The seeds of Mater Amabilis were sown in October 2003 when Michele Quigley visited England to carry out research in the Charlotte Mason archive at Ambleside. As we talked about CM we discovered that we had both followed a similar course. After becoming interested in CM we started to introduce a number of her ideas into our homeschooling. As time went on and we read more of her own writings, we both found ourselves adopting a more formal and structured approach. We came to realise that the style of education offered by CM (and after her death by her educational organisation, the PNEU) was both highly structured and highly efficient. With Mater Amabilis we are trying to provide that style of education, adapted for Catholics educating their children at home in the 21st century.
A Charlotte Mason Structured Education
As we read and discussed CM style education we became aware that there is a lot of confusion over what a CM education means. CM homeschooling is portrayed as everything from a relaxed, almost unschooling style, to a formal, structured method. We think this confusion can be resolved by dividing the different styles into two categories: CM structured and CM influenced education.
- A Charlotte Mason structured education attempts to follow the methodology set out in CM’s own writings as closely as possible. Children follow a set, formal course of study, using a highly efficient method which allows children to cover a broad range of subjects in the course of a short school day.
- A Charlotte Mason influenced education gleans ideas such as living books, narration, short lessons and nature study from CM and applies them to a range of different styles of education – a particular curriculum, literature based education, relaxed homeschooling or even unschooling.
Mater Amabilis follows the structured approach. If this level of structure if not for you, many of our ideas can be used or adapted as part of a CM influenced education. Feel free to make use of anything you find here.
For over seventy years children educated at home could be registered with CM’s Parents’ Union School (PUS), which provided them with termly programmes of study. We have used these programmes as a guide to the subjects studied at each Level, the workload that can be comfortably covered, and the time required for formal schooling. When you first look at our programmes you may think they look overwhelming. In practice, the efficient nature of the CM method means they are far less time-consuming than they may appear. At Levels 1 and 2 it should be possible to cover the whole programme in no more than two to two-and-a-half hours daily over a 36 week year.
You may also notice that our programmes do not require a great deal of reading aloud. As soon as children are capable of doing so they begin to read their own books. Once they reach Level 2 (ages 9 to 11) children work increasingly independently. A CM structured education is designed so that the child does the work, not by the teacher!
Teacher Training
To learn more about how to implement a CM structured education we highly recommend that you read
When Children Love to Learn, edited by Elaine Cooper.
Suggested Further Reading
The Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Charlotte Mason Study Guide by Penny Gardner
Coming Soon! How to use Mater Amabilis with large families
Copyright
© 2004 Kathryn Faulkner and Michele Quigley. All Rights
Reserved.
Use of this material is subject to the terms of the Mater Amabilis license agreement, http://www.materamabilis.org/license.html
Use of this material is subject to the terms of the Mater Amabilis license agreement, http://www.materamabilis.org/license.html