In the late 1800s a woman named Charlotte Mason laid out 20 principles of education she developed, that she felt were far more effective than the theories then currently being used to educate children in England. She subsequently oversaw hundreds of children successfully being educated using those principles. Over the past two decades there has been a resurgence of her method in the homeschooling movement. Some parents use her methods in combination with other methods. Others use Charlotte Mason exclusively. And still others use other methods instead. Regardless, there was much food for thought there. Three of her principles could (in my opinion, after decades of homeschooling and tutoring) be tweaked further. Here are my thoughts on that.
First, I would alter the wording of Charlotte Mason's “Education is the science of relations” to “Education is the science of studying REVELATIONS.” Education is not the science of relations. A grasshopper's anatomy is not in any way, shape or form related to a piano note; nor is sodium sulfate (chemistry) in any way related to a fulcrum (physics). Knowing one doesn't in any way help one understand the other. Rather, education is a science of studying REVELATIONS. God is the source of it all (the “universal” that Charlotte Mason was trying to establish but was missing it by using the inferior word, "relations"). We study the WORDS of God (the Bible) and the WORKS of God (all the academic disciplines, i.e. biology, geology, etc.). We can only learn them because God has chosen to reveal them to us bit by bit as we uncover them--i.e., study them. The goal of education is the same as Charlotte Mason described it—the difference is in the choice of words that describe how we achieve it.
As the student becomes educated, he will move from the known to the unknown, laying down mental neurological pathways in the brain. The more the academic stimulation and exposure, the more complex the highway system in the brain becomes; country roads in the brain will be attaching themselves to superhighways. Bits of information attach to each other; it’s not that they share the content of “relations.” The only thing all information is universally and mutually “related” to is GOD!
Secondly, I would reword Mason’s principle that “children are born as persons capable of either good or evil.” That is not biblically accurate wording of the real state of any child at birth. Because of the Fall we are capable of NO GOOD, until we are born again. A teacher can instill the finest manners and nobility and a world of academics in a child and pass him off as a king, but if he (or she) is not born again, he may be sitting down on the outside but standing up in rebellion at the core of his heart. It is very possible to train a pleasant murderer. Anything can exist in the unredeemed born-again heart, undetected. Anything. I saw an ad once of a very wealthy royal Arab surrounded by children for whom he was “lovingly” asking for money for UNICEF when he knew in his heart he was sitting on a billion dollars of his own money that he could just give and be done with it; the ad was unnecessary. It seems that he (or someone who was using him) wanted to look good, look benevolent, look full of charity. Self-righteousness is the last bastion to fall.
When we discipline children's behavior biblically we are presenting them with the gospel over and over—declaring by our consistent actions that there is a rigid final law and an unbending authority that they may not fly against and come out with good results. As children are disciplined through the years they eventually come to see that they are unable to fully and adequately manage themselves at their core, despite their external good manners and apparent obedience. This prepares a child to be presented with the news of Christ's atonement and a full understanding of forgiveness both for himself and his fellowman. His behaviors fore and aft may look identical but he stands upon (and in) a different field, once he has acknowledged his need for a savior from himself.
Soooooo....how to reword Charlotte Mason's principle, above? Children are born in the image of God and must be treated with dignity, but they are also born in a sinful state that can only be cured by Christ's atonement. As stewards of God over them, it is the parents' responsibility to shape their character and educate them. When we train their character and behavior we are leading them to the delicate love of their fellowman and at the same time showing them the infinite pathway to the perfection of God. We whet their appetite to live in, with, and for God for all eternity.
An expansion of this restating of that principle is that children must be treated with dignity and respect, and that the parents must be there for them. It is a child's right to have a mother inside the backyard screen. It is her (and her husband's) God-given duty to care for them when they are young. Both parents are given the responsibility to train character within their children and to educate them about His Word and World as faithful stewards of God over them.
Here is a third tweak. Missing from Mason’s 20 principles is the acknowledgment of the need for training in skills. Skills are taught line upon line, precept upon precept by doings and repetitions, not by the abstractions of meditation or the rearrangements of narrations. Skills are taught radically differently from acquiring academic concepts. And skills are a HUGE part of the real world. Examples of this are in these areas of skill development:
· Handwriting of alphabet symbols drawn over and over until legible
· Piano note reading
· Sketching real objects
· Multiplication facts
· Tennis strokes
· Measurements
· Dance steps
· Recipes
· Sewing/Tailoring
· Carpentry/Construction
· Mechanical expertise
For more on this topic, see our resource: The Two Most Common Pitfalls in Home Schooling and How to Avoid Them.
