Education is a Discipline & Bread Baking

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Travel over to southcentral Pennsylvania, where my lovely guest, McKenzy Winkler of Little Farm Folk has her amazing homestead that she tends with her family. In our TRUE segment, we talk about what Charlotte Mason means when she says "Education is a discipline" and how she incorporates habit training and life skills in her homeschool. In our GOOD segment, McKenzy shares with us great tips on how to start habit training with our children and students; and in our final segment on the BEAUTIFUL, she explains how she started a Bread Baking Challenge and how we can easily incorporate this wonderful artisan practice. 

Helpful resources:

Smooth and Easy Days E-book by Simply Charlotte Mason

Laying Down the Rails by Simply Charlotte Mason

Three Habit Hacks article on Charlotte Mason Poetry by Rene du Plessis

Make Bread 365 Planner by McKenzy Winkler of Little Farm Folk

 A well-trained habit can overcome many inherited natures. If only I could express how much this means to anyone who wants to teach children! If only every mother understood how habit, in her knowing hand, is as useful a tool as the wheel to a potter, or the knife to a carver. With this instrument--habit--she can conceive of what she wants her child to be like, and then she can help him to become that! Note that the raw material is already there. Even a wheel won't help a potter create a porcelain vase if all he has to start with is backyard dirt. Yet, without his potter's wheel, he couldn't turn even the finest clay into anything nice. - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 97 (This quote was not used in the podcast, but it's a good one!)

By "education is a discipline," we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body.  - Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. xxix

Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or activiely forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend. - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 118 

The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children. - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 136

. . . habit is to life what rails are to transport cars. It follows that lines of habit must be laid down towards given ends and after careful survey, or the joltings and delays of life become insupportable. More, habit is inevitable. If we fail to ease life by laying down habits of right thinking and right acting, habits of wrong thinking and wrong acting fix themselves of their own accord.  - Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 101

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. - The Bible, Hebrews 12:11

. . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174

 1. Prayerfully consider what Habits to instill and focus on 1 habit for 6-8 weeks. Assess your own triggers and explain to your family or students how to help. Set the tone and model the behavior or habit you're trying to instill. Stay alert and consistent; don't nag or bully; be their ally.

    Some habits to work on:

• decency and propriety habits (cleanliness, manners, order, modesty, etc.)
• mental habits (attention, imagining, memorizing, remembering, perfect execution, etc.)
• moral habits (integrity, obedience, personal initiative, reverence, self-control, etc.)
• physical habits (alertness to seize opportunities, fortitude, music, self-restraint in indulgences, etc.)
• religious habits (regularity in devotions, Sunday-keeping, thanksgiving, forgiveness, confession, thought of God, etc.)
• family habit of reading aloud

2. Consider adding some bread baking occasions in your week. McKenzy has a handy free e-book you can use that helps you make a different bread each month -- Make Bread 365