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
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
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 |
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
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery | Little Britches, Ralph Moody | The Living Page |
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 |
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The Phantom Tollbooth, Norman Juster | The 21 Balloons, William Pene du Bois | My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George |
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Old Yeller, Fred Gipson | Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls | Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling |
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Rascal, Sterling North | Deathwatch, Robb White | Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease |
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The Living Page, Laurie Bestvater |