We tend to think as we have been thinking unless we purposefully make a change.
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonya Shafer.
We’ve been talking about how to make the transition to the Charlotte Mason method in
your homeschool.
Some people are ready to dive right in with both feet, and that’s great, but others
feel more comfortable easing into it step by step, so I’ve been outlining a way to
make that transition in five stages.
Now feel free to linger at each stage until it feels comfortable.
Today, though, I want to address the mental part of making the transition.
We’ve talked at length about changing your methods for the different school subjects,
but there’s also a change that needs to happen in your mindset.
Most of us think about education in certain ways.
Some of those ideas may fall right into step with a Charlotte Mason approach, but some
might not and if we don’t know the difference it will be easy to get off track.
We tend to think as we have been thinking unless we purposefully make a change.
So, let’s take a look at three tendencies that might be programmed into our minds from
past experiences, three ideas that we might lean into without even realizing that they’re
taking us the wrong direction.
Tendency number one is feeling like your homeschool has to look a certain way.
It has to meet up to certain expectations and look just perfectly like someone described
or perfectly like someone else’s homeschool who uses Charlotte Mason.
Do not let yourself be locked into something like that.
Charlotte Mason wanted her approach to be a method, not a system.
A system is you do X, Y, and Z, and you will turn out this particular product.
That’s not the way it is with Charlotte Mason, because Charlotte Mason is all about
the child is a person, an individual, and we teach each individual person.
So use her methods in a way that will fit your child best.
You can level up or level down those methods in order to fit how your children will learn
best and where they are in the process.
So make her methods your own.
Let them fit your family and make your homeschool a reflection of your personality as you use
her methods in a way that ministers to each individual child.
Tendency number two, then.
Many of us have a certain definition of education that might need to be tweaked if you’re
going to stay on a Charlotte Mason track.
Many of us think education is just “Dump the facts into the kid’s head and make sure
that they remember them until the test.”
So many of us, that’s the way we were educated, if you want to use that term in that sense.
We had all these things you were supposed to remember, and then when you get to the
test you regurgitate those facts.
And usually what happened afterward, I don’t think I’m the only one who did this, usually
you would then just jettison all those facts in order to make room for the next dump.
Well, in a Charlotte Mason education, education is much wider, much broader, much better than
that philosophy.
In a Charlotte Mason approach, education is three-faceted.
It’s like a three-legged stool, if you will.
You know what happens with a three-legged stool if you take away one of the legs.
It tips over.
And it’s the same with Charlotte’s approach to education.
You need all three legs of the stool.
The three facets are: Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.
By “atmosphere” Charlotte meant what are the ideas that rule your life as a parent?
Because the ideas that rule your own life are going to permeate the atmosphere of your
home and your children will absorb those ideas, just from living with you.
Charlotte believed that the atmosphere of your home makes up one third of your child’s
education as a person.
The second leg of the stool is discipline, the discipline of good habits.
Instilling good habits in our children is so important.
It’s such a high priority in their education as a person.
Habits like attention, obedience, truthfulness, orderliness, diligence.
Habits form character.
And so, having the discipline of good habits is part of their education.
Again, Charlotte believed that the discipline of good habits made up another third of their
education.
Having those habits is so important to who they are becoming and equipping them well
for their adult lives.
So that’s two legs of the stool.
And then the third leg of the stool is that education is a life.
Giving your children living ideas found in those wonderful living books that you’re
going to be giving them, the beautiful art that they’re looking at, and the great music
they’re listening to, the poetry, all of these subjects that you give your children
in a Charlotte Mason approach are going to feed their minds with wonderful living ideas.
If we were to encapsulate this tendency and this mindshift that needs to happen, just
one sentence, it would be one that Charlotte gave.
She said “It cannot be too often said that information is not education.”
If we want to succeed in a Charlotte Mason approach, we need to understand the difference.
Just dumping information into a child’s head is not the same as educating the person.
And then the third tendency, the one that we need to keep an eye out for, make sure
we don’t get stuck on that, is: Sometimes we get the impression that a Charlotte Mason
approach is a gentle approach.
And it is in the beginning years, but as the children get older, it ramps up.
We raise the bar.
And too many times parents get stuck on the gentle cycle, if you want to compare it to
laundry.
Don’t get stuck on the gentle cycle.
Yes, if your children are younger, let’s start out gentle, as the methods do.
But as they get older, don’t be afraid to give them challenges as Charlotte gave her
students.
Now those are three tendencies, but let me also just give you three quick tips.
First, give yourself grace.
Any time you make a change, and especially one as big as the one we’re talking about,
it’s changing over the whole way you approach homeschooling, it’s going to take some getting
used to.
You’re going to have some ups and downs, you’re going to have some good days and
some not-so-good days, but give yourself grace during this time period.
And let’s balance that out, then.
Give yourself grace but also remember at the same time you want to give your children your
best effort.
Give it your best try.
Give them your best time.
During the day, arrange your schedule so that you are giving your children the best version
of mom that you can.
That’s going to go a long way toward that atmosphere in your home that we just talked
about.
So grace, and also your best effort.
There’s a balance.
Second tip, then: As we talked about habits, make sure you’re focusing on habits as well
as knowledge.
Shaping who your child is becoming is so important, such a vital aspect as part of his education.
So, if we need to set aside a math lesson, for example, in order to focus on habits,
then do that.
Academics are just part of his education.
Habit training is just as important.
And the third tip I want to leave with you is: Remember what your goal is.
Your goal in a Charlotte Mason education is growth.
You are looking for growth in your child in all areas of his personhood.
You’re looking for academic growth, yes, but now growth is different from “He’s
going to be at this level at this time.”
There’s a difference there.
Make sure that you are encouraging your child to grow at his own individual pace.
Academically, also look for emotional growth in their ability to self-control, their ability
to control themselves and to do things that are hard.
Also look for social growth.
Are they able to communicate well with other of all ages?
Are they treating those that are younger than them with consideration?
Respect the elder, protect the younger.
All of this is areas of growth you want to look for.
And then also look for spiritual growth.
Is your child growing in his relationship with the Lord?
You see, that whole picture, that’s education, that’s the goal that you are looking for.
Think of it this way: You are guiding the growth of your child.
You’re not causing the growth, you’re not forcing the growth, but you’re guiding
it.
And that is not a “once and done” task, it’s an ongoing process.
Guiding the growth, it makes me think of tomato plants.
In the garden, we would put wire structures around the tomato plants and that would give
the plant something to climb on.
Different plants would do different things.
You know, those who might not have the structure would just sprawl all over the ground and
their tomatoes would quickly go bad.
But even those that had the structures, each plant was different.
Some of them would just stay neatly inside the wire.
Some of them would shoot out on this side and others would shoot out on that side.
The goal was not to make each plant look exactly alike.
The goal was to give each plant what it needed to continue growing, to thrive, and to bear
fruit.
It’s the same with our children.
In a Charlotte Mason approach, we are not trying to make the children learn the exact
same facts at the exact same age as everybody else.
We’re not trying to make each child sound exactly like all the others.
No, our goal is to give each child the nourishment and the structure he needs in order to grow
as a unique individual, a person.
We provide structure through the curriculum, a curriculum that is intentionally wide, it’s
well thought through and carefully planned out.
And we provide nourishment through the great living ideas that are presented within that
curriculum.
With the proper nourishment and the generous structure, our children can thrive and we
will see fruit.
I think Charlotte summed it up best when she said “The question is not ‘How much does
the youth know when he has finished his education?’ but ‘How much does he care and about how
many orders of things does he care?
In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set and therefore, how full
is the life he has before him?’”
“School Education” pages 170 and 171.
That’s the goal of a Charlotte Mason education.
You are cultivating the whole person.
Now, in the next few episodes, I’d like to expand on this idea of tendencies and tips.
I know many of you have only recently heard about Charlotte Mason and you want to start
using her methods in your homeschool.
All of you are coming from various backgrounds.
Some of you are coming from scratch, let’s say.
Your children are just now at school age, so you’ll be starting them off with the
Charlotte Mason method right from the beginning.
Others of you have pulled your children out of a classroom setting.
You’re starting to homeschool and you’re going to use Charlotte Mason methods from
here out.
And then many of you have been homeschooling but you’ve been using a different approach
in the past, and now you’re making the transition to making Charlotte Mason.
Some of you are coming from a traditional approach, some of you from a classical trivium
type approach, some of you were doing unit studies, and some of you were unschooling.
If you don’t know what those terms mean, take a look at a video called “Five Flavors
of Homeschooling.”
It will explain those five terms and walk you through those five different approaches.
But the point is that each of those unique backgrounds brings with it a certain mindset,
it can’t help it, and the longer you were using one of those other approaches, the more
ingrained that other mindset has probably become.
So, I want to walk you through each of those transition scenarios and offer you three tendencies
to help you recognize some ideas that might have come along with you from that other approach,
ideas that could potentially get you off track in a Charlotte Mason approach.
And also, give you three tips to help make that particular transition go smoothly.
Three tendencies and three tips for each approach.
We’ll get specific, starting next time.