Last year I received an email from a friend that included the following: When you have a moment, I would be very interested in your thoughts on this from Ourselves: “Nay, that very story of the stopping of the sun in its course, an embedded myth, let us say, is recorded, we may believe, by …
In a Charlotte Mason education, we rely on books—not a teacher or a set of “tools” or textbooks—not only to inspire interest in the subject but also to ignite and shape our children’s imaginations; invite imitation of the True, Good, and Beautiful; and imbibe fruitful ideas that cause them to grow as persons. But have …
What was Charlotte Mason’s source for her philosophy of education? It is a question that I have discussed and debated at length over the past several years. And it is a question which does not seem yet to be settled to everyone’s satisfaction within the Charlotte Mason community. Answers seem to fall into three general …
Although I grew up in a liturgical church with the changing seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany into Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and then back to Ordinary Time) and the changing colors (purple, white, green, purple, white, to green again), I thought that these seasons and colors were silly and shallow — my life was run …
I first encountered the philosophy of Charlotte Mason when my oldest child was just three years old. We joined a book club studying A Charlotte Mason Companion, and my heart was stirred by the vision of a homeschool centered on goodness and beauty. I was drawn to this method that left space in the day …
The moral development of children: it’s what motivates many parents to homeschool in the first place. But if that’s the goal, how do we achieve it? Charlotte Mason’s surprising answer focuses not on the training we conduct but rather on the knowledge we provide. Recorded live at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference, July 2021. The …
What role does observational science play in your philosophy of education? John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), the “father of modern teaching,”[1] broke with tradition when he called out: And why should we need other teachers than these our senses to learn to know the works of Nature? Why, say I, should we not, instead of these …
Knowledge awakens. It’s the inspiring, startling, audacious claim of Charlotte Mason, a claim that’s at the heart of her method. “We know that religion can awaken souls,”[1] she writes. That claim isn’t so controversial, even today. But knowledge? I have to tell of the awakening of a ‘general soul’ at the touch of knowledge. Eight …
Editor’s Note: Mary Charlotte (Carta) Sturge was born in 1852 and earned a degree in moral science at the University of Cambridge. She was a frequent speaker at PNEU events from as early as 1896, lecturing on topics such as “The psychology of attention,”[1] “The place of imagination and poetry in Education,”[2] “First Elements of …