When I dug different families of homeschoolers in South Jakarta through the RumahRis mailing list, I became acquainted with a family that realized a homeschooling method that was previously not quite familiar to my ears: the Charlotte Mason method.

I have heard of Montessori and unschooling before, but I just heard Charlotte Mason. I also explored to know about this method because it seems interesting. And after digging further, the end I got acquainted with the book written by Mrs. Ellen Kristi, entitled Love Thinking. This book is an “introduction” before you become more acquainted with the Charlotte Mason (CM) education method.

In this book, we explain briefly about who the CM is, how the method is, and there is a comparison of the CM method with other educational methods used explicitly in homeschooling.

CM is a British citizen who is one of the dominant educational figures in the world to date. He has noted his views on education as much as six volumes, and in this paper, I will put forward a few important points that are the “mainstay” and “differentiator” between these methods in other ways.

Here are a number of “mainstays” from this practical and memorable way to make me personally: (to know the CM method, it is not bad if you only read the book of Love Thinking but must listen to the six volumes of his article on education)

1. Children must be exposed as much as possible by nature since early, because that’s where they will learn to use their five senses to the fullest, classified as practicing observation skills, imagination, and will make children happier and more familiar to the Creator and His creation .
2. Children must be presented with early best books that are meaningful and can cause “relations” with children. CM uses the term “living book” for books with such criteria. So here, the CM is most reluctant to give up “dry” textbooks that only have “theoretical” characteristics, without “emotion” or “meaning” in it, to the point that after listening to the books, the child will only knowing the theories that exist, maybe even memorizing them, but because there is less impression or meaning taken by the child, understanding or memorization will not be dominant in the long run and will not be made “relations” between the child and the book.
   An example is, when a child is studying gravitational forces, it will certainly be very contradictory “impact” between children who are presented with textbooks contain theories about the power of gravity, with children presented with a biography of Isaac Newton which among others tells how Isaac Newton passed so many experiment before the end he successfully found the theory of gravitational style.
3. Narration. In the CM way, the best learning is not by memorizing or by submitting questions in the form of multiple options or essays, but by asking the child to narrate what he has just read. So here children are often asked to recount the “living book” he just read.
   By working on the narrative, the child learns to collect data, process it, classify it, and each element in his brain will work to “pull out” the results of processing and classification of that information. Plus, by doing narration, children’s writing and public speaking skills will continue to be trained.
4. Short study hours. This method is most concerned with concentration and concentration training for children. In the mechanism of listening to living books, it is not uncommon to emphasize that children will be asked to create narratives after reading the book 1 time. Not after 2 times, or 3 times. One time, with models low reading. With the lessons and the habit of focusing the focus of the childlike this, the child’s learning hours become short. For one elementary school study room, for example, children learn somewhat from 9:00 to 11:00. Thus, children have little free time for them to do whatever they are interested in, playing in the wild, joining many communities or sports clubs, participating in courses, or spending time with family.

So often this method is so far that maybe I don’t pour it in 1 article. The four points above are just a few of how the CM describes education as life, as an atmosphere, and as a discipline.