Tag: Charlotte Mason
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The Flow of Thought, Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom
In this series we’ve been finding arguments for a classical education from the unlikely realm of positive psychology, particularly Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s classic Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. After connecting the concept of flow with Aristotle’s link between virtue or excellence and eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing), we’ve been racing through aspects of the liberal arts…
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Charlotte Mason and the Power of Ideas
As Charlotte Mason observed, there is nothing quite like the experience of being struck by an idea. The experience is equivalent to being the recipient of some unexpected treasure. Ideas loosen our grip on holding a thin view of the world. They open our minds, especially through narration, to connections previously gone undetected and stir…
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The Flow of Thought, Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians
I’ve never been one for journaling. It’s not for lack of trying or admiration for the idea behind the practice. But keeping a journal and writing down my thoughts about myself or what I experienced that day just never caught on for me. I was almost tempted to say that it would have felt too…
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Marketing, Manipulations and True Classroom Leadership
Earlier this fall I finished reading Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Besides being inspired and challenged in my own leadership, I was deeply taken with his vision for effective marketing or branding: the idea that starting with why the organization exists is the most effective way to…
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Why Luther Believed Christians Should Study the Liberal Arts
What lies at the core of an authentically Christian education? Bible classes, faithful teachers, chapel services, certainly. How about the liberal arts? For many parents of faith, they aren’t so sure. After all, the liberal arts aren’t necessary for coming to faith or remaining in the fold. And in 2019, with a diversified economy, the…
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Attention, Then and Now: The Science of Focus Before and After Charlotte Mason’s Time
The importance of attention for education is almost proverbial. Who has not seen the stereotype of a student staring out the window, while the teacher drones on? Movies and TV shows are filled with it. Everybody knows that a wandering attention and a lack of interest hamper a student’s learning. But we haven’t always paid…
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Educating Future Culture Makers
An experienced educator once taught me that every pedagogy, or method of teaching, assumes a particular view of students. Each view, in turn, is founded on premises about the nature of these students, their capabilities, and, perhaps most broadly, their purpose for existence. It is these driving premises that subconsciously guide the hand of the…
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Back to School and Back to Educational Renaissance
Welcome back to a new school year and to a new year of Educational Renaissance! The back-to-school sale shelves are probably already picked over and disheveled, but Jason, Kolby and I are planning a whole series of great posts that will last you the whole school year. Look for our first post to drop next…
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Easier Than You Think, Yet Harder Than You Think: Teaching the Bible to Children
The Bible ought to be taught to children. This should be self-evident from a theological perspective, given that the Bible is God’s authoritative self-revelation to mankind. “Let the little children come to me,” Jesus says, “and do not hinder them.” From an educational perspective, though, we do well to ask ourselves what it means to…
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Authority and Obedience in the Classroom: Reading Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy of Education
I recently talked with a frustrated teacher about the anti-authoritarian Tendenz of her math class. The smug look of the child says everything. “You can’t tell me what to do.” This child might accomplish the set of math problems assigned, at least externally. But on the inside, there is a refusal to submit to the…