The CMP Review — Week of September 23

September 23, 2024

“We may never see the result, but the little seed will take root and grow one day into a great tree—a tree that may be for the healing of the nations.” (V. M. Hood, “Reading in the Nursery,” PR28)

@tessakeath

September 24, 2024

Over the past several months we have shared many articles from the 1952 “memories” issue of the Parents’ Review. Today we share our final installment from this important archive. Written by the then principal of the Charlotte Mason College, the piece provides a rare glimpse into the activities of the college and the practicing school during the difficult war years. The author also shares her perspective on the essence of the Charlotte Mason method and what it really means to learn it. The perspective is a helpful beacon as we continue to steward the method in the decades to come. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff

September 25, 2024

Where are my planner peeps?! 🙋🏻‍♀️

September is a special time for us as it’s the time when next year’s planners are released.

Have you decided what you’re using next year?

This is my third year with the Common Planner from @sterlingink. Blank daily pages are partly what sold me. It’s so nice not having blank dailies staring up at me when I miss a few days of journaling.

@rbaburina

September 26, 2024

Charlotte Mason’s perspective on the family is at once nourishing and refreshing. In an era when we are told that children can only be properly socialized outside the home, it is encouraging to read Miss Mason’s words: “The society of his equals [is] too stimulating for a child… for everyday life, the mixed society of elders, juniors and equals, which we get in a family, gives at the same time the most repose and the most room for individual development.” She then adds, “We have all wondered at the good sense, reasonableness, fun and resourcefulness shown by a child in his own home as compared with the same child in school life.”

In a later volume she observes that human beings long to live in community. But “it sometimes happens that the thing we desire is already realised had we eyes to see.” The family can be that community. “The smallness of the family tends to obscure its character,” she writes; the desire of the ages is in our homes, if we would believe it.

When we planned our nature walk for the weekend, we sought a time that everyone could go — our homeschool student and our graduates. The mixed society of elders, juniors, and equals led to new discoveries as we identified trees and birds. The sudden arrival of rain only added to our enjoyment as some lingered among the flowers while others ran ahead to fetch the van.

No doubt “the society of equals” has its place in the development of our children. No doubt co-ops and nature clubs are a boon to Charlotte Mason educators. But let not the smallness of the family obscure its character. There may be only a few of us, but we are a co-op in a way. Each one of us in his or her own stage of life, sharing lessons learned as we go.

@artmiddlekauff

September 27, 2024

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

by Emily Dickinson

The Mushroom is the elf of plants,

At evening, it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot

As if it tarried always;

And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a snake’s delay,
And fleeter than a tare.

’T is vegetation’s juggler,

The germ of alibi;
Doth like a bubble antedate,
And like a bubble hie.

I feel as if the grass were pleased

To have it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer’s circumspect.

Had nature any outcast face,

Could she a son contemn,
Had nature an Iscariot,
That mushroom,—it is him!

@antonella.f.greco

September 28, 2024

The Backyard Bird Chronicles encompasses the nature notes and illustrations of Amy Tan (author of The Joy Luck Club) over a five-year-span. And, if you ever think it’s too late to nature journal, Ms. Tan began at the age of 64.

This truly is a book about seeing, as seen in this excerpt of one entry:

I saw only one squabble between a Pine Siskin and a Lesser Goldfinch. The Pine Siskin won, that is, it remained at the feeder and on the perch of choice. That’s impressive. The feisty Pine Siskin is smaller. That goes against my previous observation that size determines dominance. I am always happy to find exceptions to what I hastily judged to be the rule. Nature abhors a generalist.

@rbaburina

Charlotte Mason never hesitated to challenge the philosophers who denied the possibility of miracles. Again and again she insisted, not tentatively but with conviction, that miracles are essential to the Christian faith. Her arguments often culminated with the phenomenon of prayer. Personal dealings with God, she wrote, are “of the nature of a miracle.” Thus if God does not perform miracles, prayer “becomes blasphemous.”

Again and again I have read and discussed these words with others. And whenever we do our faith grows stronger. These are potent words for the mind which satisfy our reason.

But what about words which satisfy our heart? Mason’s faith in miracles was no mere rational faith. To feel this, however, we must read her poetry. Her poems on prayer are among her most powerful. Do you believe in miracles? Then join with Miss Mason and pray the “The importunate prayer.” Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff