Episodes

  • Episode 284: Balancing Parent-Child Relationships

    Episode 284: Balancing Parent-Child Relationships
    Sep 6 2024
    One of the distinctives of the Charlotte Mason Method is that it is relational education. The Method also applies to all of life, and so we start with the foundational relationship in our students' lives: their relationship with their parents. In this episode of the podcast, we look at the two extremes, and learn from Charlotte Mason how to strike a balance that leads to life--for both parent and child. School Education, Volume 3 of the Home Education Series by Charlotte M. Mason, chapters 1-3 "...it is far easier to govern from a height, as it were, than from the intimacy of close personal contact. But you cannot be quite frank and easy with beings who are obviously of a higher and of another order than yourself." (3/4) "Parents and teachers, because their subjects are so docile and so feeble, are tempted more than others to the arbitrary temper..." (3/11) "Autocracy is defined as independent or self-derived power...Autocracy has ever a drastic penal code, whether in the kingdom, the school, or the family. It has, too, many commandments. 'Thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' ... The tendency to assume self-derived power is common to us all, even the meekest of us, and calls for special watchfulness; the more so, because it shows itself fully as often in remitting duties and in granting indulgences as in inflicting punishments." (3/15-16) "Locke promulgated the doctrine of the infallible reason. That doctrine accepted, individual reason becomes the ultimate authority, and every man is free to do that which is right in his own eyes...the principle of the infallible reason is directly antagonistic to the idea of authority." (3/5-6) "[B]ut wise parents steer a middle course. They are careful to form habits upon which the routine of life runs easily, and, when the exceptional event requires a new regulation, they may make casual mention of their reasons for having so and so done ; or, if this is not convenient and the case is a trying one, they give the children the reason for all obedience-"for this is right." In a word, authority avoids, so far as may be, giving cause of offence." (3/22) "[A]uthority is vested in the office and not in the person; that the moment it is treated as a personal attribute it is forfeited. We know that a person in authority is a person authorised ; and that he who is authorised is under authority." (3/12) "Authority is neither harsh nor indulgent. She is gentle and easy to be entreated in all matters immaterial, just because she is immovable in matters of real importance; for these, there is always a fixed principle. It does not, for example, rest with parents and teachers to dally with questions affecting either the health or the duty of their children. They have no authority to allow children in indulgences... Authority is alert; she knows all that is going on and is aware of tendencies...It sometimes happens that children, and not their parents, have right on their side: a claim may be made or an injunction resisted, and the children are in opposition to parent or teacher. It is well for the latter to get the habit of swiftly and imperceptibly reviewing the situation; possibly, the children may be in the right, and the parent may gather up his wits in time to yield the point graciously and send the little rebels away in a glow of love and loyalty." (3/17) "Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart." (3/24) "The constraining power should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man, which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened." (3/31) "We shall give children space to develop on the lines of their own characters in all right ways, and shall know how to intervene effectually to prevent those errors which, also, are proper to their individual characters." (3/35) "'Wise passiveness.' It indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action. But there is, from our point of view at any rate, a further idea conveyed in 'masterly inactivity.' The mastery is not over ourselves only; there is also a sense of authority, which our children should be as much aware of when it is inactive as when they are doing our bidding." (3/28) "Further, though the emancipation of the children is gradual, they acquiring day by day more of the art and science of self-government, yet there comes a day when the parents, ...
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    42 mins
  • Episode 283: Balancing Our Priorities

    Episode 283: Balancing Our Priorities
    Aug 16 2024

    As we discuss ways to bring balance to our lives using the Charlotte Mason Method, our first focus is on our Priorities. We can fall off on either side of the horse: Making school all-important, or pushing it to the back burner. Miss Mason has excellent advice for how to avoid either extreme, and the ADE ladies share their own experiences with imbalance.

    "...this is a delightful thing to remember, every time we do a thing helps to form the habit of doing it; and to do a thing a hundred times without missing a chance, makes the rest easy." (4/I/209)

    "[H]e learns that one time is NOT 'as good as another;' that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time..." (1/142)

    Living Book Press' Charlotte Mason Volumes

    CM Simple Languages

    Living Book Press -- Our Season Sponsor

    Episode 264: The Time-table

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    37 mins
  • Episode 282: Introduction to Season 10

    Episode 282: Introduction to Season 10
    Aug 2 2024

    A Delectable Education is back for its Tenth year! We have grown a lot over these past 9 years, and so has the Charlotte Mason Community. We are honored to be here sharing with you all still. In this episode we are sharing some big announcements like our 5th Annual Parents' Educational Course Reading List, our 5th Annual Online Conference (coming February 2025) and new Teacher Helps and Training Videos to help your school year go smoothly. We're glad you're here with us.

    Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell -- 2025 ADE Book Club selection. Living Book Press has produced a special edition just for our book club.

    Every Moment Holy, Volume 3

    Living Book Press: Our first ever season-long sponsor!

    Charlotte Mason Digital Collection

    2024-25 Parents' Educational Course: A suggested reading list curated for the modern CM educator

    Teacher Helps: Products we've created to help you plan, forecast, and implement lessons

    Physical Geography Teacher Helps

    History Tools Planner

    Folk Dance Resource

    A Short Grammar of the English Tongue, Year 2

    Short Talks Collection

    Teacher Training Videos

    Good and Dangerous Books, Jono Kiser

    CM Through High School, Nicole Williams

    Instructing the Conscience, Jessica Becker

    Form 1 Natural History Demo Lesson

    Form 2 Geography Demo Lesson

    Form 2 Dictation Demo Lesson

    ADE at HOME 2025: Our fifth annual {Virtual} Conference, check back for more details in November. Registration begins November 29, 2024. February 7-8, 2025 through May 7, 2025.

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    29 mins
  • Episode 281: Season 9 Closing Ceremonies

    Episode 281: Season 9 Closing Ceremonies
    May 17 2024

    The end of the school year and the end of this podcast season is cause to pause and reflect. The ADE ladies review the past year and encourage you to not just slam the books closed, but pause to remember the good and give thanks. We also provide a great number of helpful episodes and resources as you plan for the upcoming school year. The episode closes with a fitting devotional to help you gain perspective on the value of the past year and inspire you for what lies ahead.

    “Every mother, especially, should keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the moral.” (2/105-106)

    Episode 241: Seasonal Reflections

    Seasonal Reflection Questions

    Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method

    Episodes by Topic

    ADE at HOME {Virtual} Conference (First weekend in February each year, access for 3 months following)

    Teacher Training Videos

    ADE's Patreon Community

    Parents' Educational Course

    Episode 232: Forecasting Lessons -- How to plan

    Forecasting Teacher Training Video

    Form Overviews:

    • Form IB Overview
    • Form IA Overview
    • Form IIB Overview
    • Form IIA Overview
    • Form III Overview
    • Forms IV-VI Overview

    Subjects By Form

    Episode 162: Creating Your Own CM Curriculum

    Curriculum Templates

    Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Your Curriculum

    Schedule Cards

    Episode 264: The Time-Table

    Episode 33: Scheduling a CM Education

    Awaken: Living Books Conference July 26-27, 2024
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    28 mins
  • Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method

    Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method
    May 3 2024

    There seems to be a common misconception that Charlotte Mason's Method is complicated and difficult to understand. While it does take time to grow in our understanding, what we find instead, at its heart, is a simple, cohesive applied philosophy that we CAN understand. Join us on the podcast today as we distill some of the barriers we place for ourselves that make it seem more difficult than it is to follow her method, and enumerate some of the key distinctives of this living method of education.

    "The reader will say with truth,-" I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles; " and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ' more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated." (6/19)

    "With this thought of a child to begin with, we shall perceive that whatever is stale and flat and dull to us must needs be stale and flat and dull to him, and also that there is no subject which has not a fresh and living way of approach." (2/278)

    "Whether the way I have sketched out is the right and the only way remains to be tested still more widely than in the thousands of cases in which it has been successful; but assuredly education is slack and uncertain for the lack of sound principles exactly applied." (6/19-20)

    Beauty & Truth Math

    Episode 263: What Does it Mean to Trust the Method?

    Episode 182: Visualization

    Episode 266: The Unity of the Charlotte Mason Method

    Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Our Curriculum

    Episode 272: CM on Children Liking Their Books

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    24 mins
  • Episode 279: Trusting the Method with Sandra Johnson

    Episode 279: Trusting the Method with Sandra Johnson
    Apr 19 2024

    This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode Sandy Johnson, mom of three, joins us to reflect on her homeschool journey and how she came to trust Charlotte Mason's Method. As she has graduated her oldest daughter who is now in college, Sandy reflects on her own education, and how different the education she is giving her children is. With humility and strength, Sandy shares her family's personal struggles and points us to the Hope we all need.

    Charlotte Mason's Home Education Series (Audiobook)

    Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

    David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

    Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

    Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard

    Awaken Living Books Conference

    Episode 276: ADE Book Discussion: Vanity Fair

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    38 mins
  • Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Our Curriculum

    Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Our Curriculum
    Apr 5 2024

    As we near the end of this season-long discussion on "Trusting the Method" we turn our attention to the curriculum itself. How can we choose curriculum that Trusts Charlotte Mason's Method? How can we evaluate whether a resource or curriculum follows the method in part or whole? How do we decide if we even *want* to trust the method with our curriculum?

    "N.B.1 In home schoolrooms where there are children in A as well as in B, both forms may work together, doing the work of A or B as they are able, but more work must be expected from I A." (All P.U.S. Programmes)

    Arabella Buckley's Eyes and No-Eyes Series Here and Here

    Strayer-Upton Practical Arithmetics

    Beauty & Truth Math

    Episode 263: What Does it Mean to Trust the Method?

    Charlotte Mason's Curriculum Programmes

    Episode 70: CM Purists

    Visual Latin

    ADE's Teacher Helps

    Episode 6: Living Books

    Episode 7: Recognizing Living Books

    Episode 8: Narration 2.0

    Episode 3: The Role of the Teacher

    Episode 5: The Power of Connection

    ADE's Episodes by Topic

    Charlotte Mason's Short Synopsis:

    • Points 1-4
    • Points 5-8
    • Points 9-12
    • Points 13-15
    • Points 16-19
    • Point 20

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    59 mins
  • Episode 277: Trusting the Method with Morgan Conner

    Episode 277: Trusting the Method with Morgan Conner
    Mar 15 2024

    This season, we are interviewing experienced Charlotte Mason moms, inviting them to tell us how they've come to "Trust the Method." In today's episode, as she prepares to graduate her oldest student this spring, Morgan Conner joins us to reflect on her homeschool journey and how she came to trust Charlotte Mason's Method. After jumping from one curriculum to the next, once Morgan discovered Charlotte Mason, she never looked back, but that doesn't mean it has always been easy. You will glean much from Morgan's vulnerability and honesty as she describes overcoming her perfectionistic tendencies and learned to trust the Lord with even the smallest details with her neurodiverse students.

    For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

    Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

    Q&A about Nature Walks

    Podcast Episode on Forecasting

    Forecasting Teacher Training Workshop

    Morgan's episode on Reading Charlotte Mason's Volumes

    Morgan's episode on Planning Physical Geography Lessons

    ADE's Patreon Community
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    29 mins