Not At School Today

I bought Charlotte Mason’s Original Home Schooling Series last August (’08) and I’ve dipped into it here and there, but I really want to go through it properly. I’m fortunate in that I’ve discovered this while my children are young – Jude won’t be starting “formal” education for another 3 years, which should give me plenty of time to work through the books!

I also bought the The Well-Trained Mind recently which I’m very excited about (more on that later) but I think no matter what path we choose to take, Miss Mason will have an awful lot of good things to say. What I really like about her methods so far is that education is integrated into developing the whole character and she goes into a lot of detail about what it means to be a parent, so you get a whole life view rather than just a curriculum.

I’m going to try and post a few thoughts on what I’m reading here each week, a) to try and keep myself on schedule, and b) to try and maybe give a taste of what the series is about. This is in no way going to be a comprehensive covering of her material, there are many good companions out there for that, but the whole 6 volumes might seem a little daunting, so maybe a few snippets here and there will inspire you to go and find out more!

You can read a bio of Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) here. She lived in the Lake District in England and it was over 30-40 years of teaching that she developed her educational philosophy and methods. Her complete Homeschooling Series is available online at Ambleside Online (they’ve also translated it into “modern” English).

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