Month: March 2011

The Book of Centuries Revisited Part II by Laurie Bestvater

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It has been several months since I first wrote about my experiment with Mrs. Bernau’s Book of Centuries. ( https://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/the-book-of-centuries-revisited-by-laurie-bestvater/)  Since then I have made a template and printed several versions with slight adjustments ending up with a three ring binder filled with 67lb cardstock punched pages.  This has given me and my son something to start with as we become familiar with this “new” model. Overall, we are very pleased with our books and are finding more and more occasions to use them. The one drawback still is the weight and awkwardness of the book—in hindsight, cardstock was heavier than necessary and I have recently printed the template on good quality paper (“Resume paper” with 100% cotton content for longevity but other papers of the weight of sketch paper and suitable for double sided printing would do) and had it  hardbound to try and imitate the Book of Centuries s the P.N.E.U. ultimately sold. (Bernau, 1923) Also since that post, the Charlotte Mason Digital Collection housed at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario has …

Rethinking the Culture of Therapy by Tammy Glaser

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Parents and teachers of special needs children try to catch them up to standards hard to reach for typical children. Every Wednesday afternoon, I help students with homework. Second graders parse parts of speech. Third graders write rough drafts, edit, and revise stories. A bright third grader guesses at multiple-choice math questions. This child mispronounces radius, diameter, and circumference, has no clue of what they mean, and muddles through improper fractions when denominators and numerators are still riddles. My heart breaks to hear “I wish I could cheat” and “I’m so stupid.” Such unreasonable standards crush atypical learners and their teachers. A life of therapies burden busy schedules. Delayed children need Mason’s ideas about the preschool years even more than their peers. “A great deal has been said lately about the danger of overpressure, of requiring too much mental work from a child of tender years. The danger exists; but lies, not in giving the child too much, but in giving him the wrong thing to do, the sort of work for which the present …

True is True in All Times and Places by Laurie Bestvater

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In her recent essay “’Knowledge as the Necessary Food of the Mind:’ Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy of Education’ found in Women, Education, and Agency edited by Spence, Aiston and Meikle, NY:Routledge, 2010. Stephanie Spencer footnotes that “In 1936 a ‘gathering’ of 400 teachers, pupils, and parents was held at Ambleside.  The event was widely reported and it was noted that 40,000 children were studying with Mason’s methods.  The Schoolmistress 29 April 1936 reported that it (sic) was “surely the biggest school in the world,” and it literally does cover the whole world, House of Education students may be found today in Africa (south, east, west, and Uganda), Australia, Canada, India and Ceylon, New Zealand, USA, and South America, China, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Egypt, Japan, Newfoundland, Sumatra, Madagascar, Malacca, Switzerland, Italy Holland, Germany, France, Portugal, and Rumania” (sic).  AMA CM23 That was 1936,  nine years before the death of Hitler and the end of WWII.  Wonder with me just when Mason’s ideas may have first drifted onto the continent.  I will leave the actual dates and facts to …