Ep 13 | Scouting to Form the Whole Person: An Interview with Kriste Janczyk

Scouting is a thing in a Mason education but I think it deserves its rightful place in classical education too. Using my favourite Charlotte-Mason-is-classical pegs, we’re going to show how scouting belongs in a classical education and how you can get started.

I’m joined by my own Withywindle Scoutmistress, Kriste Janczyk, and we hope you enjoy the conversation!

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Kriste is mother-teacher tending the souls of three wildly delightful boys in the Pennsylvania Highlands. She is passionate about teaching children to have eyes to see the fullness of God’s love through the good gifts of his Creation.

Resources mentioned:

How to Do Scouting in a Charlotte Mason Education (original interview)

Kriste’s Scouting 101 Guide in Common House

Scouting for Boys, Robert Baden-Powell

Girl Guiding, Robert Baden-Powell

Playing the Game, Robert Baden-Powell

Field Book of Nature Activities, William Hillcourt

State bird, tree, wildflower pocket guides

Books on animals and plants found at local charity shops, yard sales, book sales. Mentioned: Wild Animals of North America, National Geographic Society

“If all his lessons were as joyful as learning to know the birds in the fields and woods, there would be no

‘…whining Schoole-boy with his Satchell

And shining morning face creeping like Snaile

Unwillingly to school.’

Long before his none o’clock headache appears, lessons have begun. Nature herself is the reacher who rouses Jim from his bed with an outburst of song under the window and sets his sleepy brain to wondering whether it was a robin’s clear, ringing call that startles him from his dreams, or the chipping sparrow’s wiry tumuli, or the gushing little wren’s tripping cadenza.

While training his ears, Nature is also training every muscle in his body, sending him on long tramps across the fields in pursuit of a new bird to be identified, making him run and jump fences and wade brooks and climb trees with the set that produces and appetite like a saw-mill’s and deep sleep at the close of a happy day.”

-Neltje Blanchan

Chesterton on mothers:

“Mothers are philosophers, teachers, entrepreneurs and feast-givers.”


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Ep 14 | But Do I Really Need to Teach Latin and Greek?

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Ep 12 | The Classical Tradition in the Early Years (Or, How ‘Bout Those Liberal Arts?)