The Ordinary Matters Podcast

Timetables. When you enter a group of Charlotte Mason moms, it’s bound to come up. Today we’re talking about why they’re needed, the principles Charlotte Mason offered for creating a timetable, and practical steps on building a timetable that suits your family.

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Books Mentioned: Teaching From Rest | Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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We'd venture to guess that many people are homeschooling as we are; books and things all over the kitchen table. We'd also venture to say...we think it's a pretty great way to create a Charlotte Mason homeschool room.

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Books Mentioned: Home Education | Parents and Children | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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Teaching from rest is more than just getting comfy on the couch and lounging in our pajamas. It’s a vital part of homeschooling. It’s offering an atmosphere of peace. As we discuss the atmosphere of the home, we want to start with the idea that homeschooling can be restful–if we can stay out of the ditches that present themselves. 

Books Mentioned: Teaching From Rest | Home Education | Parents and Children | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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In Season 2, we are zeroing in on some specifics of a Charlotte Mason education: our tools. The tools are limitations for us, but those limitations are a blessing. They help us reflect, assess, and adjust as we strive to make our homes where education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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As we’ve come to our summer break, we’re ready to say goodbye. And as we do, we want to part with an inspiring idea for both you, listener, and ourselves. We’ve mentioned a time or two that mothers must strengthen their will for the work before them, and today, we’re going to talk about how to do just that. Because we are pursuing educations that nourish whole persons on a wide variety of ideas, mothers need a strong will to do the work set before her. So in this episode we’ll be talking all about a kingdom–the kingdom of Mansoul. And the centurion guard of that kingdom is the Will. 

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

“Choose ye, this day” is the command that comes to each of us in every affair, and on every day of our lives, Miss Mason says, and the business of the will is to choose whom we will serve. (A Philosophy of Education, 134)

“Are you cross? Change your thoughts. Are you tired of trying? Change your thoughts. Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your thoughts; there is a power within you, your own will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you happy and right. And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the will acts; this is the sole secret of the power over himself which the strong man wields––he can compel himself to think of what he chooses, and will not allow himself in thoughts that breed mischief.” (Home Education, 326)

“When he wakes to the consciousness of whose he is and whom he serves, [the mother] would have him ready for that high service, with every faculty in training––a man of war from his youth; above all, with an effective will, to will and to do of [God’s] good pleasure.” (Home Education, 324)

“The will is the controller of the passions and emotions, the director of the desires, the ruler of the appetites. But observe, the passions, the desires, the appetites, are there already, and the will gathers force and vigour only as it is exercised in the repression and direction of these; for though the will appears to be of purely spiritual nature, yet it behaves like any member of the body in this––that it becomes vigorous and capable in proportion as it is duly nourished and fitly employed.” (Home Education, 319)

“The ordering of the will is not an affair of sudden resolve; it is the outcome of a slow and ordered education in which precept and example flow in from the lives and thoughts of other men, men of antiquity and men of the hour, as unconsciously and spontaneously as the air we breathe. But the moment of choice is immediate and the act of the will voluntary; and the object of education is to prepare us for this immediate choice and voluntary action which every day presents.” (A Philosophy of Education, 137)

We come finally to our third tool of education–living ideas. We’ve talked a couple times (or more) about living books …so let’s talk about living ideas. Because Charlotte Mason wasn’t just talking about getting ideas from living books. She was also talking about the things of education. So as we head into summer break, let’s talk about the ideas that flow out of the natural rhythms of a Charlotte Mason home. Living ideas are woven into the fabric of our homes when we live in a way where the books and things of a classical Charlotte Mason education are a part of our daily rhythms. And, of course…we do not work alone.

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

These indefinite ideas which express themselves in an ‘appetency’ towards something and which should draw a child towards things honest, lovely, and of good report, are not to be offered of set purpose or at set times: they are held in that thought-atmosphere which surrounds him, breathed as his breath of life. (A Philosophy of Education, 107)

“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, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony: but we must sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. Probably he will reject nine-tenths of the ideas we offer, as he makes use of only a small proportion of his bodily food, rejecting the rest. He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety and his to take what he needs.” (A Philosophy of Education, 109) 

“all I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading, as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art, is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods. This and more is implied in the phrase, "The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum." (A Philosophy of Education, 111) 

“[We ought to] take it upon ourselves that great character comes out of great thoughts and great thoughts must be initiated by great ‘thinkers’, then we shall have a definite aim in education. Thinking, and not doing, is the source of great character.” (A Philosophy of Education, pg. 278)

“that an inspiring idea initiates a new habit of thought, and hence, a new habit of life; we perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas. In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to modern thought, as the supreme Educator of mankind in things that have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been called sacred.” (School Education 173)

Habit training is a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. But what exactly is habit training? And how do mothers put it to work in their home school rooms? 

Miss Mason encourages and cautions us with this second tool of education…because we are always forming habits in our children (whether we are doing it knowingly, or accidentally). No matter what, our atmosphere, home routines, and expectations for our children paint them a picture of the good life, and how that good life is lived out. So if that’s the case…how do we make sure the habits we’re forming in our children are ones worth forming?

Books Mentioned: Home Education | Parents and Children | A Philosophy of Education 

(*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

There are but three left for our use and to each of these we must give careful study or we shall not realise how great a scope is left to us. Seeing that we are limited by the respect due to the personality of children we can allow ourselves but three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit and the presentation of living ideas. Our motto is,––'Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” (Philosophy of Education, pg. 94)

“Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend.” (Home Education, pg. 118)

To form a good habit is the work of a few weeks; to guard it is a work of incessant, but by no means anxious care. (Home Education, pg. 121)

We entertain the idea which gives birth to the act and the act repeated again and again becomes the habit; 'Sow an act,' we are told, 'reap a habit.' 'Sow a habit, reap a character.' But we must go a step further back, we must sow the idea or notion which makes the act worth while. It is possible to sow a great idea lightly and casually and perhaps this sort of sowing should be rare and casual because if a child detect a definite purpose in his mentor he is apt to stiffen himself against it.  (A Philosophy of Education, pg. 102)

“doing no more than keep watch over those already formed. If she be appalled by the thought of overmuch labour, let her limit the number of good habits she will lay herself out to form.” (Home Education, pg. 136)

Have you ever gone on the Charlotte-Mason side of instagram and felt like there’s no way you can afford the atmosphere of a Charlotte Mason education? We can’t either.

But don’t worry. We’re pretty sure instagram has this Charlotte Mason principle off. 

Books Mentioned: Home Education | Parents and Children | A Philosophy of Education | For the Family’s Sake (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

There are but three left for our use and to each of these we must give careful study or we shall not realise how great a scope is left to us. Seeing that we are limited by the respect due to the personality of children we can allow ourselves but three educational instruments–the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit and the presentation of living ideas. Our motto is,–'Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. (Philosophy of Education, pg. 94)

We all know the natural conditions under which a child should live; how he shares household ways with his mother, romps with his father, is teased by his brothers and petted by his sisters; is taught by his tumbles; learns self-denial by the baby's needs, the delightfulness of furniture by playing at battle and siege with sofa and table; learns veneration for the old by the visits of his great-grandmother; how to live with his equals by the chums he gathers round him; learns intimacy with animals from his dog and cat; delight in the fields where the buttercups grow and greater delight in the blackberry hedges. (A Philosophy of Education, pg. 96)

Our children live in it and breathe it, and what we are is thus incorporated into them. There is no pretense here or possibility of evasion: we may deceive ourselves: in the long run, we never deceive our children. The spirit of home lives, and what is more, home atmosphere is accentuated in them. (The Atmosphere of the Home)

are held in that thought-environment which surrounds the child as an atmosphere, which he breathes as his breath of life; and this atmosphere in which the child inspires his unconscious ideas of right living emanates from his parents. Every look of gentleness and tone of reverence, every word of kindness and act of help, passes into the thought-environment, the very atmosphere which the child breathes; he does not think of these things, may never think of them, but all his life long they excite that 'vague appetency towards something' out of which most of his actions spring. (Parents and Children, pg. 37)

The atmosphere is life-encouraging to us or not; our home’s routines either enable us to enjoy a balanced quality of life or not; and we either trudge bleakly and disinterestedly along life’s path or enjoy intellectual input through books, nature, art, music, good relationships, and so on. These give us the spark of fresh aliveness mentally and spiritually that we call life. (For the Family’s Sake, pg. 81) 

Good homes are good places to live and grow. They make possible and ornament a secure life that is vitally alive with joys appropriate to the personalities and abilities of those living there. (For the Family’s Sake, pg. 81) 

That he should take direction and inspiration from all the casual life about him, should make our poor words and ways the starting-point from which, and in the direction of which, he develops-this is a thought to make the best of us hold our breath. There is no way of escape for parents; they must needs be as "inspirers" to their children, because about them hangs, as its atmosphere about a planet the thought-environment of the child, from which he derives those enduring ideas which express themselves as a life-long 'appetency' towards things sordid or things lovely, things earthly or divine. (Parents As Inspirers)

We’ve talked in our “Charlotte Mason Primer Series” about the idea that children are born persons, and so their minds are able to deal with knowledge that is proper to them– as long as it’s presented in the form of living ideas. So we can just sit down with a nice big book stack we saw online, read it aloud, narrate and then call our kids educated, right?

Still no. That is where we meet the science of relations, an absolutely vital part of education. The science of relations is the idea Miss Mason put forth that all knowledge is connected because of “Those first-born affinities that fit our new existence into existing things.”

Why the science of relations? And how do we fit this…science into the ordinary moments of our homeschool?

And first and foremost…what does she mean?

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

 “All knowledge, dealt out to us in such portions as we are ready for, is sacred; knowledge is, perhaps, a beautiful whole, a great unity, embracing God and man and the universe, but having many parts which are not comparable with one another in the sense of less or more, because all are necessary and each has its functions.” –A Philosophy of Education, page 324

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? - School Education, pg. 170-171

“What we are concerned with is the fact that we personally have relations with all that there is in the present, all that there has been in the past and all that there will be in the future--with all above us and all about us--and that fulness of living, expansion, expression and serviceableness for each of us, depend upon how far we apprehend these relationships and how many of them we lay hold of…Every child is heir to an enormous patrimony, heir to all the ages, inheritor of all the present. ” Education is the Science of Relations, PR article

“We do not talk about developing his faculties, training his moral nature, guiding his religious feelings, educating him with a view to his social standing or his future calling. The joys of "child-study" are not for us. We take the child for granted, or rather, we take him as we find him--a person with an enormous number of healthy affinities, embryo attachments; and we think it is our chief business to give him a change to make the largest possible number of these attachments valid.”  Education is the Science of Relations

“Their relations with God, of prayer, praise, love and duty; their moral relations with their fellow-creatures, including history, literature, duties of a citizen, etc.; their relations with Nature and the world around them; their relations with the earth, including all sorts of bodily exercises; their relations with materials, in handicrafts, etc.” –Education is the Science of Relations

We apologize if the episode sounds echo-y. We had some editing issues, please be patient with us as we learn! Thanks :)

Many of us grew up in classrooms in which questionnaire worksheets or activity worksheets abound, or where books weren’t read except in excerpts (and then torn to shreds by activities). Miss Mason saw these methods of teaching as deadening the child’s natural desire and ability to tell back that which they heard, read, or saw. Narrating is something children naturally do.

Charlotte Mason and narration are quite synonymus. In fact, one PR article says, “Ah yes, narration. That’s that thing they do in those PNEU schools, isn’t it?”  We’ve talked so far about the idea that children are born persons, and so their minds are able to deal with knowledge that is proper to them– as long as it’s presented in the form of living ideas. So we can just sit down with a nice big stack of living books, read it aloud, and call our kids educated, right?

Not quite, according to Miss Mason. In today’s episode, the third in our Charlotte Mason Primer Series, we are talking about principle 14, “As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should 'tell back' after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.”

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

That art of ‘telling’ which culminates in a Scott or a Homer and begins with the toddling persons of two and three who talk a great deal to each other and are surely engaged in ‘telling’ though no grown-up, not even a mother, can understand.  (A Philosophy of Education, pg. 190)

The whole thing must be highly amusing to the teacher, as ingenious amplifications self-produced always are: That the children too were entertained, one does not doubt. The teacher was probably at her best in getting by sheere force much out of a little: She was, in fact, acting a part and the children were entertained as at a show, cinema or other; but of one thing we may be sure, an utter distaste, a loathing, on the part of the children ever after, not only for ‘Robinson Crusoe’ but for every one of the subjects lugged in to illustrate his adventures. (A Philosophy of Education, page 116)

It is far easier to force children to  be passive recipients of certain predigested scraps of information, it is a much more difficult matter to allow the child to be active in the matter and to get him to do his best. It requires great faith and trust. (The P.U.S. Method of Narration and Its Purpose, pg. 475)

Whereby teachers shall teach less and scholars shall learn more (A Philosophy of Education., p. 8)