Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks

It's a Lifestyle

I bumped buggies with a friend at the supermarket the other day.

Allie is a wonderful, lovely lady. When she sees you she makes you feel as though you are truly someone special.

It doesn't matter that she's a public school first grade teacher and I'm a homeschool mother. It doesn't matter than her two girls are cutely dressed and my two girls are still in their playclothes from home. It doesn't matter that her girls have big puffy bows in their well-combed hair while my girls have quickly snatched-up headbands keeping unruly hair out of their eyes.

What matters is that she's glad to see us. She makes my girls feel special and she makes me feel as though she has all the time in the day to stand in the shopping aisle and visit with me. Our girls exchange hugs. Allie and I talk small talk and shop.

And she asks how our first day of school was and I ask her how hers was and we exchange notes and plans for the school year.

"You know," she confides to me, "I have a little homeschooled boy this year." Smiling all the while, because Allie's face is one that naturally smiles all the while, she sighs. "I don't think his mother did as good a job homeschooling him as you're doing with your children."

"Really?" I'm at a loss for what to reply.

I look at my first grader talking with Allie's oldest daughter. It passes through my mind that I'd appreciate a quick critic from Allie of my first grader just to see if she's up-to-par with the "requirements" of first grade. What makes her say, after only one day of observation, that this little homeschooled boy isn't as educated as he should be?

Does she expect him to be able to read? Does he know all his phonic sounds? Surely he knows his alphabet by now.

"You know," Allie continues, "homeschooling is a great option. We can't beat the one-on-one interaction. I have 26 children in my class this year. I can't possibly give that many students what a homeschooling mother can give. But if it isn't done right..." and she kind of shrugs, still smiling.

"But, " I want to say (but don't), "homeschooling isn't about all that. The reasons we homeschool our children are so much more than how they can perform in a classroom compared to 25 other children their age. It's a lifelong process and offers so many opportunities. It's so much more..."

But I don't say anything.

I nod, lacking the ability to put my minced thoughts into vocal words. I'm smiling back at a friend whom I only see randomly because we are both involved with schooling and children through two different venues. She's not anti-homeschooling so she has my respect. I'm not anti-public/private school so I have her respect.  We both agree that the teacher, whether she gives her time to her own children or other children, needs to give her best to these children. We both place children at the top of our priority list.

I like Allie. She likes me. This is not a conversation up for defense, justification, or debate. It's a friendly meeting of friends.

I nod again and tell her how glad I am that she and the girls were not hurt in their recent fender-bender. We talk a while longer then the girls hug good-bye, Allie gives me one last dear friendly smile and our buggies roll off in different directions.

That's when I realize the missed opportunity in this friendly exchange of words. I regret that I didn't have the words to share with Allie what homeschooling really is. She is my friend and she's open minded enough to "get it".

Homeschooling isn't about whether the first grader learned to read in Pre-K or at the end of second grade. I had one read at age four, one read at age eight, and the other three at age six. They can now all read. Does it matter when they learned? It isn't about whether the first grader knows how to sit in his seat or not. Some do, some don't. It isn't about whether the child can name the planets this fall or next. Some children can name constellations that are new to me. Does that make the child smarter than me?

Some parents believe in the Better Late Than Early approach. Just because a new child in a new school doesn't know the regimented information when he/she goes into a classroom doesn't mean he/she won't know it tomorrow. If one little fourth grader is taught about electricity in her science class while another little fourth grader is taught about space, it doesn't make the other one uneducated. It means she was only taught something different at a different time than the other. But America's educational system wants everyone on the same page, or at least in the same book.

Homeschoolers prefer to read a different book entirely.

So what is home education?

What home education is, what I wish I had been able to put into words for my friend and what I have tried to articulate to family members in the past eleven years, is a lifestyle. Clear and simple as that, but it isn't clear and simple to the ones outside this free thinking mode of education.

It's a concept most people cannot relate to in today's 21st century or don't allow themselves to relate to.

It's simply a lifestyle and we love it. We surround ourselves with our children and like-minded people and we form a community. Often this community meets at a weekly co-op.

We live a lifestyle where:

• the family, not the government, is the nucleus. 
• our rules are based on holy Scripture.
• our discipline is tempered with respect, not fear.
• our children's learning and individual needs---each individual child---is carefully considered, prayed over, and planned accordingly.
• learning happens 24/7.
• travel is considered one of the highest forms of education.
• grandparents teach our children higher ideals and compassion for their fellow human beings than any institution could.
• siblings teach one another the ultimate level of sharing and getting along.
• reading is not a simple "drop-everything-and-read" program but, rather, the cement that holds our other plans together.
• we eat lunch with Daddy (even if it's a spontaneous picnic in the parking lot at work or in his office) instead of going all day not seeing him.
• a trip to the grocery store or post office is considered hands-on learning.
• we don't miss any days of learning due to hurricane evacuation.
• learning is not based on a solitary grade but on a lifetime of "You did it!"

There are other benefits to this lifestyle. These are the ones I thought of. If you have any more to share, we'd all love to hear them.

It's not easy explaining this lifestyle to people who do not live or support this lifestyle, but it does exist and it's a good life.

Higher Learning void Planned Teaching

Three things happened today that proved my point in this argument and is what I'm getting at when I tell people that we "unschool" to a degree.

1) Geography

We went to IHOP for breakfast with Oma this morning.  We spent some time doing a crossword puzzle on the states.  I found, to my utter dismay, that I wasn't sure which state was the "Badger" state though I did know that Delaware was the first state and Missouri was the "Show Me" state.  "Lincoln" state. Illinois, of course. "Lone Star" state. Texas, duh!  I also knew Louisiana was the "Pelican" state but they didn't ask us that 10-point question.

Kayleigh corrected me that Florida was not the "Orange" state, but rather the "Sunshine" state.  There is no "Orange" state.  Okay then. I don't remember so much sunshine going through Florida in my childhood memories. I do remember Dad and PawPaw stopping on the roadside and all of us (adults and children alike) scambling out of the car to go into an orange orchard to pluck Florida oranges off the tress. If I were Governor of Florida I would surely rename it the "Orange State". So there! I've justified my education.  :)

I also see Oma and I both miseducated my 10-yr-old by telling her that Mount Rushmore was in North Dakota. Wrong! It's in South Dakota.  Okay, so even in our 40s and 60s we can stand to be corrected. I'm just glad there wasn't a teacher nearby to swat my hand with the ruler. Dear me!

So I didn't have Geography on my first-day-of-school-to-do list but we ended up doing Geography at IHOP all the same? Rats, another out-of-the-classroom learning opportunity. Who knew?

2) Science

We didn't do Math today. That was on the first-day-of-school-to-do list. We didn't do it because the DVD/CD door on the computer got stuck and wouldn't open.  I looked at Garrett with my best motherly "What did you do to the computer?" look.  Garrett looked at me with his best child-like "Gee, Mom, the door's stuck. Looks like we can't do math. Bummer!" look.

I suspect my computer genius could have gotten it open but his intelligence regarding this seemed to be blocked at the moment.  He claimed he didn't want to "break" anything. Yeah, right.

We waited until Daddy got home. After Daddy worked his magic, he took the opportunity to get the pure-air duster can and completely de-dust the insides of the computer. I heard him talking to Garrett about air pressure and all these scientific terms found on the back of the can. It was gibberish to me until I heard Garrett ask, "Would it freeze my finger?"

Dad: "Well, yeah, if you keep it on there long enough."

Garrett: "Can I try it?"

Dad: "I don't think so."

Mom: "Garrett, do you know what frostbite is?

Dad: "You know, they won't sell these cans to teenagers because of the crazy stuff they do with them.  Here, let me show you what it does."

So we gathered the children around the kitchen sink and Dad did some more magic.

Mom: "I really wouldn't want to see a brain after it's been on that stuff."

Science for the day.

I didn't have Science on my first-day-of-school-to-do list but we ended up doing Science all the same? Double rats! science happening outside of that precious "instruction time". Who knew?

3) Then there was reading...which we clearly did follow today. One book I pulled off the shelf to flip through with my 15-yr-old while the girls enjoyed their ice cream treat was The Teenage Liberation Handbook***.  Of course all teenagers want to know "why" you are having them learn something or study something or read something or watch something.  It starts at 3 years of age and lasts through their twenties. So I explained to him that we would be reading parts of the book here and there this year because I want him to claim his education. No one can do this for him.  You're in high school now, I told him, and the next four years are the prime time to learn to make your education belong totally to you. It's up to you to decide what you're going to do with the mind God blessed you with and the knowledge He gives you. This book will help you sort things out.

And the paragraphs we read and discussed today underlined more clearly my defense for learning at large:

(page 51-52)

"School won't answer the door when real chances to learn come knocking. There's nothing wrong with planning and setting goals---they help us to accomplish big things like writing books or pulling off a bike trip across Turkey. But life is unexpected. Sometimes it offers us something more glorious than what we'd planned, and we lose if we're not ready to let go of our agenda. Christians call it surrendering to the will of God. Eastern mystics call it letting go of ego, floating in the flow. Whatever you call it, school has little room for it.

"For example in Washington, D.C. our self-imposed schedule demanded that we visit the Capitol for a predetermined length of time and then proceed directly to the next attraction. This schedule left no time for what might happen on the way into the Capitol. What did happen was that on the steps, five students and two teachers stopped to talk to a Vietnam vet fasting for U.S. reconciliation with Vietnam. He'd swallowed nothing but juice for seventy days. We listened to him with awe. At one point he asked, 'Do you know what constitutional amendment guarantees me the right to sit here and talk about this?' Young, who always had the answers to all the questions, said, 'The first!'

" 'Very good,' pronounced another teacher, who at that moment had arrived on the scene. We all jumped. What did 'very good' have to do with anything? She continued: 'And which amendment prohibited slavery?'  'The thirteenth,' answered Young. 'Exactly! And with that, let's be on our way,' suggested our chaperon brightly. These rest of us looked at each other in vague incredulity; the disruption of learning was more awkwardly obvious than usual.  Then we trudged up the steps behind her."

In our discussion, I reminded Garrett of a trip we took two years ago to Dallas, Tx.

Does this building look familiar to any of you? Do the words "Texas School Book Depository" mean anything to you?

Based on our schedule for the day, we toured the book despository and looked out the window where it is believed Lee Harvey Oswalk shot President Kennedy or, at least, we got as close as we could. No one is allowed to go directly up to the window. 

Today I don't even know that my children remember being inside the building itself. The museum was just black and white pictures, a few television flicks, newspaper clippings, and silence.

It was strange to walk out of the dark, dank building and into blinding southern sunlight. We strolled along the roadway hoping to see the spot where President Kennedy's motorcade was passing at the time of the fatal shooting.

No one directed us there. No one in the museum told us where to find it. No one spoke to us about it. We were tourists on our own.

I don't remember if there were signs or not. I'm sure there where. What I do remember is the kindly black man who approached us with a Texas, "Howdy, folks!" Keeping his distance, he pointed out a wooden fence to us, telling us that we might like to see this landmark where it is also believed another gunman hid. I believe the fence has been rebuilt but the duplicacy gives the visitor a surreal feeling of authenticity. Understanding the inevitable dynamics of termites, storms, construction, etc., we appreciated the presence of that fence.

As we were looking and scouting around the fence itself, the black man (still keeping a friendly distance) began talking to us. He claimed that he, a very young boy at the time, was present that memorial day in Dallas. He pointed to where he was standing when the shooting occured.  He showed us newspaper clippings we had not seen in the museum. His friendliness, his knowledge, his zeal, his passion for his subject was contagious.

My children were entranced.

Mark and I were warily impressed.

Was this man for real? Or was he just hitting on a bunch of naive tourists?

By the end of his friendly, enthusiastic presentation, we didn't care.

He might have just been an excellent historical storyteller but we knew enough of the story to know that what he told us was based on firm research. The air tingled with the effects of a good story.

When goosebumps raise-up on your arms and a shock ripples down your spine, that's good story-telling.

As I turned to my husband I saw he already had his wallet in his hand. I read the question in his eyes with a nod. I didn't care whether this man was really on that grassy knoll that day in 1963 and witnessed the chaos or whether he was just a gigolo for our money. It was money well spent. I had never had a history class so good and he was the best teacher I ever paid.  His time, his passion, and his effort in making history come alive for us and for our children was priceless.

I asked him if he accepted donations and allowed pictures.  With a very gentle, kind smile, he nodded at me. We had one of children give him our donation. 

After we left the site, we discussed our monetary decision with the children because that's a huge part of learning in the world of travel and the world at large as well.

But this man had clearly earned his pay. What the museum offered us paled in comparison to what this man gave us.

Today I reminded Garrett of this man and our experience with him. And I asked Garrett to think about how the students in this passage learned best, by going from site to site to site because the agenda required it? or from having stood on the steps of the Capitol listening to a war vet tell them his story?

Read the passage and ask your child.

I'm thinking again of the comment I read in the newspaper: "Every minute of instruction a child misses will never be made up."

Bah! Humbug! Fiddle-de-dee!

You didn't learn Spanish or Geometry in high school? Learn it now.

You didn't read Dickens in college? Read him now.

You didn't appreciate poetry in your childhood? Appreciate it today.

You didn't do volleyball in high school? Do it now.

You didn't play the piano when you were younger? Play it today.

You didn't take debate in college? Debate with your teenagers today.

You didn't thank your teachers, your parents, or God yesterday? Thank them today.

I remind my children every day that their education is not up to the teachers, to the school system, to the government. It isn't even up to their father or me.  We can expose them. We can set the stage. We can put the tools in their hands. We can even get other teachers and mentors to present it to them. Still, their education is what they make of it and what they take away with them. I hope, if nothing else, they at least learn this.

                                           * * * * * *

*** I want to give a warning to parents that there are some cautions with this book. I did not put it into my 15-yr-old's hands and say, "Go read." I told him there were some questionable information in it based on the author's opinion. And I told him alittle about my concerns so there would be no questions about why Mom was on her guard.  Other parents can read it for themselves at the bottom of page 69.

At the same time, I've never been one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe in soaping the baby completely down, rinsing off the crud, dumping the water, toweling the baby dry, and setting him on my lap for my children learn from and enjoy. You can learn so much from a baby. True?

Learning at Large

"Every minute of instruction a child misses will never be made up," said Keither LeLeux, Calcasieu Parish School Board director of child welfare and attendance. "There is just no way to make up for lost instruction time."

                                * * * * *

I totally disagree with this statement.

I'm thinking of all the children who will sit in a classroom this year and waste away precious hours of learning that only life outside those four walls can offer.

Why? Why? do educators and society at large think that learning can only happen in an institutional classroom? Why?

I am also thinking how void it is for any of us to not trust a child's learning ability. Children's minds are like sponges; they will learn...given the right tools and environment.

"Every minute of instruction a child misses will never be made up?"

Come on now!

Have these naysayers forgotten all they've learned in the years since graduation?

I Always Wanted to Know What MacBeth Used for Curriculum

Curriculum Shopping on my Own Shelves

"The truth is, though, there are so many choices that I keep looking around the house and adding more books. Planning for this year is turning out to be a bit like Stone Soup. I begin by thinking I have nothing and wanting to shop, but soon realize that I can add a bit at at a time from what's already available, and end up with a delicious plan. I do have all I need right here on the shelves.

I clearly do not, ever, need to shop for curriculum again. Besides, I remind myself again...we unschool. All we need are books and stuff, and I've got it covered! "

Getting Ready for the School Year?

Here's what I wanted you to know.

Admoremus Books is having a Bookstore Discount:

"Faith & Family advertiser Adoremus Books is offering a special discount. Use the code AOB88 to receive 10% off and free shipping at checkout."

So, if you're ordering some of your homeschooling goodies, you might want to check out and support this family-owned business.

Evidently Adoremus Books still has copies of my first book Literature Alive!

I also know they have copies of A Picture-Perfect Childhood though it isn't showing up on their site yet but feel free to ask them about it.

HT: Thrifty Homeschooler

It's All Good

When I created my mosaic books and the Author Fiesta online, they were simply planned. Very simple. I read a book to my children, we discussed it, I looked for good copywork for them to quote, and we lingered over it. The plans were (and are) so simple they can be used with any curriculum you (or your children) choose to use this school year.

They are trimmed down versions of things I love and believe in:  copywork, excellent reading material, creative people, art, a variety of rabbit trails, crafts, character formation, and love for our Creator. 

I never wanted them to be anything more. Lucky for me, God kept them simple.

I decided a long time ago that there were already enough curricula choices out there. I didn't want to add to the confeitti of color and noise though, I suppose, I did that unintentionally by offering my little books.

But my intent was good. At least I thought it was. What I wanted to offer was something simple and singularly rich. I wanted to be able to offer parents and educators who, like me, were overwhelmed with everything offered online and at fairs, something that could be placed in their hands when all the chatter online (and off) got the best of them. By quoting my favorite Scripture quote, I could, in friendship, instruct them to "Be still. Be still and know...".

Be still and know...

• that their instincts and intuition are good enough
• that God is in charge
• that God will lead them and their children to learn what they need to learn this year
• that they (with God and their spouse) should make the ultimate decisions regarding their children's curriculum for the year
• that they should decide the curriculum based on the intellect and personalities of their children and not on what their fellow hsers are doing
• that what they pray and decide upon and use in good faith will be blessed by God
• that nothing will be decided in their lesson plans this year that God Almighty has not willed to be decided

There are other creative, knowledgable, wiser (certainly more consistent) curricula workers out there than I. They are tilling the fields the Lord has given them to work. They are harvesting the produce of their years of experience and sharing it in abundance. They are joyful and their children are joyful and they want to shout their joy from the roof tops.  And we joyfully listen.  Their joy is contagious.  God bless them all! Their sharings tell us that life is good, God is good, learning is good, it is all good!

What will you be using this year?

Look at the rich fruit that God has given us to feed the minds of our children. Educating ourselves and our children has never been easier.  No one in this 21st century has any excuse for not learning all they can and all that God desires them to learn. It is but an Internet click or a free library visit away.

Still, the fruits can seem like a loaded fig tree on the Fourth of July. Trust me! I know. The tree ripens almost all at once and if you don't harvest right away you're going to loose some good potential.The school year is fixing to begin holiday lurks just on the horizon. We get in a panic. The production-bug bites us. We feel so responsible to pick the choicest fruit, stir it thoroughly, preserve it well, can it better, and pass it around to our friends. 

Or sometimes the noise, color, and enthusiasm are like a fair. Walking down the midway we see an exposition of colorful bouncy-ball curricula. My family has walked this midway every summer for the past eleven years. Even this year we follow the crowds and look at all the exciting games and rides. 

What will we ride first? What will we try to win? Will we attempt to try the ride our friend told us was so awesome? Will we spend money on this one? Will we ignore the vendor shouting at us to visit his booth simply because our friend told us it wasn't worth the money? Or will we give it a try because we know our child's interests are so different from our friend's child?

I took my planning notepad with me the other night as I rode with a friend to the fair a restaurant and met on the midway in a conference room with other carnival goers homeschooling mothers, all true, good friends of mine.

The friend I was riding with and I joked that we had no business going to such a fair meeting.  Why then were we going?  Perhaps because neither of us had been to a Mother's Night Out since before Christmas.  Perhaps because our local homeschool group was beginning to refer to us as hermits and traitors.  So we went to eat and visit and laugh and socialize.  We agreed we might listen.  We promised each other that we would not get on any rides. Especially those that spin you in dizzying directions.

We would see what happened for I can no more overlook or ignore their contagious joyfulness and the worthwhile opportunities which they joyfully and openingly and sacrifically offer my dear children than I can refuse to acknowledge the God who offers His wisdom to us through these people. 

We all greeted each other with laughter and giggles and hugs and roughly scribbled in our planners and notepads.  There were also several sympathetic looks and nods of respect as we sat down to prepare for the new school year.

I saw the anticipation and uncertainty of the new school year in everyone's eyes. There were overloaded expectations, overloaded decisions, overloaded censorship, overloaded questions, overloaded discussions.  Lori and I sat quietly.  We sat and talked with Linda and her daughter Grace.  I'm envious of Grace. She gets to start walking this midway long before she has children to put on any rides. She gets to test-drive all the rides with the joyful freedom and enthusiasm of youth long before having to ride them as a mother when maternal worries and concerns overshadow the enthusiasm.

I'm thinking of all this when my friend Rachellia comes over to me and taps on my shoulder. She wants to know which Mosaic is best to start with for her three boys. I explain the concept to her and the simplicity of using them. She decides on the Catholic Mosaic and we order supper.

And I'm reminded why I wrote the Mosaics.

Catholic Mosaic and Christmas Mosaic offer families, such as mine, a quiet hush in an otherwise overcommitted, overbusy, overplanned, overactive lifestyle that we all take upon ourselves in this 21st century, my family included. They also offer families the discernment to select the curricula they decide fits their family dynamics without imposing something that is too strenuous, time-consuming, and overwhelming. They, as well as A Picture Perfect Childhood, support the wisdom of Charlotte Mason and Jim Trelease that planning that fifteen-minutes a day per subject is indeed good enough and sanctifying enough and noble enough and even joyful enough.

In these books and in my little notepad, I received God's slight tapping on my shoulder to keep my eyes on my own ride work.  Afterall, I really don't care for fairs and midways and I'm getting too old for the rides.

That makes it all good!

The Natural Law Found Outside of Catholic Culture

Cay's Note:

Dear Readers, I apologize for the confusion.  First let me say the post I shared did not extend from any prosecution or flaming on the board which I moderate.  And it was not a personal confrontation either. It was a legitimate, honest concern written by a fellow Catholic who was searching for information on Charlotte Mason and Catholic Home Education and (rather than finding authentic help concerning her questions) came across "several websites that rail against a Catholic CM approach..."

The argument/debate she ran into is an old one...at least as old as all the 11 plus years I've been researching and using Charlotte Mason's work in my own schooling/home approach to raising my children...and I didn't mean to make anyone uncomfortable or defensive in bringing it up.

The reason I shared the concern of Catholicizing Charlotte Mason was because someone did respond to this question and gave a most thoroughly fair and just dispensation.  Though there are a few parts I might niggle over, on the whole I think it is a very insightful article that answers most (if not all) our concerns about bringing Charlotte Mason's Home-Educational Notes into our Catholic homes and using them.

I hope Catholic parents/educators find something they can use from this article, even if all they discover is comfort in the knowledge that a Charlotte Mason education is a good study of the Natural Law working outside of Catholic Culture.

The Answer to the Question:

Hi,

I just came across this email here that was before sent out to this list that I would like to reply to.

It states that some Catholic websites rail against the Charlotte Mason method of teaching because they say Charlotte Mason was a heretic.

(Charlotte Mason started the home school movement in England in the late 1800's.) Now, from an objective point of view they are correct she was a heretic in that she did not embrace the Catholic Faith or point of view.

Charlotte Mason was a high Anglican ...but the authors that accuse her of being a heretic as to tell Catholics to pay no attention to her writings, lose the whole point of a study of Ms. Mason from a Catholic perspective.

First of all just because someone is of a different religion or culture, doesn't mean we can't learn something from them.

What Catholics can gain from Charlotte Mason isn't WHAT (content) she taught but HOW she taught.

I took the view that if St. Thomas Aquinas could take the good from Aristotle's teaching (who was a pagan) and use it to further the Catholic Faith, then we could do the same with Charlotte Mason.

I read many books about the Charlotte Mason teaching method and am also a practicing Catholic. I also implemented her teaching method in my home school method (short lessons and using narration) along with some other teaching methods (like Montessori, Ignatian and Salesian).

But, as a Catholic I did not use her recommended book list (but instead chose Laura Berquist's Catholic one for a Classical Education), nor her bible choice (she used the King James...as a Catholic I would use the Douay Rheims).

These are the points I realized when looking at her teaching method:

1) Charlotte Mason loved children and UNDERSTOOD children.

THIS is what we could learn from Charlotte....how to TEACH children well using her KNOWLEDGE and understanding of them. (ie... for example Charlotte Mason knew children need to stay active and don't do well sitting still all day. She used nature study for the study of science that got children outside in the afternoons.)

You could say that Charlotte preferred children to get closest to the "real" thing.

Children could sit inside at a desk and read about flowers and worms, ants and stars or they could get outside and see them for real, draw them, observe them etc...

What is better? To read about God's creation or to go out and be in it?????

Live it and know it for real? What family can't learn from that?

How many of our city children grow up and reject God? Why do country folk seem to be closer to God? Could it be that those in the city don't experience GOD'S CREATION? Don't just take your children to the Latin Mass and CCD, but ALSO take them OUTSIDE. Tell them to look at the stars, to breathe the fresh air, to walk in the woods, to climb His mountains. How can you know God if you don't know his mind, experience his creation? What love swells up in your heart for God when you see the MAGNIFICANT and detailed works he has created? To see the Rocky Mountains, to climb them...how can one deny then that there is a God????

The main subjects Charlotte Mason broke down into short lessons to keep the child's attention and many of the subjects she made as hands-on as possible to also to keep their attention.

2) Charlotte Mason understood that textbooks were dry and boring but that whole books written by authors who loved their subject were memorable for children. What Catholic can't learn from that lesson in teaching their child?

She called them "living books". We can use for example in middle school the Catholic textbook Our Pioneers and Patriots to teach American history from a Catholic perspective. But, really it breaks history just down into memorizing facts.

Or we can give our child a "vivid" and very memorable education of history using whole books using Laura Berquist's or Our Lady of Victory's booklist where our student studies biographies, journals and documentaries and history comes "alive" to them.

See, Charlotte Mason had it down as to how Our Lord taught: using parables.

He used stories to make a lesson. What Catholic can't learn from that? Our Lord used stories to teach and they have been remembered for centuries.

Charlotte Mason picked up on that and applied that to her teaching school for governesses.

The biography about Kateri Tekakwitha is going to be remembered. A short paragraph listing a few facts about her life is not.

3) Catholics and Anglicans both used a Classical Education - the Trivuum to teach children. Charlotte Mason took the Trivuum and used many classical methods of teaching to transmit knowledge to the students: copywork, narration (telling back in your own words- also known as the Socratic method) and dictation.

The Catholic Ignatian method uses the same.

4) Charlotte Mason though wrote about her method in a way that parents could understand and that governesses (nannies) could understand. Her method was for the home audience.

So, in summary, what Catholics can gain from Charlotte Mason isn't WHAT (content) she taught but HOW she taught.

THAT is what Catholics can learn from Charlotte Mason.

Charlotte Mason was big on art appreciation for example. Like Maria Montessori, she used the great works of artists for students to study. She taught children to observe them and to teach children to learn to pay attention to detail.

What Catholic mom can't use that idea in teaching her children about the great works from Catholic artists? Take your child down to the local Shrine in your community and study the great Catholic art on the walls. Look at the symbolism, notice the details, have your child tell you the story that they "see". Have them identify the Saints in the pictures.

Sometimes as parent educators it doesn't hurt to learn to think "outside of the box."

St. Thomas took what was good from a pagan and applied Catholic principles and teachings to it.

We can do the same with the works of Charlotte Mason.

Her writings are of benefit not from a content point of view but from a teaching method point of view.

I try to explain this here on my Charlotte Mason page:

Charlotte Mason Full of Natural Virtue

If you read through my study notes on this page, you will see where I have made note in places where Charlotte Mason suggested a certain content that Catholics could replace it with something Catholic.

..........

A few years back I had another website with a disclaimer on it saying that my views weren't necessarily the views of the resources I had listed on my webpages. I had a website that gave links to explain what various teaching methods were not to promote them necessarily but to EDUCATE parents on what they were so they knew what they were when they heard or read about them in articles about home schooling.

I had suggested a book on that website for mothers to read called The Continuum Concept.

Now the author was an evolutionist. Am I an evolutionist? No.

Would I promote evolutionism? No.

But, what traditional Catholic is going to go down into the jungles and observe the native people like this woman had? She had observed something unique in a different culture and then wrote about it. She had observed THE MOTHER -INFANT BOND. What she came away with to share with the world was astounding. She saw infants who never cried! They were always happy. What was the secret? There were no strollers, no baby cribs.

I was accused by some of my fellow Catholics at the time as being a heretic/apostate because I had this book by an evolutionist on my website. They missed the whole point.

That evolutionist had observed something in a primitive culture that USED to be the NORM in civilized society!!!!! What was it? Carrying your baby! Breast- feeding your baby.

Gee! God's very own mother, Mary, carried her baby Jesus, SWADDLED him, and breast-fed Him!

This was something that had been done in every culture for centuries up until the late 1800's! -When the Victorian age brought out cribs to replace arms and nannies to replace mothers.

Somehow, out in the middle of the jungle an evolutionist had re-discovered in a pagan culture something NATURAL! Something GOD GIVEN!

We Catholics, can learn from that. Our children have all sorts of psychological and neurological problems because we deny them the breast and we deny them the arms of their mother as infants.

"The Mother who complains because a new child presses against her bosom seeking nourishment at her breast is foolish, ignorant of herself and unhappy."

(The Pope Speaks, The Teachings of the Pope Pius XII by Pantheon Books Inc., 333 Sixth Avenue, New York 14, New York, Copyright 1957, p. 48)

"Proper attitudes should be similarly be engendered toward the nursing of infants.

Children, especially the younger ones should not be forbidden to see mother breast-feeding the baby. Moderns are accustomed to all kinds of immodesty, yet are prudish in this beautiful act. A curious inversion of values indeed! A mother should be proud of her duty and function. It should never be considered disgusting or shameful."

(Parents, Children and the Fatcts of Life by Fr. Henry V Sattler., St. Anthony Guild Press, NJ Copyright 1959 p. 9)

Here an evolutionist taught us Catholics a lesson.

We could learn from her.

We can learn from Charlotte Mason too just like St. Thomas learned from Aristotle, the pagan.

See, the lesson is simple. God gave us THE NATURAL LAW. Even pagan's have the natural law written on their hearts. Sin, evil....can pervert that natural law. When we are baptized we enter in the world of the Divine Law- God's laws. When pagans die, they are judged on how they followed the natural law. When Catholics die, they are judged not only on how well they followed the natural law, but the Divine law as well.

Charlotte Mason understand the natural law as to how it applied to children.

.................

In answer to your question about teaching doctrine to the younger grades, here are the resources I recommend for 1st and 3rd grade- scroll down to their grades on this webpage:

Teaching and Keeping the Faith

In JMJ

Denise

THE CATHOLIC MOM

EXPERIENCED MUM

Catholicizing Charlotte Mason

The question at Literature Alive! was:

Dear Jamie,
I googled "charlotte mason catholic doctrine" and found two helpful
links:

http://www.raceforheaven
http://www.materamabilis

(I'm fairly new to the list, so maybe these links are old news ...)

Disturbingly, the same search also turned up several websites that
rail against a Catholic CM approach, claiming Ms. Mason was a
heretic.. Not sure what to do with that info, but thought I'd mention
it in case you turn up similar webpages. I didn't include those links
because I didn't see the point in poisoning such a great group list.

Do you have any recommendations for doctrinal teaching in younger
grades? (My two are entering 1st & 3rd grade.)

Gratefully,
D. W.

The answer:

Come back tomorrow.

Do Not Apologize

A few months ago I sat across from Annette Celette, liaison to the Louisiana TOPS program, and got a one-on-one tutorial about this free college tuition program that we've been muddling through with our first two high school graduates.  Annette's informational table and her wisdom was parked right next to my vendor table at the recent homeschooling conference in Covington, LA.  My husband happened to be there too so he was able to get all the answers to his questions straight from the unicorn's mouth, so to speak.

I couldn't help but compare how closely this one-on-one feedback resembled the give-and-take homeschooling allows our children.  My teenagers and I have been to meetings on TOPS.  We've been to the library for informational fairs on college applications and funding.  We've been to college visitation days where the instructor attempts to explain TOPS.  My husband and I have sat in an audience and listened to another liaison with the Louisiana TOPS program and we were encouraged to ask questions.  When we left the building, we remembered several other questions we had forgotten to ask.  In the case of my daughter, we've had a counselor as our go-between.  I ask a question. Kayleigh asked the counselor. The counselor explains it as best she can.  Kayleigh explains it back to me as best she can.  Something is lost in translation. It's been more of a hit-and-miss style of information overload.

That weekend, in Covington, we were privileged to have a perfect homeschooling one-on-one teaching lesson.  Thank you, Annette.

There were plenty of lull times in the day I was able to connect with Annette.  There was plenty of downtime in which I remembered another question that needed to ask.  That being taken care of, there was one thing Annette told me that I will forever remember.  She addressed with sadness the way parents come to her and apologize, yes...apologize for the fact their child has decided college is not for him or her.  Instead, they tell her, their child has chosen to go to a vocational/technical school.

"If they only knew the demand and need we have right now for high school graduates to go this route.  There is nothing to apologize for.  We need more students commited to vocational/technical careers.  If anything, the hardest thing we see is in getting students to commit to working."  This is a paraphrase from Annette but I will always be grateful to her for giving this parent the support she needed to depart from the ideal and look at the reality.

It's time for America to wake up and realize that college is not for everyone.  On a hat-tip from Lissa, I read through this wonderful piece by a college professor of literature: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.  While his writing curves and dips, uprights and straightens, I was still able to follow his opinion as it curved and dipped, uprighted and straightened.  He's all for higher learning, as most of us are, but he understands the reality vs. the dreamland.  He packs a punch with this quote:

"America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns."

I sympathize too.  I also subscribe...passionately...to the ideal. But I'm an ever-idealistic American which gives me the right (said tongue-in-cheek). While parenting took me into a fanciful dreamland, it also made me look reality in the eye.  I saw life anew through the eyes of my children.  An approaching train, instead of slowing down my day to an aggravating crawl, became a delightful choo-choo train filled with animals that talked and treats for little boys and girls.  Instead of leaning my head on my hand in boredom; we counted cars, watched the wheels spin in amazement, and waited anxiously for the little red caboose at the end.  My toddler waved at the conductor and I waved too. We were sad to see it journey on down the tracks leaving us far behind in its wake.   

Then the toddler became a teenager who could drive, and the choo-choo became a train again.

I was (and am) constantly being made to recognize the reality of life while trying to pause long enough to see the ideal.

I was reminded of Annette's words to me at a banquet we attended some weeks ago in Baton Rouge where my oldest daughter was presented a scholarship for a winning essay.  In his speech State Secretary of Labor Tim Barfield commented at the drastic need for careers in the technical/vocational fields and at the sad demise of apprenticeships that were once the backbone of American employment.  As the means that gave my husband a degree in instrument technology and then in the field of analyst, I wanted to applaud him on the spot.  Here is a man with a law degree who does not snub his nose at the working man but, rather, sees the remarkable opportunity out there for well-trained, well-informed workers in all field of life.

While I am proud, so proud, of my academically-inclined, college-bound daughter, I am by no means less proud of my son who works with consistant dedication during the day and attends a community college at night.  This is the child who got my inexperience as a teacher during his formative years.  This is the child who escaped my artifical-school-at-home whenever he could and snuck outside.  This is the child I would search the neighborhood for and find hunting for eel, snakes and turtles in the ditches before the truancy officer found him.  This is the child who blew up antbeds with firecrackers and who shot at mosquito-hawks dragonflies with his BB gun. 

This is the same child who wakes up at the crack of dawn every morning and goes to work.  This is the same child who gets called out to work on a Sunday morning, a day early from his vacation week, goes on call, follows it by Mass in a neighboring town, and still finds time to sneak in an hour or two of fishing before coming home due to a storm.  This is the child God has given me who can build anything, fix anything, and who makes me laugh.  He is not, however, the one who will prepare my taxes, fill out my medical forms, and oversee my estate (such as it is) when I am too old and feeble-minded to do it myself.  Rather, his sisters tend to be the paperwork gurus in this household. Then, maybe again, he will.  He has the know-how. 

I often think of how destitute our society would be if all we had were doctors and lawyers and professors academic scholars.  Then there would be no Gibson boys to do everything else.  The Gibson girls are nice, but the Gibson boys carry their weight...literally.

And I realize that is how God planned it for my family.  If the family works together, we all win.  It's a win-win situation.  If everyone contributes to the family, we, as a community at large, benefit. Even better, if we all contribute to it as the body of Christ we're sanctified. 

"For as the body is one and hath many members; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body."  ~ 1 Corinthians 12:12

Graduating with Honors

We are very proud of you, sweetheart.