Plenary: a meeting at which all the attendants of the retreat gather together to hear the speaker.
I
Jane Austen’s “Fine Brush” in a Charlotte Mason Education
Plenary Presented by Richele Baburina
Jane Austen playfully remarked of her writing that she “worked with so fine a brush” on a “little bit (two inches wide) of ivory.” In this session we discuss the deep admiration Charlotte Mason had for Austen’s intricate work and the novelist’s place in Mason’s life and classroom. Charlotte Brönte and Elizabeth Gaskell—two other beloved imagination-warmers of Mason’s—play a delightful part in the conversation. This session also reviews the role of Literature in Forms I-VI of a Mason education.
II
Keeping a Nature Notebook
Plenary Presented by Richele Baburina
Science, writing, poetry, and art. Discover how to brilliantly combine all four subjects and passions in a single activity: keeping a nature notebook. In this interactive session Richele will explain how keeping a nature journal, perhaps more than any other single discipline, illustrates Charlotte Mason’s key idea that education is the science of relations.
III
Mathematics and Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition
Plenary Presented by Richele Baburina
Catch a breathtaking view of the beauty, truth, and joy of mathematics and see how we can enter the realm of the math teacher with confidence, holding the key that the One through whom mathematical laws came to be instructs not only our children but ourselves as well.
IV
Beauty
Plenary Presented by Richele Baburina
Miss Mason tells us that “There are few joys in life greater and more constant than our joy in Beauty.” And yet amazingly, this wonderful gift of beauty can foster pride, encourage selfishness, and divide people. How can we properly receive this gift without corrupting it and ourselves? If we take a close look at Charlotte Mason’s approach to developing and applying the beauty sense, we can find the answer. Hint: the gift of beauty is not meant to be hoarded. It’s meant to be given away.