If your school years were anything like mine, you spent a lot of time memorizing, names and dates and locations and definitions,

and then devising little tricks to help you remember them until the test.

The Charlotte Mason approach to memorizing is different and very effective.

Let me show you. Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonia Schaefer.

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Charlotte Mason training for homeschool parents every week.

When we talk about the role that memorizing plays in your student's education, I'm reminded

of when I got my first weaving loom.

It's a big one.

It sits on the floor and takes up most of the space in the bedroom where I have it.

Now when I got the loom, I knew nothing

about weaving other than I wanted to learn. There were two ways I could go about learning.

I had a book with a list of terms and definitions in the front. I could have sat down

and memorized those terms and definitions first, and then later

watched another weaver show me what those terms actually meant and how they applied to the

weaving process. Or, I could have first observed that other weaver, watched and listened as she showed me how this huge

thing worked and gotten inspired at what beautiful dishcloths and scarves and baby blankets

I could create on it, and then later looked through that list of definitions and determined

which ones would be helpful to memorize.

Would you like to guess which way I chose to learn?

I chose to be inspired with the big ideas first, to see what I could observe and tell

back for myself as I watched and listened to another weaver.

...