Charlotte Mason

Here's why Charlotte Mason is one of my favorite sources of education inspiration:

*Children do not need workbooks.
*Teachers shall teach less and scholars shall learn more.
*The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.
*The getting of knowledge and the getting of delight in knowledge are the ends of the child's education.
*Children's minds are not a receptacle to be filled and children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge.
*The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.
*The current textbooks of the schoolroom must be scrapped and replaced by living books, books into which the writer has put his heart and a highly trained mind.
*Do not crowd out free time or try to structure the play of children.
*Organized games are not play. Let the children use their imaginations.
*Children must stand or fall by their own efforts.
*It would be better for children to suffer the consequences of not doing their work now and then than to do it because they are so urged and prodded that they have no choice.
*Children should form their own opinions. We have no right to pass our own opinions on to our children. Teach living principles, not opinions.
*Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice. Children recognize it is as love because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart.
+Have confidence. Don't be anxious, domineering, interfering, or demanding. Have confidence in the children.
*Nagging doesn't work.
*Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.
*A child gains knowledge through his own digging out of facts and information clothed in literary language by the use of narration.
*Live by admiration, faith, and love versus artificial stimulants like prizes, competitions and grades.
*Keep lessons short.
*The afternoons are for leisure.
*Spend as much time as possible outside.
*All the great ideas that have moved the world are in books. Don't get between the book and the child. Don't water it down; let the child deal with the matter.
*You will see the unwisdom of choosing or rejecting this or that subject, as being more or less useful or necessary in view of a child's future. Of course it is only now and then that a notion catches the small child but when it does catch it works wonders and does more for his education than years of grind.