What I desire to set before the reader is a method of education based upon natural law. Charlotte Mason, Home Education There is something about Charlotte Mason’s ideas that is extremely intuitive. I don’t think it’s just me, either. Plenty of people find that her principles speak to something that they’ve known, but couldn’t articulate….
About once a year, I have a panic about teaching my kids a foreign language. Last year, I panicked right before I left home to walk through the Lake District for three days. I came home to a massive pile of books that I’d forgotten I’d ordered. My panic comes from regretting that I don’t…
I’m thrilled to be on Mere Orthodoxy this week with an article on Charlotte Mason and her educational philosophy (which will surprise exactly no one). I very much believe that we all need a Christian understanding of what it means to be a person. I think there is even a general, growing consensus that this…
“I, Amy Fischer, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British Citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.” It’s an odd thing to swear allegiance to the British monarch as an American. Like most,…
Ambleside Online (the curriculum we follow) has posted their folk song choices for 2022-2023. They are good. It always feels a little funny to wrap up school the same week that a lot of things are launching in preparation for the next school year (and when a lot of people are coming to the end…
A few thoughts on Freddie deBoer’s updated article on why education doesn’t lead to educational mobility (children moving from one level of educational attainment to another, over the course of their formal education). First, people failing to appreciate how percentiles work always causes me to languish. I have a son who is over the 99th…
I picked up Andy Crouch’s new book after listening to a podcast interview with him. I had a sense that he was speaking my language, and he didn’t disappoint. While the book discusses technology at length, the the bigger idea that presents is that we – all of us – are persons. If you are…
I appreciate this post from Nancy Kelly, which is a transcription of Charlotte Mason’s notes on her trainee teachers’ teaching. There is no one around to observe a homeschool mom when she teachers her children (unless your husband is working from home upstairs), but I imagine I’m not the only one who finishes a lesson,…
I think that school’s terrible. It’s not a great fit for human nature. Some people like to sit in a chair, and be talked at for a long time, and then go off and read a lot, and so forth. But, we, generally, are not creating a very curious, fun, even intellectually-engaging place for young…
My family is back home after a long trip to visit my parents in the US. And like I mentioned before, I have come home with lots of Plans to Improve My Life and Finish My Book. Or at least get a second draft completed. Of course, it’s hard to find time and space for…