Category: Charlotte Mason

What is a Learner?: Reading Charlotte Mason through Aristotle’s Four Causes

The goals and aims of our educational renewal movement center not on the quality of our curriculum or the quality of our teacher. Instead, the quality of learning is the true test of whether we are providing something of lasting value and worth. To that end, I have taken a look at the learner and applied Aristotle’s four causes to understand this pivotal aspect of quality education. In so doing, I have turned to Charlotte Mason’s Toward a Philosophy of Education to elucidate the fine points of the learner. The Four-fold Manner of Knowing an Object Among the most important

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Fostering Grit Through Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Habit Training

We write and speak often at Educational Renaissance about the importance of cultivating good habits (you can listen to our podcast on habit training here). Habits are, as Charlotte Mason put it, the railways of the good life (Home Education, p. 101). A person with good habits experiences a life of ease, while a person missing such habits often finds life burdensome and difficult.  By “ease” I don’t mean easy, of course. I mean smooth, orderly, peaceful, and effective.  For example, the habit of timeliness is indispensable for a life of ease. Imagine how difficult life is for the person

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Exploring Educational Alternatives: A Comparison of Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori

The early 1900s was a watershed moment in education. The second wave of the Industrial Revolution brought about what we might call the educational-industrial complex. Here I intentionally draw upon Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address when he warned against the disastrous potential of the military-industrial complex. Looking back over the previous decades of global warfare, he saw how the industry-fed war machine would never be satiated. Something like this happened in the field of education. Industry, an expanding economy and globalization demanded of education a new kind of production-line format. School buildings began to resemble factories graduating a populace

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Rest for the Weary: On Cultivating the Intellectual Life

As the pace of our modern world grows busier and busier, spurred on by the services of smartphones and laptops, people need somewhere to turn for relief. Our glowing rectangles promise us conveniences such as efficiency and a life of ease, but for what purpose? More efficiency, more ease. It’s a never-ending cycle. Technology frees us up to consume…more technology.  In order to escape the technological addiction that has mystified the 21st century, it is not enough to take smartphones, laptops, and video streaming services away. They must be replaced with something better. Something deeper. Something more satisfying. In this

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Creating a Culture of Mentorship

In Episode 10 of the Educational Renaissance podcast, we took a deep dive into what Charlotte Mason means by atmosphere, one of the three instruments of education. One of the ideas that surfaced was the concept of mentoring. In today’s article I want to extend that discussion to look at some recent research on student mentorship as well as draw on some biblical concepts to round out our understanding of what it means to create a culture of mentorship in schools. Mentoring as a Program When we think of mentoring programs, we often picture something like Big Brothers Big Sisters

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civic building with classical style of architecture

Narration Course for ClassicalU: A Rehearsal Sneak Peek

As I mentioned in a previous article on the history of narration, I’ve received an opportunity to film two courses at the beginning of December for Classical Academic Press’ ClassicalU: one on narration and another on Charlotte Mason’s philosophy for classical educators. Our working titles are A Classical Guide to Narration and Charlotte Mason: A Liberal Education for All. Knowing what I know about the importance of practice for developing skill, I decided to set my hand to the task of practicing my video lectures. Of course, just developing the material fully for these two courses has filled up the

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Handwork: Fostering Excellence Through the Habit of Creating

Guest post by Joleen Steel, Classical Christian Educator and Director of Camping Stick Kids We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle What do you find yourself repeatedly doing? In this digital world, it is easy to immerse ourselves in the repetition of scrolling through social media or clicking out words on a device in the hope of inspiring minds and garnering followers. Yet, the digital world falls short of satisfying our deepest longings for meaning and purpose. The best moments in life are not found on a screen, but in deep,

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Work, Toil, and the Quest for Academic Rigor

American educational culture is obsessed with the idea of academic rigor. It shows up on marketing materials, core value statements, and school comparison charts. Rigor has become the gold standard of education, separating the wheat from the chaff and the excellent from the mediocre. Public schools, private schools, classical schools, progressive schools–they all claim academic rigor as a distinctive, leading to a market overrun with near-identical tag lines. The irony, of course, is that when competitors lay claim to the exact same distinguishing factor, the supposed distinctive ceases to function as such. In the case of many schools today, the

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Summertime, and the Learning is Easy

Summertime has arrived. Gershwin’s song from Porgy and Bess is clearly on my mind, if you caught the allusion in my title. If you have a moment, watch Ella Fitzgerald’s soulful performance of “Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy” in Berlin during the summer of 1968. You could listen to any number of recordings, but this one stands out because you can see the intricacies of her performance. She was a true master. One of the great joys of being a teacher is summers off. This may be one of the chief compensations, more important to teachers than healthcare or

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Habit Training during Online Distance Learning

Everything changed a couple months ago when school went online. At-home learning has caused every school to attempt schooling in new and creative ways. We can also get creative about habit training during online distance learning. I shared my new eBook on habit training in the classroom about a month before we stopped meeting in classrooms. So here is a brief update where we consider how habit training might work while doing school online. The Method of Habit Training Doesn’t Change Even though our classrooms are online and it feels like everything has changed, the method of habit training doesn’t

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