Building Our Homeschool Foundation - Part I: Charlotte Mason Method

The Charlotte Mason Method
Charlotte Mason had to have been the mother of all British schoolmarms. This method of approach is very structured, very disciplined, and very thorough. She was actually a lot more than a schoolmarm - she revolutionized the classic education philosophy of her time and based her methodology on extensive research. It was developed in 19th century England and has become a mainstay as an education philosophy in charter schools, private schools and home classrooms today. Her motto for her students was "I am, I can, I ought, I will". It emphasizes teaching the whole child by nurturing habit, discipline and curiosity. It stresses using "living books" over standard textbooks.It's rigorous, comprehensive, and is adaptable to all K-12 grade levels. More information available than I care to link to, but here's a good starting point: http://www.charlottemasoninstitute.org/

Pros: 

• It's literature-based versus textbook based. They encourage you to siphon out what it is considered "twaddle" (mindless garbage) and focus on the great, classical literary works as a way to teach ALL subjects. I like the idea of gleaning different subject matter from one work and intuitively knowing that kid's natural curiosities will lead them to explore content in a book further than just the subject matter it's written about. This seems like an interesting and productive way to learn history, geography and foreign culture. 
• Charlotte Mason was big on nature, and her lesson plans always incorporated exercise (or "drills", as she called them), teaching to appreciate the natural beauty of the outdoors, and encouraged keeping "Nature Notebooks" during their walks to journal what they'd encounter along the way. I like the idea of keeping a journal as a kind of nature laboratory to index everything they discover outdoors. This seems like something that an independent, spirited young person would take much pride in maintaining and exhibiting to others. 
• Charlotte Mason was a huge advocate for the Rights of the Child, and I personally believe that this is something that often gets overlooked by parents, instructors, and older siblings or family members. Children should be respected, revered, and free to use their imaginations and take initiatives without fear of mockery or reprisal. This, I can most certainly dig.

Cons:

• There's a lot of narration, dictation and copy work. Copy work seems monotonous, and reminds me of the penance for bad behavior by being made to write the same sentence over and over and over on a blackboard. While the "practice makes perfect" mentality does often ring true when learning a particular task, I think I could find more fun, laid-back ways of presenting it other than copy work.  
• The suggested time frames for learning each unit of study varies, but they emphasize 5-20 minutes for early education per unit study, and while practical, especially considering the attention spans of young children - it seems kind of boring and stifling.  
• Another skill it touts for the child to master is "habit":
  "But habit, to be the lever to lift the child, must work contrary to nature, or at any rate, independently of her." [ Home Education - Charlotte Mason ] Teaching good habits is something we instinctively do as parents, but I dislike the idea of "training" children outside of the basic areas such as using the potty, washing hands, brushing teeth, safely crossing a street, etc. I'd like their learning habits to be intuitively grasped by them, as students, as they are figuring out how to process the information presented to them. This is how I personally learned to "study", and it wasn't something I was taught in school. I disagree with Ms. Mason that forming good habits is contrary to nature or independent of the child. I believe it's a natural process that comes about when we instinctively search for ways to make remembering things and being able to apply the things we've learned easier. If anything, it's born out of the inherent, beautiful laziness that every child is "afflicted" with. Kids are more intellectually thrifty than we give them credit for.
• The CM method stresses "perfection", and "excellence" a lot in her tutorials. Striving for excellence is one thing. Doing the best you can at any activity is commendable. But repeating an exercise over and over until it reaches "perfection" would seem to me to be frustrating for a child. I remember when learning cursive writing as a child that I didn't like the traditional cursive "Q" and how I'd always put my own spin on it, which led to bad marks by a teacher, who I'm sure must have been irritated by my rebellious penmanship. I remember getting a note sent home that spoke of my "insolence", all because I didn't have the same aesthetic appreciation of the cursive "Q" that my instructor did. Talk about splitting hairs!

We won't be using the CM method as our definitive guide to educating our kids, but it does have some great ideas and philosophies. We'll definitely be borrowing upon some of the principles and suggested activities, but the overall theme is probably a little more rigid than our lifestyle and sense of humor allow.

The next post in this series will be on the Classical Education Method, or "Trivium" pursuit of education, followed by the Montessori Method and the unconventional Unschooling method.


Links to Part II-IV:

Building Our Homeschool Foundation - Part II: The Classical Education (Trivium) Method
Building Our Homeschool Foundation - Part III: The Montessori Method
Building Our Homeschool Foundation - Part IV: The Unschooling Method