Charting a path

I’ve thought a lot this summer about our approach to school. It’s mainly because by the end of last year, I was burned out. The aspects of learning that I had wanted to accentuate when I began this enterprise — reading and discussing good books together, especially — have consistently been pushed to the end of the day, when we’re all tired and rush through them. We’ve read lots of great books, but they haven’t gotten the emphasis I wanted to give them. It had begun to feel like nothing more than checking things off the list each day so we could get to the fun stuff.

Why? I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not because there’s anything wrong with the approach I’ve been taking — a neoclassical method heavily influenced by the vision laid out by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer in The Well-Trained Mind. I think what’s happened has been a combination of vision-slide on my part, poor prioritization, and some time commitments that gave our schooling a rat-race feel. (Then there’s the sad reality that I get very sleepy reading aloud. I have no solution for this yet!)

As I’ve been thinking this through and restructuring things in my mind, I’ve learned a bit more about Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy. Truth be told, I see very little difference between The Well-Trained Mind and Charlotte Mason. Living books, narration and dictation, and chronological history appear to be prominent parts of both. There are some differences in the details of how the vision is implemented — the timing of introducing certain subjects or emphases, and the length of time spent studying certain things. Charlotte Mason seems to emphasize a child’s psychology in cultivating a love for learning, whereas the WTM approach seems to emphasize mastering a certain body of knowledge. (Mason also has a highly romantic view of children — moreso than my own.) But both seem to come down in a very similar place regarding the content to be learned, and in some core methodologies.

My impression has been that Charlotte Mason advocates classical education minus the trivium. I haven’t seen the three 4-year stages of learning — grammar, logic, and rhetoric– anywhere in what I’ve heard or read. This morning I discovered this article on “The Classical Side of Charlotte Mason,” which confirmed my impression and fleshed out why.

I actually like the idea of the trivium, although I have not consciously hammered memory work during the grammar stage. There are certain things — math facts, grammar rules, Latin vocabulary — that the girls have had to memorize as part of their texts, and in church they’ve worked on Scripture memorization. But in my own implementation, I think I may have resembled Charlotte Mason more than Dorothy Sayers in this respect. However, I want to hold on to the trivium as an organizational principle in our home school. The insight it offers into different stages of learning maturity makes sense to me, and it allows us to go through the chronological history cycle three times between kindergarten and 12th grade.

This year I’m striking out on my own, against the recommendations of both Charlotte Mason and The Well-Trained Mind, and dropping Latin. I’m toying with the idea of starting it in a year with my (then) third grader, and making my (then) 6th grader a tutor, but I haven’t made up my mind. I’ve also let one large time commitment go so that we have more flex time during the week. All that remains is planning our coursework, and I think I’m pretty well set. As Hannibal on The A-Team used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

My second grader will work on reading (I’m compiling a list of reading choices to recommend as needed), brushing up on her handwriting through some copywork, and language as we continue with First Language Lessons. I’m dropping spelling, in keeping with the Charlotte Mason idea of waiting till she’s a little older, and just working on reading, reading, reading — building that visual storehouse of correctly-spelled words.

My fifth grader will have a reading list too, in history and in “fun” books. I’ve ordered Rod and Staff’s writing and grammar program for fifth grade. In spelling, I’m switching from Spelling Workout, a workbook approach, to Spelling Wisdom, which incorporates dictation and copywork.

Both girls will do history using Story of the World 2 and lots of supplemental reads, using the list I’m formulating now. Our geography will consist (again) of the maps in the SOTW activity guide, along with some of the online games (like these) and puzzles. Science will be nature study. Both girls will do plenty of oral narration and some written narration in various subjects. Both girls will do various extracurricular sports activities for gym, and I have materials to do art, art appreciation, and music appreciation.

For math, we’re sticking with Saxon. (Sigh.) Every year, I look at other curricula, and every year I’m unconvinced that any of them would be the silver bullet. My ideal would be to do the program four days a week, then do “real life math” or math games on Fridays, so if anyone knows of any good games to recommend let me know. There are quite a few on the market, but it’s difficult to evaluate which are the best.

I will be doing more reading aloud, at different points throughout the school day, interjecting some pleasure and perhaps eventually “buddy reading” as well. I find the Kindle a wonderful tool in this area; this week we’ve read from The Burgess Bird Book (free), The Blue Fairy Book (free), and Parables from Nature (under $5), all of which were downloads on the Kindle. Other books are available for free or for precious little, some of which I’ll put on the Kindle (Heidi, A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls, The Story of Mankind) and some of which I’ll order for the physical shelf (50 Famous Stories Retold, Our Island Story, Trial and Triumph). There is a certain democratization to a book on the shelf, rather than one stored in a device that may not be accessible because it’s MOM’S. :-)

This summer we’ve done swimming lessons, gotten a start on nature study, started to incorporate more reading time into the day, and in general worked on order — especially “doing it right away” (whatever “it” happens to be — putting sandals away, folding laundry, putting one thing away before starting another, putting the book on the shelf rather than on the nearest surface — with Mom being the worst offender). Younger Daughter is continuing with First Language Lessons. Older Daughter is doing state history and typing.

It may seem strange to leave Bible for last, but we do read, or try to read, every day. This is just life, and I don’t think of it as school. We’ve come within spitting distance of the end of Egermeier’s Bible Storybook, and I’ll probably choose a reading plan from Biblegateway or somewhere to dig into the “real Bible” next. Just this morning, we had a good discussion about why we read the Bible even if, as Younger Daughter confidently asserted about the story we read this morning, “I’ve heard this before. I know this story.” It was a moment we probably wouldn’t have time for if they were hurrying to get ready for the bus to public school, and I can see how easy it would be to become too busy for it even in a home school. So the prayer for me this year is,

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.