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I am beginning a new series of posts with select quotations by Charlotte Mason. I’m choosing quotes that both represent her philosophy and that speak to me personally. I am not a CM purist by any means, but I do value her perspective on teaching children and find much of her writing both inspiring and practical.
Miss Mason on the teaching of history
Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age.
from Home Education, Vol. 1 Part XVIII.–History, p.280
My thoughts
I totally agree with Charlotte Mason here, and this is precisely why we have avoided any textbooks during Emma’s education. Instead, I prefer to use biographies of great men and women or other living books which preserve the narrative of history. Textbooks reduce the natural stories of history to lists of dry facts, numbers, and emotionless cause and effect.
But living history books — even historical fiction — capture the imagination while informing the mind. The reader soaks in the the facts of history in a natural and enjoyable way that forms a much stronger base of understanding than rote memorization.
This method has worked for us through different types of curriculum: Sonlight, Winter Promise, Beautiful Feet, and Heritage History. The foundation is the same — living books.
Home Education is in the public domain and can be accessed in its entirety at Archive.org.
More Quotes in this Series
This quotes series is part of the iHomeschool Network Quotation Link-up.
I love CM quotes, too! I have them everywhere…on little slips of paper, on unfinished posts…everywhere! I so agree with this one, too. It is one of my favorites. I taught Katie the more traditional way through her elementary years until I found CM and then we blossomed with wonderful history books in her later years of schooling and those are what she remembers, not the early boring texts. My boys have grown up on good books, and oh, the difference!
I have taught history both ways…older kids with texts and younger kids with living books. There is just no comparison between the depth of the younger boys’ understanding of history. It *is* more intimate and connected.
Great quote. 🙂
Such simple wisdom! And it lifts a burden from the teacher as well as the student. If I could have learned history this way, I’d likely have enjoyed it and remembered more! I often wonder if my older children have such a knowledge of history because we have used the CM approach. I’m thinking the answer is ‘yes’!
I agree. I have always been a history “buff”. As a child, the weekly class trip to the school library were my favorite time of the week. I always returned home with a biography: Dolly Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Patrick Henry. I know.. I’m a geek but I’m a geek with a lot of history in my brain! 😉
I am enjoying my kids all nose deep in books too, but I’m curious what they will find when they get to university courses where textbooks are the norm. Mine are set for engineering or the like. I’m not sure how to expose them to the scattered textbook approach, and when.
My experience with two kids now at university is that they will adapt to textbooks and lectures and everything else really quickly so long as they want to be there and want to learn. We did use textbooks for maths – especially for the high school years. We also had textbooks for other subjects but we never really used them as textbooks – more like a reference resource to look up a quick fact. Occasionally they’d read a chapter as a quick introduction to topic etc. So you can have textbooks around without comprising a predominantly living books education, and well-educated, motivated kids adapt readily to the university system – at least in my experience.
I have been teaching history in a similar fashion, and hadn’t even heard of Charlotte Mason until 2 or 3 years into our homeschooling adventure. My daughter is in 8th grade now and we still teach history with living books and good historical fiction. She calls our current read about the Spanish American war the “cool book.” That makes this history lover’s heart leap for joy!
This is so timely, Jimmie. We have completed three of the four volumes of Story of the World and I have been contemplating what we will do after we finish the last volume. I have always supplemented SoTW with biographies and historical novels and find that the girls immerse themselves much more in the way of life of a time period when reading the biography or novel. I am really leaning toward not finding another history textbook. Reading that others do the same really made me feel better about that choice.
Charlotte Mason’s writing totally convinced me to homeschool four years ago. A friend loaned me the series and I read the entire thing on a week long trip to Florida. Now, as we are studying history this week through reading “Secret of the Andes”, I’m seeing this period of time come alive for my kids (and ME!).
Textbooks are just TWADDLE, and I am so very glad my kids don’t have to wade through that junk just to satisfy a requirement.
All that being said, I love this quote series!
I’ve been homeschooling for 10 years and had never heard of CM until about 2 years ago. The idea of not using textbooks never entered my mind until my children began to hate school. I’ve spent the past year trying to undo the knee-jerk reaction of hating school. I have so many regrets but am so hopeful for my youngest. My oldest begins high school in the fall and I don’t know what to do going forward. I’m praying to somehow “light the fire” without my dd feeling like she’s being “roasted”! Know what I mean? She has a tendency to be a perfectionist and stresses easily (it’s a result of too many “spit out the name and date” tests, imho). I really appreciate all you post, Jimmie and am learning a lot. Thank you for all you do!
I have used Ambleside Online as a framework for many years, but have supplemented with classes and such. I am certainly not a CM purist either. This is the first year that my son has taken classes out of the house with textbooks. He did wonderfully this year as far as grades. However, his LOVE of the subjects decreased significantly and he was almost always bored. We’ll be going back to those wonderful living books for many of the subjects for 8th grade!