Charlotte's Daughters ... learning from Charlotte Mason and the Parents' National Educational Union

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:50:24 GMT

Math book on Librivox

My sister has been recording books for Librivox. Being a math prof, she chose to record (among others) The philosophy and fun of algebra by Mary Everest Boole. Since Ms. Boole wrote articles for the Parents' Review on teaching math, I thought that Charlotte Mason fans might be interested in her book as well. Here is the link: http://librivox.org/philosophy-and-fun-of-algebra-by-mary-everest-boole/

Thu, 04 May 2006 15:20:00 GMT

Notes on PNEU History Curriculum

In the PNEU schools, English history and, as children grew older, the corresponding French and world history, were studied in a cycle covering 4 years. A child studied English and world history 3 times over the course of their PNEU career. Ancient history was studied entirely separately.

All of the first 8 years (Forms I-III) studied the same period of history at the same time. Years 1-3 (Form I) read Our island story, Years 4-8 (Form II) used A history of England by Arnold-Forster. At least 3/4s of the children beginning school didn't begin their study of English history at the beginning, and Charlotte Mason didn't feel that it mattered a bit. If a child remained in the PNEU schools, eventually they would come to the end of a cycle and finally begin at the beginning.

Once literature started to be coordinated with history, different years read different books, depending, I would imagine, on the children's readiness. For instance, for the period 1649-1714, Year 4 read The children of the New Forest, Years 5-6 read Peveril of the peak, Years 7-8 read Old Mortality, The holy war, and Robinson Crusoe. Thus, children completing all 12 years at PNEU schools hadn't necessarily read all the same books.

In my compilation of the PNEU curriculum, I did begin at the beginning with Year 1 and returned to it in Year 5. The Literature portion of my compilation/synopsis is still only in its 2nd draft, but in it I tried to list the books that all the years would have been reading for any given period.

Years 9-12 (Forms IV-VI) also covered all of English and world history, but in a slightly different way. Years 9-11 (Forms IV-V) began at 1485 and followed a 3-year cycle. Year 12 (Form VI) always studied the medieval and earlier periods. I don't know why this was so. Perhaps it was because the corresponding literature presented linguistic challenges that were more appropriate for older children or perhaps older children would have been better able to deal thoughtfully with ways of living so different from their own.

Thu, 04 May 2006 12:49:23 GMT

PNEU Bible Curriculum

Because I am Episcopalian, I was very interested in how Charlotte Mason, a fellow Anglican, approached the teaching of the Bible.

I've put all the Bible passages covered through the years into one sequence. I find it very interesting that she didn't introduce the more "theological" parts of Scripture--the Epistles and the Prophets--until quite late. For the first eight years or so, she focused on the children's simply learning "the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience" (the Bidding prayer, from the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols)

The Bible Sequence is with the rest of the PNEU Curriculum.

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 14:11:01 GMT

PNEU Curriculum notes

The (v. 2) and (v. 3) after the name of a subject refer to which version of my work is input. (v. 2) means second draft and (v. 3) means third.

The main difference between the drafts is that, after I had input the second draft, I checked every book mentioned in OCLC, the main library cataloging database. At the time, I was living within walking distance of a public university and could use its library. In the second draft, the titles and authors of books are as they appear in the term programmes. In the third, they are as given in library catalog records. If there was a subtitle, I added it; if an author's birth and death dates were available, I added them as well as the author's full name; if subject matter wasn't clear from a title, I added a brief description taken from subject headings or content notes; I also added number of pages. An asterisk before a title in a (v. 3) section means that I couldn't find an OCLC record for it and so information on it is less detailed.

A smaller difference is that, in the third draft, I tried to move away from dividing the work into 3 terms and to think of it as spread over an entire year, but I haven't been entirely successful in this.

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:34:39 GMT

PNEU Curriculum

Although it is far from finished, I have decided to post my Charlotte Mason/Parents' National Education Union (PNEU) curriculum project. I have been working on it since 1998. The foundation is laid, the superstructure is in place, most of the walls are up, but there is still a lot of work to be done and I can only do it slowly.

In 1998, I ordered a number of the Parents' Union School term programmes from the Armitt Library. When I discovered that they were insufficient to answer all my questions, I ordered more. I am very grateful to the Armitt for preserving this material and to Dr. John Thorley for photocopying and mailing it to me.

I am working with programmes 90 through 100+ for Forms I-IV and programmes 133-143 for Forms V-VI. The programmes for the lower forms were published during the last few years of Charlotte Mason's life and presumably reflect her latest thinking about her curriculum. Unfortunately, there was not a long run of programmes for the upper forms from this period; however, all that I know of Elsie Kitching's (Charlotte Mason's successor) work convinces me that she was very loyal to her mentor's practice and would not have made more than minor changes. Some much later programmes that I scrounged from several kind people have been helpful in clearing up confusing points.

I tried to compile the curriculum for each form, to discover how it connects with the curriculums for previous and succeeding forms, to write it up in a way that makes sense to people who are accustomed, not to fluid "Forms" through which children move on the basis of ability and achievement, but to fixed "Grades" through which children progress by age, and to pare away unnecessary details that would distract from its shape and flow. I tried to report without interjecting my personal interpretations, but sometimes judgment was required in the interest of simplicity or sense.

To me, this compilation is not an end in itself, but only a necessary first step--learning exactly what Charlotte Mason did so that we, 100 years later, can begin to create on the basis of her experience and insight a curriculum for all the children entrusted to us.