Education As Relationships

To Charlotte Mason, education was not a matter of preparing for and passing exams. Sadly, today, this is often all ‘education’ seems to be about. Thus teachers find themselves under a lot of pressure to fill the student’s minds with information and exam technique. Instead of exploring the depth and breadth of a subject, and following an interest to its conclusion, the emphasis has to be on the material that will be tested in the exam at the end of the grade.

But what is education? Charlotte Mason spoke of education being the science of relationships.

There was a desire to encourage a growing relationship between the child and his world; the child’s sense of wonder, and of curiosity about life were nurtured and stimulated. .

There was opportunity to introduce the child to different aspects of the world, because one did not know which affinities would develop and grow in the child.

Children were not blank slates or empty sacks, waiting to be filled. Rather, they were living organisms, able to take in and digest ideas, which are the natural food of the mind.

A Charlotte Mason education would be primarily made up of exposure to great and noble ideas – through books, through art, music and poetry, through immediate, hands-on contact with nature.

Foundational to all would be the knowledge of God, as found in the Bible.