CM Conference

Tim and I went to the Childlight USA Charlotte Mason Conference in Boiling Springs, NC - we got back yesterday. As always, it was great meeting new faces from the list and seeing familiar friends from past conferences.

The theme was on the relational aspect of CM - not only "Education is the Science of Relations," but relationships in general: relational Christianity, relational parenting. Even in homeschooling, we can allow lessons to become the focus of our school and lose sight of the relationships we're building with our children - which is often a primary reason that most parents continue homeschooling, even if that wasn't their original reason.

For me personally, I now feel better about tweaking the AO Year 9 booklist for J. He'll be doing a weekly co-op this year because he's a social person and needs to be around friends, but it means he'll have a four-day work week. I planned to cut out some books to make that do-able for him (and to make less friction between us), but I had some guilt about the books he'd be missing. Now I feel okay about it. In fact, he'll probably get more out the books he does do because he can take his time with them. This year will a year of focusing on our family relationships, even if it means relaxing our academics.

I'll also be working on narrations this year - it dawned on me during a discussion at the conference that I've been letting my two younger sons do quick summaries instead of real narrations, and I feel like I need to go back to square one, re-read CM's sections on narrations, and start at the beginning with them again.

Dawn ;) (Excelsior Warriors) drove us there, and we stayed in a four-room dorm/apartment with her and her two daughters during the conference. They're the fun-nest family I think I've ever met. They stayed overnight at our house on their way back home; this is them just before leaving (posted with their permission). Miss M was sad that her new friend was leaving, so she's not in a very photographic mood.



One conference highlight was when Tim, Dawn's daughters, and another AO high schooler spent some time in the empty auditorium singing and sharing music they all knew (show tunes, Phantom of the Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, movie songs). Tim had access to a piano, and the other AO high schooler had a violin, so they played for each other. They all like the same books, have done the same curriculum, and found that they had lots in common as a result. They hope to do more of that at future conferences, with more AO teens.

One area I see improving every year is the cooperation between homeschoolers and teachers at these conferences. Both groups have much to learn from each other, and share the same goal of using CM's methods to benefit the next generation.

I have notes from specific lectures/classes that I hope to post, and we haven't forgotten that we still have Tim's graduation to post about.

(complete list of conference posts here.)