CM Book Study Meetings in Bradford

I want to extend a warm welcome for any home schooling parents to join our local Charlotte Mason Support Group in Bradford. If you are pursuing a Charlotte Mason style of education in your home - or are just interested in this philosophy of education, you are welcome to join us once or regularly. Our meetings are drop in and don't require registration (though it's nice to know how many cups of tea to prepare.) ;)

 

If you are unfamiliar with Charlotte Mason and her philosophy of education, she was a British educator about 100 years ago who strongly believed in the value and potential of all children. In fact, in a time when children were very much considered in light of the socio-economic class they were raised in, she felt that children were already persons of great value not potentially so. She saw them as intelligent, inquisitive and creative and so argued that all children should be given a liberal (as in broad in scope and deep in content), child-centred (meaning focusing on the needs of the student rather than the needs of the teacher) education. 

 

As such she advocated for three main tools of education: atmosphere, dicipline, and life. By atmosphere, she insisted that children not be isolated in an environment contrived for children but that learning should take place naturally in real life situations and that children should learn to love to learn for its own sake and not because they are compelled by marks or rewards or by the desire to please or appease their teachers. By discipline, she was describing the value of instilling good habits, life skills, character traits in children as these are just as much the measures of success as knowing specific subject content. And finally, life was meant to encompass the total sum of academic learning, not just limited to a few subjects in school but very broad in subject matter.

 

She a pursued these goals by using several key methods: narration (oral, written, and otherwise) as a method of testing, living books (written with great vocabulary by people who were passionate about their topics), lots of time in nature, short lessons, and much experiential learning over textbook work.

 

The goal she said was a science of relations, or that the student build a relationship with the subjects they were learning rather than simply learn many facts related to the subject.

 

If this style of educating resonates with your family, please be encouraged to join our discussions.  We will be reading For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay this year.  It is so inspirational; you’ll love it!  If you need a copy of the book, let me know as I have a few in stock now and will likely need to order more in before the school year starts.  They are $18.75 each, tax included.

We haven’t yet divided the book into readings for the year but will send that out once we have it.  As well, at our last meeting in June, we decided that we will, this year, make a bit of a change and will be adding in “Mother Culture” time rather than subject practicums as in past years.  We have often read books that are quite meaty and philosophical or just plain homeschool-inspirational and when that is the case, we have traditionally taken part of the evening to practically look at different ways to live out this educational life, looking at topics like spelling, geography or math.

This year’s change up is because we wanted to do some practical learning that was centred around our development as Mamas as we recognize that our own educational passion is reflected strongly on our kids. I will also pass on the subjects as we develop a list for the year.