Why I am taken with Charlotte Mason: Part 1

Not long ago, my wife began doing research for the task of homeschooling our children.  Her research brought her to the works of a woman named Charlotte Mason, a British educator and philosopher at the turn of the 20th Century.  She seemed to like Mason's approach from the start, but the more she read, the more she was struck by how similar her ideas were to some things I had been saying, even commenting at one point that, "It seems like everything this woman wrote has come out of your mouth at some point."

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending an internship hosted by Ambleside International at one of their schools in Fredericksburg, TX.  What I saw was amazing, and I hope write about many aspects of that here in the coming weeks.  But one has to start somewhere, so I will choose a place and start.

Can you imagine a school where students try their hardest because they enjoy what they are doing?  Now strike from your mind that they are being entertained via technology or circus antics, and keep trying to imagine it.

Can you imagine a place where students work in peace, confident in the respect they have for each other?  Or where the animosity that so notoriously exists between teacher and student is foreign?

Can you imagine a school that has no need for either carrots nor sticks as incentives?  The reward is the knowledge gained and the relationships developed.  Can you imagine a school without grades?

I can.  I'll write more about it later.