The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

Dawn’s Swedish Drill website

Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website

Dawn’s Substack

We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and spiritual life of mothers, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirit and is their continue Helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life.

paraphrase of Charlotte Mason’s 20th Principle

2 Listeners

S6E77: Seeing the Big Picture with Heather Martin

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

02/29/24 • 53 min

Three Questions for the Mother...She must ask herself Why must the children learn at all? What should they learn? And, How should they learn it? If she takes the trouble to find a definite and thoughtful answer to each of these three queries, she will be in a position to direct her children’s studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised to find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy.

Charlotte Mason, Home Education, p. 171 Show Summary:

On this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn sit down to chat with veteran homeschool mom, Heather Martin about a wide variety of topics
How and when Heather actually learned about Charlotte Mason after organically using many of her methods all along
How getting a teaching certificate actually ensured Heather would choose to home educate instead
Were there challenges specific to having only boys?
What were some of the intentional things you did in your home to build your family culture?
Some encouragement for moms regarding mathematics
How Heather started local recitation gatherings with other homeschoolers

Books and Links Mentioned:

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

Range by David Epstein

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

Find Cindy:

2 Listeners

S6E84: Morning Time for Moms Part 3 with Elissa Kroeger

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

05/23/24 • 55 min

On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn sit down to talk with veteran homeschool mom Elissa Kroeger about her own journey of self-education
How Elissa first heard about Charlotte Mason
Elissa’s own history with reading and self-education through her school years
How Elissa’s early homeschooling community grew organically
How was a Charlotte Mason lifestyle a catalyst for wholeness in Elissa’s life?
How has life changed since most of Elissa’s children have grown and are no longer in her homeschool?
What Elissa does now for self-education
Who were the women who made the biggest impression on Elissa’s life?

If we know one person who grows pale at a lofty thought, whose tears come at the telling of a heroic action, let us learn, from that, that these are thoughts and actions that have the power to move us all; therefore, we must give freely of our best, without the supercilious notion that So-and so would not understand. If music, poetry, art, give us joy, let us not hesitate to present these joys to others; for indeed, those others are made in all points like as we are, though with a different experience. The orator whose Sympathy is awake appeals to the generosity, delicacy, courage, loyalty of a mixed mob of people; and he never appeals in vain. His Sympathy, his comprehension, has discerned all these riches of the heart in the unpromising crowd before him and; like Ariel, released from his tree prison leaps out of many a human prison, a beautiful human being at the touch of this key.

Charlotte Mason, Ourselves Books and Links Mentioned:

Better Late Than Early by Raymond Moore

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

The Tripods Series by John Christopher

Byzantium by Stephen Lawhead

The City of God by St. Augustine

Genevieve Foster

H. E. Marshall

Spiritual Sight by Joyce McPherson

AmblesideOnline

Set Your Feet Retreat

It is by way of an effort towards this adjustment of power that I wish to bring before parents and teachers the subject of ‘masterly inactivity’. We ought to do so much for our children, and are able to do so much for them, that we begin to think everything rests with us and that we should never intermit for a moment our conscious action on the young minds and hearts about us. Our endeavours become fussy and restless. We are too much with our children ‘late and soon’. We try to dominate them too much, even when we fail to govern, and we are unable to perceive that wise and purposeful letting alone is the best part of Education. But this form of error arises from a defect of our qualities. We may take heart. We have the qualities and all that is wanted is an adjustment; to this we must give our time and attention.

Charlotte Mason, School Education Find Cindy and Dawn:

Dawn’s Swedish Drill website

Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website

Dawn’s Substack

2 Listeners

S4E51: Homeschooling Boys the Charlotte Mason Way with Alanna Hendon

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

02/23/23 • 65 min

Let us consider carefully what feelings we wish to stimulate or repress in our children, and then, having made up our minds, let us say nothing.

Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children Show Summary:

Today’s guest is Alanna Hendon, homeschooling mom of 6, 5 of whom are boys
How Alanna came to learn about the Charlotte Mason philosophy
The lasting and eternal value of a Charlotte Mason education
How would you respond to the criticism that Charlotte Mason is too feminine for educating boys?
Approaching poetry with boys
What other elements of a CM education have had the most impact on your home?
How does Charlotte’s emphasis on the knowledge of God and encouragement of religious habits encourage boys in their own spiritual walk?

Books and Links Mentioned:

AmblesideOnline

Consider This by Karen Glass

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

Classic Poems for Boys

The Poet’s Corner narr. by John Lithgow

Creativity by John Cleese

Find Cindy and Alanna:

Lynn Bruce’s article on The Spiritual Octopus

Alanna’s Instagram

2 Listeners

S6E83: A Heart to Heart with the AmblesideOnline Advisory

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

05/09/24 • 71 min

On The New Mason Jar today, we bring you a conversation Cindy and Dawn had with the AmblesideOnline Advisory members Anne White, Donna-Jean Breckenridge, Karen Glass and Leslie Laurio.
How the friendship of the AO Advisory developed and has been a gift for each member throughout the years
Did the Advisory members use the whole AO curriculum as written?
What about those fears about missing out on something if a family doesn’t do everything in the curriculum perfectly?
The simplicity of the Charlotte Mason approach to language arts
Do any of the Advisory doubt Charlotte Mason’s methods now that they have all graduated their children?
Are there any things that aren’t common knowledge that the Advisory wants to share?

Books and Links Mentioned:

AmblesideOnline

Six Voices, One Story by Donna-Jean Breckenridge, et. al.

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

AO Advisory Bios:

Anne White grew up and still lives in southern Ontario. She anticipated David Epstein’s Range by changing her university major three times and stretching a four-year degree into seven, but she did complete a BA in creative writing, and later added a BEd in adult education. In the thirty years between those things, she (and her husband) raised three homeschooled daughters, who have each found their own Range. Anne has been associated with AmblesideOnline since its beginning, and is the author of several books about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy.

Donna-Jean Breckenridge lives with her family in northern New Jersey. She is honored to be a founding member of the AmblesideOnline Advisory, and she continues to serve AO’s community while homeschooling her granddaughters. She is a public speaker, writer (This Country of Ours – Annotated, Edited, and Updated and Six Voices, One Story: The Heart of AmblesideOnline), and audiobook narrator. She counts her greatest roles as mom to her four children, grandmother to five, and grateful friend. Her heart’s desire is to encourage others that God is safe to trust, no matter what.

After living 25 years in Krakow, Poland, Karen Glass currently lives in Indiana with her husband and youngest daughter. She is a founding member of AmblesideOnline and home educated her four children through graduation. She is the author of several books related to Charlotte Mason and speaks and teaches on the philosophy and methods (especially narration). She reads, writes, tries to grow things, and has been known to crochet doilies and knit socks.

Leslie Laurio is an art school dropout, a veteran, a homeschool mom, and one of the founders and original creators of AmblesideOnline. She and her husband live in Tennessee and have four children who were homeschooled all the way from kindergarten through high school, and are now married and scattered across the eastern US pursuing various careers and passions. She has paraphrased the Charlotte Mason series, Parables From Nature, and other works.

The person who can live upon his own intellectual resources and never know a dull hour (though anxious and sad hours will come) is indeed enviable in these days of intellectual inanition, when we depend upon spectacular entertainments pour passer le temps [to pass the time]. If knowledge means so much to us, “What is knowledge?” the reader asks. We can give only a negative answer. Knowledge is not instruction, information, scholarship, a well-stored memory. It is passed, like the light of a torch, from mind to mind, and the flame can be kindled at original minds only. Thought, we know, breeds thought; it is as vital thought touches our minds that our ideas are vitalized, and out of our ideas comes our conduct of life... The direct and immediate impact of great minds upon his own mind is necessary to the education of a child.

Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 303

Let us, out of reverence for the children, be modest; let us not stake their interests on the hope that this or that new way would lead to great results if people had only the courage to follow it. It is exciting to become a pioneer; but, for the children’s sake, it may be well to constrain ourselves to follow those roads only by which we know that persons have arrived, or those newer roads which offer evident and assured means of progress towards a desired end.

Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 245

2 Listeners

S6E78: Morning Time for Moms, Part 1, with Jami Marstall

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

03/14/24 • 42 min

The mind is a spiritual octopus, reaching out limbs in every direction to draw in enormous rations of that which under the actions of the mind itself becomes knowledge. Nothing can stale its infinite variety; the heavens and the earth, the past, the present, and future, things great and things minute, nations and men, the universe, all are within the scope of the human intelligence.

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, p. 330 Show Summary:

On The New Mason Jar this week, Cindy and Dawn kick off a new series of the podcast, Morning Time for Moms, with our first guest in the series, Jami Marstall
How Jami first came to hear about Charlotte Mason
How much of AmblesideOnline’s curriculum Jami has personally read as the mother and teacher
What practices Jami put in place to ensure she was growing in knowledge
How the mother-teacher is the guide, philosopher, and friend
What is the significance of the “spiritual octopus” quote from the intro?
How can moms build a reading life in the busy seasons of life?
What Jami is reading now and what some of her other activities are

Books and Links Mentioned:

Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

For the Family’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

The Idea of America by Gordon S. Wood

John Adams by David McCullough

The Universe Next Door by James Sire

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

S2E22: Charlotte Mason Through High School with Jami Marstall

Find Cindy and Dawn:

Dawn’s Swedish Drill website

Dawn’s A Reasoned Patriotism website

Dawn’s Substack

What we are concerned with is the fact that we personally have relations with all that there is in the present, all that there has been in the past, and all that there will be in the future––with all above us and all about us––and that fullness of living, expansion, expression, and serviceableness, for each of us, depend upon how far we apprehend these relationships and how many of them we lay hold of.... Every [mother] is heir to an enormous patrimony, heir to all the ages, inheritor of all the present. The question is, what are the [educational] formalities necessary to put [her] in possession of that which is [hers]?

paraphrase of Charlotte Mason from School Education, pg. 186

1 Listener

S6E81: “Joy in the Morning” Summer Discipleship

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

04/18/24 • 38 min

If mankind had not been organized into families, it would never have had the organic power to be organized into commonwealths. Human culture is handed down in the customs of countless households. It is the only way in which human culture can remain human.

G. K. Chesterton, Marriage and the Modern Mind Show Summary:

For this week’s episode of The New Mason Jar, Cindy and Dawn share about this year’s summer discipleship course, “Joy in the Morning”
Gretchen Neisler tells about her own experience with past summer discipleship and why she keeps coming back for more
What you can expect from this year’s Morning Time for Moms content and schedule
Other ways you can benefit from Cindy’s wisdom and interact with other moms (Scroll down to the “Find Cindy” section for all the links)

Books Mentioned:

A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich

A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher

Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition by Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci

Joy in the Morning (Jeeves in the Morning) by P. G. Wodehouse

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Norms and Nobility by David Hicks

Find Cindy:

Subscribe:

Those who believe in the dignity of the domestic tradition, who happen to be the overwhelming majority of mankind, regard the home as a sphere of vast social importance and supreme spiritual significance, and to talk of being “confined” to it is like talking of being chained to a throne or set in the seat of judgment as if it were the stocks.

G. K. Chesterton, “The Dignity of Domesticity,” The Illustrated London News, 1929

1 Listener

S5E69: A Question of Culture with Erin Kunkle

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

11/09/23 • 60 min

Mentally he must be developed so that as he grows older he may have the capacity to grasp the true meaning of social and political questions of the day. His mind should be so trained that he will be able to detect and reject fallacious statements, and quick to discover the claptrap of which our newspapers are so full.

E. A. Smith, “Citizenship: Our Responsibility as Teachers”, June 1911 L’Umile Pianta Show Summary:

Today’s guest on The New Mason Jar is Erin Kunkle, a veteran homeschool mom, speaker and co-host of the MAVEN parent podcast
How Erin first heard about Charlotte Mason
What is Maven all about?
What do we mean when we say “culture” and why it is important to stay engaged with it?
Does teaching apologetics and Christian worldview align with a Charlotte Mason education?
How can we talk about cultural issues in a way that encourages kids to learn to think for themselves?
Erin’s advice for talking with kids about difficult topics

Books and Links Mentioned:

Affiliate links are included below.

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch

More Than a Carpenter by Josh MacDowell with Sean MacDowell

A Practical Guide to Culture by Brett Kunkle and John Stonestreet

Questioning the Bible by Jonathan Morrow

The Story of Reality by Greg Koukl

[We] must listen and consider, being sure that one of the purposes we are in the world for is, to form right opinions about all matters that come in our way.

Charlotte Mason, Ourselves Find Cindy and Erin:

The 5th Annual Back to School Conference

1 Listener

S5E62: The Role of a Homeschool Dad with Dan Bunting

The New Mason Jar with Cindy Rollins

07/20/23 • 44 min

Without knowledge, Reason carries a man into the wilderness and Rebellion joins company. The man is not to be blamed: it is a glorious thing to perceive your mind, your reasoning power, acting of its own accord as it were and producing argument after argument in support of any initial notion; how is a man to be persuaded, when he wakes up to this tremendous power he has of involuntary reasoning, that his conclusions are not necessarily right, but rather that he who reasons without knowledge is like a child playing with edged tools?

Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, Philosophy of Education, p. 315 Show Summary:

On the New Mason Jar today, Cindy chats with Dan Bunting, a pastor and father of 4 homeschooled children
How Dan first learned about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy
Did you have any concerns about using a Charlotte Mason curriculum initially?
What Dan saw about this educational philosophy that impressed him
What Dan’s role is in his family’s homeschool journey
How Dan is continuing his own education as a father
Do you think that a Charlotte Mason education is strong enough in STEM subjects?
Dan’s best advice for fathers to support their homeschooling families

Books and Links Mentioned:

Range by David Epstein

Mind to Mind by Karen Glass

H. P. Lovecraft

Terry Pratchett

Dan’s Episode on The Literary Life podcast

Dan’s Reading the Psalms podcast

Find Cindy: