I highly recommend “For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School
by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay,” who reflects on these same principles. This book profoundly influenced my homeschool choices many years back, and its message is timeless. It is written by the daughter of the reknown Francis Schaeffer.
Charlotte Mason is so beautiful but there is a dogmatic undercurrent that I’ve seen running through certain communities and curriculums where it seems as though 37 subjects are planned within 4 minute increments, leaving no time for outdoor play, individual creative pursuits, free reads, or family adventures outside the home. That doesn’t feel very Charlotte to me! I think many have lost sight of her teachings.
I agree with you. I have had to leave behind many of the online CM groups I followed because of the militant thinking. I felt as though if I didn’t put on the CM uniform and obey the method I was doing something wrong. I am way too much of a free thinker for that!
I have just learned to take what works for us and not treat it as a prescription nor will I let the crowd intimidate me. Charlotte was obviously a wonderful educator, but keep in mind she was not a mother, and she was not a wife. She did not live today. People have made her a bit of an idol if you ask me.
This is an excellent essay! I'm always excited to see someone writing about Senior (his work seems to be going through a quiet revival currently)! This piece does a great job introducing one of his most important contributions to discussions about education. And yes, Mason was noticing something similar as regards experience. It'd be interesting to compare Senior to Dewey as well, since he really emphasized experience in education... Thanks for writing this! I greatly enjoyed it.
Thank you for this excellent grounding in the real-- classical education can't be holistic without this!
This also extends far further than children's early experiences, but I appreciate your establishing the foundation here, and pointing out how real the ritual of reading aloud with the child is-- Children aren't the only ones who grasp bigger concepts like love through such moments.
This is a great article Josh! Too often Charlotte Mason is just associated with books, but she was all about learning experiences, being outside, and seeing the value of hands-on learning.
I'm all for bringing Charlotte's ideas into the modern era and holding onto wonder! I recently published a modern version of one of her books to help with that, but always emphasize the need to get outside not just sit and read.
I am so grateful I was able to have an outdoor childhood on five acres with animals and garden and a creek with crawdads. I was also a bookworm and the two definitely went hand in hand. I am also grateful for the period we all went through during the lockdowns. We ditched much of the computer learning: instead, my daughter raised chickens, baked bread, made cheesecake, learned to crochet and read good books. The skills she learned from that time have served her far better than any of the online curriculum.
If you can weave these experiences into your kids’s lives it is so worth it.
Great article. I’d love to see a deep-dive on how St. Pius X’s “instaurare omnia in Christo” and his encyclical on Modernism as the “death” of Catholic Christian culture were an inspiration to Senior, whose books reuse the very names (instauratio = restoration)! You may have inspired me to write an article!
Charlotte Mason had many great insights into the “anti-Thomistic” education of 19th century England, which place otherwise seemed to churn out the world’s greatest geniuses. Much wasn’t what it seemed in the late 19th!
Hi Josh. The line between imagination and fantasy is the one I keep circling back to. What strikes me most is that a child doesn't experience the dragon as make-believe sitting on top of real fire and a real snake. In the imaginative moment, the dragon is just as real as the fire and the snake. There is no demotion, no seam between witnessed and invented. That seamlessness is the first casualty, I think, long before any screen arrives to do the leaping for us – when a child's only point of reference is books, without any real, lived experience to give the imagination its foundation.
Thank you, Vincent, I love your posts! I just subscribed. Yes, it's important to draw that clear line between imagination and fantasy. Many of the saints warn against fantasy, and as an imaginative guy, I struggled with that until I realized the difference.
Hi Josh, and thank you, that means a great deal. I've started making my way through your archive and keep finding pieces I want to sit reread and absorb properly; this one in particular will stay with me.
Your line on the saints' warnings is one of the things I had to wrestle with myself for some time, and for very similar reasons to your own, I'm sure. I'd put it the way Tolkien does in 'On Fairy-Stories.' There is a world of difference between dangerous real-world occult practice and the enchantment Tolkien describes, where wonder within story serves rather than displaces faith and underlying truth. Holding that distinction matters enormously. Best wishes from a very hot Sussex in the UK.
I highly recommend “For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School
by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay,” who reflects on these same principles. This book profoundly influenced my homeschool choices many years back, and its message is timeless. It is written by the daughter of the reknown Francis Schaeffer.
Thank you, Xenia, I will check that out!
Charlotte Mason is so beautiful but there is a dogmatic undercurrent that I’ve seen running through certain communities and curriculums where it seems as though 37 subjects are planned within 4 minute increments, leaving no time for outdoor play, individual creative pursuits, free reads, or family adventures outside the home. That doesn’t feel very Charlotte to me! I think many have lost sight of her teachings.
I agree with you. I have had to leave behind many of the online CM groups I followed because of the militant thinking. I felt as though if I didn’t put on the CM uniform and obey the method I was doing something wrong. I am way too much of a free thinker for that!
Right? I agree! It’s hard because it makes me not want to be a member of that club, but I so love many things about it
I have just learned to take what works for us and not treat it as a prescription nor will I let the crowd intimidate me. Charlotte was obviously a wonderful educator, but keep in mind she was not a mother, and she was not a wife. She did not live today. People have made her a bit of an idol if you ask me.
This is an excellent essay! I'm always excited to see someone writing about Senior (his work seems to be going through a quiet revival currently)! This piece does a great job introducing one of his most important contributions to discussions about education. And yes, Mason was noticing something similar as regards experience. It'd be interesting to compare Senior to Dewey as well, since he really emphasized experience in education... Thanks for writing this! I greatly enjoyed it.
Thank you for this excellent grounding in the real-- classical education can't be holistic without this!
This also extends far further than children's early experiences, but I appreciate your establishing the foundation here, and pointing out how real the ritual of reading aloud with the child is-- Children aren't the only ones who grasp bigger concepts like love through such moments.
This is a great article Josh! Too often Charlotte Mason is just associated with books, but she was all about learning experiences, being outside, and seeing the value of hands-on learning.
I'm all for bringing Charlotte's ideas into the modern era and holding onto wonder! I recently published a modern version of one of her books to help with that, but always emphasize the need to get outside not just sit and read.
I am so grateful I was able to have an outdoor childhood on five acres with animals and garden and a creek with crawdads. I was also a bookworm and the two definitely went hand in hand. I am also grateful for the period we all went through during the lockdowns. We ditched much of the computer learning: instead, my daughter raised chickens, baked bread, made cheesecake, learned to crochet and read good books. The skills she learned from that time have served her far better than any of the online curriculum.
If you can weave these experiences into your kids’s lives it is so worth it.
Great article. I’d love to see a deep-dive on how St. Pius X’s “instaurare omnia in Christo” and his encyclical on Modernism as the “death” of Catholic Christian culture were an inspiration to Senior, whose books reuse the very names (instauratio = restoration)! You may have inspired me to write an article!
Charlotte Mason had many great insights into the “anti-Thomistic” education of 19th century England, which place otherwise seemed to churn out the world’s greatest geniuses. Much wasn’t what it seemed in the late 19th!
Hi Josh. The line between imagination and fantasy is the one I keep circling back to. What strikes me most is that a child doesn't experience the dragon as make-believe sitting on top of real fire and a real snake. In the imaginative moment, the dragon is just as real as the fire and the snake. There is no demotion, no seam between witnessed and invented. That seamlessness is the first casualty, I think, long before any screen arrives to do the leaping for us – when a child's only point of reference is books, without any real, lived experience to give the imagination its foundation.
Thank you, Vincent, I love your posts! I just subscribed. Yes, it's important to draw that clear line between imagination and fantasy. Many of the saints warn against fantasy, and as an imaginative guy, I struggled with that until I realized the difference.
Hi Josh, and thank you, that means a great deal. I've started making my way through your archive and keep finding pieces I want to sit reread and absorb properly; this one in particular will stay with me.
Your line on the saints' warnings is one of the things I had to wrestle with myself for some time, and for very similar reasons to your own, I'm sure. I'd put it the way Tolkien does in 'On Fairy-Stories.' There is a world of difference between dangerous real-world occult practice and the enchantment Tolkien describes, where wonder within story serves rather than displaces faith and underlying truth. Holding that distinction matters enormously. Best wishes from a very hot Sussex in the UK.