The CMP Review — Week of January 16

January 16, 2023

“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.” (MLK)

@tessakeath

January 17, 2023

2023 is an important year for the Charlotte Mason community: it is the centennial of Miss Mason’s death. Her legacy will be celebrated by Mason enthusiasts around the world, with special events in Ambleside.

But as we celebrate this anniversary, it is important to pause and think why we remember Mason today. After all, her PNEU has passed away, and by the 1980s few parents or teachers knew her name. But then a handful of pioneer homeschool mothers discovered her treasury of ideas. Without support groups or Internet resources, these mothers found in Miss Mason a companion and a light for an otherwise lonely and challenging journey.

One of those mothers is Karen Andreola. Thirty years ago — in 1993 — Andreola discovered a Parents’ Review article by an anonymous author in a set of volumes delivered to her from Ambleside. The article was called “Mother Culture,” and the idea captured her imagination and set the course of her own legacy.

Andreola edited her own homespun Parents’ Review in the years 1991 to 1996. In the spring issue that year, she included the original “Mother Culture” article, later to become the title of her most recent book.

Today we begin this year of celebration with our transcription and recording of the original Parents’ Review article that so inspired Karen Andreola. And as a special treat, we have her exclusive editor’s note co-written and recorded by her husband Dean. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff

January 18, 2023

What do the multiplication tables and Picture Study have in common?

@cindyordoamoris and I discuss this and other surprising things learned during my research of Charlotte Mason’s approach to math.

Listen to “Math in the Charlotte Mason Model” on Cindy’s podcast, The New Mason Jar.

Visit the link to tune in to Season 4, Episode 48!

@rbaburina

Photo courtesy of @aolander

January 19, 2023

“The co-ordination of studies is carefully regulated,” wrote Charlotte Mason, “solely with reference to the natural and inevitable co-ordination of certain subjects. Thus, in readings on the period of the Armada, we should not devote the contemporary arithmetic lessons to calculations as to the amount of food necessary to sustain the Spanish fleet, because this is an arbitrary and not an inherent connection; but we should read such history, travels, and literature as would make the Spanish Armada live in the mind.”

As I think back on the high school years with my firstborn, I remember with great fondness reading the Letters of Mozart. We read it for history and we read it for literature, and we got our fill of both. But we did not listen to the music. Now that my youngest is in high school years, our carefully choreographed music appreciation has finally brought us to this one who some say is the greatest composer of all time.

Thankfully life is full of second chances, and this time we will enjoy a “co-ordination of studies” that is “carefully regulated.” History, literature, and music will all come together as we read the unforgettable letters preserved from the hand of Mozart and his next of kin.

Last term our composer was Haydn. I am so looking forward to when we get to Leopold Mozart’s letter to his daughter. “Herr Haydn said to me,” wrote the proud father, “‘I tell you, calling God to witness and speaking as a man of honour, that your son is the greatest composer I know, either personally or by repute!’” In this way history, travels, and literature will make the greatest of music live in the mind.

@artmiddlekauff

January 20, 2023

Chickadees aplenty. And our red-breasted nuthatch friend, taking its sweet time while the other birds dart around trying to get in!

It’s a feeding frenzy over here!

@antonella.f.greco

January 21, 2023

February will soon be here. For many of us, it’s the month when planning for the next school year officially begins. We have lots of free resources on our site to help you out. Here are just a few:

• Charlotte’s original school schedules give lots of ideas on how to structure lessons for multiple ages.
• Find encouragement in the Parents’ Review articles or a calendar for the Cloud of Witness devotional.
• Explore activities for your preschoolers in The Baby Number.
• Watch tutorials on Sloyd and Brush Drawing.
• Deepen your knowledge of Mason’s 20 Principles with a video training.
• Learn Charlotte’s unique approach to learning the multiplication tables.

We hope you’ll take time to explore our site and that it’s of service to you!

@rbaburina

In one of Charlotte Mason’s most remarkable texts, now found in Parents and Children, she asks:

Does this doctrine of ideas as the spiritual food needful to sustain the immaterial life throw any light on the doctrines of the Christian religion?

And then she answers:

Yes; the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Word by which man lives, the ‘meat to eat which ye know not of,’ and much more, cease to be figurative expressions…

Isaiah cried out, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters.” For Charlotte Mason, this is an offer for living water, and our thirst is real. In Mason’s dramatic poem on Isaiah 55:1, the dance between the literal and the figurative paints a wondrous truth. Read or listen to Mason’s poem to understand just how thirsty we are. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff