A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison
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Book Reviews of A Charlotte Mason Education
Book Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
Great book. Broke the Charlotte Mason approach down into well explained bite sized chunks. Loved it!Book Review: Good Starting Place
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a great starting place for those who want to home school but don't know where to start.Book Review: Good resource for those curious about the CM Method.
Summary: 4 Stars
This smallish book (under 100 pages) gives a good introduction to Charlotte Mason's methods and ideas. I think it gives just the right amount of information to enable the reader to decide if they would like to further pursue the ideas of this remarkable teacher and her methods. This is the first book I have read regarding Miss Mason, and I am definitely interested in finding out more. The author covers, albeit briefly, such topics as: Narration, Copywork, Nature Study, as well as the more "core" subjects of Handwriting, Spelling, Math, etc. She suggests some resources, includes a bibliography, and intersperses some personal thoughts and experiences as well.All in all, a good introduction to the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education.
Book Review: A Charlotte Mason Education
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a solid book for information on how the subjects can be taught. It is thorough on the subject of grammar, etc. She gives excellent ideas and presentations on why she does the subjects this way. It is a good book to have in your Charlotte Mason library.Book Review: Short summaries make for limited offerings
Summary: 3 Stars
This short book contains a brief overview of the Charlotte Mason method.
While useful if you for some reason want a quick idea about the method, reading Charlotte Mason's original works as well as Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's "For the Children's Sake" provide a much more complete look at Mason's educational philosophy and how to implement it.
One thing that unsettled me is that Catherine Levison recommended a book (the "American Boy's Handy Book") which she says she has "heard" is a good book but has never seen herself. I think when you write a book with educational suggestions, you should at least glance over the book you're recommending. She also discusses how she used to not allow Charles Dickens in her house at all because of his "ghost stories" (I presume this refers to "A Christmas Carol") but then found out later that she should have had her children read things like "Oliver Twist."
There are several references to and suggestions of ripping out pages of "objectionable" material from books, and many Christian references, which may be differently interpreted than how some Christians observe and behave. I mention this because not everyone shares her approach.
Also, the book is focussed almost exclusively on young children, and (except for a chart in the back of how older children spent their time in Charlotte Mason's day) really doesn't discuss much on high school education, just things like learning how to read and early literature exposure.
I was quite shocked when this book arrived to see how slim it is, and that it is mostly 1 or 2 page long summaries of various topics that Mason wrote about. Unless you are truly in need of a 1 page summary of Mason's approach to reading, math, and history, and the like, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book is much more useful and thought-provoking as a discussion on Mason's methods.