Ella Frances Lynch

[Hunter]

I don't think the nice thick Comstock book was out yet, and just an earlier less complete one. I did own the Hodge book at some point and didn't think it was a good as the Comstock book that I'm not sure EFL had access to yet.

 

There are so many Tarr and McMurry Geographies. I'm not sure which one she meant. I do sometimes use bits of Tarr and McMurry. The McMurry's wrote a LOT of books. Some really good stuff. I might like Tarr and McMurry in context of the whole and not realize it.

 

I really really like reading the vintage geographies. Even if I use a modern book to teach the topic presented, the scope and sequences to the vintage books are what I want to teach instead of ever-shifting political boundaries.

[LostintheCosmos]

It's been a while, but I remember looking through some of the books she suggested for mothers. in general, they seemed more dated and less useful than her work, but there were some worthwhile bits. She probably wouldn't have had much to choose from, as the field of "child-study" was in its very early days.

 

If there's one in particular you want to discuss, please do. :-)

 

I haven't looked at them yet, just hoping someone could tell me if they were worth reading.  :laugh:

 

I don't think the nice thick Comstock book was out yet, and just an earlier less complete one. I did own the Hodge book at some point and didn't think it was a good as the Comstock book that I'm not sure EFL had access to yet.

 

EFL does recommend Comstock's book on insects. I tried using HONS a year or two ago and failed. :laugh: I did find Hodge's framework very clarifying, though - between that and spending a lot more time outdoors in recent years and doing observations lessons with the kids, maybe now I'd be better equipped to make use of HONS as a reference.

[Hunter]

I find HONS works well combined with vintage geographies and science narratives.

[ElizaG]

The Handbook of Nature Study was published in 1911, so EFL would very likely have been familiar with it.  I wonder if she considered it too large or expensive for home use.   

 

I recently got a copy of Comstock and Vinal's Field and Camp Notebook from eBay (published by Slingerland-Comstock).   I can't find much information about it, but did find some advertisments for Comstock's Nature Notebook, which seems to be an earlier version of the same sort of thing. 

 

This probably wouldn't be considered a book, in library terms.  It was published as a set of worksheets, which the students would fill out and put into a cover. The Field and Camp Notebook pages are around 4" x 7"; the Nature Notebook pages are listed as 7" x 9".  Some of the pages have charts and other information, others have "fill in the blanks" questions about a species being observed, and others have outline drawings to color in.  

 

Schools could request custom sets of pages, and the contents of the books that have survived seem to vary a lot.  The notebook I received belonged to a student teacher from the Midwest.   There are others for sale online that were made expressly for Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, the Audubon Society, and a YMCA camp.  

 

The Field and Camp Notebook is from the early 1930s, but the earlier version was published starting in 1913.   I found a document in "snippet view" saying that Comstock felt that teachers needed workbooks to go along with the Handbook.   I guess homeschoolers today aren't uniquely inept at using that behemoth.  ;)

 

Since the copyright wasn't renewed, I can type out the questions if anyone is interested.  My version only has the pages about birds and plants.    I don't know if these questions are also found in the Handbook, because I hid it in a dark, dark closet.  LOL

[Hunter]

I just know I love HONS. I think it is the most core book of my curriculum, that holds a more foundational place than even my history sequence.

 

HONS, my chosen geography texts, and the history sequence were braided together the best I could and then everything else fits into that braid. Everything I have planned would make no sense at all if I took out HONS. 

[ElizaG]

I think I've completely shifted to the earlier view of "homeschool-ology" as a branch of domestic ecology, euthenics, home economics, or whatever else it's historically been called.   It still seemed a bit strange to me the last time I mentioned it, but now it makes perfect sense.   

 

Conversely, home economics has to be taught as a part of homeschooling, or the system won't be self-sustaining, let alone self-improving.  Of course, the specific lessons will depend on the goals and aptitudes of each student, as well as their geographic, social, and financial situation.  But I think it should always include at least a little bit of theory.  And even for the practical parts, just picking skills up by osmosis isn't likely to work, unless the home is running very smoothly.   

 

For an older child, I think much of this could be taught by reading vintage books from the early home economists who were really centered on the traditional home (rather than trying to replace it, or change it into something different), and discussing what has changed and what parts would be helpful for our family. 

 

LostCove, I think you would like this one, from 1906:

 

The Healthful Farmhouse by Helen Dodd; introduction by Ellen H. Richards (aka Ellen Swallow Richards)

 

One thing that stands out to me is that she doesn't advocate a "rustic" or even "minimalist" ideal.  Maybe that is a sort of modern aberration?  Montessori acknowledged adornment as a fundamental need, regardless of local culture or social class.   Dodd writes of the importance of the housewife at the sink being able to look -- not out the window, though of course that's also desirable -- but through into her dining and living room, so that she can enjoy whatever aesthetic effects she's been able to achieve with the furniture, draperies, etc.   If she were just in a rather bare room, surrounded by her tools, she would be more likely to feel that her work was drudgery. 

 

Going along with this, when in the house, the children (and, one would assume, the adults!) are taught to sit with good posture rather than lounging around.  This is a Montessori thing as well.  I'm going to guess that EFL would have agreed.  If so, this might be one of the most controversial parts of her system. 

 

We are loungers and sprawlers here, but I've had uneasy feelings about this for a while.   I even asked Andrew Kern about it, when he popped in to the big CiRCE thread... though he did not answer.

 

I think I have my answer now.  Which is not to say that I like it!!!  ;)  

[ElizaG]

Handbook of Nature Study seems like a good foundational work for developing a curriculum.  What I'm starting to realize is that I'm not really developing a curriculum, in any recognizable sense.   TBH, even when things are going well around here, I'm not sure what I'm doing.   Besides sharing good books with the children, making sure dishes get washed, and now also trying to stop lounging.   :laugh:

 

Maybe we lack -- or have lost -- the language to describe some of this?   Now there's a thought.

[LostintheCosmos]

LostCove, I think you would like this one, from 1906:

 

The Healthful Farmhouse by Helen Dodd; introduction by Ellen H. Richards (aka Ellen Swallow Richards)

 

Oh, this book is so neat! Thank you! 

[ElizaG]

I think Helen Dodd has me sold on the advantages of a small kitchen (not that I had much choice).    Now I just have to figure out what to keep, where to keep it, and where the children's education fits in.  In that order.  If I start by trying to make everything convenient for the younger ones, then it's not ideal for the adults, or even for the older children -- and realistically, we're the ones who will be doing the great majority of the work. 

 

Right now, when multiple people are helping, we do the food preparation on the dining room table.  There's plenty of space, but it makes a mess, leads to traffic jams in the doorway, and prevents others from using the table for schoolwork at the same time.  But I guess we can continue it while I get this worked out. 

 

If someone had a kitchen that followed her plan, but wanted their children to be involved, it seems as if their options would be:

 

1) Set up a separate children's work area (either a low table, or counter space with a stable platform to stand on), with their own pegboard of mini tools. 

 

2) Set up the work area with enough counter space for two, a portable stool, and both the adults' and children's tools hanging up.  This would require careful planning to make sure the children could reach the things that are necessary for their tasks. 

 

Until now, I've been thinking of #1 - the "Montessori space" - as the ideal.  Now I'm thinking that #2 would be much better for everyday cooking, because everything is in one place, and because I could do my work while supervising and talking with the other person.   The trouble is that we barely have a long enough stretch of counter space for one adult cooking for a large family, let alone an adult and child working together.   Our longest stretch is about 4', vs. what looks like 6' in her picture. 

 

If we did go with separate work areas, the child-height table would cause problems, because then we couldn't have an older child and an adult working at the same time.   (This all seems obvious now, but when you're in the middle of things, it can be hard to see the bigger picture.)   We could use a second stretch of counter near the main one, but we'd have to make room for another tool area.  I can't see how to do this without removing a lot of cabinets.  I mean, I guess we could just take out nearly all of them, but they're still in very good condition, and it would be a pain to have to put in new ones if we sold the house. 

 

Maybe I could move the cabinets into the living room, to hold homeschool materials.  Classy!  :D

 

Any ideas?

 

Oh, and I like the fact that her small kitchen includes both stools for the workers, and a seating area for a visitor or someone peeling vegetables.  Not a snack bar - just a cozy bench.  We don't have a woodbox, but maybe I could set up something similar to hold all the recyclable and returnable containers. 

 

On the other hand, McLuhan said that sitting in chairs -- vs. standing, or sitting on the floor -- has a numbing effect on our sensorium, directing most of our attention to our heads, and especially our eyes.   This puts us in a state for more sequential and abstract thinking.   

 

"Our Affair with the Chair" - Wayne Constantineau (the original page won't load for me, for some reason)

 

In the introduction to The Healthful Farmhouse, Ellen Swallow Richards suggests that abstraction while doing chores is desirable.  Do we agree with this, in general?   Or maybe under some conditions?

 

And now I'm wondering if anyone has studied the media effects of Grandma's rocking chair.  :001_smile:

Edited February 27, 2016 by ElizaG

[Hunter]

In one kitchen we had some counter top at table top height without cabinet under it.

 

We also had a weird cabinet, on a side wall that wasn't very deep because it was squeezed in. The lower area was set up like a higher cabinet.

 

Younger son had come in during construction and demanded that he be accommodated as he cooked too. This home was owned by his grandad and was under construction. It wasn't like moving into previous apartments. His incence and almost fury amused all the men, and they changed plans to make it easier for him to use the kitchen.

 

He was an awesome sourdough bread baker. He made it up to everyone.

[Hunter]

We had a rocking chair in that kitchen. :lol:

[LostintheCosmos]

Argh, just lost a post detailing my kitchen's strengths and deficiencies. In short, it is laid out decently and I do have a nice long counter which I love, but it is also filled with cabinets - there is absolutely no open wall space. I have considered taking the doors off some of the cabinets - they get left open all the time anyway. 

 

My kids are all still smaller, so option #1 is working out best for us at the moment. The "helper of the day" gets to stand on a stool at the big counter with me for special, and everyone else does their regular food prep work at a child-height table in the room immediately adjacent to the kitchen.

 

I wasn't quite sure what Richards meant by "abstraction of thought" -  for some reason that bit brought to mind all the knitters who say they love knitting because it is "meditative." Having our hands occupied in an automatic task does seem to free the mind for thinking in a way that is different from when we sit down to concentrate on a problem or task directly.

Edited February 28, 2016 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

Yes, taking the doors off the shelves above the work area might be enough.  They'd still be too deep, but we could use lazy Susans or pull-out bins to get at smaller items in the back.   Or I could just use the front part, and fill the backs of the lower shelves with boxes holding seasonal or emergency supplies.

 

Okay, I think I have another project!   :001_smile:   My eldest enjoys both technical drawing and cooking, and would want to be involved with this.  I'll have to find something to use for a (shared) Home Design Notebook, to go with our Garden Notebook and Houseplant Notebook.

 

Broadly speaking, here's what I'm noticing: 

 

With Montessori, the adult makes simplified versions of grown-up things and prepares a special area for the child to use them in.   The adult observes carefully, and keeps a notebook about how the children are doing.

 

With suburban EFL, you all do regular family activities in your home (pruning away excess, to make room for Worthwhile Things that sometimes get crowded out -- e.g. walks, gardening, hobbies, DIY, music, and of course reading aloud and formal prayer).  You all observe carefully, and sometimes talk about it, and some or all family members write in notebooks.   The specifics of the notebooks are pretty much up to your family.   There's a little advice here and there, but no matter what archives are dug up, there will be no EFL version of The Living Page. 

 

From what I've seen, when Catholic homeschoolers try to do TLP, it ends up looking more like EFL anyway.  Which makes sense, because one system was designed for families, and the other one for schools.   But sometimes they still feel compelled to describe their approach as "notebooking in the Charlotte Mason way," as if she invented the idea of keeping fairly systematic (and sometimes artistic) records on bound paper.   I'm pretty sure Catholics already had a corner on that market, because, you know, monks.  ;)

 

"Family, become what you are!" - St. John Paul II

[ElizaG]

Thinking more about notebooks -- this is from a review of TLP at Mystie's blog:

 

"This is a vision of education as reading broadly, copying down the sentences that call out to you, slowing down and contemplating as well as collecting and analyzing.  Charlotte Mason didn’t make this up.  She observed that this is what interested, educated people do; so, she says, let’s introduce children to this practice and see if they don’t remain interested and become educated thereby."

 

That helps to clarify the differences for me.  In trying to remedy the deficiencies of mass schooling methods, CM had the idea of putting the children through the paces of the sorts of things that educated people do, to see if they took on some of those habits of learning.  It seems a wee bit cargo-cultish, though perhaps less so than some other modern methods (including a large part of Common Core), because the habits she was trying to teach are quite basic. 

 

As homeschoolers, if we ourselves are interested, and at least becoming educated (including the characteristics described in the above vision), and are sharing some of our thinking with other family members, then then our children can learn these habits from us in a natural way, without any specific outside exercises.  Just off the top of my head, I can think of many significant advantages to this.

 

First of all, there's the relational aspect -- parents and children working side by side, strengthening the guided participation relationship, and building a family culture.

 

Secondly, since we're living today, the model we're providing them is already updated.  And we're even modeling the updating process, by which we discern which new media and habits to take in, and which ones to avoid or limit.  Which our children are going to have to do in turn, because today's "updated" is tomorrow's "outdated."

 

Thirdly, the forms are more likely to be suitable for our family's values and way of life.  This is a question of emphasis.  E.g., the Book of Centuries seems to me to promote both Whig history and materialism.  The medium is the message.

 

Fourthly, because the parent can give the child more or less specific directions for keeping the notebook, there's the opportunity for a lot of individual initiative. This goes along with all the free time the children are supposed to have in her system, both "after school" and in the longer lesson periods, vs. having every minute accounted for. 

 

It does require more focused work from the mother (unless she's already a much better model than I am), and there's not much output that would be worth showing off to outsiders, but I'm very happy with how it's going.  

 

 

[edited to fix typos]

Edited February 29, 2016 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

ElizaG, your comparison of Montessori and EFL reminded me of something I've wanted to bring up here, which is discerning the difference between simplifying something appropriately for a child's use and creating an elevator that does the work for them, in EFL's metaphor. It seems obvious that there's a difference between a child-sized knife and, say, a reading comprehension worksheet based on a canned reading passage, but it also seems like there's a kind of continuum. Maybe I'm thinking particularly in regards to books: "high-interest" easy readers at the one end, Longfellow at the other and maybe something like classic literature retold for children somewhere in the middle (EFL does recommend some of this, but only for non-vernacular literature, I believe, don't have the book at hand to confirm). Does this make sense? I'm about to go through our children's books again and have been thinking about how I'm going to decide what to keep and what to discard (DK books, watch your back).

 

Appreciated your thoughts on notebooking. I will never understand the mania to label everything "CM" or "CM-inspired" (?). Well, I guess if it emboldens some people to do things that seem good and right to me, they should go for it. It does seem like yet another example of homeschoolers looking to schools to recover practices that schools copied from "real life."

[ElizaG]

I've been trying to assemble my thoughts on children's non-fiction, but they keep going off in different directions.  

 

Going with the analogy of Montessori activities, I think there's a definite difference between something like a child-sized pitcher (an appropriate tool for a small person to do a necessary task), and a pouring exercise on a tray (a specific made-up task involving isolation of difficulty).   One could argue that the latter is a sort of "elevator."  Maybe that's necessary in a large classroom environment?    If so, this would fit with Juenger's claim of a link between technology and poverty.  

 

The question, then, is: where do these books fit in, as a part of education?  Are they useful tools, or simplified made-up exercises?

 

In most modern visions of education, children's non-fiction is mainly used as a means to some curricular end, such as the teaching of "research skills" or "logic stage thinking," or the formation of desirable attitudes about some social group, or just having the children practice their reading.  The information usually isn't considered that important.   We can see this most clearly in the type of assignment in which each student is told to read about a different country, president, woman inventor, or whatever.  This has always seemed strange to me.   If the school board believes that the chief industries of Botswana are worth knowing, then the whole class should be learning about them.   If not, then surely there's something better that the child can be doing with his time.  

 

So this line of thought leads to a few criteria:

 

1)  Is the knowledge in this book likely to be really useful to this child at some point?

 

2)  Is the subject matter suitable for the child's current stage of development (e.g., not overly abstract or upsetting), so that it can be taught without misleading and dumbing-down?

 

3)  If the answer to both of the above questions is "yes," is there a high-quality adult book that's suitable for the child to use in gaining this knowledge? 

 

If not, then we could think about providing a children's version.  

 

This wouldn't necessarily be the only justification for keeping a book.   Some might be worthwhile for their exceptionally strong moral value, or as models of literary style.  But the vast mass of children's non-fiction we've picked up, at book sales and from homeschool book lists, doesn't qualify in either of those categories.

 

Baby just woke up, so I'm not going to get far into the specifics of discerning the answers to the three questions.  Will just say two things:

 

Regarding #1:  With all the information that's available on the Internet -- often of very poor quality -- it seems to me that we might need more general knowledge than before, because it takes background understanding to be able to evaluate sources critically.   And practically speaking, even if we homeschool the whole way through, there's a limit to how long we'll be able to put off what Fr. Donnelly called "university methods."   If they're going to be doing this work some time in high school, it makes sense to start equipping them for it in elementary school.   

 

Regarding #3:  For many recent subjects, I've found it very difficult to come up with adult books that I'd consider suitable for children (and I'm sure EFL would agree).  

 

Also, due to the structure of public school assigments (which influence library purchases), the most substantial children's non-fiction books tend to be short and specific, rather than longer and more general.  For instance, it seems easier to find a children's book about Indonesia than to find one about Asia.  When we've done continent studies, I've had to come up with the overview part on my own. 

 

Overall, then, I'm thinking that we might have reason to have a greater number of books than would have been the case in her day.   But not, say, seven different children's biographies of Abraham Lincoln.  Or a picture book version of Gilgamesh (that one always seemed a bit ill-advised to me.. . :confused1: ).  Or certain non-fiction series from the 1950s and 60s that seemed relatively substantial and wholesome when I bought them, but are now looking rather shallow and sometimes full of subtle propaganda. 

 

Obviously my thoughts on this are still a work in progress!

[LostintheCosmos]

Thanks, Eliza! My thoughts about this have mostly be stuck around a possible fourth question: Is this something we can only learn from a book or is there another way to learn it - from observation, from a "prepared adult" (or not-so-prepared, ahem)? I'm probably making the perfect the enemy of the good here, and I think if I had a better set of criteria for selecting worthy books I'd probably feel more comfortable doing so, ha.

 

 

[ElizaG]

Thanks, Eliza! My thoughts about this have mostly be stuck around a possible fourth question: Is this something we can only learn from a book or is there another way to learn it - from observation, from a "prepared adult" (or not-so-prepared, ahem)? I'm probably making the perfect the enemy of the good here, and I think if I had a better set of criteria for selecting worthy books I'd probably feel more comfortable doing so, ha.

Oh, good one!  It could go just before #3.  Although we still might want to have something about the topic in a reference book -- but there's no need for a "living book" if we have a real living version.  :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

We finally got around to "The Courtship of Miles Standish."   Rather than follow EFL's suggested approach (which had become a sort of looming obstacle), I ended up just reading it to all the children as a bedtime story, over a few evenings.   It turned out that my older ones were already familiar with quite a few of the references, and they were able to fill in some of each other's gaps.  One has a better memory for Bible stories, one remembers more about American history, one has a larger vocabulary, etc.  

 

After we'd finished, I wasn't sure whether to just let it sit, or go back and study it intensively to make sure they got all the parts they missed.   Now I'm thinking that this is where the "individual instruction" comes in.  My older son was baffled by the romantic aspect, LOL, and he disliked the violence (which really was unexpectedly awful), so most of the poem was an ordeal for him.   But the girls liked it.   Maybe I can have them work on it, separately, with the eldest studying more independently. 

 

For families with multiple ages, then, reading aloud to the group might be a good way to "offer" the poems to the children.   Not exactly an earth-shattering discovery, but it has helped me relax a bit about figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing.  :001_smile:

 

I wanted to mention something else.  When literature workbooks were invented in the 1930s, they were called "directed study."  I take this to mean that they were meant as generic models of how a work should be studied.  So the importance of the study questions has less to do with the details of the specific work, or with the calibre of the children's written answers, and more to do with showing them how to study a challenging literary text on their own.   Which, after all, is what educated people do, or at least used to do, throughout their lives. 

 

Somehow, our educational system seems to have moved away from this vision very quickly.  Maybe just because Americans' reading habits declined so rapidly with the arrival of radio and TV?  Whatever the reason, I've read many recent arguments in favor of the formal study of literature, but I don't think I've ever seen it presented as a means to the end of traditional self-study.  Except maybe in TWTM/TWEM.  So there's that.  :001_smile:

 

I think John Senior missed the boat on this, when he rejected "study guides" altogether. 

 

So this is helping me to understand why I'm uncomfortable with certain types of exercises that are sometimes found in "literature studies," such as crossword puzzles, or looking up topics that are only semi-related (e.g., different types of penguins, in LLATL's unit on Mr. Popper's Penguins).  Even if these might be helpful for reinforcing facts or teaching general research skills, they have nothing to do with learning how to approach the text. 

 

It's also helping me to think more clearly about how to teach media literacy in general.  But that will have to be another post, or several.  "More clearly" is a relative term.  ;)  

 

 

Reasons to study literature (not meant as a complete list!) :

 

1) To learn how to study literature, so we can keep doing it for our whole lives.

 

2) To connect with our cultural heritage, learn about other cultures, and build a family culture.

 

3) To train the emotions.

 

4) To be exposed to models of wisdom and eloquence.

 

5) To have a "well-stocked mind," so we will have access to these treasures at all times.  (Including hair-braiding, carrot-peeling, dish-washing, and anything involving the DMV.  :laugh:)

[ElizaG]

In books about educational methods from EFL's day, there are some basic terms that either are no longer used today, or are used in a very different way.  I'm finally starting to get an understanding of the ones below, so I'm going to share these descriptions by way of thinking out loud.  If you see anything incorrect, please point it out.

 

 

"Recitation"

 

In the 19th and very early 20th century, this was the name for the class period that involved interaction between the teacher and the students.  Individual students would be called on to "recite," i.e., to answer questions about previous lessons.  The teacher would also briefly assign new material.  Recitation periods were kept relatively short, to leave time for:

 

 

"Preparing lessons," aka "Trying to get the lesson" or just "Studying"

 

This is when the students learned the material that they'd been assigned in class.  They were expected to do this on their own, either at home, in a study hall, or just on a bench in a one-room schoolhouse.  Preparation could be done silently or out loud, often with the help of a sibling or friend.  Depending on the material, they might or might not be expected to memorize it, but the goal was that they would understand it as well.   

 

At the next class period for that subject, there would be another

 

Recitation

 

during which the teacher might call on that student to answer a question about the material.  Depending on the class size, this would work out to a couple of minutes of direct interaction per student.   In a one-room school, the children would be called up either one at a time, or in small groups.   With home tutoring, of course, there would be more time for each child to recite, but I think the system worked pretty much the same way whether it was a large school, a small school, or just a few children with a parent or governess at home.  

 

From what I've read in the teachers' journals of the early 20th century, the system didn't seem to be working any longer, as most students weren't preparing adequately, if they bothered to prepare at all.  This was put down to various social and educational factors:  too many subjects added to the curriculum; crowded urban homes with no place to study; smaller families with less likelihood of older siblings to help; more distraction from extra-curriculars and entertainments.  Whatever the reason, the children weren't preparing at home, and the study halls were often more like a zoo.  This led to the introduction of:

 

"Supervised study"

 

which originated around 1918-20 in the high schools, and seems to have been the forerunner of the modern style of classroom teaching that we tend to take for granted.   With "supervised study," the class periods were made longer, and in some cases the school day was lengthened, so that teachers would have time to present the material and help the students learn about it.   Different teachers developed different methods for presenting the information, and this was considered desirable.  As the teacher took on a more active role, some people started to prefer the term "directed study."   Again, though, the idea was that the students themselves were studying the material, and the teacher was there to help them learn how to study it.   But my sense is that this might have been wishful thinking.   :001_huh:  

 

When supervised study was introduced, some people pointed out that it was similar to the approach that was already in use in the elementary schools.   Not long before that, though, in 1910, a teacher writing in an Oregon school journal said that even first and second graders could be taught how to prepare lessons, and third graders could be good at it.  This fits right in with what EFL was saying.  I've also read stories from Victorian times that had scenes with young children preparing their lessons, either for school or for home education.   So it seems as if there must have been an earlier shift in elementary methods.    I'm going to have to go back to my books and try to figure that out.  Maybe it was connected with the introduction of German pedagogy and object lessons?   And speaking of objects, this gives a new perspective on Montessori, as the children in her schools did study the materials on their own, in order to get the central idea.

 

In any case, this would have been a huge change in pedagogy at a fundamental level - as big as the shift from oral to silent reading, which happened around the same time.

 

The teacher-directed approach was found to lead to better overall test results (not surprising, given that many students hadn't been preparing at all), but I haven't seen any evidence that it helped the students to develop strong independent study skills, which was supposed to be the goal of supervised study in the first place.   If anything, it would seem to have the opposite effect, in that even the more diligent students might stop studying on their own, if they knew that all the material would be covered during class time. 

 

It also required a new sort of expertise from the teacher.  "Preparing a lesson" was now primarily her job, not the students', and she also had to learn how to deal with them more as a group than as individuals.   This made teacher training more of a necessity. 

 

At the same time, family and outside friends were limited in their ability to help with the learning process.  They could only help with homework, when the students practiced what had been learned in class.   On a more subtle level, I think it's also significant that the students no longer had an opportunity to read and consider the text individually, before it was discussed in the classroom group. 

 

This is all in reference to the United States.  I don't know if schools in other countries followed the same path, or even if their students had so much independent work to start with.  Among Catholics, I know that St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle developed a complete system of graded classroom instruction in the late 1600s.   I've also been wondering about how the Jesuit model fits in, and actually came across one journal article that mentioned that "supervised study" was sometimes referred to as the "prelection."  

 

As with some other aspects of vintage pedagogy, this is all so unfamiliar that it's turning my mind topsy-turvy, and I'm going to have to stop and digest it for a while.  But I wanted to put it out there, for those intrepid folks who are still reading this thread.  :001_smile:

 

 

[Edited -- clarification]

 

Edited March 20, 2016 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

Really interesting, Eliza. Do you have a sense of what the purpose of the recitation was understood to be? Merely for the teacher to "check for understanding" and see if the child was ready to move on? Or was it considered to be something that contributed to the student learning the material in itself?

[arliemaria]

I was under the assumption that recitation was both for retention/review and elocution.  I am using Memoria Press' Recitation with my first grader.  I think I read on Ambleside Online's site (it may have been from Charlotte Mason or another educator) that recitation was also reading aloud not necessarily reciting a memory work fact/poem, etc.  

[ElizaG]

Arliemaria, if you find any examples of that usage in vintage sources (US or British), I'd be interested in seeing them.  As far as I can remember, in the American ones I've been looking at, "recitation" always refers to some sort of telling-back of something that's been learned by the student.   Reading from a written text, whether silently or out loud, is just called "reading."   

 

LostCove, I think the traditional Q&A recitation was always seen as a pedagogical opportunity.   Even in "blab schools," which were considered the lowest sort of school, the child could learn by hearing the other children reciting.   In the better schools, the master might draw out answers by careful questioning, give short lessons while making corrections, and add brief but valuable comments.   For instance, older books often emphasize that the recitation is supposed to include moral guidance. 

 

More than anything, it seems to have been a concentrated way of teaching.    A few words, a gesture, even a look could have a great influence.   It was really an art, rather than a method.   This fits very much with my understanding of EFL's work, as well.

[arliemaria]

https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR01p092RecitationChildrensArt.shtml

https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR08p359ReadingRecitation.shtml

 

These are a few of the articles to which I was referring.

[ElizaG]

I see what you mean.  In the first article, there are times (such as the two paragraphs from "My only apology..." to "...they are assuredly giving one") when the author makes a clear distinction between the arts of reading and reciting.  Then there are other times (such as the title!) when he appears to be using one of the words to refer to both of them.    I wonder if that's because, although the two actions have a lot in common, there's no convenient English word that covers both?   It would be similar to trying to write an article having to do with "walking and jogging."    Or "Internet forums and chat rooms." 

 

And then the second article takes the opposite approach.  It's titled "Reading and Recitation," but it seems to be entirely about reading.   :huh:  I wonder if recitation was covered in the "to be continued" section?

 

TBH, I often find the Parents' Review articles to be vague and indirect, even more than CM's own writings.    I wonder if this is has something to do with Victorian habits of speech.  Perhaps they found it crass to be too straightforward.   As Mr. Arthur Burrell puts it at the first link, "You must always be in a state of repression, as if you could do more, but will not."   :laugh:

[ElizaG]

In Gilbert Highet's The Art of Teaching (1950), he says that the structure I've described above -- in which students are assigned a text, study it on their own, then do a sort of combined oral discussion/test in class -- is simply the common method of teaching.   He mentions that the interactive part of it is called "the recitation" in the United States.  Highet was from Scotland, and spent many years at Balliol and St. John's College, Oxford, so I take this to mean that similar methods were traditionally used in those systems, even if they called it something different (or perhaps didn't call it anything at all).

 

In the Angelicum/GBA thread, I mentioned that the Great Books program at St. John's College in Annapolis is said to have originated because Buchanan and Barr were Rhodes Scholars who wanted to bring something of the Oxford tutorial system to the United States.  According to Buchanan, by the 1920s, the tradition of "real teaching" had vanished from this country and couldn't be retrieved.   How can this be, when Highet, 30 years later, equated classic teaching with the recitation?   I mean, I'm sure there were differences in quality, but it seems as if importing a foreign system -- or creating a new one -- wouldn't be necessary, nor would it actually fix the problem.  

 

IDK if you can see from here how furrowed my brow is at all this.  ---> :huh:  :huh:  :huh: :huh:  :huh:  :huh:  :huh:  

 

So anyway, going with the Highet theme... I found this article  about Moses Hadas, one of his colleagues in classics at Columbia.  In a eulogy, Highet describes how Hadas taught students, late in his career:

 

"He really knew a great deal more by that time; but he did not let it show because it might inhibit them. He would rather efface himself (in part at least) than seem mentally distant or pedantically erudite, and risk cutting down a young mind. That is rather difficult. It can be done only by a man who is fundamentally wise, learned, and warm-hearted.â€

 

Seems like something for the teacher-mother to remember.  :001_smile:   

[ElizaG]

It also turns out that some US universities still have a type of lesson called "the recitation," which is a smaller section that meets at a different time from the lecture.  This looks to be the same as what's called "the tutorial" in some Commonwealth countries.   In my experience, it generally consists of a bored graduate student and a medium-sized group of undergraduates, most of whom have barely skimmed the text.    :001_rolleyes:   To some extent, then, it's a cheap, seriously degraded version of the tutorials depicted in Shadowlands.  The difference being that at Oxford, the tutors assigned their own material, and the lectures by the professors were a whole other thing.  In these other "tutorials" and "recitations," they're usually going over information that was given in the lectures. 

 

We did have one notoriously difficult first-year honors course in which the professor didn't teach the core material at the lectures -- just spoke on other topics, and assigned sections from the text.  The students were supposed to learn the material on their own, with or without help, and then the problems were taken up at the tutorial.  Most of us were frankly appalled, and never fully adjusted -- even though there was some free extra tutoring available, not to mention numerous study guides at the bookstore.   Many students dropped out, or had some sort of mental health crisis.  Not long after that, they redesigned the course, and switched to a more conventional way of teaching.   I wonder if it would have worked better just to have an introductory class that explained that this is how everyone used to learn - even third graders! - and that our confusion wasn't due to some personal failing, but because we'd been carefully shielded from that reality, in a cozy elevator, for the previous decade?

 

So now I'm thinking that this change might be the biggest factor in the "hitting the wall" phenomenon that's often discussed in gifted circles.  It's not just that the subject matter they were expected to learn in elementary school was too easy, though that was surely part of it.   It's that they were usually fed the material, in lessons that were carefully planned to make it accessible to most students.   Assuming that they understood it well enough to do the assignments and pass the tests, they didn't have to study or think much at all.   

 

By contrast, in the old system,

 

1)  Even the strongest students would have been accustomed to physically sitting down and studying, as it was something everyone had to do.

 

2)  There would likely have been some points, somewhere along the line, that they didn't get right away.  

 

3)   If they ever had a halfway decent teacher, he or she would have known to test their knowledge more thoroughly in the recitation, by asking deeper and more difficult questions, or by suggesting supplemental resources for further study. 

 

 

This is helping me understand why EFL's system, even on "grade level," seems to be challenging my children more than when we were using conventional materials in an "accelerated" way.  Very interesting.   

 

Given that the question of providing appropriate challenge was why I got into all this in the first place -- learning about Montessori, trying to figure out traditional classical education, even joining these boards -- I think I am done!     Perish the thought... what will I do without my research?

 

Does anyone want 15 boxes of books on educational history and theory?   If you pay the postage, I will throw in some free Happy Meal toys.    :D

 

[ElizaG]

Oh, and I wanted to mention that Auntie Leila has a recent post about the importance of dishwashing for mother-child communication.  She also links to an old post about establishing "flow" in the kitchen.  

 

(The highchair tray piled on top... BTDT! :laugh: )

[arliemaria]

Thank you, ElizaG.  I appreciate all your research and insight so very much.  Here is a blog post using recitation in the way I was referencing (as a skill in reading aloud):  http://livingcminca.blogspot.com/2009/12/recitation-childrens-art.html

 

My husband had an Oxford professor in our undergraduate college (WV Wesleyan).  This professor always who had small section courses where the students had to prepare the lessons.  He assigned the students individual readings and the student needed to read it and be able to present it and lead the discussion/question.  They always called these classes "seminars."  The professor was always there for assisting the discussion and helping to explain something if they didn't understand it correctly, but he didn't lecture the class.

[ElizaG]

We've touched on some of the threads connecting EFL's work with the early 20th century "kindergarten movement," "settlement house movement," and "home economics movement."   Now, in the interests of decluttering, I'm looking through several books on the "playground movement" and the "liturgical movement."   For educated women, the Progressive Era must have been quite a "movement movement."  :laugh:

 

As with the word "recitation," some of these terms are used differently today.  I wouldn't have guessed that they had much to do with homeschooling, but it turns out that they sort of do.

 

 

The playground movement

 

From around 1890-1940, the word "playground" implied the presence of trained leaders, who would plan activities and guide the children's after-school play in ways that were considered good for their development.   These programs were were free of charge -- funded by donors or city governments -- and were motivated by a desire to keep children off the streets.   The motto of one state's movement was "The boy without a playground is a man without a job."  There was quite a bit of overlap with the mindset of progressive schooling.  Many writers assumed that the school would eventually merge with the playground, and become a one-stop education, socialization, and recreation facility. 

 

The most similar modern programs might be the summer day camps that are run by the city, but there are major differences that go beyond the charging of fees.   In the early stages, the playground activities were chosen for their cultural value, and were often modeled on rural or "old country" life.  For instance, there might be traditional songs, folk dances, real sewing, and real carpentry.   Also, because the playground was year-round, local, and open to all children in the community, there seems to have been a natural sense of attachment and pride that, in today's youth activities, often has to be manufactured with a lot of "rah rah."    

 

I learned that part of the history a few years ago, but didn't realize that the movement also extended to the home.  From around 1929 to 1937, playground advocates started  encouraging middle-class parents to make space for their children to play in their backyards.  Apparently, in those days, it was typical for the yard to be used for junk storage and the father's half-hearted attempts at gardening, while the children played in the street.   The "backyard playground movement" soon took on a commercialized aspect, with the emphasis on buying play equipment, but before that happened, there was some cross-over between their advice and EFL's.   One interesting part of it was that they held contests in which teenagers built sandboxes and swing sets for the younger children.   I'm going to dig around and see if there are any "backyard playground" resources that might be useful for us.  :001_smile:

 

 

The liturgical movement

 

The first time I read of EFL's existence was in a recent book on the role of laywomen in the liturgical movement.  To be honest, I still find this whole scene confusing.  Just as the "playground movement" went beyond what we think of as "playgrounds," the 1920s-40s Catholic "liturgical movement" was concerned with much more than the liturgy itself.  For instance, it extended to progressive social action, and to the promotion of rural life.   There was a strong neo-medievalist feel to it, as well.   Some simple and rustic types of printing and home decor, such as woodblock art, were described as "liturgical style."   Moving to the country was jokingly described as "going liturgical."  (I am not making this up!!!   :laugh:)

 

According to many writers, the key to the whole liturgical movement was the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ, which was just starting to be rediscovered in the 1920s and 30s.  I find this connection especially confusing, maybe because I was raised with the awareness of the Church as the Body of Christ... but apparently it was a big deal at the time.  

 

So anyway, I've been looking through some reports from the earliest national liturgical conferences, which started in 1940.   As I suspected, in 1942, Mary Perkins Ryan gave a talk in which she mentioned EFL by name, in a way that suggested that her efforts were already well known.   Perkins Ryan had also written a Latin text for adults, called Your Catholic Language.  She was probably the most zealous promoter of the idea of liturgical Latin for everyone.  Oddly enough, though, after the Council, she became one of the biggest promoters of the vernacular.  (She was also into experimental liturgies that used "interesting" elements for the Consecration.   :huh: )   She also seemed very critical of classical education, which puts her right in line with the other reformers of the 1940s.   At the time, the traditional Jesuit methods were identified with that dusty old spirit that they were trying to escape.  You know, by going back to the Middle Ages.  :laugh:

 

At the 1941 conference, Theodore Maynard invited Perkins Ryan to comment, right after Dietrich von Hildebrand had given a talk on "The Liturgy and Culture."  As usual, she spoke about the importance of getting ordinary people, young and old, involved in the liturgy.  She didn't mention EFL that time, though. 

 

Von Hildebrand's talk is very interesting in its own right.  Among other things, he spoke about the differences between three types of culture:

 

1)  The local folklore that grows out of "blood and soil."   According to him, while this can be charming and beneficial in a limited way, if it's made a focus, it can lead to dangerous and un-Christian tendencies.  Also, we shouldn't try to create it, as by its nature, it's something that grows up spontaneously.  "So all works of culture which result from 'intending' the local atmosphere of a certain soil are by no means genuine or organic, but have the bad taste of artificial trash."

 

2)  The individual creations that "derive not from a nebulous vibrating of the inner mind of people, but from the luminously clear spirit of a great and rich personality, of a personality which is congenial to the objective Logos of being which has been inspired by the Spirit which breathes where it will."  This includes most of the great works of Western culture (the Parthenon, Dante, Mozart, etc.).  Von Hildebrand considered this to be a much higher sphere than the first type. 

 

3)  The liturgy of the Church, which is far above the sphere of human personalities.  "Here, all comes from above, from the heights of divine light and the world of Revelation.   Revelation is essentially a thing that does not spring from soil and blood, it is even essentially not in conformity to our fallen nature.  It is essentially a word from heaven, to which our nature should conform, and by conforming, be transfigured." 

 

He warns against the great mistake of thinking of the universality of the liturgy as a sort of impersonal collective. 

 

"A great single person has indubitably much more the capacity to overcome [local] limitations and to conform with the objective Logos of being, than any natural community has."

 

"The impersonality of folklore is a prelude to the sphere of culture; the universality of liturgy, on the contrary, is not impersonal, but reflects the divine Person of Christ, and therefore is above human individuality." 

 

I'm finding this very helpful - will have to re-read and reflect on it more, and also find a couple of his books that we have somewhere around here.  

 

After Perkins Ryan spoke, a man named Barry Byrne, who was the head of the liturgical arts society, expressed disagreement with von Hildebrand.  Byrne said that there were two types of art:  "aristocratic" and "communal."   The Renaissance was an example of the former, and the Middle Ages, of the latter.  The "great" type of individual artist, as described by von Hildebrand, was more characteristic of the Renaissance, which was a time when the people's art was made for them, rather than by them.  (This obviously goes along with the criticisms of classical education by Perkins Ryan and others.)  In the wonderful new world he envisions, everyone will be an artist, like the anonymous medieval cathedral-builder; "art will become so common and integrated with life in its simpler aspects, that the 'virtuoso" or genius-type will vanish."   Oh, and also, we're Americans, and everyone knows we're unique, and we need to find our own way.  We can't be expected to do things the European way.  :tongue_smilie:

 

At that point, I looked up Byrne.  He was a famous modern church architect, and was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.    Wikipedia has photos of some of his creations.  This is supposed to be communal American culture?    Not to mention that he did one in Ireland, too.   So much for his appeal to national character.   

 

After Byrne spoke, von Hildebrand (not surprisingly) asked to make a further statement.   He wanted to emphasize that the attempt to substitute collectivity for objectivity was a "specially malignant" form of relativism.   He also repeated, "it is very dangerous I think to be preoccupied with these colorings in the attempt to produce a culture, or to intend this purely folk element in creating a work of art, or even in judging its value. (...) Thus if we are artists, we must not aim at producing say a German or a French or an American work of art, as such."  If we aim at producing good art, and are successful, it will naturally have something of a national character.  He didn't think that anonymous medieval religious art sprang from "soil and blood," in the same way as traditional folklore.  Instead, he believed that the anonymity reflected the artist's connection with the universal atmosphere of the Church.   In a similar way, when the work of a known great artist is incorporated into the liturgy -- for instance, when a text from St. Ambrose is included in the Breviary -- it becomes part of that higher atmosphere, and takes on a new character. 

 

There's another bit where von Hildebrand comments on an enthusiastic talk about Catholic Action (a blanket term for the organized lay apostolate under clerical supervision), by pointing out that renewal in the Church isn't always from the center to the periphery.  It can also start at the edges, with some inspired figure such as St. Francis.   He said that the Church wasn't an army under the direction of the pope.   "We who live in a period of universal mechanization must be especially on our guard against the consequent danger of unduly prescribing religious activity.  Adequate room must be preserved today as in the past, for spontaneous life within the Church."

 

Well, their heads about flew off at that.   No!!!  The pope said over and over that Catholic Action is supposed to be organized, and so it must be!   Down with individualism!   Get that wacky German personalist egghead out of here!   I'm mellllltiiiiing!!!!  ;)

 

Sorry if this seems OT, but it's helping me understand why EFL's work had such limited acceptance in her day.   She was completely opposed to the mechanization and mass mentality that von Hildebrand also warned about, but the progressives bought right into.   They must have seen her as an absolute nightmare.  

 

Also, what he's saying about not prescribing many non-essential (but good) activities, and keeping room for spontaneity, fits right with EFL's advice about the "domestic church."    And on that note, I have to go get rid of some boxes.  :001_smile:

 

ETA: fixed typo

 

ETA2:  fixed more typos!

 

ETA3:  and a couple more

Edited October 4, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I meant to add a couple of quotations from Mary Perkins Ryan, but now I can't find the book, and children are clamoring.  Will come back later!  :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

These are from a talk called "Our Language of Praise," which Perkins Ryan gave at the 1942 National Liturgical Week.  Speaking of most people's reaction to the idea of "Latin for everyone," she says:

 

"They think you mean a scholarly knowledge -- the kind which a professor of Latin should have, or rather a caricature of true scholarly knowlege, the kind that most Latin students unfortunately do have.   For few people ever seem to think of Latin as a language at all.  They think of it as a highly complex set of rules of grammar and rhetoric, woven together into a few masterpieces of classical prose and poetry.  And they think that a knowledge of Latin must mean a knowledge of all those rules, for the sole purpose of appreciating those masterpieces and in turn teaching both the rules and the appreciation to somebody else." 

 

She goes on to point out that, in the case of those students who only get two years of Latin in high school (was this already common at the time?), they don't even get to the appreciation, only the "drudgery."

 

"It is no wonder that people who think of Latin in this way groan with horror at the idea of trying to teach it to every Catholic.  That would be an impossibility."  

 

This seems like a gratuitous swipe at those who might want to preserve classical education.  The liturgical movement was supposed to be about recovering the Church's traditions, but she ignores the fact that many of the problems with Latin teaching were caused by Catholics drifting away from those traditions.  If the parochial schools followed EFL's advice, then there wouldn't be high school graduates with only two years of Latin.  And if classical teachers went back to the traditional practice of speaking Latin in the classroom, as Fr. Donnelly and others recommended, then it would be seen as a real language.   Not to mention that the idea that the idea that literary study was primarily for "appreciation" - rather than for teaching the arts of communication - was itself a novelty.   So she could have promoted her new ideas, while still recognizing the formative value of the classical curriculum. 

 

After reading some of the other talks, I have to wonder if she privately shared the attitude of Byrne and others, of favoring a faux-medieval concept of collectivism, vs. the humanistic idea of the potential for individual Christian "greatness." 

 

Anyway, she goes on to mention EFL a couple of times.

 

"As Miss Ella Frances Lynch has pointed out so forcefully and so often, children like Latin, and from about seven to ten years old is the time to teach it to them. (...) [T]hey could be given at a minimum the words of their daily prayers, of the Ordinary of the Mass, of Benediction, of the great hymns of the Church which they can sing, and of daily life."

 

On the next page, she recommends the Orbis Vivus, the textbooks from the Toledo experiment, and, for high school, the New Missal Latin. 

 

There are also comments in some of the books about a Fr. Weller in Dorchester, WI, who had elementary school children learning Latin.  I can't find much about that aspect of his work, though he did become well known for putting together an edition of the Roman Ritual.

 

 

Oy vey.  I just started reading a talk by Fr. Robert E. Brennan (Mus.D.) of San Francisco, and he puts it all right out there.  I wish I could quote the whole thing.   According to him, the Renaissance resulted in many changes in the Church, which happened very suddenly, and were basically a big mistake.  The liturgical movement folks intend to undo all that, and turn back the clock 500 years.  It might seem best to do this quickly, but that wouldn't be feasible, due to human weakness.  So, in the short term, they might have to keep allowing such un-liturgical elements as plaster statues, novenas, and "On this Day, O Beautiful Mother." 

 

Where did this come from?   How is it that these people, all at once, showed up at this conference making the same sorts of sweeping statements about history -- and yet, today, we don't even hear about that aspect of preconciliar life? 

 

I can't remember seeing this sort of talk in Commonweal and America around that time, though maybe I missed it.  Was it in Orate Fratres?

 

Very puzzled. 

 

I guess at least I now understand why the educational reformers had no qualms about completely wiping out a system that had been in place since the Renaissance.  They thought the Renaissance was the problem.   Never mind that Christian culture since that time had produced great art and literature, and great saints.  They were uncomfortable with the idea of talking about great artists, and maybe even great saints, whether molded in plaster or not.  :rolleyes:

 

 

ETA:  fixed a couple of typos

Edited April 4, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Somewhat more on topic... in one of Christopher Dawson's books, he said that a great benefit of classical education (Renaissance through 1900s) was that it maintained a strong cultural bond between Catholics and Protestants, even when they were divided in matters of religion.  

 

I think this is a really good point, and it's also true of EFL's suggested approach to elementary education, in both the Latin Bible-centered and the English Longfellow-centered versions.  :001_smile:   To some extent, maybe we could think of these as "international" and "national" versions?

 

EFL's English literary selections start with folklore (nursery rhymes, fairy tales), but move pretty quickly to eminent individual writers, which fits with von Hildebrand's ranking of the different spheres.  "Hiawatha" is sort of a blend of the two, so it seems very suitable to put it at the beginning of the child's formal education.  That is, unless the family chooses to go right to the highest sphere, and focus on the Bible instead.

 

I'm not sure our family is countercultural enough to do the latter, but it seems to me that we could have two streams going at once.   In other words, teach secular literature (including "Christian classics") in one stream, and scriptural and liturgical texts in another.   If anyone has tried this, or has ideas about how it could work, please share.  

 

I'd like to think that we could just combine one stream with English teaching, and the other with Latin teaching, but the Latin is very slow going if I'm trying to teach for understanding.  Though maybe that's because I'm doing it wrong, or just not giving it enough attention (which is very likely true!). 

 

Edited April 3, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I just came across an article on "The League of Teacher-Mothers" that EFL wrote for American Primary Teacher magazine, April, 1916.   (She seems to have been on good terms with the editors.  In 1914, they ran a photo of her on the cover, as well as a very favorable review of Educating the Child at Home.) 

 

Here's how it ends:

 

"Teachers are helping.  Realizing the impossibility of giving the right start simultaneously to a score or more of new beginners, they point out to mothers that even ten minutes a day is more time than can be given the little individual in a crowded classroom, yet it is the individual good that should be considered.  The great problem of all time is the problem of the human individual.  All the real work of the universe has been done by individuals.  'The world do move,' but it does not move in masses.  The speed of an army with even ranks must be the speed of its slowest members.

 

'The strong shall wait for the weary, the hale shall halt for the weak,

With even tramp of an army, where no man breaks from the line.'

 

This is not the plan for human progress.  No, rather let us have : --

 

'Fair play for all men, and their share of light,

That they may grow up to the topmost height

Their souls can master.'"

Edited October 4, 2016 by ElizaG

[Soror]

I'm a bit late but wanted to say I've been following this thread with interest. As of late I've been reading through Bookless Lessons. I found her thoughts on Observation Lessons to be informative. Nature Study has always been an interest of mine but this year I decided to make it a priority again, getting out at least weekly in the fall and then since Dec our aim has been for daily. It was a bit of a validation to see this given such a high priority. Sometimes we go out with a specific purpose but usually we just go and see what we can find. I love the discussions we have, at first I thought we are going to learn to identify the world around us and while we do work on that there is so much more than identification.

 

We've also come to love poetry this year, our practice has been nothing like EFL method but enjoyable nonetheless. I'm not certain how I want to do it next year- I'd like to move it higher up on the priority list, although I don't know if full-scale EFL lessons are the goal. 

 

Lastly I've been contemplating this year, what we did well and what needs improvement, EFL's encouragement towards simplicity is refreshing. I have been thinking about how I want to slow down- my daughter gets anxious if we move too fast and my son has many strengths but speed is not one of them. I've been mulling in my head how to go deeper with fewer things. What skills are fundamental? What are our goals and is our work moving us towards them. How can we economize our time to leave room for those other priorities (physical, life skills, mental, work, our time in nature)- without pushing us through our work OR sacrificing progress towards goals.

 

(and I don't know that is post belongs here with those so much further into EFL- and my own thoughts just beginning to form on her method and thoughts and of what I will find of use to me)

Edited April 30, 2016 by soror

[Soror]

Reading Bookless Lessons I see talk about doing different poems for the ages of 5, 6, and 7 , specifically bits of Pied Piper for ages 5 and 7 and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for year 6 but in Educating the Child it is all about Hiawatha. In Bookless Lessons she states, "Do not try to teach a child a poem that he does not like or thoroughly understand" and it feels a lot less prescribed, more about the method than the specific material used- although she does certainly express which types of literature and poetry are worthwhile, heaven forbid a comic enters your house! 

[ElizaG]

There were huge changes in American life and tastes between 1900 and 1930:  country to city; horses to cars; homemade entertainments to radio and movies; honoring the old ways, to tossing them out the window.  Longfellow was still widely respected when EFL started writing.  By 1922, he was considered as passé as classical education.  (Percy Marks' 1924 novel, The Plastic Age, gives a vivid depiction of the scene on college campuses.)  

 

I wonder if that might account for some of the differences between the two books?   It could be that she, or her publisher, had reason to believe that most modern young parents would be turned off by "Hiawatha."   She might even have been concerned that little children wouldn't all be taught nursery rhymes -- which would have been unthinkable a generation earlier -- so she thought it best to add them in more formally. 

 

Whatever the reasons for the changes, I personally prefer her earlier approach to literature, though Bookless Lessons has a lot of helpful bits. 

 

In either case, though, the children were supposed to thoroughly understand and like the poems.  "Hiawatha" wasn't meant to be an endurance test.   :001_smile:

Edited May 1, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

It just occurred to me that we see some of the exact same changes -- especially the addition of more step-by-step instructions -- between the "original" and "latest" advice from many modern homeschool authors and curriculum providers (Kolbe, SWB, etc.).  I guess some things haven't changed!  ;)  

[Soror]

There were huge changes in American life and tastes between 1900 and 1930:  country to city; horses to cars; homemade entertainments to radio and movies; honoring the old ways, to tossing them out the window.  Longfellow was still widely respected when EFL started writing.  By 1922, he was considered as passé as classical education.  (Percy Marks' 1924 novel, The Plastic Age, gives a vivid depiction of the scene on college campuses.)  

 

I wonder if that might account for some of the differences between the two books?   It could be that she, or her publisher, had reason to believe that most modern young parents would be turned off by "Hiawatha."   She might even have been concerned that little children wouldn't all be taught nursery rhymes -- which would have been unthinkable a generation earlier -- so she thought it best to add them in more formally. 

 

Whatever the reasons for the changes, I personally prefer her earlier approach to literature, though Bookless Lessons has a lot of helpful bits. 

 

In either case, though, the children were supposed to thoroughly understand and like the poems.  "Hiawatha" wasn't meant to be an endurance test.   :001_smile:

I had looked at the publication dates too because I was curious as to the changes, from what I see Educating the Child is 1818 and Bookless Lessons 1822, so not too much of a difference. I guess one will never know her reasons or intentions.

[ElizaG]

I had looked at the publication dates too because I was curious as to the changes, from what I see Educating the Child is 1818 and Bookless Lessons 1822, so not too much of a difference. I guess one will never know her reasons or intentions.

They were published in 1914 and 1922, which I think might have been a significant interval in a time of such rapid social change.   For instance, imagine an author who started teaching in the 1940s, and wrote a how-to book for parents in 1961.  And then imagine they came out with a second book in 1969.   If they were going with a mainstream publisher, it would have to fit the spirit of the times.  Groovy, man.

 

It's just one theory, and maybe it's totally wrong, and it doesn't have to affect our choices in any case.  :001_smile:  But I do think it's quite possible that we might find out more about this some day.  Given that none of us had even heard of her work until a couple of years ago -- and we're so limited in time and space that we haven't even tracked down a copy of the Orbis Vivus -- there must be a lot of papers and articles out there that we haven't looked at yet. 

[ElizaG]

Speaking of Latin materials, I wanted to add some links to Latin/English versions of the texts mentioned by Mary Perkins Ryan:

 

"[T]hey could be given at a minimum the words of their daily prayers, of the Ordinary of the Mass , of Benediction, of the great hymns of the Church which they can sing, and of daily life."

 

There's audio and video for most of the religious ones online, if you search for the specific titles.

 

Also, IDK if the one I've linked for "daily life" has the best translations.  If you search for "conversational Latin," there are various free resources.  

 

There's also the textbook Palaestra by Arcadius Avellanus.  (He was an early 20th century promoter of living Latin, who came from a part of Hungary where Latin was still a lingua franca, and claimed to have spoken it fluently from early childhood.)  It seems pretty close to the approach EFL described.  The audio recordings that have been shared online are a bit iffy IMO, but it might work if you're comfortable pronouncing it yourself.   I don't get the impression that his style matches up with the classical ideal, but neither does hers. 

 

 

[fixed typos]

Edited October 4, 2016 by ElizaG

[arliemaria]

Reading Bookless Lessons I see talk about doing different poems for the ages of 5, 6, and 7 , specifically bits of Pied Piper for ages 5 and 7 and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for year 6 but in Educating the Child it is all about Hiawatha. In Bookless Lessons she states, "Do not try to teach a child a poem that he does not like or thoroughly understand" and it feels a lot less prescribed, more about the method than the specific material used- although she does certainly express which types of literature and poetry are worthwhile, heaven forbid a comic enters your house! 

 

That's for pointing these out.  I showed Robby this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RFLm5eZuHM claymation of Pied Piper today.  I am going to have the opening section she mentions be copywork and work with him on memorizing it.  I haven't started Hiawatha... it just is very daunting.

 

My middle one is three so I plan to try those lessons with Little Jack Horner with her.  She already has this rhyme memorized.

[Soror]

They were published in 1914 and 1922, which I think might have been a significant interval in a time of such rapid social change.   For instance, imagine an author who started teaching in the 1940s, and wrote a how-to book for parents in 1961.  And then imagine they came out with a second book in 1969.   If they were going with a mainstream publisher, it would have to fit the spirit of the times.  Groovy, man.

 

It's just one theory, and maybe it's totally wrong, and it doesn't have to affect our choices in any case.  :001_smile:  But I do think it's quite possible that we might find out more about this some day.  Given that none of us had even heard of her work until a couple of years ago -- and we're so limited in time and space that we haven't even tracked down a copy of the Orbis Vivus -- there must be a lot of papers and articles out there that we haven't looked at yet. 

This actually reminds me of meeting SWB. I had an older edition of WTM, which she noticed, I said well some people prefer the older edition. She was aghast at that and said she couldn't understand that sentiment at all. Of course she had put all this time and attention into trying to make it better, so the idea that some think the older one is better was a bit insulting. 

 

I don't know, perhaps as you said we will find more info. I'll be interested to read more from her. Didn't I read that you had bought her book Beginning the Child's Education? What did you glean from that?

[ElizaG]

Beginning the Child's Education is made up of letters written to the mother of an "advanced" preschooler in a well-off family.   EFL is mainly trying to encourage the mother to spend time on real-life activities and sound discipline, and hold off on academics.   She wrote this in 1926, which has been described as the height of the "prodigal craze," and it's pretty clear that she meant to present an alternative to that trend. 

 

Many of the letters in the book were also published in her newspaper columns [ETA correction: the PTA Magazine], and are available online.

 

I'm pretty sure this came up at one point, and I posted some links to the letters, but I'm having trouble finding that discussion.

 

 

ETA:  It was in the Ruth Beechick thread from a couple of years ago.   The link was to a blog I set up, to keep track of notes about EFL's writings.  I'll get back to it some day, maybe, when I'm old and grey.      :001_rolleyes:   

 

If there's something in particular you'd like to check, I'd be happy to look through the book for you. 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2016 by ElizaG

[Soror]

Beginning the Child's Education is made up of letters written to the mother of an "advanced" preschooler in a well-off family.   EFL is mainly trying to encourage the mother to spend time on real-life activities and sound discipline, and hold off on academics.   She wrote this in 1926, which has been described as the height of the "prodigal craze," and it's pretty clear that she meant to present an alternative to that trend. 

 

Many of the letters in the book were also published in her newspaper columns [ETA correction: the PTA Magazine], and are available online.

 

I'm pretty sure this came up at one point, and I posted some links to the letters, but I'm having trouble finding that discussion.

 

 

ETA:  It was in the Ruth Beechick thread from a couple of years ago.   The link was to a blog I set up, to keep track of notes about EFL's writings.  I'll get back to it some day, maybe, when I'm old and grey.      :001_rolleyes:   

 

If there's something in particular you'd like to check, I'd be happy to look through the book for you. 

No, no particular questions, just curious about the focus of the book. Thanks for answering. 

[LostintheCosmos]

soror, I LOVE EFL's books, but I REALLY LOVE her newspaper columns. Because they are generally just her responses to actual letters from actual mothers, I think they can give you a better feel for what some of her recommendations can look like in practice. Here's a bunch that I've enjoyed:

 

"How Florence Teaches her Children":

 

http://obs.stparchiv...06111936p08.php

http://obs.stparchiv...06181936p08.php

http://obs.stparchiv...06251936p06.php

http://obs.stparchiv...07021936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...07091936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...07161936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...07231936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...07301936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...08061936p02.php

http://obs.stparchiv...08131936p02.php

 

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old

Education of a 5-Year-Old Boy

 

Education of a 6-Year-Old

Education of a 6-Year-Old

Education of a 6-Year-Old

 

EFL "Discusses Mental Defect," pt. 1 

EFL "Discusses Mental Defect," pt. 2

 

Is My Child a Genius?, pt. 1 

Is My Child a Genius?, pt. 2

 

Education or Schooling?

 

There's also some linked in this thread. 

[ElizaG]

Thanks for posting those, LostCove.   I think I might have read this one about Latin before (when ltlmrs posted a link to the textbook, Junior Latin - Book One), but didn't notice that Richard Mott Gummere sent his children to EFL's school.   That's quite an endorsement.  [ETA: removed links that no longer work]

 

Can we talk a bit about group lessons?   I don't know if these were ever part of her system, at home or in schools. 

 

The sense I'm getting with my children is that when their academic instruction is all individual, they don't cooperate nearly as well in their free time.  The less social ones become more hermit-like, and the more social ones tend to compete and rank themselves ("You don't know that yet?" :tongue_smilie:).   When we were spending more time on thematic studies such as history, we had more of a Montessori feel here, with the children spontaneously helping each other or praising each other's efforts.  And we do still have that in areas such as gardening, where I've been helping them as a group, even though they have their own garden plots. 

 

I think Dewey might have been right that we need to encourage children toward cooperation, especially now that family and community projects aren't an ongoing necessity for survival.   He took it too far, but I'm thinking about adding in a few more activities along Montessori elementary lines for ages 6-12.   Maybe even for ages 6-15, because young adolescents don't have an abundance of opportunities to take initiative in group projects in most suburban neighborhoods.    Youth organizations seem to be either adult-led, or chaotic; this is a major topic of discussion on US scouting sites.   Of course, EFL would have some things to say about the origins of this problem.  (And, kind of OT, but I really liked this video from the UK.)   

 

So I guess my question is about integrating EFL's "individual instruction" with a somewhat Montessori approach at the elementary level.  The primary method seems a lot easier to adapt -- just figure out which presentations to give, and where to keep any "stuff" -- but maybe that's just because I have some experience with it.   

 

 

[Edited: fixed typo]

Edited February 7, 2018 by ElizaG

[LostintheCosmos]

In Education the Child at Home, EFL does talk about a model for a school setting that seems to involve some degree of instruction by ability group, and she also discusses the idea of a neighborhood school in which one mother teaches "six to ten pupils, with a course of study and a school-day planned to fit the needs of these children." I can't find any specific discussion of how one might conduct a group lesson, though. I wonder if part of this is because so much of her advice seems to have been given to young mothers starting to teach their first, oldest child?

[ElizaG]

Yes, that could be.  It's also very difficult to write a description of a lesson involving more than one child, or more than one language (as I'm realizing right now, while trying to do some record-keeping and planning).   So it makes sense that she wanted to keep the suggestions in her books as simple as possible. 

 

I'm going to re-read the sections on grammar, reading, and metrics (Parts I, II, and VII) from The Advanced Montessori Method: The Montessori Elementary Material, and see what stands out as helpful.  If anyone else wants to join in, I'd appreciate your thoughts on it.   There's a scan of the Italian original here; I can't read it (though maybe somone else can), but it's still helpful to see the types of literary excerpts she chose.   The translator of the English edition put in an entirely new set of excerpts from children's books, including The Book of Knowledge -- a series with which EFL apparently had a fraught relationship.   ;)

 

On a more general level -- in primary Montessori, individual presentations are the norm, but there are also group presentations for cultural geography, science, or story-telling.   Either way, if the child chooses to work with material that was presented, the work is usually done individually (or sometimes with one other child).  In elementary, small-group and large-group presentations are more common, and the children often choose to work in small groups.  This all lines up with what I've observed in our homeschool.  

 

As an example of Montessori elementary, here's an article on "Presentations in the Upper Elementary Montessori Classroom."  There are obvious similarities to the "observation lessons," although it would need some modifications to fit with EFL's educational priorities.  (I would draw the line at using a real wolf.   :laugh: )

 

Again, I don't want to minimize the importance of their individual work in math, reading, writing, and other core skills.   I just think it's important to be somewhat intentional about giving them opportunities to learn as a group, share ideas, and help one another.  I feel as if this is missing from both Robinson and EFL as written.   Maybe, in their experience, it just got added in naturally in the course of family life.   Or maybe they didn't care about it that much (looking at their own careers, there might be something to this).   Either way, given the patterns of behavior in our family, I'm not comfortable leaving it out. 

[ElizaG]

Okay, here's what I'm going to aim for, in the near future:

 

- 2x/week group content lesson relating to our current theme (continent, historical period, or branch of natural science).  This could be as simple as reading a non-fiction book, watching an educational video, or taking a field trip to the park or pet store.   Related books and hands-on materials would be displayed on a special shelf for those who want to learn more.  

 

- Weekly group skill lesson, alternating between art and literature/composition.  The little ones would likely wander off soon after the introduction, but those who got into the project might spend up to an hour. 

 

These types of lessons wouldn't be integrated with each other, but I might choose some of the children's individual work to line up with the content area we're learning about.  The group art or literature lesson could be random, or it could have a seasonal theme.

 

- Some of the elementary aged children will be grouped together for catechism lessons.   Still trying to figure out what to expect for memory work (which would be done individually). 

 

All of the above are types of lessons we've already done, so I know they work for us; I just need to add them back to the schedule. 

 

In the more "out there" department, I've also been thinking about having my older ones do a sort of science camp for the little ones, maybe with TOPS lessons or outdoor water activities.   You know, in our Back-Yard Playground.   Which looks a bit like the "before" version in those old-time articles.   :leaving:

 

 

[Edited: clarification]

Edited May 10, 2016 by ElizaG