“Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education”-Charlotte Mason”
Who was Charlotte Mason?
Charlotte Mason lived at the turn of the 20th century in England. A devoted Christian, she wrote six books specifically on educating children as persons in the image of God, but also six volumes of poetry called The Savior of the World about the Gospels.
She trained teachers and parents to understand and train children’s minds, but even more their spirits. She taught and then had a network of PNEU schools and opened a teacher’s training college.
Many people are looking for an alternative to a heavy emphasis on early academic and testing performance as the marks of educational success. Teachers and parents often grieve to see children lose their love of learning or become very stressed if they can not measure up to the the ‘standards’.
Mason’s methods offer an antidote to seeing a child as a producer. A child educated with her methods is required to comprehend and read complex vocabulary, grapple with deep ideas, and encounter the strict limits of absolute truths and precise mathematics. High standards apply to the materials the child is given, the child’s environment, discipline, and life, rather than to the child’s production of a final answer.
By building on a solid early childhood foundation on habits of attention, accuracy, observation, etc…accompanied by abundant bodily exercise, and always offering a healthy dose of beauty for the soul, educators can allow children to develop at their own pace and create their own relationships with the people and stories of history, science, literature, art, and music. The feast offered is abundant and healthy, but the ‘digestion’ is the child’s.
While a thorough understanding of her methods can be a paradigm shift that can take months or years to really grasp, many of her methods can begin to be adapted to today’s classrooms with a few key changes.
Hallmarks of a Mason classroom:
Living books (well-written books with ideas and characters a student can form a relationship with) as opposed to textbooks (when possible).
Narration (telling back of information after one reading or listening) as opposed to close-ended questions and testing evaluations
Formal academics beginning after age 6 or 7
Relational discipline and habit training
Character development through:
training of habits of attention, accuracy, obedience, neatness, kindness, etc…
and rooted in the living ideas of truth, duty, and right.
A feast that feeds the soul:
Developing a relationship with master artists’ and composers’ lives and works as well as poetry and literature
Abundant time outdoors and with real objects and experiences
Nature study and journaling
Working with the hands
And Much More!
If you are interested in more information and resources for starting a specifically Mason-inspired hybrid program like Providence Hybrid Academy, please let me know!
Resources:
Simplycharlottemason.com (informative videos and curricula), amblesideonline.org (free curricula and schedules), adelectableeducation.com (helpful and practical podcast), and charlottemasonpoetry.com (blog and podcast that will warm the more philisophical hearts) are sites where you can dig deeper if you wish. Nearly all of these sites are geared toward homeschoolers. However, Mason herself was a school teacher and not a parent and later a trainer of teachers and governesses. Her methods were first implemented in schools and the old fashioned home classrooms of England and are just as applicable today to the classroom.
Providence Hybrid Academy (the program I helped to build) uses Charlotte Mason’s methods to inform its schedule and curricula choices. If you are interested in using these resources to build a program like ours, send me an email. We would soon like to offer schedules, book and curriculum lists, as well as teacher training materials for sale to help you create a similar program.