Even though I haven't blogged in
forever, I am still in fact dutifully educating
myself for the betterment of my children's education. One of the myriad ways I do this is by reading the suggested (
optional, mind you) readings for the twice monthly
Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. Yes, I actually do read them ;) and yes, I do it because I like to :)
Because we are attempting to ever so timidly begin schooling again after an insane long time, we are in need of some helpful reminders on why we do what we do. How convenient then, that the upcoming blog carnival is on Narration, one of the
key ingredients to a Charlotte Mason education. As my boys are coming to the age where they are going to be taking more control of their own education, I decided that they too would benefit from a better understanding of
why narration is so
helpful necessary. So, together we read the PR article,"
We Narrate and Then We Know". It was interesting as they critiqued my husband's and my varying methods with narration and pointed out where we had made mistakes along the way. They also had questions, and I shared some pointers on different tools they might use to improve their narrations.
All said, it was an encouraging discussion.
Since then I've been thinking (unlikely isn't it?), about how much information I absorb without experiencing a fantastic rate of retention. I wasn't trained this way unfortunately. But, the principles hold true for children as well as adults. I've got to get better about regularly retelling what I'm learning in order to help my brain remember it. Not only that, but Narration helps us to learn to order our thoughts. Do
you ever feel like a muddle brain when you're trying to tell someone something you've read somewhere at some point and can't quite remember the details? If you know me, you know that I have this problem... a lot. Narration can help. With regular narrations, we will improve the way our minds order information and then store it, so that we have it available to share with others! yay!
So, how can a mother narrate what she's learning?
Write it:
- write a narration in your journal,
- in a commonplace book,
- in a letter or an e-mail to a friend,
- or better yet blog it.
Tell it:
- to a friend over coffee,
- over the phone,
- or to your spouse (this will help with drastic summarizing skills as well!)
What ways are most practical for you to narrate what you're learning?
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