When I began preparing science curriculum, it was for a public Charlotte Mason style charter school that was expected to satisfy each of its state’s learning requirements. It was a rather interesting exercise to immerse myself in that state’s standards and then later to compare those to the NGSS standards. From the start, I had a negative attitude towards “requirements” of any kind, mostly because I don’t like being pushed around by anyone. I especially have a problem with the government having any say in my children’s education, and I take extra measures to ensure that they are never subjected to standardized tests. It’s one of the primary reasons we homeschool — to remove the government from my children’s education. But the charter school I was working for didn’t have that liberty, and it turns out, not all homeschooling families in the U.S. have that liberty either.
At first, I thought that the charter school might need to heavily supplement the living book based curriculum because I didn’t know how they could ever cover each of the state standards while reading a single book on a subject. I was quite wrong. It is simply amazing how much is covered by a living book, and because each detail is clothed in living ideas, you don’t need a whole page of facts to get the point across. In reality, the textbook may need to be longer than the living book when covering the same amount of material. To learn more about this idea, read my article Science Writing Can’t Survive on Charm Alone.
I also learned that the standards for science aren’t all that big of a deal. (Note that I am only talking about science here.) For example, high school chemistry only includes eleven standards and physics comprises 27 standards. Here are some examples:
- “Each atom has a charged substructure consisting of a nucleus, which is made of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons.”
- “The periodic table orders elements horizontally by the number of protons in the atom’s nucleus and places those with similar chemical properties in columns. The repeating patterns of this table reflect patterns of outer electron states.”
Frankly, if your student read the book I suggest for middle school chemistry, they knew all this stuff before they ever got to high school. There are a few items that are more complicated, but as I said, the living book covers them well, while wrapping them in living ideas.
Sometimes, the standards come with limits called Assessment Boundaries. For instance, students in middle school are supposed to learn about the Coriolis Effect. The living book I suggest covers this topic quite well, but there is an assessment boundary that states, “Assessment does not include the dynamics of the Coriolis effect.” However, I do hope as homeschooling families, we never let the standards hold our children back. Our students should learn all they can from the living book they are reading — be it more or less.
Finally, we come to the heart of my article. There are people who won’t use my guides (or even talk about them publicly,) because I report that they cover the standard requirements. To them, I want to say, my study guides follow Charlotte Mason’s lead for lesson planning, which means that each lesson is based solely on the reading and nothing else. My guides are always, and entirely, driven by the book, not the standards.
But there are also people out there who wonder if this very different way of educating our children (What? No textbooks for science?!) will really provide their student what they need for life, for graduation, and for college prep, and there are people who must prove they are covering the national standards. To them, I want to say, that when I have completed a study guide, I always pull out my list of NGSS standards, read them through, and check off everything that was covered naturally, and I can assure you that the standards are more than being met. You do not have to fear a choice between your student loving science and learning science. With Charlotte Mason’s method of teaching science, they can have both.
While I have you here, talking about this volatile subject, I would like to address one more thing that I think people from both groups can be guilty of. I think there is a tendency to lower our standards to what the world would have our children accomplish before graduation, rather than aspiring to what Miss. Mason said was best for them. That is, to provide them with the full feast throughout their education, rather than only providing what the graduation or college entrance requirements suggest. (After all, how is that different from teaching to the test?) Charlotte Mason proposed a program of study that included equal amounts of science from Form 4 (grade 9) through Form 6 (grade 12.) But often I hear that people include two years of science in their high school program, and then they stop. Some people even add one more year, but not all four.
If this is your plan, I implore you to reconsider. Science is not a subject that can be completed. Raising students who are scientifically literate means they can discuss the news of the day, can make important decisions as they vote, and it can help them make important health decisions for themselves and their children if needed. But all of this does not come by completing two or three years of high school science and then quitting. Being scientifically literate requires continual learning in this area. Don’t we say that we want our children to be lifelong learners? Do we only mean that for particular subject areas? Charlotte Mason is repeatedly quoted as saying “knowledge is a state, not a store.” How can your student be in a state of knowledge that allows them to be scientifically literate if they do not continue learning in this area?
I will get down from my soapbox now, and leave you with a quote from H. E. Wix:
May I repeat that definition? It makes so clear how in Miss Mason’s philosophy character cannot exist without knowledge. ‘ Knowledge is a state out of which people may pass and into which they may return, but never a store upon which they may draw ‘. . . . That is, real knowledge cannot be used as a servant, a crutch, a vaulting stick, to be thrown aside when we have passed that final examination and have ‘ arrived ‘. When so treated knowledge becomes mere information about some particular subject or subjects—and oh ! how dull is a ‘ well- informed ‘ person and how untrustworthy are his opinions on people and on life! It is an obvious result, not because he is a specialist, not because he has passed examinations, but because of his attitude towards knowledge—something acquired solely to be made use of. (Wix , p. 179)
and one from Essex Cholmondeley:
These two principles, that children are persons and that knowledge is a state rather than a possession, deeply affect the work of teaching. (Cholmondeley, p. 124)
References:
Wix, H. E. “Miss. Mason’s Ideal: Its Breadth and Balance.” Parents’ Review, vol. 66, 1955, p. 179.
Cholmondeley, Essex. “The House of Education Under Miss. E. A. Parish.” Parents’ Review, vol. 63, 1952, p. 124.
I find this very interesting. I would imagine science the CM way is most daunting because it seems much more difficult to find living science books, especially when you add the facts that our understanding and knowledge within many scientific disciplines has changed and expanded rapidly in recent years. I know I would severely doubt my ability to find books to cover such subjects, but literature and history don’t change much!
I’m curious if there is a place where standards can be found across multiple subjects? Not to “teach to the test,” but to ensure that what public schools consider “the basics” are more or less touched on. I was not homeschooled as a child, and I do ultimately have college as a goal in mind for my children (assuming that’s still the way the world works when we get there!), and I imagine something like knowing the “basic” standards would set my mind at ease. Thanks!
Rachel, it might surprise you how little has changed in the last 50 years. Mostly the changes have been in the very microscopic realm, such as the nitty-gritty of miosis and mitosis, or the far reaches of our solar system. But most of those things are not in the scope of the “common information” our students need to learn in high school. (I will note that technology has changed a lot, but again, the common information of electronics has not.)
I do not know of a site where you can search the standards beyond science, but it is my opinion that it would not be useful. I was once asked how I reconcile Charlotte Mason’s idea of the broad feast with my comment that we cannot go a mile wide and an inch deep when studying science. I can see how this was confusing to my audience. The key is that we must allow our children to learn about each of the science subjects (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science) but we must not try to cover every little thing that could be learned. There is some very interesting evidence that students who have to take a standardized test do better when they have studied fewer topics but studied them deeply even if those topics weren’t on the test! Lastly, if you follow Charlotte Mason’s recommendations your student will have an opportunity to reach their best potential, be it far beyond any standard of learning, or not if they have particular learning difficulties. Either way, it will be their best, which recognizing our children as born persons requires us to be ok with.
Best wishes.
~Nicole
Amen!! I also cringe when I hear that people aren’t going to “worry about” a lab science in high school…. or save the lab experience for just one or two years of high school. Labs and experiments go hand-in-hand with science learning and exploration if they are done well. (one of the things I very much appreciate about your guides!)
I think this is a little unfair. We should remember that few people actually attended CM schools right through to year 12. Most were well and truly in the workforce by then. CM is expecting that her students will be these scientifically educated life-long learning citizens by the age of 15 or so. If a student has had a generous nature study/science education up to that age, they should already be life-long science learners and active citizens. If they aren’t, I don’t imagine a couple more years of having science as a school subject will change much. If a given student and her family have determined that science is not their priority given her vocational and academic goals in the final years of schooling, they should have freedom to do that and trust in the generous education they have already experienced.
Thank you for leaving a comment, Claire. I’m glad to have you weigh in. I think it may be helpful for you to listen to theADE Listener Q&A #21, episode #101 about whether Forms 5 and 6 (grades 10-12) were for girls only. What we found through our research is that while boys often did go to a preparatory school, some of the preparatory schools in England used Charlotte Mason’s methods. In the Parents Review article “A Liberal Education,” we read “Must the entrance to the Preparatory School mean the abandonment of many of these subjects, and the teaching on quite other lines? I do not believe that this is in any way necessary. I have not been dealing with any special system nor advocating any special fad. I have tried to lay down certain more or less accepted educational principles, and have tried to show how these should be carried out from infancy up to the home schoolroom, and thence up to the Preparatory School.”
Further, she advocated for the continued study of “Physiology and Health” and “Nature lore and the Elements of Science” in her Mother’s Education Course. So even beyond the schoolroom, she felt this was an important subject to be lifelong learners in.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but I disagree with your statement that this is unfair. What I think is unfair is us not giving our child the whole feast of the knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe — which is their due.
Let me share one more thought. Could it be that we want to quit certain subjects of the feast because the study of them feels like torture? (I wish I could just quit the study of a foreign language already!) But what if for your high schooler to continue his education in this area simply means reading a really great book? Such as The Planets, a book that is as poetic and inspiring as it is scientific, or one of Wendell Berry’s environmental book to learn more about ecology, which may help him vote, or How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson to learn about technology in the past and today, or Ghost Map by the same author, or one of the John McPhee books to learn about the geology of the ground he walks on, or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (if you have pre-read it, I always preface) to learn about medical ethics, because even if he won’t ever work in a scientific area, he may need to see a doctor a couple times in his life.
I would even encourage you to read some of these books. They are interesting, they are inspiring, and they would each contribute to a person being more scientifically literate and well rounded. AND they make great conversation starters.
Thank you again for your thoughts, Claire. I hope I have said something that might cause you to reconsider your position, but if not, I still wish you the best.
~Nicole
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I certainly don’t expect my kids to find any part of their education torture. And in fact, I have no desire, personally, to cut back on any part of the feast any earlier than I have to. I love teaching and learning science *and* foreign language – and literature and history and handicraft and maths. I didn’t love high school chemistry – I’m a physics girl – but it wasn’t torture. My husband and I naturally model the kind of science reading you describe, with books like The Fossil Hunters, God and the New Physics, A Random Walk in Science, and Galileo’s Daughter on our shelves.
My comment was about vocation and priorities. As I said, most of CM’s students were in the workforce by the age of 15. They didn’t have a choice, but I still contend that CM expected these young men and women to be prepared citizens by that age.
I don’t expect my kids to ever find any subject torture (I never did myself – except PE – but my kids love their circus class so I’ve got that covered ;)). But I do believe that there comes a time in every person’s life when they are ready to choose their vocation. For some that time comes later – perhaps after they’ve completed a liberal arts degree – but for others it is earlier, so that around the age of 15 or 16 it may be time for some of them to start specialising. Perhaps my child will decide to do a part time traineeship or apprenticeship, or they’ll be putting many hours each week into performing arts or whatever their passion is. It will be necessary, then, to drop some of the other subjects *from their school day*. It would not necessarily be inappropriate to expect that the science we come across in our current events is sufficient. And having made that concession to those vocational pathways, I don’t see why it doesn’t equally apply to more academic pathways. If one of my children has decided to be a mathematician (I can only dream) then we might just cut back, or even stop, our *school science*. But I would not expect that this means they have stopped learning or taking an interest in science. It’s quite possible they will read some of those books you mention (if they haven’t already) in their free time – because I really do trust that by that age they’ll be those life long learners and scientific citizens, regardless of what I’m assigning as school work.
A parent who has considered their child’s educational and vocational pathway and decided that their child’s school time is best used in other ways doesn’t need their decisions undermined.
Nicole, I can not thank you enough for the amazing work that you have put into these science guides. Science has become one of our favorite subjects through your guides that include amazing books, great extra resources (articles & videos) and super fun and helpful experiments. Our kitchen has become a chemistry lab and a physics lab and our window sills are lined with green growing things. Our whole family often comes out to join in lab time- the 6 year old will join in with the high school student and everyone in between. What I tell people most when i share your study guides is that for the first time my children DELIGHT in science. They are not cramming for tests like their peers. They are steadily growing in their knowledge and love of science in so many fields of study. Our family is so grateful for your work in providing us with an authentic & rich feast of science in our Charlotte Mason homeschool!
Thank you, Betsy! As I read your comment I could just picture it all! I am so happy that your children are loving science. Science is the Lord’s just the same as the beautiful flower or tree in the backyard is His, and we should never teach the subject in a way that causes our kids to “hate it.”
~Nicole
I know this is an old entry but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this perspective. I recently discovered the NGSS and am so inspired by the whole scope. I began to poke around in CM circles curious if there was a way to integrate the depth with the philosophy of CM. And here you are. I should not have doubted that my beloved ADE ladies would have a word or two regarding the feast of science which is my students due. Thank you.