Editor’s Note: On June 18, 1926, Henrietta Franklin welcomed parents and teachers to the 28th Annual PNEU Conference in Caxton Hall, Westminster. She “plunged” her audience “directly into the pith and marrow” of the PNEU enterprise with an address entitled “Miss Mason’s Contribution to Educational Thought.” She insisted that while Mason’s fresh ideas had “changed …
The following thought exercise is based on a true story. Imagine that you get a call from your oldest daughter who has just started her first semester at college. This is the first phone call you have received from her since starting college away from home. Naturally you’re excited to hear from her: “Well, how …
Editor’s Note: Have you ever corresponded with someone so often that you felt you knew the person, even though you’d never met? That’s how Charlotte Mason felt in 1920. She had exchanged so many letters and children’s examination papers with teacher Daisy Golding that she felt she already knew the woman — even though they’d …
Editor’s Note: The debate between Charlotte Mason and classical education has been going on for years. Does it really make a difference whether Mason was a classical educator or was influenced by classical theories of education? In this episode, Shannon weighs in on this topic as she recounts her journey from classical teacher to Mason educator and researcher. …
In my first article in this series, I highlighted a quality that Charlotte Mason said should accompany “all our teaching of children”: reverence. This is a quality that I began to realize was sorely lacking in my own lessons, so I resolved to do something about it. But was this going to be something that …
Editor’s Note, by Dawn Rhymer Asking our children to narrate is deceptively hard. It seems like such a simple question: “Tell me what you heard.” How can something so simple possibly end in tears, disappointment, a sense of failure, and even anger? As I have spoken on narration over the past four years, my greatest …
Editor’s Note: In 1924, H.W. Household visited several PNEU schools and found that narration was not being conducted the Charlotte Mason way. To correct this, he wrote a memorandum to the staff of each school for them to read and discuss. His memorandum offered several clarifications on how narration lessons should be done. But more than …