

 

His work was more influential in the US than in other English-speaking countries, which could explain some of the differences in their schools.    As can be seen in CompayreÌ's book, Herbart's ideas weren't very welcome in France, where the school system has retained something of a classical flavor.   It's interesting that the French language still makes a clear distinction between "education" and "instruction."   This distinction can also be found in American books from the very early 1800s; for instance, books on "domestic education" were mostly about morals and character development, with only a little bit about teaching the three R's.   Later in the century, though, the word "education" starts to be used in the way it is today, to refer to what the French would call "instruction." 

 

I'm looking at a book by Edward A. Fitzpatrick, written specifically for school teachers of religion.

 

"The process by which children learn is a somewhat tortuous process; it does not go directly in a straight line as a logical process does.  It follows a psychological process.  We must follow such a process though we must direct it so as to save the time and energy of the student."

 

This could be another reason why the shift from "one-room schoolhouse methods" to teacher-directed lessons was found to result in better outcomes (at least in the short term) for the slower students, but significantly worse outcomes for the brighter ones.   When the school sets out to save the children's time and energy, every child ends up being directed through the same psychological process, even if their own process might have been more efficient or insightful.   But if they don't use "elevator methods," some children -- especially those who lack support at home -- will fall hopelessly behind.  There seems to be no getting around this in mass systems of education, including large-group religion classes. 

[ElizaG]

We could keep a closet (or just a list) of things like audio books, board games, and paper cutting for the lighter days, and also for times of illness. 

 

Here are some ideas for EFL Basic Supply Kits. 

 

 

In the waiting room:

 

- Poetry anthology, or electronic device with poems to read aloud & discuss

- Folding scissors, pencils, notepad or index cards

 

- If there are magazines, brochures, etc., they can be used for language lessons; if they're free to take home, the child can cut out some letters/words and arrange them

- If there's a potted plant, fish tank, etc., or an outside area, you can do observation lessons

- If there are signs posted, you can discuss vocabulary, health, safety, etc.

 

 

In the car:

 

- Audio recordings, books or music

 

 

At home, for sick days, rainy days, etc.:

 

All of the above, plus

 

-  Bookmarks for online audio (e.g. Librivox); educational videos or bookmarks (e.g. musical performances or "how things are made" videos)

-  Scrapbooks, scissors, glue, things to cut up (old calendars, garden catalogs, religious catalogs),

-  Modeling clay

-  Potatoes, carrots, or small turnips; toothpicks; peppercorns.    :D

[ElizaG]

As we've added more subjects and activities, my older ones seem to need checklists.   (I don't know if this would be the case if they were "lifelong EFL" children, or if our environment were simpler.  Maybe between all of us, in 5-10 years, we'll have some case studies!)

 

We have some extra mini white boards, so I'm going to have them each keep one in their work area.  They can list their subjects/chores/etc. with a wet erase marker, check them off with a dry erase one, and use a tissue for erasing.   We'll see how this goes.   :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

(deleted for privacy)

 

Following on from the catechism discussion above - I think I'll have even the younger ones memorize some of the Latin tables, which we didn't emphasize last time.  If they understand what the words mean in a sentence, then I'm going to consider that enough "conceptual understanding" for now, and not expect them to learn the grammatical terms.  

 

So that's the new (old) plan.  I'll keep doing bits and pieces with them -- prayers, sayings, etc. -- and if they run out of GSWL, we might get into Cambridge, or have another go at Oerberg.   But we'll stay with ecclesiastical pronunciation, until they're working independently or doing outside classes.  I'm also going to have everyone aged 8+ do the Bluedorns' Greek Hupogrammon, which is basically copywork and oral reading. 

 

For modern language, we've been doing oral work with an old textbook that I had in junior high.  It's lightweight but pretty funny, and also gives some cultural knowledge, even if it's the 70s/80s version. We're also playing games with a set of picture flashcards. 

 

Youngest gets one card, and repeats the word after me. 

Middle gets one card, and has to use it in a sentence. 

Oldest gets two cards, and has to make a sentence using both words (and can't use the same sentence structure twice in a row).

 

So I'm taking a very loose interpretation of EFL's foreign language methods.  But given the variations in her Latin advice, I'm not sure she held to them strictly herself.   And her schools likely used a different method again, as the advertisements say that they had university-educated language teachers.   (Well, I'm university-educated, but probably not in the way she meant!)

Edited February 8, 2021 by ElizaG

[Tress]

Not to derail your new-old-new plan :D, but you do know that there is an ecclesiastical audio to go with Orberg, right?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DW1YZPU?ie=UTF8&keywords=Lingua%20latina&qid=1464456445&ref_=sr_1_11&sr=8-11

[ElizaG]

(deleted for privacy)

Edited February 8, 2021 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Who are some male writers whose work is along the lines of "EFL for fathers?"   Not necessarily about homeschooling, but written for fathers of families, and sharing a similar mindset about family culture, moral education, simplicity, discipline, etc. 

 

On the spiritual side, I'm thinking St. John Chrysostom. 

 

On the practical side, maybe Raymond Moore?

 

Suggestions would be welcome.  :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

On second thought, please disregard that request.   I just realized that, between the two of them, the above authors wrote more than enough to meet the average homeschool father's interest in "self-improvement books."    

 

And my order of the Hupogrammon appears to be lost in transit.  This sort of thing hardly ever happens to us, and I don't think it's ever happened with school books.  Is this a sign?  Am I supposed to go pure EFL, and make up our own Greek copywork from the course I'm doing?   Probably.  

 

It seems as if I keep overcomplicating this.  Rather than just stick with one good thing, I see it as inspiration to go find another, similar good thing.  I'm going to put this down to deeply ingrained hunter-gatherer tendencies.   ;)  

 

Also, when I'm reading a long book aloud and our routine gets interrupted by something, I never seem to go back to it.  We're partway through:

 

Son of the Middle Border

"Hiawatha"

Three Men in a Boat

 

and possibly others I've forgotten.   I'm just going to put that down to being a flake!   Will make sure to get to work on finishing those soon.

[LostintheCosmos]

Ha, I had meant to include a hilarious memory-related anecdote way upthread but...forgot! The moment has kind of passed, but it is a fact that due to a memory malfunction on my part, we own two identical toasters.

 

We've been on break this week due to a family visitor and some other commitments, but next week, I plan on trying out our alternating intense/less-intense days. I also might try having my eldest keep a Montessori-style work journal so he can feel a little more serious about his academic work. The energy in our house is still so early-childhood, and I'm looking for ways to meet some of his second-plane needs a little better. 

 

ltlmrs, I appreciate hearing you leave kitchen clean up tasks for the morning. I didn't realize you were allowed to do that (not that I ever get it all that well cleaned up after supper, I just feel like I'm failing rather than making an intentional choice to leave it for when I have more energy). 

 

Another idea for the EFL Basic Supply Kit, which doesn't even require any supplies and I've found to be great for waiting rooms:

 

 - telling stories

 

We discussed this way back in this thread's infancy, I think. I never did read the book on storytelling that I bought  :001_rolleyes: but I did just start telling stories a little more - and a little seems to go a fair way. Most common requests here are Goldilocks and the Three Bears and a joint composition by me and my 3yo called "The Corn Bear," about a bear that grows corn and then eats it.  :laugh: Storytelling recently kept my hungry oldest three children seated, still, and silent while we waited 15 minutes to pick up a tardy pizza in a restaurant with an enticing display of locally-made pottery and soaps with many intriguing aromas. Obviously, I felt like I totally won motherhood that day. 

Edited June 2, 2016 by LostCove

[LostintheCosmos]

Oh, and, not to be a broken record, but the one author I might add to your EFL-for-fathers list, ElizaG, if you're dealing with a father interested in history is Christopher Lasch. 

[ElizaG]

The Hupogrammon order showed up within hours of my post (Murphy's Law of Homeschool Curriculum Orders), so we're going to go ahead with it, if I can get unstuck. 

 

I was planning to have the children write in the books, but there's much less to the lessons than I expected, so it seems like a huge waste of paper.  The text is written in very large type, given that the book is recommended for ages 8+.   I can't imagine keeping them when we're done, yet I tend to agree with EFL when she says not to throw out the children's schoolwork. 

 

Then I thought of having them practice the letters with tracing paper - which, BTW, is an EFL approved supply (she mentions letting the children trace pictures from books).  But some of the exercises don't lend themselves well to that. 

 

So it seems as if we do have to write in them, which is pretty irksome.  The books could seriously be 1/2 or even 1/3 the size, without inconvenience.  I suppose this would be an example of The Failure of Technology.  :huh:

 

[ElizaG]

I was re-reading an old thread, and noticed this article:

 

Top Students, Too, Aren't Always Ready for College (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2013)

 

Many of the comments point out that high school students can often get by without studying independently, except in preparation for a test.   Nobody seems to realize that it used to be different, though.  Interesting.

 

They blame poor teaching, grade inflation, too-easy high school curriculum, and lazy students.   But what if the problem is with how the system is supposed to work?   What if students' ability to engage in lifelong, self-motivated learning is being hindered by practices that are considered "good teaching?"  Nobody talks about this, except unschoolers.  Probably because we've come to think of "school" as synonymous with post-Herbart-ish methods.  

 

 

Getting down to brass tacks...

 

We clearly need a "recitation room" for individual lessons, and a "study hall" for everyone who's doing written work.   (They don't need to be separate rooms; I just find these terms helpful.)

 

The recitation room can be small, is only required for short periods, and needs the mother's attention 100% during that time.  

 

The study hall is larger, is used for longer periods of quiet work, and needs some supervision.  

 

The littlest ones also need a play area where they won't disturb the reciters or the studiers.   Or some sort of Montessori-ish area, but one that doesn't require a directress on a regular basis.  Or an older child can be assigned to work with them in their area.   Or they can stay in the study hall, and be given "busy work" or "seat work."   (Which was actually invented to save the teacher's sanity, in situations like these.) 

 

 

 

We don't have anything like the above arrangement, which I think is one reason why our routine is so easily disrupted.   The children's main work/study area was set up when we were still in that "early childhood" stage.  It doesn't have enough room for all of the children to work at the same time, and it's cut off from my preferred cozy recitation/video/read-aloud area, so the younger ones end up being unsupervised for too long.   I just found a large patch of red paint on one of the older one's notebooks.   "I'm sorry, Mommy.  It was an accent."  Yes, I guess it was!   At least red is a good accent color.  ;)

 

 

And here's a story I found, "A Little Heroine," which gives a bit of the flavor of old-time convent school life.  The author was Mary Catherine Crowley (b. 1856, so about EFL's mother's generation). 

 

Her father, John Aloysius Colman Crowley, went to Holy Cross and Harvard, at a time when they were both classical colleges.  There's a section about him in Annals of the Harvard Class of 1852, which looks like an interesting book in itself.  Talk about bygone days. 

 

[Tress]

Getting down to brass tacks...

 

We clearly need a "recitation room" for individual lessons, and a "study hall" for everyone who's doing written work. (They don't need to be separate rooms; I just find these terms helpful.)

 

The recitation room can be small, is only required for short periods, and needs the mother's attention 100% during that time.

 

The study hall is larger, is used for longer periods of quiet work, and needs some supervision.

 

The littlest ones also need a play area where they won't disturb the reciters or the studiers. Or some sort of Montessori-ish area, but one that doesn't require a directress on a regular basis. Or an older child can be assigned to work with them in their area. Or they can stay in the study hall, and be given "busy work" or "seat work." (Which was actually invented to save the teacher's sanity, in situations like these.)

 

 

 

We don't have anything like the above arrangement, which I think is one reason why our routine is so easily disrupted. The children's main work/study area was set up when we were still in that "early childhood" stage. It doesn't have enough room for all of the children to work at the same time, and it's cut off from my preferred cozy recitation/video/read-aloud area, so the younger ones end up being unsupervised for too long. I just found a large patch of red paint on one of the older one's notebooks. "I'm sorry, Mommy. It was an accent." Yes, I guess it was! At least red is a good accent color. ;).

Yes, yes, can we talk about how to practically do this with multiple schoolage children? From EFL's books and articles, it looks like she always talks about one schoolage child and maybe several little ones? Obviously, she did have a lot of experience with teaching multiple children and schoolclasses. Did I miss her articles about that?

 

I can totally see letting one of my dds recite her poem while peeling potatoes with me, but we don't need *that* many potatoes for all my dds to recite :D. And I'm afraid that when I just at random through the day pull one child to me to recite, I'm going to forget things. I could make a checklist with boxes and put that on my clipboard :lol: but somehow I don't see EFL doing that.

[arliemaria]

Yes, yes, can we talk about how to practically do this with multiple schoolage children? From EFL's books and articles, it looks like she always talks about one schoolage child and maybe several little ones? Obviously, she did have a lot of experience with teaching multiple children and schoolclasses. Did I miss her articles about that?

 

I can totally see letting one of my dds recite her poem while peeling potatoes with me, but we don't need *that* many potatoes for all my dds to recite :D. And I'm afraid that when I just at random through the day pull one child to me to recite, I'm going to forget things. I could make a checklist with boxes and put that on my clipboard :lol: but somehow I don't see EFL doing that.

 

Even if it wouldn't be EFL approved I would *LOVE* to see what would be on your checklist for EFL style learning.

[ElizaG]

As far as I know, there's nothing in EFL's published writings about teaching multiple school-aged children, except for references to the fact that it can be done.  For instance, she mentioned a mother with ten children in a remote mining camp.  Her own parents had at least that many.   I'm sure she gave advice for this situation in her letters, but this is a part I'm just having to make up, based on what I've learned of old-time school and home teaching, and a lot of observation of what works around here. 

 

In her family, some of her siblings were old enough to help her with the advanced subjects, which they'd learned from their parents, other relatives, or outside classes.  Given that the recitation method doesn't take very long, this wouldn't be nearly as time-consuming for them as I'd imagined at first.   And of course, learning to teach is also a valuable skill.  But since our eldest ones are still in the early secondary stage, that's not much use right now. 

 

One thing I do know, though, is that old-time school teachers did make a "schedule of recitations."  It was an essential part of their equipment.

 

Also, even though Montessori directresses didn't have a set schedule of lessons (except perhaps for some group presentations), they did keep detailed records about each child's progress, using a clipboard with checklists.  They still do it this way, unless they've switched to an electronic app.  I've made a couple of feeble attempts at modifying Montessori record-keeping materials to suit us, but it seemed better to start from scratch.

 

Right now, our schedule has some long periods with a general description (lunch, quiet time, free time etc.), and others that are scheduled in 5-10 minute increments, for individual children's recitations and lessons.   This works very well, when it works.  The only trouble is that when we fall behind, I have to shift it all forward, decide what to drop, etc.   Which is not very easy when I'm already behind!   

 

Because of this, I haven't given the schedule to the children, just kept it on my computer.  But the older ones are bothered by this.  One of them is very well organized -- what Cathy Duffy would call "Competent Carl" -- and likes to have the morning fully planned, in order to have free time in the afternoon.   Another child is a bit anxious and also wants to run the house (hmm, I wonder where that comes from :laugh: ).  This child quickly figured out the entire schedule, for everyone -- just from observation -- and hovers around giving me not-so-subtle hints about what's supposed to be happening next.   So we've had to have ongoing lessons in Not Bugging Mommy.  Still, it seems that the children are ahead of me on scheduling, as with so many other points. 

 

 

[fixed typos]

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

We're still getting better with chores. 

 

One pair of children -- older + younger -- is completely responsible for breakfast:  planning, cooking, and clean-up (other than people clearing their own dishes), and for running the dishwasher in the morning.  Another pair of children takes care of lunch, with a bit of help from me, and runs the dishwasher in the afternoon.   The dinner chores, and the evening dishwasher duties, are for whoever gets asked.   

 

After starting this system, we went through a turtle-ish stage, like the one I described at first.   I wonder if this might actually just be what normalization looks like in older children!? 

 

Also, the cure for shirking seems to be to keep it simple and not "rescue" them.  E.g., the children were procrastinating with the dishes, only loading the easiest ones, etc., so we would sometimes run out of certain things.  My solution was to change the meal plan to something we could make, while lecturing them.   DH's solution was to wash the needed items himself, while lecturing, and also trying to figure out whose fault it was.  Neither of these worked.  :001_rolleyes:   Now, if something isn't clean, I just tell the ones who are responsible for that meal that they'll need to hand-wash it.   Whether or not it was their fault that it didn't get loaded.   After a few days of this, I overheard them talking to each other about how it would be better just do to all the dishes on time.  Score!   

 

On a different home-economics note, the resurrected thread on girls' clothes reminded me of this article:

 

How Air Conditioning Remade Modern America (Salon.com)

 

I grew up in places where the summers were hot and humid enough to be uncomfortable, especially at night, but most people didn't have air conditioning.   Going to the lake, the country, or the hills were popular options.   I remember it being hard to study, when I was taking classes in the summer.  I'm going to try to keep the air conditioning to a minimum this year, so we can have the windows open more, but I'm not sure how this will affect our schooling.  And I'll have to put a child or two on "window duty."   (Maybe we should start a Ventilation Notebook.  :laugh: )

Edited June 3, 2016 by ElizaG

[Tress]

One thing I do know, though, is that old-time school teachers did make a "schedule of recitations." It was an essential part of their equipment.

 

Also, even though Montessori directresses didn't have a set schedule of lessons (except perhaps for some group presentations), they did keep detailed records about each child's progress, using a clipboard with checklists. They still do it this way, unless they've switched to an electronic app. I've made a couple of feeble attempts at modifying Montessori record-keeping materials to suit us, but it seemed better to start from scratch.

 

This is great news! I had no idea! I don't know much about Montessori, but after a quick google for 'Montessori record keeping'.....wow, checklist heaven :D. (Although I'm really glad I don't have 30 students to keep notes on!)

[Tress]

I finally printed off Bookless Lessons and I'm discovering that it's very different than what I remember reading a few years ago.

 

I had the exact same experience with Bookless Lessons. Strange, isn't it?

[ElizaG]

I'm not a fan of Mary Reed Newland's advice, either.  IDK why some Catholics put so much stock in child-rearing approaches from the 1940s-50s that were innovations, and didn't stand the test of time. 

 

I just happened to re-read the short story "Charles" by Shirley Jackson.   It was published in 1948, and was based on her experiences with her own son.  What strikes me isn't the ending (where the parents realize that their child was behaving terribly in kindergarten), but how obnoxious the little boy was even at home, and how the parents -- especially the father -- just sort of helplessly accepted it. 

 

This fits with a trend I've been noticing in the Catholic press from that era, and was actually going to post about. 

 

1)  Richard Sullivan's novel Summer After Summer (one of the first books of the US Catholic Literary Revival), written in 1942, portrays an ineffectual father who can't discipline his three-year-old daughter. 

 

2)  An article from 1946, in a popular Catholic book review magazine, says that veteran teachers are having unprecedented problems with their new classes of first graders.  The old methods of discipline just don't work. 

 

3)  Around 1956, the US Jesuits began to have unprecedented problems with their new seminarians.  (This is mentioned in several histories and memoirs by different authors.)  Many of them seemed unhappy, challenged authority, and were very concerned about their peers' approval, while lacking a sense of camaraderie.  One result of this was that the Jesuits dropped the Latin and Greek studies that were part of their traditional formation, and that were apparently the last example of humanistic classical education in this country. 

 

Going with a superficial analysis, the differences in the seminarians' behavior might be attributed to trends of the 1950s -- but this would have been the same group who were preschoolers in the early 1940s, and had been showing signs of this all along.  So it seems that something went very wrong with American family life around 1939, when EFL wrote her "Renegade Home" pamphlet.    I'm sure she would have said that many things were going wrong before that, but looking at the evidence, this seems to have been something quite sudden.  The last straw, maybe?

 

At first, I thought it might have been WWII, which clearly disrupted family life.  But Sullivan was likely writing his book before the US even entered the war.

 

Was it the radio?  It seems possible.  The 1930s were the decade when radio sets went from a curiosity for the affluent, to a central part of typical American home life. 

 

Whatever it was, it clearly never left, and it seems to be a point of rupture between our world and EFL's.    So it's been on my mind. 

[ElizaG]

Changes in education were more gradual, though, and universal elementary schooling was already in place.  The major shift in the 30s, for Catholics, was the expansion of secondary education. 

 

I think that the sudden change in the very late 1930s must have been due to radio.  If there's one thing I remember clearly from McLuhan, it's that only a change in media could have had such profound effects, without attracting much notice.

 

I did a quick search on "effects of radio on family" and only found one reference, a study done in 1937.   "Effects of radio on children" had several more, including an article in The Rotarian (Nov. 1938).  The author mentioned previous studies about the effects of movies on children, and said that similar research about radio would need to be looked at when it was available.   She did make some points just from her own observation - for instance, about the simplistic and highly dramatic nature of the children's stories on the radio. 

 

A present-day newspaper column calls these articles "laughable," and presents them as if they were evidence that today's concerns about the Internet are baseless.   No, what's laughable (or would be, if it weren't so toxic) is this editorialist's narrow-mindedness and chronological snobbery. 

 

Radio was big business then, just as the Internet is now, and there was evidently concern about conflict of interest.  Here's a short piece from the Boston Traveler, Dec. 1937, reprinted in a broadcasters' magazine:

 

A Non-Radio Owning Newspaper Raps Back at a Critic of Radio

 

The critic -- Henry Payne of the FCC -- was concerned that all of America was engrossed in radio programs that were typically written for a 12-year-old's intelligence.  What effects was this going to have on the nation's mental maturity?   Seems like a reasonable concern to me, but the newspaper writer's response was personal and defensive.  Seems as if he or she was quite attached to "Idiot Box 1.0."   ;)

Edited June 6, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

From the Rotarian article:

 

"The radio has come upon us so suddenly and overwhelmingly that we have had scant time to evaluate with any great accuracy its major effects and potentialities."

 

At the time she was writing, twice as many households had radio sets, as had telephones.  I had no idea!

 

 

ETA:  "One estimate, apparently reliable, indicates that the average daily period for family listening is 4.1 hours."

 

That 4.1 hours of leisure or semi-leisure (e.g., listening while doing chores) would previously have been spent doing... what?   

 

It seems likely that a significant part of it would have been spent on "ordinary" things that we'd like to be doing with our families now... but we don't know how to do them... or maybe even what they are.  :huh:

Edited June 6, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Another article:

 

Radio Reaches Rural America

 

The bit about the farmers in the fields reminds me of a closely related subject:  music while working.  I have this book (with the accompanying CD), but haven't read most of it yet.

 

I entered the workforce at a time and place when "music at work" meant having to listen to "adult-oriented pop hits"  emanating from a colleague's old clock radio -- with "Achy Breaky Heart" repeated at the top of each hour.   Those work experiences, and the words and music that went with them, are inseparable in my memory, and have definitely been etched on me for life.  :laugh:

 

 

ETA:  sorry, forgot to add the link... too distracted by annoying memories of Billy Ray Cyrus, Shania Twain, et al... ROFL

Edited June 6, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I agree with keeping it simple, and being a model of the behavior you're expecting from the child.  There are also some ideas for grace & courtesy games at this Montessori site.

 

Does she like to have tea parties - either with other people, or with dolls?  That can help, too.  :001_smile: