High School, Too

High School Too 

     Miss Charlotte Mason’s principles begin with little children. They are a perfect fit for the elementary and junior high years. What about high school?

     When embarking upon the high school years I felt uneasy. One day, in our house in Maryland, I stood gazing out the dinning room window. The children were eating breakfast. I was dilly-dallying. “What’s the matter Mommy?” one said.

     “Oh, look, it’s snowing over our purple crocuses,” I said. “How pretty.” But the truth was I had a knot in my stomach. A brick school - a long established Christian school - was in clear view from the dinning room where we did much of our lessons. It was only three houses down the road – almost a stone’s throw from our front door -where I could have waved my children good-bye and watched them walk the entire way, had they attended there. But the school taught by methods that I did not esteem.

     I liked our little Charlotte Mason home school. The brick school didn’t teach as far as high school, anyway. Still, it taunted me. I was faced with the memory of my own school education. It was scrappy. It was also dull and impersonal. How could I give my children a high school experience that was interesting, vibrant, friendly, memorable, and a welcome challenge. I wanted to inspire my them with ideas and actions of Christian virtue but also empower them with skills for college. Gazing out the window with these desires and apprehensions rolling around in my head, it seemed a tall order. I stepped away from the window. The children were done with breakfast. “I’ll just have to brazen it out,” I thought. “I’ll put Charlotte Mason’s principles to the test some more.” Would her principles carry over to the land where I was about to roam?

     Yes.

    

     I found the same basic principles for the younger years work just as well for the more sophisticated work of high school. They work wonderfully. They are prolific enough for a lifetime of learning.  If you’ve read my posts under the label “A Charlotte Mason Education,” and my book A Charlotte Mason Companion you will be equipped with basic principles that are adaptable to high school.

Room for Unusual Resources 

     The Charlotte Mason minded parent chooses materials wisely. We look for materials that communicate well. Sometimes the material is packaged as a familiar hardcover textbook – a book most buyers (from a marketing standpoint) recognize to be a schoolbook. But the Charlotte Mason minded teacher is rehearsed in not judging a book by its cover. The freedom to be eclectic and also to take advantage of unusual resources will lead a family down interesting side streets.

     In high school we simply look closer at things – look at the finer details of science and history. The literature and poetry is more sophisticated.  A student’s writing will reflect this.

     I took a photograph of my 1942 issue of Life magazine for you. I found it in a moldy-shelved used-everything store. The feature article is a look at the average American 18-year-old. One such young man is on the cover. (Do you think his mother knit his vest?) These young men were being drafted to defend Christendom from utter annihilation. Not only was this a first-hand source for studying WWII with my student - Nigel at the time - it brought sobering thoughts to his mom. 

A Character All Its Own

     If I’ve been hesitant in sketching out a general plan for high school it is, in part, because ours was individualistic. My three students walked along different roads, read different books, and had different experiences. It may only be a little advantageous for you to have been a fly on our wall. Your home school begs to have a character all its own. A kind of halo surrounds you as your vision forms and you carefully individualize the lessons for your family. Your vision will be based on the conviction of your heart, your sense of the practical, your cultural heritage, and even the whims of your personality. This is what Miss Mason encouraged. Her readers were urged to understand and adapt “the spirit of the law” rather than be bogged down by the letter.  

 One Example

     When a Charlotte Mason Education is confined to a nutshell it risks emphasis on the letter of the law – a To Do list. “But the answer cannot be given in the form of ‘Do’ this and that,” Charlotte Mason tells us, “but rather as an invitation to ‘Consider’ this and that; action follows when we have thought duly.”*1 One ideal may be to study a Shakespeare play every semester - deemed a hallowed Charlotte Mason plan by some. A Charlotte Mason Companion offers a gentle how-to for studying Shakespeare, one that worked remarkably well for us. It resists, however, providing a scope, sequence or schedule for any subject. I think it best to leave these details to your prerogative and circumstances. 

     The group classes I gave in our living room, were open to the few other high school age students we knew. My students grew quite familiar with a handful of plays this way. (You don’t have to hold group classes.)

     My daughters especially, formed a relationship with Shakespeare. This was pleasingly evident to me when they spent a series of bored winter afternoons together, speaking all the parts of a Shakespeare comedy into a tape recorder – a sort of impromptu radio drama. Perhaps if I had scheduled a play every semester they would never have taken the initiative to enjoy one on their own. 

     Our family attended the occasional local stage performance, which is how a Shakespeare play is originally meant to be heard. (People of olden days used to say that they were going to hear a play because the stage lacked scenery and it truly is about words.)
     During Nigel’s high school years Dean taught Henry V to a group of mainly boys. (I kept a copy of the invitation – shown here.) Nigel was a science guy, however, and at that time we had other fish to fry so he didn’t take part in as many group studies as his sisters.

Home Education and Life

     Around that time we were preparing well ahead for a major household move – from Maine to Pennsylvania. The day of our garage/used-book sale I met a home school mom with a pleasant face and clear blue eyes. Yet, the corners of her countenance spoke “care-worn.” She stood with an empty book-bag in hand and with her lovely teenage daughter beside her.

     “Hi, my daughter plays cello, too,” she said with a smile. “She’d like to meet your daughter.”

     “Oh, hello,” I said and called over, Yolanda.

     The girls talked. We moms did, too. After a pause in our light chatter the mom made a confession. “We’ve had a different sort of year,” she said. “My daughter loves her books, narrates lots, keeps a diary and is good with a needle. But my sister had cancer and she [the daughter] is behind in math.” I instantly read between the lines. Out of love this mom had been caring for her sister. Cheerful companionship was needed. Perhaps meals were brought over regularly, housework was attended to for her sister’s family, and the daughter had either helped out more at home or came to her mother’s side at the aunt’s house. It made me wonder what kinds of precious life-lessons were matter-of-factly recorded in the girl’s diary.

     “What your daughter learned this year cannot be gotten out of any schoolbook, I told her. “Lessons of love. Never-mind that she is behind in math,” I added. “This summer you can regain some ground.” She smiled again, filled her bag with book bargains and I never saw her again. But her example of love stayed with me. She taught her daughter no sigh of idle piety (Oh, poor so ‘n so) but rather, a practical piety.

     That spring I arranged to teach my high school daughter, Yolanda, finer skills for sewing and cooking, one on one. On second thought I invited her friend to join us for our cooking afternoons. I doubled the recipes.

     The girls became good at chop, season and sauté. The friend carried a hearty-sized portion of food back to her house. These were the weeks her mother (my friend) was recovering from surgery and the meals were welcome and appreciated.

Narration Culmination

     What works for the early years culminates in high school – beautifully. A student raised on ideas from a wide curriculum has grown accustomed to gaining knowledge through his developing imagination and his narration. His years of narrating orally (putting the reading his own words) have equipped him to speak and write with far more fluency than he would have gotten by years of multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank. He has grown accustomed to being thrown into company with authors. With some “wise letting alone” the maturing student goes off to a quiet corner to read and then write in his notebook (or open a Microsoft word document). His prior years of narrating carry over strength-of-skill for high school.

     If Miss Mason’s gentle methods are new to your high school student, and he finds oral narration to be awkward, he might narrate more readily in writing. Confidence is a slow growing plant, said George Washington. Take heart. Your older student’s abilities will eventually blossom. Talking together about life and lessons is helpful. Tutoring is (or was) used in colleges of renown.

     Formal examination questions can be set on a variety of subjects. These questions require the student to write about what he had learned during a semester. Examples of narration questions (for the younger years) are provided in A Charlotte Mason Companion. Questions for high school follow the same principle.

   

     The acquired skill of narration works well for history and literature but it sheds its influence upon other subjects. My daughter Sophia’s detailed drawings and lab notes for dissection came by smooth effort because of her prior years of narrating. Remember I said high school is looking closer at things? Well, in this instance I was relieved that another mother, who was a veterinarian before she had children, taught dissection at her house. We bartered. I taught her students Shakespeare at my house. 

     Dean taught a speech class in our living room open to our high school age friends. How marvelously, narration empowers this subject. 

In Closing

     We want to challenge our students. There is value in a measure of hardness to what they are learning. But if books and materials are “living” they can be a merger of levels  – especially when this merger satisfies the versatile spirit of the law for the love of knowledge and supplies food for thought – ideas. Miss Mason observed:

     “Our schools turn out a good many clever young persons, [lacking] nothing but initiative, the power of reflection, and the sort of moral imagination that enable you to ‘put yourself in his place.’ These qualities flourish upon a proper diet; and this is not afforded by the ordinary schoolbook, or in sufficient quantity by the ordinary lesson."*2  

     I hope to share more examples from our home school in response to the questions I’ve received. I aim to encourage, help you focus, help you not loose heart or your sense of humor  –– but I wouldn’t wish to contribute to “information overload.” Trust your God-given vision.

     Comments are welcome,

     Karen Andreola

End Notes *1, *2, Charlotte Mason’s A Philosophy of Education, pp. 24 - 25.