Charlotte Mason Monday: Part 20

This post is part of a series discussing the educational methods of Charlotte Mason. Each post will consider Mason's philosophy as she describes it in her series of books discussing home education. The complete series is available for free at Ambleside Online if you'd like to read along!

We left off last time on Charlotte Mason Monday with Mason's thoughts regarding outdoor time for children. Mason believes that quite a lot of time outdoors is necessary for children's well-being, and her suggestion for the quality and quantity of that time outdoors puts modern school recesses to shame: Mason recommends four to six hours a day out in the country on every day that weather permits. While home-schooling families certainly have more freedom of schedule than do children in traditional schools, I think that this recommendation is a little too high considering the cost and time it would take to get to the country for families in modern cities. Instead, I think that it would be better to save up for day trips and spend as much time as one can in parks or other play areas during fine weather.

Having covered how much time to spend outdoors with children, Mason moves on to the question of what to do once you've arrived at your country destination. To begin with, she advises not to plan any particular kind of entertainment:

Let us suppose mother and children arrived at some breezy open wherein it seemeth always afternoon. In the first place, it is not her business to entertain the little people: there should be no story-books, no telling of tales, as little talk as possible, and that to some purpose. Who thinks to amuse children with tale or talk at a circus or pantomime? And here, is there not infinitely more displayed for their delectation?

I understand where Mason is coming from here: time spent outdoors should not be spent doing something that can be done indoors, since so many other opportunities of amusement present themselves. As someone who greatly enjoys talking or reading outdoors, though, I'm not sure that I entirely agree with this philosophy. When I was completing my first year of college at Villanova University, I often did my assigned reading outdoors when the weather was nice. I also love to sit and talk outside with friends or family instead of spending that time indoors. Perhaps the difference is that my assigned reading or my chats with friends would have been done regardless of whether I was outdoors or not, whereas Mason seems to be cautioning against planning a deliberate but unnecessary activity when she advises against reading or telling stories outdoors.

Instead of immediately beginning any kind of structured activity, Mason advises parents to let their children run about freely for some time, playing their own games and amusing themselves however they like:

Our wise mother, arrived, first sends the children to let off their spirits in a wild scamper, with cry, hallo, and hullaballo, and any extravagance that comes into their young heads. There is no distinction between big and little; the latter love to follow in the wake of their elders, and, in lessons or play, to pick up and do according to their little might.

I think that this is a good practice to institute with children today, whose every move often seems scheduled in advance by well-meaning parents. Encouraging this kind of play fosters a sense of imagination, independence, and self-reliance in children, and has the added benefit of giving them a healthy dose of exercise. While open areas for this kind of play may be difficult to come by if you have a small backyard or live in a city, parks and playgrounds should provide sufficient room for children to play.

When children have had their natural fill of this kind of unstructured play, Mason advises beginning some more structured activities. Mason first suggests a kind of transitioning activity by encouraging what she calls "sight-seeing":

By-and-by the others come back to their mother, and, while wits are fresh and eyes are keen, she sends them off on an exploring expedition––Who can see the most, and tell the most, about yonder hillock or brook, hedge, or copse. This is an exercise that delights children, and may be endlessly varied, carried on in the spirit of a game, and yet with the exactness and carefulness of a lesson.

The example Mason gives for a prime site for "sight-seeing" is a little cottage, with a garden, beehives, all manner of flowers, fruit trees, and a vegetable patch. This example serves to highlight some of the problems urban or suburban families might run into when trying to replicate this kind of activity today. City parks may have some plants, but probably not much variety. Suburban houses often don't have gardens, and those that do tend to feature only a few flowers in the spring and summer. Even where I live, in a coastal town, the beach presents only a limited opportunity for sight-seeing since it's the same most of the year round. In short, I think that only country locations with lots of changing vegetation will offer a long-term resource for Mason's sight-seeing activity.

After reading the purpose of this sight-seeing activity, though, a few ideas on how to adapt it to urban and suburban locales occurred to me:

This is all play to the children, but the mother is doing invaluable work; she is training their powers of observation and expression, increasing their vocabulary and their range of ideas by giving them the name and the uses of an object at the right moment,––when they ask, 'What is it?' and 'What is it for?' And she is training her children in truthful habits, by making them careful to see the fact and to state it exactly, without omission or exaggeration. The child who describes, 'A tall tree, going up into a point, with rather roundish leaves; not a pleasant tree for shade, because the branches all go up,' deserves to learn the name of the tree, and anything her mother has to tell her about it. But the little bungler, who fails to make it clear whether he is describing an elm or a beech, should get no encouragement; not a foot should his mother move to see his tree, no coaxing should draw her into talk about it, until, in despair, he goes off, and comes back with some more certain note––rough or smooth bark, rough or smooth leaves,––then the mother considers, pronounces, and, full of glee, he carries her off to see for himself.

While a key element to Mason's sight-seeing game is that the parent does not accompany the child to whatever it is they're observing, I think that the one way to make this activity work in cities and towns is to incorporate a sort of walking tour into the game. While a variety of natural things to look at and describe may not be available in a single park or playground, some variety is bound to be found if parents expand their children's search to many locations around their neighborhood. Since the goal of the game is observation, parents might even include man-made objects such as sculptures and architecture into the sight-seeing game. Of course, parents will have to accompany their children on such expeditions, but I think that prompting the children to describe what they see before offering an explanation should work as well, if not quite as naturally, as Mason's original guidelines.

Next time on Charlotte Mason Monday we'll cover another outdoor activity, "Picture-Painting." Check back in two weeks for more!