CMP Review 2023-01-31

January 31, 2023

Winnifred Laurence was just doing what she had been trained to do. She had studied at the House of Education under teachers who had known Miss Mason herself. Now she was running her own small school for Forms I and II. Just like she was supposed to.

Then suddenly everything changed. One morning a person showed up. The only thing was, this was a little person. She was only four years old.

“I shall never forget my own dismay on the first arrival of this minute person,” she recalled. “Whatever does one do with her? I thought; such a contingency had never before come my way. However Miss 4 was perfectly composed, said farewell to her mother without a tremor, and marched into the schoolroom and into our hearts, where she still remains a very definite entity.”

Miss Laurence realized that to handle this new crisis she needed to “fall back with relief to the stableness of Miss Mason’s teaching.” Her story of how she expanded her school to include a playroom for little ones is deeply inspiring and informative. Certainly it is required reading for anyone organizing a Charlotte Mason homeschool co-op or school.

But the value of Laurence’s story goes further. “Our class is a comfortable size to be run as a large family,” she wrote. That was the brilliance of her plan. Since she modeled her school on a family, her discoveries apply to anyone whose school is, in fact, a family.

When you’re doing your formal lessons with your big kids, does a four-year-old ever poke her head in the door? Let Miss Laurence tell you what to do. Listen or read her story here.

@artmiddlekauff