On Character building and habit study and... husbands.

Once every week for some time now, during our catechism lessons,  I have built into our schedule a section of time to study a habit or character quality (a virtue, if you will).

Usually I pick a habit we are going to work on, I find a story that demonstrates a practical application, I pick out a memory verse or two, and look for some opportunities in our day to encourage it... and basta. Takes five minutes.
Seems simple enough, but in reality it has caused me great anguish in my lesson planning. It's a short lesson, but long on preparation! How I have longed for a ready-made habits curriculum!

For one thing, I'm a die-hard Charlotte Mason follower, as you know, and she listed fifty odd habits throughout her works that she found worthy of emphasis. I've gone through several times now and coded bible verses to these habits, read and re-read and used ideas from my favorite, worn-out manual of habits training: "Laying Down the Rails." I use it, but it's all kind of a mess in my head.... each week I have to pull from many different sources to do something very simple-- teach a habit.

There is currently no real habit- training curriculum out there I could substitute in it's place that's as thorough as this one.

And though Laying Down the Rails is epic, it isn't a curriculum. And as such, some part of it frustrates me because it does not contain lesson plans or even a simple format. It's more like a series of meditations for the person intending to instill the habits in another or in themselves, none of which is practical for me in a setting with small children. I use it every day, but my children haven't yet really reaped the benefits of it.

So, my solution for practicality has always been the Duggar's Character Quality Chart, a pdf I've seen wandering around the internets.
I've used it for many years, one character quality at a time, doing memory work or just sharing stories about the qualities.

Yesterday, I was reading a thread in a Catholic Homeschooling mother blog that really offended me, in which a group of women thought it was somehow encouraging to dump on each other's (and their own) husbands. Don't get me started on how common of a mindset I have found that to be among American Catholic women. o.O

Anyways, it reminded me that I just never, ever, EVER want to be like  that. That I really want to honor and respect and serve my husband. And let him lead!

I've always found a few of the Gothard definitions of these character qualities kind of ... off.  And I realized I'd never checked in with my husband about them.

So without a second thought, I printed it up, and marched upstairs to his office real quick with my Character Quality chart, and asked him what the thought about it to use as a formal "curriculum."

He didn't even look at it. Hah!

My husband is always telling me that there is no need to re-invent the wheel, and he is so right!

He maintained that as we taught them philosophy (and learned ourselves), we would find these habits becoming naturally instilled in them-- and us. He also maintained that there was no better way than a hands on object lesson- often found in nature- to do so. "That's the advantage a homeschool has over a normal school," said my husband, who has never read a word of Charlotte Mason's other than the ones I shove under his nose repeatedly. " Remember that if you tell them, they will hear it, and if you show them, they will understand it-- but if you let them do it, they will remember it. You have the opportunity throughout the day to help them do that and learn these things. Especially outside."
"Quit having a committee about this stuff," he said to me. "YOU need to learn the virtues. Then you will be able to teach them."

And wouldn't you know it--- Charlotte Mason had already "told" me this in Volume 2, pp. 182, 183:

“Object-lessons should be incidental; and this is where the family enjoys so great an advantage over the school. It is almost impossible that the school should give any but set lessons; but this sort of teaching in the family falls in with the occurrence of the object. The child who finds that wonderful and beautiful object, a ‘paper’ wasp’s nest, attached to a larch-twig, has his object-lesson on the spot from father or mother”

And this:

“Our constant care must be to secure that they do look, and listen, touch, and smell; and the way to this is by sympathetic action on our part: what we look at they will look at; the odours we perceive, they, too, will get” (Vol. 2, pp. 192, 193).

And this:

“The mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind of reading, not only that she may read tit-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observation” (Vol. 1, pp. 64, 65).

All this left me thinking I just needed to be more focused myself on learning the habits (like... perhaps... by reading about them, as my husband and CM suggested?  Yes, from Socrates, and Aristotle... and Maybe even in Laying Down the Rails?)

I needed to do better with not just SENDING them outside to do nature study but doing it with them myself. Baby and all! Ditto for being with them as they did their chores, cleaned themselves up, etc.

AND I needed to remember that that five minutes spent in a formal "lesson" needn't be mind-numbing memory work, but instead should contain a quick story, passage, or discussion to fit with the lessons we meet in nature or around the house. Something to inspire in them the desire to achieve habit mastery. Something which I myself understood well, so that I would be able to teach it well.

Some of you may want to check out this new publication from the makers of Laying Down the Rails to do just that. Yep, unbelievable as it may seem--- an email announcing it's availability just popped into my inbox as I was writing this blog post!

Can't wait for mine to get here. ;)