Growing up in public schools I somehow caught the idea that discovery was for the professional. For the explorer or the scientist or the mathematician, but not for me. I thought that a discovery was only worth making if it was a “first,” like being the first person to discover a new species of dinosaur, …
Scouting is one of the Charlotte Mason subjects that caught my imagination as soon as I heard of it. It seemed to combine everything I wish I had been taught about self-sufficiency and living a life immersed in nature. But so broad was the scope that I knew I had to put it on the …
To the world many of us, as homeschooling mothers, have stepped into the shadows. The focus of our lives, in this season, is raising and educating our children. “I want” is replaced by “I must” as our desires are put aside to attend to the more pressing needs of our children. And yet, we are …
I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. But I knew little of their writing group, the Inklings, until I read the book Bandersnatch. Had it only been about meeting in Lewis’s dusty rooms to read their latest poems and book chapters I would have been sold, but there is so much more …
I consider myself to be a Charlotte Mason enthusiast, and most of my friends share my love for all things Mason. But lately I have realized that sometimes my enthusiasm is the thing that prevents me from sharing her great and beautiful ideas. As I have grown in knowledge and understanding, my vocabulary has changed …
I always thought I had a pretty good education. That is, until I met Charlotte Mason. It was like a whole new world was suddenly revealed to me. I had always enjoyed history, literature, poetry, and nature, but learning about Mason’s philosophy showed me how much more was out there and how much deeper I …
Throughout my schoolgirl days I loved getting back to school in the fall. Not because I was looking forward to seeing my friends (I changed schools nearly every year), and not because I found the lessons to be so enriching (I found most school subjects to be dull and my teachers were mostly uninspiring); I …
For quite a while I have been thinking about what it would look like to bring Charlotte Mason’s philosophy into Sunday School. When my pastor called a church meeting a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be a perfect time to share my ideas. The following is the email I wrote to him …
It is commonly known that Charlotte Mason left twenty principles as a compass to keep teachers on a steady course toward the right objective, but Mason also wrote six books. The Parents’ Review contains hundreds of articles. If the twenty principles cover everything, why is there so much literature on Mason’s method? I have a …