Comments for ChildlightUSA Weblog

Comment on Elsie Kitching and Repeated Narrations by Dr. Carroll Smith by ChildLightUSA

ChildLightUSA — Sat, 18 May 2013 03:31:02 +0000

Gretchen, I will ponder these questions and comments and provide some possible solutions in a blog post.

Comment on Elsie Kitching and Repeated Narrations by Dr. Carroll Smith by Gretchen

Gretchen — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:14:15 +0000

I completely agree with what was stated in the above article. A confusing area that I have encountered is when my child has not paid attention to the reading and thus resulted in a poor narration. There are consequences for not paying attention, most of the time. What if it is information that they need to know for the next lesson or if it’s an important history lesson? How do I proceed then without re-reading or lecturing?

Comment on Elsie Kitching and Repeated Narrations by Dr. Carroll Smith by Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:56:55 +0000

I love this statement as it is very true:

“novelty promotes engagement in humans. We are naturally curious (which Mason has told us) and this curiosity is continuously fed by new content (novelty). ”

Thank for another good article on this subject of narration. I am learning much.

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by Amber

Amber — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:19:25 +0000

Yes, that would be correct. Thanks for offering to address my questions, I’ll look forward to it. Sorry for the late response, I just saw the comment. I signed up for comment notifications, but either didn’t get it or didn’t see it!

Comment on Becoming a Charlotte Mason Teacher: Paradigm Shift Required by Jennifer Spencer by Rosemerry

Rosemerry — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:44:47 +0000

Thank you for your thoughts. I was wondering if you are currently teaching and using the Chralotte Mason philosophy. My basic question is how does one become employed as a Charlotte Mason teacher?

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by ChildLightUSA

ChildLightUSA — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:04:34 +0000

I love these comments and yours is one that will put me to thinking in areas beyond what I have thought. I do know that Mason was opposed to questioning except for the Socratic method of questioning. That is one I will have to ponder. So, you are right. Thanks for bring this up and off to work I will go on this topic.

Carroll

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by jbbgrbj

jbbgrbj — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:31:10 +0000

This seems to suggest that so called Socratic questioning is wrong? Am I reading you right? Wouldn’t this be subject dependent? If my teen and I are reading difficult theoretical works we will naturally put questions to each other even if we think we know the answer. We do this to help each other think. It’s quite natural. Is the distinction one of manner? I know what you mean regarding questions in some contexts..this makes me think of comprehension questions whether written or oral but questioning itself can be a useful teaching tool when it encourages thoughtful dialogue. Sometimes we do need help to understand something. A few good questions may lead a student to more self-education. Naturally, it should never be a go-to first method but a good mentor may have just the right question to send us back on our independent way.

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by ChildLightUSA

ChildLightUSA — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:18:12 +0000

Amber, So, I will deal with what you have raised here, which are wonderful questions. If I don’t, I ask that you kindly remind me. Okay, what I should have said was, “I intend to write several blog posts on narration.” Which means that for the ChildLightUSA blog I am going to write several blog posts. Is this correct?

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by Amber

Amber — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:55:56 +0000

Excellent, thank you. I find I don’t have a problem avoiding this kind of questioning so long as I am with small groups (say 6 children or less) but with bigger groups I tend to fall back on questioning in this vein. I recognize that I shouldn’t do it because I can easily see how stultifying it is for the children, but I think I am lacking in tools to work with a larger group. Part of the problem perhaps is that with smaller groups, I am working with a text and it is easy to have the children narrate, but in larger groups I’m usually being asked to present some information. Is presenting information in and of itself too teacher driven, which then leads to further teacher driven tools, like the sort of questioning you describe? I’ve never seen Charlotte Mason’s methods applied with larger groups (say, 30 or so children) and I’ve wondered how it scales up.

One little quibble in your word choice in your first paragraph – you are writing a blog post on a blog. This Childlight USA Weblog is a blog that contains many blog posts, not a blog that contains many blogs. I hope you don’t think I am being pedantic, but I thought you might like to know what the conventional usage is for the word blog.

Comment on Narration According to G. F. Husband by Carroll Smith by Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:43:57 +0000

Marvelous! I have discovered this too and so I am looking forward to your series. Thank you.