Why you should know Charlotte Mason

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Book Review; Education on 23 Jul 2009.

Charlotte Mason (1842 – 1923) was a British educator and a remarkable woman whose ideas were undoubtedly ahead of her time.  As the only child she was largely educated by her own mother who I believed,  influenced her advocacy for home education and to view children with greater respect than was fashionable then. She loved children, enjoyed them, and delighted in seeing them accepted as persons with a capacity to learn in ways adults denied them.

It has been said that her ideas would have been lost to us today if not for Susan Schaeffer Macauley who drew attention to Mason’s holistic ideals in Macauley’s own book, For the Children’s Sake. Incidentally Macauley’s book was my introduction to the Charlotte Mason method. ( Over 15 years ago, a US homeschooler I barely knew mailed me a copy of For the Children’s Sake after a brief email correspondence!)

Today Mason’s ideas and philosophy have become a major influence in the global homeschooling movement. I don’t think she started out to enact a programme for homeschool per se, but as an adjunct to children’s education – she was concerned how poorly children were raised and taught (either by their own mothers or governesses) that she began to put her own thoughts in writing.

In 1886, her book Home Education – which eventually grew into volumes! – was published with a prescient observation on education in the preface (“The educational outlook is rather misty and depressing…”) that it could almost have  come from our own newspapers.  She went on to write that,

[But] we have no unifying principle, no definite aim; in fact no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of of thought that gives it birth; and perhaps this is the reason of all the fallings from us, vanishings, failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records.

In short, any educational enterprise must be founded on a philosophy that seeks to develop a whole person, to assist in “…the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power”.  As you can see, absent are the soul diminishing end of ‘self-actualization,’ the flaccid leveling demanded of politics and ‘nation building,’ and the utilitarian anxiety of being properly equipped for the job market!

There’s so much online about Charlotte Mason and her methods and books , so I shall skip the details. Let me share a few things that influenced our family and the way we homeschooled. The value of a stimulating atmosphere. By this she meant that we should never underestimate what a child picks up from the environment he is raised and taught in. The habits, the values, the priorities enunciated or displayed by parents and that surround a child are imbibed long before formal instruction takes root. She may not have used the term, but modern educators now refer to this atmosphere of influence as “socialization.”

And oh yes, Mason believed – and how she believed – in healthy unstructured play and nature walks and the outdoors. Lots of it, preferably in the mornings!  Read her books and you’ll see abundant references to art, music, dance, and a wholesome attitude to life and learning. If she can only see how our kindergartens have been reduced to exam factories, Mason would turn in her grave.

The importance of real books (or living books)and not twaddle. Mason disdained the way adults talked down to children and dumbed down books for their consumption. Workbooks, disjointed facts abridged into unstimulating textbooks were “twaddle” that dilute and weaken habits of mind and learning. “If a child talk twaddle, it is because his elders are in the habit of talking twaddle to him… On the whole children who grow up amongst their elders and are not provided with what are called children’s books at all, fare the better on what they are able to glean for themselves from the literature of grown-up people.”

The earth split, the clouds rolled away; I dare say, this twaddle comment marked a genuine turning point for my wife and I. More than anything else, it was this illumination that moved us away from textbooks, workbooks, etc,  and led us to subscribe to a literature-based system (Sonlight) for our family.

The significance of habit. Despite Mason’s belief in the innate goodness of a child, she had no illusion that children have no “self-compelling power.” The building of good habits – moral, mental, physical (she was also concerned about diet, exercise, and posture) – the efforts of training and discipline to give a child “control over his own nature” so that the acquired good will like growing muscles “take form according to the action required of them.” The easy philosophy that says, “It’s ok, he’s still young” or “Don’t worry, he will know better soon enough,” is the way to shipwreck as far as Mason was concerned.

As a homeschool parent, let me say the training of habits is by far the most challenging part of education. If you are reading this and if you are a homeschooler or thinking about home education, the fruit of your labour will be even sweeter if you pay attention to the inculcation of habits.

Now you can see why educators and homeschoolers should get acquainted with Charlotte Mason. It is wonderful that although she was a devout Christian, her education philosophy has found wide acceptance across religious and cultural barriers (Eg: Check out this Muslim group for Mason).  Her ideas moved a generation and continues to shape the modern home education movement today.

Note: Some of her references to race and civilisations were products of her era and therefore should not be held against her otherwise enlightened views.

Just a few links on Charlotte Mason:
Wikipedia
Simply Charlotte Mason – methods and curriculum
Who was Charlotte Mason? About Charlotte Mason’s methods and influence on homeschool
Charlotte Mason & Classical Education – a review on Mason’s views on classical education by Susan Wise Bauer
A Charlotte Mason Education – Homesite, and also read the article by Catherine Levison
Charlotte Mason Research & Supply Company Dean and Karen Andreola’s site

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