"I wonder does the mind need food, too, and regular meals, and what is its proper diet?" Charlotte Mason Vol 6 Ch.

Garden Spider on our back door

Jellyfish at Assateague

When I first began learning about Charlotte's philosophies, I didn't understand her term "self-education". I had wondered if she meant that the children just wandered aimlessly and "studied" only what they wanted. I began reading Vol. 6 and writing a "narration" for myself as I worked through the book. Many things impressed me about this chapter but the one thing that stood out to me was that the mind needed food and a regular diet of it. That spoke to me because I wasn't comfortable with the idea of just letting my children pick and choose what they felt like learning. I was so inspired that I could become their "guide". I love offering ideas from great works of literature or poetry and watch as my kids take in and digest the material. We have always homeschooled our family and before I found Charlotte Mason, I used unit studies with a brief diversion to textbooks. I must say that by presenting living ideas, my children have remembered so much more than any other method I have used. There is so much less pressure on me or my children when we are learning for the shear joy of learning rather than to earn a physical reward or just to spit out answers for a test. One of the ways I guide "self-education" in my children is through nature study. We all have nature journals. Sometimes I pick a specific theme for that weeks drawing but mostly I have just let each child choose what they want to draw. They spend time looking up all sorts of information on their specimen, which has led to some really fascinating conversations.Thanks for stopping by my blog- Have fun with the rest of the CM Blog Carnival.  I've included my "narration" on "self-education" below.     

One of our Nature Journals

Philosophy of Education vol. 6 Chapter 1 ‘Self Education’

From what I can gather there was a movement in the educational community in Charlotte’s day that started professing success in “self-education” for children. This probably included things like dance or other types of self expression. Charlotte doesn’t disagree with using some of these types of things, and even goes so far as to say that she looks forward to seeing the manner of citizen it produces, but in reality these “external educational appliances” “which are intended to mould his character are decorative and not vital”. The point being, that people are not ‘built up’ from without but from within. To accomplish this, Charlotte reminds us that the function of the mind is like the body and needs a quantity of nourishing food each day. That knowledge is not and should not be attained through sensation, but rather, by being “fed” the great thoughts from great minds is what makes one thoughtful. There are examples given of children who love learning and with a single reading of a passage can recall, point by point, in their own words, what was read. They can recall the details months later because the mind has been properly fed, material digested, and the thoughts have now become the child’s in the form of knowledge. She challenges us to look at a method of “self education” that is practical and pleasant and has produced capable men and women, with great character, over the past 30 years. In the final paragraph she likens the student’s education to a horse. A horse that is “light” rides over the ground using his own joyful will as opposed to the horse that is heavy in hand, which becomes a burden to the driver. Like the driver of the horse, the teacher then becomes one who is a guide to the student rather than someone who is forcibly feeding information.