Some time ago I was asked what it meant to be a Charlotte Mason teacher. This question came from a teacher who had only just been introduced to the idea and general philosophy of Charlotte Mason education. She was drawn to the ideas and was interested how these ideas changed the daily life of the teacher who practised those ideas. The question stumped me a little at the time partially because the principles of CM are big and broad, liberal really, and their impact in the classroom and life can sometimes be more intuitive. I hesitated and waffled my way through my response because I struggled to put into words the difference of a CM teacher's life without it sounding like a prescriptive how-to list. How to translate the ideas into concrete practise. This question has stayed with me. I have since come up with a list based on my personal experiences with the Charlotte Mason philosophy and how I have attempted to practically live out the principles in my life and my life as a teacher. 1. Engage with Living Books: Be a reader. Engage with good books and great books. Learn to enjoy the classics. Read for yourself and read with your students. Learn to judge the quality of contemporary books. Learn to read and understand the language of books across the years. Engage with a wide range of genre's and topics - biography, poetry, fiction, historical fiction, creative non-fiction. Talk about books with others. Ask questions. Learn to narrate what you read. Keep a commonplace book. Build your home library one living book at a time. The ideas, feelings, cultural contexts, historical themes, spiritual truths that wrestled with in living books enrich life and learning and provide us with nourishment that enriches our mind and our soul. Books really do matter. Stories matter. 2. Outdoor Hours: Be outside in nature as much as possible. Go on walks and hikes. Climb mountains. Visit botanic gardens and planetariums. Go camping and take trips to the beach. Swim in waterholes with waterfalls. Enjoy views from lookouts. Create and maintain a garden of natives, flowers, edibles. Enjoy life with pets - goats, chickens, turtles, birds, dogs, cats, llamas. Enjoy picnics with friends and family. Run in the rain and play in mud puddles. Go on nature walks and keep a nature journal. Create an outdoor space where you can enjoy meals outside. Play sport. Read under a tree - or in a tree. Watch the weather outside your window. 3. Curiosity: Be someone who is curious about ideas and people. Learn how to be interested in a broad range of ideas and topics and people. Develop the art of asking thoughtful questions, engaging in interesting conversation with a broad range of people. Practise the art of socratic discussion and wrestling with big ideas and their application. 4. Personal Value: View yourself, your students and their parents, your colleagues as wholehearted persons with full capacity of learning and thinking and who are valued. We are all born persons. In terms of education, everyone is part of the educational atmosphere, discipline, and life, and is respected and value for their part in the educational life - both within the walls of a classroom and the larger room of life. 5. Discipline of Habit: Continue developing your own mental, moral, social, relational, physical, spiritual habits and disciplines. The life of learning is a life of growth and self-discipline. As a parent and a teacher you cannot train your children or students in the habits they need for a truly full life if you haven't developed the art of self-discipline in your own life. We are always learning. 6. Planning: Plan your curriculum, subject units, and assessments in a way that creatively incorporate and integrate whole living books, ideas, outdoor hours, original artwork, poetry, music, historical ideas and connections, critical inquiry questions with discussion and various forms of communication (verbal, visual, written). "We learn for life, not for the schools." ~ Charlotte Mason, Volume 5 ~ © Amy George, January 2022
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I am. Weathered white. Tossed, tumbled, washed worn edge. Empty shell I am. I wrote this haiku poem on my first lonely shore walk after my first year of classroom teaching. I had found an old white-washed shell tumbled onto the rocks. It was worn and had lost most of its distinguishing features. It was empty. I was empty. Classroom teaching can require much. Resting and recovering changed to refreshing and restoring myself for the new year ahead. I returned to some of the habits I had developed as a home educating Mum to nourish my heart and mind while raising and teaching my children. Once again I made time to take regular nature walks along the beach and dusted off my old nature journal and a natural history read. I sat under trees and once again enjoyed some books I had been wanting read for quite some time. I listened to music and played the piano and spent time in our garden. I meandered again through the Psalms and the Gospels and rediscovered the grace available to me for each and every day. I connected again with the story of God, the story of humanity, and the story of the world. I connected again with truth, goodness, and beauty. I drank from the well. Now my mind turns again to the classroom I will re-enter in a couple of weeks. Now I consider my lesson plans and begin to prepare. But this is the fun part. This is the preparation I find nourishing because this is where I pre-read the delightful books that will form the spine of our lessons for the term ahead. After this step I will return to the specific content and achievement standards from the Australian Curriculum I will be explicitly teaching from these living books. I will plan key lesson activities, questions, and habits of learning that form the bridge between the Australian Curriculum aspirations and requirements and the ideas to be found and communicated from our living books. As part of my preparation for this first term of 2020 I have been reading these three sources related to the Charlotte Mason method of teaching and how to implement the Australian Curriculum in a multi-level classroom. ~ A Liberal Education for All by Charlotte Mason and Agnus C. Drury (The Parents' Review 1916) ~ A Liberal Education by H.W. Household (The Parents' Review 1929) ~ Enacting Australian Curriculum: Planning issues and strategies for P-10 multiple year level classrooms (2011) And as I make these plans I will endeavour to hold before this golden rule: "Whereby teachers shall teach less and scholars shall learn more." © Amy George, January 2020
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AuthorI teach with the Charlotte Mason method in home education, tutoring and P-12 Christian school contexts in Australia. Archives
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