The ABC's of a Charlotte Mason Education

S is for Science

Feb 26, 2025

white microscope on top of black table — Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash

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Is a study of science based on living books relevant in a STEM world?

The arena of science education seems to be dominated by a continual push and shove to “beat” others (students, companies, countries) for dominance. Test scores, breakthroughs, and an eagerness to be on the cutting edge of medical, technological, and engineering feats have created a distorting din that clutters goals and approaches for K-12 education. Since Charlotte Mason’s time places and prizes have reached a fever pitch and it is tempting to rush our kids towards utility’s top rewards. In this cacophony Ms. Mason’s human approach to teaching science can feel quaint and perhaps even outdated, but in reality, it is her approach that is in harmony with the ages and was the haven of the greatest minds and the great advancements.

It cannot be denied that we live in a different time and at a different pace than the greats who came before us, or that great may look differently in the future than it did in times past, but the common denominator for all times is our humanity. We may now be able to create machines and artificial intelligence - but let us not forget that it is we who are called to appropriate them and not they us. We may engineer cogs and gears and bit and bytes – but we are above those things and our needs and abilities surpass what they attempt to define.

There most certainly will be a time in life for drill and rote, and late nights, cram, struggle, and tears of exhaustion – but I would argue that that place is not K-12 education. That level of sacrificial love requires a foundation of awe and wonder and care, and that foundation in turn requires space, the kind of space that adult life will not afford. Ms. Mason encourages mothers to carve out a quiet growing time for their children and in no place is this more necessary today than in the fields of math and science.

What modern approaches push kids into is often not a sacrificial love of a study but a sacrificial service which has a very different connotation. The first carries with it the idea of maturity and volition based on care – the second force. Is it too extreme to suggest that the pressure we create around STEM subjects forms a fetter rather than an avenue? A quick glance at the depression and suicide rate at engineering schools or a candid conversation with a medical student in residency may shed light.

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If Ms. Mason were alive today, I believe she would encourage us to re-adjust our expectations and goals for the study of science in K-12 and get off the STEM merry-go-round that holds the “doing” of science as some magic bullet for the ills of education and dig deep into how real scientists make their advancements, communicate with each other, and prove their ideas.

They attend to various phenomena and patterns and ponder. They read the scientific papers and ideas of contemporaries and those who have gone before. They observe and record their observations. They put into tangible application the thing they have thought about and then carefully articulate their observations and make assumptions and predictions. These are the building blocks to train our children in if we would have them succeed in these fields as well as in life. These are the building blocks a Charlotte Mason approach to science lays in place, diligently, row by row.

This is an inward out cycle. Since creation, the phenomenon and patterns have been present and even physically interacted with to satisfy the various needs of various civilizations, but it wasn’t until people began to ponder, and question, and record, and pass down their thoughts that science began to make advances. Outward experiences and manipulations do not automatically equate understanding or meaningful outward gain.

It is not that the hands-on element of science is bad; there is a well-defined space for it to exist. However, as Ms. Mason says, we don’t learn from the outside in, but from the inside out. It is as true today as in the early days of discovery - the essence of science is still a continual asking of why. To ask why is to engage with ideas, to engage in thought. Living books are collecting places for living thought. (Textbooks are collecting places for abbreviated, unclothed facts.) The powerful thing about thought is that it begets thought. Thought begets action.

There is a place for “doing” science, but it is several rows back from space to read living ideas and ponder possibilities and would ideally be self-motivated.

Charlotte Mason recommended that the education we offer students be based on books and things, ideas and habits. There is a tangible outworking – but it is an outworking. The modern push for STEM feels similar to some of the ideas Ms. Mason directly responded to in some of Maria Montessori’s outward-in approaches.

Books and things, ideas and habits. If we can provide these things in the proper order and balanced measure, the science education we facilitate will be life for the students and the fields we love so much.

Sara Timothy 2025

Author’s Note:

Another conversation revolving around Charlotte Mason’s approach to science is the broadness and scope she emphasizes. Studying not just what you are interested in or gifted at or can make money with – but gaining a conversant knowledge of and with all aspects of the creation. Again – there may be a time for specialization, but it is not in the years of K through 12. These years are sacred and should be protected from the tether of narrowness. Giftedness and love of a subject should not be exploited.