CM EDUCATION FOR THE AMERICAS
Our Goal
Charlotte Mason Education for the Americas exists to provide support in English and Spanish for homeschooling families and schools in the United States who wish to include a comprehensive history of this continent, including Hispanic (Spanish and Latino) and Indigenous American streams, in their educational programs.
We're walking an uncharted path when applying Hispanic parameters to our CM educational programs in the United States. But with your input and our research, we con do the jump from the Victorian era at the height of the British Empire to our 21st century Spanish-speaking/bilingual homes and schools!
The Beginning
When I started my educational path as a mother-teacher, I created a bilingual Charlotte Mason program focused on my US-Chilean identity. As time passed, I realized that my children's cultural identity was more of a blend between English & Spanish; about the US and its particular history and current ties with a wide array of Spanish-speaking national identities aka Hispanic (since Spanish is a common denominator). Since our Hispanic identity also includes Indigenous Native American peoples, that is how I ended up with a curriculum that I now call "for the Americas" as opposed to just Hispanic.
My students are fully bilingual and recognize the beautiful complexity of their cultural identity. They are learning history chronologically with a dual focus: one is the amazing country we live in, the United States of America, and another is the surrounding Spanish-speaking Americas ever since the first Spanish set foot on this wonderful continent. When it's time to learn about ancient times, we research, read, and visit ancient sites (when possible) of the native cultures in the Americas as well as those in the Iberian peninsula and the British Isles. We naturally touch on the history of Europe, Asia, and Africa as we progress in our studies.
Exploring books and resources in Spanish for a Charlotte Mason education is an uncharted path that we tread slowly and carefully. Thanks to our community of Spanish-speaking Charlotte Mason educators, we have been able to identify living books for different education cycles or grades.
Many of our members are Hispanics in the United States, therefore that is our regional focus in the English language. From there, the options are several:
- Learning about the common Spanish ancestry to Latino/Hispanics in the USA
- Helping promote CM among Hispanics in the USA
- Finding resources in English about Hispanic history in the USA and its ties to our national origins
- Identifying resources in Spanish
In Charlotte Mason's Words
"It is the duty of the nation to maintain relations of brotherly kindness with other nations; therefore it is the duty of every family, as an integral part of the nation, to be able to hold brotherly speech with the families of other nations as opportunities arise; therefore to acquire the speech of neighbouring nations is not only to secure an inlet of knowledge and a means of culture, but is a duty of that higher morality (the morality of the family) which aims at universal brotherhood; therefore every family would do well to cultivate two languages besides the mother tongue, even in the nursery." Parents and Children, Charlotte Mason
"We introduce children as early as possible to the contemporary history of other countries as the study of English history alone is apt to lead to a certain insular and arrogant habit of mind. [...] Perhaps the gravest defect in school curricula is that they fail to give a comprehensive, intelligent and interesting introduction to history. To leave off or even to begin with the history of our own country is fatal. We cannot live sanely unless we know that other peoples are as we are with a difference, that their history is as ours, with a difference, that they too have been represented by their poets and their artists, that they too have their literature and their national life." An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education, Charlotte Mason
Contact Us Today!
Let us know if you need help implementing or strengthening a Hispanic identity in your Charlotte Mason school/curriculum!
Jo can offer consultations for school and for home school educators offering some practical ideas to apply the Charlotte Mason method in Hispanic and/or bilingual contexts. Jo has experience seeking living books, identifying key cultural elements to include in a school curriculum and overarching school plans, planning bilingual curricula, among others. She includes unpublished translation of key documents from the PNEU and material that is customized for each consult reflecting hours of research, study and translation.
Consults are $50/hour via Phone, Google Meet or Skype, including materials and resources.
Send Me an Email to jo at charlottemasonespanol.org
