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A Charlotte Mason View of History & Geography
v Introduction
Ø History and geography go hand in hand.
Ø They need not be dry & uninteresting subjects - with right approach, exciting & rewarding - necessary subjects!
Ø What we will cover this session:
§ What is the Charlotte Mason philosophy & method of teaching history & geography?
· fits with the basic CM philosophy that education is the presentation of living ideas - mind feeds on ideas - use living books & real experiences - put in touch w/the best minds of the ages.
· two tools - imagination and narration
§ How do we apply this method practically?
· Charlotte’s methods
· Our experience with it
§ What resources do we use and when?
· CM materials used for PNEU
· What has worked for us
v History
Ø Why study history?
§ good character training - benefit our nation/world Quotes i.-iv
§ learn from it "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana. O.T. History
"For whatsoever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through
the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." Romans 15:4
§ fascinating illustration of life - truth, irony, poetic justice, depravity of Man & need for a Savior. Quote v
· the word of God demonstrated "if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword", "what you sow you will reap"
learn character qualities by observing the good and the bad.
· see through God’s eternal scope "teach us to number our days to gain a heart of wisdom" Psalm 90:12 - saves from egocentric tunnel vision.
Ø How do we study history best?
§ presentation of living ideas - not "just the facts" good mental diet through living books. Quote vi
· best literature of all ages - novels, plays, poetry, non-fiction writings
· source writings & well-written biographies - put in touch with historical figures, know how they thought, become familiar with them as with living persons Quotes vii-viii
· art, architecture, artifacts of the period
· freeze-dried coffee vs. Starbucks - textbook examples - good textbook criteria - 1 author, passionate about subject - any textbook can be good for reference
§ the power of imagination Quotes ix-x
§ use of narration and the habit of attention Quote xi
· begins with books of good literary quality - well-chosen
· child knows and can tell back after a single reading - child makes connections, assimilates knowledge - narrations from good books in their own way - patience and practice and belief it is naatural to do so
· many forms of narration - oral or written acc. to age/ability, dictate to mom to type, drawing, reenactments, projects
§ course of teaching history - "outlines" vs. "chronicles" – outline means textbook approach, all-encompassing overview Quotes xii-xv
· don’t try to cover a whole history in short period - slow digestion of good books throughout school years - give it in bits - 40p./term (10 weeks), increase as they get older - later years included more literature, essays, plays, poetry, architecture, painting - narrow to broad view
· problems w/4 yr. repetitive plan (Trivium, Greenleaf) - CM chronological thru history, but slower - can mesh somewhat with other plans Quote xvi
§ independent readings and read alouds - given "in fit portions as wholesome meat for his mind, in the full trust that a child's mind is able to deal with its proper food." Quote xvii
· reading "levels" - know your child - not just "grade level" - independent reading at their level, read aloud to them can be more advanced, progressive difficulty with age
· just as physical diet, what are they used to - steak and vegetables or cotton candy - our experience with abridged versions
· options - excerpts only, vary read aloud levels, vary time period, subject
· problems with Plutarch?? - translations - 19th Cent. Brit. English - examples- Boys & Girls Plutarch, Chilldren's Homer - "classics written for children, but not written down to them."
· historical fiction
¨ many classics qualify under this heading - CM "rather have them know the Julius Caesar of Shakespeare that not at all"
¨ modern day authors - judge for literary power, accuracy, worldview - what about American Girls, Marissa Moss, Dear America?
¨ suitability to age & sex of child - judge by the protagonist
¨ historical fiction good for envisioning people, customs, attitudes, daily life of the times and the geography
§ timelines and Book of Centuries
· timelines a picture of the abstract - mental clothesline
¨ concept of history/time grows with age - not begin to understand til 25 yrs. old? - young child, just "before" & "after" - dates not critical yet
¨ best if it is personal and accessible
¨ CM suggestion in Vol. 1 - homemade on "cartridge paper", columns for centuries, child writes in names - see people and events in time order
¨ some options & examples
· Book of Centuries - Miss G.M. Bernau - "Museum Book" correlated with book of British Museum by Mrs. Epps
¨ some options for use - personal or family book, include map section, no divider sections for young child, 100 chart page per century with symbols by Miss Beale, schedule daily/weekly time for entries or just keep handy, photographs/articles? (not a scrapbook)
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v Geography
Ø Purpose
§ Not for memorization of trivial facts without accompanying meaning - "social studies" agenda of occuupations/commerce/politics Quote xviii, Quote xix (V.M. Hillyer)
§ What is it for?
· produce wonder and delight in our world and its people - God's creation
· history & geography go hand in hand - geography gives history place - physical, concrete illustrations, connections made
Ø How do we teach it?
§ presentation of living ideas & real life experiences - "by the way" learning - the thing before the name, experience before much map & book study Quote xx
· observations of the sun - rel. size/distance to earth, positions at times of day, cool/hot parts of the day and position, what windows it shines in when, what side of the house in the am, pm Quote xxi-xxii
· directions - sun rise/set determines east/west, from there determine north/south, where shadows fall at noon
¨ wind direction - named from where its from - associations; north wind brings cold fronts
¨ compass use & drill comes after these observations
· distance - walk paces and measure, how long does it take to walk somewhere - draw maps to scale later after many of these observations
· boundaries - roads, crops, types of rock structures, trees
¨ landmarks, points of reference
¨ relations - having a sense of this can be practiced
§ living ideas through books with literary power Quotes xxiii
· historical fiction good for this if well written - ex. Hans Brinker, Eagle of the Ninth
§ the role of imagination – see in mind’s eye from what’s read Quote xxiv
· associate what they've learned with maps
· gaze at maps and imagine what a place is like
· imagine & discusss what used to be there
§ course to take - local to worldwide through the years - older children add current events from newspapers - as with history, a slow familiarity through well-chosen books - independent readings and read alouds
§ use narration, as with history - tell back in various forms - narrate descriptions, locating on map, make maps both flat and 3-D, drawing maps in sand/chalk, projects
Ø Practical tools we have used
§ Find map locations before your readings - display a map on table throughout the reading
§ find a local place to return to again and again - fits with nature study - "by the way" learning, casual/purposeful walks
§ take car trips - local & long-distance
· games to make observations (don’t occupy them w/a lot of videos, books, video games) - bingo, river crossings, state lines, license plate game
· sense of distance – for ex. Kansas & the "Great Plains" - Laura Ingalls Wilder country; Pikes Peak story; El Paso mountains from New Mexico; El Paso to home - compare distances to those they have experienced
· stop at all historical markers
§ plane trips - get a window seat, bring map, locate lakes, rivers, cities you see
§ books for map skills practice - progressive difficulty after real experiences
§ map play
· map puzzles - cut to shape
· just look at maps for fun - place names - place name origins
· evolution of explorer maps – their view in different eras
· USGS maps & satellite pictures
v Resources we have used – see list
For Charlotte Mason’s recommendations used by the PNEU refer to the Original Charlotte Mason Series, Vol. 1 - pp. 282-291; Vol. 6 – pp. 174-178 or Catherine Levison’s More Charlotte Mason Education p. 183 or visit www.amblesideonline.org
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HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY QUOTES
i Here, too, is a subject which should be to the child an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas, should enrich the chambers of his House Beautiful with a thousand tableaux, pathetic and heroic, and should form in him, insensibly, principles whereby he will hereafter judge of the behaviour of nations, and will rule his own conduct as one of a nation. Vol. 1, p. 279
ii It is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the background of one's thoughts. We may not be able to recall this or that circumstance, but, 'the imagination is warmed'; we know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides of every question and are saved from crudities in opinion and rashness in action. The present becomes enriched for us with the wealth of all that has gone before. Vol. 6, p. 178
iii It is never too late to mend but we may not delay to offer such a liberal and generous diet of History to every child in the country as shall give weight to his decisions, consideration to his actions and stability to his conduct.; that stability, the lack of which has plunged us into many a stormy sea of unrest. Vol. 6, p. 179
iv… young people at home are equally indifferent, nor have their elders such stores of interest and information as should quicken children with the knowledge that always and everywhere there have been great parts to play and almost always great men to play those parts: that any day it may come to anyone to do some service of historical moment to the country. It is not too much to say that a rational well-considered patriotism depends on a pretty copious reading of history, and with this rational patriotism we desire our young people shall be informed rather than with the jingoism of the emotional patriot. Vol. 6 p. 170 . Jingoism - extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked esp. by a belligerent foreign policy.
v “But to read English history and fail to realise that it is replete with interest, sparkling with episode, and full of dramatic incident, is to miss all the pleasure and most of the instruction which its study, if properly pursued, can give.” Quoting H. O. Arnold Forster Vol 1, p. 290
vi Trusting to mind memory we visualise the scene, are convinced by the arguments, take pleasure in the turn the sentences and frame our own upon them; in fact that particular passage or chapter has been received into us and become a part of us just as literally as was yesterday's dinner; nay, more so, for yesterday's dinner is of little account tomorrow; but several months, perhaps hence, we shall be able to narrate the passage we had, so to say, consumed and grown upon with all the vividness, detail and accuracy of the first telling. All powers of the mind which we call faculties have brought into play in dealing with the intellectual matter thus afforded; so we may not ask questions to help the child to reason, paint fancy pictures to help him to imagine, draw out moral lessons to quicken his conscience. These things take place as involuntarily as processes of digestion. Vol 6 pg 173-4
vii In these early years, while there are no examinations ahead, and the children may yet go leisurely, let them get the spirit of history into them by reading, at least, one old Chronicle written by a man who saw and knew something of what he wrote about, and did not get it at second-hand. These old books are easier and pleasanter reading than most modern works on history, because the writers know little of the 'dignity of history'; they purl along pleasantly as a forest brook, tell you 'all about it,' stir your heart with the story of a great event, amuse you with pageants and shows, make you intimate with the great people, and friendly with the lowly. They are just the right thing for the children whose eager souls want to get at the living people behind the words of the history book, caring nothing at all about progress, or statutes, or about anything but the persons, for whose action history is, to the child's mind, no more than a convenient stage. A child who has been carried through a single old chronicler in this way has a better foundation for all historical training than if he knew all the dates and names and facts that ever were crammed for examination. Vol. 1, p 282-3
viii And so of as much else as there is time for; the principle being, that, whenever practicable, the child should get his first notions of a given period, not from the modern historian, the commentator and reviewer, but from the original sources of history, the writings of contemporaries. The mother must, however, exercise discrimination in her choice of early 'Chronicles,' as all are not equally reliable. Vol 1 pg 285-6
ix (Speaking of children’s drawings after readings on Rome) In these original illustrations (several of them by older children than those we have in view here), we get an example of the various images that present themselves to the minds of children during the reading of a great work; and a single such glimpse into a child's mind convinces us of the importance of sustaining that mind upon strong meat. Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much-diluted stuff that is too often put into children's hands. Vol. 1, p. 294-5
x The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times––a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the child do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climes of his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose. But let lessons do their best, and the picture gallery of the imagination is poorly hung if the child have not found his way into the realms of fancy. Vol. 1, p. 153
xi We know that young people are enormously interested in the subject and give concentrated attention if we give them the right books. We are aware that our own discursive talk is usually a waste of time and a strain on the scholars' attention, so we (of the P.N.E.U.) confine ourselves to affording two things,––knowledge, and a keen sympathy in the interest roused by that knowledge. It is our part to see that every child knows and can tell, whether by way of oral narrative or written essay. In this way an unusual amount of ground is covered with such certainty that no revision is required for the examination at the end of the term. A single reading is a condition insisted upon because a naturally desultory habit of mind leads us all to put off the effort of attention as long as a second or third chance of coping with our subject is to be hoped for. It is, however, a mistake to speak of the 'effort of attention.' Complete and entire attention is a natural function which requires no effort and causes no fatigue; the anxious labour of mind of which we are at times aware comes when attention wanders and has again to be brought to the point; but the concentration at which most teachers aim is an innate provision for education and is not the result of training or effort. Our concern is to afford matter of a sufficiently literary character, together with the certainty that no second or third opportunity for knowing a given lesson will be allowed. Vol 6 pg 171-2
xii The fatal mistake is in the notion that he must learn 'outlines,' or a baby edition of the whole history of England, or of Rome, just as he must cover the geography of all the world. Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age. Vol. 1, p. 280
xiii To sum up, to know as much as they may about even one short period, is far better for the children than to know the 'outlines' of all history. And in the second place, children are quite able to take in intelligent ideas in intelligent language, and should by no means be excluded from the best that is written on the period they are about. Vol. 1, p 287
xiv What they want is graphic details concerning events and persons upon which imagination goes to work; and opinions tend to form themselves by slow degrees as knowledge grows. Vol. 1, p. 288
xv … one such old chronicle in a year, or the suitable bits of one such chronicle, and the child's imagination is aglow, his mind is teeming with ideas; he has had speech of those who have themselves seen and heard; and the matter-of-fact way in which the old monks tell their tales is exactly what children prefer. Afterwards, you may put any dull outlines into their hands, and they will make history for themselves. Vol. 1, p.284
xvi It will be observed that the work throughout the Forms is always chronologically progressive. The young student rarely goes over old ground; but should it happen that the whole school has arrived at the end of 1920, say, and there is nothing for it but to begin again, the books studied throw new light and bring the young students into line with modern research. Vol. 6, p. 177
xvii We spread an abundant and delicate feast in the programmes and each small guest assimilates what he can. The child of genius and imagination gets greatly more than his duller comrade but all sit down to the same feast and each one gets according to his needs and powers.The surprises afforded by the dull and even the 'backward' children are encouraging and illuminating. We think we know that man is an educable being, but when we afford to children all that they want we discover how straitened were our views, how poor and narrow the education we offered. Even in so-called deficient children we perceive,––"What a piece of work is man . . . In apprehension, how like a god!" Vol. 6, p.183
xviii The teaching of Geography suffers especially from the utilitarian spirit. The whole tendency of modern Geography, as taught in our schools, is to strip the unfortunate planet which has been assigned to us as our abode and environment of every trace of mystery and beauty. There is no longer anything to admire or to wonder at in this sweet world of ours. We can no longer say with Jasper Petulengro,––"Sun, moon and stars are sweet things, brother; there is likewise the wind on the heath." No, the questions which Geography has to solve henceforth are confined to how and under what conditions is the earth's surface profitable to man and desirable for his habitation. No more may children conceive themselves climbing Mont Blanc or Mount Everest, skating on the Fiords of Norway or swimming in a gondola at Venice. These are not the things that matter, but only how and where and why is money to be made under local conditions on the earth's surface. It is doubtful whether this kind of teaching is even lucrative because the mind works on great ideas, and, upon these, works to great ends. Where science does not teach a child to wonder and admire it has perhaps no educative value. Vol 6 pg 224
xix “To me, as a child, geography was a bugbear of repellent names – Climate and Commerce, Manufactures and Industries, and products, products, PRODUCTS. It seemed that the chief products of every place in the World were corn, wheat, barley, rye; or rye, barley, wheat, corn; or barley, corn, rye, wheat. In my geography modern Greece had but a paragraph – because, I suppose, it did not produce wheat, corn, barley, rye. Geography was a “stomach” geography; the “head” and “heart” were left out. I loved the geography pictures and maps but hated the text. Except for an occasional descriptive or narrative paragraph the text was wholly unreadable – a confused jumble of headings and sub-headings and sub-sub-headings. Home Work, NOTES, Map Studies, Suggestions to Teachers, Helps, Directions, Questions, REVIEWS, Problems, Exercises, Recitations, LESSONS, Picture Studies, etc., etc., etc. The World was an orange when I went to school, and there were only three things I can remember that I ever learned “for sure” – that the Dutch children wore wooden shoes, the Eskimos lived in snow houses, and the Chinese ate with chopsticks.” V.M. Hillyer, A Child’s Geography of the World.
xx But the mother, who knows better, will find a hundred opportunities to teach geography by the way: a duck-pond is a lake or an inland sea; any brooklet will serve to illustrate the great rivers of the world; a hillock grows into a mountain––an Alpine system; a hazel-copse suggests the mighty forests of the Amazon; a reedy swamp, the rice-fields of China; a meadow, the boundless prairies of the West; the pretty purple flowers of the common mallow is a text whereon to hang the cotton fields of the Southern States: indeed, the whole field of pictorial geography––maps may wait until by-and-by––may be covered in this way. Vol. 1, p. 72
xxi There are certain ideas which children must get from within a walking radius of their own home if ever they are to have a real understanding of maps and of geographical terms. Vol. 1, p. 73
xxii The child who observes the sun for a year and notes down for himself, or dictates, the times of his rising and setting for the greater part of the year, and the points of his rising and setting, will have secured a basis for a good deal of definite knowledge. Vol. 1, p. 74
xxiii The picture we present of the several countries is meant to be before all things interesting and at the same time to provide an intelligent and fairly exhaustive account of the given country. Whatever further knowledge a child acquires will fit in to this original scheme. For example,
"The Rhône Valley and the Border lands." [The Ambleside Geography; Book IV, by the Writer.] "The warm and fertile Rhône valley belongs in climate to the southern region, where, although the vine is grown, large plantations of olive and mulberry occupy much of the land. We are apt to think of the South of France as the sunny south, the sweet south, 'but,' says a writer whom we have already quoted, 'it is austere, grim, sombre' . . . . but the mulberry feeds the silkworm and so furnishes material for the great manufacture of France. Lyons, the second city of France, is the seat of the silk manufacture including those of velvets and satins. It is seated upon a tongue of land at the confluence of the rapid Rhône and the sluggish Saône, and along the banks of both rivers are fine quays.”
This extract indicates how geographical facts are introduced incidentally, pretty much as a traveller comes across them. The work for one term includes Belgium, Holland, Spain and Portugal, and the interests connected with each of these countries are manifold, For example,
"On the seashore near Leyden is Katwyck where the expiring Rhine is helped to discharge itself into the sea by means of a wide artificial channel provided with no less than thirteen pairs of enormous floodgates. These are shut to keep out the sea when the tide is coming in, and open to let the streams pass out during ebb tide. Notwithstanding these great works the once glorious Rhine makes but an ignoble exit. The delta of this river may be said to include the whole breadth of Holland." [Ambleside Geography: Book IV, by the Writer. ]
It will be noticed that an attempt is made to shew the romance of the natural features, the history, the industries, so that a country is no more a mere matter of names on a map, or of sections shewn by contour lines. Such generalisations are not Geography but are slow conclusions which the mind should come to of itself when it acquires intimacy with a region. Something of a literary character is preserved in the Geography lessons. The new feature in these is the study of maps which should be very thorough. Vol. 6, p. 226-7
xxiv I believe that pictures are not of very great use in this study. We all know that the pictures which abide with us are those which the imagination constructs from written descriptions. Vol. 6, p. 228
Others read independently at various age levels
Timetables of History – Bernard Grun
Let the Authors Speak – Carolyn Hatcher
TRISMS curriculum & book list
Honey for a Child’s Heart – Gladys Hunt
Books Children Love – Elizabeth Wilson
Sonlight Curriculum Catalog
History Alive! – Diana Waring
ABeka U.S. History (textbook reference)
A Charlotte Mason Education, More Charlotte Mason Education – Catherine Levison
A Charlotte Mason Companion – Karen Andreola
Walking the Bible – Bruce Feiler*
+The Bible – OT & NT
Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Egypt
Tales of Ancient Egypt – Roger Green
The Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt – Elizabeth Payne
Tut’s Mummy Lost & Found – Judy Donnelly
Pyramid – David Macaulay
+Mara, Daughter of the Nile – Eloise McGraw
BABYLONIA, PERSIA, OTHER ANCIENT CIV.
The Gilgamesh Epic
+Hands on the Past – C.W. Ceram (sel.)
Xenophon, The Persian Expedition*
+In Search of Troy – Piero Ventura
+Treasures Under the Sand – Wooley’s Finds at Ur – Alan Honour
+Bulfinch’s Mythology (sel.)
+Classic Myths to Read Aloud
The Greek Way – Edith Hamilton*
+The Iliad & The Odyssey(sel.) – Homer
+The Children’s Homer – Padraic Colum
Black Ships Before Troy, The Wanderings of Odysseus – Rosemary Sutcliff
D’Aulaires Greek Mythology
Macmillan Book of Greek Gods & Heroes
+Famous Men of Greece – Greenleaf Guide
+Plutarch (sel.)
+The Lion in the Gateway – Mary Renault
+Children of the Fox – Jill Paton Walsh
+Plato’s Dialogues (sel.)
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth – Kathryn Lasky
Archimedes & the Door of Science – Jeanne Bendick
Mathematicians are People, Too - Reimer
+Maccabees I
+The Young Carthaginian – G.A. Henty
+The Aeneid – Virgil (sel.)
+Augustus Caesar’s World – Genevieve Foster
The Lost Wreck of the Isis – Robert Goddard
Growing Up in Ancient Rome – Mike Corbishley
City, Rome Antics – David Macaulay
+Caesar’s Gallic War – Olivia Coolidge
+Detectives in Togas, The Mystery of the Roman Ransom - Henry Winterfeld
+The Bronze Bow – Elizabeth George Speare
+The Eagle of the Ninth –Rosemary Sutcliff
+The Robe – Lloyd Douglass
+The Book of Virtues, The Moral Compass
– William Bennett (sel.)
+Adventures of Robin Hood – Howard Pyle
+The Hawk that Dare Not Hunt By Day – Scott O’Dell
Castle – David Macaulay
The Double Life of Pocahantas – Jean Fritz
Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims – Clyde Bulla
+The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare
+Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
The Matchlock Gun – Walter Edmonds
The Courage of Sarah Noble – Alice Dalgliesh
Benjamin West & His Cat, Grimalkin – Marguerite Henry
+George Washington’s World – Genevieve Foster
Several Amer. History books by Jean Fritz
+The Toad of Capitol Hill – Esther Wood Brady
Little Women – Louisa Mae Alcott
A Gathering of Days – Joan Blos
+Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
+Little House series - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Christy – Catherine Marshall
Anne of Green Gables series
Sarah, Plain & Tall – Patricia MacLachlan
Susanna of the Alamo – John Jakes
By the Great Horn Spoon – Sid Fleishman
+Where the Broken Heart Still Beats -
+Journals of John Muir
Hitty, Her first Hundred Years
Clara Barton, Angel of the Battlefield
+Abraham Lincoln’s World – Genevieve Foster
+Cheaper By the Dozen - Gilbreth
+The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness D’Orczy
+Hans Brinker – Mary Mapes Dodge
King of the Wind – Marguerite Henry
+Streams to the River, River to the Sea – Scott O’Dell
The Journals of Lewis & Clark*
Conquista – Clyde Bulla
+Walk the World’s Rim – Betty Baker
1492, Year of the New World – Piero Ventura
MISC.
+Star of Light – Patricia St. John
The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling
+Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
+Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
+Kidnapped by River Rats – Jackson
Holling C. Holling books & Beautiful Feet Guide
+A Child’s Geography of the World - V.M. Hillyer
Hands on Geography – Hogan & Baker
Map Skills workbooks
Make It Work
Eyewitness
American Girls
Dear America Diaries
Royal Diaries
World Leaders: Past & Present