Exploring Charlotte Mason's Method of Education

The theme of this season of A Delectable Education: Charlotte Mason Podcast is "Trust the Method." But what does that mean? Are we just supposed to blindly follow a dead woman's advice from the 19th Century? Emily, Liz, and Nicole discuss these questions and more to help set the stage for the year to come, starting with "Why are you choosing to educate your children in the first place?"

"The object of this organisation is not merely to raise the standard of work in the schoolroom. Our chief wish is that pupils should find knowledge delightful in itself and for its own sake, without thought of marks, places, prizes, or other rewards; and that they should develop an intelligent curiosity about the past and present. Children respond and take to their lessons with keen pleasure if they have even tolerably good teaching; and the want of marks, companionship, or other stimulus is not felt in those home schoolrooms where the interest of knowledge is allowed free play." ("A Liberal Education for All" Pamphlet, 1928, p. 31)

"Those who do not regard education as a vital whole but as a sort of conglomerate of good idea, good plans, traditions and experiences, do well to adopt and adapt any good idea they come across. But our conception of education is of a vital whole, harmonious, living and effective. Therefore, every plan rises out of a principle, and each such principle is a part of a living educational philosophy, and does not very well bear to be broken off and used by itself." ("A Liberal Education for All," p. 33)

“The reader will say with truth,––"I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles"; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not 'more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon's antiseptic treatment; that is from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied for the rather casual 'more or less' methods of earlier days.” (6/19)

“In the matter of education, we are hovering round the truth: that education is not merely a preparation for life, but the work of the lifetime is boldly announced. And, given thus much insight, is it conceivable that the education in question is no more than the cramming of a few text-books? Like religion, education is nothing or it is everything––a consuming fire in the bones. How is it that we do not see, through the hurry of eating and drinking, getting and having, that our prime business here is to raise up a generation better than ourselves?” (5/145-46)

She trusted that parents and teachers do not have to, “develop the person; he is there already, with, possibly, every power that will serve him in his passage through life.” (3/75) 

“Like all the great ventures of life, this that I propose to you is a venture of faith, faith in the saving power of knowledge and in the assimilative power of children. Its efficacy depends upon the fact that it is in the nature of things, in the nature of knowledge and in the nature of children. Bring the two together in ways that are sanctioned by the laws of mind and, to use a figure, a chemical change takes place and a new product appears, a person of character and intelligence, an admirable citizen whose own life is too full and rich for him to be an uneasy member of society.” (A Liberal Education for All, No. I. Theory, by Charlotte Mason, https://charlottemasonpoetry.org/a-liberal-education-for-all/)

For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Charlotte Mason's Six Volumes

John Taylor Gatto's article

Episode 4: Three Tools of Education

Charlotte Mason's Short Synopsis

Episode 167: Method vs. System

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