Charlotte Mason: Volume 1 Part 1

Wow what a book!  I somewhat rashly decided to read along with Laura at Wasted Textbooks even though I wasn't sure if I would have time this week to read anything at all.  After a week of play rehearsals and a ridiculous number of other things I settled down to enjoy this book.  So here I am handing on my homework late as usual :-)

There was so much to digest in this volume alone that I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the books.  If they are all like this one then I am in for a treat! 

I have never considered myself to be a Charlotte Mason educator.  I have used a lot of her methods without really realising that they came from her and the more I read, the more I like!  Not to say that some of it isn't a bit weird.  The books are old fashioned in the extreme, but the language is rich and the section we read this week was full to the brim with good advice.  I couldn't go through it all so I have just picked out one very small part.

"System––the observing of rules until the habit of doing certain things, of behaving in certain ways, is confirmed, and, therefore, the art is acquired––is so successful in achieving precise results, that it is no wonder there should be endless attempts to straiten the whole field of education to the limits of a system.

If a human being were a machine, education could do no more for him than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of systems.

But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power.

Though system is a highly useful as an instrument of education, a 'system of education' is mischievous, as producing only mechanical action instead of the vital growth and movement of a living being."

All four of my children are different from each other.  As adults they will be able to decide how they spend their lives.  They will definitely choose different careers. Very different careers I am sure.  They have such different skills and their strengths and weaknesses are so different.  The deserve a rich and varied education that is tailored to play to their strengths and build on their weaknesses.

This hit home here as I do tend towards the schooly.  We educate according to the child, but we do use a system.  I think it has taken me a lot of de-schooling to get this far.  It is so hard to hear what school children are doing sometimes.  They do so much and I panic.  It is hard to let go of what I think I should be doing and trust what I know we need to be doing.  I want my children to be free thinking individuals who are well prepared for life.  How I do that?  I hope to find out!

Check out Wasted Textbooks for lots more rich and exciting Charlotte Mason goodness!!