Post 1 of ?
This chapter of Charlotte Mason's Home Education is quite long, so it will take a number of posts to get through it all. I will try to get it all done this week so I can finish this book before the end of the year. There were parts of the chapter that I didn't highlight too much, but much of it was applicable to what I was going through with some of my boys; it was fantastic.
Part V
Lessons As Instruments of Education
I love the title of this chapter. Lessons do not equal education. They are/can be merely an instrument.
"It seems to me that we live in an age of pedagogy; that we of the teaching profession are inclined to take too much upon ourselves, and that parents are ready to yield the responsibility of direction, as well as of actual instruction, more than is wholesome for the children."
Okay. This is what drives me crazy about today's parents. They automatically assume that they cannot teach their children - and by this I do not mean "homeschool" them. I mean that they are afraid to teach their kids anything. Somehow they think it is okay to progenerate, but actually raising their child, another human being, another soul, that has to be left to "professionals". Whatever that means. Actually, it's a cop out.
"Parents must reflect on the Subject-matter of Instruction.––I am about to invite your attention to a subject that parents are accustomed to leave very much in the hands of the schoolmaster or governess when they do not instruct their children themselves––I mean the choice of subjects of instruction, and the ways of handling those subjects."
She calls parents to remember the importance of their own involvement in their children's education. Nothing is new under the sun, as we see she saw the same flaws in her society that we see in ours with parents just handing their kids over to the system and expecting education to "happen".
"Even when children go to schools taught by qualified persons, some insight on the part of fathers and mothers is useful as hindering the teacher from dropping into professional grooves, valuing proficiency in this or that subject for its own sake, and not as it affects the children."
"Home the best Growing-ground for Young Children.––All the same, whatever be the advantages of Kindergarten or other schools for little children, the home schoolroom ought to be the best growing-ground for them. And doubtless it would be so, were the mother at liberty to devote herself to the instruction of her children;"
"Three Questions for the Mother.––But if the mother is to inoculate the governess with her views as to the teaching of writing, French, geography, she must, herself, have definite views. She must ask herself seriously, Why must the children learn at all? What should they learn? And, How should they learn it? If she take the trouble to find a definite and thoughtful answer to each of these three queries, she will be in a position to direct her children's studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised to find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy."
These are questions that we should ask ourselves, regularly. It is all too easy to fall into our little ruts and forget *why* we are doing what we are doing. Your why determines your actions. If you do not have a philosophy of education, how do you know that how you are educating works? Or how do you know that the way your child is being taught in school is really educating him?
Charlotte draws an analogy between food causing the child to grow physically and ideas being the food the mind grows upon. This is a concept that was introduced to me a number of years ago, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around what an idea is. I feel dumb admitting that, but there you go. More on this in my next post.
