Charlotte Mason on Nourishing the Mind

Ooh, I’m so happy y’all are up for this conversation!

I thought it worthwhile to post a few short excerpts from TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION to whet our appetites…emphasis is mine.

We want an education which shall nourish the mind while not
neglecting either physical or vocational training; in short, we want a
working philosophy of education. I think that we of the P.N.E.U. have
arrived at such a body of theory, tested and corrected by some thirty
years of successful practice with thousands of children. This theory
has already been set forth in volumes [The Home Education
Series] published at intervals during the last thirty-five
years; so I shall indicate here only a few salient points which seem to
me to differ from general theory and practice,––

(a) The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons;
they do the work by self-effort.

(b) The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or
enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars.

(c) These read in a term one, or two, or three thousand pages,
according to their age, school and Form, in a large number of set
books. The quantity set for each lesson allows of only a single
reading; but the reading is tested by narration, or by writing on a
test passage. When the terminal examination is at hand so much ground
has been covered that revision is out of the question; what the
children have read they know, and write on any part of it with ease and
fluency, in vigorous English; they usually spell well.

—Volume 6, page 6

There is, of course, much more to the Charlotte Mason method than the simple plan laid out in paragraph (c), but that’s her nutshell explanation. You select a number of excellent books, have the student read them slowly over the course of the term or semester, and expect clear and thorough narrations either orally or on paper for each book, each chapter or passage, as the student makes his way through them.

By "no time for revision," she means no time for review, no ‘going over it again’ at a later date to make sure the student still remembers it. Miss Mason’s assertion is that the student who narrates WILL remember, without note-taking, cramming, or second reads. I’ve been familiar with this assertion of hers for almost a decade now, and it still shocks me when I take the time to think about it. Can you imagine if we all possessed this ability? A skill she takes for granted as the product of her educational method?

The unusual interest children show in their work, their power of
concentration, their wide, and as far as it goes, accurate knowledge of
historical, literary and some scientific subjects, has challenged
attention and the general conclusion is that these are the children of
educated and cultivated parents. It was vain to urge that the home
schoolroom does not usually produce remarkable educational results; but
the way is opening to prove that the power these children show is
common to all children; at last there is hope that the offspring of
working-class parents may be led into the wide pastures of a liberal
education.

Vol. 6, p. 8.

She wrote A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION after thirty years of putting her ideas to the test in Parents’ National Education Union Schools. (The PNEU you always see in connection with CM.) She saw these results time and time again, across the board, with the students in PNEU home and cottage schools—rich kids, poor kids, kids whose parents were highly educated, kids whose parents were not. There are many examples of their work in Vol. 6. The end-of-term essays will knock your socks off.

Doesn’t it make you wonder what happened? If her method is so successful, why didn’t it make it into any public school model in, say, the United States? John Taylor Gatto has a theory about that…

But of course Mason’s ideas are being put into practice in many homeschools nowadays. I will be interested to see if a time comes that she makes her way into the mainstream.

As I said yesterday, the Charlotte Mason method isn’t just about training the mind’s powers of attention and memory; it isn’t all about intellect. There is so much more to what she meant by "an educated person." For the more complete picture, her "20 Principles" are the place to begin. These are laid out in the preface to Volume Six. The commentary provided at this link is particularly useful.  Just a little something for you to chew on during the holidays…

One-Handed Posting

I have this big old Charlotte Mason post I’m dying to write,* but the baby has a cold and will only stay asleep if I hold her. She’s propped on my shoulder right now. This means my friend Charlotte will have to wait. I am re-reading her TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION right now, again, and again it is utterly wowing me. If you haven’t read CM’s original works, I’d recommend starting right there, with Volume 6. If her Victorian-speak turns you off (I rather like wrestling with it, but I admit it does make for slow going!), one of the generous Ambleside folks has written—and made freely available—modern English translations of some of Charlotte Mason’s books.

What blows me away about Volume 6, and the reason I keep re-reading it and am pretty much always DYING to talk it over with people (anyone want to come for tea?), is how clearly it explains CM’s method, and how simple the method actually is. Shockingly simple, with shocking claims as to results. As an educational method, CM’s concept is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. Really. Think about it—where else do you find an educator saying her students only have to read (or be read) something ONCE and they remember it and can intelligently discuss the work forever after? That is pretty much what CM’s method promises.**

And it’s what I’ve seen with Jane, who got a couple of years of pretty steady CMing. (I am giggling at how much Miss Mason would likely loathe my lazy and careless acronymizing of her name and ideas. I repeat! Sleeping baby on my left shoulder! No feeling in my left arm!)*** Anyway, Jane, thoroughly CM’d at age six and seven, drifting into a looser, just-CM-flavored approach for the next few years: her powers of retention astonish me. She can read something once and tell it back to you almost word for word, months later. For a while I was chalking it up to her amazing genetic material (oh I crack myself up) and then one day it hit me: DUH. What Jane can do is just what Charlotte Mason’s students could do. It is just exactly what Miss Mason says will happen.

But how much is CM, and how much is Jane’s brain? Chicken or egg? This is one of the things I want to talk about, and it’s one of the reasons I keep returning to CM’s books. Rose is bright and has a good memory, but she does not (yet) display the same astonishing powers of retention that Jane does. Her education thus far has been joyful and CM-inspired, but certainly not in adherence to Miss Mason’s entire philosophy. 

You understand that I’m not comparing the two girls, right? This isn’t a Marcia-Marcia-Marcia situation. Rose is doing just fine. I’m simply pondering the significance of the facts.

Jane: Educated a la CM method for two years (age six and seven); possesses a skill CM says her students will possess.

Rose: Not educated strictly according to CM’s entire set of principles; is smart and capable, certainly at or beyond "grade level" according to contemporary educational standards; does not, however, possess the almost-total-retention and narration ability described by CM.

Coincidence?

Also: how ironic is it that I have to keep re-reading Charlotte Mason’s books? Ha. Maybe I should put her ideas to the test on myself, maybe I should narrate the entire book as I go and see if by the end my own powers of attention and retention have improved in the manner she confidently asserts they will. (She asserts it about children, though. I don’t know if she made any such claim about adults, especially women in their late thirties with lots of small children, one of whom is snuffly and keeps mommy up at night.)

Anyway, I’m really wanting to talk about this. I know, I know, no one has time right now, two weeks before Christmas. Later, though. In my spare seconds (stop laughing; you’ll wake the baby!) I’ve been perusing sample PNEU syllabi. They fascinate me.

*As opposed to the big old Charlotte Mason post this turned out to be.

**Just to be clear: Charlotte Mason’s method promises more than a good memory, much more. Her aim was to educate the whole person: to make sure "education" involved a well-developed conscience, a controlled will, and sound habits, as well as mastery of knowledge.

***Baby shifted! Freed up the second hand! Still sacked out, twenty minutes later. She is just too, too delicious, snuffles and all.

Oops, she’s awake!

See what I mean by delicious?

This series of Charlotte Mason posts continues with:
Charlotte Mason on Nourishing the Mind
Gearing Up for a Charlotte Mason Term
Rose’s Reading List

Previous posts on Charlotte Mason:
Who Is This Charlotte Mason Person, Anyway?
How Do You Defend Your Relaxed Approach?
The Long-Promised Charlotte Mason Curriculum Post