Our Overall Goals

A little over two more weeks and we are officially homeschoolers! It is exciting and scary all at the same time. I’m excited and feel beyond blessed that I have this opportunity to teach, disciple, and just be with my children every day.* I’m nervous because I have big ideas. I realize my big ideas are often altered. I mean, five other people, who have their own ideas, are along for this ride with me. Homeschooling our children will take much sacrifice, but my children are worth every sacrifice, every tear, and every struggle. For this journey, I’m keeping this in mind, “True joy is found somewhere between the ideal life and daily realities...I have come to realize, after much struggle, that I will spend the better part of my life adjusting my expectations to life’s limitations, rather than having my expectations fulfilled. Yet that is the first step on the road to true contentedness- learning to accept those limitations as a normal part of life.” Sally Clarkson, Season’s of a Mother’s Heart

As I began to plan this year, (because I’m a major planner), my first step was to determine what my goals are for my children. These are not goals for this year, but goals for the whole duration of our homeschooling life.

After some thought, Nate and I agreed on the following:

• To have faith and love for Jesus Christ, by God’s grace

• To have an understanding of God’s Word and a biblical worldview

• To know how to read and communicate with the written word

• To have an understanding of math to function easily in life – basic math concepts for recipes, budgeting, building, etc. and to understand the importance of living debt free

• To have an exposure to a variety of cultures and socioeconomic levels and to be able to communicate effectively with those of different worldviews and backgrounds

• To know the appropriate life skills to function independently as an adult

These are the basics and very general. The plans in between are to give our children a “feast of ideas” to feed upon.

Over the next week or so, I hope to journal our plans for the upcoming year. Over the next year or several years, I hope to record our journey. The purpose for this blog is simply for recording our homeschooling journey. This blog is not a how-to-homeschool or you-should-do-it-this-way blog. In my very short time of researching and considering homeschooling, I know first hand that each family is very different. We should all figure out what works best for our families and our children. We should not try to imitate others or fit their plans, schedules, and curriculums into our own lives.

For the sweet family member(s) who actually want to follow this journey, (Nana Beth), my updates may be sporadic. I mean, I know you’re dying to know what’s going on over here, but hey, somebody’s got to take care of these little people!

*In all honesty, I am very grateful to be able to spend every day with my children and would not choose to have it any other way. However, just know that I don’t always enjoy it. Actually, there are a lot of days I struggle to enjoy the constant demands of having four children five and under. I felt I should put that note in, because I didn’t want my excitement of spending every day with my children to sound phony to those who truly know my struggles.

Why Charlotte Mason? An Introduction

I am really not sure where or how I was introduced to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. Gradually over the last year or two, I have tried to familiarize myself with all I could about this approach to home education. I knew I didn’t want to buy a curriculum and just bring school into the home. I wanted the education we would provide for our children to be different. I wanted them to truly experience and truly learn the information put before them. I wanted them to be excited about their education and not just go through the motions.

To me, this is what is so intriguing about Ms. Mason’s approach to education. She truly knew children. She understood their development, their needs, and how they could most effectively learn. And when you get into the particulars of what the PNEU schools provided for children, you will see how simple and beautiful a Charlotte Mason education can be. (PNEU is Parent's National Education Union. These were schools started to use Ms. Mason's philosophy of education.)

Ms. Mason believed in not dumbing-down information for children. She said away with the twaddle and in with a feast of ideas for the children. Give the children beautiful environments and good literature and they will know how to form relationships with all that is presented before them. She insisted the teacher not get in the way with lectures and talks, but to allow the child to experience the information and make their own relationship with all they are learning.

After my research, I found this approach to education to be the most gentle. While I’m sure it will be rigorous at times as we move into higher years, the gentle approach to learning for these early years we are in is the most appealing. Ms. Mason believed in letting the children alone for the first six years of life. The main objectives are to create good habits and get the children outdoors to experience God’s creation. She even suggested six hours a day of outdoor time a day!

With all of my children being in these early years, what do we desire for our day to look like? We have basically sided with Ms. Mason and said away with the lessons! While we do try to incorporate some learning from life and what God places before our eyes, we do not have the typical school schedule. This, by the way, goes very much against my personality and desires. However, as I incorporate more of Ms. Mason’s ideas, I truly see growth and the innate curiosity my children have for all the things around them.

My eldest has recently turned five and we are attempting to implement what most schools would call the “extras.” We would be in what Ambleside Online would call Year 0. So, we spend time outdoors, trying to do some form of nature study during the week. Recently, I have implemented some handicrafts and an introduction to artist study. We work on habits and we read really good books. (Even though this goes against Ms. Mason’s suggestions, "Away with books, and 'reading to'--for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child's vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets." (Vol 5, p 216))

I hope over the coming weeks to expound a bit more on each of the things we are making a conscious effort to do this year. Until then, I leave you with a quote and a link to an old blog post of mine that sums up the early years greatly...

A mother's chief responsibility for the first six years is to secure for her children "Quiet growing time--and free growing time--the freedom of real play (not lessons that look like play) and of ordering one's own life.”

(Visit here to learn more about a CM education.)

The Making of a Charlotte Mason Education

Everything about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education gives me amazing visions of our future. I see classically trained children full of knowledge of good books, amazing music, beautiful art, and good habits. I envision attentive children amazed by God’s creation and eager to learn more about the beauty He has given us. When I read Miss Mason’s original writings, next to the Bible, it is one of the only sets of writings to, without fail, make me want to be a better person.

 And then reality hits me... usually about the time I get to “tea time.” That’s where life in the rural south gets in the way for me. My cultural background doesn’t leave much room for fancy, daily teas.  Honestly, the only thing I think about tea is "sweet" and "cold". There have been moments when the Victorian fashion of Miss Mason’s philosophy of education has made me want to throw in the towel. But I always come back to this...

 “...we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education (which may, at the same time, be reached by a little child) is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection.” (Vol 3 p 95)

To me, this is the pinnacle of a Charlotte Mason Education. The core is that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life... and doesn’t the very reliance on the Supreme Educator in all things cover each of these three?

So, this is my journey of how I will make it work. I will make it work with a love for bluegrass and barbeque. I will make it work with a husband that ‘seng hunts (ginseng), cut baccer (tobacco) when he was young, and "ain't gonna" change. His favorite apparel is cowboy boots and Carhartts. I will make it work...

We’ll spend our summers fishing on the lake and catching crawdads. We’ll drink cold, sweet iced tea. And we’ll also get a feast of good ideas. When we’re not listening to bluegrass, we will listen to Mozart. The Impressionists will continue to be rotated and placed on the kitchen table. We will refuse worksheets, busy work, and long lessons. We will learn through life and living books. And in all we do we will seek to glorify the One who makes it all possible.

Hope you will come along on this journey with us.