I'm beginning to explore the ideas of Charlotte Mason, a turn-of-the-century British educator who has much to say about teaching children at home. Our current curriculum is based in her work, so I thought I should probably understand it.
"The child is a person with all the possibilities and powers included in personality."
"It stultifies a child to bring his world down to a 'child's' level."
"Education is a discipline...of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body."
"A child's mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs."
"...Our business is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him make valid, as many as may be of
'Those first born affinities,
'That fit our new existence to existing things.'"
I think I like this. But it's going to take a loooooong time to get through it all.
2 comments:
Yeah, that's the most comprehensive site I've found. They even have most of her books as ebooks. Nice. They're impossible to get from the library. They're always checked out with 3-4 people waiting for them.
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