Thoughtworthy (Book Finished, New Episode, Last Chance, and MORE!)

:: 1 ::

There are only a couple days remaining to register for the Autumn session of Charlotte Mason Boot Camp! I hope you join us. We always have such a rich time of growth, but I find autumn to be a particularly good season for deep study.

Come and join us! It pays dividends to your children when you invest in yourself as their teacher.

:: 2 ::

Speaking of Scholé Sisters, we had an episode out last week!

We talked about Pam’s Scholé Salon and then the group therapy hit. Sometimes, groups have hard times. It pays not to give up.

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On Sunday, I read a whole book in what would have been a single sitting had I not gotten chilled on my patio at the end and been forced to relocate before I completed the last chapter. People! It was sooo good! Mystie had mentioned this book in a recent Scholé Sisters record and, as we like to say, it’s not a real episode until someone buys a book. This time, Someone was ME.

I’m so glad I bought this. It had an especially good chapter on the Lord’s Day. We’ll be discussing it further on the show in a future episode. Highly recommended.

:: 4 ::

This month in 2017:

I still agree with myself:

What do I mean by justice?

I mean doing right by each child. What does it mean to do justice to this child right here in front of me? It starts by not short-changing him. A big temptation in homeschooling is to teach to the middle. Sometimes, this works. Other times, the older students are not appropriately challenged and the younger students are lost. Combining is great, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on because I believe it’s unjust to not give an appropriate education to each individual child, as much as is humanly possible.

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Charlotte Mason uses the phrase “the joy of living” a number of times in her volumes:

• “The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times — a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books.” (Vol. 1, p. 153)
• “His nerve centres and brain power have been unduly taxed, some of the joy of living has been taken from him, and though his baby response to direct education is very charming, he has less latent power left for the future calls of life.” (Vol. 1 pp. 190-191)
• “[W]e succeed in bringing up the unobservant man (and more unobservant woman) who discerns no difference between an elm, a poplar and a lime tree, and misses very much of the joy of living.” (Vol. 2, p. 182)
• “I appreciate to the full the joy of living in days characterised by childlike frankness, openness to conviction, readiness to try all things and choose that which is good.” (Vol. 5, p. 156)

I think it’s interesting that a good education can build a full, enjoyable life — that the tragedy of being badly educated isn’t just the small income or boring job, but the inability to enjoy good things to the full (or even to notice them).

This is an fascinating way to think about education, isn’t it?

:: 6 ::

This week’s links collection:

• Homework is wrecking our kids: The research is clear, let’s ban elementary homework from Salon
  • This one is a few years old and seems to make the rounds each fall since it was written — and rightly so!
  • “Cooper compiled 120 studies in 1989 and another 60 studies in 2006. This comprehensive analysis of multiple research studies found no evidence of academic benefit at the elementary level. It did, however, find a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school.”
  • I think what’s more problematic is that kids have hardly any free time to think or play!
• Americans Spent More on Taxes in 2018 Than on Food, Clothing and Health Care Combined from CNS News
  • To answer the question at the end, NO. No, the government I got for the money was not worth.
  • And also: those property taxes seem reaaaaalllllly low. Boo hoo.
• New York City Declares Using the Term ‘Illegal Alien’ Can Result in a $250,000 Fine from Reason
  • First amendment, what?
• Woke Math In Seattle from The American Conservative
  • “Who gets to say if an answer is right?” Um … I’m guessing the people in the room who can do math.
  • It’ll be unfortunately for the world if everyone starts using oppression as their worldview lens.

:: 7 ::

Answering your questions:

Question: If we sign up for Charlotte Mason Boot Camp, do we get lifetime access?

Answer: Short answer is YES you get lifetime access. About a month after Camp ends, I archive the group. This means that no new content can be added (even by me as the admit) but that everything is still accessible to everyone in the group. The only thing that would change this is if Facebook deleted the group, but we’ve been doing this for years and that’s never happened. (And if it did, we’d try to come up with a solution, not just leave you hanging.)

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