Maria Rioux's Articles 3

The Best of Both: Merging Classical Education Principles with
Charlotte Mason's Methods 

by Maria Rioux

All men, by nature, desire to know, but few are any good at it. We
each have the native ability to reason, but coming to know....using
the brain God gave us efficiently and unerringly.... is way more
difficult than it was for us to learn, say, how to walk.  It takes a
lot longer to intellectually get up off the floor and we stumble
around a whole lot longer, too. When we finally do get past toddling,
we have a tendency to walk off in the wrong direction. Though coming
to know is a struggle, it's a struggle we naturally delight in.
We're at least as happy about our intellectual progress as we were by
our first awkward steps, and we're always trying to think better and
know more. God gave us the ability to reason and  the tendency to
wonder...along with a world that was wonder-full, so that we could be
all that a human being was intended to be. Every bit of truth gives
us a glimmer of the Source of all Truth, and Augustine was right:
our hearts really are restless until they rest in Thee.
As homeschoolers we're very interested in how we come to know all we
_ought_ to know. Actually, we're interested in this when we start.
We're fairly desperate about it after roughly 3 years. We might even
be more interested in that than we are in helping the baby learn to
walk because, in the abscence of some sort of handicap, that baby is
eventually going to get up and move around like a human being is
supposed.to. Half the people we see every day give us concrete
evidence that there's no guarantee our reasoning ability will ever
fully develop. We don't get out much. Most of those people are blood
relatives. Sadly, we sometimes supply a little data to support the
claim ourselves. If it happens to be Febuary, and you're at all like
us, you see a lot more concrete evidence. Febuary is the shortest
month of the year, and that's just one more instance of God's mercy.
Happily, it's one of the few things you can wish in hell and not have
to worry about. It belongs there....which makes you wonder why it's
so darn cooooold!!!!! Whatever it lacks in terms of degrees it more
than makes up for in terms of despair. But this is March. March
brings warmer weather and all of nature springs to life. It's
infectious, and it's a good thing because I was steadily freezing to
death. The end of the year is no longer a mirage, nor are we so close
upon it that we can't reasonably expect to complete our work. We
celebrate Easter full of hope and joy.  Now it's April.
Aprilllll?!!!??? Yikes! We've got a month to address those things
that plague us!!! Having explained these concepts again and again
throughout the year, we're dead sure a month isn't going to do it.
Two months wouldn't do it. It's probably not even doable. By  the end
of May we realize that, while we haven't done all that we planned,
we've done all we must and, in some areas, more than we must. We're
tired but we're not blind. We are blessed, and homeschooling is a big
reason why.
Homeschooling is a big job. It's not uncommon to feel a little
overwhelmed once in a while...pretty regularly.....or just about
every day right around 4:30 pm. As our children grow, and God blesses
us with more of them, their education becomes more involved and
difficult, and we, unhelpfully, grow older and tireder. Happily, we
also grow a little wiser.   If we begin with the premiss that
homeschooling is God's will for us, we can be confident of this much:
if it ought to be done, it can be done...though it might take longer
than we expected.   It reminds me of Shel Silverstein's poem, Melinda
May :

"Have you ever heard of Melinda Mae, who ate a monstrous whale?
She thought she should, She said she would, so she started right in
at the tail.
And everyone said, "You're much too small," But that didn't bother
Melinda at all.
She took little bites and she chewed very slow, just like a good girl
should....
and in 89 years she ate the whale because she said she would."

Education is sometimes  described in terms of an intellectual feast.
I hope I can help you break it down into delicious bite-sized bits.
Charlotte Mason's methods conjoined with a Classical approach have
helped me to do so...though that doesn't mean we don't occasionally
have some sort of intellectual indigestion. Before one can fruitfully
consider how a classical/liberal arts education and a CM one might be
combined, one must first have a clear understanding of the basic
content and method of each.

I was first introduced to the Classical method while studying at
Thomas Aquinas College. That's where I learned the difference between
opinion, of which I was almost completely composed, belief...of which
I had a goodly portion, and knowledge.... which I'm pretty sure I had
none of. I always loved to read, but there I learned how to think
about what I read in a way that led to knowledge and Truth. I can't
claim to know much, but every bit of truth is precious and even
knowing that you don't know  is a gift.  I didn't enjoy all my
studies, and I didn't always study as hard as I could have or should
have, but I did come away with a lifelong love of learning....and a
patient and knowledgeable husband willing and able to help me.

Had I been exposed to Charlotte's Mason's ideas and methods before
college, I might have enjoyed all my studies more and studied each of
them harder.  Charlotte understood wonder and respected reason, but
in the context of the whole person and, more pointedly, with a focus
on good habits.  I think I might have had better habits had I been
introduced to Charlotte's methods while I was forming them. This is
what made Charlotte Mason so appealing to me as a homeschooling
parent. Parenting is already a big job. The only way I'm ever going
to be able to parent _and_ academically educate the 8 children God
has blessed us with is if I do so simultaneously.

A classical education begins with the Trivium: A study of grammar,
logic, and rhetoric, in that order. Given that my responsibilities
with regard to the academic education of our children represents a
beginning, that's good enough for me. I will be content if our
children love to think and know how. The studies of the Trivium are
undertaken in stages, appropriately, if not very imaginatively,
titled the same way. There is some difference among the various
proponents of a classical education as to when these stages occur,
but the grammar stage is generally considered to be grades 3-5, the
logic stage grades 6-8, and the rhetoric stage grades 9-12.

The subjects studied in the Trivium are not really subjects at all if
by subject we mean something studied for its own sake.  Grammar is
undertaken not so much to learn a new language but to understand
language itself: to understand how it is structured and why words are
used in specific ways. Language expresses thought. How one expresses
an idea, that is, which words he uses and how he uses them, has a
tremendous impact on whether or not the idea to which these words
ought to correspond is accurately conveyed. Inflected languages rely
on endings to make meanings clear whereas uninflected languages rely
on position. You can completely destroy the order of the words in an
inflected sentence and yet retain the meaning precisely because the
function of the word is determined by its ending.  That makes
function unambiguous and takes the guesswork out of translation. As
Latin is a highly inflected language, having 6 cases to English's 3
sparingly used, it is the language of choice for  the study of
grammar. This alone provides good reason for studying Latin, but it
isn't the only benefit. Since inflected languages help us interpret
uninflected ones, studying Latin grammar is a big help in
understanding English grammar...which is one of the more confusing
and grammatically rebellious languages. Latin has the added benefit
of being the root language of all the Romance languages, as well as
the technical language of the sciences, medicine, and law.
  Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, provides a good
example of why how we say things...how we use language...helps us
recognize underlying Truths. Christ is carrying His cross, having
been horribly scourged and suffering terribly. He sees His mother,
who can hardly bear to see Him so. In response to her gaze, He says,
"See, Mother! I make all things new!" Everything about Him radiates
joy, mastery, and proper pride...even strength if it were not for the
concrete effects of His suffering. He uses the word "make". That's
not a passive verb. It's active. To all appearances He's suffering
abuse passively and helplessly, dominated by those who have the power
to wield it. His words point us to the reality our senses cannot
apprehend: He _makes_ all things new. He's not passive in this. He's
working and this is the tool He is using. He's passive not because
He's powerless, but rather because it is through willed submission
that He will remake all things. It's an active passivity, and His
words make that clear. He did not say, "All things are made new." He
said, "I make all things new." If we understand language, we can
appreciate the difference.

The study of grammar, through which we gain an understanding of the
structure of language and the means of intelligent expression, has a
corresponding intellectual stage titled the Grammar Stage. It is in
this stage that the child learns what is. He learns all that he
factually can about all that is good, true, and beautiful. Just as
you cannot formulate a thought in your own mind and express that idea
or reality without language, you cannot consider anything without
knowing that it is and what it is. The grammar stage is intended to
supply the child not yet intellectually mature enough for rational
argument and analytical thought with the facts from which he will, in
the logic stage of the Trivium, draw conclusions and abstract
universals.
The study of logic aims to teach us how to use language: how to
define terms and formulate an argument. It trains our minds to reason
well and draw only necessary conclusions and detect fallacious ones.
In this we are not so much focused upon what is studied as how it is
studied. That's why logic books often resort to "If all A is B..."
type syllogisms. It doesn't matter what we're talking about. In fact,
because opinion often clouds judgement, we're better off with "A" and
"B". No one really cares about A or B...or even AB.... in a personal
way. If one defines clearly, one often avoids error and
misunderstanding. Sadly, almost no one takes the time. We prefer to
assume we all understand X the same way. In fact, doing so avoids so
much conflict and is so much more pleasant....if only in our own
mind. If you have children I am...dead sure...you have known the
frustration of fallacious conclusions based upon ill-defined terms.
"Did you vacuum the family room?" "Yes." Did you do a good job?"
"Yes." If we quit here, we could all be at least theoretically happy,
avoid conflict, and have a reasonably pleasant if delusional day.
Most mothers are not content with assumptions and generalities or
ill-defined terms: they want something they can sink their teeth
into. They have a gut appreciation for logic. They begin to define
their terms: "Did you move stuff?" For almost every mother, this is a
given. How could you dream you vacuumed the room if you did not move
things out of the way and do behind them? We assume this. It's a
first principle. Boys...are loveable but...ignorant of household
first principles. They're not just ignorant,
they're...developmentally challenged. A 13 year old boy will look his
mother in the face, with wide-eyed amazement as if this idea is
altogether new and ...rather odd....and say, "Well, I didn't actually
move stuff, buuuut..." A good logician will make mincemeat out of him
in short order. That alone ought to be inspiration enough for any of
you considering the classical method but sort of sitting on the
fence. It is, sadly, no guarantee that any room will ever be truly
clean. That points to two things: defining terms isn't enough, and,
while you might be able to make an irrefutable argument, knowledge is
not virtue.
In the logic stage one applies logic to all those areas introduced in
the grammar stage. We know what is. Now we want to know why and how.
One of the best ways to do that is to read good books and discuss
them. It would be important to discuss in a logical manner,
supporting opinions with text and presenting arguments rooted in
truth as opposed to strong feeling.

The study of rhetoric...hardly seems necessary. I have at least 7
rhetoricians in my house and none of them have been taught. That may
be because I am not making necessary distinctions because I am
blinded by ....love. I have at least 4 debators/ lawyers living with
me....and none of them have any sort of  degree. All are out of
diapers. They're not actually all that persuasive, but they are
pretty frustrating from time to time. A rhetorician should not be a
debator. A rhetorician, ideally, has a noble aim: he knows the Truth
and hopes to share it by expressing it eloquently and persuasively. A
debator just wants to win the argument. He could be a complete
skeptic, but he has plenty of pride. He does not care what is true
and may even doubt that there is anything such thing. He does know
what it is to win an argument and he likes to win. Sadly,if he
"wins",  he almost always loses, though he almost never knows it.
This points to a notable difference between rhetoric and logic:
rhetoric can be used as easily (though not morally well) to persuade
one to accept a falsehood as truth as it can to persuade one to
accept truth as truth.  Logic, that is, demonstration, can never lead
to error. You might not be able to conclude much...or even anything
at all, but whatever you do conclude you know is true. In that sense,
logic necessarily safeguards truth in a way that rhetoric does not. I
don't care how persuasive your argument is, if it's fallacious, a
good logician will not only smell a rat , he'll be able to hunt him
down.
The rhetorical stage focuses on the spoken and written word. It is
best learned through persuasive speeches, beautiful poetry and works
of literature. The student who finds he's eager to be one of the
happy few left alive on St. Crispin's Day or who's prepared to plunge
into the breach to add his little bit to the bridge of corpses for
Harry and King George despite the fact that he's American and in
principle would oppose King George if given the opportunity...and
further, that he has some disdain for those who chose to wear
brilliant red in a world of muted greens and browns... with a white
"X" conveniently emblazoned across the chest to helpfully mark the
spot for even a half-blind enemy....knows he's sitting at the feet of
a master.
This will suffice as an explanation of the classical Trivium for our purposes.

Charlotte Mason shared many Classical ideals as well as Catholic
ones. She described education as an atmosphere, a discipline, and a
life. When she said,  "I am, I can, I ought, and I will."  she was
indicating the dignity of man made in God's image and the
responsibility that goes along with that. We are children of God with
a natural capacity to come to know, which ought to be used. The way
we begin to do that is to act on our desire. We will to do what we
ought to do. Sometimes that's as good as it gets....but if that's all
that is possible, it's enough.
Charlotte Mason could be summed up nicely by Socrates and
Bonaventure: "The unreflective life is not worth living." and, "The
only true educator is one who can kindle in the heart of his pupil
the vision of beauty, illumine it with the light of truth and infuse
virtue."
  She had a love for Truth and confidence that it could be arrived at.
She respected the child's ability to think and directed them to think
about beautiful things. Above all, she appreciated the gift of wonder
that God has written on our hearts and which makes us yearn for Him.
Charlotte appreciated what Aristotle knew and what the sacraments
exemplify: man learns through his senses. She had a special affection
for how we can come to glimpse God through his creation.
Charlotte loved order, maybe in part because she recognized God's
hand in the order of creation. We readily admit a kind of ordering of
thought when it comes to mathematics and acknowledge that it would be
foolish to work on algebra before one has an understanding of
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Mathematics
might be the clearest illustration of the need for order, but it's
not the only one. In nature we see connections not initially obvious,
but revealing order and a plan.
Habits are important:  "Without the aid of trained emotions the
intellect is powerless against the animal organism.  In battle it is
not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to
their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest
sentimentalism about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of
more use." C.S. Lewis "Abolition of Man
Children do not naturally grow either in knowledge, goodness, or
Truth, and virtue must be practiced and repeated before we can claim
it as habit. Children do naturally wonder, and that wonder kindles
flames which must be carefully tended and fed. Fire fed upon
immature, wet, or rotten wood sputters, smokes, and finally goes out.
The smoke might make you think there's a lot going on, but in the end
it isn't fruitful. The apprehension of facts alone is not knowledge
and one who is content with compiling facts is like
Lewis's "trousered ape who has never been able to conceive the
Atlantic as anything more than so many million tons of cold salt water

Through her understanding of education and children, Charlotte has
helped me to be a  more patient, respectful and loving teacher to
each of our children, rejoicing in his unique gifts and working to
help him overcome his particular weaknesses. She has given  me a
greater sense of flexibility within structure, something the
Classical approach also employs but to a lesser degree.  But
Charlotte never had children of her own. Anyone who has noted the
difference between how children behave in public and how they behave
at home will appreciate why this might cause a problem. The Classical
method reminds me that, as unique as we each are, we're still the
same species and some universals apply. As beautiful as each child
is, he's not pristine. He has fallen nature and the imagination to
take it out for a spin.  As delightful as any bit of truth  is,
coming to know  is hard work. Precisely because we each have
particular strengths and weaknesses,  everything is not equally
delightful to all nor are we each equally capable. Most of the time
learning is a joy, but sometimes you just have to hold your nose and
do it. If you develop the habit of perseverance, as Charlotte would
have you do, even difficult things become less so, and sometimes they
transform into  joys. The two methods, woven together, provide a kind
of balance neither would have separately.
With regard to the end, both methods are completely compatible if not
identical. Each seeks to liberally educate, that is,  to educate in a
manner that frees the person to be all God intended him to be. With
regard to the means to that end, they can be compatible rather than
oppositional. It comes down to this: what is the role of the teacher
and what are the capabilities of the student?  With regard to the
student, that depends. With regard to the teacher, it doesn't.
Either we discover truth completely on our own  through immediate
contact with the thing to be understood and having no need of any
sort of teacher or we rely on a teacher to guide us.  Given that
Christ was referred to as Teacher, I have to think that we don't want
to get too territorial about this. Do we NEED teachers? It's at this
point that many homeschoolers fondly recall Abe Lincoln, Frederick
Douglass, and ....hmmmm....not that many others. These men are
notable, but by way of exception. They are not the norm and there's a
good reason for that. It is possible to educate yourself, but it's
pretty tough, and you'd have to be pretty sharp as well as highly
motivated.  Independent learning, so natural and also so necessary
especially in homeschooling situations, is not really independent,
which is why it is sometimes confused with discovery learning. It's
important to remember that when we hand a child a book we're not just
handing him a book. We're handing him the author  as teacher.
Sometimes the only teachers available are those who wrote the best
books. Happily, those are often the best teachers. In this
classicalists and Mason fans agree.
Since it's not likely that we can count on discovery learning, we
have to think about what defines a good teacher. Firstly, you can't
teach what you don't know. You can attempt to discover together, but
that's not teaching. That's the blind leading the blind and it's
about as effective. The best teachers immitate discovery learning to
the extent that that is possible. They lead the mind, through an
intellectual kind of leading by the hand, along the path reason would
naturally follow if it were capable of doing so completely on its
own. St. Thomas puts it very nicely: "Just as the doctor is said to
heal a patient through the activity of nature, so a man is said to
cause knowledge in another through the activity of the learner's own
natural reason, and this is teaching." The patient in a very real way
does heal himself, just as the student really does come to know...to
intellectually see... for himself.
Most of us teach in this way every day many times a day, though we
might do it more often in a practical sense than an academic one.  We
do it every time we feed the baby his first solid foods. I can feed
the baby because I have already eaten....I'm strong and able, I know
what to feed him because I know what constitutes a healthy diet, I
know what his body needs and what he can handle, and I know where
food should go. It's when I actually sit down and do it that the
parallel to a kind of leading by the hand becomes most clear. As the
spoonful of naturally good and appealing food nears the tiny, elusive
orifice, I realize that I  have opened my mouth.  If I have
difficulty coaxing the stuff in there, I find that my mouth tries to
be helpful. It widens and contorts, my head angles this way and that,
in a kind of hopeful, if a little desperate,  leading by example.
The baby helps as he can through a kind of awkward imitation,
eventually I get the food in,  and any that reappears gets scooped up
and reintroduced until the baby  accepts it. The baby doesn't benefit
from the food until it enters his system and becomes part of him.The
whole process is rather messy and fairly time consuming, but fun
along the way and well worth the effort. Depending upon how we define
spoonfeeding, that pretty much sums up my 17 years of homeschooling
experience. In fact, my own attempts at coming to know more and
understand what I know better have sometimes made me feel like a big
baby myself. When you're over 40 that's almost flattering. It just
makes you feel younger.  I do want to be careful how  we define
spoonfeeding so that no one could confuse it with force feeding or
some sort of regurgitation.
We've been reading On to Oregon. Could a person travel from Ohio to
Oregon on his own? Obviously he can because people like Kit Carson,
Jim Bridger, and a fair number of others did that and more again and
again. Is it better to have a guide, and even better than that to
travel together, as a group? It sure is. Even if you take every
precaution, have great guides, and loads of good marksmen in your
wagon train, your oxen still stumble, limbs break, rattlesnakes bite,
Indians steal and kill ......and then there's dysentery.

Coming to know things is like taking that journey. Intelligent people
have worked at learning throughout time...and often enough made huge
mistakes. They made fewer of them and got farther when they had good
teachers, and a strong foundation of knowledge to build upon. "If
I've seen further than others, it's because I stand on the shoulders
of giants."(Newton)
I want to be a good teacher, but I cannot claim to be knowledgeable
about all the required areas of a basic education.  In fact, it's
quite clear that those areas in which I excel are also those in which
our children excel, and I sort of doubt that it's completely
genetic.Those areas that I am weak in, our children are generally
weak in. Some children do follow interests in no way shared by me,
and learn so much, but what could they have learned if they'd had the
benefit of an expert in the field...a good and knowledgeable
teacher.... to guide them? Even if I hand them a very good book...and
thereby the excellent author as teacher...who could claim to be able
to grasp everything without error in this way?  We miss things. When
we miss something we don't notice it. That's the nature of "missing".
A person could independently and thoroughly study individuals or
historical events and both learn a whole lot and miss a whole lot.
There are so many connections that _can_ be made. Are there some that
_should_ be made? Mom's don't usually have any trouble with this. We
see the need for  certain connections. We'd especially like to
facilitate the connection between drinking too much after dinner and
wetting the bed. Tolkien said, "...many confuse applicability with
allegory; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader,  and the
other in the purposed domination of the author."  When we impose an
order, it's akin to the kind of applicability Tolkien mentions.  It
might be what the author intended, but it could as easily be more a
reflection of the reader's hope than the author's intent.  Since God
is the author of all, and the Source of all Truth, I'm after the
purposed domination of The Author, not the applicability we can, and
all too often prefer to, make.

A good teacher is knowledgeable.  The first thing he has to know is
that teaching is an art. Just as there are various methods of
painting....realism, impressionism, pointillism...each suited to the
particular gifts of the artist and the materials and tools he uses,
so there are various educational methods each suited to the
particular child and the subject to be taught. If an artist hopes to
improve, his best bet is to consult other artists...but not just any
artist. Realists can fruitfully get together with other realists,
impressionists with those who are similarly disposed, and modernists
might even benefit from watching a monkey wield a brush. We're all
teachers and we want our children to be the works of art God, the
preeminent Teacher and most perfect Artist, made them to be. All that
remains is for us to pick out our brushes and paints and use them!

Part Two:
The Grammar Stage:
    Not too many homeschoolers find it difficult to discern what
ought to be mastered in the Grammar stage, though a good many have a
hard time figuring out how to teach all that ought to be taught at 3
different levels while also caring for a baby. I'm not going to focus
so much on what ought to be known as how one might draw things
together into a cohesive and sensible whole.
    It's helpful to have a context for all the things one comes
to learn about in the grammar stage. This can be done in several
ways, but the one that makes the most sense and draws all areas of
study together is a historical timeline. You wouldn't think that that
would present a huge problem but it does. The first problem is no one
has that much wall space. The second problem is that, if you do
happen to have a 30 foot stretch of wall with nothing else on it and
no furniture in the way, you also have a small child who either eats
timeline figures or rearranges them. The substance which will
successfully allow you to adhere a timeline and timeline figures to a
wall  for a significant amount of time without also permanently
gluing your fingers together or discoloring the wall  has not yet
been discovered. If you manage to figure out a way to get a timeline
on a wall in such a way that it is accessible and visible to all
grammar aged children you discover, after you've got it pretty much
filled in, that you didn't leave anywhere neeeear enough room for
this or that period and you have to rearrange everything. This is why
a Book of Centuries is so appealing to me.
    You can make a Book of Centuries in various ways, but the one
which best suited us was to use a large 3 ring binder with plenty of
clear sheet protectors. Separate time periods using color-coded
construction paper with tabs on the side of the sheet protector
holding them so that they can easily be identified and located.  It's
easy to expand a time period if you need to, everything is in one
place and it's sequential, which automatically facilitates
connections. We better understand the whole because we better
understand the parts and how they both came and worked together.
    A Book of Centuries does this well but, of all areas of
study, theology does it best which is why we give it first
consideration.  In the grammar stage the goal is to learn what our
Faith teaches, not why it's true or why it at least does not
contradict truth. That's the goal. There's no harm in overshooting it
whenever that's possible, but it just isn't that possible that often.
The child is always the measure for what is and is not possible and a
good teacher measures well and accurately.  One of the best ways to
begin is to live the liturgical year with a view to understanding why
we do what we do when we do it.  Our daily lives are structured
around meals, and our liturgical lives often entail feasting or
fasting. Foods can be expressive of spiritual realities both in what
they are and in how they are presented. The Continual Feast is a book
which helps make feast days and liturgical seasons more meaningful
through the culinary customs accompanying them. A Year With God (by
CHC) focuses on the saints of the liturgical calendar through
creative writing projects, plays, games, and short stories. Because
homeschoolers generally have a lot to do and little time to do it in,
it's a good idea to merge things whenever possible. That's a good
plan both practically and theoretically.  All knowledge is
interrelated and nothing is fully appreciated in isolation, though it
is primarily the function of Theology to show this. While working on
catechism or saint study, one could work on penmanship, art,
memorization, and both creative writing as well as writing mechanics.
A Year With God makes that easy.
    No matter what you consider, you're going to need a spine:
something to help you order your study in a consecutive, progressive,
and sensible manner. Many disdainful and contemptuous eyes are cast
upon the unfortunate and much maligned text book, but none of them
belong to me. A resource is only as dry or as living as the user
makes it....though some resources make that more difficult than
others. Would it be more acceptable if I called it a living textbook?
    I use a spine in one of two ways.  If it is not that gripping
but thorough in terms of scope and basic understanding, it provides a
framework and a solid if sketchy foundation for all the additional
reading we will do. It gives me confidence that nothing vital will be
overlooked.
If the spine is itself a delightful book, we either read it together
and discuss it, or the child reads it alone or together with a
sibling, and I take their narrations afterwards.
    There are several types of narrations: oral, written, and
pictorial. We generally do a mix, illustrating for both written and
oral narrations. Lapbooks are a creative, fun, and easy way to do a
narration. That makes them possible because most things that aren't
we don't have time for.
    We both read and write a lot. We read stories and books
written by others and are drawn into their world, delighting in what
we find there, or we  become lost in our own, creating characters
which become as dear to us as children.  We've started recording
these onto CD's which gives us one more way to grow comfortable with
and better at giving life to our thoughts through words.
      We enjoy plays, though we generally do scenes rather than
whole plays. When writing a script, take a good look at your cast and
their abilities, and work out a dialogue and narration that will
transform the scene into something workable. Aim a little high so as
to preserve as much beautiful language and effect as you can, but
feel free to strike anything that's too daunting. Let narration tell
audiences where we are and what's going on. If you take too to pull
it all together, younger children get discouraged. When I find myself
getting a little too perfectionistic about these projects I think of
Chesterton: "Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly."
  We really enjoy writing our own newscasts for history, complete with
skewed commentary not grounded in documented fact. These can be
presented as plays as well, and you don't need a big cast. There are
several history books which lend themselves to short plays and
newscasts: Mighty Men by Farjeon, Britannia by MacCaughran, The Story
of Greece and The Story of Rome by both MacGregor and Guerber.
    It is easiest to adapt what is already a play. For that
reason, I recommend beginning with Shakespeare's plays. Marcia
Williams has written several books in a comic book format which help
children understand the plot. Albert Cullum has written two books of
plays: Shakespeare in the Classroom and Greek Tears and Roman
Laughter. I prefer to write our own scripts because I can better
tailor it to suit our tastes and abilities, but Cullum's books are
helpful.  I have made several of our scripts, as well as summaries
and notes on 13 of Shakespeare's plays,  available on the Mater
Amabilis website to help get you started.
I start playing with words when the children are around 3. One thing
we do is make silly sentences. While walking a child might spot some
little creature and say, "Look at that cute woolly bear!" to which I
respond, "Look at that incredibly cute and hairy woolly bear!" That's
their cue to up the ante: "Look at that incredibly cute, hairy, fat
woolly bear!" I narrow my eyes, do the best Clint Eastwood imitation
possible in the absence of a cheroot and a disinclination to spit,
and say,  "Look at that incredibly cute, hairy, fat, ponderous woolly
bear!" With older children (8 and up) we get more complicated: we use
compound sentences, one with a subordinate adverbial clause,two
prepositional phrases or two pronouns in the objective case. This is
one way we work on grammar and we can do it while we're on a nature
study. This trains us to pay attention both to what we see and how we
express that, and saves us some time.
Some books that are particularly suited to this stage and the
classical/CM method are:Mary Daly's The Universe in His Hands,
Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher, Colby's Nature Adventures,
Blood and Guts (Allison),  Art in Story by Saccardi, used in
conjunction with Mommy, It's a Renoir for picture study, Music
Masters stories of the various composers, Unfinished Symphonies and
Other Stories of Men and Music (Berkowitz). I could recommend books
for every subject for every stage, but we'd be here all night and it
would be so unnecessary.  We have a web site where you can see for
yourselves what we use and when we use it. The link to that site is
www.grasshoppernet.com/~jrioux/

The Logic Stage: Gr. 6-8
    Everything we did in the grammar stage...reading good books
and writing about what we've learned, we continue to do, but we
approach it quite differently. For example, if we were to read
Kon-tiki we would do so in a questioning manner. We would ask whether
or not it is legitimate to risk one's life in order to establish the
possibility that Polynesian legend is in fact history. That would
entail establishing the circumstances under which risking one's life
is legitimate and defining the difference between risking one's life
and sacrificing it.....and committing suicide. We'd probably have to
reference the Summa and the CCC. That might lead to a discussion of
why life is sacred and why we are obligated to safeguard not only the
lives of others but our own. Is capital punishment legitimate and, if
so, why and when? What does it mean to be made in the image and
likeness of God, how is our body a temple of the Holy Spirit  and
what less dramatic choices disregard our responsibility to safeguard
life (smoking, drug use, alcoholism...maybe even things like
bungie-jumping, climbing Mt. Everest.....). We might ask what makes a
good leader? For any society to function well, what is necessary? Is
anarchy worse than tyranny? Is mutiny is ever legitimate?
    We do this with everything, always, whenever we get the
chance. That's not so much because we have to to get it all
done...It's because we love it. It was fun to delight in learning
during the early years, but it gets to be a whole lot more fun as
children grow older and more capable. That is not to suggest that
we're going for a BA in high school. If I had to title our logic
stage Great Books program I think I'd call it the Pretty Darn Good
Snippets Program.
    We read portions of the Great Books and discuss them. We
compared Lincoln's Gettysburg Address with Pericles' Funeral Oration,
and wondered whether or not Odysseus was a good man and leader based
upon the battle with the Hydra in the Oddyssey. Was Achilles a good
man? Was Antigone justified? Is there any goodness in Long John
Silver? Juxtaposing John Silver with Tom Sawyer, Harry Potter, and
Corrie Ten Boon's sister, we asked if lying was always wrong and
whether or not we are each equally culpable.    If you're going to
fall in love with Socrates, the Crito might be why. All kinds of good
questions come up...Is it suicide if you drink hemlock the state has
ordered you to drink? Is anarchy worse than tyranny? If you do know
that some government, however poor, is better than no government, to
what are you obligated?
    Books that are helpful for this stage:  Friendly Defender
Cards, Apologetis: Welborn's Prove It! series, Chacon's Beginning
Apologetics series, A Philadelphia Catholic in King James' Court,
Catholic For a Reason series, Euclid (in small doses), Lingua Mater,
ABC's of Christian Culture, literary classics like Pride and
Prejudice, Tale of Two Cities, and Robinson Crusoe.
The Rhetorical Stage:
Because this is the stage wherein the individual, having seen the
limits of his own reasoning abilities even as he worked to develop
them, undertakes the responsibility of his own education to the
extent that he can,  it's not a stage that can be spelled out. It
will be individual to some extent. Dorothy Sayers expressed it best:
"The doors of the storehouse of knowledge should be thrown open for
them to browse about as they will. The things once learned by rote
will be seen in new contexts; the things once coldly analyzed can now
be brought together to form a new synthesis; here and there a sudden
insight will bring about that most exciting of all discoveries: the
realization that truism is true."

  Maria Rioux writes from rural Kansas where she lives with her
husband, Jean, and their eight children, whom she has been home
schooling for the past eighteen years.



--
"While it is obvious that an ignorant man can be virtuous, it is
equally obvious that ignorance is not a virtue." -Frank Sheed