An Introduction to Charlotte Mason
This content was partly taken from a talk I gave about five years ago for those new to the Charlotte Mason Method of Education
My first introduction to Charlotte Mason was about 3 months before our eldest child was born and it came through a book called ‘For the Children’s Sake’ by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. There was no internet & homeschoolers were rare so that book formed the basis of my knowledge of home education and in particular the Charlotte Mason method for quite a few years.
Who was Charlotte Mason?
A 19th Century English Educator (b.1842-1923) who spent 40 years of her life establishing a philosophy of education and putting it into practice.
Mason laid her ideas out in 6 volumes known as ‘The Original Homeschooling Series.’ They were out of print for over 80 years but they’re now available free online and in recent years have been reprinted and are readily available. She also established a College of Education at Ambleside in England to train teachers & governesses and operated a type of correspondence school to support parents in various parts of the world who were teaching their children at home and has been called the founder of the modern home education/homeschooling movement. Her ideas were ahead of her times.
"We must have the courage to teach for the sake of the children rather than for the system."
When Children Love to Learn, p 175
If I were to put the basic principles of a Charlotte Mason education in a nutshell it would look like this:
Respect for the child undergirds everything in a Charlotte Mason education. Children are as fully and completely persons as we are, with all the possibilities and potential for what they might become already in them. They’re not little buckets to be filled up or blank slates we can write whatever we want on them, but they are like a seed that grows into a plant given the right conditions.
Children have minds that are capable of making their own connections with knowledge and experiences. Our job is to put them in touch, so far as we can, with all the relations proper to them. We ‘train them upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and many living books...’
What Does This Look Like in Practice?
Plenty of time spent outdoors to introduce them to the wonders of Creation, including times of specific nature observation to learn about plants and animals, and to teach them what's in their own backyards
Short lessons that help the child learn to focus their full attention on their work. The lessons are alternated to create a short ‘rest’ between them. E.g. maths followed by read aloud or a chapter from a history book
The use of Living Books for their lessons - books clothed in literary language.
‘For the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information (facts) is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body.’'
Narration, or telling back the story, is used to enable children to process ideas and make them "their own." Knowledge has to be reproduced before it is assimilated (taken in and absorbed)
Copywork and dictation take the place of language arts instruction while formal grammar and different types of formal writing are introduced in the later years. There’s no need for worksheets or vocabulary lists.
The educational course of study is planned by the teacher who helps as a guide and co-learner, but the actual learning is the responsibility of the child. The child makes his/her own connections.
Why use the Charlotte Mason Method?
Broad & stimulating education (liberal)
Simple
It’s efficient; timewise /money
Suits the struggling learner & the more advanced/gifted child
Children are viewed as spirits to be kindled not vessels to be filled.
Stresses the influence and responsibility of the home
Short lessons so less time doing ‘school’ and more time for their personal interests
Teacher directed but it’s the student’s job to learn
Safeguards the child’s love of learning
We live the educational life with our children and learn alongside them
The child is challenged but not crushed
Living Books
A child’s choice of books is sometimes no better than their choice of food. Given the option they might pick lollies or chips instead of a nourishing meal. It’s up to the parent to choose but sometimes there’s resistance if the book is difficult.
Children need to develop their mental muscles. We want to challenge them but not crush them. Maybe they just need a bit more time with a certain book.
Children should be able to narrate literary style books but if they can’t narrate a particular book, it could be that it’s not ‘living.’ Find something else.
CM didn’t make any hard & fast rules about how to choose ‘living books,’ but she did say that they should be able to quicken the mind, and be full of living ideas about its subject, and that we should choose the BEST books we can. In Jane Austen’s words, a book should ‘warm the imagination.’ This is one of the reasons so many Charlotte Mason educators use classic books. They’ve stood the test of time and there’s usually good reasons why.
Narration
Step 1: Talk a little about the last lesson. (What do you remember about what we read last week?)
Step 2: Read pages from a living book.
Step 3: Have the children narrate. (Tell back in their own words; children can take turns; older ones might do a written narration later)
Step 4: Have a short talk at the end that could bring out moral points or character issues - an open-ended question such as ‘Could Alexander's destruction of Thebes be justified?’ would allow for that.
How to get started
Go outside ‘Never be indoors when you can rightly be outside.’ Sometimes it can be hard for a mum to get outside. There's washing to do, dinner to be made, maths to be corrected, the bathroom's a mess, there are other ‘more important’ things that need to be done... but,
Read and narrate living books - if you’re just starting out for the first time with narration, even with an older child, get them to do oral narrations. Later you can add written narrations but continue with some oral narrations as well.
Start a handicraft - some ideas for younger children: here, (origami; salt dough) here (hula-hoop weaving), and here (simple wood-working project) Links are to my old blog.
Find other Charlotte Mason educators to connect with
Mother Culture - this is all about living the educational life with our children by learning alongside them, growing your own mind.
In General
Know what your philosophy is.
Go to the source - the whole Charlotte Mason series is free online on the AO website CM Series (amblesideonline.org) There’s much misinformation about the Charlotte Mason method of education online so it’s important to inform yourself.
Start where you are. You don’t have to understand everything before you begin.
High School & Teens Years
Boys need to have sufficient mind food and physical work. I’ve written more about this in a Substack article.
One of the temptations we face at home is to avoid conflict by allowing boys to slacken off academically. It’s much easier to take everyone to the park, let them run around and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that they need to burn off some energy. Of course, physical activity is necessary, but there needs to be a balance of both or we are doing our sons a disservice.
Too many boys are allowed to have ‘empty minds.’ Whether or not a boy is academically inclined or wants to be a plumber or a concreter, he needs to have his mind filled with ideas.
Where to Begin
You can save yourself time and energy by looking at tried and tested curriculum to give you some ideas of what a Charlotte Mason education involves. AmblesideOnline (AO) and Mater Amabilis are both free. AO has a neat little ‘emergency’ schedule with some ideas that would work when just starting out. There is also a modern translation/paraphrase of Charlotte Mason’s homeschooling series if her original language is a stumbling block.
Some books that I’d recommend if you wanted a less dense read are:
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer - I did a read along of this book last year. The first chapter is here.
When Children Love to Learn - Elaine Cooper, General Editor (2004). A good reference book & a practical follow-up to For the Children’s Sake.
Are you new to Charlotte Mason’s ideas on education? Are you confused? Do you think you’ve been misinformed? Or have you already put her ideas into practice? Let me know if you’d like to discuss any aspect of her method.
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