Q is for Questions
Does anyone else remember the old Radio Shack slogan: “You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers!”? This sums up the Charlotte Mason movement as it stands today!
If you have questions – and we all do at times - there is a bevy of podcasters, youtubers, bloggers, and neighbors at the ready to give you answers. This is not all bad. However, for a movement that prides itself on being a method as opposed to a system, which means there is a certain amount of space for interpretation and modification (again, a good thing!), the risk we run is that we can lose sight of the starting point – of the very ideas that were ingenious enough to provide that life and space – of Ms. Mason’s original purposes and methods as she actually articulated and applied them. In the midst of all of the what-worked-for-us advice, the salient points can become muddled.
I wonder how many Charlotte Mason homeschoolers haven’t met her ideas for themselves but rather some pre-digested version of a modification? I wonder how many people have looked into what was billed as a Charlotte Mason approach only to turn away from something that lacked the cohesive vitality and purposes of the original whole?
At this point in the Charlotte Mason journey, of equal importance with how-can-this-look-today, is what-did-she-actually-say? The vital thing we must preserve in our generation is the starting point for thinking about and applying this method of education. What is it that has grabbed the attention of people living a century later? What is the seed that has had staying power and produced life for so many?
Modifications and modernizations aren’t all bad... but what is the thing itself, as it stands on its own two feet?
It is almost as if Ms. Mason anticipated us, our time, our needs, and the risk. Indeed, it seems she had a keen sense that the work they were doing with PNEU was destined for people and times beyond their immediate reach. And so – thinking beyond mere booklists and applications, she hammered out 20 Principles on which all-of-the-things rest and included them in the front of each of her volumes.
We are often tempted to skim past this amazing set of statements in our haste to get at the “meat” – but we mustn’t. The 20 Principles are literally the opening flourish and the final assessment all in one.
They, like many philosophical statements, seem simple and even obvious upon first glance; it is when we sit with them and sift through applications under their watchful eye that their genius, their scope, and their limitations begin to humble us.
Have you ever read through the 20 Principles?
Have you read them lately?
Here we have gathered some of the best resources for exploring and understanding these distillations of Charlotte Mason’s original thought.
Sara Timothy 2024
For Further Reading in the Volumes:
For Further Learning/Resources:
Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles - Ambleside Online
Charlotte Mason’s Twenty Principles - Charlotte Mason Poetry
Start Here: A Journey Through Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles
Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles - The Commonplace
Finding Your Way with Charlotte Mason's 20 PrinciplesFree Course • A Charlotte Mason Plenary
Episodes by Topic | A Delectable Education Podcast