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This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Sarah Potter who made a big change in her homeschool after graduating the first of her six children and enrolling her remaining students in a not-so-local hybrid CM Cottage School. Sarah shares the factors that led her to make this decision, the hard parts as well as the wonderful benefits her family has experienced being a part of Living Education Academy.
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Often when we encounter a difficulty in our Charlotte Mason education, the problem lies not in the books and materials, but rather in a mismatch between our expectations and the reality we see before us. In this episode of the podcast, we explore the unbalanced expectations we consciously and unconsciously embrace that are at odds with the outcomes Charlotte Mason expected. In returning to the principles of our educational method, we can find balance, and thereby, peace.
"If we realise that the mind and knowledge are like two members of a ball and socket joint, two limbs of a pair of scissors, fitted to each other, necessary to each other and acting only in concert, we shall understand that our function as teachers is to supply children with the rations of knowledge which they require; and that the rest, character and conduct, efficiency and ability...take care of themselves." (6/241)
"We need not ask what the girl or boy likes. She very often likes the twaddle of goody-goody storybooks, he like condiments, highly-spices tales of adventure. We are all capable of liking mental food of a poor quality." (3/168)
"It is a wide progamme founded on the educational rights of man; wide, but we may not say it is impossible nor may we pick and choose and educate him in this direction but not that...Our part it seems to me is to give a child a vital hold upon as many as possible of those relationships proper to him." (6/157)
"Therefore, if the business of teaching be to furnish the child with ideas, any teaching which does not leave him possessed of a new mental image has, by so far, missed its mark. It is not too much to say that a morning in which a child receives no new idea is a morning wasted, however closely the little student has been kept at his books." (1/173)"If it is the best a child can do and shows interest and effort, then it is satisfactory or 'good'" (Exam Pamphlet)
Episode 272: CM on Children Liking Their Books
Notes of Lessons: Sample lessons from CM trained teachers in her training college
Episode 233: Method of Lessons
Examination and the P.U.S.Pamphlet
ADE's Exam Planner: A Teacher Help for preparing and executing exams for all Form Levels
Charlotte Mason viewed all educational possibilities as fitting into one or the other of two schools of philosophy: Materialism and Idealism. Instead, she offers a "middle way," a new path that draws on the strengths of both schools. The portion of Parents and Children where she discusses these ideas is dense. In this episode of the podcast, Jessica Becker guides us through what Miss Mason had to say, and, more importantly, why it is essential for parents and teachers to find balance between these two educational extremes.
Parents and Children (Volume 2), Charlotte Mason, chapters 11-13
"Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy. We deal with the issue and ignore the source. Hence our efforts lack continuity and definite aim. We are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output." (2/118)
"Method implies two things-a way to an end, and step-by-step progress in that way." (1/8)
"We need not aspire to a complete and exhaustive code of educational laws. This will· come to us duly when humanity bas, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources ; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our educational thought is to be sound and effectual
we must look to the philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace every counsel of perfection for the bringing-up of children to one or other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the outcome." (2/119-120)
"Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or of idealism, or is there indeed a media via?" (2/120)
"The truth is, we are in the throes of an educational revolution ; we are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own." (2/119)
"The functions of education may be roughly defined as twofold : (a) the formation of habits; (b) the presentation of ideas. The first depends far more largely than we recognise on physiological processes. The second is purely spiritual in origin, method, and result. Is it not possible that here we have the meeting-point of the two philosophies which have divided mankind since men began to think about their thoughts and ways? Both are right ; both are necessary; both have their full activity in the development of a human being at his best." (2/125)
"For a habit is set up by following out an initial idea with a long sequence of corresponding acts. You tell a child that the Great Duke slept in so narrow a bed that he could not turn over, because, said he, ' When you want to turn over it's time to get up.' The boy does not wish to get up in the morning, but he does wish to be like the hero of Waterloo. You stimulate him to act upon this idea day after day for a month or so, until the habit is formed, and it is just as easy as not to get up in good time." (2/125)
"You may bring your horse to the water, but you can't make him drink; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child; but you do not know in the least which he will take, and which he will reject." (2/127)
"Our part is to see that his educational plat is constantly replenished with fit and inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child's own appetite to take which he will have, and as much as he requires." (2/127)
"We shall not be content that they learn geography, history, Latin, what not,-we shall ask what salient ideas are presented in each such study, and how will these ideas affect the intellectual and moral development of the child." (2/127)
"We shall probably differ from him in many matters of detail, but we shall most likely be inclined to agree with his conclusion that, not some subject of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of' a being breathing thoughtful breath.'" (2/127-28)
"Two things are necessary. First, we must introduce into the study of each science the philosophic spirit and method, general views, the search for the most general principles and conclusions. We must then reduce the different sciences to unity by a sound training in philosophy, which will be as obligatory to students in science as to students in literature. . . • Scientific truths, said Descartes, are battles won ; describe to the young the principal and most heroic of these battles; you will thus interest them in the results of science, and you will develop in them a scientific spirit by means of the enthusiasm for the conquest of truth; you will make them see the power of the reasoning which has led to discoveries in the past, and which will do so again in the future. How interesting arithmetic and geometry might be if we gave a short history of their principal theorems; if the child were mentally present at the labours of a Pythagoras, a Plato, a Euclid, or in modern times of a Viete, a Descartes, a Pascal, or a Leibnitz. Great theories, instead of being lifeless and anonymous abstractions, would become human, living truths, each with its own history, like a statue by Michael Angelo, or like a painting by Raphael." (2/128)
Atomic Habits, James Clear
String, Straightedge and Shadow, Julia Diggins
Men, Microscopes and Living Things, Katherine Shippen
Nicole's Form 3-4 Biology Science Guide
AWAKEN: A Living Books Conference
Episode 167: Method vs. System
Raphael's School of Athens
Charlotte Mason firmly believed that novels are our greatest teachers, hence why she included them as a major serving in the feast that nourishes our children's education. This episode was recorded live at the ADE At Home conference, February 7, 2025, with Nicole, Emily, and Liz leading a discussion with attendees who had read the book and come to what they gleaned from Miss Gaskell's groundbreaking and somewhat controversial novel, Ruth. If you have read the book, you will enjoy listening to what we all gleaned from this story, and if you have not, you will be inspired to read it.
Sabbath Mood Homeschool's Living Science Curriculum
A Delectable Education's Teacher Helps
This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Angie Cole, a home-educating mom from Arizona, who has cultivated unique learning communities for herself and her four children. We understand the need for balance in determining how to incorporate social time and group learning while homeschooling and protecting morning lesson time. Angie has a lot of wisdom and experience to share with us!
Charlotte Mason Simple Languages
www.livingbookpress.com Use code "delectable" at check out to receive 10% off your order
ADE's Patreon Community
It goes without saying that life is full of transitions, and a Charlotte Mason Education is no exception. From beginning school lessons with one child to adding subsequent students, moving into higher levels, or bringing older students into the Method for the first time, this episode discusses the multitudinous transitions we, and our students, make over the course of our education and how to avoid pitfalls while seeking balance.
AWAKEN: A Living Books Conference
Episode 292: Balancing Time--School Schedules
Subjects by Form Page -- See what subjects CM assigned for each Form (grades) level, and find the relevant podcast episodes on each subject.
Episode 274: Gaining Independence
In today's podcast episode, we bring you a session from the 2024 ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference. LaShawne Thomas presented a session full of ideas and possibilities for navigating homeschooling when seasons of transition arise (and sometimes hang around) in our lives. A long-time Charlotte Mason educator and former Navy wife, LaShawne has experienced her fair share of upheavals and transitions and has much wisdom to share with us.
Our Country and Its People, Monroe & Buckbee
Strayer-Upton Practical Arithmetic
ADE at HOME 2025 {Virtual} Conference
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor
Simply Charlotte Mason's Elementary Arithmetic Series
ADE's Patreon Community
This week on the podcast, we are discussing the principles behind Charlotte Mason's School Schedules. First we look at the whole year's schedule, why three terms, and options we have for today's students. Then, we turn our focus to the daily schedule and how we can bring much needed balance to our education. We hope you take away principles, rather than rules, and gain clarity on how our seemingly mundane choices have such a large impact on our students.
“It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of attention. It is, ..., ‘within the reach of everyone, and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline’; for whatever the natural gifts of the child, it is only so far as the habit of attention is cultivated in him that he is able to make use of them.” (1/146)
“...if the [student] is to get two or three hours intact [in the afternoon], she will owe it to her mother's firmness as much as to her good management. In the first place, that the school tasks be done, and done well, in the assigned time, should be a most fixed law. The young people will maintain that it is impossible, but let the mother insist; she will thereby cultivate the habit of attention." (5/195)
“It is well to make up our mind that there is always a next thing to be done, whether in work or play; and that the next thing, be it ever so trifling, is the right thing; not so much for its own sake, perhaps, as because, each time we insist upon ourselves doing the next thing, we gain power in the management of that unruly filly, Inclination. …
"At first it requires attention and thought. But mind and body get into the way of doing most things; and the person, whose mind has the habit of singling out the important things and doing them first, saves much annoyance to himself and others, and has gained in Integrity. ...
"In the end, integrity makes for gaiety, because the person who is honest about his work has time to play, and is not secretly vexed by the remembrance of things left undone or ill done.” (4-1/171-2)
The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt
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ADE at HOME 2025 {Virtual} Conference
Episode 82 on Holiday Pursuits and Activities
Episode 287: Finding Balance in Life with Michelle Reisgraf
The Parents' Educational Course List
This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Helen Swaveley, a seasoned home-educating parent, as she offers her perspective on how the Charlotte Mason's method gives balance to our students in high school and beyond.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference 2025
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ADE's Teacher Training Videos
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This Charlotte Mason podcast episode is a re-aired, re-visit to a common question we receive: bringing children into the Mason method from previous school experiences. What are the approaches that help children of various ages transition, what are realistic expectations, and how do we help them adjust to a different way of doing lessons?
"The success of such a school demands rare qualities in the teacher––high culture, some knowledge of psychology and of the art of education; intense sympathy with the children, much tact, much common sense, much common information, much 'joyousness of nature,' and much governing power..." (Vol. 1, p. 178)
"Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life.––We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. 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?" (Vol. 3, p. 170-171)
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ADE at HOME 2025 {Virtual} Conference
A perennial question those interested in the Charlotte Mason Method want to find out is how children raised in the method fare as they move on from homeschooling. At the 2024 ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference Jono Kiser talked with three former CM students about their adjustment and experience. We bring you the audio from this interview as part of our occasional Voices of the Conference series.
Much Ado about Nothing, Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare
The Elements of Style, Strunk & White
ADE at HOME 2025 {Virtual} Conference
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor
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The Charlotte Mason Method is an all-encompassing method of education for all of life, and therefore, there are many ways we can fall out of balance as we apply it in our homes and schools. Today, we are discussing the pitfalls of imbalance we face as relates to our students doing the work of their education. We discuss finding the balance between challenging our students but not pushing them, how the wide curriculum meets them where they are at without pigeonholing them, and how we teachers must practice Masterly Inactivity to allow them to do the work of their own education.
“A Code of Education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It is summed up in three commandments … Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDER not––one of these little ones.” (1/12)
“Therefore we do not feel it is lawful in the early days of a child's life to select certain subjects for his education to the exclusion of others; … but we endeavour that he shall have relations of pleasure and intimacy established with as many as possible of the interests proper to him; not learning a slight or incomplete smattering about this or that subject, but plunging into vital knowledge, with a great field before him which in all his life he will not be able to explore.” (3/223)
“Our deadly error is to suppose that we are his showman to the universe; and, not only so, but that there is no community at all between child and universe unless such as we choose to set up.” (3/188)
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor: Secrets of the Universe
Awaken: A Living Books Conference -- April 4-5, 2025
Episode 204, which covers Points 9 & 10 of CM's Short Synopsis
Episode 266: The Unity of the Charlotte Mason Method: How a CM Curriculum is a cohesive whole
Episode 286: Finding Balance in Our Teaching
ADE at HOME 2025 {Virtual} Conference
Episode 108: Masterly Inactivity
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This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Michelle Riesgraf to learn how she balances her very full life as CM homeschooling mom and wife with all her other duties with her family serving inner-city kids on a working farm. While she shares specific challenges of her farming life, Michelle offers wisdom for us all in parenting, educating (and choosing co-ops), and living as the born persons we all are.
For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
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The Charlotte Mason Method is an all-encompassing method of education for all of life, and therefore, there are many ways we can fall out of balance as we apply it in our homes and schools. Today, we are discussing the pitfalls of imbalance we face as relates to our teaching. From how we ourselves learn about the method, to combining multiple students; helping our students become more independent or making modifications for individual students. Miss Mason has timeless wisdom to offer us, and she knows we are equipped as mothers to be the primary agent of education for our children.
"The mother is qualified," says Pestalozzi, "and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child..." (1/2)
"N.B. 1. — In home schoolrooms where there are children in A as well as in B, both forms may work together, doing the work of A or B as they are able." (P.U.S. Programmes)
"...so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself..." (1/227)
"You may bring your horse to the water, but you can't make him drink ; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child ; but you do not know in the least which he will take, and which he will reject." (2/127)
"The teacher's part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils' mental activity." (3/180-181)
"Meantime , we sometimes err, I think, in taking a part for the whole, and a part of a part for the whole of that part." (3/148-149)
Living Book Press' Charlotte Mason Volumes
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor
Episode 82 -- CM's thought on Holidays
Read-Aloud Revival Episode with Dr. Pakaluk
Episode 4: -- Three Tools of Education
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This season, as we explore finding balance in the Charlotte Mason Method, we are interviewing people who have been able to find balance in their various contexts. This episode is an interview with Susanne Norris, a full-time homeschool mom and missionary. She has wise words to share with all of us, even if we're not in full-time ministry!
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ADE's Teacher Training Videos
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One of the distinctives of the Charlotte Mason Method is that it is relational education. The Method also applies to all of life, and so we start with the foundational relationship in our students' lives: their relationship with their parents. In this episode of the podcast, we look at the two extremes, and learn from Charlotte Mason how to strike a balance that leads to life--for both parent and child.
School Education, Volume 3 of the Home Education Series by Charlotte M. Mason, chapters 1-3
"...it is far easier to govern from a height, as it were, than from the intimacy of close personal contact. But you cannot be quite frank and easy with beings who are obviously of a higher and of another order than yourself." (3/4)
"Parents and teachers, because their subjects are so docile and so feeble, are tempted more than others to the arbitrary temper..." (3/11)
"Autocracy is defined as independent or self-derived power...Autocracy has ever a drastic penal code, whether in the kingdom, the school, or the family. It has, too, many commandments. 'Thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' ... The tendency to assume self-derived power is common to us all, even the meekest of us, and calls for special watchfulness; the more so, because it shows itself fully as often in remitting duties and in granting indulgences as in inflicting punishments." (3/15-16)
"Locke promulgated the doctrine of the infallible reason. That doctrine accepted, individual reason becomes the ultimate authority, and every man is free to do that which is right in his own eyes...the principle of the infallible reason is directly antagonistic to the idea of authority." (3/5-6)
"[B]ut wise parents steer a middle course. They are careful to form habits upon which the routine of life runs easily, and, when the exceptional event requires a new regulation, they may make casual mention of their reasons for having so and so done ; or, if this is not convenient and the case is a trying one, they give the children the reason for all obedience-"for this is right." In a word, authority avoids, so far as may be, giving cause of offence." (3/22)
"[A]uthority is vested in the office and not in the person; that the moment it is treated as a personal attribute it is forfeited. We know that a person in authority is a person authorised ; and that he who is authorised is under authority." (3/12)
"Authority is neither harsh nor indulgent. She is gentle and easy to be entreated in all matters immaterial, just because she is immovable in matters of real importance; for these, there is always a fixed principle. It does not, for example, rest with parents and teachers to dally with questions affecting either the health or the duty of their children. They have no authority to allow children in indulgences... Authority is alert; she knows all that is going on and is aware of tendencies...It sometimes happens that children, and not their parents, have right on their side: a claim may be made or an injunction resisted, and the children are in opposition to parent or teacher. It is well for the latter to get the habit of swiftly and imperceptibly reviewing the situation; possibly, the children may be in the right, and the parent may gather up his wits in time to yield the point graciously and send the little rebels away in a glow of love and loyalty." (3/17)
"Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart." (3/24)
"The constraining power should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man, which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened." (3/31)
"We shall give children space to develop on the lines of their own characters in all right ways, and shall know how to intervene effectually to prevent those errors which, also, are proper to their individual characters." (3/35)
"'Wise passiveness.' It indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action. But there is, from our point of view at any rate, a further idea conveyed in 'masterly inactivity.' The mastery is not over ourselves only; there is also a sense of authority, which our children should be as much aware of when it is inactive as when they are doing our bidding." (3/28)
"Further, though the emancipation of the children is gradual, they acquiring day by day more of the art and science of self-government, yet there comes a day when the parents, right to rule is over; there is nothing left for them but to abdicate gracefully, and leave their grown-up sons and daughters free agents, even though these still live at home; and although, in the eyes of their parents, they are not fit to be trusted with the ordering of themselves: if they fail in such self-ordering, whether as regards time, occupations, money, friends, most likely their parents are to blame for not having introduced them by degrees to the full liberty which is their right as men and women. Anyway, it is too late now to keep them in training; fit or unfit, they must hold the rudder for themselves." (2/17)
Living Book Press' Charlotte Mason Volumes
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor
Episode 115: Authority and Docility, Part 1
Episode 116: Authority and Docility, Part 2
Episode 201: Short Synopsis Points 1-4
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As we discuss ways to bring balance to our lives using the Charlotte Mason Method, our first focus is on our Priorities. We can fall off on either side of the horse: Making school all-important, or pushing it to the back burner. Miss Mason has excellent advice for how to avoid either extreme, and the ADE ladies share their own experiences with imbalance.
"...this is a delightful thing to remember, every time we do a thing helps to form the habit of doing it; and to do a thing a hundred times without missing a chance, makes the rest easy." (4/I/209)
"[H]e learns that one time is NOT 'as good as another;' that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time..." (1/142)
Living Book Press' Charlotte Mason Volumes
Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor
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A Delectable Education is back for its Tenth year! We have grown a lot over these past 9 years, and so has the Charlotte Mason Community. We are honored to be here sharing with you all still. In this episode we are sharing some big announcements like our 5th Annual Parents' Educational Course Reading List, our 5th Annual Online Conference (coming February 2025) and new Teacher Helps and Training Videos to help your school year go smoothly. We're glad you're here with us.
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell -- 2025 ADE Book Club selection. Living Book Press has produced a special edition just for our book club.
Living Book Press: Our first ever season-long sponsor!
Charlotte Mason Digital Collection
2024-25 Parents' Educational Course: A suggested reading list curated for the modern CM educator
Teacher Helps: Products we've created to help you plan, forecast, and implement lessons
Physical Geography Teacher Helps
A Short Grammar of the English Tongue, Year 2
Good and Dangerous Books, Jono Kiser
CM Through High School, Nicole Williams
Instructing the Conscience, Jessica Becker
Form 1 Natural History Demo Lesson
ADE at HOME 2025: Our fifth annual {Virtual} Conference, check back for more details in November. Registration begins November 29, 2024. February 7-8, 2025 through May 7, 2025.
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The end of the school year and the end of this podcast season is cause to pause and reflect. The ADE ladies review the past year and encourage you to not just slam the books closed, but pause to remember the good and give thanks. We also provide a great number of helpful episodes and resources as you plan for the upcoming school year. The episode closes with a fitting devotional to help you gain perspective on the value of the past year and inspire you for what lies ahead.
“Every mother, especially, should keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the moral.” (2/105-106)
Episode 241: Seasonal Reflections
Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method
ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference (First weekend in February each year, access for 3 months following)
Episode 232: Forecasting Lessons -- How to plan
Forecasting Teacher Training Video
Form Overviews:
- Form IB Overview
- Form IA Overview
- Form IIB Overview
- Form IIA Overview
- Form III Overview
- Forms IV-VI Overview
Episode 162: Creating Your Own CM Curriculum
Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Your Curriculum
Episode 33: Scheduling a CM Education
Awaken: Living Books Conference July 26-27, 2024
There seems to be a common misconception that Charlotte Mason's Method is complicated and difficult to understand. While it does take time to grow in our understanding, what we find instead, at its heart, is a simple, cohesive applied philosophy that we CAN understand. Join us on the podcast today as we distill some of the barriers we place for ourselves that make it seem more difficult than it is to follow her method, and enumerate some of the key distinctives of this living method of education.
"The reader will say with truth,-" I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles; " and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ' more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated." (6/19)
"With this thought of a child to begin with, we shall perceive that whatever is stale and flat and dull to us must needs be stale and flat and dull to him, and also that there is no subject which has not a fresh and living way of approach." (2/278)
"Whether the way I have sketched out is the right and the only way remains to be tested still more widely than in the thousands of cases in which it has been successful; but assuredly education is slack and uncertain for the lack of sound principles exactly applied." (6/19-20)
Episode 263: What Does it Mean to Trust the Method?
Episode 266: The Unity of the Charlotte Mason Method
Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Our Curriculum
Episode 272: CM on Children Liking Their Books
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This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode Sandy Johnson, mom of three, joins us to reflect on her homeschool journey and how she came to trust Charlotte Mason's Method. As she has graduated her oldest daughter who is now in college, Sandy reflects on her own education, and how different the education she is giving her children is. With humility and strength, Sandy shares her family's personal struggles and points us to the Hope we all need.
Charlotte Mason's Home Education Series (Audiobook)
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard
Awaken Living Books Conference
Episode 276: ADE Book Discussion: Vanity Fair
ADE's Patreon Community
As we near the end of this season-long discussion on "Trusting the Method" we turn our attention to the curriculum itself. How can we choose curriculum that Trusts Charlotte Mason's Method? How can we evaluate whether a resource or curriculum follows the method in part or whole? How do we decide if we even *want* to trust the method with our curriculum?
"N.B.1 In home schoolrooms where there are children in A as well as in B, both forms may work together, doing the work of A or B as they are able, but more work must be expected from I A." (All P.U.S. Programmes)
Arabella Buckley's Eyes and No-Eyes Series Here and Here
Strayer-Upton Practical Arithmetics
Episode 263: What Does it Mean to Trust the Method?
Charlotte Mason's Curriculum Programmes
Episode 7: Recognizing Living Books
Episode 3: The Role of the Teacher
Episode 5: The Power of Connection
Charlotte Mason's Short Synopsis:
ADE's Patreon Community
This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode, as she prepares to graduate her oldest student this spring, Morgan Conner joins us to reflect on her homeschool journey and how she came to trust Charlotte Mason's Method. After jumping from one curriculum to the next, once Morgan discovered Charlotte Mason, she never looked back, but that doesn't mean it has always been easy. You will glean much from Morgan's vulnerability and honesty as she describes overcoming her perfectionistic tendencies and learned to trust the Lord with even the smallest details with her neurodiverse students.
For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Podcast Episode on Forecasting
Forecasting Teacher Training Workshop
Morgan's episode on Reading Charlotte Mason's Volumes
Morgan's episode on Planning Physical Geography Lessons
ADE's Patreon Community
Charlotte Mason firmly believed that novels are our greatest teachers, hence why she included them as a major serving in the feast that nourishes our children's education. This episode was recorded live at the ADE At Home conference, February 2, 2024, with Nicole, Emily, and Liz leading a discussion with attendees who had read the book and come to contribute what they had been taught by William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel Vanity Fair. If you have read the book, you will revel in the myriad messages this book conveyed to us all, and if you have not, you will be inspired to read it.
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode, Jami Hurt, mom of two homeschool graduates tells us about her experience with Charlotte Mason Homeschooling, and the joys she is witnessing with her boys who have now launched their own lives in young adulthood.
For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard
ADE's Patreon Community