Well, I kept saying that I was going to write a series on becoming a CM teacher, and when I said it, I meant it. I spent a lot of Holy Week sitting in the sun, perfecting my tan {!}, and reading The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley.
My first post on this subject was actually a few weeks ago when I wrote my original Learning how to Live. {If you haven’t read it, click on over and do so!} At that time, I was specifically thinking about the Mother’s Education Course. I still think the MEC gives us a lot of insight into what Charlotte Mason thought was a priority when it came to the education of homeschooling moms.
But walking through the pages of Miss Mason’s biography has opened an entire world to me. For this series, I want to look at how Miss Mason continued her own education, how she trained her teachers, how they continued their own education, in addition to the MEC. Once we look at all of that, I think we’ll be ready to consider how we can best self-educate in the context of our modern lives with all its attendant pressures and expectations.
Interspersed with all of this, there are also some guests posts, where real homeschool moms explain how they go about continuing their education in the midst of life’s daily grind.
Learning how to Live Series Index:
- Learning how to Live {original post}
- Learning how to Live: Upcoming Series! ← you are here
- The Self-Education of Miss Charlotte Mason
- Share Your Passions {a guest post from the DHM}
- At College with Charlotte Mason
- Reading Hamlet with my Daughters {a guest post from Silvia Cachia}
- A Note on Lectures at the Ambleside Teachers’ College
- It’s Never Too Late {a guest post by Jen Snow}
- Confessions of a Lifelong Learner {a guest post by Dawn Duran}
- A Brief History of Charlotte Mason’s Mothers’ Education Course
- Learning how to Grow {a guest post by Mystie Winckler}
- Charlotte Mason’s Mother’s Education Course: The Content
- On Mother Culture
- Magazines as Continuing Education
- Local Group Meetings and Conferences for Continuing Education
- Becoming a Charlotte Mason Teacher in a Utilitarian World
- A Mama’s Continuing Education: Oh, the Endless Possibilities!
- How She Learns: My Personal Continuing Education Journey
16 Comments
[…] post is going to be my attempt at a concise summary of all the pertinent installments in this series, plus I want to go beyond summarizing what we’ve learned about Charlotte Mason and continuing […]
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[…] Click here to return to the series index. […]
[…] Click here to return to the series index. […]
[…] In our search for ideas on educating ourselves, we already looked at Charlotte Mason’s daily routine. Today, we’re going to talk about what it looked like to go to college and receive the two-years’ teacher training at Ambleside. All of the information I’m sharing here is from Essex Cholmondeley’s chapter in The Story of Charlotte Mason called Taking the Training in 1918, in which she details her own experience at the college. […]
[…] After gaining these thoughts in seed form I started noticing all the different ways that adult learning was offered and modeled in Essex Cholmondeley’s book and I decided to compile all of the various descriptions into a blog series that I called Learning How to Live: Becoming a Charlotte Mason Teacher in a Utilitarian World. […]
[…] Click here to return to the series index. […]
[…] Click here to return to the series index. […]
Oh my gracious, Brandy.
I have an upcoming retreat that is all about Mother Culture, Schole and Keeping….
And, I feel as if I have just hit the jackpot.
This is such a wonderful series.
Thank you for all that you do! <3
Ha. 🙂 Glad I could help!
[…] those of you who are just joining us, you should know that we’ve lately taken a journey. We’re looking at all the different aspects of teacher education that we can find in […]
[…] self-education and how she educated her teachers, the Mothers’ Education Course, and more! If we’re going to be thorough, we simply must touch on Mother […]
[…] When I’ve shared this list with others, it’s both answered and raised a lot of questions. On the one hand, this shows us her priorities. What does a mother need to know? She needs to understand how best to care for the bodies and souls of her children. She needs to understand some basic philosophy. And she needs to know about the world around her.This list is both a tall order as well as a really simplified approach. It’s a lot, and yet we can think of so much more that we think we need to add.The questions that are raised deserve to be asked. Miss Mason was, we suppose, trying to educate the deficits of the mothers she encountered, as well as put them in touch with the living, captain thoughts of their own day. So do we today have the same deficits? Or do we have different ones? If we were to design an MEC for ourselves, ought we to choose these same subject areas? Do we need more areas? Or different areas?This is where it gets tricky, for we’re not talking about this as an academic exercise. We’re looking into our own continuing self-education and getting some inspiration and practical ideas.Over at AmblesideOnline, I’m working with a team of women to help design a “modern equivalent” of the MEC. This is going to take some time, of course, but we’re all hoping for something really great. It might not be perfect for every single mother — in fact, I know it won’t be — but it will offer a good starting place and a picture of what an MEC might look like in today’s world.In other words, it’ll be an option. And because it’s from AmblesideOnline, it’ll be free of charge. Yet another gift to you and the rest of mankind.Because we love you, and all that.Next in this series, we’ll be talking about Mother Culture.Click here to return to the series index. […]
[…] at Afterthoughts, is conducting a series of posts entitled Learning how to Live, becoming a Charlotte Mason teacher in a utilitarian world, and she has invited some willing moms to write about their experiences on continuing education or […]
I’m excited to read this and possibly use it with my teachers and parents at the CM co-op I direct! This, along with CMI’s “Mson’s Alveary” curriculum could be a a winning combination for imparting this radically different paradigm to 21st century educators.
I hope you enjoy it! If you ever get your hands on that biography from Chomondeley, it is certainly worth reading. 🙂