This is from a journal entry from the late autumn of 2009, so our youngest godson was almost 3, his older brother was around 6, and our youngest two children were 13 and 11 (our son). I am not naming names for their privacy.
The boys came to stay this past weekend, and the young boy came again today for a few hours while his mother had a doctor appointment and his brother was in school.
While here, our fourth girl and our sixth girl read to the youngest little guy. Our son played with him (blocks and cars). Daughter #6 also played with him, fetched him snacks and almost anything else he asked for, changed his diaper, and helped him with lunch. She basically acted as his personal Jeeves because she thinks he's adorable. The farmer came to harvest the corn in the field next to us, and he got to go outside and ride in the Combine with our son (who he sees as a very, very awesome person). He was a wee bit concerned that the combine would eat him, but he bravely agreed to climb in with That Boy, and that ride probably lasted at least half an hour.
Then he came inside again, tired, a little bit dusty, and ready to relax. He sat in my lap for a bit while we listened to music on my laptop using my headphones- he liked that. We listened to the Seegers, and Peggy Seeger singing Too-da-la was such a favorite he asked for it to be repeated about ten times. He wanted me to sing along, too, so I did. Another favorite was The Squirrel:
The squirrel is a pretty thing
he carries a pretty tail.
He steals all the farmer's corn
And husks it on the rail.
The hawk is a scheming bird.
He schemes all over the sky.
He schemes into my chicken house
and makes my roost-hens fly.
Then his mother came to get him. Our youngest daughter (#6 again), put on his shoes, helped him his coat, and kissed him good-bye. His mama told him to tell everybody thank-you.
"Buh-bye, Auntie," he said to me. "Tattoo for singing songs with me." And he scampered out the door, leaving me behind smirking at the indignant and very much short-changed Daughter #6.
Who am I? Christian, Mom of 7, grandma to 14, 'retired' homeschool mom after 29 years, AmblesideOnline Advisory member. I've camped on the Al-Can highway, snorkeled in the China Sea. I blog about Charlotte Mason, books, travel, and more. Posts often include affiliate links. I promise not to waste your time.
Showing posts with label folksongs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folksongs. Show all posts
Monday, May 20, 2019
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
My Ideal Early Learning Program
At times I have been asked by some parents to consider hosting a kinder or preschool in my home. I couldn't fit that in with what I was doing. but mainly,what those asking wanted was a formal program with a focus on academics. And that's not what I could, in good conscience, do.
I have written a lot on the importance of free play (and outside play, especially) for little kids, and less formal learning of things that don’t matter to them yet- writing ABC, how to hold a pencil, and so on.
Don't misunderstand- I do think early childhood learning is important. But the early childhood learning that matters most is the right kind of play. During these early years, they are building an important framework for later conceptual understanding. The kid who understands the scientific concept of erosion best at 10 is the kid who at four was building sand castles and watching the waves knock them down, who was making holes in the yard while playing with the hose, who was digging out streams and making dams on stream banks and again with the hose in the backyard, or who at least has poured some coke over his bowl of ice-cream and watched the ice-cream mound collapse.
The kid who has the deepest conceptual understanding of geography later is the kid who from 1-6 was outside in the mud creating mini-geographical worlds- lakes, islands, inlets, peninsulas, streams, rivers, seas- who was digging out cities and villages in the sandbox or the driveway. The kid with the strongest working concepts of pulleys and levers and friction is the kid who spent his preschool years not doing worksheets, but instead was actually discovering friction by pushing wheeled and nonwheeled toys on sidewalks, grassy yards, gravel drives, carpet, tile floors, who learned about levers by playing on see-saws and using sticks to pry rocks out of the dirt and flip them over to look for bugs, who figured out how to lift objects (or siblings) by tossing one end of a rope over a tree branch and attaching the other to the object (or tying it around the sibling's waist) and so on.
The child who has had to experience a bit of boredom, come up with his own ideas, collect the material for those ideas, and do something is a child ahead of the game when it comes to later school projects, organization, and executive function.
The child who has spontaneously decided to move bricks, stones, sticks and buckets of water has a better conceptual understanding of energy, work, load, and gravity later.
Free play, messy play, play with real things and materials in the real world results in a wider, deeper understanding of how the world works.
The kid who has the deepest conceptual understanding of geography later is the kid who from 1-6 was outside in the mud creating mini-geographical worlds- lakes, islands, inlets, peninsulas, streams, rivers, seas- who was digging out cities and villages in the sandbox or the driveway. The kid with the strongest working concepts of pulleys and levers and friction is the kid who spent his preschool years not doing worksheets, but instead was actually discovering friction by pushing wheeled and nonwheeled toys on sidewalks, grassy yards, gravel drives, carpet, tile floors, who learned about levers by playing on see-saws and using sticks to pry rocks out of the dirt and flip them over to look for bugs, who figured out how to lift objects (or siblings) by tossing one end of a rope over a tree branch and attaching the other to the object (or tying it around the sibling's waist) and so on.
The child who has had to experience a bit of boredom, come up with his own ideas, collect the material for those ideas, and do something is a child ahead of the game when it comes to later school projects, organization, and executive function.
The child who has spontaneously decided to move bricks, stones, sticks and buckets of water has a better conceptual understanding of energy, work, load, and gravity later.
Free play, messy play, play with real things and materials in the real world results in a wider, deeper understanding of how the world works.
There is research supporting this, and I have posted some links below, as well as real life experiences. I talked to a science teacher here in the Philippines whose students used to come from homes with no or little electricity, whose play involved a lot of sticks, stones, mud, water, games with their slippers as tokens, cans and bottles, puddles and trees. When they came to school they quickly grasped the science concepts she taught because these terms and concepts only gave formal names to real world forces and functions that the children already know and understood first hand.
She said now her students spend their days playing educational games on screens, watching educational television, doing worksheets. These kids come to school and they can parrot facts, but they have no idea how to apply them, it's just data they can recite but these facts don’t really mean anything to them at all except as a sort of pen and paper guessing game. When she tries to walk them through the application of ideas in the real world, they are at a loss. They don't spot problems that the previous students could easily foresee because the puzzles, building, and science 'application' they have done has been on screen, and not in the real world where it rains on your project, your hands slip on the rope pulley you built, the mud you made had too much sand and not enough clay for good mud pies, the mixture you concocted in the kitchen had salt instead of sugar, or you didn't calculate the force of the water coming out of the spigot when you tried to add a bit of water to your already nearly full bucket. It's like the difference between bowling on the Wi, and bowling at the bowling alley with an 9 lb ball in your hands.
She said now her students spend their days playing educational games on screens, watching educational television, doing worksheets. These kids come to school and they can parrot facts, but they have no idea how to apply them, it's just data they can recite but these facts don’t really mean anything to them at all except as a sort of pen and paper guessing game. When she tries to walk them through the application of ideas in the real world, they are at a loss. They don't spot problems that the previous students could easily foresee because the puzzles, building, and science 'application' they have done has been on screen, and not in the real world where it rains on your project, your hands slip on the rope pulley you built, the mud you made had too much sand and not enough clay for good mud pies, the mixture you concocted in the kitchen had salt instead of sugar, or you didn't calculate the force of the water coming out of the spigot when you tried to add a bit of water to your already nearly full bucket. It's like the difference between bowling on the Wi, and bowling at the bowling alley with an 9 lb ball in your hands.
Researchers in England found that on average school children are reaching Piaget’s stages of cognitive development 3 years later than kids of 30 years ago were, and their guess is it is the lack of free play and the freedom to muck about and make messes and get dirty and have free time and empty space in their days for thinking, dreaming, wondering, and processing their experiences.
I feel very strongly about the need for more outdoor, real play and how much more important this is than screens and school at home. It is more than a bit of a hobby horse of mine, and it really frustrates me and breaks my heart for the kids who are being given stones for bread. This kind of free play, including the risks of bumps, scrapes, bruises, falls and scraped knees, is their birthright. It can’t be replaced.
If you don’t learn the alphabet at 2, if you don't read Laura Ingalls Wilder at 4, if you don't write words at 5, it won’t make a lick of difference if you learn those things and read until six or eight. You will have lost nothing. If you don’t get plenty of free time making messes, getting dirty, experimenting with the real world, singing the songs of childhood, listening to oral stories (this builds the child’s ability to picture things in his mind based on words, which is vitally important for real progress in understanding reading later), etc, before 6, you’ve lost a lot of the important opportunities to build that foundation. And that's the problem with early academics- not that academics are wrong, but they are not the foundation. They are the doors and windows- important, but they have to be set in the right order. You don't put up the door before you have a floor and foundation.
If you don’t learn the alphabet at 2, if you don't read Laura Ingalls Wilder at 4, if you don't write words at 5, it won’t make a lick of difference if you learn those things and read until six or eight. You will have lost nothing. If you don’t get plenty of free time making messes, getting dirty, experimenting with the real world, singing the songs of childhood, listening to oral stories (this builds the child’s ability to picture things in his mind based on words, which is vitally important for real progress in understanding reading later), etc, before 6, you’ve lost a lot of the important opportunities to build that foundation. And that's the problem with early academics- not that academics are wrong, but they are not the foundation. They are the doors and windows- important, but they have to be set in the right order. You don't put up the door before you have a floor and foundation.
We’re trying to build walls and put in the carpeting without taking the time to build the foundation, floors, and framework. We’re all about instant food for the mind, pellets of factoids that kids just recite without knowing what they are talking about, instead of nourishing food for the brain, which requires slow steeping, marinating, simmering, time to digest, and more.
My ideal preschool/kindergarten would include:
LOTS of free play outside and the freedom to become absolutely covered in dirt and mud from head to toe. Running, jumping, climbing, rolling, skipping, kicking, hopping, crawling, swimming, splashing, marching, and falling down, which is an important part of life.
Time spent being bored and coming up with their own ideas.
LOTS of oral story telling- Bible stories, basic folk tales, fairy tales, and fables. Stories of when Mom and Dad or Grandparents were little. This is not the same as listening to audio books. This is interactive, personal, and the story-teller knows when to add details and when to speed up to the end, when to elaborate on the colours of the dress and the size of the beans and when to elaborate on the sharp edge of the sword and the gleam of armour.
Mother Goose- The Mother Goose rhymes are the first introduction to word families, to rhythm and metre and play with words and making up your own poems based on others.
Singing- hymns and folk songs. Pop songs not so much. Singing- not listening, not watching, but singing. You can sit down for five or ten minutes a day when everybody is tired or grouchy and sing.You can also sing while working, playing, washing dishes, digging holes, driving places. I have a playlist here if you need ideas.
Traditional games- most of my kids learned to count playing hide ‘n seek. Tag, hide the thimble, hopscotch, throwing things at targets (this one apparently is connected to developing good executive function), hopping, skipping, Mother May I and Simon Says type games. Throwing balls and beanbags. Playing catch.
Trips to the grocery store, the park, the pond, church, the department store, to the courthouse to pay taxes to the bank to make deposits, to the DMV to renew a license and to the library, talking about where you’re going, what the people who work there do and why, and how to behave in public. Although I know that Americans are reveling in the joy of grocery delivery and curbside pick up, once in a while go ahead and take the kids to the grocery store. Let them help to fill the bags of fruits and vegetables, count apples, have fun finding red things, yellow things, looking for the letter c, weighing the carrots, comparing the weight of an eggplant and a winter squash of the same size. Updated to add: Maybe do not do this in a pandemic.
A few chores- mine mostly also learned colours two ways- helping with laundry folding, and being bribed with gummy bears when they were toilet training. Having a pet is a wonderful way to combine responsibility with nature study and compassion lessons in real life. Other chores the under 5 can do: Set the table, clear the table,wipe chairs, lightswitches, cupboard doors, water plants (give them a small creamer or measuring cup that holds just the amount of water you want in a plant and have them water that plant with that much water once a week), dry cups. They can learn to peel carrots, put lunch meat, cheese and lettuce and tomato slices on sandwiches. They can throw things away for you, and help carry out small bags of trash or compost. They can fold washcloths and dishtowels. They can dance and sing to entertain a baby while you take a few moments to make tea or run to the bathroom.
Self-care- the value of tidiness, having a clean face, teeth brushing, hair brushing, clean nails, healthy eating, regular rest.
Some basic habit building- the most important being respect for parental authority, putting things away, and make all the messes you want but you have to help clean it up afterward. Respect for property- yours and others. Consideration- don’t make other people’s lives more difficult and unpleasant than they need to be.
A few free style art projects- painting, playdough, helping to knead bread dough and make it into shapes, finger paint, maybe weaving, corking, lap looms, stringing beads. Not so much time on kits.
Collecting things like rocks, seashells, stones, acorns, pine-cones, leaves- sorting them (the best kind of early science)
A few favourite classic picture books, but far more oral story telling
Daily Bible stories- I have some suggestions for stories for oral tellings here, and it includes Bible stories.
Traditional preschool topics- counting, shapes, colours should be learned naturally in your home as you go along- square sandwiches, round carrot slices, red socks, blue socks, six raisins on a celery peanut butter log, triangle slices of cheese, star shaped cookies or decorations for a Christmas tree, playing with parquetry blocks. Give them some regular playing cards to sort and match, first by colour, later by shape, then by number. As you play with blocks of different shapes and colours these things should come up in natural conversations.
Toys: Open-ended, blocks, dolls, dishes, balls, a few smallish toy animals, a yard or two of fabric, a bath towel or two. Bath towels make great flying carpets and super hero capes. I have had some fabric yardage in our dress up box for over 20 years and it has been the favourite of two generations of children now. Look for novelty fabrics and fancy silks after October 31 when they will be on sale. Look for sparkle, shimmer, and shine.
Plenty of hugs and kisses and snuggles.
To schedule these: Look at the rhythm of your day as it works more than a schedule. Figure out what they can help you do at breakfast and assign those chores. Think about telling stories while you fold or hang up the laundry+ Look at your house and where you live and do what you can do in the circumstances you are in. Apartment dwellers in city high rises will have different limitations and opportunities than a family living in a farmhouse ten miles from the nearest neighbours.
Fit things in around natural breaks in the day- getting up, eating, cleaning up after a meal, getting ready for bed. If you have to go outside with the children, and maybe take a train, bus, or car trip to make that happen, how and when can you make that work for you?
What is your best plan for a simple portable lunch? Boiled eggs, kimbap, sandwiches, triangle rice (onigiri), fruit, crackers and hummus, or well-wrapped steamed potatoes and a thermos of hot chocolate or tea? Can you make a double helping of supper some night, or use a crockpot or rice cooker so that you already have supper taken care of before you leave the house in the morning for the beach or river? Or maybe mornings work best for getting outside for you. In that case, plan an easy breakfast that you could eat on the way or take outside. Leftovers from supper are fine.
When is a good part of the day to get the kids busy with drawing, painting, working with dough (whether it's bread dough, play dough, home-made dough, beeswax, weaving, cutting, pasting---- a time they are most often bored and fractious? You could head off the fractious by pulling out the art materials at around that time each day.
Learn a folk song and a hymn yourself, if you don't already know some. Start the day by singing a hymn. Wake them up to a hymn. Sing to yourself as you work and drive and they will join in.
What is one job you really *have* to get done each day no matter what? Plan to sit down and read a book together when you've finished that task.
These are suggestions, not how you might arrange your day, but there is not one right and true best way to do this- your house, your life, your personalities, your priorities will be different from somebody else's. What matters is that you give your children the gift of free time, free space, outdoor play, story, song, poetry, and lots and lots of love.
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Excerpt:
There is a widely held belief in this country (and many others) that if we start teaching children to read, write, and spell in preschool and kindergarten that they will be ahead of the game (and their peers) by first grade. We think that pushing our kids to start early will make them better and give them the edge.
But it doesn’t work that way, in fact it can be detrimental.
Here’s why…
Children’s neurological pathways for reading, writing, and spelling are not formed yet at these young ages, therefore they are not equipped. In child development you can not miss, shortcut, or rush steps, it just doesn’t work.
Between 3 and 7 years old, predominantly the right side of the brain is developing. The right side of the brain is not where word reading takes place. The right side sees pictures and shapes and uses mental imagery to create the movie in their mind to understand the story. The left side of the brain is where we read words, it is responsible for decoding words into letters and phonetically sounding them out. This is true word reading. It is not until about age 7 that the corpus callosum fully connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain to make reading complete for kids.”
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I've created the following items for sale. When creating these things, my constant thought was 'What might readers like to know or think about? What will help our Charlotte Mason parents and families? What will give them something to think about, something to love, something to grow on?' I hope you can tell.
$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
Monday, November 19, 2018
Why Folksongs: Mechanics and Morals
While I was looking up one of those songbook s Miss Mason used (mentioned in a previous post) I stumbled across an article published in 1918 by a Mrs. Alston, about children and poetry. You might be wondering what folksongs and poetry have to do with each other- unless you are already pretty familiar with folk music, and then you'll know. Those of you who don't know, keep reading.=)
Mrs. Alston was British, but seems to have lived much of her adult life at least in South Africa, where she cared for her family and wrote articles and books. I don’t, btw, agree with everything she had to say , and her attitude was generally thoroughly colonial and a product of her time. But I do like what she has to say about folksongs.
She wrote that we must have poetry and of the cultivation of the poetic spirit if we are to save our children 'from the asphyxia of materialism.' She also said that poetry teaches us to give things their true values, for the poetic spirit has learned to 'consider the lilies of the field.' So how do we get our children in touch with poetry? Well, she then goes on to say that poetry and song are impossible to separate. Of course, in our day, I think the separation has definitely been tried, but none of us are the better for that.
She places folk songs very early in the chain of development toward a mature appreciation for and understanding of poetry. It’s the most reasonable thing in the world, she says, right after Mother Goose, to introduce the child to singing. But not just any songs, she explains:
“do not let us weaken him by giving him milk and water when he requires strong meat. It is ridiculous to see, as I have done, boys of ten at a dancing-class doing a teddy-bear dance or skipping, and many of the songs one finds in children's song-books are merely silly. I myself found my children took no pleasure in singing until, thanks to Mr. Cecil Sharp and Mr. Baring-Gould, I introduced them to a book of old English folk songs. The result was illuminating. Those songs immediately struck some responsive ancestral chord, and singing became a delight instead of a mere lesson; and now folk songs resound from morning till night.
That book by Sharp and Baring-Gould is one of the books used in Mason's schools. They published English Folksongs for Schools in 1906. This is yet another illustration of the value of the real thing over the inane and silly little things written specifically and *just* for children. Give them something they can sing as children and still happily sing as adults without sounding silly.
I find it instructive that she says her own children took no pleasure in singing, and yet, her response was not to just give up, but to find another approach.
The easy intervals, the narrow compass, the rhythm of words and music, but, above all, the thin thread of a story, the action, which characterizes most of these songs, breaking out now and then spasmodically into sheer rhythmic nonsense — a ' kicking up of the heels' — appeals to the elementary mind, as well as to the more cultivated.
Here we have a few of the reasons why folksongs, specifically, are important, especially in the early stages when children are learning to sing.
Easy Intervals: intervals are the spaces or distances between notes or pitch- basically, how far you have to stretch, or in some cases, leap, when going from one note to the next. Folksongs develop out of every day life and are sung by the common people over time. Over time, if there are harder leaps, they get smoothed out, brought closer together. They don't usually require vocal gymnastics (unlike, for instance, America's national anthem).
Narrow Compass: similar to interval, this is also about range. Whereas the interval is about the space or distance between two notes, the compass is about the general range of notes covered in the whole song. The vast majority of folk songs won't have you singing too high or too low. Some performers may pitch them outside your comfortable range, but singing with your family at home, you can begin where you are comfortable and you probably will not find yourself squeaking or croaking because a note is too high or too low.
Rhythm: You can find a lot of technical information about the rhythm and meter of folksongs, but I'm just going to say here that folksongs tend to be easily learned and easy to repeat. The technical term I'll use is 'catchy.'
But most of all, that thin thread of a storyline- One of my grand-daughters noticed this when she was quite young. When she was four she asked me to sing her a song and read her a book. Grandpa and I were visiting and getting ready to leave and drive home, so there wasn't time- and that might just be why she asked for both. At any rate, I told her I could only do one, and asked her which she would prefer. "Well," she thought through it aloud, "Some songs are also stories, so sing a song that is a story." I went with Billy Barlow and she was quite pleased.
A surprising number of folksongs are stories, or have that thin thread of something like a story, with real things to think about and imagine and pretend- even the murder ballads, IMO. But we don't have to go there. There are plenty of folksongs to choose from if the subject matter of one bothers you. There are bawdy, crass folk songs that I didn't do with my children. There are topics or lyrics to some songs that may not be your choice for your children. However, in making your selections, remember that there is value to children seeing examples of good and evil in literature, poetry, and song, and those examples are actually not more powerful if the moral is shouted at them. Mason said that learning about human beings and their doings was part of the study we call 'citizenship.' We can't really learn about humans and their doings without facing the issue of good and evil.
In volume VI she says:
"Many earnest-minded teachers will sympathise with one of their number who said,––
"Why give children the tale of Circe, in which there is such an offensive display of greediness, why not bring them up exclusively on heroic tales which offer them something to live up to? Time is short. Why not use it all in giving examples of good life and instruction in good manners?"
Again,––
"Why should they read any part of Childe Harold, and so become familiar with a poet whose works do not make for edification?"
Now Plutarch is like the Bible in this, that he does not label the actions of his people as good or bad but leaves the conscience and judgment of his readers to make that classification. What to avoid and how to avoid it, is knowledge as important to the citizen whether of the City of God or of his own immediate city, as to know what is good and how to perform the same. Children recognise with incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be told, but the human story with its evil and its good never flags in interest. Jacob does not pall upon us though he was the elect of God. We recognise the justice of his own verdict on himself, "few and evil have been the days of my life." We recognise the finer integrity of the foreign kings and rulers that he is brought in contact with, just as in the New Testament the Roman Centurion is in every case a finer person than the religious Jew. Perhaps we are so made that the heroic which is all heroic, the good which is all virtuous, palls upon us, whereas we preach little sermons to ourselves on the text of the failings and weaknesses of those great ones with whom we become acquainted in our reading. Children like ourselves must see life whole if they are to profit. "
It is not necessary to label every action in fiction, song, poetry, and history as good or evil. It is actually more helpful to the children if those things are not so-labeled as they will do the work of thinking about it and figuring it out for themselves. It *is* compatible with Mason's philosophy to ask children a few Socratic questions for the purposes of moral teaching. You do want to guard against turning this into a long, boring oral test or almost a grilling. A very little goes a long way here.
To return specifically to the characteristics and qualities typical to most folksongs, the rhythm, range and so on are some of the reasons why children need to be singing folksongs in addition to hymns. Hymns are wonderful, of course, and necessary for Christian children. But it's hard to find hymns so easily suited to children's voices, with those shorter intervals and narrow vocal range. Folksongs have something else, too:
There is an unaccountable fascination in the rhythmic repetition of such nonsense as: Hi diddle unkum tarum tantum Through the town of Ramsey, Hi diddle unkum over the lea, Hi diddle unkum feedle! Whipsee diddle dee dandy dee. (youtube version, this is a fun one! Or perhaps you have seen/heard the Pinky and the Brain version?)
The number folk songs also make a special appeal, such as: This old man he played one, He played knick knack on my drum, each verse ending with this delightful nonsense: Knick, knack, paddy whack, give a dog a bone, This old man came rolling home….
Now I do not know what, if any, knowledge of Charlotte Mason Mrs. Alton may have had, but I find it interesting that if you look through Mason's books, especially volume 1, and her programmes, you see a similar progression in her approach to music with children: singing to the child, practice listening, playing, singing games, folk music and so on.
Folksongs are early introductions to poetry, to rhyme, to metre- much like Mother Goose. These seemingly silly refrains give children the freedom to play with sounds, to practice their listening and pronunciation skills, and all kinds of things we could file under a high falutin' category name, but honestly, can we just not have fun with them?
Just sing. Sing some more. Keep on singing. The more you sing, the easier it becomes.
Pick one. Sing it one or two times a day for a week. Sing it first with the youtube video or CD or whatever. Then sing louder. Drown out the electronic aid, and then turn it off. Then keep on singing.
And don’t give up. Don't quit because your kids said they didn't like folk songs. Don't quit because the songs don't make sense to you. Don't quit because you don't like them. Don't quit because you have boys, after all. Don't quit because you don't know them.
Don't quit. You can try different songs, different genres, different cultures- but do not quit.
Children really take to this music in most cases, given time and exposure. (And I must stress again that not liking folksongs is not inherently a male trait. That is a cultural assumption born of ignorance of the long history of folksongs, and it's failing our kids.)
Our oldest, shortly after her 21st birthday went to nanny some children for a family friend who was expecting quads and was on bedrest. She already had five or six children, including a set of twins, and all but one of the children were boys, ten and under. Our girl stayed there until shortly after the quads were born and at one point the mother had to be moved to the hospital, so my 21 year old was in complete charge of all six of the children. She wrote us often, as you can imagine, asking advice, sharing what had worked and what had not- and one of the most successful parts of her stay was singing a few folk and nursery songs to and then with the kids. Gypsy Rover was a favourite with all of the boys, largely because of the chorus (ha dee do ha dee do dah day...) She returned to help the family out a couple of years later when another child was born- and the first thing the children asked her to do was sing Gypsy Rover with her. They bonded over the easily memorized, catchy tune and phrasing of folk songs.
Sing on. Then sing some more.
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For sale, proceeds support my family's work. When creating these things, my constant thought was 'What might readers like to know or think about? What will help our Charlotte Mason parents and families? What will give them something to think about, something to love, something to grow on?' I hope you can tell.
$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
Saturday, November 17, 2018
How to go about singing folksongs
"When I was pregnant with my 2nd child I remember talking to some friends about singing their children to sleep (they were pregnant the same time I was) and they looked at me like I was crazy. They said they would never sing their kids to sleep because they would scare their children with the way their voices sound. That opened my eyes. To me, the sound of mommy is the most comforting soothing sound a baby can hear, I never thought someone would be so insecure with their own voice that they would rob their child of those bonding moments of pure peacefulness just hearing mommy singing to them, A child doesn't know if you are in tune or not. Just that you are there for them and that brings them overwhelming comfort.
From an interview with songstress Candice Night, lead singer for Blackstone's Night, who do a lot of renaissance style music. Full disclosure: this was her motivation to write some children's songs and release them on CD, so people could play these at night and in the morning for their children.
2. But I can't sing!
You should still sing: If you cannot sing, if you cannot carry a tune, if your voice sounds to you like rusty nails being pulled from a board, I would encourage you to sing to your children anyway, because she is right, children love to hear their beloved parents sing to them, and they don't know if their parents are in tune or not- Provided Mama or Daddy is singing to them from the beginning. My own husband cannot carry a tune and has a distinctly unmelodious voice, but his children do not know this, even though all of the girls have lovely, lilting voices and sing like angels. He has sung the lullaby Tura-Lura-Lura to them since they were small, and even though some of them are on the other side of 30 now, they all still think it is the most amazing performance in the world.
If you still feel you or your children need help, or even if you don't, make use of the youtube channel Children of the Open Air. It's free. She has 19 videos up as of today. It's a great way to learn to sing using the sol-fa method and the hand signals.
3. But I don't know what to sing! Choose some folk songs: Don't overthink this. Just pick some, and then sing them. You can use youtube videos, your library, AO has a recommended folk song list to make it easier on those who don’t know where to start.- On the website in the left sidebar click on folk songs and there’s list of suggested resources and recommended songs. Every term a few volunteers will put together a playlist of them and share their playlists. Just choose. Choose from your culture and/or geographical region first if you can. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right? So quit dithering, and just grab one.
However, there are some things to keep in mind with youtube or any recording. The goal is for your family to sing the songs, it’s not about watching and listening, it’s about *singing.* When I used youtube videos to learn a song, I didn’t even always have my kids watch the video- they sat on the other side of the laptop and listened (and sang along). I printed out lyrics and we sang along as best we could. We only used the youtube video until we could start singing by ourselves with some reasonable approximation of accuracy. Honestly, we always sounded terrible the first day. My oldest girl often suggested we should record ourselves singing a new folksong or hymn on the first day and then record it again after we'd sung it through every day for two or three weeks just to show people how much one can improve just through daily singing. I wish we had, but I promise you, you will improve if you sing the same song every day for a couple of weeks. It might even only take three days.
3. 'But it's so hard to find words that match the youtube video, so what do I do?' Doesn't matter. Just sing what you have.
According to advice given to teachers using folksongs in 1905, "Folksongs are fluid- words vary by region, by date.... Tunes, words, and ritual, however, have many variations, and rarely are collections made, even in adjacent districts, that are altogether alike. For it is the great characteristic of the folk-song—as distinguished from the art song—that it is ever in a state of flux. It is never quite fixed." Don’t get hung up over having the right words, all the same exact lyrics- you’re only following the videos (or an audio recording, until you can sing it, so it doesn’t matter if your version and the audio version have a different number of verses or different lyrics. Relax, let the songs speak for themselves, and just sing (are you noticing a pattern here?).
4. How often? Daily. To sing them, you really need to try and do this daily. It only takes a few minutes, and it’s a great interlude, a great wake up exercise, a great way to transition from one subject to another, possibly clearing the cobwebs in your brain through music. There are other benefits as well, which I'll touch on in a later post.
According to the 1905 Schoolboard recommendation in Britain: "Good results can only be expected if a short time is given to singing each day, and a few minutes daily will be far more fruitful than one or two half hours each week. With from ten to fifteen minutes each day the highest results are obtained in many schools and this should be the minimum time given if the subject is considered to be worth serious attention."
In short, folksongs are for doing, not just listening- singing is a lost art. Let's bring it back.
Friday, November 16, 2018
What if I just Don't Like Folksongs?
I grew up in a family which mostly sang hymns together, but there were probably a dozen folksongs that were also part of our regular family repertoire (Cabin in the woods, Mountain Dew, Rockabye Baby,Tom Dooley and a few others). But I really started singing folksongs when I had children of my own. I picked up some cassettes of folksongs for a road trip I was making by myself with my 3 year old and baby, and I was hooked. We sang probably hundreds just because I liked them. They were easy to sing, easy to memorize, fun to play around with and make up lyrics that went along with what we were doing. Hymns are great, but it does sometimes feel irreverent to play around with them and turn the tunes into songs about things like daddy passing gas in the car on a road-trip, er, hypothetically speaking. And later, I discovered Charlotte Mason and realized they are a valid part of education as well.
But what if you just don't like them? I have an answer.
In volume 2, page 17, Miss Mason explains that when we consult our tastes rather than our children's needs, we are making unlawful use of our authority. So that is one point to consider. Is mere taste preference a valid reason to omit something from the curriculum? What if the thing you don't care for is something that has been part of human culture and tradition as long as there have been humans? I do not know of a culture that has no songs, no mouth music mothers croon to children or used to help people keep time while working, or to pass down stories. There are cultures that never developed an alphabet, a written language, but I don't know of cultures with no music of the people, and I do not mean pop songs. Perhaps we should humbly consider whether it is appropriate to dismiss the music of our own and other cultures, the songs that have sustained, nourished, entertained, encouraged, and delighted human beings for centuries, because they don't match our personal taste preferences. More on this later.
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What if your kids don't like folksongs? The short answer is to do them anyway.
The long answer: I come to you not from a place of resounding success where all my children love folk music. Four of them do, and they have passed that love on to their children. One of them loves them folk music a little less, perhaps, but she and her grandma travel afar to attend Celtic Thunder concerts and their offshoots. I had a total fail with one of mine, and I am convinced the way I failed most was in giving up. I would encourage you not to give up, but rather, keep looking and find some form of folk music, some performer, some song, some approach that will hook your child's interest.
Children have always liked folk music, but they have also, children being that most frustrating of creatures, born human persons, sometimes not liked the folk music their parents like best. I was amused by the advice I stumbled across in a book published in 1870, titled Music and Morals and authored by one H. R. Haweis. He answers this question, saying:
“ ...music, apart from the manipulation of sweet sounds, may be educationally useful in a variety of ways. That is why I say teach all children music." "Whether they like it or not?" "Yes, whether they like or not--first, because children don't always know what they do like; and secondly, because they don't know what is good for them."
"But if the child does not like music?" "Children are differently endowed, but there are very few in whom some taste for music cannot be cultivated--even children with hardly any musical ear can improve and even acquire the rudiments of one--but eliminate the joy of the art, the discipline of the art still remains in the early stages of childhood's culture as a valuable aid and assistance to education."
Children haven't had the time or experience to know for sure what they really, truly like in many areas. I am not sure that our own adult preferences are always as informed as they should be. The children don't even know what's available. We sell them short when we give up too soon, or let them do so. They are full persons, but they are full persons without experience. They are new. If you were to be dropped off in a foreign country, would you expect to try some national dish and make up your mind about it on the spot? Or would you maturely realize that even national dishes have multiple variations, styles, ingredients, and preparation methods, so just because you didn't like one form, it doesn't mean you won't appreciate it more if you try it a few different times, a few different ways- not great, choking mouthfuls, but small bites here and there, over time? You have something your children do not- experience. If not the wide experience necessary to make an informed judgment about folksongs, you at least have the adult experience to know that tastes change with time, maturity, and wider experience. Use that knowledge for their good and encourage them not to judge too hastily.
While Miss Mason does not offer a lot of specific instruction about folksongs in her six volumes, she does offer many principles that apply to folksongs as well as other subject areas in school and for life as well.
In volume 1, speaking of children and music, Mason says:
The Habit of Music.––As for a musical training, it would be hard to say how much that passes for inherited musical taste and ability is the result of the constant hearing and producing of musical sounds, the habit of music, that the child of musical people grows up with. Mr. Hullah maintained that the art of singing is entirely a trained habit––that every child may be, and should be, trained to sing. Of course, transmitted habit must be taken into account."
While she also speaks of the importance of training and careful teaching of the various musical skills, we begin with the habit of music. Folksongs are one of the earliest forms of music in which children can participate- and this has been true for every human culture I know of. I know I rather harp on this point, but I really find it quite significant that I have yet to hear of a culture, a people, which has had no song at all. The earliest songs are generally a form of folksong. Give your children this very human art, a gift of music. Better than that, give them the habit of music. Habits are developed not all at once, not even on command, but gradually, incrementally, steadily, over time. Don't give up too soon.
She also says in the same volume that it is "the part of the mother or teacher in the early years (indeed, all through life) is to sow opportunities."
You sow opportunities by presenting them, not abandoning them. By all means, vary your approach, the style, the specific songs, linger a little longer than the children seem to prefer, but don't give up altogether.
In volume 4 she says: "The hearing ear comes, like good batting, with much practice..."
If you do not hit the ball or play the song on the first attempt, is that the time to quit? Will you get better that way? You improve by keeping on. And contrary to our current way of thinking, in most cases, so long as it is handled well, continuing to try will actually improve one's enjoyment rather than make one hate the thing.
Another passage in volume 4 is very thought-provoking, and it pinches a bit, at least for me. She is addressing a bad habit she calls depreciation. Today I think we would be more likely to call this being critical, a kind of carping cynicism, a dislike. You say you love the mountains, the depreciator says, "Well, yes, but... You say you use fairy tales, the depreciator says, 'but so violent.' You say you are reading Robinson Crusoe, the depreciator says, "a classic for sure, but so dry. " You say folksongs, the depreciator says, 'surely hymns are more worthwhile, folksongs are not beautiful and good, they are violent, old fashioned, old boring, out of date, twangy, for hicks, etc.
Mason points out:
"It is well to remember that Depreciation is Injustice. The depreciative remark may be true in the letter, but it is false in spirit, because it takes a part for the whole, a single defect for many excellences. Depreciation may be inspired by the monster Envy, who is perpetually going about to put stumbling-blocks in the way of justice, and belittle the claims of others; or it may arise from Thoughtlessness, which is but a form of Self-occupation. Many of the crude and unworthy criticisms we hear of books, pictures, speeches, a song, a party, arise from the latter cause. We would not allow ourselves to depreciate if we recollected that Appreciation is one part of the Justice we owe to the characters and the works of others."
Wow. There's a lot to sort out and think over there, isn't there? It applies to so many areas of our lives, too.
So you or your child reject folk-songs- why? Is your reason true in part, but dismissive of a bigger picture? Is a single defect being allowed to sum up an entire body of work? And what if that single defect is merely a matter of personal taste? Is a ten year old's personal taste really sufficient basis upon which to build an education?
I'm going to gloss over envy, because I don't really see how it would apply here.
But thoughtlessness, a form of self-occupation surely is pertinent.
If a rejection of folksongs altogether is essentially based on what you or your child dislike, is that dislike informed enough, based on solid principles more meaningful than personal taste, or is it based on a form of self-occupation? That's hitting hard, I know. After all, why can't we do what we like and skip what we don't like? Note that we are speaking here of education, of the place folk singing has in a Charlotte Mason school, not of private and personal hobbies and likes and dislikes. I do not think it is sound philosophy or practice to dismiss subjects for school because we don't like them.
After school you don't have to keep singing them, although with enough exposure you may surprise yourselves. Of course, it isn't wrong to have preferences, likes, dislikes. But I think that's leaning on the negative side. Instead of settling what we already do and do not like, I think it is a bigger blessing to our kids if we help them broaden the scope of things they appreciate.
"Appreciation is one part of the Justice we owe to the characters and the works of others."
Of course we all have preferences, tastes, opinions. But not all opinions are equally well developed, worthwhile. In volume 4, Mason also says:
"An Opinion worth having.––We may gather three rules, then, as to an opinion that is worth the having. We must have thought about the subject and know something about it, as a gardener does about the weather; it must be our own opinion, and not caught up as a parrot catches up its phrases; and lastly, it must be disinterested, that is, it must not be influenced by our inclination.
But, 'Why need we have opinions at all,' you are inclined to ask, 'if they mean such a lot of trouble?' Just because we are persons. Every person has many opinions, either his own, honestly thought out, or picked up from his pet newspaper, or from his favourite companion. The person who thinks out his opinions modestly and carefully is doing his duty as truly as if he helped to save a life. There is no more or less about duty; and it is a great part of our work in life to do our duty in our thoughts and form just opinions."
Who knew that even in the singing of folk songs, there is such an opportunity to build and develop character and justice?
Charlotte Mason, that's who.
To be continued....
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For sale, proceeds support my family's work. When creating these things, my constant thought was 'What might readers like to know or think about? What will help our Charlotte Mason parents and families? What will give them something to think about, something to love, something to grow on?' I hope you can tell.
$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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