Been pre-reading throughout the Christmas holidays. I’m now 2 weeks ahead of my eldest. Quite an achievement. I can officially start the year in confidence as we start lessons again next week. haha.
On a serious note – I am amazed at how Charlotte Mason’s method naturally played out in our history subjects. I did not see her grand vision at first. I just tried and faithfully applied her principles a year at a time, and here I am in my 6th and last year for the 1st history cycle of my eldest. (Some do 3 or 4 cycles, we chose to follow only 2 cycles of history. All my 4 children follow different time periods and since I have 4 kids that means I will go through history 8 times total! Confused? Will try and explain on a different post.)
What an educational experience we’ve had given the different streams of history that all connected naturally: Bible, Philippine, World, Church, Architecture, Science. It was not instant nor tidy as a laid out lesson plan but every reading brought to life each story.
“Now the method I am advocating has this advantage; it multiplies time. Each school period is quadrupled in time and we find that we get through a surprising amount of history in a thorough way, in about the same time in most schools affords no more than a skeleton of English History only.” – Charlotte Mason
The method did multiple time.
The school periods did quadruple because of the different streams.
And it was quite thorough despite the vast amount of subjects included.
The 12 year old is approaching the 20th century in his world history readings. Our feast of living books since year/grade 1 slowly revealed the story of the world since the ancients, to dark ages, to renaissance, and now to modern days.
It was like watching a movie; all of us waiting on what would happen next. Which tyrant would rule? Would the revolution succeed? Would a dynasty finally be overthrown by the common people?
We saw pivotal events that changed everything. From the invention of Gutenberg Press to the discovery of Magellan Straight in South America to the death of the Gomburza priests. We learned that people in history — scientists, kings, slaves — were real and not just some story. All of them were once children, too. And that alone made a big impact on everyone in our tiny class.
There was no neat lesson plan nor workbooks connecting all the information. We just read history chronologically and narrated, all the connections and insights happened right in our minds and flowed out through conversations as we chewed and digested on each narrative.
To those using the CM method, I encourage you all to trust the method and trust the minds of your children. With a rich atmosphere, habits of discipline in place, and living books and conversations — learning becomes natural, and not forced.
With information so instant nowadays, a deep understanding of history will help the next generation sift through the noise of bite sized/wikipedia information. They will not only know, they will learn to care and see, or at least hope for, the bigger picture.
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**These are just some of the books we’ve used under History. The ones by Synge can be purchased here.