CMP Review 2024-01-24

January 24, 2024

Last week, Annia G asked my thoughts about her son’s wish to read Great Expectations/Grandes Esperanzas.

Each child is different, but my youngest son chose to read Great Expectations in high school. He loved it and it was evident in his narrations. We don’t get to decide which ideas light upon our teens, but mine found in Joe a man of noble character whose generosity, fortitude, and heart shone brightly despite his inadequate powers of verbal and written expression. In Pip, he saw how a person could either embrace or rise above how others define us.

Charlotte Mason speaks often about the spiritual nature of the mind and of ideas. In Philosophy of Education she tells us that when we bring together the natures of children and of knowledge, “a new product appears, a person of character and intelligence, an admirable citizen whose own life is too full and rich for him to be an uneasy member of society.”

A note on the historical side: PNEU programmes show Form 5 students were given a choice between Dickens, Austen, and Thackeray each term for Literature when British History of the 1800’s was being studied. My teens really enjoyed getting to choose between a list of authors & novels in our homeschool, too.

@rbaburina