If You’re Unschooling High School, You Might Want to Peek At Charlotte Mason

Truth be told, I think the Charlotte Mason approach to high school is more unschooly by far than what I’ve seen suggested on many unschooling pages. Dual enrollment seems to be the major recommendation for high schoolers.  Dual enrollment looks beyond fantastic on a college application, and it’s a great way to earn college credit for free.  But for those people who would prefer to continue to create their own high school curriculum free from textbooks and lesson plans, I feel that the CM method offers a lot of flexibility.

                One aspect of a Charlotte Mason education that seems to be unique is the practice of spreading out subjects over the years. In CM, a student does not take one year of Shakespeare study, but Shakespeare plays are read all throughout the high school years. Typically, a student would read three Shakespeare plays per year. This approach is used in both Ursa Minor (secular) https://ursaminorlearning.com/and Ambleside Online (religious Christian).  http://amblesideonline.org/  At the end of high school, you could grant your student one credit in Shakespeare for the work done throughout the years, or you could include each year’s Shakespeare readings under the umbrella of Literature along with the other books read.

                The study of economics is also spread out over four years.  The student reads books and essays over the course of four years instead of having one credit, or half a credit, crammed into a year or a semester.   I see this approach as being so friendly to unschooling because you are not locking yourself into learning about something for only one year. Or, if you do lose interest in something for a while and then become curious about it again, this approach allows you to weave in and out of learning about a specific topic.

                 The CM method is not in and of itself unschooling.  In fact, if you do approach it with the attitude really wanting a CM education, then there will be a certain rigor just by what subjects are covered in a CM setting.  Those subjects include art history, Shakespeare, poetry, Plutarch, along with the traditional subjects of history, literature, math, science, and foreign language.  I would think that an unschooler using a literature based learning approach would probably not do a study in all of these subjects. On the other hand, curiosity may be sparked and a student may choose to learn about Plutarch’s Lives.  That is something that goes back to that idea that education is a feast.  Lay the suggestions out before the student and allow them to decide how much they may want to tweak things.

                In many ways, CM’s approach to the rigorous subjects is so gentle that it really can be wonderful way for an unschooler to approach the subject.  For example, art history is learned by reading one or two books on art history spread out over four years.  Each year, three different artists and their work are studied. By studied, we mean read a biography or even a Wikipedia entry on the artist. Twelve of their pieces are closely observed and described by the student.  You could definitely be flexible with this and not necessarily study twelve pieces by the same artist. 

               I think that the major concern with combining unschooling with the CM method is one of credits.  It is really hard to measure credit hours in a CM education because many subjects are spread out over four years and also because one student might finish a book faster than another.  For that matter, a student might read a history book with a lot ease and then have to go slower on a science book – maybe even re-reading parts to gain a complete understanding.   If an unschooler learns about six artists, maybe that could be considered half a credit in art history instead of a full credit.  Or, should that study count for a full credit?  Also, I think a student could reasonably earn a full credit for Shakespeare by reading six plays instead of twelve. I asked a secular homeschooling facebook group how many Shakespeare plays they thought should be read for one credit solely in Shakespeare, and the average (and majority) of responses indicated that six plays would equal one high school credit.
             I’m not saying that all unschoolers should become Charlotte Mason homeschoolers.  I’m saying that I think unschoolers who want to continue to create their own education might find a lot of the CM methods to be very conducive to non-traditional study.  The books that are suggested by CM sites are just that – suggestions.  There are no textbooks or lesson plans in a CM education.  And again, it’s a feast. An unschooler could use the CM approach for economics and not read a single Shakespeare play.  It’s not all or nothing.  (However, if you are participating in a study on CM educated students then I would say that one would have to show that they really followed all of the methods in a Charlotte Mason education.)