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A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

Through twice monthly conversations, three moms who have studied the Charlotte Mason method of education and put her ideas into practice in their homes join together to share with one another for the benefit of listeners by giving explanations of Mason's principles and examples of those principles put into practice out of their own teaching experience. These short discussions aim at providing information, support, and encouragement for others by unfolding the myriad aspects.
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A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast
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Now displaying: Page 11
Sep 16, 2016

This week's Charlotte Mason podcast focuses on the all-important task of teaching our children to read. No other subject holds such promise and so many anxieties for the teacher who embarks on teaching this fundamental skill. The ladies share their own experiences and what Mason had to say to help us in the reading lesson.

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"But, as a matter of fact, few of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know it came by nature." (Vol. 1, p. 200)

"Probably that vague whole which we call 'Education' offers no more difficult and repellent task than that to which every little child is set down--the task of learning to read. We realize the labor of it when some grown man makes a heroic effort to remedy shameful ignorance, but we forget how contrary to nature it is for a little child to occupy himself with dreary hieroglyphics--all so dreadfully alike!--when the world is teeming with interesting objects which he is agog to know." (Vol. 1, p. 214)

"'What a snail's progress!' you are inclined to say. Not so slow, after all: a child will thus learn, without appreciable labour, from 2-3,000 words in the course of a year; in other words, he will learn to read, for the mastery of this number of words will carry him with comfort through most of the books that fall in his way. Now, compare this steady progress and constant interest and liveliness of such lessons with the deadly weariness of the ordinary reading lesson. The child blunders through a page or two in the dreary monotone without expression, with imperfect enunciation. He comes to a word he does not know, and he spells it; that throws no light on the subject, and he is told the word; he repeats it, but as he has made no mental effort to secure the word, the next time he meets with it the same process is gone through. The reading lesson for that day comes to an end. The pupil has been miserably bored, and has not acquired one new word. Eventually, he learns to read, somehow, by mere dint of repetition; but consider what an abuse of his intelligence is a system of teaching which makes him undergo daily labour with little or no result, and gives him a distaste for books before he has learned to use them." (Vol. 1, pp. 206-207)

"We must remember the natural inertness of a child's mind; give him the habit of being read to, and he will steadily shirk the labour of reading for himself; indeed, we all like to be spoon-fed with our intellectual meat, or we should read and think more for ourselves and be less eager to run after lectures." (Vol. 1, p. 228)

"He should have practice, too, in reading aloud [from the books] he is using for his term's work. These should include a good deal of poetry, to accustom him to the delicate rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure, and are worthy of our honour; and that a beautiful word deserves to be beautifully said, with a certain roundness of tone and precision of utterance." (Vol. 1, p. 227)

"The attention of his teachers should be fixed on two points--that he acquires the habit of reading, and that he does not fall into slipshod habits of reading." (Vol. 1, p. 226)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Home Education, pp. 199-222)



Better Late Than Early, Raymond Moore

Reading-Literature Series

Thirty Million Words, Dana Suskind

(Contains affiliate links)



Montessori Small Moveable Alphabet

Reading-Literature series on MainLesson.com
Sep 9, 2016

This week's podcast episode on the Charlotte Mason method of education--the delectable education--is a question and answer session. Listen to this lively, animated, and slightly controversial discussion of short lessons, nature study, free time, and Bible lessons.

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"Five of the thirteen waking hours should be at the disposal of the children; three, at least, of these, from two o'clock to five, for example, should be spent out of doors in all but very bad weather. This is the opportunity for out-of-door work, collecting wild flowers, describing walks and views, etc." (From "Suggestions" accompanying Programme 42)

"The Children's Day will, on the whole, run thus: Lessons, 1 1/2 to 4 hours; meals, 2 hours; occupations, 1 to 3 hours; leisure, 5 to 7 hours, according to age." (From "Suggestions" accompanying Programme 42)

"Children between 6 and 9 should get a considerable knowledge of the Bible text. By 9 they should have read the simple (and suitable) narrative portions of the Old Testament...and [the Synoptic] Gospels." (Vol. 1, p. 249)



The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling

(Contains affiliate links)



Episode 20: Nature Study

Episode 22: Interview with Cheri Struble

John Muir Laws' Website

Episode 41: Interview with Jack Laws, Part 1

Episode 42: Interview with Jack Laws, Part 2

Episode 17: Bible, The Living Book

Living Books Library post on Electronics

Parents' Review Article: Imagination is a Powerful Factor in a Well-Balanced Mind

A Delectable Education's Schedule Cards
Sep 2, 2016

This week's Charlotte Mason podcast focuses on language. Mason's method was based on a child's nature, and this is most apparent in observing how her method runs along the line of a child's natural acquisition of language skills.

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"Many persons consider that to learn to read a language so full of anomalies and difficulties as our own is a task which should not be imposed too soon on the childish mind. But, as a matter of fact, few of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know it came by nature." (Vol. 1, p. 200)



Thirty Million Words, Dana Suskind

(Contains affiliate links)



The Teaching of Mathematics: The Story of An Experiment
Aug 1, 2016


This week's Charlotte Mason podcast is another Q&A session with Emily, Nicole, and Liz. It is inevitable, as we implement the feast, that questions of presentation and content arise about details not mentioned in the designated episodes on those subjects, and here are some of the latest ones.

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"Never be within doors when you can rightly be without>" (Vol. 1, p. 42)

"There is no selection of subjects, passages, or episodes on the ground of interest." (Vol. 6, p. 244)



Anne White's Plutarch Books can be found here

(Contains affiliate links)



Nancy Kelly on Plutarch

Anne White's Study Guides free online

Overdrive Media Console

Jul 29, 2016

Charlotte Mason knew nature study is critical to the good life and fundamental to education. This week's podcast is the second interview with contemporary naturalist John Muir Laws (Jack) in which he inspires, encourages, and explains to us not only what to do when we go outside, along with many how-to practices we can implement to make the most of that nature study, but how we can change our motivation and focus to experience a rich and rewarding relationship with nature.

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Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv

The Nature Principle, Richard Louv

The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, John Muir Laws

(Contains affiliate links)



Jack Laws' Website

Jack Laws' Nature Journal Suggested Supplies List

Nature Journaling Club Curriculum

Jack's Blog Post on his favorite blue pencil

CMPeoria "The Field Before Us" Regional Retreat
Jul 22, 2016

This Charlotte Mason podcast episode is an interview with John Muir Laws (Jack), inspiring naturalist and scientist. Join Nicole to hear how expertise and aptitude are not key to making strides in discovering the world of nature and science, but that, as Mason asserts, curiosity and willingness to explore are. If you as mother and teacher, or your child as student, are intimidated by the field of science, this interview will set you free to thoroughly partake of this part of the educational feast, and if you are intrigued with the field of science, make you aware of how much more you can enjoy it.

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"Marks, prizes, places, rewards, punishments, praise, blame, or other inducements are not necessary to secure attention, which is voluntary, immediate and surprisingly perfect." (Vol. 6, p. 7)

"Let them get at the books themselves, and do not let them be flooded with a warm diluent at the lips of their teacher. The teacher's business is to indicate, stimulate, direct and constrain to the acquirement of knowledge, but by no means to be the fountain-head and source of all knowledge in his or her own person. The less parents and teachers talk-in and expound their rations of knowledge and thought to the children they are educating, the better for the children." (Vol. 3, p. 162)



John Muir Laws' Website

A Curiosity Framework
Jul 8, 2016

This week's Charlotte Mason podcast addresses listener questions. Nicole, Emily, and Liz combine their wisdom and experience to address some very frequently asked concerns.

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Rascal, Sterling North

Owls in the Family, Farley Mowat

My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

(Contains affiliate links)



Charlotte Mason and Classical Education

More on Charlotte Mason and Classical Education
Jun 24, 2016

The Charlotte Mason method applies to many teaching situations beyond traditional classrooms and the homeschool. This week's podcast is an interview recorded at the CMI national conference with Jeannette Tulis of Chattanooga, TN, who has been offered a unique opportunity to open the world of one family's children using the Mason model of education.

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The Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv

(Contains affiliate links)



Grace to Build Retreat

CHarlotte Mason Institute Conferences
Jun 17, 2016


In this week's podcast, we discuss why Shakespeare was always included in Charlotte Mason's curriculum. What is the value of Shakespeare as part of the study of literature, and how can we who have little experience with his works enter in and enjoy his feast?

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"Just as we partake of that banquet which is 'Shakespeare' according to our own needs and desires, so do the children behave at the ample board set before them; there is enough to satisfy the keenest intelligence while the dullest child is sustained through his own willing effort." (Vol. 6, p. 245)

"We probably read Shakespeare in the first place for his stories, afterwards for his characters, the multitude of delightful persons with whom he makes us so intimate that afterwards, in fiction or in fact, we say, 'She is another Jessica,' and 'That dear girl is a Miranda'; 'She is a Cordelia to her father,' and, such a figure in history, 'a base lago.' To become intimate with Shakespeare in this way is a great enrichment of mind and instruction of conscience. Then, by degrees, as we go on reading this world-teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us, and unconsciously mould our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life." (Vol. 4, p. 72)

"This is what Shakespeare, as great a philosopher as a poet, set himself to teach us, line upon line, precept upon precept. His 'Leontes,' 'Othello,' 'Lear,' 'Prospero,' 'Brutus,' preach on the one text––that a man's reason brings certain infallible proofs of any notions he has wilfully chosen to take up. There is no escape for us, no short cut; art is long, especially the art of living." (Vol. 6, pp. 314-15)

"And Shakespeare? He, indeed, is not to be classed, and timed, and treated as one amongst others,––he, who might well be the daily bread of the intellectual life; Shakespeare is not to be studied in a year; he is to be read continuously throughout life, from ten years old and onwards. But a child of ten cannot understand Shakespeare. No; but can a man of fifty? Is not our great poet rather an ample feast of which every one takes according to his needs, and leaves what he has no stomach for?" (Vol. 5, p. 224)



Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer

The Wonderful Winter, Marchette Chute

Tales from Shakespeare, Charles and Mary Lamb

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, E. Nesbit

(Contains affiliate links)



Interview with Nancy Kelly

Chronological List of Shakespeare's Plays

American Shakespeare Center

Jun 10, 2016

Poetry was a deep love of Charlotte Mason's, and this week's podcast explores that wonder and delight as it can unfold in your school day and life. Are you nervous, intimidated, worried, or resistant to teaching poetry? Listen to this laid back interview between Liz and our good friend, Bonnie Buckingham, veteran homeschool mom who learned to love poetry by teaching it.

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"Poetry is, perhaps, the most searching and intimate of our teachers...Poetry supplies us with tools for the modeling of our lives, and the use of these we must get at ourselves." (Vol. 4, p. 71)

"Heroic Poetry Inspires to Noble Living––"To set forth, as only art can, the beauty and the joy of living, the beauty and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion––to a cause, an ideal, a passion even––the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, that is my ambition here," says the editor of Lyra Heroica in his preface." (Vol. 2, p. 141)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Parents and Children (Volume 2), Chapter 14

Ourselves (Volume 4), Book II, Section II, Chapter 12

Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Section II (b)



For the Children's Sake

Favorite Poems Old and New

This Singing World

Luci Shaw

Wendell Berry

Billy Collins

Now We Are Six

Emily Dickinson

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Beowulf

Song of Roland

Book of Heroic Verse

Longfellow

Tennyson

Roman Poets

Seamus Heaney

Christina Rossetti

Samuel Coleridge

Richard Wilbur (Contains affiliate links)



Bonnie Buckingham

Charlotte Mason Institute, Western Conference

Grace To Build Retreat

Charlotte Mason Institute

A Delectable Education: Episode 13: Discussion of Charlotte Mason's narrative poetry on the Gospels

What is Poetry? from the Parents' Review

On the Teaching of Poetry from the Parents' Review

The Teaching of Poetry from the Parents' Review

The Teaching of Poetry to Children from the Parents' Review
Jun 3, 2016

This week's podcast focuses on Charlotte Mason's ideas for the study of literature. Wait, isn't every subject literature with her use of living books? How does the study of literature fit into her curriculum from the earliest age?

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"Except in Form I the study of Literature goes pari passu with that of History." (Vol. 6, p. 180)

"It is a nice question whether the history of a country makes its literature or its literature the history!" R.A. Pennethorne, Parent's Review, Volume 10, 1899, p. 549

"To adapt a phrase of Matthew Arnold's concerning religion,––education should aim at giving knowledge 'touched with emotion.'" (Vol. 3, p. 220)

"I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children." (Vol. 3, p. 171)

"The 'hundred best books for the schoolroom' may be put down on a list, but not by me. I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader. For example, I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated. I do not mean to say that the lecture and the oral lesson are without their uses; but these uses are, to give impulse and to order knowledge; and not to convey knowledge, or to afford us that part of our education which comes of fit knowledge, fitly given." (Vol. 3, p. 177)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Home Education, Part V, Chapter VIII

School Education, Chapters XV and XXI

Towards a Philosophy of Education, Book I, Section II (b)



Beowulf

The Odyssey

The Iliad

Ivanhoe

T.S. Eliot's Essays

To Kill a Mockingbird

Pride and Prejudice

The Red Badge of Courage

English Literature for Boys and Girls

Honey for a Child's Heart

Read for the Heart

Realms of Gold

Five Years of Children's Literature

(Contains affiliate links)



Top 10 Books about Books
May 27, 2016

This podcast episode on the Charlotte Mason method of education focuses on some listener questions, notably, what to do about dawdlers, how to motivate apathetic students, and a couple of particulars about implementing history lessons.

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"Education is a life; that life is sustained on ideas; ideas are of spiritual origin; and, 'God has made us so' that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another. The duty of parents is to sustain a child's inner life with ideas as they sustain his body with food." (Vol. 2, p. 39)





Carry On, Mr. Bowditch



String, Straightedge, and Shadow



The Story of Geronimo



I Buy a School



Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze



The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind



Stillwell and the American Experience in China

(Contains affiliate links)
May 20, 2016

This podcast episode's focus describes Charlotte Mason's inclusion of art and music in her essential curriculum. How has our cultural and educational background prejudiced us to favor core subjects over "fine arts" and how did Ms. Mason view these subjects. Further, how are these subjects included and implemented in the week's feast--especially if the mother is unfamiliar or even fearful of tackling this unknown territory?

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"We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist has upon the child's sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than we know in having really looked at even a single picture." (Vol. 1, p. 309)

"They are never copied lest an attempt to copy should lessen a child's reverence for great work." (Vol. 6, p. 216)

"A great promise has been given to the world––that its teachers shall not any more be removed. There are always those present with us whom God whispers in the ear, through whom He sends a direct message to the rest. Among these messengers are the great painters who interpret to us some of the meanings of life. To read their messages aright is a thing due from us. But this, like other good gifts, does not come by nature. It is the reward of humble, patient study." (Vol. 4, p. 102)

"As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it." (Vol. 6, p. 216)

"[F]or though every child cannot be a great performer, all may be taught an intelligent appreciation of the beauties of music, and it is a wicked shame to clang the doors of music, and therefore of endless channels of delight and inspiration, in a child's face, because we say he has "no ear," when perhaps his ear has never been trained, or because he never will be able to "play."" (Miss Pennethorne's PR Article)

"Hearing should tell us a great many interesting things, but the great and perfect joy which we owe to him is Music." (Vol. 4, Book I, pp. 30-31)

"Use every chance you get of hearing music (I do not mean only tunes, though these are very nice), and ask whose music has been played, and, by degrees, you will find out that one composer has one sort of thing to say to you, and another speaks other things; these messages of the musicians cannot be put into words, so there is no way of hearing them if we do not train our ear to listen." (Vol. 4, p. 31)

"Many great men have put their beautiful thoughts, not into books, or pictures, or buildings, but into musical score, to be sung with the voice or played on instruments, and so full are these musical compositions of the minds of their makers, that people who care for music can always tell who has composed the music they hear, even if they have never heard the particular movement before." (Vol. 4, p. 31)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Home Education, Part V, Chapter XXI

School Education, p. 239

Towards a Philosophy of Education, Book I, Chapter X, Section II: f

Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin, Marguerite Henry Stories of Favorite Operas, Clyde Robert Bulla More Stories of Favorite Operas, Clyde Robert Bulla
Stories of Gilbert and Sullivan Operas, Clyde Robert Bulla The Ring and the Fire, Clyde Robert Bulla I, Juan de Pareja, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
Opal Wheeler's Composer Biographies Millet Tilled the Soil, Sybil Deucher Art for Children series by Ernest Raboff
Elizabeth Ripley's Artist Biographies Spiritual Lives of Great Composers, Patrick Kavanaugh I, Vivaldi, Janice Shefelman


(Contains affiliate links)



Emily's Picture Study Portfolios

Riverbend Press Artist Prints
May 13, 2016

This Charlotte Mason podcast focuses on time management: how do we get organized to spread this feast of innumerable subjects, how do we fit everything in, and how do we manage multiple children at various levels with differing needs and subjects. Practical tips, resources, ideas, and time-tested wisdom is abundant in this conversation.

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Our Podcast Episode that talks about the Habit of Attention

Nicole's step-by-step guide to preparing your CM schedule

A Form by Form breakdown of which subjects are studied when and what lessons those subjects include at each age level

Liz, Emily, and Nicole can help you create your own schedule and/or custom curriculum

May 1, 2016


This week's Charlotte Mason podcast celebrates the role of mothers in their children's education. Ms. Mason had plenty to say to us as mothers and we share our own experiences as mothers in an effort to encourage you. This one's for you, Mom.

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"The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts, put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society. And this responsibility is not equally divided between the parents: it is upon the mothers of the present that the future of the world depends, in even a greater degree than upon the fathers, because it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the children's early, most impressible years." (Vol. 1, p. 2)

"We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession––that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours." (Vol. 1, pp. 2-3)

"We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life." (Charlotte Mason's 20th Principle of Education)

"I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them." (Vol. 1, p. 44)



I Buy a School, Marion Berry

The Story of Charlotte Mason, Essex Cholmondeley (We are in no way suggesting you buy this book for the current price! Linking solely for your information)

(Contains affiliate links)



Grace to Build Retreat

Liz's talk on Mothers (audio download)

ADE Podcast Episode that describes the Great Recognition further

Apr 29, 2016

This podcast episode focuses on answering more listener questions about the Charlotte Mason method on some widely varying topics including Bible, narration, and unit studies.

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"Another point, the co-ordination of studies is carefully regulated without any reference to the clash of ideas on the threshold or their combination into apperception masses; but solely with reference to the natural and inevitable co-ordination of certain subjects. Thus, in readings on the period of the Armada, we should not devote the contemporary arithmetic lessons to calculations as to the amount of food necessary to sustain the Spanish fleet, because this is an arbitrary and not an inherent connection; but we should read such history, travels, and literature as would make the Spanish Armada live in the mind." (Vol. 3, pp. 320-21)

"English History is always with us, but only in the earliest years is it studied alone. It is not, as we know, possible always to get the ideal book, so we use the best we can find and supplement with historical essays of literary value. Literature is hardly a distinct subject, so closely is it associated with history, whether general or English; and whether it be contemporary or merely illustrative; and it is astonishing how much sound learning children acquire when the thought of an age is made to synchronise with its political and social developments. A point which I should like to bring before the reader is the peculiar part which poetry plays in making us aware of this thought of the ages, including our own. Every age, every epoch, has its poetic aspect, its quintessence, as it were, and happy the people who have a Shakespeare, a Dante, a Milton, a Burns, to gather up and preserve its meaning as a world possession...Civics takes place as a separate subject, but it is so closely bound up with literature and history on the one hand and with ethics, or, what we call every-day morals, on the other, that the division of subjects is only nominal." (Vol. 6, p. 274)



A Delectable Education, Episode 8: Narration, the Act of Knowing

Bonnie Buckingham
Apr 22, 2016

Charlotte Mason had two essential tools to offer children to help them regulate their own behavior. This podcast thoroughly addresses the subject that most matters in the classroom: guiding our children in acting and thinking rightly. Nicole, Liz, and Emily unfold Mason's principles of self-control, self-management, and right reasoning.

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"There are two guides to moral and intellectual self-management to offer to children, which we may call 'the way of the will' and 'the way of the reason.'" (Principle 16)

"The way of the will: Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between 'I want' and 'I will.' (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may 'will' again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character, It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)" (Principle 17)

"But there are few subjects on which those who have the education of children in their hands make more injurious mistakes [than training the will]." (Vol. 1, p. 318)

"“Your arrival at a right destination does not depend upon your choice of a good road, or upon your journeying at a good pace, but entirely upon your starting in the right direction.” (Vol. 4, p. 64)

"The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to 'lean (too confidently) to their own understanding'; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth, (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs." (Principle 18)

"Reason, like all other properties of a person, is subject to habit and works upon the material it is accustomed to handle." (Vol. 6, p. 147)

“Perhaps we shall best use this wonderful power of reasoning, commonly called our Reason, by giving it plenty of work to do, by asking ourselves what is the cause of this and that; why do people and animals do certain things. Reason which is not worked grows sluggish; and there are persons who never wonder nor ask themselves questions about anything they see.” (Vol. 4, p. 65)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Ourselves, Volume 4

Formation of Character, Volume 5, Part I, section I

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education, Volume 6, Book I, chapter 8-9

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery Little Britches, Ralph Moody The Living Page
(Contains affiliate links)
Apr 15, 2016

This Charlotte Mason podcast focuses on the subject of citizenship beyond the study of Plutarch. Are Mason's ideas about the state and the citizen outdated or irrelevant for our students today? This discussion focuses on the subject that studies government, economics, and moral responsibility in the Mason feast.

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"The honour due to our country requires some intelligent knowledge of her history, laws, and institutions; of her great men and her people; of her weaknesses and her strength; and is not to be confounded with the ignorant and impertinent attitude of the Englishman or the Chinese who believes that to be born an Englishman or a Chinese puts him on a higher level than the people of all other countries; that his own country and his own government are right in all circumstances, and other countries and other governments always wrong. But, on the other hand, still more to be guarded against, is the caitiff spirit of him who holds his own country and his own government always in the wrong and always the worse, and exalts other nations unduly for the sake of depreciating his own." (Vol. 4, Book II, p. 121)

“Children familiar with the great idea of a State in the sense, not of a government but of the people, learn readily enough about the laws, customs and government of their country; learn, too, with great interest something about themselves, mind and body, heart and soul, because they feel it is well to know what they have it in them to give to their country.” (Vol. 6, p. 187)

“It is probable that the education of the future will recognise, as its guiding idea, Matthew Arnold's fine saying, that "The thing best worth living for is to be of use." Every man and woman will be a candidate for service beyond the range of his or her own family.” (Vol. 5, p. 447)

"[In Form I] Children begin to gather conclusions as to the general life of the community from tales, fables, and the story of one or another great citizen." (Vol. 6, p. 185)

"[In Form II] Citizenship becomes a definite subject rather from the point of view of what may be called the inspiration of citizenship than from that of the knowledge proper to a citizen, though the latter is by no means neglected." (Vol. 6, p. 185)

“There are few better equipments for a citizen than a mind capable of discerning the Truth, whether it lie on the side of our party or on that of our opponents. But this just mind can only be preserved by those who take heed what they hear, and how.” (Vol 4, p. 154)

"Civics takes place as a separate subject [from history], but it is so closely bound up with literature and history on the one hand and with ethics, or, what we call every-day morals, on the other, that the division of the subjects is only nominal." (Vol. 6, p. 274)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Ourselves (Volume 4)

Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), pp. 185-189



The Citizen Reader (Used by Mason in the PNEU, Form 2)

Uncle Eric series by Richard Maybury

Gerald Johnson's Books on the government: The Presidency, The Cabinet, The Congress, The Supreme Court

(Contains affiliate links)



Audio Version of Charlotte Mason's Ourselves (Volume 4)
Apr 8, 2016

Nancy Kelly is an experienced Charlotte Mason teacher who joins us on this podcast to discuss the teaching of Plutarch. You will enjoy her helpful tips and inspiring wisdom.

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"We take the child to the living sources of history––a child of seven is fully able to comprehend Plutarch, in Plutarch's own words (translated), without any diluting and with little explanation." (Vol. 2, p. 278)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Parents and Children (Volume 2), pp. 278-79


Loomis translation (For Teacher Prep) North's Plutarch (Heritage Press Edition) Stories from the History of Rome
Fifty Famous Stories Retold Nancy's Favorite Retelling

(Contains affiliate links)



Anne White's Study Guides (free online--scroll down to individual Lives listings)

Nancy's 3-Part Blog series on Plutarch

The Great Courses on Plutarch
Apr 1, 2016

Charlotte Mason thought Plutarch an invaluable source of knowledge and moral wisdom in the subject of citizenship. This podcast explores who he was, why Mason thought so, and how the study of the lives he described would inform and enrich our children.

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“In the same way, readings from Plutarch's Lives will afford the best preparation for the study of Grecian or of Roman history.” (Vol. 1, p. 286)

“[T]he principle being, that, whenever practicable, the child should get his first notions of a given period, not from the modern historian, the commentator and reviewer, but from the original sources of history, the writings of contemporaries.” (Vol. 1, p. 285)

“Perhaps nothing outside of the Bible has the educational value of Plutarch’s Lives.” (Vol. 3, p. 236)

“[The Lives] stand alone in literature as teaching that a man is part of the State, that his business is to be of service to the State, but that the value of his service depends upon his personal character.” (Vol. 3, p. 280)

“...an early education from the great books with the large ideas and the large virtues is the only true foundation of knowledge--the knowledge worth having.” (Vol. 6, p. 308)

"We take the child to the living sources of history––a child of seven is fully able to comprehend Plutarch, in Plutarch's own words (translated), without any diluting and with little explanation." (Vol. 2, p. 278)

“We read him his Tanglewood Tales, and when he is a little older his Plutarch, not trying to break up or water down, but leaving the child's mind to deal with the matter as it can.” (Vol. 2, pp. 231-232)

“[Plutarch] hath written the profitable story of all authors. For all other were fain to take their matter, as the fortune of the countries whereof they wrote fell out: But this man being excellent in wit, learning, and experience, hath chosen the special acts of the best persons, of the famousest nations of the world.” (Thomas North as quoted by Mason in Vol. 6, p. 274)



If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Home Education (Volume 1), pp. 286-87

School Education (Volume 3), pp. 152, 235, 280-81, 286-89

Ourselves (Volume 4), Book I, Chapter 2

Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Section II, "Morals and Economics"


Stories from the History of Rome North's Plutarch The Plutarch Primer (Publicola)
Plutarch Project, Vol. 1 Plutarch Project, Vol. 2 The Children's Plutarch
Plutarch retold by Weston Plutarch retold by Kaufman Ten Famous Lives

(Contains affiliate links)



Stories from the History of Rome (free online)

Anne White's Study Guides (free online--scroll down to individual Lives listings)

The Children's Plutarch (free online)

Weston's Plutarch (free online)

Kaufman's Plutarch (free online)
Mar 27, 2016

Charlotte Mason's education is not just for children. This podcast is a discussion of three mothers who have found that Mason has influenced them in ways they never could have dreamed when they took up her methods. Listen to discover all the ways the delectable feast can nourish you, the teacher.

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"The mother cannot devote herself too much to [nature] reading, not only that she may read tit-buts to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observations. And not only the mother, but any woman who is likely ever to spend an hour or two in the society of children, should make herself mistress of this sort of information; the children will adore her for knowing what they want to know, and who knows but she may give its bent for life to some young mind designed to do great things for the world." (Vol. 1, pp. 64-65)



Find a Charlotte Mason group in your area

Find a Charlotte Mason Retreat in your area

Charlotte Mason Institute National Conferences

Charlotte Mason Institute Regional Conferences

Other Charlotte Mason Endeavors Near You

Grace to Build Retreat

Living Education Retreat

CM West Retreat

More Upcoming CM Conferences on the West Coast

Simply Charlotte Mason Seminars

Audio Download of Liz's Plenary at Grace to Build Retreat last year: "Mothers: The Living Books Our Children Read"

Charlotte Mason Institute Collaborative Blog

Fisher Academy Blog

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival Link Up

Sage Parnassus
Mar 18, 2016

This podcast addresses common questions that arise as parents and teachers pursue knowledge of the Charlotte Mason method. Whether specific small questions, or large philosophic ones, they are common to most of us and Nicole, Emily and Liz attempt to draw from the deep well of Mason's own writings, as well as their experience in applying that wisdom, to meet the most frequent perplexities head on.

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"[H]e knew that that which he beheld of lowly living and service and suffering was 'glory.'" (Scale How Meditations, p. 49)



The Phantom Tollbooth,
Norman Juster
The 21 Balloons,
William Pene du Bois
My Side of the Mountain,
Jean Craighead George
Old Yeller,
Fred Gipson
Where the Red Fern Grows,
Wilson Rawls
Harry Potter Series,
J.K. Rowling
Rascal,
Sterling North
Deathwatch,
Robb White
Read-Aloud Handbook,
Jim Trelease
The Living Page,
Laurie Bestvater
(Contains affiliate links)



Scale How Meditations (see page 49 for quote discussed)

A Delectable Education, Episode 4: Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life
Mar 14, 2016

Charlotte Mason is extraordinary in the arts and humanities, but does her method really work for science, especially in an age when science is king? This podcast will address all the aspects of teaching science that put most average parents in a panic at the high school level and you will find yourself eager to get on with it.

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"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, pp. 170-71)

“Where science does not teach a child to wonder and admire it has perhaps no educative value.” (Vol. 6, p. 224)

"Geology, mineralogy, physical geography, botany, natural history, biology, astronomy––the whole circle of the sciences is, as it were, set with gates ajar in order that a child may go forth furnished, not with scientific knowledge, but with, what Huxley calls, common information, so that he may feel for objects on the earth and in the heavens the sort of proprietary interest which the son of an old house has in its heirlooms." (Vol. 3, p. 79)

“The essential mission of school science was to prepare pupils for civilised citizenship by revealing to them something of the beauty and the power of the world in which they lived, as well as introducing them to the methods by which the boundaries of natural knowledge had been extended. School science, therefore, was not intended to prepare for vocations, but to equip pupils for life. It should be part of a general education, unspecialised, in no direct connexion with possible university courses to follow.” (Sir Richard Gregory, quoted by Charlotte Mason in Vol. 6, p. 222)

"So much attention is now given to the practical and systematic study of science in schools that the valuable influence of descriptive scientific literature is apt to be overlooked. An intimate knowledge of the simplest fact in nature can be obtained only through personal observation or experiment in the open air or in the laboratory, but broad views of scientific thought and progress are secured best from books in which the methods and results of investigation is stated in language that is simple without being childish.
"Books intended to promote interest in science must differ completely from laboratory guides, textbooks, or works of reference. They should aim at exalting the scientific spirit which leads men to devote their lives to the advancement of natural knowledge, and at showing how the human race eventually reaps the benefit of such research. Inspiration rather than information should be the keynote; and the execution should awaken in the reader not only appreciation of the scientific method of study and spirit of self sacrifice, but also a desire to emulate the desires of men whose labors have brought the knowledge of nature to its present position." (From The Wonders of Physical Science by Edward Fourlier, used in PNEU)



The Mystery of the Periodic Table

For the Love of Physics

(Contains affiliate links)



Read-Aloud Revival Episode with Dr. Pakaluk

Nicole's Website with loads of information on living CM science

*NEW Living Science Study Guides--Nicole guides us through a term or year of Middle School Biology

Keeping a Science Notebook

Living Science Ideas scroll down for a subject by subject list of living books
Mar 4, 2016

This podcast episode explores the ideas and objectives Charlotte Mason considered necessary for the study of science for grades 1-6. Listen to hear clear guidelines to follow, book suggestions, and practical applications for teaching science.

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If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent's Review articles that would be helpful for this episode's topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Home Education (Volume 1), Part V, Chapter XVI

School Education (Volume 3), Chapter 21, Part II

Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Chapter 10, Section III



Eyes and No Eyes
Series
Among the...People
Series
Margaret Waring Buck
Books
Glenn Blough Delia Goetz James Herriot
Burgess Animal Book Burgess Book of Nature Lore Burgess Bird Book
Otus Major Luna
Backyard Birds of Summer Backyard Birds of Winter Nature Reader
Madam How & Lady Why Life & Her Children Storybook of Science
The Sciences The Stars JSB of Rain, Hail, Sleet & Snow
Climate Maps Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Books Soap Science


(Contains affiliate links)



Nicole's Elementary Science Page at SabbathMoodHomeschool.com
Feb 26, 2016

Charlotte Mason did not consider nature study to be optional. This podcast is an interview with a mother with eight children who took Mason's words to heart and exerted the effort to make it happen. Listen to her experiences and practical hints for being a successful mother of young naturalists.

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"Never be within doors when you can rightly be without." (Vol. 1, p. 42)

"I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them." (Vol. 1, p. 44)

"We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things." (Vol. 1, p. 61)



Natural History Clubs from The Parents' Review via the Charlotte Mason Digital Collection:

"Our P.N.E.U. Natural History Club"

"Natural History Club"

"P.N.E.U. Natural History Clubs"

"The Educational Value of Natural History"

Charlotte Mason Institute National Conference

Grace to Build Retreat

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