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Showing posts with label AO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AO. Show all posts

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Imagination, from AO Camp 2019

From Imagination talk. Pics on right from our Philippine mission
I was asked a few times to share the notes of my talk. This was not as easy as you might think. Some of my notes are something like this:
Poll. Strawberry Story. Aesop's frogs.
Then I have a couple paragraphs of actual notes, and then something vague again.
 Also, I crossed things out and rearranged them as I went along in my talk, and one of the things people especially liked was something I kind of said off the cuff on the spot- it's not in my notes at all. I won't even be sure exactly what I said until the recordings are finished and available for purchase.
People also wanted to know about the parts I cut to make up for the time I ate up by giving those off the cuff remarks, but I've been asked to speak at L'Harmas in Canada this October, and I plan to share some of that 'director's cut' part of the talk there, and I want it to be fresh.=)  (pro-tip- if you are American and not interested in traveling outside of the continent, a passport card is about half the price of a regular passport and you can use for driving into Canada).

Nonetheless, I wanted to share something about it for all the people who asked, so here's what I settled on doing:
 First, I have an awesome summary to share. It's awesome because I did not write it and summarizing is simply not my gift. I am indebted to my longtime internet friend Linz(at)Home (I finally got to meet her at AO Camp!) for the following summary of my plenary. Her Instagram acct is here.

Here are her notes, shared with permission (Thanks, Linz!!)
 "The reading of stories to children can empower imagination and empathy, “putting oneself in another’s shoes.”
Active sympathy is an act of imagination.
Children need fairy tales not for their own amusement but because they build the mind and squeeze out self-preoccupation.
“The weak diet of school texts produce people with little moral imagination.” (CM)
 Imagination is a seed that grows from what it gets.
Living books fill the imagination and POINT IT OUTWARDS.
(Moralizing) twaddle doesn’t help you put yourself in another’s shoes, it makes you judgey and priggish. 😬
With Littles, be generous with the positive stories and save the heavy truths for later.
Accurate observation builds imagination. Picture to yourself the story. It builds a web of knowledge (not linear, stacked facts),
self-knowledge, not self-absorption.
 Find a connection to what you’re reading -“oh, grandpa was from this country..” Emotions are engaged and reading widely can show us truths about ourselves.
Stories are also conversations through the ages. We meet people in other times and places.
Use stories that don’t have a perfect, tidy end. There is value in the questions “then what? Was that the right thing?” Let them wonder. It opens connections in the brain."

 I think Linz did a fabulous job.
For those interested in the more in depth stuff from my notes, including multiple quotes, and much of the material I had to cut, plus excerpts from the articles I used in my research (except the material that will be part of my talk at L'Harmas),  I have gathered all that and more together, tidied them up, organized them, and included them along with several new Parents' Review articles (new as in they are transcribed online in readable form for the first time as far as I know), and some other goodies in the newest, hot off the press, just finished, e-zine of Education for All! You can purchase that here: https://gum.co/TOSfc

And here is my rough bibliography if you want to do your own research:


Bibleography:

Also, all six of Charlotte Mason's volumes on homeschooling, with a special emphasis on volumes 4 and 5, available online at AmblesideOnline.org, and the following books:

A Landscape with Dragons
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child
Tending the Heart of Virtue
Beauty for Truth's Sake
Books that Build Character

I'm not a podcast person so I haven't listened to any, but I have no doubt that A Literary Life is excellent because I have never felt like Cindy Rollins has steered me wrong, and she and Angelina Stanford are doing this new podcast that looks so yummy I might have to try a podcast after all. (I did, it was!)

Regarding the material in my bibliography, the books I have read over the last few years. The articles I read or reread in the three months before my talk.  I still have, literally, 25 tabs open to PR volumes I wanted to peruse before getting down to business and writing that talk, but... I finally had to slap my hands and tell myself enough was enough, I could read those volumes later when working on a sequel- or a book!  Anyway, I'm a bit giddy about finishing up the second volume of Education for All.  You don't have to read All the Things.  That's just my personality.  Research is one of my passions.  But I share them here for those who want to read all the things, or for those who just like to wander here and there amidst the links, dabbling as you go.

Happy Wandering!! (see what I did there?  It's a bit of an inside joke for those who were able to come to AOCMCamp!)


 $5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  
   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.


 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

   $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

 Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

 Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00
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Thursday, March 28, 2019

Composition Suggestions from a CM trained Teacher

"Written composition begins to take the place of oral work in Class II."

 What did that look like?

 Have you ever wished you could hear directly from a teacher trained by Charlotte Mason?  Wouldn't like to hear how the method worked for her, how she implemented the philosophy and how she taught her students? 

We can!

The House of Education was the teaching school Mason established.  Here she shared her methods with young women who wanted to teach. She also had a dayschool where the methods could be put into practice. 

 "In 1895, the House of Education Old Students' Association was formed to provide current and "old" students who were scattered abroad, opportunities to keep in touch and provide mutual support. In 1896 they began publishing the magazine, L'Umile Pianta, named after a plant growing near Ambleside, which Charlotte Mason admired for its ability to bend without breaking. " From the CharlotteMason Digital Collection at Archive.org

 The students (current and graduated) also held conferences from time to time, and the conference talks often were reprinted in the magazine.  At the 1911 conference, House of Education graduate Miss H. H. Dyke spoke on Composition, Letter Writing, and Copywork. 

 I think this will resonate with many frustrated parents:

 "In teaching in the Parents' Union School, the chief difficulty is lack of time. ... half an hour once a week (for composition) is surely very inadequate. There is no opportunity for the definite instruction which I strongly feel is desirable, nor for the criticism of essays already written, and the essay is of course necessarily written straight into the exercise book, instead of being read through and re-copied as I should like. The girls no doubt pick up expressions from their text books, and peculiarities of style but they do not make the progress they might, and their work nearly always bears the sign of haste. As this is one of the accusations commonly brought against the Parents' Union scheme, I very much hope that this point may afterwards be discussed. "more time, then, seems to me to be not only desirable, but absolutely necessary, and then I think a great deal of help could be given."

Her idea was that composition should be twice a week rather than once.  She doesn't want to lengthen the time period, she is keeping to moderately short lessons (they are shorter for lower grades, but gradually lengthen).

  She  further writes that upon leaving the training school:
 "we set out, perhaps, to teach Composition in the happy belief that no great art or skill was needed, but that, given interesting subjects and with good literature as their model, the children would acquire a good style without our help."

" I wonder whether any of you became conscious of being mistaken. Was it your experience, as I candidly confess it was mine, that though the children's vocabulary was enlarged by the use of books, yet they did not learn by nature the elementary rules of Composition?"

 This was not largely my experience. In proportion as I used Mason's methods and did not rely overmuch on audio books and did do copywork and dictation and required written narrations, those children developed a pretty good style without extra help. Those for whom I failed to use Mason's methods as thoroughly (we went through a very difficult patch of life while I was in the throes of untreated and overlooked PTSD), did not do as well.  But my family is not the only sample to consider.  We tend to be pretty verbal already.  So it's probably encouraging to know, if you feel like your kids needed a bit more instruction, there's an expert who agrees with you!

She says she believes there is room for a great deal of help to be given students learning composition. So what are her suggestions?  Perhaps she has some ideas that will work for you.

   Helping children keep a sense of proportion in their compositions: For example, in her observation,  the Class II students often lack a sense of proportion.  That is, they emphasize unimportant things and omit vital things.   Perhaps they spend a page on minutiae and irrelevant anecdotes and never remember to mention that the person they are writing about was the emperor of most of the known western world, or developed the airplane, or was a famous artist.

How can we fix that lack of proportion?  Dyke suggests giving them an outline of a simple story and letting them fill it in. Here I think it also works to let them write their own basic outline of a simple folk tale or news article of interest to them, or a fable from Aesop's, and then a few days later, have them use that outline to rewrite the story.  This is an old method that has helped many a writer build their skills.  Matt Whitling's Imitation in Writing series scripts this for you.  I wouldn't use the entire series, but if you're struggling you could try it for one term, or use it as a template or springboard for your own version.

She also suggests that they think of a general theme for the direction of their written narration (or composition) and instructing them to omit any anecdotes that have nothing to do with the overall idea.

Organizing their ideas:  Miss Dyke says it's most important to have the children write down a definite scheme before they begin- 'write down in the form of headings all that occurs to them on the subject, and then arrange these headings in their logical sequence.'  Have the students look over their headings with their general theme in mind and omit any that don't fit their theme.   She suggests only spending five minutes doing this since only 30  minutes is allotted to composition in a week.

 My personal suggestion is that you need not limit yourself so severely to something even Miss Mason's own trained teachers found onerous. You don't want to drag lessons out. You do want to quit while the students are still fresh.  But you might follow her suggestion and have two composition sessions in a week instead of one.

Here is another idea for helping students organize their ideas. This is not from Miss Dyke, another homeschooling mother shared this with me years ago.   Have your student write everything he wants to write on a topic in about 15 or 20 minutes- except the student must start each sentence on a new line, or better yet, double space the sentences, so each sentence is separated from the previous one by a blank line.   At the end of the alloted time, actually cut apart the sentences.  Now have the student rearrange the sentences so that like things go together- all the sentences about this topic or time period go together.  I sometimes told my children to think of the different ideas or topics as different types of fruit and they were sorting all the apples together, all the bananas together, etc.    Then try rewriting it by taping the sentence strips to another piece of paper, but in a better order.  If you run out of time, you can put the sentence strips in an envelope and do the reorganizing and taping a day or two later. 

Please do not overdo this.  I suspect if you try this two or three times over half a school year, your scholar will start to think about organizing his ideas before he writes, and he will have some notion of how to do this.   If you want to take it further, a few days after the cutting apart and rearranging, the student can make a freshly written copy, making improvements as they occur.  It's also a useful method for teaching students the concept of first drafts and rough drafts and that most writers (all good writers) rewrite.

    Other helps Miss Dyke suggests: '...some kind of introduction should be made heading up the theme itself; then the different facts are marshalled in order, a clear sequence of thought and a suitable proportion between the different parts of the essay being observed, and lastly a conclusion is drawn- e.g., the leading thought of the essay is given. The essay should if possible begin and end with an effective sentence. Use Bacon's essays for examples."
You can do this as your reading other things, too.  Keep your eyes open for good, striking opening and closing sentences, and occasionally comment on them when you see them.  Ask your student to watch for them, too.  You could make them a theme for copywork selections for a while, or commonplace books if your student has graduated to those.

 She also says, "Another valuable exercise is to read a speech from the newspaper, or to take any other suitable extract from literature- e.g. a complete and short episode from any classic, or one of Bacon's or Lamb's essays- and ask the children to extract the plan, writing down the chief points in the form of headings. They will very quickly learn to discriminate between a good and a bad speech, distinguishing one that is logical and forcible from another which, thought calculated to appeal to the uneducated will not prove to be sound logic if analysed."

With older students, this was sometimes what I requested for a narration- to write down the main points of a few of the paragraphs.

 She says to tell beginning students to use short sentences and to make their beginnings as varied as possible.

 Looking at a page of work from any good author and comparing the ways the sentences begin will show 'in what varied ways it is possible to start a sentence and the children will quickly notice how pleasing variety is to the ear."

 Paragraphs can be taught by using the 'headings' the children have used with outlines and writing plans. Show them that everything that they say that falls under one heading belongs in one paragraph, and when they start the next heading, everything they have to say should flow from that.

 Punctuation is best taught by 'careful observation when reading,' and the dictation lessons also give practice in this.

 Note that this implies the necessity of the students doing their own reading from actual pages which show punctuation. Too much reliance on audiobooks can cause problems in spelling and punctuation. Sometimes it cannot be helped, but it's important to be aware that Mason's method is based on seeing thousands of printed pages of proper punctuation demonstrated, so if you need audiobooks, you will also need a more direct approach to teaching punctuation.

Words fitly spoken:  Next she suggests teaching children the value of using the right words. "clearness is to be sought after before all things." One exercise to help develop clearness is, again,  to take a well written essay and require your student to write a one sentence summary of a paragraph.

Teach them the value of using the best word for the occasion. Once in a while have your student or class come up with a list of synonyms, then use them in the same sentence to see that words with similar meanings cannot necessarily be used precisely the same way.

 Teach them not to use long words unless they are the right words. Unless you are trying for comedy, 'The mayor was proceeding to his residence on his bicycle when he was precipitated from his machine, and sustained a fractured leg' is not better than 'while riding home, the Mayor fell from his bicycle and broke his leg.'

These helps for composition teaching should be used sparingly- don't throw all of them at a student at one time.  Focus on one of these tools for a few weeks, keeping the lessons to 30 minutes, give or take a couple minutes (but not much stretching beyond that).  It's better to have three 20 minutes lessons than one hour long session.  Spread them out, sometimes pointing things out naturally as they arise- copywork and dictation are opportunities to point out punctuation, dictation is helpful for paragraphs.  When you are struck by a particularly rich sentence, it's okay to say so.  Keep your own commonplace book and let your student see you sometimes stopping to write something down because you are so impressed by the power of the writing.  A little goes a long way, especially when spread over time, with regular, focused times of attention to the topic.

 Miss Dyke has other things to say.  "Blank Verse" she says, 'used to be included in the Programme as an occasional exercise for Class III and IV" she says the result is most unsatisfactory to both teacher and children if they have any literary feeling at all and she hopes it's completely removed from the programme because a children with any poetic talent will versify without encouragement, and for the rest- perhaps the amount of bad poetry (if it can be dignified by that name) produced nowadays should be a sufficient deterrent from encouraging everyone to think he is a poet. At any rate, I do not think  the time spent on this exercise is justified by the results, and I should reserve the writing of poetry until the power to write prose was greater."  I laughed aloud, although in the subsequent discussion it seems the consensus of her audience was disagreement, they liked blank verse assignments and wanted to continue them.

Nobody, however, seems to have accused her of being divisive, of not measuring up to Miss Mason's standards, of failing at CM.  They simply disagreed.


Footnotes:
H. H. Dyke, Ambleside Conference 1911, speaking on composition, narration and letterwriting L'Umile Pianta : For the Children's Sake. 1911, June. p. 1-76.

In the September, 1912 issue of L'umile Pianta, a letter from Helen Dyke is published. She writes of the Christian mission where she is working in India, in the town of Barisal, 200 miles from Calcutta.

She writes again in the May, 1914 issue, where she was then working with a new mission in Joharpar,  India, which she says is reached only by boat, because rice fields surround the place.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



 $5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  
   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.


 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

   $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

 Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

 Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00
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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Choosing Your Own Artists for Picture Study

Following somebody else's selections for artists for picture study fashioned after Charlotte Mason has the advantage of saving you leg work, not limiting your children to the artists you know and /or like, and of saving you the fatigue of choosing.  But sometimes we like to make our own selections for various reasons, and that's fine, too.

 I liked to choose an artist, if at all possible, by first looking at the artists who worked during the time period you were studying for history. You may prefer another basis-artists from a particular country or culture, artists who used a particular style, artists whose work will be on display at a museum you will be visiting later in the year. Of course, their work should be good, something worth seeing on its own merits.  

  Once you have a list of artists to choose from, apply these principles to the artworks and narrow your selection to about six works by a single artist.  You could do 7 or 9, or you could do 3-5, but six is a good number.  You do not want six works by six different artists just because all six artists are from the country you like.  This is because the purpose of picture study, among other things, is to expose the children to several works by the same artist so they become familiar with the style of a single artist.  They will later start to notice similarities and differences with other artists- this is the beginning of later art appreciation.  Six works by six different Ukrainian or Filipino artists can be a beautiful basis for choosing the prints to hang on your living room wall, but it's not a suitable collection for picture study.

 In selecting our pictures, we should keep these things in mind (these are either direct quotes or paraphrases of Charlotte Mason's works):

 1. The pictures should have a refining, elevating influence.

 2. They should express great ideas, and this is more important than the technique.

 3. The great ideas our art prints express might include "the great human relationships, relationships of love and service, of authority and obedience, of reverence and pity and neighbourly kindness; relationships to kin and friend and neighbour, to 'cause' and country and kind, to the past and the present."

 4. Our art prints ought to put "our children in touch with the great thoughts by which the world has been educated in the past, and to keep . . . them in the right attitude towards the great ideas of the present" -- And bring us into the "world of beauty created for us by those whose Beauty Sense enables them not only to see and take joy in all the Beauty there is, but whose souls become so filled with the Beauty they gather through eye and ear that they produce for us new forms of Beauty."

 Do our choices expose the children to those works of art which seek to "interpret to us some of the meanings of life?"
" . . . Fra Angelico will tell us of the beauty of holiness, that Giotto will confide his interpretation of the meaning of life, that Millet will tell us of the simplicity and dignity that belong to labour on the soil, that Rembrandt will show us the sweetness of humanity in many a commonplace countenance.
I can suggest a couple Japanese artists you might start with- just look for them at your library, and perhaps the library will have something else in the same area:
Hirochoge
Hiroshi 
Amazon has a History of Far Eastern Art by Sherman Lee that looks interesting. So does another History of Asian Art book by Dorinda Neave and Lara C.W. Blanchard


The artist -- " Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art ," -- has indispensable lessons to give us . . . the outward and visible sign is of less moment than the inward and spiritual grace." Technique, no matter how brilliant, is not a substitute for expression of beauty, or one of those 'meanings of life' interpretations.

 Let us choose pictures using this as a guideline: "Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful, that is to say, which does not minister to the body when well under the command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy state." -- CM quoting William Morris

 The works of art we choose should represent 'master ideas,' which the painter "works out, not in a single piece, but here a little and there a little, in a series of studies." The artist is "a teacher, who is to have a refining, elevating effect upon our coarser nature."

 Our prints can also be chosen to help the children develop a love for the commonplace beauty of every day things -- "For it is true as Browning told us, -- For, don't you mark, we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see . . . . we learn to see things when we see them painted."

 Our art prints should help our children develop an affinity for, an attraction to, the beautiful, the lovely, the pure, the refining -- because "education is concerned to teach him what pictures to delight in."

 Use these principles to choose your other artists, always keeping in mind you want to have your children use picture study time to look at several works by the same artist over a period of several weeks. 

Additional information, references, and suggestions:

 Most of the time people interested in pursuing their own artists for picture study are looking for diversity, multiculturalism, or representation since their family is multicultural.
I'm sure you will not be surprised to know that I have some suggestions.  However, while I have lived in two different Asian countries for a total of seven years, I have worked with a number of Asians from a third country for two years, and have a deep and crazy love for Asian culture and people, it's really not that easy for westerners with more academic interest than an actual real, long time, deep connection with a culture to choose the best it has to offer. Look for people steeped in the culture you are interested in for guidance.  My suggestions are just a starting place.

 Do you have an art museum nearby? Spend a day visiting their African and Eastern exhibits,taking notes, absorbing styles and colours, and then look in the museum gift shop to see what they have by way of post cards and reference books you could use. If possible, you might ask if you can meet with the curator and ask for recommendations. 

 Artists to consider: Hokusai  (note: he did magnificent nature paintings, and also erotic art, so you might not want to look him up, or any artist, with the kids over your shoulder)Hiroshige
Hiroshi

 Remember what I said about needing a cultural connection with the culture for best results? I learned about Hokusai when I was in my twenties and we lived in Japan.  I could have and should have learned about him here in the U.S., because he is not obscure and unknown in the west , but if I was ever exposed to his works before we lived in Japan, and it's almost impossible that I wouldn't have,  I simply did not notice.  Incidentally, if you are using AO and reading George Washington's World, he is mentioned there.

 History of Asian Art looks interesting.

 Van Loon's The Arts has some eastern artists and information on architecture in eastern countries (no modern examples, of course, since it's an older book)

 The Smithsonian says their Sackler gallery is the largest collection of Asian art in the U.S. https://www.freersackler.si.edu/

 China: A History in Art by Bradley Smith and Wan-go Weng.

 The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art (it's expensive, but maybe your library would carry it)

 YOu can also put any artist you choose (including artists from AO's picture study line-up) into the search bar here: medievalpoc.tumblr.com to see if they have any works depicting non-Caucasians.

 Many youngsters might like Ezra Tucker's work, especially the historical paintings of buffalo soldiers: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ezra_Tucker
http://ezratucker.com/

 I am fond of Young Man with a Bow by Hyacinthe Rigaud: http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/image/173996616b058I also like the modern works of Kadir Nelson. 
You can see his work here: http://www.kadirnelson.com/gallery
We can't use them in AO's picture study because they are not public domain, but you could use them using the posted screen pictures.

I also like the work of the Dillons (he's from Trinidad)- mostly book illustrators but I really love their illustrations. 
They have a very charming interview here: http://www.locusmag.com/2000/Issues/04/Dillons.html
Some examples of their work here: http://linesandcolors.com/2009/05/13/leo-and-diane-dillon/

 Fernando Amorsolo is a Filipino artist whose work I admire (what I like and know is not THE standard, but I can't share what I don't know that's why I encourage people to ask around and visit museums and talk to curators and see what your libraries have)

  Miguel Pou Becerra is a Puerto Rican artist a Puerto Rican AO mom shared on our fb group.

 Henry Ossawa Tanner is an AFrican American artist worth considering.

 Kahinde Wiley painted former President Obama's picture and Amy Sharrald painted the first Lady's. Both are contemporary black artists, so we can't use them for official picture study as the works are not public domain.  Kahinde is known for painting sperm into his works, so be forewarned. 

 You might consider textile arts, such as the Story Cloths of the Hmong refugees.  Dia's Story Cloth is a picture book introduction.

 I have chosen and shared several South American painters from the 17th century here.

 For more on Charlotte Mason's philosophy when it comes to picture study and art, you should go to the source.  In other words,  please see Charlotte Mason's own books, in particular these sections:

Vol 1 pg 308-311
Vol 2, page 262
Vol 3 pg 77, page 209, page 239, page 353ff
Vol. 4, pages 2-3, page 42, page 44, 48-49
Vol 5 pg 231-236
Vol. 5 p 312-315
Vol. 6, pages 213-217
Vol. 6, page 275
Vol. 6 328-329
Picture Talk, Parents Review, Vol 17, 1906
Picture Talk, Parents Review, Vol. 12, 1901
Impressions of Conference Work with Class II (scroll down for two paragraphs about a specific picture talk given) A similar explanation and example is offered here.
Art and Literature in the Parents' Union School (the art/picture study section is midway down the page

 For more helps, see: https://www.amblesideonline.org/ArtSch.shtml

  Remember, too, that you don't have to squeeze in everything that is worthwhile in the 12 years of formal schooling most of us have.  By introducing your children to these topics graciously, slowly, joyfully, giving them time to savour and contemplate, you are also opening the door to the world of art to them.   They will go on later and find other artists you never heard of that they enjoy. One of the richest blessings I have received as a retired homeschool mom is when my teens and adult children introduce me to an artist or composer they have discovered.  Don't panic about not being able to fit in every artist worth learning about.  Education is for life.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*



 $5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  
   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.


 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

   $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

 Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00
Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00
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Saturday, March 23, 2019

Learning as we please... (Not always a joy)


Mason says education requires effort, sometimes strenuous labour, and it is not a casual and desultory matter. 

 Desultory: No set plan. Haphazard. Random.  Jumping from one thing to another. Disconnected.  Lacking purpose or effort.

 If we hold that light and easy view of education, she warns, our children are likely to turn out like the character of Edward Waverly, protagonist of Sir Walter Scott’s novels about Waverly:
“Edward Waverley, we are told, 'was permitted in a great measure to learn as he pleased, when he pleased, and what he pleased.' That he did please to learn and that his powers of apprehension were uncommonly quick, would appear to justify this sort of education. But wavering he was allowed to grow up, and 'Waverley' he remained; instability and ineffectiveness marked his course. The manner of his education and its results are thus shortly set forth:––
"Edward would throw himself with spirit upon any classical author of which his preceptor proposed the perusal, make himself master of the style so far as to understand the story, and, if that pleased or interested him, he finished the volume. But It was in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, of gaining the art of controlling, directing, and concentrating the powers of his mind for earnest investigation––an art far more essential than even that intimate acquaintance with classical learning which is the primary object of study."
Waverley but illustrates, what Mr. Ruskin says in plain words; that our youth––whatever we make of it––abides with us to the end…
So it behoves us in youth to apply both Strenuous Effort and Reverence.– strenuous attention is a precondition for being receptive to making the most of the connections and forming the affinities and relationships that we are made for.  We don’t magically know what we ought to know. To be producers, makers, rather than spectators and mere dilettantes  we must apply ourselves and “must learn the rules with all diligence and get skill by his labour. It is true, 'the labour we delight in physics pain,' but it is also true that we cannot catch hold of any one of the affinities that are in waiting for us without strenuous effort and without reverence.”
 The student who would grow and learn, even for things he or she loves (the things we love especially deserve this) must apply “attention, labour, love, and reverence. He gets joy in return, so is perhaps little conscious of effort; but the effort is made all the same.”


It's okay if your child has to work at lessons.  Strenuous effort is the starting place, and the rewards don't really come without it.

For understanding reverence, she recommends reading about Brother Lawrence

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 $5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  
   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.


 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

   $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

 Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

 Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00
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Monday, March 18, 2019

Reading Slowly

slow meditaion
It seems counter-intuitive to stop a book or a lesson while the child is still enjoying it, but there are reasons.  Here's one, gleaned from a story by Ina Hervey:
“The hour devoted to this exercise flew by so rapidly, that the children could scarcely realize that it was time to go home, and coaxed to stay longer ; but their teacher was too wise to exhaust their enthusiasm by granting their request. Even their recess was partially occupied by lively discussions on the relative beauty of their discoveries.”
We don’t want to ‘exhaust their enthusiasm.’  We want them coming again to the next lesson with their appetites and interest still seasoned by the sauce of curiosity.  Don’t glut their appetite for learning more.

 It's hard to put a book down when a student is  loving it. It's hard for most of us, as parents, to even begin to think of that as a  sensible procedure.  But it really, really does make a difference when children have time  to reflect on small portions of what they have read in their schoolbooks.

In fact, I  would go so far as to say that they get even MORE out of it when they  _are_ loving the book and have to put it aside. They are so eager  to know what comes next that they can't _help_ but think about that  story all day and night until they get to read more. They are  wondering, wondering "what happens next?" What if... will this  happen, or will that? They are reviewing events in their minds up  to the point where you left off and trying all sorts of ways to  think about the story to figure out what happens next and why, and  wherefore, and what the possibilities are.  They will think of things they would have overlooked in reading  through it too quickly.

Even if they are giving great narrations,  there is more to the process we want to see than just retelling the story. It's also  important for learning that the children are sometimes reliving the  story, making sense of cause and effect, pondering the ramifications  of this or that event, thinking about what sort of people the  different characters are- and they really do this in greater depth  when they are enjoying the story and have to close the book.

That space between when you forced them to put the book down and when they are at last allowed to pick it up again- that space is an important space where deeper learning is taking place.

IN my own life I learned the benefits of this slower, more measured reading in a rather silly  way. I am a book glutton. I swallow books whole. Before I met CM  it was my policy not to pick up a book I couldn't finish in a single  sitting. I read fast,  neglect my house while I read,  and stay up too late reading, so this means I could read a book of  up to four hundred pages in an evening- but I couldn't do more than  that.

Another vice of mine is mysteries. I love mysteries, and I always  read them cover to cover. After reading Charlotte Mason I began  working on myself and  my bad habits (I have a long way to go) and I  learned to put a book down before I was finished.

I was amazed to discover that when I did this with mysteries, when I  came back to the book, I was figuring out 'who done it' with far  more regularity than when I read the book cover to cover. Without  even consciously thinking about it, I had given my brain the time it  needed to process what I had read, absorb details I overlooked, and reach accurate conclusions.

This is what we want for our children, and that is why (eventually) I did not let  mine read ahead in their schoolbooks- I did let them read pretty much  as much as they wanted and as fast as they wanted in other books, and  they had access to thousands of titles to choose from- but they really were not supposed to read ahead in their schoolbooks.  I discovered, once I implemented it, that this works, and it works really well.

I didn't begin this way.   Before we fully implemented Charlotte Mason principles, if I was reading a schoolbook to the children and it was time to stop, and they begged for more, I would keep reading. It was fine by me if we ripped through an entire book in a day instead of spreading it out over a few weeks.
Before I actually tried this, stopping while a child was still interested was anathema to me – I thought it a terrible, ridiculous thing to do, and it went against all my assumptions.
But like so many of Miss Mason’s ideas, when I actually tried putting it into practice, the results made me a believer. In fact, I even got extra ‘narrations’ as my children would come up to me sometimes during lunch or while we were at the park and suddenly say, “I just can’t believe that he’s dead!” and I, startled, would say, “who?” and then they proceed to tell me their concerns about where some story is going and what is going to happen and their indignation at the behaviour of some character.
They soaked in details while they were away from the book- they marinated their brains in the whys, hows, and what happens next.  One of them would come up to me for several days between readings to tell me, "Mama I've been thinking about why the King did what he did, and what's going to happen next, and I think... " and she would share some remarkable reasoning, pulling together tiny details to draw conclusions, often correctly, and always with more insight than she'd had when I let her gallop through her books. 
You’ve heard of the slow food movement, right? (Right?) Lindsay Waters wants to start another new movement of her own, a slow reading movement. Of course, Charlotte Mason got there earlier, and Charlotte herself was only explaining ground that had been covered by philosophers before her. She didn't just make it up brand new.   If you've read and enjoyed Charlotte Mason's writings, you will find much that strikes a resonant chord in the article linked above.
Here are a few excerpts from Mr. Waters’ essay, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he laments the trend toward valuing speed over careful, thoughtful reading: 
The Monty Python crew made fun of this imperative in its “All-England Summarize Proust Competition” for the best synopsis of Proust’s seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past in 15 seconds. The fun poked at attempts to speed-read the classics was as painful as Chaplin’s effort to survive industrialization. And it’s no joke: Imagine radiologists forced to read 13 mammograms per hour, without interrupting their reading to speak to the women whose scans they are analyzing. I know of at least one such case.
He says that what is done in the preschools and grade schools today will affect grad programs years from now (which should be obvious, but the obvious often isn’t). This has already happened in large degree, as we increasingly see college programs today dumbed down again to accommodate the products of the current high school programs, where reading and thinking is hardly valued at all. Much of this is, says Waters, “due to the willful embrace of methods for teaching reading that are inimical to reading in depth.”
It’s no wonder so many of us who are all grown up now and ought to know better are so quick to dismiss complex, rich, and meaty classics as ‘too hard:’
What happens when we have children speed up learning to read, skipping phonics and diagramming sentences? I believe it’s hard to read Milton if you have not learned to take pleasure in baroque sentence structures.
The problem with reading too quickly, says Waters, is that
“Unless one can digest the letters on the page fast enough, one cannot comprehend what one is reading. But once one learns how to read, there is a speed beyond which one stops reading in a truly effective way. I am convinced that most speed-reading is impaired reading, just like the sort you do when you have a fever or are tired or engaged in other tasks at the same time you are supposed to be reading. Unless you are very smart, speed-reading forces you to ignore all but one dimension of a literary work, the simplest information. What we lose is the enjoyment that made people turn to literature in the first place.”
But of course, what most of us want from reading is the single dimension, the simplest information- what happened, and who was involved. We read to find out ‘how it ends’ and we don’t much care how it happened along the way. We skip descriptive passages and quickly dash through or over any philosophizing.
When finding out ahead of time ‘how it ends’ spoils the book for you, then that’s a big clue that you would benefit from broadening your expectations from reading. We give lip service to the theory that learning is a life long process that doesn’t end when schooling ends, and indeed, we do continue to read (most of us, I assume). Unfortunately, we read more, but not deeper, not harder. Whatever our reading level was when we left school, that will be the same level most of us are reading at when we die. And when we largely stay at the same reading level for the rest of our lives as the one reached at 18, just how seriously do we believe that learning is a live long process? It doesn’t occur to us that we have an obligation to ourselves, our own minds, our children, and even our Creator, to continue to grow, and that a stagnant reading level (whatever it was, it doesn’t matter- stagnation is bad) is a sign that we haven’t attempted to continue to develop intellectually.
Behind the fads of the last 20 years, the shift in methods of teaching reading — at all levels — has rejected paying attention to everything literary in a piece of writing, from phonics to poetics, from sentence structures to all larger formal structures.
Charlotte Mason recommended slow reading over a period of time. She also recommended returning to the classics and rereading them:
Novels are our lesson books only so far as we give thoughtful, considerate reading to such novels as are also literature. The young person who reads three books a week from Mudie’s, or elsewhere, is not likely to find in any of them ‘example of life and instruction in manners.’ These things arrive to us after many readings of a book that is worth while; and the absurdity of saying, ‘I have read’ Jane Austen or the Waverley novels should be realised. We do not say ‘I have read’ Shakespeare, or even Browning or Tennyson; but to ‘have read’ any of the great novels is also a mark of ignorance.
Charlotte Mason’s Formation of Character, Vol 5 of her 6 volume series, pg 374. She read Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen over and over throughout her lifetime. This surprises a lot of people who understand that she recommended a single reading- and she did- for school purposes. She wanted students to develop their attention and focus so that they didn’t get lazy with reading their school books- so that they read carefully the first time, instead of speedily breezing through, sure that they could review whatever they missed.  So it isn't an either/or issue with Charlotte Mason's approach.  Slower readings for schoolbooks read the first time can be followed by faster, repeat reading.  
I am a bit saddened when I see parents pushing back on the slow reading, because I have learned how valuable it is.  As Lindsay Waters says:
…slowing down can produce a deeply profound quiet that can overwhelm your soul, and in that quiet you can lose yourself in thought for an immeasurable moment of time.
The issue is more than just savoring literary experience. I am suggesting that there is more than meets the eye in reading, literally. If we attend to the time of reading, we might notice that our relationship to a literary work changes over time. One consequence is that we begin to be charitable to “bad” readers, whether they are our students, our acquaintances, or our former selves. Most important, though, we learn to drop the idea that we can neatly distinguish good from bad reading because we realize that, at some time in the past, we were not up to reading a particular work. Or perhaps we see that while we missed a great deal, we did respond strongly to parts of the work. It begins to make sense, then, to track our career with a certain work, in order to open it up as literature.
 It's not just for the children.  This year, why not try to read something just a little harder than you’ve allowed yourself to read beofre? Take your time. Read slowly, carefully, and steadily. If the books you read are no harder or more complicated than when you are 18 (unless you are 18), then it’s about time.
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 $5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  
   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.


 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

   $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

 Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00
Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00
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