Once, as a Learning Support Teacher, I made my way down to the annexe that housed the school's History Department.
The annexe was about 100 meters from the main school building, down an attractive, leafy hill.
I joined the History class with the moans and groans still ringing in my ears. However, the topic of the lesson soon gripped me:
Life in Thirteenth Century Scotland.
The ordinary people in those days lived in squalid huts, unlike the nobles with their heavily fortified castles. Fighting was a way of life and the fear of attack preoccupied everyone.
In the cold, drafty, disease-ridden castles people who lived to forty were considered old.
Not much scope for personal development and parenting projects there!
Bumpy dirt tracks served as roads and the trees that covered most of the land made travel difficult. Schools and child education did not exist.
This time I overheard another conversation - or to be more precise, one side of a conversation.
A girl behind me chatted to her mum, many miles away on the outskirts of the city. The small cellphone clamped to the girl's ear made it possible.
Times had certainly changed since the 13th century! Not only could this girl travel many miles by comfortable transport every day, but at the touch of a button she could chat with her mum. Yes, teaching - and parenting - teenagers brings its challenges!
But if raising confident children is our goal, why not start early, and help them develop a sense of awe and wonder. Help them realize how far we've progressed.
Stress the benefits growing families enjoy today - benefits unavailable to our predecessors, for whom life was hell.
iPods, mp3s, DVDs, multiplex cinemas, online bookings, video cellphones - when you think about it, the list is impressive!
And the downside: in a world saturated with resources and abundance, millions starve. Your children are young and impressionable, so true-life stories will absorb their insatiable interest. Make this part of your home education program, working hand-in-hand with their special school projects.
And it will pay dividends. Informed, appreciative children become confident, tolerant, fair-minded and determined young people.
Personal development all round . . .
Happy parenting!
The Charlotte Mason Method Increases the Effectiveness of a Home School Education Reading Program
Designing curricula, scheduling field trips, and tailoring lesson plans to children in different grade levels can be challenging. Using children's literature to enrich the curriculum you teach in the home learning environment can be rewarding to both you and your children.
Often referred to as the founder of home schooling, Mason pioneered a liberal arts approach to children's education. Today, many parents use the Charlotte Mason method as a home school resource. Several of Mason's key concepts relate to reading in the home learning environment. You're probably familiar with the type, such as chapter books based on TV shows that use overly simplistic sentences and rely on illustrations, rather than words, to engage a child. Instead, the Mason method opts for children's literature that is well written and captivates the child's imagination with words.
Another of Mason's key concepts that relates to reading is that of "whole books." Any parent of a child educated in the public school system knows that language arts textbooks are typically anthologies of book excerpts. Mason felt that a work should be read as it was written, as opposed to reading only a portion of the complete book.
Narration is a third concept advocated by Mason.
In contrast to rote memorization and recitation, or testing that focuses on what a child doesn't know, Mason felt that children should have the opportunity to explain what they do know. After reading a book, for example, a child could talk about what he or she learned, could write about the book in a journal, or could paint or sculpt a depiction of what he or she learned.
Charlotte Mason's teaching methods are easy and inexpensive to integrate into home education. Developing an effective reading program for home learning - by avoiding "twaddle," by reading the whole book, and by incorporating narration as a measure of comprehension - is an integral component to the Mason method. Utilizing children's book reviews will help in this effort, as will broadening the reading experience by incorporating related individual and family activities.
The annexe was about 100 meters from the main school building, down an attractive, leafy hill.
I joined the History class with the moans and groans still ringing in my ears. However, the topic of the lesson soon gripped me:
Life in Thirteenth Century Scotland.
The ordinary people in those days lived in squalid huts, unlike the nobles with their heavily fortified castles. Fighting was a way of life and the fear of attack preoccupied everyone.
In the cold, drafty, disease-ridden castles people who lived to forty were considered old.
Not much scope for personal development and parenting projects there!
Bumpy dirt tracks served as roads and the trees that covered most of the land made travel difficult. Schools and child education did not exist.
This time I overheard another conversation - or to be more precise, one side of a conversation.
A girl behind me chatted to her mum, many miles away on the outskirts of the city. The small cellphone clamped to the girl's ear made it possible.
Times had certainly changed since the 13th century! Not only could this girl travel many miles by comfortable transport every day, but at the touch of a button she could chat with her mum. Yes, teaching - and parenting - teenagers brings its challenges!
But if raising confident children is our goal, why not start early, and help them develop a sense of awe and wonder. Help them realize how far we've progressed.
Stress the benefits growing families enjoy today - benefits unavailable to our predecessors, for whom life was hell.
iPods, mp3s, DVDs, multiplex cinemas, online bookings, video cellphones - when you think about it, the list is impressive!
And the downside: in a world saturated with resources and abundance, millions starve. Your children are young and impressionable, so true-life stories will absorb their insatiable interest. Make this part of your home education program, working hand-in-hand with their special school projects.
And it will pay dividends. Informed, appreciative children become confident, tolerant, fair-minded and determined young people.
Personal development all round . . .
Happy parenting!
The Charlotte Mason Method Increases the Effectiveness of a Home School Education Reading Program
Designing curricula, scheduling field trips, and tailoring lesson plans to children in different grade levels can be challenging. Using children's literature to enrich the curriculum you teach in the home learning environment can be rewarding to both you and your children.
Often referred to as the founder of home schooling, Mason pioneered a liberal arts approach to children's education. Today, many parents use the Charlotte Mason method as a home school resource. Several of Mason's key concepts relate to reading in the home learning environment. You're probably familiar with the type, such as chapter books based on TV shows that use overly simplistic sentences and rely on illustrations, rather than words, to engage a child. Instead, the Mason method opts for children's literature that is well written and captivates the child's imagination with words.
Another of Mason's key concepts that relates to reading is that of "whole books." Any parent of a child educated in the public school system knows that language arts textbooks are typically anthologies of book excerpts. Mason felt that a work should be read as it was written, as opposed to reading only a portion of the complete book.
Narration is a third concept advocated by Mason.
In contrast to rote memorization and recitation, or testing that focuses on what a child doesn't know, Mason felt that children should have the opportunity to explain what they do know. After reading a book, for example, a child could talk about what he or she learned, could write about the book in a journal, or could paint or sculpt a depiction of what he or she learned.
Charlotte Mason's teaching methods are easy and inexpensive to integrate into home education. Developing an effective reading program for home learning - by avoiding "twaddle," by reading the whole book, and by incorporating narration as a measure of comprehension - is an integral component to the Mason method. Utilizing children's book reviews will help in this effort, as will broadening the reading experience by incorporating related individual and family activities.
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