Timeless Influence
Motioning toward the fenced exit, the man called out to us, “I’m heading out now, but with all the construction, I wanted to be sure you knew to leave through the side gate!” Perhaps he was the cemetary groundskeeper, or maybe he was the church pastor. I unfortunately will never know. But I am profoundly grateful for his help.
Hours earlier, my sweet husband, (who had arranged this trip) had joined me in visiting the Armitt Museum in Ambleside, England. What a joy it was to see the beauty of this quaint area, lodge and hike on some of Beatrix Potter’s trust land, and then visit Mason’s old church and graveyard. But I had no idea where exactly the site of her grave stone would be, I just hoped that the stone of such a wonder-of-a-woman would surely be somehow clearly marked. I was wrong. We found thousands of old gravestones (it was England, after all), but no indication of where her’s might be located. We’d been scouring the yard for a long time, ready to call it a loss and head back to our room, when the mystery man called out to us. Just after acknowledging his instructions, it dawned on me that he perhaps might know its whereabouts. Sure enough, he of course knew and led us to the place. It was a precious moment, seeing her grave. It felt almost like I was meeting her, this woman who had made such a powerful, impactful difference in my life. It was a sweet foretaste of heaven.
Several times in my life, people who find out how much I love Charlotte Mason and the ideas and educational methods she affirms, have asked me to describe who she is, and what distinguishes her philosophy and methods. Mason herself took six significant volumes to unfold her educational and parenting views, so I can’t pretend to summarize them well in a page or two, but I have made an attempt here, on the 100th anniversary of her death, to share a general description of her beautiful, life-giving philosophy. They have shaped and blessed me more than I can say. For those wishing to know more, I highly recommend reading “For The Children’s Sake” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, or “In Vital Harmony” by Karen Glass, or better yet, read any of Miss Mason’s own volumes – they are well worth the effort.
Who is she, and what is “The Charlotte Mason Method”?
Charlotte Mason grew to become a revolutionary educational philosopher. Born in England in 1842, she lived for 81 years, dying on January 16th, in 1923. She was herself, primarily educated at home, and was orphaned at the age of seventeen. At this time, Charlotte dedicated herself to making education her life’s work.
She was a devoted Christian, who saw The Holy Spirit as the source and supreme educator of all true understanding. She believed this was true in every subject area, with no separation between the sacred and the secular. In addition, she believed that a “personal relationship with God was the basis of all joy in living.” (In Memoriam of Charlotte M. Mason, p. 77). She had a deep love and respect for children…all children. Charlotte’s valuing of the education of both male and female children, as well as the disadvantaged, was a revolutionary idea in her day and culture. Her love for all children, along with her educational insight and experience, led her to some innovative, reformative ideas. She taught within an age and culture where children and financially disadvantaged people were not highly regarded, and where education was often seen as little more than a means to a job.
After compulsory education had been established in England in 1880, parents had to choose between private or public day schools, or boarding schools. Many of those schools emphasized dry, memorized facts in strict, harsh environments. Parents in England at that time, often chose governesses to educate their children at home as an alternative. For various reasons, many parents did not wish to send their children to the public schools, but could not afford to send them to private schools, or hire governesses, and chose instead, to home educate their children themselves.
Charlotte’s philosophy, principles and methods were seen as a radical breath of fresh air.
After years of teaching experience, Charlotte eventually began to share her insights in lectures and writings. She also developed some geography books and wrote her first volume, “Home Education”, both of which were well received, and became popular educational resources. Readers who resonated with Charlotte’s ideas began to inquire from her how to obtain a teacher, school, or governess for their children who understood her philosophy and methods. Other parents wanted to better understand how to implement her methods in their own home schools. These inquiries led Charlotte to establish a training college for governesses and school-teachers in Ambleside, England, at what became titled, The House of Education. Along with this, an organization of parents, called the Parent’s National Education Union (PNEU) was then established. The PNEU grew and eventually established a number of schools using Charlotte’s philosophy, hiring her trained pupils as their teachers. Charlotte also began to oversee home schools in England in a correspondence-style. This is why she has often been given the title, “the founder of the homeschool movement.” In an effort to support and keep parents and graduating teachers up-to-date with the most recent discussions in education and subjects relating to the education of children, Charlotte Mason developed a monthly magazine filled with pertinent articles, called The Parent’s Review. Collections of these articles can still be found online or bound at either the Library of Congress or at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside, England.
Summarizing Mason’s rich philosophy, which took her six significant volumes to articulate, is beyond me. I will say first that her method was based on 20 sound educational principles which I believe are timeless. They are laid out and left for us to apply to our own time and culture. Second, I would point out that her method has been enduring. The organizations and schools she founded continued long after her death. Schools and homeschools around the world today continue to use her method. Susan Schaeffer Macaulay took up the baton in sharing and summarizing Mason’s ideas in her highly recommended book, For The Children’s Sake, written in 1984, sparking the American homeschooling movement, which exploded in the 1980’s and 90’s. Mason’s ideas of best learning practices have been proven throughout the years, and even recent scientists and neuroscientists such as authors Terrence Sejnowski and Barbara Oakley have confirmed (though titled differently) many of her methods in their book, “Learning How To Learn”.
Charlotte Mason’s method however, distinctly emphasizes a reliance upon the Holy Spirit, and speaks of education as the “science of relations” meaning that a child, as a person with a soul, makes mindful connections and forms a relationship with each new idea, topic, person or subject studied. She believed children have a natural love of learning, and our role is to foster, and not kill that love by helping our students to establish positive relations with all kinds of knowledge, with the chief knowledge being the knowledge of God. Teachers are encouraged to avoid the excessive talk, continual evaluation, multiple-choice worksheets, and dry facts which often mark traditional methods. Instead, her method encourages teachers to rely heavily on giving students direct contact with well-chosen, worthy “living” books. Among others, this would include the Bible, stories from history, poets, artists, composers, and scientists. Charlotte saw wonder and questioning for discovery as key to lasting learning. And she supported the practice of having children spend plenty of time enjoying, observing, and journaling about God’s creation in nature. Oral and written narrations – sharing what a child has truly learned, replaces the typical multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, or comprehension questions and workbooks used to determine what information a child may have missed. Those narrations, along with copy work and dictation from great author’s writings, provide the foundation and natural, organic environment for students learning to communicate through writing.
Charlotte saw education as not simply filling a child’s brain with information, but bringing a child to a place to encounter knowledge in a way that changes and inspires them to care and act, so that education also becomes a means toward the primary objective of virtue and the development of character. In addition, Miss Mason saw our aim in education not merely as an avenue for preparing a child to make a living, but to enable a child to live a full life. One of my favorite passages is taken from page 170 of her third volume (which, incidentally, includes the words where this blog is titled, and from which my book discussion group’s Large Room Gathering name was acquired, referring also to Psalm 31:8 ) which says,
“Our aim in education is to give a full life. We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room,’ should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking— the strain would be too great— but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education— but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? And, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
As we remember today (January 16, 2023) the 100th anniversary of her death, I hope some of Charlotte Mason’s timeless philosophies resonate with, interest, and inspire you, as both a teacher and/or life-long learner, to rely on the Holy Spirit and see with curiosity and wonder the large room God has set before you and the children in your care.
With a grateful heart, in honor of Charlotte Mason – a kindred spirit and great teacher of teachers, who has taught us all to rely on the Greatest of Teachers, God Himself,
Anne
Blog Archive - Original Post January 2023