“Papa, we had the best school day ever!” a little voice excitedly greeted Cory when he came inside this evening. When asked what made it better than other days, the answer was that “Mom made all of our lessons either a story or a game.”

We smiled, and reckoned Charlotte Mason would approve of our lessons today. I wondered to myself what she would have thought, had she known, that 100 years after her death, her wisdom would still be blessing families all over the world.

This conversation reminded me that quite some time ago, in this post, I promised to explain a bit about Charlotte Mason- who she was, what she believed, what made her an important person in our homeschool community, even though she died before my grandparents were born.

I should be more careful of making promises. Time has a way of getting away from me, and this past summer was filled to the brim. I don’t know if I have ever felt so overwhelmed by all the things needing my attention. I kept saying to myself, “before this summer is over, I have to get back on top of things,” but the weeks just flew by, and suddenly it was fall, and I was still just trying to keep my head above water.

Now it’s November! The cooler weather is so refreshing, and we have finally fallen into a good routine with school… I finally feel like I can stand my house, and I’m even contemplating hosting my family for Thanksgiving this year! And with the feeling of finally being (more or less) caught up, I suddenly have the brain space to think about writing this long promised post.

So, to all of you who asked for this post, following my post on our homeschool journey, I do apologize for taking so long to get to it, but here you go. I think the best way to explain who she was/what believed, is to let her tell you herself:

Who in the world is Charlotte Mason?

Charlotte Mason was a single lady in England in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. She was concerned about the direction that education was taking in her day; so she devoted her life to improving it. She trained other teachers to teach in her new way, and wrote books to explain her philosophy. 

She was a woman of devout faith. The times she talks of living in, are surprisingly similar to the times we find ourselves in today. Some of her contemporaries were Darwin and Rousseau. Her voice of truth must have been a welcome sound for Christian parents in those days. 

She advocated for the individual child, as being created, not an empty vessel to be filled with facts and knowledge, but a whole person. Children in her schools were to be nourished with a wide feast of subjects, not just the core of math, Language arts, science and history. She encouraged an appreciative exposure to the things of beauty. Music, art, poetry, literature, (especially the Bible) and nature study.

Like myself, Charlotte was a big fan of books. But not just any books. She had standards. 🙂

“One thing is of vital importance; children must have books, living books. The best is not too good for them; anything less than the best is not good enough. And if it is needful to exercise economy, let go everything that belongs to soft and luxurious living before letting go the duty of supplying the books, and the frequent changes of books, which are necessary for the constant stimulation of the child’s intellectual life” -Charlotte Mason, Home Education

So there you have it. Permission granted to buy ALL THE BOOKS! Not all of them actually. Only the very best ones:)

Fun fact: If your child’s teacher has announced that she will be teaching history through living books this year, (as did a well-loved teacher in a school in my area) then your child will be getting a Charlotte Mason inspired history education this year.

(Charlotte coined the term “living books,” and believed living ideas will take root, grow, and connect with other ideas, whereas facts are just that- cold, dead facts.) If your children are anything like my children, there’s a much better chance of your child loving history, when it’s presented to them via living books.

How did you choose Charlotte’s method, with so many methods out there? 

I think God chose it for me. Sometimes God lets me know that He cares about the things I haven’t thought to consult Him in. This was one of those times. Cory had suggested we homeschool when Anna Grace was…I don’t know, 2, 3 1/2? At first I wasn’t sure about it, but pretty soon I started planning and dreaming. Head- first down the rabbit hole I went, in true Jeanette-style. I thoroughly perused the HEAV website, saved a lot of posts on Pinterest, asked questions about laws, curriculum, whatever crossed my mind, from every homeschool mom I knew.

I thought I would probably use ABeka, but several people offered me books they had, and pretty soon I was all set up with a hodgepodge stack of curriculum.

One day I got a call from someone I dearly love who probably doesn’t want to be named here. She said she was reading about the Charlotte Mason method, and then she visited a friend’s church, and met a lady who was using the CM method for her children. (Favorable impressions had been made.) She said, “No pressure, but I just think you should look into it. See if it’s something you’re interested in.”

I did look into it. A few blog posts told me it was definitely “something I’m interested in.”And you probably know what I did then. It’s been almost 4 years since that conversation, and I still haven’t come back up. Hands down, this is the most fascinating rabbit hole I’ve ever been down. There’s so much to learn. I’m ever so thankful that I was nudged in this direction. (Thank you, dear anonymous person) ❤️

I researched for several months before I finally tried to explain the method and principles to Cory. For some reason I thought he wouldn’t be as impressed as I was. I was pleasantly surprised! After listening to my (long-tailed and all over the place) description of what I wanted to do, he said “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard you say!” That was the final stamp of approval I needed. (I guess the takeaway here is: “If you want to sound smart, quote Charlotte Mason.”)

Shortly after concluding that this was the method for us, we found out that one of my best friends was using it with her children. This has been a fun thing for our families to have in common. From this connection, we’ve formed a circle of close mom friends who get together once a month for a time of study, fellowship and encouragement. We are also part of a larger Charlotte Mason book study that has been a huge encouragement in my life.

What exactly is the Charlotte Mason Method? 

This one is hard for me to answer. I want to say it is so simple, and it is; but there’s just so much she had to say, I hardly know where to start. She wrote six books, chock-full of her ideas and convictions about education. To tell you that I’m about to explain what she was all about, and put her methods of education in a nutshell, would be an undertaking I’m not ready for. There’s just so much.

Her books are a treasure trove, just packed with information and ideas. They’re not always an easy read. Her thoughts were deep, sometimes hard to follow. Diagramming some of her sentences would be a grammar achievement worthy of some type of award, I think. But did she ever have some things figured out!

She never had children, but she understood them. I’m often amazed, reading her insights, to realize that she knows my children better than I do myself. If she wrote in her books that a learning concept works, most of the time it does!

A belief of hers is that young children learn best through play. Following are some excerpts, on reading lessons, from her book “Home Education”

“The devices for making the learning of the ‘A B C‘ interesting are endless. There is no occasion to hurry the child.

Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated.

When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him. But he must not be urged, required to show off, teased to find letters when his heart is set on other play.” -Charlotte Mason, Home Education

One way I’ve been implementing the “learning through play” element in our school, is by playing word games with the children, for reading practice. Their favorite is when I let them choose words and write them all mixed up on a white board.

We add nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and connecting words, and then the fun begins. Each child can hardly wait for his turn to point at words, one at a time, to form a sentence.

An example sentence that brings gales of giggles, is this: “My silly Papa went too fast and went to jail.” “The fat pig said ‘I am too big for my bed.” If you’ve not been around long enough to know why that first sentence brings such hilarity, here is the first post in a set that will explain that 🙂 (We are so grateful that all things worked together for good, and that can now be a funny story that incredulous little minds can barely believe is true:)

Miss Mason was also a firm believer in the importance of fresh air, sunshine and outdoor exercise. Here, she encourages the mothers to not just send, but take their children out of doors:

“What is to be done with these golden hours, so that every one shall be delightful? Our wise mother, arrived, first sends the children to let off their spirits in a wild scamper, with cry, hallo, and hullaballo, and any extravagance that comes into their young heads. There is no distinction between big and little; the latter love to follow in the wake of their elders, and, in lessons or play, to pick up and do according to their little might.

They must be let alone, left to themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of earth and heavens; for of the evils of modern education few are worse than this––that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to wonder––and grow.

At the same time, here is the mother’s opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul of the child, which shall germinate, blossom, and bear fruit, without further help or knowledge of hers. Then, there is much to be got by perching in a tree or nestling in heather, but muscular development comes of more active ways, and an hour or two should be spent in vigorous play; and last, and truly least, a lesson or two must be got in.” -Charlotte Mason, Home Education

Another of her beliefs is that the Holy Spirit is concerned and involved in the education of our little ones, and that we are to trust Him to fill in the gaps in our children’s education. She has many deep and profound things to say, concerning the child and his Savior, and the parent’s tendency to accidentally squelch that relationship.

‘We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.’

“It may surprise parents who have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that they should do no sort of injury to the children: Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDER not––one of these little ones….So run the three educational laws of the New Testament, which, when separately examined, appear to me to cover all the help we can give the children and all the harm we can save them from––that is, whatever is included in training up a child in the way he should go. Let us look upon these threegreat laws as prohibitive, in order to clear the ground for the consideration of a method of education; for if we once settle with ourselves what we may not do, we are greatly helped to see what we may do, and must do.’

‘Therefore, let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful narratives of the Old Testament and of the gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.’

‘And perhaps it is not too beautiful a thing to believe in this redeemed world, that, as the babe turns to his mother though he has no power to say her name, as the flowers turn to the sun, so the hearts of the children turn to their Saviour and God with unconscious delight and trust.’

“Now listen to what goes on in many a nursery:––’you naughty, wicked boy!’ ‘God will send you to the bad, wicked place!,’ and so on; and this is all the practical teaching about the ways of his ‘almighty Lover’ that the child gets!––never a word of how God does love and cherish the little children all day long, and fill their hours with delight.

This mischief lies in that same foolish undervaluing of the children, in the notion that the child can have no spiritual life until it please his elders to kindle the flame.”

Add to this, listless perfunctory prayers, idle discussions of Divine things in their presence, light use of holy words, few signs whereby the child can read that the things of God are more to his parents than any things of the world, and the child is hindered, tacitly forbidden to “come unto Me,”

I could go on and on. There are quotes on habit training, obedience, narration, dictation…I have barely scratched the surface… but this is getting a little long; so I think if I share more, I should do it in a separate post. I hope this peek into the mind of Charlotte Mason is as interesting to you as it is to me.

She, being Catholic, had some beliefs that I don’t necessarily agree with, but she had much wisdom and practical experience that is helpful to me. I feel like she entwines the Scriptures so thoroughly into her writings, that one cannot study her work without also growing in knowledge of God.

As always, I love your feedback. You’re welcome to ask questions if there’s something specific you want to know. Even better, if you too are using/ studying the CM method, send suggestions of principles that are important to you, that I’ve missed.

We have some big changes coming up, so not sure how much writing I will be doing in the next while. Baby Dexter number 5 is due in 8.5 weeks! 🥰 That will change up our schedule but we are all so excited to welcome another tiny person to our crew.

All the best to you all, until next time! ❤️