Education

This book was originally given as a talk by Dorothy Sayers at Oxford University in 1947 on the benefits of a classical education for children. It is great brief introduction to the advantages of a classical education.

This is Charlotte Mason as you have not seen her before: Mind to Mind is her well-seasoned final work, originally titled An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education. Divested of outdated material, the essential philosophy is brought into sharp relief. Ms. Mason wrote, “The message for our age is, Believe in mind, and let education go straight as a bolt to the mind of the pupil.” Our generation needs to hear that message more acutely than ever. Karen Glass, with deep respect for the original, has preserved the essentials in Ms. Mason’s own words, while delivering the material in a format that speaks to today’s readers. This book is an abridgment in the literal Latin sense of “to shorten.” What has been shortened is not merely the length of the original volume, but the path between the modern reader and the mind of Charlotte Mason.

In this book, Charlotte Mason presents the vital principles that underlie her methods, and with the confidence of many decades of practice behind her, recommends those methods to a wider audience. She wanted to reform and regenerate the educational practices of Great Britain in the early 20th century, but 21st century readers will find her ideas just as potent, just as penetrating, and even more refreshing than they were when they were originally penned. Her first principle is "Children are born persons": not machines, not animals, not accidental conglomerations of cells, but persons, with all the magnificent possibilities that personhood implies. The education we should offer a person is the education Charlotte Mason offers to us.

Volume 1 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschool Series paraphrased sentence by sentence into plain English by Leslie Laurio. This is a good place for parents of very young children to begin, since Charlotte Mason details ways to prepare children up to age 9 for a CM education. If you prefer to print or read this book online for free, the complete text is also available at http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/ModernEnglish.html

Volume 3 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschool Series paraphrased sentence by sentence into plain English by Leslie Laurio. Thoughts about the teaching and curriculum of children aged 9-12 with details and examples of books, exams, etc. If you prefer to print or read this book online for free, the complete text is also available at http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/ModernEnglish.html

Volume 6 of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschool Series paraphrased sentence by sentence into plain English by Leslie Laurio. If you can only read one volume of Charlotte Mason's series, this should be the one, since this volume details the long-term vision and goals of CM that parents will need to understand the why's of the method, as well as covering curriculum considerations for all ages. You can also read this book online for free at http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/ModernEnglish.html

How can you give your children the tools they need to teach themselves? Long ago students were first taught how to learn. Today, students are taught an encyclopedia of subjects trivia but they are not taught the basic skills of learning: to discover, to reason, and to apply. They are not taught the trivium.Can you homeschool in a classical style without compromising your Christian principles? Classical Education must be sifted through the critical screen of the Scriptures to be transformed into a Biblical model.Can you homeschool in a classical style without buckling under the burden? There is only so much time in the day. For every subject, and for every age, we have a workable plan which leaves you free to breathe. You can continue to use other approaches to homeschooling within the framework of classical education.Is homeschooling about renewing family vision? The family is at the heart of God s plan for restoring Christian culture. Homeschooling is not alternative education. Homeschooling was here first. We want to restore Biblical order to education.

Drawing upon forty years of study in theology, philosophy, history, sociology and the arts, Dr. Schaeffer contemplates the reasons for modern society's sorry state of affairs and argues for total affirmation of the Bible's morals, values, and meaning.

What is a good education? What is it for? To answer these questions, Stratford Caldecott shines a fresh light on the three arts of language, in a marvelous recasting of the Trivium whereby Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric are explored as Remembering, Thinking, and Communicating. These are the foundational steps every student must take towards conversion of heart and mind, so that a Catholic Faith can be lived out in unabashed pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Beauty in the Word is a unique contribution to bringing these bountiful aspects of the Real back to the center of learning, where they rightfully belong. If your concern is for the true meaning of education for your children, here is the place to begin.