The CMP Review — Week of August 19

August 19, 2024

“Christ is our livelihood and He leads us into the way of peace, a way that passes through the common needs of human nature, through daily effort, daily joys and troubles. In this path, with Christ to guide us, we find God’s Holy Will which is our peace. It is in this livelihood that every parent should strive to bring up every child.” (Essex Cholmondeley, Parents Are Peacemakers)

@tessakeath

August 20, 2024

Charlotte Mason said that “we are limited to three educational instruments—the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.”

When explaining the first instrument — education as an atmosphere — Miss Mason was careful to explain that this should not be an artificial “child-environment.” Rather, we should “let [the child] live freely among his proper conditions.” We get a picture of masterly inactivity where a child is free to roam in his “his natural home atmosphere.”

But in the decades since Mason wrote these words, the “natural home atmosphere” has become filled with things that are not normally considered natural. Liquid crystal displays on more than a dozen devices in the average American home project video and imagery captured real-time from all over the world. Words and ideas of every provenance and ideology are no more than a tap away. Flowers and fauna face stiff competition for the attention of children of every age.

What should masterly inactivity look like now? Joan Molyneux lived in two worlds. Born to a PNEU family and taught at the House of Education, she learned the Charlotte Mason method in a mostly tech-free world. But by the 1970s she was beginning to live in our world. A world of technology and screens. So she clarified the Mason method for her new world. And that world is ours.

And what did Miss Molyneux advise for the atmosphere of education in our era? An atmosphere that envisions children in nature and painting in nature notebooks even in a world full of screens. Read or hear her vision here.

@artmiddlekauff

August 21, 2024

If you haven’t seen this month’s super blue moon it should still be visible to view this morning!

The tradition of watching the night sky is one my parents passed to their children and I’ve passed on to my own.

Here are photos of my homeschool graduates enjoying the blue moon as well as the moon itself.

@rbaburina

photo credit: @aolander

August 22, 2024

A few years ago when I was exploring some vintage Parents’ Review volumes, I came across an advertisement for the Parents’ Union School uniform. The illustration was only in black and white, and so I could only imagine what the outfit might look like in real life. Since then, to my amazement, Rachel North of Charlotte Mason Beehive was able to obtain a vintage uniform. She describes it this way:

As a longtime collector of all things Charlotte Mason and the PNEU, finding an original uniform is surely the crème de la crème of my collection. Not only is it an exciting discovery but the uniform is the perfect size to fit my six-year-old son and he has worn it with pride, most recently at a 1940s event in our local town.

The school blazer is tailor made by the name of Sundale and is fashioned from a wool and nylon mixed fabric, purportedly “for greater strength.” It is grey with silver metal buttons and two large pockets in the front. A further pocket is hidden inside the blazer and can be fastened with a metal zip. The hat is made in England by the brand Swan Lake and is 100% wool. Both items of clothing display the Parents Union School badge, bearing the iconic phrase “I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

The uniform was previously owned by a family with the surname Llewellyn, a distinctly Welsh name. The name tag on the blazer shows the name G. J. Llewellyn, while the name on the hat shows S. Llewellyn. Whoever these people were and whatever their experiences with the Charlotte Mason method of education, I am thankful to have the opportunity to own this beautiful vestige from history as I too carry on the legacy of Charlotte Mason’s work through my own children.

There are moments when I feel like the wonder and beauty of a Charlotte Mason education belongs to a past that is forever out of reach. But when black and white images from bygone days come back to life in full color, it gives me hope. This uniform is a reminder to me that all the wonderful things that Charlotte Mason imagined can really be for us too.

@artmiddlekauff

August 23, 2023

Mass destruction. Hundreds of thousands of these little flea beetles just appeared out of nowhere one day and absolutely decimated my nasturtiums.

Asking around with the locals, it seems that once the canola crops are harvested, the flea beetles move on to the brassicas in unsuspecting home gardens. They turned these healthy nasturtium leaves and flowers to lace! To say it is awe-inspiring is an understatement.

They have provided us with many moments of half-terrified and half-intrigued observation. Scroll through the photos to see the progression over a two-and-a-half-day span.

Do you have flea beetles where you are? Or have you witnessed such destruction by other insects?

@antonella.f.greco

August 24, 2024

Look at this tiny wasp nest we found on an apple tree!

It’s maybe 4cm tall. Not more than that. (The apples are also of a small variety. Not quite crab apples, but not quite regular apple size either).

It’s always so amazing to see the wasps construct these nests.

@antonella.f.greco

Charlotte Mason’s advice on time management is profound. At the heart is the idea expressed in Home Education: “there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time.” Only when every action has its time can we feel the peace of the pendulum described in Ourselves: “you are only required to give one tick at once, and there is always a second of time to tick in.”

Armed with this wisdom we can put down inclination and instead do our duty. As she explains at length, again in Ourselves:

Now, the eager soul who gives attention and zeal to his work often spoils its completeness by chasing after many things when he should be doing the next thing in order… It is well to make up our mind that there is always a next thing to be done, whether in work or play; and that the next thing, be it ever so trifling, is the right thing; not so much for its own sake, perhaps, as because, each time we insist upon ourselves doing the next thing, we gain power in the management of that unruly filly, Inclination.

The one who has mastered that unruly filly, Inclination, may have to travel from point A to point B. There is only one right time for the journey and that time is today. There is no other right time to complete the errand. So this one insists on doing only the next thing.

And then he passes a man by the side of the road in desperate need. Is this man my neighbor? Read or hear Charlotte Mason’s pastorally profound poem on the Good Samaritan, and see the other side of her beautiful advice on managing our time. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff