S7 E20 | A Wide and Generous Feast in High School | Virtual Book Club: A Philosophy of Education (Julie Ross with Shay Kemp)

S7 E20 | A Wide and Generous Feast in High School | Virtual Book Club: A Philosophy of Education (Julie Ross with Shay Kemp)

Show Notes:

Julie and Shay discuss why the methods are just as important in the upper grades as they are for younger students as they dive into Miss Mason's writings about Continuation Schools during her lifetime.

About Shay

Shay is a homeschooling mom of five who loves enjoying the learning journey with her children and encouraging others in their paths of faith, parenting and homeschooling. She believes the best conversations happen when you are comfortable on the front porch and loves to share her own journey from there!

About Julie

Julie H. Ross believes that every child needs a feast of living ideas to grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. As a former school teacher, curriculum coordinator, and assistant director of a homeschool academy, Julie has worked with hundreds of students and parents over the past 20 years. She has also been homeschooling her own five children for over a decade. Julie developed the Charlotte Mason curriculum, A Gentle Feast, to provide parents with the tools and resources needed to provide a rich and abundant educational feast full of books, beauty, and Biblical truth. Julie lives in South Carolina. When she’s not busy homeschooling, reading children’s books, hiking, or writing curriculum, you can find her taking a nap.

Connect

Shay Kemp | Facebook | YouTube

Julie Ross | Instagram

A Gentle Feast | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Website

Homeschooling.mom | Instagram | Website

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Show Transcript:

Julie Ross Welcome to The Charlotte Mason Show, a podcast dedicated to discussing Miss. Mason's philosophy, principles, and methods. I'm your host, Julie Ross, and it is my hope that each episode will leave you inspired and offer practical wisdom on how to provide this rich living education in your modern homeschool. So pull up a chair. I'm glad you're here.

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Julie Ross Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Charlotte Mason Show. I'm your host, Julie Ross, again here with the amazing Shay Kemp, who just had a birthday. Happy birthday!

Shay Kemp Thank you. Year 49, very excited.

Julie Ross Oh, you're so young. And we are in volume six. We are wrapping up book two. The book two section, these were like little individual pamphlets when they were originally published, and then they were added to this volume. So you can kind of see she's repetitive. She's repeating a lot of what was actually in volume six because these would have been little brochures on different topics that people could have purchased. So, we talked about her overview of a liberal education and elementary school, secondary school, and then the chapter today is continuation schools. Shay, I was thinking as I was reading this, that this is like the extra credit chapter. These are for the people who are like, I want to go deeper. I want to get the A plus plus. I'm going to read this chapter. What are you thinking about this one?

Yes. She has lots of repeats in here. And there were lots of names and historical figures. I had no idea who they were. I had to look up—I got to be honest, I have lots of notes.

Julie Ross Oh, so many names. Like what I've been saying, this is definitely the bonus chapter here, people.

And it's very obvious, too, that she is talking to people of her time period. She has other writings that I feel are more relative if you're reading them in 2023. You have to understand some of the historical context, for sure. But I do think that some of the quotes that she has in here.

They are ones I use a lot.

By the time she writes this, she's like, look, I am confident in this. I'm laying it out. This is the way this needs to go. And some very important summaries in this, that are great to end out this book, but it's not the easiest chapter. This is definitely the extra credit chapter.

Julie Ross Okay. So for all the credit nerds out there, who want to go deep into this chapter.

Shay Kemp Welcome!

Julie Ross And I'll make a little context here, what is even happening. Because I really had to go into that first because I was like, what is even a continuation school? So the name of the chapter is The Scope of Continuation Schools. We actually, interesting enough, do you have continuation schools in the United States. Did you know that, Shay? I did not know that.

Shay Kemp I did not know that.

Julie Ross Specifically, the ones I saw were out west, mostly California. And they were for students, ages 16 through 18, who are not going to be able to graduate, most likely, from high school. And so this allows them to go to school 15 hours a week, and then work the rest of the time, and get extra special individualized attention to get the basic high school requirements they need to get their high school diploma.

Shay Kemp I did not I know that. I have not heard of that.

Julie Ross So, I know. I'm like, well, that's very interesting. In a way, it's very similar to what she's talking about here in these continuation schools. Just to back up a little bit, again, she's writing this after World War One. And up until this time in England at age 14, you would be done with compulsory education. So most boys would go on to university. Girls would have to be privately tutored, which is why she has forms five and six where those are mostly just have been for girls. And she talks about that in this chapter, that this kind of education is going to propel these women so much further in their lives because it was such a really deep, rich education that she was providing in her programs in those forms. And if you're a mom and you want to have some other culture and you want to grow your own mind, just look up Charlotte Mason's programs for forms five and six, and try to read some of those books those girls were reading because they're phenomenal. Like, more than my children are reading at university level. So she had a very, again, such a high view of children. In 1915, the Fisher Act was passed in England, and that made an allowance—actually, I think that is what made it up to 14. Before then it was even younger where they could leave school, but it allowed for these continuation schools. For ages 14 through 18, they could still receive some sort of government education for free, while also being employed. They saw the need that these 14 through 18-year-olds, they need to be working. Most of them needed to be providing for their families at this point, but they still needed some education in order to raise the kind of citizens, and have the kind of society that they wanted. Just to keep in mind what we're actually talking about here. The principle she's going to discuss here are for ages 14 through 18 that we now think of high school. So if you are on the verge of high school, or you have high schoolers, I do think this is a great review of things that need to be taught in these ages. Now, again, this continuation schools were not full time. So she talks in here about having them 8 hours a week, or something like that. Or the ones in California are 15 hours a week. But it's also a great reminder because—I was looking at what England does now. And if someone's from England and you want to provide more information or call me or invite me over, I'll be happy to cross the pond any time.

Shay Kemp Can I go, please? We come as a match set. Then I have to go to.

Julie Ross Shay and I are coming. Shay and I have important research we have to talk to you about. But even now, the compulsory age is only 16. Where in the United States, it's 17 or 18. So for them, they can leave at 16, if they are going into some kind of an apprenticeship or trainee program, which I wish we had here. Or that they're in part-time school, part-time working, or they're going to university. So it gives them so many options.

Shay Kemp There's so much more flexibility there. I've looked at that not now, but I've looked into that before. And the options that they have are much greater. The choices for kids those age to start moving into adulthood, whether it's an adulthood of education sort of thing, or a job sort of thing like you're talking about. I wish we had that.

Julie Ross And I think it's good for us as homeschool parents, because we do have that option. Our kids do not have to be in school till age 17 or 18 for 8 hours a day. We have that flexibility, and both of my kids, once they were around age 16, they worked during the week. They didn't just work on the weekends, or at nights. So they did work some during the homeschool week, and they also took college-level dual enrollment classes. So we have those options or some kind of tech school, or something like that, where you think outside the box. I think at this age they need something like that. Don't you think?

Shay Kemp I agree 100%. I have kids that have done both. I have one that went to tech school and I have kids that dual-enrolled, because I have a rising senior whose dual-enrolled, too. And they need to start owning their education, which she discusses here in that way, at that age, in this culture we live in. It's making their own choices about what does this look like next for me? And so I'm glad we had that, as homeschoolers. And some public schoolers do too. I know in our area there's a couple of public schools that do offer some dual enrollment, but it's not nearly the choices that we have as homeschoolers.

Julie Ross Right. And to think outside the box at that age, because I hear from people, and they get a lot of pushback from their kids that are that age and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, we don't need to be doing school for that many hours. So look at your state's high school graduation requirements are. Look at, if they are applying to colleges, what those college requirements are. But as a junior and senior, it's not a full course load. There is a lot of room for electives.

Shay Kemp So many options.

Julie Ross All my kids met their graduation requirements before they were seniors. They didn't have anything that they had to take. They could take college classes. As you're kind of thinking through those years, I think it's important to consider that, that you don't need a full curriculum for every subject for your junior and senior.

Shay Kemp And it's interesting because she sounds thrilled here to have them for seven or eight hours, and she's so thrilled. She said, "think of what we can do when those seven or 8 hours." We had them for this long. She says, "we can do our part for the young citizen" in those seven or 8 hours she talks about. And I do feel like I look at mine as they were that age, they were able to accomplish a lot in seven or eight hours, because of the philosophy and the methods. We're not sitting in a class. In fact, I think the biggest transition for my children was getting used to sitting in a classroom for that hour. They're like, what do you mean? And like she talks about in here, I laughed at the function of, I'm not sure what it is, but she talks about the teacher just talking, and how that's a waste of time. And so I do feel like my children felt that, when they were forced to sit under a lecture. They were like, what in the world is this hour of listening that I have to do, and then I have to come home and read. I still have to do the art of knowing—the act of knowing that she calls, I still have to do that.

Julie Ross I think it's encouraging—her thing was, okay, they pass this law, they're going to develop these continuation schools for kids ages 14 to 18, who are working. They're going to come to these schools for 8 hours a week. What should we teach them? And that's basically what she's saying here. Of course, she's going to say, my philosophy, right? So she's going to break down what some other countries are doing, and say that's not the right answer. And here's my reason why my answer is the best. But I thought it so encouraging, because she's saying that these students would have grown up, not in a Charlotte Mason program. They would grow up, most likely, in very—we're talking like poor working-class families here. And she's saying that these children can come at the age of 14, 16, 17, and use her philosophy and methods, and see an amazing result. And I thought that was so encouraging for so many parents that we talked to who go, this is such a–I'm really getting more into Charlotte Mason, and trying to understand this philosophy. It sounds so wonderful, but my child's in high school. It's too late.

Shay Kemp Yes. And I think it's so important to understand that the mind, because we're talking about mind, mind works the same at age 14, 49. It must feed off of ideas. And so if you haven't been feeding your children's minds these rich ideas in a literary sense, in this age, it doesn't mean that you can't. That they've lost ground. And that's one of the notes I made about this chapter, I think is the most encouraging, because we want people to understand you don't have to start at age six in form one to gain the benefits of this type of education. You can allow your child to learn about the act of knowing on their level in the ninth grade. On the 10th grade, In the 11th grade. It doesn't matter, because it's the same principle of how the mind works.

Julie Ross Right. So hopefully this will be encouraging for anyone who's in that boat and wondering, can I start later with the high school, or what would I do? And that's the same thing we've been talking about all these other episodes. Just give like the cliff note version.

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Julie Ross So she starts off, like you were saying, She talks a lot about, okay, here is how these continuation schools work in Germany. She talks about actually going to Denmark and observing schools, which I think is fascinating, especially this time period for a single woman. All the traveling she did.

Shay Kemp And to have the confidence in her own observations, I have done this research. I saw this. This is the observation that I have, and I'm going to tell you that this is the result. And the brilliance of that, of somebody during this time period to trust their own powers of observation and connections that she has is so encouraging.

Julie Ross Yeah, it really is. And we need to trust ourselves as well. She kind of starts off with this utilitarian theory of education. I want to go to break that down first. When people are like, what is that? Because she's like, this is not the way to go. So this is big in Germany. John Dewey brought that into the United States. She has some other big names in here that she talks about from other countries as well. Utilitarianism can apply to many different things. John Stuart Mill—the basic overall kind of philosophy is, whatever brings you happiness, and that's what you should be striving for in life is this happiness. And basically, though, what makes people most happy is being useful. So if we want to have happy citizens, we need to train them to be a useful part of our society. So then schools became utilitarian. Everybody's doing the same thing, right? That's what this name is coming from. And we're all little cogs in this little machine, and we all produce this result, and how can we get the barebones of education that is going to make someone useful? Well, what's not useful: religion, beauty, literature, time out in nature. That's not useful. Let's get rid of all of that. All the things when you look at school textbooks written in the early 1900s, they had subjects of nature study. They have books, like a handbook of nature study, is written to teach teachers how to teach nature study. That was just something that you were expected to know how to do as a teacher back then. Nowadays, I didn't get any nature training, did you in your college study?

Shay Kemp No. The only class I ever had about anything like that was science for the young child. And we thought it was super fun because we actually got to go to the pond on campus of the university, and go outdoors for that. I remember we got nothing. And she even says that this utilitarian education loses the ideal element, which gives all education its chief power over character. And that's what those things that you just mentioned do. They do affect our character and our knowledge of God. They affect how we see our place in the universe, and how we value ourselves and each other. And so when we take that out, yes it's usable, utilitarian, but it doesn't affect the interior of the people that got that kind of education.

Shay Kemp Right. I think we're definitely seeing the fruit of generations of being robbed of that. And it's interesting because she does talk about that in here, if I can find it. Oh, yeah. So she's talking about the labor unrest that they were seeing in England, and throughout the world during this time, and she's saying, "that a hungry mind takes what it can get in the bakers apt to be lenient about prosecuting the starving man who steals a loaf. I do not hesitate to say that the constantly recurring misery of our age. Labor unrest is to be laid at the door, not of the working man, but of the nation, which is not troubled itself to consider the natural hunger of mind in the manner of meat such hunger demands." What she's saying is you were seeing this labor unrest. The people are hungry for knowledge. We have been starving them. This utilitarian approach starves people's minds of ideas and beauty and goodness. And when you get a society that's starving, they're going to try to find it. And then she says, that's what this labor unrest is because we are people. We're not cogs in an industrial machine that just—we weren't created to just be useful.

Julie Ross That's right. And I will say I think that's a great point to make, if you're talking about, like we mentioned before, starting to follow this philosophy and methods with older children is to understand that if you're seeing some of those results that she talks about, the frustration, it's because of the hunger of that child for real knowledge. Now, there is no 14-year-old, 15-year-old that's going to sit down and say, hi, you know, listen, I'm really hungry for knowledge. I wonder if you could just give me—fill my mind with the ideas. But what I do think is that there are ways to move that child into feeding that hunger that they don't even know that's what they have.

Julie Ross Can you give an example of that?

Shay Kemp I'm sure I'll give you an example, because I have a—my middle child was in ninth grade when we had followed Charlotte Mason during the younger years. But then we got to high school. We were using sort of a coop that we were following the high school that was there. Definitely not Charlotte Mason. So when my third one hit ninth grade, I was like, okay, there's got to be a different way to do this. So he was the first one that I put through form four in completely with Charlotte Mason methods. We're following with some things. And when I gave him his first history book in the ninth grade, that was a literary history text, he was very confused. Like, why is this a history text? This is not what we've been doing. This isn't history. And so it took some. . . shortening the lessons, breaking the pages down. No, I'm not going to have you reading them for 20 minutes. We're just going to read these two pages and we're going to chew on this together. We're going to talk about—we're going to work on that habit of narration. He was what, 14, 15 years old? So did he love it in the beginning? No. But as we continue to do that, working on it together and I realize I'm feeding his mind, I'm feeding his mind with ideas rather than just giving him this test that he could just check off. Then I begin to see the result of him feeding on those. It's almost like the metaphor she uses over and over, he's feeding the food of his mind so I could watch that mind grow with the same sort of result you would feed a muscular boy. If I start feeding them protein, you're going to start seeing the workouts work, right? And so we weren't spending more time doing school. We actually were spending less time doing school, because we weren't checking off these boxes. But eventually, this is the kid that was able to understand all these incredibly detailed, hard-to-understand manuals for F-16s, and working on airplanes and vehicles, and processing all these really difficult concepts. And I really believe it's because he learned to grapple with ideas in a way the other two didn't have to do as much.

Julie Ross Yeah, I love that example, Shay, because I think some parents too will say, well, I tried it and then my kids got really upset and they resisted. And I'm kind of like, well, of course they did it. Like, I fed you lollipops your whole life and now here's some broccoli. What do you think they're going to say? They're going to like, what? It's easier to do a textbook, and do recall questions, and fill-in-the-blank worksheets than it is to grapple with ideas. And even adults, we're naturally lazy, right? So we're naturally like, I don't want to do the hard thing. I don't want to go to the gym at five-thirty in the morning, right? I don't want to lift those weights. I don't want to do that chore. Like, how much more are teenagers going to be like that? But again, it's what you did is such a great example of make it smaller, make the little bites a little bit easier at first. And build up that muscle rather than just throwing them a stack of Charlotte Mason living books that are huge for subject and go, okay, I want a written narration in this every—like that's going to be so overwhelming, right? It's, again, get to start small, but they're going to be able to accelerate a lot faster when they're teenagers.

Shay Kemp 100%. And I've seen that. And I look at my one that I have that's a junior now, and she doesn't know anything other than this. I didn't cut her and she breaks in high school. We haven't used any textbooks. And so it's amazing how much easier it comes to her, but by that junior year, she's not grappling with anything that's any more difficult than he already was able to by that junior year. It was, quickly, that it progressed once I said, okay, we're we were using Ms. Mason on these subjects, now at high school we're not going to back up on the stuff. I'm going to give you all of it. It is doable, but I think this quote that's on page 281, is one of the things, and I thought about this when I read it about him particularly, "we hope so to awaken and direct mind hunger that every man's mind will look after itself." And if you have high schoolers that you get frustrated because, like some of the things that we talked about. Of course, they want to do the easy work. Of course, they want to. When you back up and start this, you have to tell yourself, I am directing mind hunger so that these children's minds will look after themselves later on. And so that's the goal. And that's the thing that's pushing us. Not just okay, I'm just going to get to the subject or make it easy for my high schooler. And I think you'll be really glad if you're willing to take those initial steps.

Julie Ross And I think sometimes you try to pare it down in this age. Okay, they don't like school. So I'm just going to try to give them the bare bone. What's the minimum requirement you could do so I can give you a credit in this class? Now we're moving on. You're giving them like, candy, right? They continue to push back. And because they don't like it, their mind is dying for something else.

Shay Kemp Yes. And I have found that my high schoolers actually love a challenge. They may not love me giving them the challenge. They may not love it comes from me. And they are not going to sit down and say, oh, mom, I am so grateful that you gave me this difficult book. But what they do appreciate, is that you expect that they are capable of this challenging material. I think it says much more to a child than to put down a book and say, we're going to chew our way through this. We're going to figure this thing out. We're going to chew our way through it. We might just have to take a page at a time. I don't know. But you are capable of this challenge. Then it does to say, look, we just got to get this done. Let's just do this little thing and answer these questions, and their mind doesn't have opportunity to chew on it and you don't respect them—of course, it all goes back to that first principle, right? We're respecting them as persons that they are capable of that, and teenagers respond to that. I have found that mine have responded to that in a very positive way.

Julie Ross Yeah. And I also like what you said about, because your son works on airplanes, and people are always like, well, in high school, I really feel like we just need to stop some of this kind of humanities studies that are so prevalent in education. So we really could just focus on math and science because my kid wants to do, blah, blah, blah.

Shay Kemp Right? Yes. But that's missing out on exactly what she's saying. That's the very point. It leaves behind the ideal element that gives education its chief power over character. And one of the things I used to say is, when he was first interested in, is what kind of person do you want working on your airplane? Do you want a person that has a high quality of character, who would never let a bolt slip, who would report every single thing that would make sure that they're working on that thing to the highest degree. And they learn those things from the rich literary way that they were taught in history and art and beauty and literature. Or do you want somebody that says, yes, I know the manual and I can just click it off, I'm able to do it.

Julie Ross I'm a cog in a machine. I don't really care.

Shay Kemp Yes, exactly. And there's only one way to get that.

Julie Ross And I think she even was saying that in here that these—what kind of people are we making? She talks about the knights and the citizen here. How large is the room upon which his feet have been set. So just focusing in on math or science, you're losing the subjects that are going to shape the person as a person and a character, right? It needs to be rich in God and rich in society and rich in ourselves. Like we need to have this riches that are pouring out, and being poured into us. All right. Then she goes, again, it's basically an overview of her philosophy. They need to have living books. They need to narrate. They need to do the work of the self-education and coming up with these things for themselves. The act of knowing, putting it into their own words. And then like you're saying, Shay, you're starting with an older child, you start with oral narration, same thing as you were the younger child, and then work your way up to a few written. But we're not just throwing them in with a book and going, give me all written narration. That's too hard. They are not used to this act of knowing process, of having to put the thoughts and ideas into their own words, and show that they need that oral or narration first. If they're older, they have a phone, they can text it to you.

Shay Kemp Or like oral, we did a lot of he would speak it in and I would listen to it later on, we did a lot of that. And it would start out with you can hear the child's voice because he didn't—he'd never done it, and he didn't want to do it. But when you start to hear that spark and you can start to hear their minds chewing on those ideas it's really worth the effort to put into it.

Julie Ross Yes. And she's still advocating a full feast. So she said, "they read English, French and History for three volumes. Literature, contemporary with the history readings, natural history, physical geography, science three to four books, Scripture, chiefly the Bible. Every two brings a new program of work, the continuation usually of books already in reading." This is still a full feast.

Shay Kemp Yeah, it is. And seven, 8 hours a week. But you don't have to have the long lessons. You're not reading the entire book. you're just giving them little bites of this. Of all those different things. I would have loved to have been in one of those schools.

Julie Ross Oh, for sure. Right. And then people are always like, well, what about like the S.A.T.? I got to make sure that they're prepared so that they can take this. And again, it's a big deal because it could save you a whole bunch of money. Trust me, I'm very thankful for our scholarships. But, is that all I want my child to get out of their high school education is a great score that's going to get them to save some money for this next thing. No, I want that this part of their life to be enriching and shaping them as a person. So it's a language unto itself. You can learn how to take test questions in a couple of months with Khan Academy and practice questions. We hired S.A.T. tutors that we're fantastic because it's really a lot of gimmicks, and if you can have someone teach you some of the tricks it's worth every penny, but I'm not going to spend four years working on it.

Shay Kemp No. And also, because if you do focus on that and I have seen this in so many families, you're going to lose the appreciation of the other things that do affect their character. And we have such a short window to affect these children. I've got just a few more weeks with my junior, and then she's going to be a senior. And if you've had a graduating kid, you know what that senior year like.

Julie Ross My daughter is graduating this weekend.

Shay Kemp Oh, I didn't realize that. Wow. It just goes by so quick. And we don't have a big time to affect their character, to put these beautiful ideas in front of them. And we pray when they move on that they will. But this little period of time, these little, what, four years, 14 to 18, when their minds are so open and they're searching and they're thinking, who am I going to be and what is the world going to look like for me? And we have such a privilege to put these things before them. We don't want to back away from that just because we're too focused on a test that they need to take.

Julie Ross Yeah, for sure. I love this part she's talking about teaching towards these examinations that they had to have. And she said, "I've touched only on more humanistic subjects as whatever is done in math, for instance, head of the continuation school will no doubt arrange. And indeed, so much has been done in the elementary school already that probably the keeping of fictitious account books would be sufficient exercise for young people who show some mathematical talent." They've probably already done enough. Like, let's teach them how to keep books.

Shay Kemp And if they're in love with it, then let them move on. But if not, let's give them something practical that they can actually use.

Julie Ross Let me tell you, having my own business, I wish I would have learned how to keep books that would have been way more applicable to my life than the advanced algebra classes I took in college.

Shay Kemp We can't do our taxes, but we can do a calculus problem, right?

Julie Ross Exactly right. So like most high schoolers, they need practical mathematical training. Obviously get them certain credits for college and all that stuff. All right, what else stood out to you, Shay?

Shay Kemp Gosh, I have so many things underlined in this chapter, because I think she—you can see her boiling down the way to say some of these things, whereas in some volumes, in some places, it takes her longer to explain things. And I love the section—let's see I was trying to find that one little quote that I kept writing, yes, about the act of knowing. She says, "that we have the act of knowing and that which we have read or heard becomes a part of ourselves. It is what is assimilated after the due rejection of waste matter." And I think that's one of the things that's so important for kids this age, is that we want them to chew it up, and when they narrate they are going to reject what is waste matter for them. And it's a beautiful way to find out about your child. To listen to these narrations of what's important to them and what they're connecting to. That it can be hard to do when these years, 14 to 18, can be hard to connect. And maybe you don't listen to the same people, or go to the same places, or they're starting to have their own identity. When these children are performing the act of knowing with this subject matter and these literary forms, and then they assimilate it, it's really good information for us to learn about our kids. What they are narrating back to us. So that was important to them that they took away from this passage. They didn't notice the things that I noticed. And it really turns into, for me and my children, it has been a great way for us to have some great conversations. I'm like, it's really interesting you noticed that. I didn't notice that in this book. What I noticed was—and it moves even past just the act of narration that you would expect a younger child to have. But you really see that muscle that they can begin to have these intelligent conversations with you. That they've chewed this matter up and that I didn't really agree with that or I didn't think this. And that's so important for this age.

Julie Ross Oh, yes. Because they're going to need to be able to do that without you. And she ends here with kind of this—the reason we need such a rich feast in this humanities type of education, all children, even if they've never had it before, or you really only can get it 8 hours a week. It's better than never having it is because of this kind of common culture she's talking about here, where we can understand when people are quoting different authors, quoting different ideas, that people go, oh, yeah, I know who that is. Or oh, I understand that. And I think that was really kind of an interesting concept, she says, "by the way, is the paucity of literature or historical allusions, not in Latin, to be heard in the house due to the fact that the audience cannot be counted upon to rise to a reference not included in the well-known schoolbooks." And we get that all the time, like with—like Alice in Wonderland. Like, why are we reading this book? It's so bizarre. And like, Alice in Wonderland is quoted in so many things, so many allusions, commercials.

Shay Kemp Cultural movies.

Julie Ross We don't need to be reading that, right? Like so much of society is quoting all these things. And by giving them this wide feast, they're able to interact with those allusions found throughout all of—even popular music.

Shay Kemp And at the end she says, "there is no more dreadful side than ignorance in action. And is this not the sight that is the present time? Dismaying is all." And I thought, wow, isn't that today? Ignorance in action is when you cannot connect to these ideas that we are putting forth in front of our children because we haven't fed them the ideas. So the encouragement is, if you're listening to this and you think, oh, I was going to give up on that when my kids were in high school, or we'll just do that in younger years and we'll drop off. Or maybe my kid's older, it's too late. You still want them to have these sorts of ideas for their mind to chew on because it's important for the rest of their lives. We don't want to see this ignorance and action in our own families.

Julie Ross Right, for sure. All right, that is the little extra credit chapter.

Shay Kemp Yes. For all the nerds, including you and I. I would always do the extra credit.

Julie Ross Yes. You all get gold stars for listening to this episode.

Shay Kemp Hanging out with us all this time. We only have one more.

Julie Ross I know. All right, everyone, we will see you next time for our last chapter of volume six. Bye.

Julie Ross Hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to know more about the Charlotte Mason style of education, check out A Gentle Feast.com and click on the Learn More button for a free four-day introduction course. If you'd like the show notes for today's episode, you can find those at Homeschooling.mom and click on The Charlotte Mason Show. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, could you leave us a quick review? This will help other homeschooling parents, like you, get connected to our community. And finally tag us on Instagram @HomeschoolingDotMom and let us know what you thought of today's episode.

Julie Ross Don't forget to check out the people at Medi-Share because you deserve healthcare you can trust. To learn more about Medi-Share and why over 400,000 Christians have made the switch, go to GreatHomeschoolConventions.com/MediShare.

Julie Ross Have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? The Great Homeschool Conventions are the homeschooling events of the year offering outstanding speakers, hundreds of workshops covering today's top parenting and homeschooling topics, and the largest homeschool curriculum exhibit halls in the United States. Find out more at GreatHomeschoolConventions.com. I hope to see you there. Until next time, I hope your days are full of books, beauty, and biblical truth. Thanks for listening.

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