A
pudgy one ’n-a-half-year-old holds his toy
telephone to his ear, listening intently to
its stop-and-go tune. He presses a button, talks
gibberish—impersonating his mother remark-
ably well. He toddles across the room with his
phone to his ear like his mother who tidies
the house with a dust cloth in one hand, her
telephone in the other. I laughed when I saw
it. The toddler is my grandson. Not only is he
cute, but he also provides a good illustration.
Curiosity and imitation are active in young
children. Children are sponges, natural learn-
ers, eager learners, nosy and inquisitive. This is
what the nineteenth-century Christian British
educator, Miss Charlotte Mason, aimed to
safeguard in her students. She took advantage
of this child-nature by tailoring a method of
passing along knowledge that keeps the doors
of curious minds open. Here are seven tips I
gleaned from Miss Mason for a happy, curious
lifetime of learning.
Tip #1: Choose individual books for general knowledge.
An author with a special interest in his subject will write a book
with juicy details—details left out of a typical textbook overview.
Such a book has the power to open the doors of a child’s mind
in ways no textbook can, because it may be full of facts, the
same facts found in a textbook, but the information is presented
in literary form, in a more palatable and memorable way. An
example of an author who delivers facts through literary genre
is Holling Clancey Holling. You can find his books in most
public libraries. They have been around since 1926. A student,
the average age of 10, will be intrigued by the combination of
story, facts, illustration, and extraordinary detail. Paddle-to-the-
Sea, Tree in the Trail, Seabird, and Pagoo are four of his titles.
Add up the details and it might surprise you how they surpass
those of a textbook. A wealth of such books is available on a
myriad of topics. Freely and confidently use them as legitimate
schoolbooks.
Tip #2: Take advantage of the talking recourse.
When a child enters a first-grade classroom, he is trained to sit
still and be silent for long stretches of time. In the homeschool,
he has more opportunity to chatter. Like tapping a sugar maple
for its sap, Charlotte Mason took advantage of this talking
recourse. She replaced the classroom lecture with reading aloud.
The authors of well-written, carefully worded books were the
teachers. She believed in a child’s ability to narrate (to tell back
in his own words what is read to him) to be an amazing gift
that every normal child is born with—and the best way to gain
knowledge from books. To spark a narration, use a short but
meaningful passage such as an Aesop fable, for example. To get
the quiet child to say more, simply ask, “What else?”
Over time, the skill and power of narrating will carry over
beautifully to the student’s writing ability. Multiple-choice, fill-
in-the-blank, and true-and-false tests do not facilitate writing. In
the homeschool, we can replace these classroom conveniences
and the teacher’s lecture with the intelligent chatter of narration
from books.
Tip #3: Do some science in the fresh outdoors.
Lessons are only as long as they need to be in the homeschool.
When one lesson is completed, the next is begun. With a student’s
full attention, a string of lessons can be accomplished in nearly
half the time of a conventional school schedule—and with no
after-hours homework. Time is available for getting outdoors.
Once a week, my children and I would take a nature walk for
firsthand observation. We’d record a nature find with a sketch of
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