Dare I Charlotte?

My daughter is nine years old and my son is six.

Homeschooling started out being ‘the pleasantest thing’ but no sooner were higher grades reached and those important disciplines of reading and writing begun to take form, than I found myself gradually and involuntarily making a Kafka like metamorphosis from ‘Sweet Mom enjoying School’ to ‘Monster with the make-a-prodigy-mode’.  I found myself reverting to the terrible institutional methods I had been subjected to and trying to always contain the growing panic that I was not doing it right.  Don’t get me wrong, we still had many good days…but the not-so-good-days were also increasing in frequency.

I happened to meet another homeschooling mother who casually introduced me to the name of Charlotte Mason.  She gave me Karen Andreola’s Charlotte Mason Companion and I was quite amazed.  How could it be so simple?

Charlotte Mason intrigued me.  Single and quite revolutionary for her Victorian time period, she seemed to stretch beyond curriculum and state requirement, and instead, present an open Liberal Arts education to children from any status. Intrigued as I was, I still found myself fastened to the dictates of my cold and demanding curriculum, thereby steadily increasing my children’s lack of interest to school and heightening my own desperation.  I had tried already three curricula, different math programs, various language arts programs and I was teetering on the brink of becoming the words I did not want to hear of myself, a failure!  I could sense the concern in my husband when he would hear my voice reach the higher decibels and take on the ‘Sargent tone’ (for school, that is.  The Sargent voice is a good one to have on hand for little truants!!)  I began to get frustrated.  Math began to stretch for over two hours.  Charlotte calls this ‘dawdling’.  The call to school became the call to trial for both teacher and student.  I was distraught.  I was looking at these beautiful prints of happy children and mother scenarios in Karen Andreola’s book and secretly resenting them because it seemed to taunt my reality.

I discovered Ambleside Online, and here I must express my immense thanks to this website – what a blessing it has been to this absolute novice!  Directing me to living books and providing me with a loosely structured curriculum to follow. With my husband’s encouragement, and I know he has been quietly praying for me behind the scenes, I began to beseech God to change me and show me where I was going wrong.

I also got some information and reading material from Sonya Shafer, which was very helpful,  and began researching Charlotte Mason for myself.  I decided to do a search on Catherine Levison (whose book Sonya Shafer, highly recommended).  Catherine is a leading Charlotte Mason pioneer in the US.  I found her website with lots of food for thought and saw that there was also a podcast/ online interview available to hear.

One day while doing the dishes and extremely tired, I decided to lug my laptop  into the kitchen and listen to something that I hoped would inspire me.  Instead, something of a conversion took place!  It was as though her words helped me see the light!  Everything I heard made so much sense!  I felt like this is what I had been waiting for!  And I felt, listening to Catherine, empowered to take it on.  I realized my curriculum dithering’s, my panic to purchase expensive and unused books and programs, and my drive to produce the most literate students – all this was eroding the good of my husband’s and my intentions to raise our children in a godly atmosphere of learning.  I also saw that Charlotte Mason’s philosophy could be adapted into any culture and time frame.  Her goal in education was not just that the child be a good engineer, doctor, or IT professional (as is the goal of most schools today). No, beyond the vocation, it was the opening of the beautiful gates of knowledge, to incite a love for learning, that blessed curiosity of why, how and when – that makes the expert, the expert, that makes the believer sure of his faith, be it in the Law of Gravity or the existence of God! Of course the vocation would  follow – but it was not the goal.   Could it be possible that I and my children could reform our methods of learning and teaching and actually begin to enjoy this process?

I bought Catherine Levison’s book, read it, had the audacity to write and ask her a few questions.  I was pleasantly shocked when she replied and infused me with hope!  Since then I have completed reading her More Charlotte Mason Education, which has only reinforced my belief in Charlotte’s methods and strengthened my resolve to abandon the norms and plunge head first into the truth I have found.

In India, (I speak of my own experience and of those I have encountered.)  I do believe that there might be some exceptional institutions and teachers, but for the most part it is textbooks, facts, rote memorization, verbatim answers to set questions, tests, more tests and a tremendous pressure to score a high grade.  You may or may not understand the subject matter – just make sure the answer on the paper is right and that your percentage is high.  This is so opposed to Charlotte Mason’s style – love of learning, connecting with knowledge, living books, narration, the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit and the presentation of ideas.

I recently invested in Charlotte Mason’s Original Home Schooling Series.  As I immerse myself further into these new waters, I wish to hold myself accountable to her instructions and monitor my progress and gauge the difference I fully intend to see.  So my posts will mostly refer to her teaching and concepts with my response to what I am reading and learning.

I am sure that there must be other mothers out there, occasionally chiding themselves for back to school thoughts and nursing private frustrations and doubts.  I also know there are wonderful role models who have walked the path in triumph and have left us examples to emulate.  I welcome both to travel with me and my brave, enduring children as I undertake to take this fork in the road with, yes, some trepidation, but mostly with anticipation and hope.

Dare I Charlotte? Absolutely!

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog – I welcome comments, suggestions and advice, and even disagreements!    What I may express here mirrors my individual thoughts and conclusions with no disrespect to anyone else’s.