3 Charlotte Mason Methods
Charlotte Mason is a name that gets mentioned in various educational circles, especially in the homeschooling world. I’ve mentioned the name to various parents who have homeschooled their kids before and often times their eyes will light up because they know how valuable her philosophies and methods have been on educating children. As much as parents can feel how valuable her ideas are, there is often a very vague understanding of her methods and philosophy. I will write multiple articles about Charlotte Mason’s ideas, but for this article, I want to briefly lay out three very practical teaching methods that Charlotte Mason advocated for and which we will use at Tall Oaks.
Narration
The first method is called narration. This is a very basic method of teaching and learning, and the name of the method really says it all. At its very basic form, students will either read or be read something and then be asked to close their book and narrate back what they just read. This is not a word-for-word narration, but more of a recollection of everything that the student could remember. This practice serves two functions…
It is the opposite of “teaching to the test.” instead, it is teaching so that it is stored in their long term memory and so that it stays with them. When students are able to voice back what they just learned, it is an incredibly helpful formative way to know that they “got it.” It is amazing to see students who are familiar with this practice and to hear just how much they can relay back! It takes time to get used to this practice, but it has a lot of value in long term learning.
The second function of this practice is that it builds up a habit of focus. In order to be able to narrate something back, students catch on really fast that they have to focus very closely to be able to do that. When narration is routinely used in class, students naturally build up a habit of focus and attention when something is being read or presented to them.
Narration can sound like a dry and boring practice when you first think about it, but when you observe classrooms that is employing narration it’s amazing to see just how much fun students have with it! Sometimes a teacher may start with one student narrating back as much as they possibly could from what they just read, and then the teacher may ask the rest of the class if they could remember anything else that the original student didn’t mention. It becomes a whole class activity that is exceptionally engaging with hands shooting up constantly.
Habit Training
The second Charlotte Mason method I will discuss is habit training. Charlotte Mason went as far as to say, “The formation of habits is education and education is the formation of habits.” Parents and educators both need to ask ourselves whether we are trying to shape student behavior by bribery, which really doesn’t change the heart or habit, or are we trying to train students in habits. This is, of course, rhetorical, but training students in habits is not easy, it takes time, and it’s very easy to revert back to bribing students to get them to do what we want. The reason for this reversion is that many teachers continue to be overloaded with content to get through, and it can leave little time for habit training. Habit training, however, although it takes time and repetition, is something that produces life long changes in an individual.
One good example of habit training is the good habit of greeting people by name. We do this because there is a warmth and feeling of being cared for when someone uses your name. When I was in the classroom, I used to train students in this habit by beginning every day with a gathering of the class in one location and giving two minutes for students to get to as many other classmates as they could, shake their hand, look them in the eye, and say, “good morning, ________”. After repeating this long enough, my students began to greet each other by name as they came in to school and before we even got to the morning meeting. Some visitors would come in and tell me how lucky I was to have such polite kids, but what they didn’t see was all the practice and training that went into it. They hadn’t seen the journey, they only saw the product.
As a school, we are constantly assessing what habits are worth developing in children and whether we are actively training students in those habits. In this, we always have the ways of our Lord at the center. If we are actively developing habits that don’t necessarily reflect the nature of Christ, we toss it out and reassess.
Nature Walks and Study
The last method within a Charlotte Mason framework that I will discuss in this article is the concept of nature walks and study. G.K. Chesterton has observed that as we get older, we tend to lose our awe and wonder of the world around us, not because the world has lost its awe and wonder, but because we start to find glory in the wrong places. The issue is with us. The aim in nature walks with children is to unlock the awe and wonder of God’s creation and rightly point it back to Him. Everything in creation can be seen as a sermon by God, about God, and result in praise to Him.
Practically speaking, this practice is so simple and is fun for teacher and student alike! Before departing outdoors, students will get out their spiral notebooks they received at the beginning of the school year which is devoted to illustrations made during nature walks. Students then go out with the objective to collect something to return to the classroom, analyze, and draw. As they walk, they may be out searching for even 45 minutes before they find something. The teacher should encourage students not to miss the little things and look very closely, maybe even dig a little. Once each student has something, they return to the classroom and begin carefully drawing their specimen in their notebook. The specimen may be living or non-living. The extension to this is that whatever each student picked up can be researched by going to the library and reported back on to the rest of the class.
Once again, the end aim of all of this is to spark each child’s awe and wonder of the world God created around them. At Tall Oaks Academy, we will do at least one nature walk/study every other month, led by the Head of School. If your child comes home with worms in their pockets, feel free to thank Mr. Potts!
