Homeschooling Outside the Box Cindy Rinna

Principle 1: Children are Born Persons


“No sooner doth the truth…. come into the soul’s sight, but the soul knows her to be he, first and old acquaintance.”
“The consequence of truth is great, therefore the judgment of it must not be negligent.”
Reference: Volume 6, Chapter 2 Here Charlotte quotes Benjamin Whichcote, who was the founding father of Cambridge and a puritan divine (an archaic word for theologian). I won’t attempt to unpack his words but I will say that with these quotes she is setting the stage to highlight the importance of truth and its inseparable affiliation with the soul.
To understand Charlotte’s first principle you have to know who she was talking to. The Victorian era may have been coming to a close by the time she published A Philosophy of Education, but she originally said this in her first Home Education volume and was very much talking to Victorian educators and parents.
To say a child was “born a person” carries a distinction that we take for granted today. Of course a child is born a person, we think. What else would he be born as? “But truths get flat and wonders stale upon us,” Charlotte said and isn’t that right? We read our bibles every day and skim the details, “yes, yes…the garden, the flood, the gospel, and so on…” but take the gravity of that truth lightly and while small children wonder at the world around them we stroll carelessly past a robin’s nest. How quickly we breeze past what is too familiar.
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Where do I even begin? 
For the better part of twelve years I have been writing (and reading and podcasting and speaking) about Charlotte Mason. I’d like to think I’ve hit that 10,000 hours expert level of knowledge about her but truth be told there is still much to learn. I’m being totally serious when I say Charlotte is in my top five people who I want to meet in heaven. I intend to have many a tea time with her discussing great books.
It seems the more you know about something the harder it is to condense that information into something tangible and simple. Something about not seeing the forest for the trees comes to mind and her philosophies have become so beautifully interwoven with our life that it’s hard to separate it out when someone asks about how we homeschool.
What is the Charlotte Mason method? Is it narration? Picture study? Music? Going outside? Good books? Yes, but…. 
Who was Charlotte Mason? A British educator who revolutionized the system in her time but has been all but lost to history and looked over by modern “progressive” educators? Yes, but…. 
Her legacy, or rather, the legacy of her educational philosophy, is so much more.
Her philosophy of education was so influential that it transcended the realms of the Victorian classroom and has been entrusted to homeschoolers and small private schools today. It traveled across the pond from lovely Ambleside in the Lake District to my beloved United States and all the way into my home in north Alabama. 
How?
Listen in to find out 
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“Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.”
It’s one of the first Charlotte Mason adages I learned by heart. I use it all the time to this day. I bet it’ll be one of those sayings my kids will remember when they’re fifty and say with a smile - albeit a slight roll of the eyes - “my mom was always saying…” and I’m so happy to think that.
When God made humans, He put them in a garden. Not a house, not a cubicle, but out of doors. We were not created to be inside as much as we are. You hear about “new” ways to be healthy like green therapy or beach yoga and it’s important to remember that getting outside is not something we are adding to civilization; it’s something we need to return to.
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SHOW NOTES:
My Nature Journal
On Starting Well: The Philosophy Issue
The Philosophy Episode

While becoming a parent is the true beginning of the journey, the preschool years bring a certain amount of well, uncertainty…for those of us who embark on the adventure of homeschooling. When is “the beginning” of their education? What should education look like in the early years? The culture tells us more is better, and the sooner the better.
But Charlotte Mason referred to these formative, early pre-school years as “a quiet growing time.” Children learn through play and experience and these years are best spent growing up alongside the example of mom, dad, and older siblings in the most natural and nourishing enviornment – home.
SHOW NOTES
On Littles: The Early Years Issue
Pre-School…Not Preschool: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Mind: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Body: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Soul: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Schedule: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
A Case for the Early Years with Leah Martin from My Little Robins
 
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What is education? What are your family values? What type of family culture are you working to create? What type of people do you hope to help your kids become?
Mark Twain once famously said, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Education means so much more than curriculum; it is the cultivation of a person and a philosophy of education needs to reflect the type of person you hope to help your child become (and the person you are working to become, for that matter).
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Winter has the propensity to bring burn-out for homeschoolers but it doesn't have to be that way. Today I'll talk about ways to avoid burn-out and how to enjoy the coziness of winter.
Show Notes Sunlight before noon post
Until the Streetlights Come On by Ginny Yurich
Homeschool Rhythms: Rest Time
Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli
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