Why Grand Conversation?

In the comments of my last post, Pam asked why I’m doing this sort of thing. I’m so glad she asked because it really gave me a chance to clarify exactly why I am doing what I am doing.

One of my long-term goals is to have a book club type of relationship between the books and myself and my students. I don’t think that is specifically a Charlotte Mason thing {wow–you know you’ve “made it” when your name become a descriptive term!}, though I am using the Ambleside Online books to work in that direction. But I would point out a few places where our friend Charlotte makes clear that narration is not all that she does {or is willing to do} with books. In Chapter 16 of Volume 3 she writes:


Other Ways of using Books.––But [narration] is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.


The Original Home Schooling Series by Charlotte Mason

The Teacher’s Part.––The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity. Let marginal notes be freely made, as neatly and beautifully as may be, for books should be handled with reverence. Let numbers, letters, underlining be used to help the eye and to save the needless fag of writing abstracts. Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.

In Volume 1, when Miss Mason discusses the art of narrating, she again points to a follow-up process on the part of the teacher:

The book should always be deeply interesting, and when the narration is over, there should be a little talk in which moral points are brought out, pictures shown to illustrate the lesson, or diagrams drawn on the blackboard.

In Volume 3, CM gives an example of a lesson of Old Testament history and says:

Step 5. While the children are narrating in the words of the Bible, help them by questions to bring out the important points of the story.

Step 6. Help the children to realise how Joseph’s love of his father affected his life, and how they should let their parents feel their love.

In that same section as the OT history lesson, for instance, after a history narration she says:

Step 4. Ask the boys what they mean by a hero. The old meaning was demi-god, the Anglo-Saxon meaning, a man. Both really meant a man who was brave and true in every circumstance.

Ask them, ‘What are the qualities which go to make a hero?’ Draw from them how far we can trace these qualities in Alexander.

This was what made me brave enough to bring this into my own protocol as far as how I do lessons. A few lectures by Mr. Kern had kindled my desire to ask more questions and direct my student’s insights more toward what I thought he was missing, but I felt like it wasn’t authentically PNEU style, and I wanted to be a bit of a purist–to use Charlotte’s methods more rather than less {as she herself suggests}.

In asking my questions {and in my posts I’m listing the ones I thought of in my own reading–I don’t necessarily ask my son every single one, this is just my “arsenal”}, I am hoping that my son will learn to ask these sorts of questions himself by my modelling them to him. In fact, I may eventually transition to having him write a list of questions out before coming to me for narration, as Charlotte herself once suggested.

One of the reasons I started doing this {besides the fact that it was a means of keeping his education under a more watchful eye} is because I felt like he was missing the big ideas. He can narrate the minutia of what goes on with Robinson Crusoe on the island–but he is missing the sin, guilt, conviction, and redemption.

Our discussion today centered around what repentance looks like when one is stranded on an island. Robinson cannot return and apologize to his parents. He cannot prove himself by mending his ways. But I was surprised that my son could come forth with a list of things that he thought could display repentance on Robinson’s part. It was a great conversation, and I’m so glad we had it–the narration alone wouldn’t have provided it.

Putting as many questions in “should” form as I can is something I learned from Andrew Kern {who I mentioned in my first post}. I find that when I do that, it becomes easier to place Scripture at the center of a reading, regardless of what book we are talking about.

I think the main way to keep questions in the spirit of Charlotte’s principles is to make sure they always are aiming at ideas–getting that “food of the mind” into the student–rather than on facts. Also, in reading Charlotte’s lesson plans, we see that she did not plan to ask questions after every single reading, and so if one does not begged to be asked, I content myself with remaining silent and moving on. Though I want the habit of good discussion in our home, I don’t want to begin forcing discussion when it isn’t fitting.

I would never go so far as to say that someone was not using the method authentically because they are not utilizing discussion, but I have learned that it was a helpful tool for our friend Charlotte, and is proving to be a helpful tool for our family as well.