Thursday, February 21, 2008

Charlotte Mason & the Well-Trained Mind: hours compared

Tonight, I decided to do a little chart to compare the hourly recommendations for 8th grade age in Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Trained Mind's to those in A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison. This little chart doesn't include Logic (only mentioned in the WTM), music, art, or nature study. I found it interesting that at this level, the time involved was almost identical.
It is possible that my figures are slightly off -- adding such big numbers in my head is challenging.

EDITED TO ADD: Thank you, Tami, for supplying me with an online version of Charlotte Mason's Parents Union School schedules located on the Ambleside Online site! These are identical to the schedules in the back of Levison's book. Although she calls Class III 7th-9th grades, I believe (the book is upstairs). When I was making my calculations, I eliminated the "10.20 - 10.50" period, which seems to serve as a break period and didn't fit neatly in my chart. I put Euclid as math and Old & New Testament as history. Another side note is CM's schools met Monday through Saturday...oh, yes, and the hours listed on my chart are weekly totals!

11 comments:

Tonia said...

You know, I always thought that Charlotte Mason's method was comparable to WTM in a lot of ways. I think people get stuck on the more relaxed approach CM takes in the early years and think it applies to all leveles, but her program was quite rigorous in the later years. Thanks for sharing this - very interesting.

Angela said...

This is fabulous- Thanks for doing this! I will have a big 8th grader next year!

Lisa~ said...

Well I'll be! I guess the difference is time spent on math and actual science then and a slight difference in English... this is interesting... and dont worry, I wont check your numbers... *Ü* Im goin with it!

Lisa

Tina in WA said...

Very interesting indeed. I do have a question though... Some may think it is silly, but I just want to make sure. This is hours per week, correct?

Thanks for posting this, Lee.

~Tina

Tami, full-time mom; part-time foodie said...

Hi Lee,

Great job on the table -- it is very helpful! If you are interested in also comoparing CM's original schedules (Class IV would be approx. 8th) you can find them here:
http://amblesideonline.org/PR/PR19p899Timetables.shtml

There are more similarities between TWTM and CM in the upper years, although philosophy and method differ slightly. CM has an emphasis on ideas that feed the mind over dry facts at all levels, for example. In a CM Education, Masterly Inactivity (child-directed learning experiences) is also important all through the school experience, even upper levels.

Have a great week-end!
Tami

Anonymous said...

This is very interesting! Thank you for putting this together. Even though my gems are just starting out I have been reading more on what the logic and rhetoric stages look like WTM vs. CM because what I am doing now will effect later on down the road.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Please come back!

Rhonda said...

Lee: What a wonderful job you've done on that schedule! I want to thank you for all the time and effort you put into it! It validates what I have thought and said all along that the CM method is NOT "soft" on education at all, their are just different emphasis.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and I so agree about the CLP readers. I like them so much that I think I gush about them sometimes, lol. We're starting CLP Nature reader 2 this week and I am so looking forward to it.
~Have a blessed day.
~Rhonda

Anonymous said...

Yes, very interesting, indeed!

Lisa~ said...

Lee, thanks for the update... Tami... thanks for the link. *Ü*

My timed schedule went out the window at the beginning of the year... maybe Nov....

To fit things in the day a bit better... I think I’m going to look this over and see what i can do for our home...

Thanks ladies.. Always a source of inspiration!!

Lisa

Wee Pip said...

It's neat to see how CM & WTM equal out pretty closely. I thought it was interesting, however, that English and Math had much higher time alotments to them with WTM, whereas language & history had a longer focus under CM:)

Karen said...

This is great - now can you do it for Grade 2 also? Funny that people say that WTM is too history focused and look to CM for more balance. CM is definitely not relaxed at this level.

Latin Motto

Non scholae sed vitae discimus ~ Seneca. We learn not for school, but for life.