We have looked at the PNEU’s programmes and schedules for the last few days, but you might want to know – How is this going to help?
First, I quoted E. A. Parish in a previous post regarding the importance of getting done with the school day at a reasonable time, so the students have time to ruminate on the brain food they have consumed that day. This is a huge topic which I find very interesting, but I think we better not follow that rabbit trail just now. Suffice it to say that Charlotte Mason felt strongly that the children needed to be outside, and have time to play, and walk, and work with their hands for their brains to work properly, and modern research has backed up the validity of this.
Second, we talked about having a schedule where time is a greater factor than page counts, and I pointed out that this method eliminates failure. If your schedule is the foundation of your day, then you will be done at the appropriate time each day. You will have successfully completed each lesson, each day.
This summer I have been using an app called Duolingo to learn German. I wanted to get a jump on it before trying to teach my children during the coming school year. Some days I don’t complete a lesson successfully – in other words, I don’t pass to the next level. But every day I spend 10-15 minutes practicing. I think Charlotte Mason would say that my daily effort counts more than how fast I pass levels. In fact, Duolingo encourages me to continue my “5 day German streak”, or whatever day I’m on. They know the value of the continued effort.
Can you see that I cannot fail this way? If my goal is to make a strong effort for a short time everyday, and then I do that, I have succeeded. And in the long term I will make progress. But if I make a goal to pass a level each day, I am likely to fail at least some of the time. I may spend an extended time trying to pass, and that may cut into other things I need to do. In the end, I may succeed in passing that lesson, but fail elsewhere.
By adhering to my schedule, and counting time rather than pages or lessons, I keep control of my day, which equals less stress. To extend my example above, if I take too long to finish my German lesson, I may not get all of the laundry done, and I have therefore created stress for myself.
Some years back I realized that being late to an appointment caused me so much stress that it was hurting my relationship with my kids. They were stuck in the car with an anxiety ridden mom, after all. On the contrary, if I left the house with plenty of time to get to the next event, I didn’t have the stress, and frankly I was nicer. Even if I left things unfinished back at home, I still didn’t feel the stress. Moving from subject to subject during your school day is the same way. When you are done with your 30 minutes of math you leave it behind and focus on dictation, for instance, but if you are late starting dictation, then you begin feeling stressed. You will either have to shorten your time for dictation, or you will have to be late to the next thing on your list. It’s better to just move on to the next item and leave the last item behind. It will be there tomorrow, or next week, or whenever if shows up on your schedule again.
My last point is that when you operate this way, you can do more hard things. It sounds a little bit counterintuitive, because I just told you to move on even if you didn’t pass the lesson or finish the pages you had hoped to complete. I told you not to rush, and that you shouldn’t be stressed, but now I’m telling you that the hard things will be easier. More accurately, you and your kids will have the mental fortitude to tackle the hard things, because you aren’t wasting mental energy on stress or failure, and you will be filling up your mental stores with afternoon free time. I have seen this happen in my house, and I know you will too.
Related:
Preparing a CM Schedule Main Page
Scheduling Workshop Resources
I am just loving this series. I'm excited to see how and where you decided to combine. My students are 10, 8, and two just turned 6 year olds who will more formally join us this year, along with a 3 year old and baby. Thank you so much for thinking this through. I have attempted to look at the forms in the light you did here: https://www.amblesideonline.org/ProgrammesFormIII.html, though with Form II, about a year ago, and ran out of steam. I'm so glad you are sharing what you have found.
Oops, that was supposed to go on the most recent post, above. But I loved this post as well. " More accurately, you and your kids will have the mental fortitude to tackle the hard things, because you aren’t wasting mental energy on stress or failure, and you will be filling up your mental stores with afternoon free time. I have seen this happen in my house, and I know you will too." Very inspiring. 🙂
I was thinking about that same quote that Amanda mentioned today as I was going about my cleaning chores. I commented yesterday to my husband that something has changed in me, and I'm not sure what it is. For some reason I'm getting up early (5 or 5:30) without that much effort (and I have never, ever been a morning person – and I have a seven month old who is still up once or twice a night!) and I am progressing pretty smoothly through my days, able to tackle quite a bit, but also able to rest at appropriate times too. My near constant fatigue, stress, and anxiety are almost gone.
There are two things I've started doing this summer – working on things for a time, rather than to some sort of project completion, and Mystie Winckler's interval planning (http://www.simplifiedorganization.com/). I think that having the focus on the projects at hand as well as the steady progression of time, projects, and work periods throughout the day are dramatically changing my life. Now to figure out how to keep this once we start our school year up again!
Oh Amber, I have the best post already written for you! I'm thinking it will post Friday.
Looking forward to it, Nicole! They have all been great! Is your email correct in your About me? I was trying to ask you a question and it said it was not a valid address.
I'm looking forward to it!
The Preparing a CM Schedule Main Page link doesn’t exist. Is there an alternate link? I’m so thankful that I found this series today. Burnout has set in and I know it’s because we’ve been following a list of lessons/pages instead of just spending a set time in each area. I’d love to be able to glean from your insight.
[…] I’m not sure you can reasonably do a Charlotte Mason education in four days. I talked about my German lessons recently. The key to my being successful is consistency. If you are only doing math, memorization, […]