Weekly Wrap-Up: Lack of Busywork...

Learning about Fauvism and Henri Matisse

I want to piggy-back on Sonya's blog entry this week titled, "Is Charlotte Mason a Gentle Approach? Part 1". I was interested to read her thoughts on whether Charlotte Mason ever used the words "gentle" or "gentle art of learning" in her writings. I have often wondered why these terms were applied to Charlotte Mason and how we got the idea that learning in the Charlotte Mason style was somehow "gentle". (I encourage you to click over and read the whole entry but if you want Sonya's short answer....Miss Mason never said those words.)

This wrap-up post follows last week's Homeschool The Easy Way post. I did not mean that the work was easy but rather from my side of the desk implementing Charlotte Mason's ideas are easier on me. It may be that homeschooling using these ideas are "gentle" on me and allow me to feel less stress and more satisfaction.

As we have applied this style of learning and shaping our homeschool days in high school, I have grown in my awareness that the Charlotte Mason approach to school is a rigorous way to learn. It puts much emphasis on the student taking responsibility for their own learning. I have watched my sons do heaps of reading and we have expected them to read once and narrate it back in their own words or in some other way that shows that they have made it their own. There is no busywork.

This is exactly how I would define our high school year so far in relation to how Charlotte Mason's ideas work in high school. Real learning and no busywork. It is the kind of learning that goes on after the school day is over and your children have graduated from high school.

Appreciating the conciseness of this book lately.

Mr. A who graduated last year from high school and has decided to take a "gap semester" this fall demonstrated to me that learning the CM way goes on after high school. It is real life learning. Here are some of things that I saw this week that he accomplished and if I were keeping track of learning these would be on his list:

• Read a book about Alaska and narrated it back to me as I cooked dinner.
• Completed Sketch Tuesday with his new set of Sharpies. 
• Helped me in the garden and took time to observe the different seeds we found as we cleaned up the garden beds. 
• Read an article about how traditional warm-up exercises actually decrease muscle strength by 5% and then told me about it....leading to a discussion about anatomy with his brother. 
• Researched a Bible question using a concordance and shared the answer with the whole family. 
• Wrote a resume and went and talked to the owner of an aviation restoration company at the airport.

You get the idea.....he did all this in addition to his part-time job and his volunteer work (using construction skills). In real life, there is no busy work.

Totally loving this curriculum...highly recommend this course.

For Mr. B who is still in high school, he is also benefiting from the Charlotte Mason influenced style of schooling. He is working on some good habits and that at times is not gentle but hard work. Since he is the only one doing any formal schooling, it is easier for me to keep on top of the bad habits that seem to creep in when I can be distracted by other things going on. His reminders are coming in the form of a daily task list from Homeschool Tracker. His job is to actually look at the list and check things off as he finishes....something he needs to work on. Being thorough is a good habit that Charlotte Mason encouraged and I am making sure that every assignment is done with diligence and to the best of his ability.

This is tough...going to like though.

We are on our "B" week which means he has geography instead of history, formal writing instead of literature, and a meeting with me to cover two week's worth of work. I had some email about the idea of an A and a B week. It works for us since we are stretching one year's work out over two years, filling in with lots of nature study, extra artwork, informal videography, travel, and volunteer work.

Our school week is done and we are going to be heading to the apple orchard to pick up some apples for pies and to eat apple doughnuts. Mr. B is going to drive me....sigh. He is off this afternoon to spend the weekend with his older brother. Tomorrow I have a double baby shower to attend.....two nieces having babies at around the same time. I have my gifts all ready to go and I just need to make some cards to go along with them.

Great week, especially since I finished my writing project! Oh, I also had my Handbook of Nature Study blog totally redesigned....pop over and take a look. I am very impressed with Emily who did all the beautiful work. Check out her business at PolkaDotPixels.com