54. Deani Van Pelt, Kerri Forney, Kathryn Avery, and Charlotte Mason Institute

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Deani Van Pelt, Kerri Forney, and Kathryn Avery from the Charlotte Mason Institute (CMI). Our conversation emphasized Charlotte Mason’s philosophy about relational education and developing relationships with God, people, the universe, and self. We addressed the challenges of homeschooling, including tailoring education for different children, transitioning from a conventional school setting, and maintaining social connections. This episode equips listeners not only with helpful suggestions for resources and materials available through CMI, but also many insights and gems of wisdom about how to homeschool peacefully and meaningfully.

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Transcript

Deani Van Pelt: 0:00

That's the start of the journey. It's looking in our own children's eyes and saying maybe they're wiser than we are and having the humility and the posture to to see that children do have a hunger. They do have a wisdom. They do have a desire for knowledge. And it's up to us as the adults to really create an environment where all of knowledge and culture is brought to them.

Timmy Eaton: 0:25

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Dini Van Pelt, Carrie Forney, and Katherine Avery from the Charlotte Mason Institute, CMI. Our conversation emphasized Charlotte Mason's philosophy about relational education and developing relationships with God, people, the universe, and self. We addressed the challenges of homeschooling, including tailoring education for different children, Transitioning from a conventional school setting and maintaining social connections. This episode equips listeners not only with helpful suggestions for resources and materials available through CMI, but also many insights and gems of wisdom about how to homeschool peacefully and meaningfully. Welcome back to this golden hour podcast today is unique that we have three guests, which is the first time I've done this. So thank you very much for agreeing to be here. We have with us today, Carrie Forney and Dini Van Pelt. And Catherine Avery and Carrie is the mother of Catherine. And first of all, maybe tell us individually a little bit of background on everybody and your collaboration together and how you met. And then just individually, you can talk about your education and don't, maybe don't jump into your homeschool background much yet. And then just like your, whatever you want to say personally, and then we'll jump into homeschool. So Carrie, why don't you start? Okay.

Kerri Forney: 2:45

Thank you so much for having us. We're really excited to be here tonight. And I am from just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, Wake Forest. And my husband and I have been married for 31 years and we have five kids and one adopted son in law. You have to add that in too. So yes. And yeah, I, we have been, we did homeschool our five kids through high school and I've, the last child is finishing her junior year this year. So one more year after this to go and finish that. And yeah, thank you. It's been a wonderful journey. And we have, yeah, we have homeschooled from the beginning, but neither one of us were homeschooled ourselves. So we are both have grew up in public schools. And this was, yeah, definitely a radical shift from what we knew to be normal as our own

Timmy Eaton: 3:42

education. Well said, and I'd say the same thing about myself. Dini, why don't you introduce?

Deani Van Pelt: 3:48

Yeah, thanks, Tim, for having us. It's so good to be here together. We, Kerry, Catherine, and I, are really good friends, and we've become good friends through the work that we've been able to do together, trying to understand Charlotte Mason's philosophy and exploring it, living it together within such a vibrant community. I'll say this right at the beginning. The relationships that we have built with our family with our through our kids through our professional work with within the Charlotte Mason Institute has just been one of the most amazing aspects of getting to know Charlotte Mason. It's the other people we've met through it. So it's a real pleasure that you invited all three of us to be on your podcast today. I'm coming to you from just outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Great to be with a fellow Canadian who's hosting this podcast. Yeah. I lead up on a semi day job. I lead up an association of independent Christian schools. We have almost a hundred Christian schools in the province that our affiliates of our association, we do a lot of work helping them to be the best they can be. In a variety of aspects, I'm chair of the board of the Charlotte Mason Institute, and it's been such a privilege to be on the board for the last few years and during this period of exponential growth in alternative forms of education, homeschooling, and to be with such a dynamic team of dedicated people. It's just been a highlight for me. I. Formerly when I got my PhD, I became a professor of education. I was a professor for eight years, fully tenured, but then got lured away to the think tank world to do a lot of writing and researching from the think tank world on aspects of alternative and independent forms of education. So I love policy. I love philosophy and the philosophy finds its nexus in the Charlotte Mason space.

Timmy Eaton: 5:39

Excellent. Excellent. And where, so just where were you where did you teach? Redeemer University in Hamilton. Okay. That's what I was thinking. I was wondering, I wanted to talk about that at some point in our conversation, so I will come back to that. That's excellent. And then as far as your homeschooling experience. Yeah.

Deani Van Pelt: 5:54

Our children were mostly homeschooled. We had three children and we, they were mostly homeschooled, but. Sometimes went to Christian schools. I personally attended public school, Christian school myself, and all of my university was in, in universities here in the province of Ontario, secular universities. So love schooling, love learning, know that there are a variety of forms of going about it. I seem to, once I met Charlotte Mason in 1995, we'll talk a little more about that I'm sure. That's where I found a real grounding philosophically.

Timmy Eaton: 6:29

Awesome. Yes. And I think my wife would say something similar to that. And so thank you very much. And Catherine, please.

Kathryn Avery: 6:36

Yeah. Thank you again for having us. It's such a pleasure to chat all together and it's always a good time to just have a conversation about things that we care about so much and about educating our kids and offering a rich, Education and just talking about that for ourselves as well as students. Yeah, I'm coming from Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dini and Carrie are my mom, and I have worked in various aspects of the, at the Charlotte Mason Institute is through conferences and curriculum. I work as the coordinator for programs and services, but I actually met Dini, I think back when I was in high school because I was homeschooled all the way through high school. And started coming to conferences right at the very early years when they were happening. And I think I met Dini and some of her family members way early on back when I was, yeah, like freshman or sophomore or something like that. Oh, that's awesome. personal friends and now professional colleagues as well.

Timmy Eaton: 7:32

So how long have you all known each other then? Like when did you connect and was it, you said in those conferences, but was it through the Charlotte Mason Institute? Tell us a little bit about that. Like how, I think Carrie's and Catherine's relationship is pretty clear, but

Deani Van Pelt: 7:45

the Charlotte Mason Institute has been having conferences for about 20 years. And I think I started going to them. I didn't attend the first one, but I attended the second. And I remember at that time, When I attended, seeing half of the attendees were homeschool parents, it seemed to me, and the other half were educators who worked within schools. And at that time, I was teaching in public high schools, and I was just so used to these worlds being very separate. If you're a public high school teacher, you hung out with public with. Public school teacher or an independent school teacher. You hung out with independent. If you were homeschool, you hung out in those conference crowds over there. The Charlotte Mason Institute just brought thoughtful people together. And I just remember being so amazed by that. And I don't know, Carrie, if we met already then in 2005, but around that time, but it certainly was early on that, that we caught each other's attention and just became part of. I, the conference was really what pulled the Charlotte Mesa community together in North America.

Timmy Eaton: 8:47

Yeah. And at that time, were you guys just attending, you weren't actually working with the Institute at that time or?

Kerri Forney: 8:53

Yeah, I was volunteering to help. It started that way. You just you attend and then you're like, Oh they need someone to hang up signs for the door. So the tape and I'll go put the doors, signs up. So that type of thing, but yeah, not in any official capacity just helping

Timmy Eaton: 9:08

out people. Yeah. And then what is your capacity right now, Carrie in Charlotte Mason Institute?

Kerri Forney: 9:14

Yep. So I've been a board member for quite a while and also work within the curriculum, overseeing some of the curriculum collaboration team and how that all works out and to some of the day to day operations of the organization.

Timmy Eaton: 9:29

Oh, okay. And how many people are we talking about as far as like full time Charlotte Mason Institute? Yep.

Kerri Forney: 9:35

We've got some different, some full time employees. We have some part time employees, and we've allowed quite a few contract workers that work on lesson plans and that type of thing. Overall, goodness, probably 15, somewhere in there. Regular basis. There's okay. All sorts of different capacities.

Timmy Eaton: 9:56

And when I like when I spend time on your website, I go, wow this is a rich vault of goodness for any homeschoolers. But like Dini said, the thing that I didn't realize was the integration of different weight formats of education. Like I really had in my head this is really targeted towards. homeschooling, which I know that many do many clients or people that look into it are homeschoolers, but that it reaches out. And and we're going to talk about Charlotte Mason Institute a little bit later, but I do, I just want to talk about their each one of your personal experience with homeschooling. And and then, and I probably adjust those questions with those questions for Catherine. And then Catherine, I want you to, You know take the time because we were talking before the interview like she brings such a great perspective Especially to the audience that I target new homeschool families and those that have been homeschooling for not that long and it's so who was it that said it's like we're one carrie ordini said like We're so interested as homeschool parents, like how does this work out? Like we love the experience, we're a little scared about how it works out. We have had two kids graduate from homeschooling. They went all the way through and we have four left and we've loved it. And so I'll ask that. So what was your first exposure? Carrie and Deanie, what was your first exposure? Did you, cause all of us have in common that we went to public school wherever we lived and but yet we're homeschool parents. So how were you first exposed? Go ahead.

Kerri Forney: 11:14

Go

Deani Van Pelt: 11:16

ahead. It's 1995. I have a five year old and a three year old. Five year old goes off to kindergarten. And I'm a nice, shiny teacher at a public high school. And everything's just going along like it should. A nice, full, rich childhood at home. I was able to be at home with the children when they were in their preschool years. But by Christmas, our five year old Was becoming more and more sad and my husband and I were literally watching her by the week dry up And she had started school with so much hunger and so much eagerness You know She would she had discovered things like if you circled a black dot on one of these five lines It corresponded to a sound on a keyboard and if you put more dots and you didn't color them in It corresponded to like the length of a sound. And so she was like, learned, like the world of music was being open to her and it wasn't. Nobody at school was talking about these things, and she was learning to read, and she was reading novels, and the teacher said that was outside of the curriculum, because they were focused more on just learning individual letters, and next year, they'd learn the sound of the letters, and we were just I All of our thoughts about what would happen when you attended school were turned on their head when we looked at it through the lens of our own child who was so hungry and who we saw was not being nourished. So finally at Christmas, so remember we're in Ontario, Canada, it's 95, compulsory schooling was age 6 to 16. So my husband, he pulled out the education act. We didn't have it in digital version. He's flipping through it over the Christmas holidays and he lands on compulsory education. He says, no one has to be in school until they're six. That's how we read it. Okay. She doesn't have to go. So kept her home. It's now January of first year of school. And we looked at each other and we said wait, we're homeschoolers. And that's weird. Those are weird people.

Timmy Eaton: 13:17

It occurred to you.

Deani Van Pelt: 13:20

It occurred to us, the choice we were making. But we also, we knew we were responsible for our children. We, if we didn't advocate for their well being. No one was going to no matter how hard we worked with the system right now and wanted the system to be great right now. Our responsibility first and foremost was to our child and someone in the community handed me a book and she said, Danny, I think you'd like this. You seem like this kind of person. If you're going to be a homeschool, you should probably read this. And the book was called. For the children's sake and foundation of education for home and school by Susan Schaefer McCauley. So good. That book was about it was maybe a decade old and it influenced a lot of people and basically it was the story of a mom who, similar to me, was watching her children dry up, she was in Europe and in other parts of the U. S. But. That she was watching them not be nourished and I felt such resonance with her story and finally her children end up in a school where they are being nourished and they are, they start to come alive. And Susan asked the headmaster, mistress what do you do here? Why is my child so alive suddenly? And it turns out she said, I follow this woman called Charlotte Mason and that philosophy is behind everything we do in this cottage school. So I immediately did the same thing. And again, 1995, we really don't have the internet. It's really hard to find a book written by a person called Charlotte Mason, but I just became hungry to move from that book to, okay, who is Charlotte Mason? And if we're going to shape the education of our own, of our children what can that look like? And at the time there were some other homeschool curriculum, but they were really workbook based and they were pretty, sit down in your desk and go through the pages. And that I knew wasn't what we were looking for either.

Timmy Eaton: 15:12

Go ahead. Sorry.

Deani Van Pelt: 15:13

That's the start of the journey. It's the sense, it's looking in our own children's eyes and saying maybe they're wiser than we are and having the humility and the posture to to see that children do have a hunger. They do have a wisdom. They do have a desire for knowledge. And it's up to us as the adults to really create an environment where that the all of knowledge and culture is brought to them. So yeah, I look back with such deep respect on my own child, our own children for helping us to understand what a good education could be. And then of course, Charlotte Mason filling in the

Timmy Eaton: 15:52

gaps. Yes. And and how great is it that you guys were observant and sensitive to the needs of your children and then responding to that, especially, so you didn't really have exposure to families that were homeschooling then, is that right? Except the realization that all of a sudden now we're among the weird.

Deani Van Pelt: 16:07

Yeah. And we had a few and they also they ended up becoming dear friends. So don't, you you feel back the, wow, that's weird. And then you look behind the scenes and you're, you start to realize, Oh, there is something

Timmy Eaton: 16:18

here. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That and ours was like we had read about homeschooling for a while. Cause my wife was just asking questions like, why am I sending my child away for so long before I, you know, and loved having them home and love teaching them. So she was struggling with that. And then. A couple of years into it, that exact book and then Charlotte Mason, among other philosophies mixed in with John Holt and John Taylor Gatto and others. And, but yeah, so thank you for sharing. That was great. Carrie, please. And then I want to adjust the question a little bit when we asked Catherine.

Kerri Forney: 16:48

Yes. So you're going to hear the redundant book once again, that's part of my story as well. Thankfully. So yeah, growing up though in a Christian home, but going to public school, I think even at that point, I had the struggle of this sort of secular sacred divide, right? The sort of dualism that I found to be even wrestling with, even as a high schooler, just trying to like, okay, how my worlds are so separate. And then went to Christian college, Wheaton College, and was just amazed, right? All of a sudden, wow, like these things can overlap. There's a Christian way to think about education or the integration of faith and learning. And was just inspired to wow, okay, this is, I can now have a vision for what this might look like. Meanwhile, I did have an older sister who homeschooled all six of her kids through high school. But that was, and that was happening even before I was married. So I had this picture, she wasn't local to where we were, but I knew that was happening. It was going on. Yeah, so it wasn't completely foreign, but it wasn't particularly common for sure, but I at least knew of it. And then by the time we had kids I, same thing, I stumbled on that book at a conference. And read that and just said, Okay, here's the same idea like there's not a dualism here. There's this is there's something about these two spheres have come together. I'm like, I always think about the eye doctor, and they asked you, tell me when these two balls, meet in the middle together like that, right? Oh, right there. It's there. So I was Just struck with that same thing. It's Oh yeah, this is the life that I would like to provide. We would like to have this for our children. So started reading, same thing, started, then found, tracked down Mason's volumes. And thankfully, in the Raleigh area, there was a group just starting of some like minded moms who wanted to study the volumes together. So that was over 20 years ago, and that group is still going on. So I've been so blessed to be able to participate in that. And that was really our same thing. It's you kinda read the volumes and you talk to other people and you go, okay, here are these kids. We gotta figure out how to do this.'cause they're, yeah, there wasn't really that many options. Yeah. Was there and was just, and was, but it was pretty new and. You're just

Timmy Eaton: 19:13

starting out. Yeah. You're just figuring it out as you go. And it's true what Dini said especially at that time, there wasn't like a ton of curriculum, whereas now it's overwhelming. New homeschoolers are like, man, how do I sift through all this stuff? Catherine, I don't know what you will talk about what you're going to do with that. Like all this mountain of stuff. Obviously you're going to have a certain viewpoint coming from the Charlotte Mason Institute, but what I love about Charlotte Mason is it's so principle based. And so simple in, in not that her language is always that simple. Sometimes I find that I have to reread quite a bit because of the, they just wrote so beautifully and I'm not, we don't do it as much anymore. That's why the classics are so amazing. But the principles born persons and so many principles that, that people, especially these like minded mothers can relate to and then employ in their own circumstance. I just love that it's principle based. Instead of trying to franchise something, which is very difficult to do when our families are so unique. And so we'll talk more about Charlotte Mason principles. Catherine yours yours is going to be talking about your experience. Did you homeschool from the very beginning? Yeah, so

Kathryn Avery: 20:17

that was actually a perfect segue because I was going to say yeah, so homeschool from the very beginning. I think you read for the children's sake mom and I was like, maybe in preschool or something like that or so. Yeah. And so pretty much from the earliest days that I can remember. We're homeschool, doing lessons with mom. I'm the oldest of five, so I'm the guinea pig, right? Okay. That was a cheap experiment, experimentation, but yeah, so all the way through high school. But I think that as I got older, I always really enjoyed homeschooling and never really had any of those moments where I was like, get me out of here. So it was always a fun, a great experience for me. The end. But I think that as I got older, I remember middle school, high school, right? I remember asking a lot more questions about like, why are we doing what we're doing? And I had friends that were in various other homeschooling philosophies, other private schools, public schools, right? And just wanting to be like why am I not doing that?

Timmy Eaton: 21:13

You wanted to make sense of what you were doing. Yeah,

Kathryn Avery: 21:15

exactly. And I actually think that the principles were super helpful for me because hearing the explanation of Oh, like we narrate because this helps us like actually process and integrate knowledge. You're not just hearing information and, or, why do we go outside all the time or whatnot, and just to talk about yeah. What does it actually mean to have a relational education? Like, why are the principles like, who are we, how do we learn? And even if I didn't always grasp that with my, 13 year old time, I think knowing that. Even if they were somewhat incomprehensible at times, knowing that there were principles there was incredibly reassuring to me as as a teen, as a high schooler, when I'm trying to assess that peer pressure from other people or just that, yeah, just navigating that world. So I think that, and then I think that leads into, my sort of developing interest in Charlotte Mason as just an adult and then thinking about her philosophy and that sort of coloring how I go through college. How I find how I navigate college classes, how I think about, tests that are now all of a sudden much less based on what do I know and much more quantifiable and just in comparing her to other people. And then obviously just coloring Yeah, all of how I think about really, yeah, like life and education and yeah, merging those worlds. Like we've all been saying.

Timmy Eaton: 22:37

Yeah. Catherine how often were you getting questions about why you homeschool and like, how, like how frequently was that happening that you can remember? I don't think it's the

Kathryn Avery: 22:46

explicit questions, right? It's just that implicit, seeing what other people are doing and just wondering yeah, wondering why you're doing something different or, yeah, I think it's less the explicit questions than they're just implicit comparisons.

Timmy Eaton: 22:59

Yeah. Yeah. You, yourself, originating with you saying, okay when this, like, why am I doing it this way? And then being able to go to those principles, what's interesting that Carrie Deeney and I will never be able to do is we won't be able to say, I was taught under these principles of Charlotte Mason or some other way, and then be able to look back and look at the effect of the impact. Whereas you right now, Catherine can go Oh that's what we were doing. And I can, you can almost look back on your experience and then say, that would have been, that would have been employing masterly inactivity there. And I didn't realize it, or something like that where, you realize later on that's what was happening. And you're so if you guys so Deedee and Kerry, if you had to. Just articulate very simply and briefly what was your main motivation? And then how did those motivations evolve over time when it came to your decision to homeschool and to continue homeschooling?

Deani Van Pelt: 23:50

I would say for us, just realizing how rich the curriculum could be and that it was possible to do at a very young age, understanding that We were able to shape the appetites of our children, expose them to this really rich and varied diet so that at a really young age, they would be sitting reading Socrates and laughing at the kind of jokes that even I at university with my, math Degree commerce degree wouldn't have really even understood. Yeah, I think that's where we were just hooked because as an education based on books and engaging ideas through literature and the exposure to art, poetry, music, just the development of the imagination. And then the other thing is the lifestyle. Our children could create worlds, and they always came from the stories, the books we were reading together. And then they would create these worlds, these imaginary worlds, and they'd live in them for days or weeks, sometimes months on end. And I just found a bag of Costumes that they wore when for a very long time of clothing that they put on for some time. It was they were, 18th century pioneers, but at other times they were living in Middle Earth and they would do the full thing and they would go off into the forest and they'd meet hikers and they would ask questions. Do you know where Rivendell is? We think it's just around the corner and know there they'd be with their staffs and their, garb. And I just, I think the purity of being able to live in imaginary spaces and not be self conscious about that, to be able to create worlds that you've seen in your own mind through the literature you've been exposed to, and to not have other people make fun of you for doing that, and to only leave those worlds when you're ready, you're ready. To be able to play for extended periods of time and that play being a way of processing what you're learning and a form of narration and digesting the ideas. I just I just think so many children haven't even brushed up with that. And for our kids to be able to live like that for years and have friends who were similarly educated, who would also bring their middle earth costumes and, or I, they're not costumes like that's what they wore. So that's real, right? Bring their clothing. And I was always very careful to not clean up the imaginary spaces to try to keep things clean, but not cleaned up until they were ready until they were finished with that space. The other thing is just music. We were able to join all kinds of choirs and orchestras, take lessons, music lessons during the best hours of our day practice in the best hours, not at seven 30 at night or. 6. 30 in the morning before or after school.

Timmy Eaton: 26:50

No, I can attest to that. We have six children and we have a three, three boys that play the piano and girls that play cello, violin, and harp. And I was just going, I don't know how you do that when you don't have that time. And so amen to what you just said, Carrie, what about you? What would you say is the main motivation to actually start? And then how did you see those evolve or what did you, how would you describe the growth of that or the changes in the motivations? Yeah, I

Kerri Forney: 27:13

think for us it was probably just the wanting to have the time and the space to work out what discipling your children is, what that means. Knowing Mason talking about the knowledge of God, the knowledge of the universe and the knowledge of humanity, right? It's like there's such these bad

Timmy Eaton: 27:33

knowledge of self.

Kerri Forney: 27:34

Yeah, there's such a, there's such a vast worlds to be able to experience and learn. And I think seeing that as. This is the time to do that, right? These are the years that we have, they're not going to get any younger anytime soon.

Timmy Eaton: 27:51

That's, and that's why this podcast is called this golden hour. Exactly. Yeah. Carry on. But I had to throw that in because that was exactly,

Kerri Forney: 27:57

that's it. This is that these moments seize the day, right? It's this is the time. So I think for us, that was a something that We didn't want to look back and go, okay, wait, what, how, where are we supposed to fit this in? How are we supposed to accomplish these things if we only have those quick hours in the morning before they go to school? And then, okay, now everyone's exhausted and we're trying to do everything else at night. And so I think that was a big motivating factor was we wanted to use the hours that we had and we've been given to the best advantage. And for us, we felt like that was really trying to live out a lifestyle of what does it mean to, to grow in these areas of knowledge together as a

Timmy Eaton: 28:36

family. That's beautiful. And I think I think if somebody asked me that, I would definitely say it initially, it was definitely about just time together. Like it wasn't this reaction to the public system. It wasn't anything. But my wife saying, I like my kids and I want to hang out with them. Like it was that simple at the beginning and it was just like, and then as we continue now that we've almost 16 years of homeschooling. It's just, it's not it's just grown. It's just grown and evolved in totally positive ways in the sense that we're like, Oh man, the amount of time not wasted, the amount of time optimized, the flexibility, the free time the curriculum control. There's just so many blessings about it that I just at least want people to know the option. Probably the hardest thing for me, Dini, when I was at University of Alberta getting my doctorate was, here I am defending this dissertation on home education in the education department. That was like the weirdest thing ever, to be honest. And the first question they asked was, How come homeschoolers live on acreages? And I was, it was such an interesting And I laughed and I said, that's a good question, but they don't all live on acreages but but it was just weird to me there was this gap in education that it's this huge movement and it's got so many benefits and research benefits and yet little, so little was, it was, it's still known, it's definitely grown a ton, but still just a gap in my opinion that it's not more well known. Go ahead, Dini. And then I had a very specific question for Catherine on this. How long ago was

Deani Van Pelt: 30:02

that Tim?

Timmy Eaton: 30:03

2018 is when I completed my Yeah I

Deani Van Pelt: 30:08

think with the trends that we're seeing in education right now, particularly post COVID, I think there is a larger understanding that education can happen in many places. And I don't think it's going to be, I don't think I'm fooling us by saying someday faculties of education will really be faculties of education, not faculties of public school or faculties of school. I think that day is possible. And some of us obviously didn't have that environment when we were researching it, but I think it's coming.

Timmy Eaton: 30:41

I pitched a proposal to Lethbridge college dean of education. I know him. And I just said, Hey, I would be willing to just pop in and teach a course on, on home education. And I know that would be a tough thing to pass through. He was open to the proposal and I haven't heard back yet, to be honest but the idea was Here you have people that are young, gonna be young moms soon, and young parents, and I think that the, at least they should know the option. I mean if you, if all you did was know, I used in my dissertation defense, I used the, it was a lame analogy, but I said if you have if you only knew there was coke, and there's all these varieties of different soda pop and you didn't know that Sprite existed and you would love that and it's a lame one because I don't even, we don't even drink pop in my home but but the idea is at least know the option so you can make an educated choice. And so Catherine, with you, you're newly married. Is that right? And so, yeah. And so you were homeschooled all through have you are, have you and your husband, what have you guys talked about as far as that? And then if you do decide to homeschool or whatever form of education you decide, what is the motivation behind that? Cause that's telling for people, especially a lot of this audience will be in your shoes or just after that. And considering those same motivations.

Kathryn Avery: 31:59

Yeah it just happened that my husband actually is homeschooled or was homeschooled as well. So we have that that sort of shared experience, which is fun. Obviously different families, different different settings, but but yeah, and I think that everything that that mom and Dini both have said really resonates with me as well. I think that when people usually ask me like, Oh, would you homeschool? I usually say. Yes, but the most important thing to me, I think, is that cohesive philosophy of education that treating children as persons, that relational spreading a broad feast in front of children that vision of education as a life. So I think that is the most important thing to me, and I think as Danny mentioned, we're seeing so much of that. Spread of people thinking about that in really creative ways and micro schools and those co ops. And so I think that I think that I might default because of the discipleship reasons that spending time with your kids, the customized ability that you have as a homeschooler makes me definitely default to the. Like mainly homeschooling side of things, at least at this point, as I'm thinking about it, but definitely with that sort of appreciation for the benefits that come out of doing education with other people and especially for things like, languages that are so hard to do, and it's just you by yourself in a computer and the shared load, with other families too, that are like minded. Yeah. That's

Timmy Eaton: 33:21

a great response. And what I love about your response is it harkens back to what we were just talking about. I like how you didn't even say the word homeschooling necessarily, but it was a very principled answer. It's more about principles of education and learning than it is like here. And whoever listens, my, my regular listeners are going to be so sick of me saying this, but I just, homeschooling doesn't even work. Like the word, the term doesn't even work. We're not at home a lot of the times and we're not schooling in the traditional sense of the word. And so I love that Carrie said discipling. I I was exploring the term shepherding with a, with somebody cause I really don't like it. It, the only thing is it's so ingrained that it would be so hard to, I don't know what it would take to actually change the name, but it actually doesn't work very well. And there's aspects of unschooling and world schooling and car schooling, and there's all these things. And if words matter a lot, eventually, I hope that changes because it is based on principles of learning education. And Charlotte Mason said and I've, it came to this on my own is it's a lifestyle. It's a way of living. And I think that's so important too. So Catherine, your response was just so perfect. I feel like just a few more questions, at least on your own experiences homeschooling, then we'll talk a lot about Charlotte Mason Institute. But what would you say, Catherine, we'll start with you. What was, from your perspective, especially as the oldest child, what were the biggest challenges? I think the listeners to this podcast, As, as great as it is to hear affirmations of the choice to home educate and to be with your kids. And they want to know the challenges so they can prepare for them. And so what would you say, what comes to mind when you think of, man, this was a tough part of it. Like the realities of the challenges of homeschooling, or even I would use the word problems.

Kathryn Avery: 35:00

Yeah, I think that, I've alluded a little bit already to just that idea of depending on how many people are around you, you can have that sense of isolation or of isolation is probably too strong of a word and it definitely was not really, that's definitely too strong of a word for my particular experience, but we did have a lot of like minded people around us, but I think just that yeah, feeling like you're doing things on your own, or there's a little bit of. I just doubt that can happen, I think. And that you're just

Timmy Eaton: 35:27

clearly different from the traditional, conventional way or something.

Kathryn Avery: 35:31

Yeah exactly. Or, even just reading books and it's Oh yeah, you need to put on your backpack and go on a school bus, and you're like, I don't even know what that's like, you

Kerri Forney: 35:37

know. totally. And uh, so

Kathryn Avery: 35:41

And so I think that's a challenge and opportunity. It's just something that comes up, and then I think the other thing subject wise is, the, yeah, the modern languages, learning Spanish, learning French, learning whatever, whenever you're learning that is a subject that is particularly difficult to do in a, the very traditional homeschool, like it's just me setting, or just me and mom, yeah. And and then I think that obviously, as you go into high school I think the challenges are for me as the oldest of five, right? Mom only has so much time. And like there were times when I probably should have come and been like, Hey, mom I am stuck on math right now. So can you help? But I didn't and she didn't necessarily always check up on me right when she needed to, because she had to order, right? And yeah, there were, various times where. You have to be self motivated or you could get away with some stuff. And so I think that's just a challenge. That's just a reality. And there's, yeah there's good things about that, that you have to learn time management and you have to learn self, like you have to be motivated and to some degree. And also, parents have to work at that accountability and dialogue as well. Yeah. And then I think obviously some subjects, are going to be. More just difficult at the higher level. If you don't out, that's why outsourcing classes or whatnot, my dad was a chemist, so thankfully I had I would be like, mom, was it necessarily like as fresh in her chemistry? So I'd go to dad and be like,

Kerri Forney: 36:59

bubbles or whatever,

Kathryn Avery: 37:00

equation. But obviously I think any parent, has those subjects that they just didn't, to use Mason's words, right? They didn't develop that relationship with as much themselves. And that's just the reality of homeschooling. You have strengths and you have weaknesses. And some of that as a parent affects your kids more than if you're in a different kind of educational

Timmy Eaton: 37:17

setting. Yeah. And what that clarifies to a lot of, especially new homeschool families is that like the idea that you are teaching your kids every subject is just and the way that we've set it on this podcast is if you choose the traditional conventional route, you're outsourcing anyway and homeschooling, or, the idea of educating your own children Is your, especially as they get to the older ages, like you're saying you, you outsource too, but you just have so much flexibility in that outsourcing and you have, and you can really determine and vet more and just have more. And I don't want to use the word control because it sounds so and I know in the literature, that's such a. Criticism of homeschooling that we don't allow other mindsets, which isn't true at all. Every family is going to do it differently but the idea that the principle of outsourcing and that parents don't have to be overwhelmed and then the other beautiful side of that. And I'm Carrie, I'm sure you can attest to that when you're relearning and Dini, like when you're studying with your kids, like history has come alive for me. As I read it with my kids, especially when I love the story of the world. I love do you guys know Daniel Allers and history plus he's out of Alberta and it is beautiful. The job he does is just so amazing. It's excellent. And there's so many good things out there and just learning alongside your child is such a rich part of the experience that you're relearning and you're almost, it's a benefit of homeschooling because the parent is also just being enlivened and their curiosity is being. Re enlivened again, and I've loved that as a parent, because I was a total public school kid, did well, it actually suited me in the sense that I liked the grade thing and stuff like that, but in hindsight, I go, man, there are so many things I have to let this, the scales fall from my eyes to be able to see a better way. And so that's just my opinion on it. But so thank you very much. That was a great response. From your perspective as the mothers, what was what would you say? What would you consider to be a challenge maybe for you in particular, or what you observed among your children?

Kerri Forney: 39:07

Yeah, I think, building up with Catherine saying there, here, you're trying to do something for the first time that you did not experience yourself. So it's coming from books, you're trying to read about this way of life and almost literally reading it and then trying to live it at that same time. And so the joy of what you're saying I always say to people, I would homeschool even if I never had kids. Because of the excitement of being able to go through all these subjects with this living way and being able to build relationships with these different areas of knowledge that I didn't have that opportunity to do so in a way that I would actually remember past the test. I that's fabulous. I love it. And but at the same time, that's the biggest challenge because it's new. I don't, I've never done this before. I don't get to go through this for 20 years and then

Timmy Eaton: 40:01

start. I know don't my wife says that all the time, that's a good question to ask is what would be different if you started now, maybe actually, maybe we will ask that question in a minute. Go ahead and finish your response, Carrie. Yeah, but I think

Kerri Forney: 40:12

that's where, I take hope in the fact that someone like Catherine, right? She did live it and now gets to do it and carry it on

Timmy Eaton: 40:20

forward, right? I know you're so lucky, Catherine.

Kerri Forney: 40:23

But there's grace in the fact that, someone had to start and you have to learn those the hard way of I don't think I did that so well, or, that didn't work out like I was hoping it would, or even the fact that. Five different kids, five different people, individual people. And did I perfectly, tailor things and to suit them? No. Did I do things that weren't for their best in lots of ways? Absolutely.

Timmy Eaton: 40:53

It's so challenging to say that worked for that child. What, why is this one reacting like this? And that's a, that's so hard. And it makes you question yourself as the parent. What about for you, Dini? What was, what would you say what comes to mind as a particular problem or challenge that you faced?

Deani Van Pelt: 41:08

Again, this is a 30 year old answer. So we have to take that with a grain of salt. I don't think it's quite the same nowadays, but because there were so few making this choice, when I look back, my kids don't say this as much, but when I look back, I wonder if I was showing them, sharing with them who their people are. And that's one of the things, now that I have the privilege of working with a lot of really good Christian schools, a lot of them are small, they're spread all across the province of Ontario but what I see is that the students know who their people are. And sometimes I wonder if I wasn't, I was more focused on the subjects and the enculturation that would happen through all of the exposures to the beautiful music, literature, poetry, all the time outside. Do you know what I mean? Yes. And we would do many one offs. Events, swimming lessons with this group writing lessons with that group, choir over here. So we had many out of the house, as you say, road schooling or Rome schooling or whatever, like you've got the car schooling. But they, they were curated in a way that they didn't all necessarily fit within a community. And I remember Susan Schaefer McCauley. Saying something about this and she felt that she gave her children their people Through knowing they were all studying the same art curriculum, for example and I know even Charlotte Mason herself the students that were studying the same curriculum They she had these children's gatherings where they would all come together and they put on their dramatic presentations Four and with each other, they'd come together and they'd have they'd sing together because they were all learning the same songs or the same poetry. So in hindsight, I wonder if more could have been done. To do it within community because of, we all need to know who our people are. And that would be a real goal of mine if I were to

Timmy Eaton: 43:15

do it again. In the co op world is so big. We don't, we didn't really have that much exposure to co op. I hear about it more and. There's some aspects of it I really like, and then other aspects that aren't like don't appeal to my wife and I, but but the principle is community. And I love bringing again, bringing it back to that. And so I definitely hear what you're saying there. Maybe one more. I just, this is going really fast. I don't think that we're going to be able to I'm just saying we're going to have to talk again someday, you guys. But so I love what Carrie was alluding to with the idea of if you could go back, if I was starting 16 years ago, there are some things that we would change like one, one of the, and I think I would call it a mistake. One of the biggest mistakes of home educating at first. And I get why, like it, nobody should get be hard on themselves for this, but as the idea of replicating what goes on or what we imagine going on in the school. And so there is this process of de schooling Yvonne Illich talks about it and de schooling society and other people. And and I think, everybody interprets that differently, but the idea of at least the principle to me is transitioning your mind to a an improved way, a higher way, a better way of learning that isn't so stuck to the conventional way and not, and then at least being, Oh, I actually liked the conventional way and being deliberate about that. And so it's just this transition of thinking for yourself, a focus on freedom, but if you were to go back and I think the way I'd ask this question is what would you tell a new homeschool family? What would be. And this would be, maybe we'll start with Catherine. And especially from the perspective of somebody who went through the whole of the, the whole experience of it what would you counsel if they said, Hey, give me some point form, like this, and this what counsel would you give new homeschool families to, to maybe in the effort to save them a little bit of time and a little bit of headache, they're going to find their way anyway. And every family is unique, but what would you tell them? That's a good

Kathryn Avery: 45:00

question. I think like you were saying with that idea of freedom, starting small, start somewhere, right? Start and end. And starting with that books and things, right? Try to keep that balance of exposure to ideas and hands on learning and experiences. And then I think the biggest thing for me is just that sort of orienting. And I think this is one of the most striking things about Mason to me is this idea of education. For joy, and I think that there's a lot of implicit and explicit talk about education, for the, with the end goal of power and influence or just amassing knowledge or information or whatever. But I think that if we can keep, at least I hope this is true for myself, right? If I can keep this idea of my goal is. Fullness of joy ultimately, right? And God, but like the world around us with people and learning how to love other people, whether that's through history and literature, whatever that is, then I think that hopefully that does give that sense of freedom of, I can look at an individual person and I can say, what does this person need to help them grow in their knowledge of God and other people in the world? And what books are best for them. And and hopefully also that helps orient us in this idea of education is a life and there's not a set amount of books or a set amount even where you need to get to in math or what you need to decide to study in science, right? There is not that, that you have to get to by the time you're 18 or else you are failed and you're going to be, absolutely like incompetent as a person. Like you have an entire life. And so I think. That's the sort of orienting thing that I think about, at least when I think about that for myself, and then I think not getting so tied up in and having to know all the options, but being willing to say, okay, what are some of my orienting principles and what are my orienting goals, and then. To make decisions and be okay with them and be okay with constantly tweaking from

Timmy Eaton: 46:55

there. Excellent. That's so well said. One of the things that I always talk about with people that are asking questions or that I'm talking with is the idea of really establishing purpose and not to be inflexible with that. Like that's a, to me, it's like establishing a purpose statement but a living purpose statement that can adjust and evolve and be cultivated over time. But the idea of saying, because like you said, because There are some arbitrary checkpoints that we've established in our culture and our societies to say you have to read at a certain age, you have to graduate at a certain age, you have to leave home at a certain age. And really, families have different world views. And if we really respect the person, like Charlotte Mason talks about and allow people to say, okay what, if I was talking to somebody who was just starting, I'd say why don't you just explore for a little bit and just say what are the outcomes that you want for your kid's education and learning? And stop thinking of education as a, this beginning and an end, but a way of living, like Carrie said, it's a way of living. It's a lifestyle. And if you have a clear purpose, then when you hit times that are difficult, you can come back to that purpose and say, Oh, it's okay if this doesn't happen because we're aligned with our purpose and that can evolve over time. So I love your response. Carrie, if you were to respond to that and it was a new homeschool family, let's say they were transitioning from school and their kids were 10, 12 and 17. Cause that changes a little bit when you're starting with, it's just such a different experience when you have a three year old and a four year old and a six year old. But if you had a 10, 12 and 17 year old, what would be your counsel to that family?

Kerri Forney: 48:25

Yeah. I would say, you'd want to start with that same principle of these children are people and therefore it's going to take some time to think about this. In terms of the differences of what they've just been going through, say, whatever type of schooling they've had. And now what you're transitioning them into being patient with that transition to say, Okay, this is gonna in some ways, you have to Allow them to have space to make that transition, knowing that there's gonna be a lot of questions like Catherine brought up before. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? And knowing that the principles behind what you're doing, they do answer that, right? And making sure that kids don't feel like this is something being done to them. But it's really something that they are participating in themselves, and they are the ones that are making these connections with the literature and the poetry and the music, like we're saying, right? It's something they're doing as persons not being done to them. So I think that taking that time to figure that what's that going to look like in that scenario, and how is that going to be communicated so that they have the confidence to do it. To go, yeah, okay, we can weather this change in this transition and really gain the benefits from doing so. And

Timmy Eaton: 49:41

you've used the words patience and grace. And I think that those are perfect. And I can see somebody listening to this who's new. Let's say there was a mom with that exact situation and almost being frustrated because what she wants is no, you don't understand. What am I doing tomorrow? And and how do they prepare for the ACT? And we have all these, again, fixed mindset, things of how it's got to be. And I love what you said, be patient. Cause somebody who has a 17 year old is going I only have a year. What do you mean? And it's actually you don't only have a year. And if you took three months. It would be fine. And there are lots of ways to get into post secondary institutions, if that's your route. And there are lots of ways to prepare for trades and you're developing a person. And there's no rush to accomplish that by the time they're 17, 18, or 25. And it's just these principles that people have to have their eyes open to. And it's so liberating and it's so enriching to be able to bless somebody with that kind of a viewpoint. So Deanie I'm not going to give you a particular family, but what's your response to that? The idea of a transitioning family or somebody who's new to homeschooling, what's your point form counsel to them?

Deani Van Pelt: 50:45

I think it's already all been said, but it is the life of books and things. It's ideas and. It's the mind and the hands, and I think we know this intuitively that a full life, a joyful life right now involves our whole person. So to make sure that we, the parent, the educator, as well as the student, the child, are being able to live fully each day, it just creates a kind of balance and a pacing. That's really beautiful books, not just textbooks. It's books. Yes. It's the touch, the emotions share ideas through, through story. Then the emotions will be touched. Then the ideas will be like the light bulbs will start going on that we'll get to the textbooks. We'll get to the, the more formulaic, but having our imaginations ignited each day. Doing something productive with our hands, with our bodies, with our imaginations, it's just life giving. In the transition, when it's hard, if we can still have beautiful days, and that's to, at the transition we're talking as though we're moving to fully, we're going from a classroom where our desks were in straight rows, to now we're at the kitchen table. It's not like that. And in fact, many classrooms Are beautiful spaces right now. So there are certain things and practices that we can emulate from group educational settings and carry on. So it doesn't have to be like, it's

Timmy Eaton: 52:25

so yeah, drastic.

Deani Van Pelt: 52:27

Exactly. And so I think making sure, the. The story in the Chronicles of Narnia where Father Christmas, he comes and he gives them tools that they're going to need for the journey they're on, but he also gives them tea, just hot tea for right now, make sure every day does have it's hot tea and it's sweets, metaphorically and make sure you've also, got the longer view for, as you say, like the long term goal. And I think then the transition can be just so freeing. And life could be so beautiful immediately, but also in

Timmy Eaton: 53:02

the longer term. I love that. There's a lot of talk about, and there's so many pronunciations, but hygge or hygge, or I don't, people say H Y G E is what I say. But Steve, when I was talking to Steve Lambert from five in a row, he said, I asked him the same question and he said, get a comfy couch. That was the first thing he says was get a comfy couch. And so regardless of your educational setting make it comfortable. Catherine, go ahead, please. Yeah. Can I just build on that?

Kathryn Avery: 53:25

Yes. Yes. I think that as a student, like I mentioned before, but yeah, get a comfy couch, start a nature notebook yourself, right? Read a book yourself. And I think just you as a parent, trying to live out what you're trying to offer to your kids is so impactful as a, like two year students. Like I just. Think that as a student, watching mom, have a commonplace book, write down her favorite quotes, right? Or go out and nature walks with us or whatnot, right? That authenticity of no, like I'm saying that this is who we are as people. And I think this is how we learn. And I'm living it for me as well. And I'm living it. It speaks, I think it gives, I think it gave me a lot more trust. In the method as no, this is for all people. This isn't just Mama was saying, something that is being done to me or something that is. Just for, yeah, like this 1, 2, 3 checklist that I gotta do this year or this day, or whatnot. Yes. So I think, yeah, that's

Timmy Eaton: 54:22

and it's a principle of modeling. I like the parent modeling that and living that. So this is I, it's a great way to live. And man, I, so many other things I wanna transition if we can for at least a few minutes on and maybe I'll pose three things and you guys can just decide. Somehow who will answer which, but can somebody just give us a little bit of background, the start and the evolution of Charlotte Mason Institute? Like how did it start and where is it at and what is it looking forward to? And then if one of you could talk about the Alveari Alveari curriculum and just the connection there, and then if somebody else could I know there's so much, as if we're going to scratch the surface about Charlotte Mason today, but if somebody could really make it really accessible to understand relational education and I don't know who wants to take what, but in any order would be fine. Yeah, I'll

Kerri Forney: 55:09

give you the founding and maybe Catherine can do the curriculum and Dini can end us out. That'd be great. Awesome. But yeah, so the Carol and Andy Smith were the founding they're the founders of the Charlotte Mason Institute, like we said, over 20 years ago, and they started off as the yearly conference. And then over time that developed where we wanted to really answer a lot of these questions that we've just been discussing, like somebody wants to have a way to understand what this looks like in the day to day, then we're going to need to have some sort of curriculum so that you don't need to spend the 20 years figuring out what to do before you even start. So that was really the motivation behind developing the curriculum was that we wanted to give. Parents and teachers the opportunity to have something there to work with really while they're learning these principles so that you have what to do tomorrow, but also be thinking and learning and growing yourself as an educator. So that's really where we so the yearly conferences have continued and then we've added on the curriculum as well as teacher training resources and support for all variety of different types of group learning and other resources to start schools, all the different type of things. So we're just building all those different areas out to be able to provide it. Options for educators and all different settings to bring these life, really life giving principles to children and teachers

Timmy Eaton: 56:42

everywhere. And are the Smiths still directly involved with the goings on? Not on the day

Kerri Forney: 56:47

to day, but they are certainly involved and they are, they play a important role in, in all sorts of things. So yes. That's not on the day to day anymore.

Timmy Eaton: 56:56

And then if I could ask you one more question before we transition to Catherine on the on the curriculum. What, is there like some kind of collaborative effort with the other Charlotte Mason organizations? Simply Charlotte Mason and Ambleside. And is what is, if anything The collaboration and the work that you guys do together. I just I don't know much about that.

Kerri Forney: 57:14

Yeah, there's nothing formalized as far as a collaboration, but we certainly going to love all of the work that's going on and all these different spheres that are bringing these amazing principles to people far and wide. There's so many opportunities and everybody's doing things to, to help reach the group that they are. around and that they're that are part of them. We are, we're thrilled for all of the different options that are out there to learn Mason's principles and put them into action.

Timmy Eaton: 57:43

Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. Catherine, please. Yeah. And just to

Kathryn Avery: 57:46

piggyback off that, I think the conference is the sort of space within the Institute that really comes to fruition because. It's not an Alvieri conference. It's not about a curriculum. It's a Charlotte Mason conference. And we have educators from, like Dini was saying, our tradition is home educators, classroom educators, academics, like we have the whole and that's just such a rich time to get to, yeah, just. Have meals and go to sessions with people in across the world and just across the spectrum, educationally as

Timmy Eaton: 58:14

well. And Katherine, would you say that conference is maybe the distinguishing like element of Charlotte Mason Institute as far as Charlotte Mason principles being perpetuated and or, is that like one of the, is that like one of the most distinguishing unique factors in being Charlotte Mason Institute is that conference and what happens there? I would say

Kathryn Avery: 58:34

it's definitely our signature event. I would say, we have these various initiatives of our teacher training of the sort of ongoing social media blog, like newsletter presence. But as far as that sort of invigorating annual push us off into another year of research and collaboration and thoughtfulness, that's definitely a key part for sure. Awesome.

Timmy Eaton: 58:54

Yeah. Excellent. Okay. And then tell us about Alvieri. Yeah,

Kathryn Avery: 58:58

so as mom said, the Alveary is our take on how do we put these principles into practice? What does it look like to be able to sit down with a six year old or a 16 year old? And what are you going to do at eight o'clock on Monday morning? And yeah, there's a lot of. Aspects of that from we provide book lists one grade one through 12, right? And detailed lesson plans. So read this book with lots of extra links and maps and just really bring the subject to life. And and then as we, I forget who mentioned it earlier, but just this idea of community as well, it's been fun to see as over the past decade, right? More and more families. Especially when they sometimes we help teens that come to the conferences, and just have that sort of kindred spirit moment with a kid. They've never met before that also studied the same artist, a couple of months ago, or learn the same book song or read the same book or whatever. And then we all, as part of that community on a sort of day to day basis, we have a private social media platform where people are able to share resources and just struggles and. Triumphs and and collaborate together. And then as well we have a large part of the training built into the lesson plans and also additional resources so that someone feels really equipped to. They've heard about narration, right? Or they've heard about oh, I should, I can maybe look at a map or something like that. But no, it's oh here's a question that maybe get some conversation going based on this reading. Here's something to look at. Here's a historical artifact, right? And so people feel. I guess the hope is that people would feel equipped to to use the curriculum as a springboard to really tailor it to their kid and not have to feel like they have to create everything and then tailor it to their kid, but that they would feel yeah, equipped to, to have that. That resource or

Timmy Eaton: 1:00:39

that resource. Yeah. And how does it come to be? Is there a particular person who really heads up, like initiates and originates a curricula curriculum idea. And then it's, and then there's a committee that kind of formulates it and then like, how does it go from an idea to this lesson plan? And who's involved in that?

Kathryn Avery: 1:00:55

Yeah there's like a sort of a collaborative of a number of people. And I think that's one of the beauties of the Alvearies that we can work with experts in a variety of fields and then say, okay, you are really passionate about art and you are passionate about Charlotte Mason, you can head up some of this art over here, but then we're also working always in, in community and in collaboration with each other to to make sure that, we don't want to just have a really good, literature program. We want to make sure that it's balanced and right. As in the bigger picture, not just the individual subjects as well. So are you

Timmy Eaton: 1:01:28

three involved in writing the curriculum as well?

Kathryn Avery: 1:01:31

I am. And mom is. Yeah. And then there's a number of, I

Timmy Eaton: 1:01:34

don't know, that's where, and then who does like the final oh, this is ready for putting out, like this is polished and this puppy's ready to go

Kathryn Avery: 1:01:41

Yeah we've expanded the team over a number of years and Shannon Whiteside is the Albury program director. So she's the buck stops with her.

Timmy Eaton: 1:01:49

Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. And I love it. I and what I, in my observation. It's not overwhelming to get something like, for example, narration, especially depending on younger children, it's really, read something and then say what it is. And you're right. It's not like this. I just want to let people know that it's not this overwhelming thing where you have to, have pre ideas and pre understanding. It's it's it's manageable. It's accessible. And that's so important for families that are overwhelmed with so much curriculum to, to sift through. And and I just thank you for the work you're doing. That's so good. Dini, please. We'll talk about the relational and I'm sorry I can't believe. And it's gone by this fast. Cause so if I, we, I have to secure a second meeting with, or maybe do one with each of you or something, but Dini, please talk to this idea of. And I don't know if, I don't know if you guys would say that the science of relations and relational education is like the fundamental principle underlying in undergirding. All the other principles, but it's so threaded throughout all of what Charlotte Mason talks about. I know that's, it's hard to answer in one go, but Dini, give it a go.

Deani Van Pelt: 1:02:54

Yeah, I think you're right on. It is a key principle. It's a key thread throughout what we call Charlotte Mason education. In fact, some people who don't want to label it using Charlotte Mason's name, they might call it a living education. But many call it a relational education. So if you're looking for a name and like a way to describe the education that we're talking about, a relational education.

Timmy Eaton: 1:03:21

And why do people, would people want to do that just to be conscious of people that might not approach it from a faith based way? Or is it like,

Deani Van Pelt: 1:03:28

Nope, nope. Just if you don't want to say Montessori education. What is that? I guess we all no, but it's the person's name. You could call it a Charlotte Mason education, using the person's name as the handle, but if you want to get to what is it? Yes. It's a relational education. So that tells right in the name tells a little bit more about what it is. And indeed a relational education. You're. Your overall goal is to build relationships in four area with your child. The first is relationship with God, relationship with the divine. So embedded as Carrie spoke earlier about the integration of faith and learning embedded in the whole relational design is relationship with God, relationship with people who have lived in the past, people who live now, people who are to come. So that, that sensitivity of people and relationship with the universe. So that's all the aspects of science. We start with nature study and nature journaling, for example, but, and then finally relationship with self, healthy relationship of understand with self understanding who we are as persons. So imagine a whole education. Focused on building relationships and a relationship is embedded. It's we as persons. It goes right to the anthropology of Mason's philosophy. Who are the students? Who are the teachers? Who are the people? Are they individuals? She so brilliantly says they're persons. The child is a person. It's still like a singular noun, but it's person and personhood is this incredible concept. When we're born, if you recognize the child as a person, they are born into And for relationship.

Timmy Eaton: 1:05:15

That's our very identity. That's, I love how you clarify that. And I want to just ask a question and then carry on please. But if somebody were to ask, that as opposed to what? What's the alternative to them being born persons?

Deani Van Pelt: 1:05:27

They're an individual, they're born for freedom and autonomy to the point where it becomes so child centered that it creates an isolation. Like being autonomous, being an individual, having individualized focus for an education can create an incredible amount of isolation and even self centeredness. This is a very different anthropology that this philosophy is based on. You're still a person. Singular, but the concept is you are born into and for relationships, and therefore all of education is about the formation of these relationships. And it's really fun, we can talk about it different ways. Like Dr. Jamie Smith at Kelvin, he talks about the formation of our loves. Mason would talk about it, the formation of our appetites, like what are the tastes that we're developing. Or what are the, in fact, Mason has this. this incredible quote that's really popular. The question is not how much does the youth know when he was, do they care education, but how much does he care? I love it. And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set, and therefore, how full is the life that he has before him? And if you look at the gospel of John, Christ came that we might have fullness of life. So there's this it's so integrally religious to educate for relationships, to educate for The stimulation of our loves for what we care about. And that's integral to our anthropology, our humanness as persons. And that's what, when I did my master's thesis on Charlotte Mason's philosophy, my question was, is this a coherent philosophy of education? And I, so he used a flaw what is a coherent philosophy? And I. Ran all of her ideas through this and in the end she stands up. It's a coherent philosophy and Beautifully for those of us who are people of faith. It's so coherent that it recognizes the spiritual and The relationship with God so that the, that then leads to fullness of life. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton: 1:07:54

You know what that, I'm coming from a place of faith as well. And Luke two 52 talks about the, that kind of the same thing that like God, he improved in, in with. God with humanity in all these areas. And I feel like that kind of speaks to a relational type of education as well. I could hear some people, I could hear a critic saying but if it's relational, is it, does that engender self directed learning? And I think some people think that it negates that, but the idea is that the individual is it doesn't mean you don't tailor the education to the individual. It just means that education is a way of being and that it is relational, that it is about relationships, like you said, with self and with community and with God and the universe and all these things. And yeah you explained it so well. I love that. And oh man, there's, we're just going to have to do another one. So I want to just. I'll just give each of you a final word and maybe tell us where we can find Charlotte Mason Institute. And if I don't know if that includes saying something about Alveary. So anything you want to say about like where we can find the work and uh, maybe, maybe a comment, you used the word before we started Dean about like demystifying this a little bit. And so I'll give you guys each a final word and tell us where we can find Charlotte Mason Institute work.

Kerri Forney: 1:09:04

Just to piggyback even more on what you're thinking, it made me think of how Mason also talks about how education has to be built up from within, so speaking to even that personhood, but individual, but you're both referencing. Yeah. So this, and I just, I always go back to that when I think about it, because it cannot be done to you. Like we talked about earlier and it really does become, it's more than just have to come from within, but it becomes a part of who you are. And I think that kind of when we were the whole thing of what we're talking about and all these different ways that we find life and the joy and the relationships, it's because it's something that's now a part of us. So that knowledge that we've had. And I think that's one of the things that just resonates. I'm never going to get tired of it, right? This goes on

Timmy Eaton: 1:09:52

all of our days, right? Yeah. Like you said, it's a way of life. It's, it really is. So thank you. Dini, what would be your final parting words and then we'll go to Catherine.

Deani Van Pelt: 1:10:02

It'll be a story. It's an experience two weeks ago. Some of us might be acquainted with the books, Katie and the British artists. Katie is a little girl in a picture book, and she goes and sees different works of art. My granddaughter, who is three, and I have another granddaughter who is one, they're living in England right now. So two weeks ago, we went to the art gallery, and Whistlejacket is a painting. He's, it's a big horse featured in one of the books. And to watch my granddaughters run, One year old and three year old run to that painting, room to room, and then stand in front of it and point at the painting with so much joy and excitement because there's Whistlejacket. And of course Whistlejacket just stands on a kind of flat background. So the three year old picks up her notebook and says grandma you have to sit here And we have to draw a whistlejacket a field and he needs some flowers grandma draw and we had we sat for so long in front of the painting and to have that experience to Dream about that for your children and then to have that experience with your grandchildren there is Nothing like it. That is deep joy in that moment, and it gives me deep hope for what a Charlotte Mason education can mean, not only for persons and for our families, but for our society as a whole.

Timmy Eaton: 1:11:29

Thank you for sharing that. That's awesome. My wife's mom is now a grandmother of 17 who are all being home educated. And so it's pretty amazing. She's enjoying, and she's so actively and proactively involved in their learning. And so it's been excellent. So awesome. Please Catherine, you've got the final word, no pressure though.

Kathryn Avery: 1:11:48

I'll get the practical part out of the way. You can find more out about the Charlotte Mason Institute at our website. The M. I. N. S. T. C. M. dot org and then the Alvieri a L. V. E. A. R. Y. dot org. And and then we're also on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube as well. So that's the practical information side. And then I think just to end, I think. One quote that's attributed to Mason that I really like a lot says that growth physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual is the sole end of education. And I think that's my hope for me and for all of us. And we're just, we're on a journey and it's not a, we're not in search of perfection, but we're in search of growth. And in, in all these relationships and all these areas and thanks for allowing us to be a part of. Your journey and our journey.

Timmy Eaton: 1:12:37

No. And thank you. And since we're on this little train of Charlotte Mason quotes one that I love, which is the motto of the parents national education union is education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life. And I think for me personally it's all those things, but it's a life, like it's a lifestyle. It's, and that's a shift in my own thinking, especially coming from my own education background of traditional conventional learning. And so it's been so eyeopening to me, the, this is a lifestyle. It's a way of living. And so thank you. Thank you for spending time. So we we're with Carrie Forney and Catherine Avery and Dini Van Pelt all coming from different places. And that's so good. I would love to do this again, but thank you for taking time and sharing your wisdom and all that you said today, thank you very much. Thank you very

Deani Van Pelt: 1:13:20

much. Thanks Tim.

Timmy Eaton: 1:13:23

That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.