CMEC 2018 Annual Summer Retreat

Awakening to a Thinking Love: Its Duties and Delights
July 13 - 14, 2018 | Eastern University

"The mother is qualified," says Pestalozzi, "and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; ... and what is demanded of her is - a thinking love ... God has given to the child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided - how shall this heart, this head, these hands be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education."

We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will take up [the education of their children] as their profession.
- Charlotte Mason, Home Education 

Conference Details:

Dates: July 13 (9am - 8pm) - July 14 (9am - 4pm), 2018 at Eastern University
Cost: $120 includes lunch and refreshments (Fri. and Sat.) and dinner at La Cabra Brewing in Berwyn, PA on Friday evening 
Spouse attendance: $55 to attend conference (includes all meals/refreshments); $30 to attend only dinner on Friday 
Financial aid: Please email CMEC  if you would like to be considered for financial aid.  There will also be scholarships available for young educators. 
Lodging: Rooms may be reserved at the Courtyard Philadelphia Devon in Wayne, PA and must be made online or by phone at 1-800-321-2211 or 610-687-6633 before June 21, 2018. Please indicate that you are part of the Charlotte Mason Educational Center (CMEC) group.
Contact: Please contact cmecofpa@gmail.com with any questions.  

Workshop Topics to Include:

• The Gift of Family: Learning to Recognize and Celebrate our “Family Treasure”
  
• Sustaining our Joy and Avoiding Burnout: Mason’s Steps to Choose the Good
• Atmosphere, Discipline and Life: How do we set the tone for our homes using these three tools?
• Pre-Reading as Schole: Teacher Preparation with the Posture of a Student
• The Mother’s Journal: Sympathy for and Knowledge of our Children 
• Self-Education and Independence: Weekly Meetings and Children’s Checklists
• Establishing a Rhythm for our lives: Daily, Weekly, Annually
• Afternoons to include Nature Walks and Commonplace Journals with guidance on Brush-Drawing and Lettering

Speakers:

Celeste Cruz

Celeste lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their nine children, all age 12 and under. Once upon a time she was training to be an English professor; now she can usually be found with a baby strapped to her back and toddlers underfoot as she learns alongside her six school-aged kids. When she has her hands free, she enjoys running, reading, and nature journaling. She discovered Charlotte Mason before her children were born and has been an enthusiastic devotee ever since. She moderates at the AmblesideOnline Forums, curates content for charlottemasonirl, collects CM-style notebooks @keepingcompanycm, and shares the joys of a Catholic Charlotte Mason home education at Joyous Lessons and celeste_cruz.

Amy Snell 

With a graduate degree in Literature from the University of California-Irvine, Amy Snell had taught in a variety of classroom environments. Amy then discovered the 19^th century British educator, Charlotte Mason, whose philosophy quickly convinced her to begin homeschooling her five children. As her family thrived using Mason’s methods, Amy wanted to share and learn more about Mason’s philosophy with others, including speaking at the Charlotte Mason Institute National Conference, hosting Mason book discussions and workshops for parents, running a Nature Study Club, facilitating Truth, Beauty, Goodness afternoons, and creating the Mason Academy as director, teacher, and parent. Amy now serves as the Board President of the Charlotte Mason Educational Center of PA and as its Curriculum and Methodology Consultant.

Our Host:

We are grateful for the sponsorship of The Templeton Honors College.

The Templeton Honors College is a four-year undergraduate program in an intellectually demanding learning community that forms students for whole lives of Christian excellence. At Templeton we are committed to helping each student discern their vocation while they grow intellectually, morally, spiritually, and aesthetically. Our curriculum combines the Great Books approach to education with a classical liberal arts vision of an educated person. Our goal at Templeton is to form Christian students for lives of moral standing, public service, ordered liberty, and faithfulness in the Church; and our pedagogy is to sit together in small, semester-long seminars to discuss and debate what the wisest, most originative thinkers have written concerning the enduring human questions. In this context, under the care of the Templeton faculty, young people enter the tradition of Christian liberal education, where Christ the Logos is seen as the Reason of God who gives light to every person in the world (John 1:4).

An Eastern University campus map is available here.

Infants and children: You are welcome to bring an infant with you to this retreat. Please be prepared to take a crying baby out of our meeting space so as not to distract the other attendees. We are not able to accommodate older children or teens at this conference.