CMP Review 2024-10-19
October 19, 2024
When Jack Beckman was researching his 2003 dissertation, he conducted oral interviews with dozens of graduates from the House of Education and the Charlotte Mason College. From his notes and recordings he has been able to sketch a tantalizing glimpse of life at Charlotte Mason’s teacher training college.
One response from Margaret Wigan, class of 1948, has run through my mind since I first read it. Students at the college, she said, “did all the things the children learned to do — nature walks, picture talks, musical appreciation, living books. Everything was on the level of the child so we could learn in the same way as they were supposed to. For those of us who taught in PNEU schools, it truly prepared us.”
This weekend is our annual Charlotte Mason Poetry team retreat. Sure, we take a look back at the prior year and we talk about ideas and plans for what is to come. Sure, we read Parents’ Review articles and discuss drafts for our own audio blog. But that’s not really the heart of what retreat is all about.
We believe that children are born persons, and parents are persons too. We believe in doing the things that the children learn to do. So at our retreat we have a nature walk, a picture talk, music appreciation, and a poetry discussion. And because education is for the whole person, mind, body, and soul, we do a craft too. This year we made pocket notebooks which not only developed our skills. It also gave us places to jot down ideas as they come, ideas about how to make Charlotte Mason’s living philosophy more accessible to you.
@artmiddlekauff