(Part 2 of 2)
This is Part 2 of a two part series. In Part 1 I shared about the decision to join Mason's Alveary, and explained why I - an educator and home educator with over 15 years experience with Charlotte Mason's educational model - would turn to a paid CM curriculum. In Part 2 I will describe some of our experiences over the first 2 terms of working with the Alveary.
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We have now completed 2 terms of work with Mason's Alveary, and the pilot project for the elementary curriculum is almost complete. The Charlotte Mason Institute has opened registration for the 2017-2018 year, and many people are asking questions about it. Because of that, I want to share some of our experience with it by exploring a series of questions.
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| Aidan's nature journal entry of a feather |
What did we hope to gain from participating in Mason's Alveary?
As you've already read, the past few years have been challenging for me. I was facing a decision about whether we could actually continue home educating our children, let alone following the teacher-intense method that we love.
By joining the Alveary, I hoped to be able to successfully carry on homeschooling my son despite the frequent sick days and medical appointments that I would be facing. I hoped that by 'contracting out' the planning portion of our school, I would be able to put my energy into carrying out the plan and to making sure that the beautiful parts of a Mason education were not sacrificed because my energy had been spent on things that weren't direct interaction with my son. I hoped to be able to provide the beautiful education I longed for him to have despite my limitations.
There are areas of a Mason education that I have done well in the past, and others where I struggled. I hoped that the Alveary would give me support and accountability in those areas (think: handicrafts, nature study, composition, exams).
What benefits did I experience from it?
PLANS: Our year with the Alveary began with access to term plans and lesson plans for Term 1. Experts in Charlotte Mason and curriculum development had worked long hours preparing a cohesive program for the families to use. We were free to use the lesson plans step by step, or to use our own previous experience to guide our decision-making in that regard; the lesson plans were there as a type of crutch that could be used as needed, and left alone when it wasn't.
SCHEDULES: The weekly schedules included all the subjects that make up a CM school day, from literature to sol-fa, from history to foreign language. Recommendations for drawing practice, handicrafts, and time outdoors were included, together with resources to help in carrying out those subjects. The frequency and number of minutes for each subject in the week were clearly spelled out, and sample schedules were provided so that we could have a starting point for laying out our weeks while adhering to Mason's guidelines of varied subjects and short lessons. With only one student, setting up my week was a piece of cake. Families with multiple children had a trickier time coordinating that, but had the support of the Alveary team to work out their schedules. Because of this program I've learned about some of the magic that spreadsheets can do; a video tutorial specifically on setting up schedules and manipulating data within those sheets was one of the most basic benefits I received from the Alveary.
SUPPORT: As we moved through the days and weeks of terms 1 and 2, we often encountered questions about how to implement a particular aspect of the curriculum. Sometimes it was a weakness or unfamiliarity on my part, sometimes it was a challenge that my son faced. Either way, help was only an email away. We received well thought out replies to our questions about why things were set up in specific ways, about learning differences, about habit formation, and about different strategies when things weren't going well.
In a Mason education, every practice is based on a principle. The responses we received from the Alveary team were grounded in a thorough understanding of those principles, and each teaching parent was encouraged to look at the principles to guide their own decision-making. In this way, Mason's Alveary is constantly trying to ensure that the parents/teachers are learning and growing in their own methodological understanding so as not to need to look to any one else as an 'expert' but to be able to make our own decisions. As one with a lot of prior experience with Mason's writing, I still appreciated being directed back to the principles, and knowing that when I had a specific question, those principles were at the core of the response.
COMMUNITY: My dream would be to have a vibrant Charlotte Mason community in South Western Ontario - ideally within my own community - with whom I can meet regularly to study Mason's 6 Volumes, organize regular group nature walks, share resources and ideas, and walk this unique life together. But that isn't possible right now. So, a happy side-benefit of participating in the pilot was the built-in community that I became part of online.
The facebook group and forum have become a good source of help when I'm troubleshooting a problem in our home school; the other parents are all following the same program I'm in, so we're on the same page for history, literature, etc. When I look for suggestions about how to better use a specific book, I know that all the responses are from people who have been using the same book in the same way. The tone of both groups is positive, encouraging, sympathetic. We're in this together! We have shared victories together as well as deep challenges, and I have found a community of women who will pray us through specific times of need.
I suppose the downside of this is that now I long to live in Illinois, or Minnesota, or Hawaii, or Kentucky, or North Carolina, or Manitoba, or . . .
TRAINING and INSPIRATION: The Alveary provided me with a source for learning how to bring in some of the subjects I was weak in. Bit by bit we've been gaining practice and experience with dry brush painting and drawing, with handicrafts, with good use of our spare time, with development of the habit of attention. I have been able to put together a plan that enables my son to carry on with some of his work when I'm not able to function. The accountability of having paid for a curriculum plan increases my incentive to be consistent. Knowing that I must submit exams (a requirement for the pilot, but not for regular membership) means that I'm doing them with my son, and the time I spend evaluating them, seeing what was weak and what we might have unintentionally neglected, has made my home school better.
What challenges did we face?
Any pilot project is bound to have bumps along the way. We went into this expecting bumps, so when they came they weren't a surprise, and we dealt with them.
Some bumps that were pilot-related? Changes in some books after books had been purchased. Typos in lesson plans. Missing or broken links and other minor errors were discovered, but quickly rectified with an email to the administrator. All of that will be eliminated in the post-pilot years, which is good to know.
The sheer volume of information that was made available was overwhelming at times. I had to learn to take in what I could and put the rest aside for when I was able to handle it, remembering that even improving one area was improving, and the fact that I was able to improve something rather than continuing to simply stay where I was already was a significant difference from the previous few years!
Other bumps were not pilot-related, but were bumps nonetheless. Working out a new schedule with new priorities - priorities that were part of a Mason education but had been neglected somewhat in our home for the past few years - required flexibility and patience on both my part and my son's. There were times when one or the other of us resented having to work with a certain book that wasn't going well, but it taught us to press on and find ways to overcome the hurdles. Dealing with lost time because of appointments and illness. My temperament is to be a rule-follower: if something is written down, it must be done. So when lessons were missed, I would want to make them up. That error caused our first term to stretch way beyond what was healthy. I've had to learn to move on, let things go, and be okay with that. I'm still working on that one. But I'm learning.
As Canadians there was tweaking that had to happen to make our national history line up with the history cycle of the Alveary. We had to decide which resources would adequately make up the Canadian content that is necessary for our context: folk songs, citizenship and government, poetry, history, literature. All those things need to have a small amount of adjustment to satisfy our desire to have our own country's story represented in the program. This, too, is being worked on, and while it will be some time before a full Canadian adaptation is ready, I'm satisfied that we're getting the best we can as it is.
Would I recommend the Alveary? and To whom would I recommend it?
Yes, most definitely. The program is deeply researched, sound, tested, and supported. The cost of a year's subscription has been more than paid for from my perspective, as it has given me space to focus on the areas I wanted to (like developing our nature study habits and one-on-one lessons with my son) while still having the other areas taken care of (such as planning, troubleshooting, selecting resources) and allowing me to do some of those other things that need to be done in the home (like cooking meals and cleaning bathrooms). Could someone do these things all themselves? Certainly. But time is finite, as is energy. If you choose to pay to have someone do some of the important load-bearing for your home school, the Alveary gives you great bang for your buck!
While I think that anyone could use it, there are a couple of groups of people who I'd encourage to explore the Alveary route:
Firstly, moms who are just starting out with a Mason education and want to be able to implement her principles pretty well, right off the bat. The Alveary gives that mom the opportunity to start right in with all the lessons, while supporting her own learning of the principles and methodology along the way, rather than having to 'wing it' for a while as she gets her Mason feet under her. She can start with one or even multiple children, knowing that they are getting a good Mason education immediately!
Secondly, I'd recommend it to moms who, like me, are going through a long-term crisis, whether they're new to Mason or have been following her for years. The supports that go with the Alveary, the accountability, the encouragement - all those things are valuable assets when life is a challenge. We have to recognize that we can't do everything ourselves all the time, and that there is no shame in getting help to make sure that the things that are a priority for your family happen.
Mason's Alveary has been a gift to my entire family this year. I can honestly say that I would not have been giving my son the education any of us desired for him had we gone a different route. I thank God for that moment at the CMI conference in June 2016 when the pilot project was presented. It saved my Mason home school.
