Saturday, October 21, 2017

Meeting Charlotte Mason 2017

Earlier this week, we joined with many others in our area to introduce and discuss the teaching methods and philosophy of Charlotte Mason. The event was well attended with over twenty-five adults, several children and many sweet babies.  
We began with an introduction to Charlotte Mason by way of discussing the ideas of education as understand in both the classical era and her own era. We highlighted the path she took in creating teacher training schools and elementary schools and also the methods she used in those schools.
The rest of the outline for the evening was taken from Charlotte Mason's borrowed phrase, "Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline and a Life." Along with the idea of making connections across all areas of study and thought, which Charlotte Mason termed, "The Science of Relations", each of these four tools of instruction were briefly introduced, explained and illustrated with real-life examples.
In between the talks that evening, we sang folks songs and a hymn, listened to various literary readings including poetry and nature topics, listened to audio samples of narration and saw examples of written work.  We were pleased to have two books generously donated from Cori Dean at Maple Tree Publications in southern Ontario to give away as door prizes to randomly chosen attendees. A feedback and contact form was handed out and we finished with sharing delicious treats and snacks prepared by thoughtful members of our group. We spent the remaining time mingling and chatting with one another as the book tables and displays were browsed. We also did a brisk used-book business after the meeting and all the books offered for Free were taken to new homes as well.

A printed handout containing song lyrics, quotes from talks, Charlotte Mason's summary principles, and further recommended resources was given to every attendee and used throughout the evening.

You can view, download or print your own copy if you are interested in the contents of that handout by clicking on this Google Docs link:  Meeting Charlotte Mason, October 2017 Handout

This was the first time our study group has ever put on an event like this and we were so encouraged by the responses from everyone who took time to speak or write to us. We are looking forward to seeing the local Charlotte Mason(CM) community grow. If you are in the National Capital Region of Canada and would like to be part of this CM community, we currently have two options available for you to consider being part of.
For Facebook users, we have a fledgling private group beginning which can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/meetingcharlottemason/. Or you can look for it as a private group called 'Meeting Charlotte Mason'. There are three questions asked for you to provide short answers to in order for the Admins to approve your request. This is simply to protect our group from unwanted offers and strange people.
For those of you who are not Facebook users, you have this website to help you find relevant information and community. You will be able to leave comments on posts and also provide your name and email if you choose to receive future emails about events or news.
We are all homeschooling mothers with variously aged children, so please consider our response time in light of that understanding.

Finally, here are a collection of photos from our evening together.