![]() Instead of homework he gets a cozy evening with a good book and parental attention. If you follow her method there is no need for homework in the elementary years because the child immediately deals with the literature and proves his mastery by narrating what he just learned back to you. Miss Mason's schools never gave homework? Correct. The child learns to call on the vocabulary and descriptive power of good writers as he tells his own version of the story. Because narration takes the place of questionnaires and multiple choice tests, it enables the child to bring all the faculties of mind into play. Miss Mason said that asking children to narrate back what they have learned is the best way to acquire knowledge from books. He then learns to express what he has learned by clothing it in literary (conversational) language - in short, narrating it back to you. Charlotte called this putting literature in "snippet form." Children deserve to have more than just a nodding acquaintance with the best authors.Ī child gains knowledge through his own work digging out facts and information. ![]() Educators think they are doing children a favor by taking scissors to cut out pages of the best books. Miss Mason advocated what she called "living books." Children, she thought, should read the best books, not graded readers or textbook comprehension paragraphs. This is deadening to the imagination of the child. Textbooks tend to be crammed with facts and information, at the expense of human emotion. ![]() In the Charlotte Mason method, whole books and first-hand sources are used whenever possible, rather than textbooks. ![]() Are we practicing this concept, or are we duplicating the public school classroom regimen in our homes? Are we educating our children for life or for achievement tests? I think most of us would agree with her that education is a life process which is not confined to the classroom. Education was an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. Why? This article will attempt to answer that question!įor Charlotte Mason, education was not a list of skills or facts to be mastered. Today her work is undergoing a revival in home school circles. Charlotte Mason was a Christian educator who lived and worked in Britain during the latter part of the last century. ![]()
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