Homeschooling the CM Filipino way is quite a challenge, but not impossible. We have started adopting CM methods in 2002 when my children have grown tired and somehow burnt out for doing school-at-home method. It snuffed out the life of learning from them even if they have just homeschooled officially for a year. I decided to gradually dump the school-at-home set up and slowly adapt CM ideas. One thing I have learned for sure, CM method is a delightful way to homeschool. If you believe that education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life... then, the Charlotte Mason way may be just the right thing for you and your family.
Who is Charlotte Mason?
In the late 1800s, an English educator named Charlotte Mason established schools for parents and governesses to equip and train them to educate their children at home. During her time, children were not looked upon as members of society. Charlotte Mason believed otherwise, she regarded children with high esteem and taught that they are capable of learning subjects way advanced for their age. You can read this in her 6-volume writings now reprinted as The Original Homeschooling Series. The books are also available online in original and modern version.
Ten points why CM should appeal to Filipino homeschool families.
Charlotte Mason optimizes to teach the whole child and not only the mind. It encourages a three-pronged learning in a right home environment (atmosphere), instilling and forming good habits (discipline), and feeding the mind with living thoughts and ideas (life), not dumbed down and dry facts. Many Filipino families aspire for these three aspects of learning for their children whether they be in a regular school or at home. Impossible as it may seem but Charlotte Mason ideas are easy to adapt and blend well with Filipino family values. But what about nature study? And living books? Well, let us tackle some of her ideas and bring it in our local setting.
1. The lessons are short. Lessons are focused time periods ranging from 10-15 minutes for younger children, 30 minutes for 12 year olds and up. All subjects are expected to be done by lunch time. If one or both parents are working, a time schedule can be arranged so that all subjects are taught by both parents throughout the day but at a relaxed pace. With short lessons, we found out that our children still have plenty of free time for playing outside or pursuing their personal interests, practice musical instruments or enjoy some arts and crafts in the afternoon or in between lessons. As children mature, the lessons get progressively longer. My daughter who is doing some high school lessons spend about an hour to study on several subjects. Applying short lessons help children focus their full attention with less dawdling. Long study periods drag the child to inattention or boredom. Learning becomes a tedious task and a drudgery.
2. You'll never get tired of living and whole books. Dumbed down books or "twaddle" have no room in a CM bookshelf. Twaddle books usually come as textbooks or popular comic/cartoon books like Sesame Street, Sponge Bob etc.. There is one character of popular comic book my son has not outgrown until now, Tintin, which I allow as his personal collection.
CM uses living or whole books. A living book is written by an author with passion and expertise. It has a depth and meaning which draws the reader into excitement as the characters come alive. The story is timeless; it touches your mind and heart. Whole books are unabridged versions of the classics or great stories. These are published works in its entirety. Anthologies are the opposite of which only snippets of works are published and a lot are discarded. Reading experience will open a new dimension for children when they are introduced to whole or living books.
Day Twenty Murshidabad, India
Day Twenty One Islam in Dearborn, Michigan
CM uses living or whole books. A living book is written by an author with passion and expertise. It has a depth and meaning which draws the reader into excitement as the characters come alive. The story is timeless; it touches your mind and heart. Whole books are unabridged versions of the classics or great stories. These are published works in its entirety. Anthologies are the opposite of which only snippets of works are published and a lot are discarded. Reading experience will open a new dimension for children when they are introduced to whole or living books.
Encourage children to read on a wide variety of topics and subjects like History, Geography, Science, Literature, Poetry, Missions, Biographies, Art, animal stories, and others. Older children who are more adept in narration may keep a notebook to record books they have read with sketches, book reviews and narrations. I encouraged my children to write and type their short reviews at goodreads.com where we keep our e-shelves. Our future plan is for each of them to keep their personal book reviews online or in a notebook.
3. Oral and written narration are essential. Narration is defined as the process of telling back what has been read, learned or experienced. This is usually done orally mostly by young children. But as they mature and writing skills develops, they may write down their narration also. Narration can also be expressed creatively through drawing, painting, lapbooking, notebooking, role-playing, mock radio, and other forms. Narration develops the child's analytical skills, communication skills, and creativity.
4. Exploring outdoors can be a fun-filled family time. Don't we all love picnics? Sadly nowadays, more families are spending their weekends in malls. Very few would prepare for an afternoon in the park. Hmm, I know what you have in mind... where have all the parks gone? A nature walk doesn't have to be a trip out of town or an expensive tour. I remember spending some afternoons with my older kids digging up under dried leaves piled up in our backyard to know what surprises were underneath. This activity may include nature walks, nature studies and keeping a nature notebook or journal. Encourage the children to play and explore outside everyday. Allow them to collect things, make a terrarium, keep lists of observations (bird list, star gazing list, weather patterns,etc). Make a compass handy for the children to use. Encourage them to construct bird feeders or bath. A weekly nature walk is also a great activity for children to experience, observe and appreciate the environment. For us, we go outside on Saturdays after their swimming lessons. A nature walk can be an afternoon with the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines or just walk around the neighborhood where most of the trees and grass grow. How about visiting the nearby butterfly farm or a friendly neighbor's front garden?
Provide each child a nature notebook or journal where she/he can draw her observations of plants, animals, and insects. She may write down prose or poetry related to it, description, notes and scientific names. Pressed leaves and flowers are also nice to keep between the pages. Encourage them to take photos using a handy camera. If affordable, invest on a good pair of binoculars and field guide for the children to look up and help identify their finds.
5. Learning language naturally is easier and fun than drills. Remember learning grammar memorizing the parts of speech, the verb forms, tenses and all? It made me tense as tenses. Learning grammar the CM way is far from that. It involves 3 things: narration, copywork and dictation. A parent teaching language the CM way doesn't have to be an English, Filipino, or language major to instill love for the language taught. This method of teaching is very appealing to parents. For a detailed description of this method, visit this site.
6. It is a great way to learn our history and culture through art and music study. Art appreciation or picture study is a focused study of an artist at a time. Choose five known paintings of a Filipino artist. Study one artwork per week (around 10-15 minutes a week). Let the children look at the picture intently for about five minutes. Have them take in details. Then, set the artwork aside and have each child narrate what they remember from the picture. Since our family do not have easy access to Philippine museums, we are studying classic art of foreign artists. We plan to have an intense study of Filipino art as soon as we get back home.
Music or composer study is focusing at one composer at a time. The family may also wish to start studying a particular genre at first instead of a composer. Part of our plan is to study kundiman and folk music blended with folk dances. We have been doing classical music for severals years now.
7. Keeping a Book of the Centuries is a novel idea families might find interesting. We haven't started this book yet but realized that we have to make our own soon. Although we have been keeping our timeline on the wall for easy reviewing, we are now planning to lay it out in a book form before we pack our things. Now, I see the practicality of keeping the Book instead of a wall timeline. A Book of the Centuries may contain 1-2 pages per century. It is a neat idea for each child to keep his own book where he might add facts, notes, clippings, postcards or items related to the events as he learns them.
8. Enjoy lots of free time since no time is wasted. CM method recommends short lessons in the morning that no time is wasted and a lot of free time can be used for productive and creative activities or leisure in the afternoon. My children are happy to start several collections during their free time. They are now avid collectors of stamps, postcards, stickers, rocks, shells... My daughter has showed interest on handmade cards and have done some really nice ones.
9. We love children to learn good habits. Charlotte Mason emphasized on inculcating good habits in children. According to Charlotte Mason, habits are like the ruts on a path from a wheelbarrow going down the same trail over and over. As time trudge on, it "becomes increasingly harder to run the wheelbarrow outside the rut, but the wheel will always run smoothly down the well-worn rut in the path." Training in good habits allow life to run smoothly at home or homeschool. Teach one habit at a time for 4-6 weeks. Let the child focus on it until it becomes a part of his daily life. It is easier than trying to implement a long list of do's and dont's which I am sure the child will find challenging to learn and remember all at once.
10. Bible Reading for life. It is just as simple as it is. Reading. No study aids, no commentaries, no note-taking. It is merely reading. Try not to explain the text. I am not saying we should not explain or learn biblical applications which is better done during family devotion or bible study. Bible reading is freely allowing the Holy Spirit to teach the child and parent as they read together. It should start with a prayer. Let the child narrate what was read from the text. This is done in a more organized way by keeping a daily reading plan for the whole year.
So, there you are, Charlotte Mason method in a nutshell with a bit of Pinoy taste. Have I convinced you or not? Don't tell me yet. Wait for my next post. I will tackle more ideas and lead you to links which will hopefully help you do Pinoy homeschooling, the CM way.
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Day Twenty Murshidabad, India
Day Twenty One Islam in Dearborn, Michigan
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