Someone explain Kelly's logic, please

[aggythenostic]

As a college teacher, I'm increasingly frustrated with the attitude that 'public schooling' isn't that great, and kids aren't learning much, so why not dismantle it? [i'm not claiming perfection, mind you, but really?] But Kelly seems to go one step further with the attitude that if you're simply AROUND your children, they will magically learn the entire school system's resources!

When children have a good grasp of the way language “soundsâ€, simply from partaking in good, consistent conversation, the nuts and bolts of grammar come more easily and can be postponed until children have a better understanding of abstract concepts.

By the way, when I entered my first year teaching high school students, I was prepared to only review grammar and focus on literature. To my surprise, most of the class–about 85%, didn’t even have a basic grasp of grammatical structure and could not pick out the basic parts of speech. Which may have been OK if they could construct a good sentence, but alas, they could not. So don’t worry so much about “being behind the average school childâ€

Giving attention to our conversations lets us find ways to introduce new words and ideas in a very natural, but “sticky†way (meaning, it is more likely “to stickâ€). Look for conversation starters. Often, it comes from a child’s question, usually in abundance throughout the day.

It seems like she's super-tired and she doesn't feel like teaching anymore. So she - and all the Kelly Lites - have convinced themselves that there is no need for it. And is not being higher than an average Alabama school child something to shoot for?

http://www.generationcedar.com/main/201 ... l#comments

[emmiedahl]

hahahahahahahaha You called that logic?

[AmyP]

That is a Charlotte Mason concept.

I'm not necessarily defending it, but it is probably best interpreted in light of Charlotte Mason's overall educational theories.

[AmyP]

That is a Charlotte Mason concept.

I'm not necessarily defending it, but it is probably best interpreted in light of Charlotte Mason's overall educational theories.

Ooops! I should probably read the post BEFORE commenting. Obviously it is a Charlotte Mason concept since she is directly quoting Charlotte Mason!!!!

[fundiefan]

If there is a god, I thank him for the existence of the public school system that educated my grandparents, my parents, my siblings and myself. I thank him for the even better system that is educating my nieces and nephews. I also thank him for giving all of us to parents who chose not to educate us simply by talking to us. We all deserved so much more.

If there is no god, I thank the ebil government and the whole concept of public education for all.

[Constance Vigilance]

Can someone explain Charlotte Mason's system? I've read a bit about it (primarily as a result of the LDS blogger Lara, who went on about a Thomas Jefferson education which I think was the same thing/linked?) but I really don't get it. It seems like her theory is that if you provide the right environment your children will just educate themselves, and if they don't ur doin it wrong.

I suppose what I'm asking is: is it religious/otherwise bollocks, or is it based on any kind of legitimate educational philosophy?

[AmyP]

Can someone explain Charlotte Mason's system? I've read a bit about it (primarily as a result of the LDS blogger Lara, who went on about a Thomas Jefferson education which I think was the same thing/linked?) but I really don't get it. It seems like her theory is that if you provide the right environment your children will just educate themselves, and if they don't ur doin it wrong.

I suppose what I'm asking is: is it religious/otherwise bollocks, or is it based on any kind of legitimate educational philosophy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Mason

I think this is pretty accurate. Her education system was written in the late 1800's, so there is not a huge distinction between Christian and Secular Education as part of her philosophies. Bible is part of it, but I think bible was a common part of education at that time.

Most people who follow her methods advocate the use of "living books" rather than textbooks, daily nature study starting in pre-school, narration (telling back) rather than formal testing for very young children, an emphasis on concepts and comprehension rather than rote memorization. Charlotte Mason also delayed formal training in reading and writing until children were 7 (I think). It is a very "book intensive" form of education. If you want to get an idea of what it looks like in a homeschool format you can visit Ambleside Online. She delays formal grammar training, but does not eliminate it. So the idea of "education through conversation" is not quite accurate. It is accurate in the sense that the conversation between the parent and the child is about history and geography and the child is telling back what they have learned. The child's spoken grammar would be corrected as they speak, etc.

I think that's the gist of it.

[AmyP]

Oh, and you would also never find a Charlotte Mason educator using a worksheet. Older children write paragraphs, essays, reports after they graduate from narration, but they never fill in worksheets.

[Constance Vigilance]

Thanks, AmyP. I've read the wiki before; I suppose I meant 'explain' in a more critical/evaluative way, like does this actually work or is it just a recent craze (it seems to be very big among Mormon SAHMs)? I imagine it depends who you talk to.

[jenny_islander]

Yes. At the core of Charlotte Mason's philosophy is a disagreement with the educational philosophy that was new at the time and now underlies most public and private schooling in the English-speaking world. In brief, she argued that children are capable of connecting the dots themselves--that breaking knowledge down into key concepts and presenting them carefully in a prescribed order is counterproductive. IOW, children's comprehension is best served by context. Charlotte Mason recommended what she called "living books" as textbooks--books that engage children as stories and present ideas that children can mull over and connect.

Mason didn't think that pushing children to learn the 3 Rs or anything else early was useful; her experience showed what has been borne out by later research, that for the vast majority of children, early learning does not translate to skipping grades and nearly everyone is at the same place by about age eight or so. So, she said, why push? Concentrate on teaching good habits, helping children to develop their limbs and senses, and training the attention span.

Finland, or so I am told, takes this further. Mason was not concerned if children in her school had not begun reading by age six. Finland: eight.

All that said, the point is to keep returning to the concepts if children prove unready at first. My seven-year-old doesn't quite grok the commutative principle. So in six months I'll come back to it.

ETA: I forgot that at school this morning I presented some subtraction problems that illustrate the principle without trying to show the connection and her eyes lit up. So tomorrow I'll see if she can tell me why it's so easy to solve 12-9 if one has just solved 12-3. Context and practical experience--that's Charlotte Mason for you!

[emmiedahl]

Many of the homeschooling parents that I knew had the "better late than early" theory. Their children seemed to catch up to mine (who read at 4 or so) by age 10. If the kid is ready and they have been taught to love learning, they can quickly learn things.

[alba]

I thought most people learnt the grammar of their native language through immersion. For instance, my English grammar is way better than my French grammar (my second language), but I've never been taught much English grammar, only French. In fact, I probably couldn't even cite many English grammar rules, I just know whether or not something's correct.

Am I missing something?

[AmyP]

Thanks, AmyP. I've read the wiki before; I suppose I meant 'explain' in a more critical/evaluative way, like does this actually work or is it just a recent craze (it seems to be very big among Mormon SAHMs)? I imagine it depends who you talk to.

Well, there are some aspects of it that work very well, but I think it is kind of hard to implement. It is very humanities driven, so kids who are educated this way are usually great readers, writers, have studied a ton of art and music, stuff like that. They could end up a bit weak in math, however. Charlotte Mason did not like the idea of repetitive work, which some kids need in order to develope speed and proficiency. Science could also fall behind if you are not careful.

Unfortunately, when you get rid of textbooks and worksheets, you also loose great resources for covering alot of concepts easily. It is not necessarily a simple thing to find "living books" for every subject and concept that you feel you should cover. A Charlotte Mason book should be interesting, age appropriate, written by an expert in that field, or a primary source of some type. Not always easy to find that sort of book.

[Soldevi]

Finland, or so I am told, takes this further. Mason was not concerned if children

in her school had not begun reading by age six. Finland: eight.

Kids start their first class in autumn that year they turn 7 years old. Majority of the kids learn to read before christmas break and it is expected (if they don't already know how to read) and even the slowest ones usually learn to read before summer. So basically some are eight years old by then.

We Finns start our school later than kids in some other countries but there is also a little catch when it comes to learning to read. I don't know the correct term for this but in our language every letter is always similar no matter where in the word it or what kind of word it is. When a is always a or r is always same sounding r we can even read words correctly without even understanding what they mean. This happens often with little kids who know their alphabet as symbols and sounds but they don't yet understand what they do in abstract level.

[aggythenostic]

I know about the Charlotte Mason method. But I don't think this is it, and I think they're actually using it to give license to NOT teaching their children and calling it homeschool. Which is why, in my opinion, the fundies have embraced her so wholeheartedly. Just talk about groceries and my children will be beyond ebil public school? I'm so there! But like any other kind of method, it requires attention. If the mom is sick with her next pregnancy, nursing her last, running a home business, and trying to teach her five older children - this system is going to have some holes, if you know what I mean.

For Kelly to say that it's okay that her children don't learn something because they in HER opinion [which is rather limited] students didn't learn it in public school anyway - well, that's a giant case of WTF. There's no way she's actually intellectually stimulating her children. None. And see her post below, where she's already preparing her seven year old to be good little wife and mother. There's no reason to give them actual education, is there? Why it didn't do Mrs. Meth Brows any good!

Unfortunately, when you get rid of textbooks and worksheets, you also loose great resources for covering alot of concepts easily. It is not necessarily a simple thing to find "living books" for every subject and concept that you feel you should cover. A Charlotte Mason book should be interesting, age appropriate, written by an expert in that field, or a primary source of some type.

YES. Thank you. That's my point. They aren't really doing it, because if they were, it would take more effort than they want to give. Instead they point at it and say, "See! Kids don't need school."

[hoipolloi]

It seems like she's super-tired and she doesn't feel like teaching anymore. So she - and all the Kelly Lites - have convinced themselves that there is no need for it. And is not being higher than an average Alabama school child something to shoot for?

Just how high is that standard, given that 80% of Alabama residents think that their unbelievably stupid immigration bill is just fine? :doh: (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/us/in ... n-law.html)

[fundiefan]

I know about the Charlotte Mason method. But I don't think this is it, and I think they're actually using it to give license to NOT teaching their children and calling it homeschool. Which is why, in my opinion, the fundies have embraced her so wholeheartedly. Just talk about groceries and my children will be beyond ebil public school? I'm so there! But like any other kind of method, it requires attention. If the mom is sick with her next pregnancy, nursing her last, running a home business, and trying to teach her five older children - this system is going to have some holes, if you know what I mean.

For Kelly to say that it's okay that her children don't learn something because they in HER opinion [which is rather limited] students didn't learn it in public school anyway - well, that's a giant case of WTF. There's no way she's actually intellectually stimulating her children. None. And see her post below, where she's already preparing her seven year old to be good little wife and mother. There's no reason to give them actual education, is there? Why it didn't do Mrs. Meth Brows any good!

YES. Thank you. That's my point. They aren't really doing it, because if they were, it would take more effort than they want to give. Instead they point at it and say, "See! Kids don't need school."

Thanks. That's what I was trying to come up with the words to say. The little I read of Charlotte Mason, it is a lot of work for the parents/teachers, not just the child. It takes effort that I rarely see in the fundie homeschooling world. It's like they're taking the overall concept and applying to it everything - and that just doesn't work.

Learning is a lifelong process. We do learn by repetition and in context; we also learn through experience, hearing and expressing thought in conversation, visually...the key is to put all of that together to create an educated person (in the generic sense). Taking the theories of one and only applying them - and only some of those theories, too boot - does not provide a balanced, thorough education.

Plopping kids at the table and having them do repetition work - copy work, worksheets, math drills, etc.- all the time does not fully teach them. Neither does throwing all of that out the window and teaching without any formality.

And I find it pretty stupid of Kelly to say that since public schooled kids didn't learn something/don't know something that her kids don't need to either. Um, isn't the point of home educating so that your kids have a better education? If you expect no more of your kids than public schooled kids, what's the point of keeping them out of public schools?

[AmyP]

I do know of one homeschool mom (7 kids, I think) who did Charlotte Mason using Ambleside Online. She went on to send one girl to Harvard, a boy to Georgetown, I think one kid went to William and Mary or Catholic University. Anyway, all of them went to prestigious public/private universities, so if you consider that a criteria for whether or not it "works" as an educational methodology, I suppose it does.

[Kitten]

When children have a good grasp of the way language “soundsâ€, simply from partaking in good, consistent conversation, the nuts and bolts of grammar come more easily and can be postponed until children have a better understanding of abstract concepts.

By the way, when I entered my first year teaching high school students, I was prepared to only review grammar and focus on literature. To my surprise, most of the class–about 85%, didn’t even have a basic grasp of grammatical structure and could not pick out the basic parts of speech. Which may have been OK if they could construct a good sentence, but alas, they could not.

So, although I might agree with many aspects of the Mason approach, in Kelly's case, 85% of high school students apparently did not get this exposure. She presumably sees that as a condemnation of the public school system; I see it as a failure of their parents/family situation. If parents aren't educated, or don't care about their children's education, then you get a bad result. How would these children's education have been improved by homeschooling? If anything, it would have been even more dismal...

And then let's think about all those young women who are now "graduates" of the SOTDRT, and even if they homeschool, what kind of results THEY are likely to achieve with their children...

Homeschooling CAN be a wonderful way to teach your children, if you are motivated and enthusiastic, and willing to search out resources for those areas where your own knowledge/skills might be insufficient. It can also be a great way for poorly educated and/or lazy parents to simply pass on the rudimentary knowledge they have and call it "good," or for narrow-minded parents to ensure that only what they believe is taught.

[jenny_islander]

Yes, CM-style classes require a lot of prep. At a minimum the teacher has to read and mull over all the material herself.

For science, I decided to use Nebel's new series, which is not a living book, but instead relies on direct experience with everyday objects, another CM staple, combined with guided discussion. For arithmetic I turned to Ray's classic series, which begins with concrete objects, goes on to mental handling of numerals in both rote drills and word problems, and only then goes to paper.

[Patsy]

I thought most people learnt the grammar of their native language through immersion. For instance, my English grammar is way better than my French grammar (my second language), but I've never been taught much English grammar, only French. In fact, I probably couldn't even cite many English grammar rules, I just know whether or not something's correct.

Am I missing something?

I think 'grammar' means explicit grammar theory - 'this is a verb, this is the nominative case' etc. My education didn't focus on grammar very much at all, so when we learned the terms for French tenses and moods, it was pretty new to me. "Auxiliary verbs"? Never learned about it until I was learning a second language.

[Lily]

Woah. Kelly and I agree on something. Alert the media!

I'm not into the CM approach, but I don't think, for practical purposes, that grammar needs to be taught in all cases. I'm a successful adult, business owner, have advanced degrees, and I couldn't pick out parts of speech on a silly little worksheet if my life depended on it. Obviously this hasn't held me back, since I have reasonably good spoken and written grammar and can carry a conversation well. I've never been asked in my adult life to identify the difference between a verb and an adverb or pick out what part of a sentence belongs where.

Hasn't held my kids back either. We unschool and somehow, my children can still speak, read and write as well as and in many cases more naturally and easily than their public and private schooled contemporaries. My eldest is almost 11 and can speak and write with excellent grammar for her age, but hasn't been formally schooled either at school or at home since she was 8. I doubt she even knows what the parts of a sentence are called, let alone how to document them, but she sure as hell can use them. She reads all the time and she's around many intelligent and well spoken adults. Grammar just comes naturally given the right environment.

I'm sure grammar being taught in public schools is a good thing for those the public schools were originally created to serve: those who do not have parents who can sufficiently provide opportunities for learning themselves. Those children who have parents who can't speak properly even in the most simple of situations are the ones who need to be "taught" grammar. Children with intelligent and reasonably well spoken parents, who take time to interact with them, do not need to be "taught" grammar unless state testing is a parent's priority.

[aggythenostic]

I'm sure grammar being taught in public schools is a good thing for those the public schools were originally created to serve: those who do not have parents who can sufficiently provide opportunities for learning themselves. Those children who have parents who can't speak properly even in the most simple of situations are the ones who need to be "taught" grammar. Children with intelligent and reasonably well spoken parents, who take time to interact with them, do not need to be "taught" grammar unless state testing is a parent's priority.

Nothing personal, but this is why I'm not a fan of homeschooling. Because there is very little tracking of whether the parents are able to supply enough education to their children From what I can see, everyone thinks they're doing a bang up job. But no one is really paying attention, and this is devastating - and not only to the children, but to society as a whole. Once people pull out their children and decide that they are doing a better job than the system and EVERYONE should - well then I believe we're making an incredible mistake. JMHO.

Now to your point. I didn't take a class in transformational grammar until I was in graduate school. And you know what? It was f'king amazing. Grammar is the foundation of our language, and that means it is the foundation of our thought processes. No small thing. It's not about where you put the comma. It's about discipline. It's about understanding rules, even if you believe them to be arbitrary. Also, what is this new meme about how if you interact with your children they will pick up so very many important things? Please. My parents interacted with me constantly! I still went to school and learned more.

[Rant over]

[FemaleScientist]

I use so much slang in my speech that if I homeschooled any children about grammar by conversing with them, those kids would pick up horrible grammar skills.

I think grammar is important. I don't have a background in English, but I think it's important to know how to write... and I believe knowing essential rules is a crucial component to writing reports and other important documents.

As some of you pointed out already, I don't like homeschooling since there are a few mothers who are ill-equipped to properly teach their children everything. For instance, if I homeschooled my children in math and came upon something I never understood well, like probability, would I attempt to teach it to my kids or would I skip it (although you see it on the ACT/SAT for college)? There's a good chance that a math teacher who understood the concept better than me would be able to teach it to my kid in a public school system. I'm very thankful for my public school education and the wealth of knowledge from the teachers there.

[jenny_islander]

FTR, Mason recommended teaching grammar, just not in the lower grades. Direct experience and well written texts are the foundation of her approach to primary school. Grammar was to be introduced after years of immersion in good English.