The Charlotte Mason method of education focuses on the need to educate the whole child and not just limited to the mind. Her approach is three pronged: An atmosphere, a discipline, a life. 

 

Who Was Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason was a British educator (1842-1923). She developed a learning and teaching style that was quite different to that which was commonly accepted in that era. 

Charlotte Mason was home educated by her parents, however at the young age of sixteen found herself orphaned. It was following her parents deaths that she enrolled to further her education by becoming a teacher. She then taught for 10 years at Davison school in Worthing. 

Education in that time period was very influenced by social class.  Charlotte felt this needed to change and set about and educational revolution where children were no longer educated based on which social class they belonged to. 

Charlotte Mason later became a lecturer at Bishop Otter Teacher Training College. It was here that she dedicated her time to providing seminars on the education of children under the age of nine. 

Through out her life Charlotte Mason produced a vast array of texts based on education and parenting. 

 

An Atmosphere

The first prong in her philosophy is “Atmosphere”. This simply means that a child is continually educated by his surroundings, especially in the home. What is your home atmosphere like? Is there constant butting of heads to complete work or chores? or is there a calm and relaxed feeling. More often than not it is a combination of the two. 

Creating an atmosphere where the love of learning is encouraged can make all the difference for a child. Does the child see education as a means to an end, where is once they have finished their set work learning has ended? or do they thrive on wanting to learn more and more? 

I suspect this aspect of the Charlotte Mason method will be ever evolving as families continue to grow and change. 

 

A Discipline

The second prong is “Discipline”. The focus of this is building good character and habits. Habits take practice and persistence to perfect. That which we have continued practice in, is that which we become efficient in. 

A little beyond the practice of developing good habits is the motivation behind the habit. If there is no motivation or drive behind that habit it is unlikely to become a true habit or a reality. A child who becomes immersed in a good living book about gardening or the likes is going to have that intrinsic motivation to want to be out in his own garden tending to in.

 

A Life

The final prong in our three pronged fork is “Life”. This last prong relates to the academic portion of education. Charlotte Mason believed that children should not be simple fed dry facts and expected to rote learn them. Her approach was much more fulfilling. 

Charlotte Mason preferred ideas over facts. For example you make take a story from a historical event. The facts may read as dry toast, however there may be many ideas that surround it such and heroism, geography, friendship, the comparisons between eras, social ties and heirachy etc. 

It was by approaching education in this manner that children were able to gain a true understanding and appreciation. They were able to more readily apply the knowledge to themselves and retain more than if they were simply required to memorise facts. 

 

What are Living Books?

Living books are usually written in narrative form by an author who is passionate about the subject. They are the very opposite of a dry and boring text book. 

Living books make the subject exciting and draws the reader in. Have you ever noticed how when someone is incredibly excited and passionate about something, they manage to pull you in and suddenly you become caught up in the excitement too? That is what living books do. 

 

What’s Wrong With Twaddle? 

Do you ever go the library and all your kids want to pick out is mind numbing books with not literary value at all? That’s twaddle. Twaddle is dumbed down literature and it fails to expose kids to high levels of language that they need. Charlotte Mason encourages children to read only the best books. Even if children can not read yet, parents can read aloud from wonderful, language rich literature. 

 

Narration

Narration is another well used facet of a Charlotte Mason education. Children up until the age of around 12 narrate, or relay what they have learnt to a parent who then acts as a scribe for them. 

It is suggested that when children are young they are much more readily able to recall information verbally rather than if they need to write it down. Eventually they will move on to transcribing their own thoughts but to begin with narration is the way to proceed. 

 

Copy Work

This is often thought of as a mundane part of schooling that will in many cases turn most children into sloth like creatures. Charlotte Mason approaches copy work in a more inviting way. Instead of simply copying out the alphabet and random sentences, she encourages parents to use wonderful quotes, poems and excerpts from great speeches for example.

When there is some meaning behind the work it becomes much more enjoyable. Children fill their minds with wonderful words and at the same time are able to perfect their handwriting and grammar. We use a book of children’s poems and a book of quotes for children for copy work in our homeschool. It has been much more enjoyable than writing out mundane sentences each day. My children now have a vast memory bank full of quotes and poems to call upon. 

 

Nature

A huge component of a Charlotte Mason education is nature. Mason encourages families to get out and explore nature at least once a week. No matter the season it is important to allow the children to experience nature first hand. Let them run, feel, smell and touch all that nature has to offer. 

You may want to have your children do some nature journalling. This nature journals may include hand drawn pictures of what they see, poems and stories they may write about nature and some of their little collections they may pick up on their nature walks (we all know you need somewhere to put all those special leaves and feathers!) 

 

Short Lessons

We all know young children have very limited attention spans. For this reason Charlotte Mason thought that short lessons would lesson the occurrence of lack of focus. If you are able to fully engage your children for 15 minutes you will be wildly more successful than if you attempted to have them sit and focus for an hour. As the children grow they length of lessons increase to around one hour for high schoolers. 

 

Free Time

This is the component of Charlotte Mason education that I love the most. The schooling and academic work of education is usually completed in the morning. This schedule then opens up the afternoon for children to pursue their interests. They can do crafting, work on projects and any other leisure activities. 

Many children spend so much time in the classroom or completing required activities that they are rarely able to explore their own desires or passions. A child who is free to dive deep into their passions will excel beyond your imagination. That is because when a child has the desire and motivation to learn they do so an a rapid rate. 

 

Charlotte Mason Curriculum

This one is a tricky one to answer because a Charlotte Mason education is a philosophy not a curriculum. However when you assess books and they way you intend to teach you can relate it back to this philosophy and decide if it will work or not. 

More than likely you will need to pull resources from many different sources. A great website is Simply Charlotte Mason. There are many suggested books and ideas, right from preschool through to high school levels. 

 

Charlotte Mason was in no doubt and incredible educator. Her ideas and approaches to the education of particularly young children have been extraordinary. You, as a parent may choose to fully embrace all of her methods or you may want to pick a and choose, it is totally up to you.