A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode, Melanie Verlage, Canadian mom of four girls tells us about her transition from public school to Charlotte Mason Homeschooling, and the surprising joys she's witnessed over the last six years.   The Body, Bill Bryson Episode 269: Voices from the Conference with Jono Kiser ADE's Personal Curriculum Consultations ADE's Patreon Community

Can you make a child care about their education? Or about anything, let alone the many things that Charlotte Mason commended? We tackle these questions in this episode of the podcast, exploring the reasons for a seeming indifference in our students as well as how we can come alongside them and help them grow in their love for knowledge.     “Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life.- We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to hast set my feet in a large room,' should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time ; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking-the strain would be too great-but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,-how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education-but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him ? I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children." (3/171-172) "I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. The fact is, we undervalue children." (3/172) “In conclusion, the parent must educate himself up to the level of the child, or if he cannot do this, he must never discourage. Children with their natural irresponsibleness and ignorance of what is in them, will take up various subjects with more or less vigor, only to drop them perhaps, before finally lighting upon the one thing of absorbing interest. Be patient with these vagaries and the litter they make if they are wholesome and healthy; above all do not scoff at this inconsequence, and if their particular hobbies are not according to your especial taste remember that— “There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.” (PR 22 p. 792)         Spark, John Ratey Habits of the Household, Justin Whitmel Earley A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century, Witold Rybczynski       Talkbox.mom 2024 ADE @ Home {Virtual Conference} Parents' Educational Course Episode 113: Service, An Interview with Vanessa Kijewski Episode 249: Voices from the Conference: Cathy McKay on Teenagers ADE's Patreon Community

At the 2023 ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference Jono Kiser of Living Literature presented a talk entitled "Good and Dangerous Books." We've invited him onto the podcast this week to discuss why Charlotte Mason encouraged students to read literature with objectionable content, and what makes these worthy books. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain Bleak House, Charles Dickens Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens Number the Stars, Lois Lowry Junkyard Wonders, Patricia Polacco The Hundred Dresses, Eleanor Estes 2024 ADE @ Home {Virtual Conference} Areopagitica, John Milton ADE's Patreon Community

In this episode we return to the topic of Recitation, a distinctive feature of Charlotte Mason's Method. We are focusing on practical ways to help your student develop their skills in Recitation, both the "Mechanical" and the "Sentimental" Branches. “It will now be seen that I spoke nothing but the truth when I said that reading was an art which had its fixed laws. We have found laws for the emission of the voice, for respiration, for pronunciation, for articulation, and for punctuation ; that is to say, laws for all the material side, the technical part of the art of reading. Let us now pass on to its intellectual aspects.” (Ernest Legouvé. A Short Treatise on Reading Aloud. PR 17, p 436) Hay said, “the first of these two branches ... can in all cases be taught, and the second beyond hints and suggestions for guidance must be left to the taste and judgment of the speaker.” (p. 33-34) What Charlotte Mason called “the fine art of beautiful and perfect speaking.” (1/223) “It will now be seen that I spoke nothing but the truth when I said that reading was an art which had its fixed laws. We have found laws for the emission of the voice, for respiration, for pronunciation, for articulation, and for punctuation ; that is to say, laws for all the material side, the technical part of the art of reading. Let us now pass on to its intellectual aspects.” (Ernest Legouvé. A Short Treatise on Reading Aloud. PR 17, p 436) Hay said, “the first of these two branches ... can in all cases be taught, and the second beyond hints and suggestions for guidance must be left to the taste and judgment of the speaker.” (p. 33-34) The Speaking Voice: Its Development and Preservation, Volume 1, Emil Behnke The Speaking Voice: Its Development and Preservation, Volume 2, Emil Behnke The Art of Reading and Speaking, Canon Fleming How You Talk, Paul Showers Awaken: Living Books Conferences Episode 69: Recitation Episode 179: Recitation Immersion Nicole's Recitation Handout Episode 266: The Unity of the CM Method Arthur Burrell's Recitation: The Children's Art Mrs Tongue Does Her Housework 2024 ADE @ Home {Virtual Conference} ADE's Patreon Community

Celeste Cruz, experienced Charlotte Mason mom with eleven children, reflects on her homeschooling journey with the Charlotte Mason Method. Topics include faith in children, interconnectedness in learning, benefits of learning as a family, observing positive effects, instilling good habits, and love for reading.

Charlotte Mason's Method can seem confusing and difficult to implement, especially if we view it as a list of do's and don'ts. But when we learn to see it as a unified whole, it is revealed as a truly simple and cohesive method of education. “Time is insufficient for teachers as well as for scholars. How then find room for a new subject ? Where place it ? What would give way for it ? The answer is easy. The art of reading can only benefit education where it adds nothing, eliminates nothing, supersedes nothing, but by assimilation is our aid to all things. It is not a tax but an aid to memory ; it does not fatigue, but relieves and supports the mind. It is to education what the gastric juice is to the nutritive process : it causes and facilitates digestion ; it is not in itself a new factor, but a component part of all the other factors.” (Short Treatise on Reading Aloud. PR 17, p 129) "The reader will say with truth,-" I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles " ; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ' more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with ; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon's antiseptic treatment; that is from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied for the rather casual ' more or less ' methods of earlier days." (6/19) “Therefore we do not feel it is lawful in the early days of a child's life to select certain subjects for his education to the exclusion of others; … but we endeavour that he shall have relations of pleasure and intimacy established with as many as possible of the interests proper to him; not learning a slight or incomplete smattering about this or that subject, but plunging into vital knowledge, with a great field before him which in all his life he will not be able to explore.” (3/223) "As we have already urged, there is but one right way, that is, children must do the work for themselves." (6/99) "The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons ; they do the work by self-effort." (6/241) "'The mother is qualified,' says Pestalozzi, 'and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child ; . . . and what is demanded of her is a thinking love. • • • God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided-how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.'" (1/2) "What we cannot do with Miss Mason's Ideal is to reduce it to lowest terms, and just in so far as we try to, so far we misrepresent it, and misunderstand it. But some of the secret undoubtedly lies in the Programmes of Work; the longer we work from those wonderful programmes the more we realise how well balanced they are; how satisfying to the hungry mind; how the subjects dovetail; how difficult it is to teach history only in history time, how it will 'flow over' into geography, literature, or even into such unexpected channels as arithmetic or botany." (In Memoriam, p. 151) "Method implies two things -- a way to an end, and step-by-step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end or object to be arrived at." (1/8) "It would seem a far cry from Undine to a' liberal education ' but there is a point of contact between the two ; a soul awoke within a water-sprite at the touch of love; so, I have to tell of the awakening of a ' general soul ' at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago the ' soul ' of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake. We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance , men's souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge : but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul ; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. Already many thousands of the children of the Empire had experienced this intellectual conversion, but they were the children of educated persons. To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living." (6/Preface) "It is such a temptation to us ordinary folks to emphasize some part at the expense of the rest and so turn a. strength into a weakness. There is only one way to avoid this danger. That is constantly to read and re-read Miss Mason's books, constantly to remind ourselves of her first principles -- for from now onwards Miss Mason's work is in our hands; we dare not leave un-made and effort to keep the truth." (Wix, p. 153) “Questions there will always be, but if we continually keep in touch with Miss Mason's thought by constant reading of all her books, we shall have a sheaf of principles at command by which we can test the value of this or that criticism, this or that book.” (Franklin. PR 36 p. 419) Talkbox.mom Episode 182: Visualization Episode 235: When the Feast is Too Much Miss Wix's Article: Miss Mason's Ideal: Its Breadth and Balance Episode 167: Method vs. System ADE's Patreon Community

This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode, Bethany Glosser, mom of six children, teenagers to preschoolers, shares her experiences both successes and "failures" and has important words to bring us about our ultimate hope for our children. Quotes Mothers owe 'a thinking love ' to their Children.-"The mother is qualified," says Pestalozzi, "and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child ; . . . and what is demanded of her is a thinking love. • • • God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided-how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.'' (1/2) "Of the three sorts of knowledge proper to a child,-the knowledge of God, of man, and of the universe,-the knowledge of God ranks first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making." (6/158) Books For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay Links INK Newspaper Morgan Conner's Reading Lessons Living Literature Courses with Jono Kiser Beauty and Truth Math Climbing Higher Math ADE's Patreon Community

Charlotte Mason encouraged us to use a time-table to ensure lessons were kept short and varied. Today on the podcast we're talking about this essential tool, why Miss Mason called it the first principle of a well-managed schoolroom, and how we can make one to fit our family today. "Time-Table; Definite Work in a Given Time. -- I shall have opportunities to enter into some of these points later; meantime, let us look in at a home schoolroom managed on sound principles. In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not 'as good as another;' that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his work." (1/142) “In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not 'as good as another'; that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his work.” (1/142) “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of attention. It is, ..., ‘within the reach of everyone, and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline’; for whatever the natural gifts of the child, it is only so far as the habit of attention is cultivated in him that he is able to make use of them.” (1/146) "Miss Kitching's introduction to the discussion of this subject involved the following points: "1. That the P.U.S. time-table is intended to serve simply as a guide to the teacher in making her own, for it stands to reason that no two schoolrooms are identical as regards the work done, or the time allotted it. "2. That in making her own time-table the teacher must be careful that no two lessons requiring the same mental effort follow one another in close proximity. "3. That it is better to leave the term's work unfinished, than to rush the pupils through for sake finishing the work set. "The general outcome of the discussion was to the effect that some modification of the programme and time-table is absolutely necessary, each teacher using her own discretion in the matter. Somebody very wisely remarked that Miss Mason intends the programme to fit the child, and not as some wildly imagine, the child to fit the programme." (L'Umile Pianta, May 1915, pp. 58-59) "It is evident that the young lady at home has so much in hand, without taking social claims into consideration, that she can have no time for dawdling, and, indeed will have to make a time-table for herself and map out her day carefully to get as much into it as she wishes." (5/261) Talkbox.mom  Beauty & Truth Math Episode 258: Afternoons ADE's Schedule Cards Schedule Cards in Russian, Spanish, French, Portuguese ADE's Patreon Community

Explore the importance of aligning homeschooling goals with the Charlotte Mason Method of Education, motivations for homeschooling, developing good habits and embracing a broad educational curriculum, exposing children to life beyond academics, trusting the method and nourishing education, and exploring Charlotte Mason's method of education.

A Delectable Education is back for its NINTH year. We have grown a lot over these past 8 years, and so has the Charlotte Mason Community. We are honored to be here sharing with you all still. In this episode we are sharing some big announcements like our 4th Annual Parents' Educational Course Reading List, our 4th Annual Online Conference (coming February 2024) and new Teacher Helps and Training Videos to help your school year go smoothly. We're glad you're here with us. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray 2024 ADE Book Club selection (Find the suggested reading schedule here) Episodes By Topic: Explore previous episodes grouped by subject 2023-24 Parents' Educational Course: A suggested reading list curated for the modern CM educator ADE at HOME 2024: Our fourth annual {Virtual} Conference, check back for more details in November. Registration begins November 24, 2023. Teacher Helps: Products we've created to help you plan, forecast, and implement lessons Natural History Planner Form 3-4 Bible Lesson Breakdowns (Revised Form 1-2 Bible Lesson Breakdowns here) Form 1-2 Literature Breakdowns (Available August 7, 2023) Upper Forms Geography: If you have previously purchased these, you can re-download the revised copy from your Purchase History Recitation Planner with optional add-ons for printable Bile Passages Teacher Training Videos Sabbath Mood Homeschool Science Curriculum: Nicole has completed her curriculum with High School Ecology ADE's Patreon Community