All posts by Karen Glass

Listen to Consider This as an audiobook!

I have a couple of fun things that have been percolating on the back burner, waiting for prime time, but this is probably the most exciting one. Did you know that Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition was published in October of 2014? What that means is that as of October 2019, Consider This is five years old. This book is a little bit like a first-born child—one that I carried for some fifteen years before bringing it into the world, because unlike babies, books have to walk on their own two feet from day one. Your first baby makes you a mother (or father!), and your first book makes you an author. I’ve been nothing but grateful for the overwhelmingly positive response I’ve received from the book, the most gratifying of which has been, “Your book helped me so much.” That is why I wrote it.

And that is why my friend and colleague Donna-Jean A. Breckenridge has narrated it. She and her Technical Producer (aka, her husband Bill) have invested many hours in bringing the audio edition of Consider This to fruition. This is what she  wanted to share with you:

“Ever since reading Karen’s book Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition five years ago, I’ve thought about sharing it with others.  So when my two married daughters read the book recently, I got to discuss with them the timeless principles of education it contains. It was a thrill to be able to talk with them about Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, and to see how they can implement it in their homeschool and their teaching career. 
I’ve read aloud to my four children—and now my three grandchildren—for all their lives. In my work in church ministry, I’ve done public speaking and dramatic portrayals. And all along, I’ve studied Charlotte Mason’s works, first as an interested homeschool mom, then as an AmblesideOnline Advisory member, helping put together a curriculum. And now I’ve found a way to put those interests together. 
 
It’s been one of the joys of my life to work with Karen and our beloved AmblesideOnline Advisory members. Getting to create the audiobook for Karen’s Consider This has been an adventure! It’s my first foray into audiobooks, my husband Bill has done the editing magic, and now I’m excited to be able to bring Karen’s work into a new format.”

 

There have been quite a few bumps along the way, but they have brought us to this moment when we can finally say, “Look at this!”

That’s an audio book! It’s immediately available from Amazon and  iTunes. You can click on cover to view the book on Amazon, where a sample of the audio is available to hear. Can you tell I’m excited? I’ve been asked over and over again if this was available as an audio book, and now I’ll be able to answer yes! If you’re wondering about my other titles, Donna-Jean has plans for those, too.

I’ve got promo codes (free audiobooks!) to give away this week on Facebook and Instagram (@karenglassreads). I’ll also give away two codes from the blog here. Leave a comment through midnight Friday telling me why you’d want to listen to the audio version of this book (just to hear Donna-Jean read is a legitimate reason) and I’ll announce the winners on Saturday.

 

Books and Reading 2019

I like reading other people’s “year in review” and reading lists about this time each year, so I usually post one, too. I was looking over my post from last year, where I commented that I certainly don’t post these things to make myself look good. That’s for sure! My happy news is that I read more books than last year, when I read more books than the year before. My grand total is 51 full books, although I read some other things (a Shakespeare play, portions of many books that were not read in full) that I’m not listing.

Once again, my first category is Elizabeth George, who gets a whole category to herself just because I’m in the process of rereading her books. There wasn’t a new one this year—I have hopes for 2020! (Word of advice: read them in order. The first one is A Great Deliverance. )

Elizabeth George

In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
Traitor to Memory
A Place of Hiding
I, Richard
With No One as Witness
Careless in Red
Believing the Lie

Classic and Literary Fiction

Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Come Rain or Come Shine, by Jan Karon
The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham
Cousin Phyllis by Elizabeth Gaskell (audio)
Coromandel Sea Change by Rumer Godden
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (reread)
To Be Where You Are by Jan Karon
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
Esther Waters by George Moore
Persuasion by Jane Austen (reread)
News from Thrush Green by Miss Read (reread)
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (reread)
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery (reread)
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (reread)

I averaged more than one of these per month, so I’m pretty happy about that. On the other hand, about a third of them were rereads. I don’t think I mind—rereading is a good thing. Of the books that were new to me on this list, I think The Razor’s Edge was probably my favorite. I’ve wanted to read it for so long! But Jan Karon is up there pretty high, too. Having finished all the Mitford books at long last (I dawdled over the last few, knowing they were coming to an end), I decided to go back to the beginning and reread them all. Jan Karon will probably get her own category in 2020.

Elbow-chair Reading

(If you’re not sure what I mean by that, be sure to check out my reading post from last year.) There are a few here that perhaps should be on my literary fiction list, but I suppose that’s balanced by a few on that list that should perhaps be on this one. If I haven’t provided a link, it’s because I don’t think you should bother.

The Orphan Sisters by Shirley Dickson
The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters (reread)
The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer (reread)
A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarity
Finding Sage by Logan Judy
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Turbulent by T.L. Payne
An Unwilling Guest by Grace Livingston Hill
Aunt Crete’s Emancipation by Grace Livingston Hill (reread)
The Obsession of Victoria Gracen by Grace Livingston Hill
The Stand by Stephen King
The Reckoning by John Grisham (No link—I like Grisham, but this is his worst.)
The Scorch Trials by James Dasher
The Death Cure by James Dasher
The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer
Masquerade by Nancy Moser
Matilda by Roald Dahl (reread)
Cold Flat Junction by Martha Grimes
Stolen Son by Cole Baxter

Most of these would fall into the “guilty pleasure” category, and there is a fair representation of some themes and genres that appeal to me—playing with time, post-apocalyptic, mystery/detective fiction, and whatever category Grace Livingston Hill belongs in.

I probably read a little too much in this category in 2019, but I did a good bit of traveling which included some long plane and train rides, and that’s when I read most of these. Actually, I think all the Georgette Heyers and Grace Livingston Hill titles represent a few days when I was pretty sick. (These average out to nearly two per month, but that’s not how I actually read them.) Connie Willis is my hands-down favorite in this category, but I will also say unabashedly that The Stand was amazing. I don’t read a lot of Stephen King, but he is a good story-teller, and this was a good book. I would call it a post-apocalyptic struggle between good and evil.

Nonfiction

I read a lot of nonfiction this year, far more than this list suggests. However, only books that get finished make this list, and my stack of books-in-progress is something else altogether. If I keep working at it, my finished list for 2020 will probably look a lot more impressive.

A Thousand Miles to Freedom by Eunsun Kim
How to be Unlucky by Josh Gibbs
Spilled Milk by K.L. Randis
A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz
An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
Educated by Tara Weston
Maybe You Will Survive by Aaron Goldfarb
Home Education by Charlotte Mason (reread, but you knew that)

My favorites were definitely A Jane Austen Education and Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism which I read along with others for the podcast group The Literary Life.  And Charlotte Mason. I’m not sure it’s obvious from this list, but if my nonfiction books aren’t about books and education, they are probably memoirs.

This represents, as I said, 51 books which is almost one book per week. I don’t honestly aspire to more, because if I did read more, they would just be fluff. However, perhaps you will grant me an indulgence because there is actually one more book that I read in full this year, and I read it more than once. I’m talking about In Vital Harmony: Charlotte Mason and the Natural Laws of Education. If we can agree that I can count this as a “book I read in 2019,” then I’ll have a nice, tidy 52.

Well, that’s settled then. Thanks. I wish you a happy year of reading in 2020! I have no plans, other than to read whatever I feel like reading on any given day, and that’s usually enough to cover a good bit of ground during the year.

 

 

 

 

(Links are affiliate links, unless I messed that up. You’ll pay nothing extra if you use them, but I will get a small premium which I will apply to the purchase of still more books.)

 

In Vital Harmony now available!

I really am in awe of the privileges we enjoy thanks to technology. I wrote a book. I sent a digital copy to my editor, and she edited it and sent it back. No paper changed hands. I refined the text and my talented, tech-savvy husband did the very professional layout on the computer. Generous margins, a clean and accurate table of contents, and straight text edges do not happen by accident. But still, no paper was consumed in this process. I clicked a virtual “publish” button yesterday, and after waiting a whole twenty-four hours, everything is set up to go. You can go order a copy of this book and Amazon will have a paperback copy at your door within a few days, or a digital Kindle version on your device within minutes. I am in indie author, meaning I self-publish my books, and I am proud of it. I think it goes hand in hand with being a homeschooler. We believe that we can do things, and we go ahead and do them. Sometimes, technology helps.

So, I’m releasing In Vital Harmony (also the Kindle version) into the world to find its own way.  I hope it will contribute to your understanding, not just of Charlotte Mason but of education—what its purpose is and how it operates. I really hope reading this book will ground you in the principles of education in such a way that you go forward with more confidence than before. You know how to manage fire, you know how to live with the law of gravity, and you can be sure that you are teaching well when a few simple principles govern what you do.

Would you be so kind as to consider leaving a review for me at Amazon after you’ve read the book? It’s helpful for future readers to see what others have gotten out of a book, and Amazon is kinder to books that have been reviewed by real readers.

Most of all, I hope In Vital Harmony will be a blessing and encouragement. If it is, I would love to hear from you. Nothing encourages me more than to hear that one of my books made a difference, even a small one. Thank you for being with me on this journey.

 

 

 

(Links are affiliate links–thanks!)

In Vital Harmony for all

As I was writing In Vital Harmony, I had  younger moms in mind—mothers still early in their homeschooling journeys, still thinking about how they want to teach and trying to find time to learn for themselves while caring for young children. Who else has to address phonics, fractions, and potty-training on the same day, while also doing laundry and providing meals? I wanted to write In Vital Harmony  for you, to give you a one-stop overview of the important principles that will lighten your load as a teacher and ease the burden of decision-making when you are confronted with a bewildering array of educational options.

At the same time, I wondered if there would be anything here for the Charlotte Mason veteran—someone who has already read her books and immersed themselves in her methods for a long time? As I said earlier, I’ve never been interested in just rehashing and translating Charlotte Mason. This book also goes a step or two beyond—my deliberate attempt to articulate her message for our time and our culture. While Charlotte Mason has always been my educational mentor, I have not focused as much on her as a person as I have on her life’s passion. Education was her topic of interest, and so I made education my topic of interest as well—the principles or laws that govern it, and how those could best be adhered to. This book began because of some questions I asked myself, and it grew as I found the answers to those questions.

My fundamental question was: Since all knowledge is connected, how are these twenty principles related to each other? And another aspect of that was: Can I represent the relationships in a graphic form?

I reread the series, looking for the answers, and they were there. I found the relationships, but representing them in a graphic form turned out to be … challenging. I hope readers of In Vital Harmony will appreciate the simplicity of the final design, which bears no resemblance at all to my initial chaotic attempts.

I asked a few knowledgeable friends to beta-read the book, and I’m pleased to say that one of them, Cindy Rollins—popular podcaster and author of Mere Motherhood—has written a foreword. I’ll save that for readers of the book, but I want to share the thoughts of another friend who has been using Charlotte Mason’s methods for over ten years:

I was recently asked, as a “veteran” CM user, to give my impression of Karen Glass’s new book, In Vital Harmony. The main question was whether veterans would find it boring. That is, would it elicit the response, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all this before—many, many, times!”? As it turns out for me, absolutely not! Now, perhaps it is because I can’t get enough of Charlotte Mason philosophy, but as I read Karen’s book, delightful feelings of clarity and confirmation and conviction followed me all the way through.

Even veterans who know that their knowledge needs to be constantly renewed and refreshed do not wish to get bogged down in a heavy tome, and Karen Glass has provided for them, as well as new CMers, a resource that is both wonderfully light and rich. (Kay Pelham, experienced Charlotte Mason homeschooler and music teacher)

I really appreciated hearing that! So, as it turns out, In Vital Harmony isn’t just a book for those getting started with Charlotte Mason—it’s for everyone. No matter how well you already know her philosophy, you’re probably going to find some new insight in this intensive dive into her principles. Another CM veteran told me:

In short, you asked if I think this book has appeal and something to offer to both newbies and veterans, and my answer is a resounding YES. Hard to hit this nail on the head, but you have done so. (Dawn Duran, Charlotte Mason homeschooler, organizer of several CM conferences and co-ops, and author of Swedish Drill Revisited)

One thing I’m really excited about is the infographic of the twenty principles. I drew a few dozen versions, all of them clunky and ugly beyond belief (it might be amusing to share them sometime but I’m probably too vain–they’re pretty bad). It was a process, though, that helped me to refine my understanding and to show the relationships between the principles. It’s been the work of over a year to develop the graphic with the indispensable assistance of a real graphic designer (who also happens to be a Charlotte-Mason educated person raised in my own home), and the final version is clean and clear and tucked into the final chapter of In Vital Harmony on one single page. It looks so simple, but it represents some of the hardest thinking I’ve ever done, and I hope it will make Charlotte Mason’s twenty principles feel cohesive and harmonious for many, many future educators.

That’s all I’ve got by way of introduction. I hope this series has whetted your appetite for what I hope will be a very helpful book. The next time I post here—it won’t be long—it will be to tell you that In Vital Harmony: Charlotte Mason and the Natural Laws of Education, with a foreword by Cindy Rollins!—is ready for purchase.


If you haven’t yet signed up for the newsletter I’ll be launching in 2020, I hope you will. I’ve got some exciting projects underway and this will be the best and earliest way to hear about them. I’ve also prepared a free printable for you–a two-sided bookmark with an abbreviated version of the 20 principles that will be very useful as you read In Vital Harmony or the CM Series itself. (Please click “email” to give me permission to send you the newsletter, in compliance with GDPR.)

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Practices are linked to Principles

Just a note–I’m going to let the sale of Principles at the Helm run through the end of the week, so there’s still time to grab it at 50% off if you want to.


In the first post in this series, I mentioned that all educational practices are based on educational philosophies. This is always true, but it is pointedly true in Charlotte Mason’s case, because she was trying on purpose “to sketch out roughly a method of education” which rested “upon a basis of natural law.”

What that means is that the specific practices of a Charlotte Mason education—narration, the use of living books, nature study, her approach to art and music, and much more—are firmly grounded in the principles. In Vital Harmony is divided into two parts—the first part of the book covers the natural laws of education that Charlotte Mason included in her principles, and the second part of the book is devoted to the methods and practices.

However, this isn’t a “how to” book. I have not merely described Charlotte Mason’s approach to every area of the curriculum, because you can find that elsewhere. Maybe you’ve been using the methods already for a while, and could explain them yourself just as well as I could. I’m not really interested in writing books that simply rehash what Charlotte Mason already said.

Instead, as I’ve discussed the methods and practices and areas of study, I’ve taken care to focus on the way that the practices are grounded in the principles. Why narration? Why chronological history? Why nature study? I think if we connect the practices to the principles, we’ll find them more easy and intuitive to implement. Charlotte Mason said:

Every subject has its living way, with what Coleridge calls “its guiding idea” at the head, and it is only as we discover this living way in each case that a subject of instruction makes for the education of a child. (Parents and Children, p. 279)

In the practical part of In Vital Harmony, I’ve called attention to some of the “guiding ideas” that should govern our studies of math and history and science and more. When you know why you’re including these things in the curriculum, you’ll find the answers to your questions about what to do are resolved as easily as deciding where to build a fire in your house or yard. It’s not really that hard when you understand the principles well, and it’s as easy and natural as Charlotte Mason promised it would be.


I’ve got a free gift for you!

Beginning in 2020, I’m launching a newsletter (to be sent out as frequently as I manage to create each one) which I hope will be an encouragement to you as you continue to learn and study the natural laws and principles of education, particularly as Charlotte Mason explained them to us. If you plan to read In Vital Harmony, you might find it convenient to have a list of the principles on hand for reference, as I refer to them by their designated numbers throughout the book. (Children are born persons is the first principles. Education is the science of relations is the twelfth principle.)

I’ve created a printable, two-sided bookmark with all twenty principles in abbreviated form for quick reference, and that’s my free gift to you for signing up for the newsletter. I think the newsletter will be a real encouragement to you as you learn and grow as a mother and teacher, so the bookmark is just a nice bonus.

To comply with GDPR requirements please just click “email,” which will give me permission to send you the newsletter. I don’t plan to mail anything to your home or target you for advertising. But I do hope you’ll subscribe to receive exclusive articles, news about what I’m reading and studying, and updates about new projects. I’ve got some interesting things in the works. (You’ll receive an email asking you to confirm that you want to subscribe—be sure to check your spam folder and add the newsletter to your address book.)

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Vitalizing Principles and a special offer

I’ve been talking about natural laws, and now it’s time to talk about the natural laws that govern education. There is another word we use to describe these natural laws, and that word is principle. Charlotte Mason used the words together to underscore the fact that they are essentially the same thing:

We labour under the mistake of supposing that there is no natural law or inherent principle according to which a child’s course of studies should be regulated. (Philosophy of Education, p. 156)

And there you have it. The simple statement that education—a child’s course of studies—should be regulated by natural law, which might also be called an “inherent principle” of the universe. Charlotte Mason listed twenty principles for us, but they do not carry equal weight. In The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley, Miss Mason raised the question:

What if those two or three vitalizing educational principles could be brought before parents?

Why, if there are only two or three vitalizing (life-giving) educational principles, did she give us twenty? The fact is, there really are two vital principles, and all the rest of the twenty can be understood as adjuncts or aspects of those two. I’m going to tell you what they are—it’s not a secret—but I don’t have room here to make a complete case for this, nor to explain how the rest of the principles operate in harmony with those two to form a unity of thought and purpose that underpins all of Charlotte Mason’s methods. That’s what In Vital Harmony is all about.

So, here are the two—Children are born persons and Education is the science of relations. (I discussed the idea of a principle and these two vital principles in the seminar Principles at the Helm.) If you are acquainted with Charlotte Mason, you may not be able to rattle off all twenty of the principles, but I am willing to guess that you have heard of these two principles.

I found it interesting that in the 1960s, long after Charlotte Mason’s death, the PNEU claimed exactly these two principles as the ones that guided all their work:

The educational principles of Charlotte Mason which guide us in our work are: the value and importance of a child as a person, and the fact that ‘education is the science of relations.’ ( https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR74p213WorkinPUS.shtml )

Understanding how the rest of the principles support these two will make them stronger and clearer in your mind. You’ll be able to use these principles to support your educational endeavors in the same way you know how to use fire to grill steaks or heat your home. They are easy and natural, and the better you understand these principles in all their aspects, the easier it will be to spot them when they show up in other guises, being discussed in other terms. Perhaps even the ponderous academic ones.

I recorded the Principles at the Helm seminar last year because I knew In Vital Harmony wouldn’t be ready until now, and I wanted to share these ideas a bit sooner. If you want a sneak peak at part of what’s in the book, the seminar will be on sale for the next three days at the best price ever—50% off. Use the code LAUNCHDISCOUNT or just click on the title.

Heating up with principles

I mentioned last time that our fire-managing practices are guided by principles that we understand. Because fire burns, it has to be contained by something nonflammable. You can toss paper and scraps of wood on your fire safely, but not aerosol cans (they’ll explode) or plastic (it produces toxic fumes). Because fire burns, you won’t try to build a fire with wet wood and you won’t build a fire at all in a hot, dry climate currently experiencing drought.

Who made up all the rules about fire management? No one did, really. The guidelines grew out of the principles that we have learned about fire. That stuff is dangerous. But also useful. These universal principles about managing fire are based on “natural law.” The natural law is the simple fact that “fire burns” and the guidelines for good, safe practices are based on understanding how that principle works and all that it means.

Perhaps you live within the boundaries of a city or town which forbids you to build a fire in your yard. That is not a natural law, but a man-made law. It’s still within the possibility of natural law to build a bonfire to burn your leaves or toast marshmallows. But even the man-made law is grounded in the knowledge of natural law—fire burns and spreads easily—and was created in the interest of safety.

If you break a man-made law about fire, the consequences will be man-made consequences. You’ll pay a fine, go to court, maybe even go to jail. If you break the natural laws of fire, you risk the natural consequences of breaking that law. Property may be destroyed. Someone may be hurt or killed. Because fire burns. We might occasionally escape the consequences of breaking a man-made law, but rarely do we escape the consequences of violating natural laws.

I shared all that to focus our attention on the way that natural laws operate in the world. We must remember that physical laws are not the only laws of the universe. There are also natural laws that govern human behavior and thinking. There are natural laws that operate in the realm of education, and it was Charlotte Mason’s stated purpose to build educational methods (like fire-safety practices) that were in perfect accordance with the natural laws she perceived. In the first chapter of her first volume, she wrote:

My endeavour in this and the following volumes of the series will be to sketch out roughly a method of education which, as resting upon a basis of natural law, may look, without presumption, to inherit the Divine blessing. (Home Education, p. 41, emphasis added)

I want to add a few words about that “Divine blessing.” Just as there are natural consequences of defying natural laws, there are natural blessings as well. If you shape your behavior correctly according to the natural law that fire burns, you can warm your house, cook your food, and dispose of your trash. This is a divine blessing because it comes from following natural law, which originates with the divine Lawgiver. If you shape your educational methods correctly according to the natural laws that govern education, you will be rewarded with the blessings of education and what it is meant to effect in the life of a person.

Now that we’ve established that, the next question is—of course—what are the laws that govern education? And I’ll talk about that a bit next time.

Get ready for In Vital Harmony—Coming very soon!

Educational philosophy. I know—those words don’t really inspire anyone. They sound heavy and ponderous. If someone is holding forth on the topic, we may believe that we are (probably) capable of understanding it all perfectly well, but even if we are not entirely perplexed, we expect to be rather bored. Not too many people get excited about educational philosophy.

But they should.

If you are involved with children, you are involved in some aspect of education. Whether you understand and acknowledge it or not, you are operating according to some philosophy of education. Even if you tend to operate according to a set of rules or guidelines, those rules or guidelines were created somewhere, by someone, on the basis of some philosophy. Do you know what it is? Are you sure you agree with it? It is true?

And does it matter at all? Perhaps educational philosophies are much like socks, and one is pretty much as good as another, so long as they keep your feet warm. Dull gray, bright patterns, and even mismatched socks get the job done, so maybe it’s just a matter of preference. That’s a comfortable way to think, but is it the right way? Are educational philosophies as interchangeable and relatively unimportant as socks?

I don’t think so. And if you’re here, reading this, I don’t think you think that, either. Educational philosophy matters, and it matters because it is the foundation we have for teaching the most precious things in our lives, the most valuable resource for the future—our children. Nobody wants to mess that up, and the truth is, if we think about it too much, we can find ourselves paralyzed by fear which manifests itself in many ways. Maybe you’ve done one these things, or know someone who has:

Have you spent hours researching curriculum, hoping to find that comprehensive, all-in-one program that will fill every gap? Have you jumped from one curriculum to another or from one educational method to another within the same school year? Have you listened to speaker after speaker, lecture after lecture, podcast after podcast, convinced each time that you’ve found the answer, only to find yourself in doubt when you hear the next? Are you afraid to skip a lesson, substitute a book, take a year and half to finish a book meant for one year? Do you find yourself asking other people what you should do for math, or Latin, or which foreign language you should study?

There is an antidote to this fear and uncertainty, and it is knowledge. Not knowledge about which curriculum is best or which foreign language you should study, but knowledge of that ponderous thing, educational philosophy. The good news is, it’s much, much simpler than it sounds. Charlotte Mason wrote:

The fact is, that a few broad essential principles cover the whole field, and these once fully laid hold of, it is as easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge of such facts as that fire burns and water flows. (Home Education, p. 10)

Educational philosophy doesn’t have to be ponderous and heavy. It should be “easy and natural.” And that’s what I’m hoping In Vital Harmony will make it—I want to take these ideas out of the rarified sphere of academic language so that we can discuss them as easily as we might discuss how to build or manage a fire. There are different ways to manage fire under different conditions, but there are some things we must never do and some things we must always do. You can wear any socks you want to, but you can’t put anything at all on a fire. There are principles to guide us. I’ll talk more about that over the next few weeks leading up to publication—before Thanksgiving!

Announcing a new book!

At the recent AmblesideOnline Camp Meeting 2019 (#AOCM2019), where I was privileged to speak to 400 women about Charlotte Mason’s principles, I shared this announcement, and now I want to share it with all of you.

After studying and thinking about  Charlotte Mason’s twenty principles very purposefully over the last several years, I realized that the two most vital principles are Children are born persons and Education is the science of relations. If you listened to the audio seminar, Principles at the Helm, you already heard a bit about that.

However, realizing which were the two primary principles made me want to understand how all the principles related to each other. They are not twenty individual things—they are part of the “science of relations” themselves. In Consider This, I devoted quite a bit of time to understanding synthetic, relational thinking, which helps us explore the ways in which “all things are bound to all other things.” Charlotte Mason understood the connected-ness of all things very well, and described her philosophy as “having a central idea, a body of thought with various members working in vital harmony.”

Therefore, I want to introduce my next book, In Vital Harmony: The Integrated Principles of Charlotte Mason:

You see, what I learned was that all the principles do have a relationship to each other—shaping themselves around the two primary principles—and understanding those relationships makes the whole philosophy cohesive and comprehensible. Charlotte Mason wanted her principles to be understandable and accessible to all parents, and so do I, which is why I’m going to share them in a way that relates them to our own time and culture. Charlotte Mason said:

That system which shall be of use to practical people in giving purpose, unity and continuity to education, must satisfy the following demands:—It must be adequate, covering the whole nature of man and his relations with all that is other than himself. It must be necessary, that is, no other equally adequate psychology should present itself; and it must touch at all points the living thought of the age. (emphasis added)

Notice how the “adequate” philosophy of education covers 1) the whole nature of man [children are born persons] and 2) his relations with all that is other than himself [education is the science of relations]. Those two principles are the keys to the rest! However,  the thought of our age is not what it was during Charlotte Mason’s lifetime. Principles don’t change, but sometimes the way we need to think and talk about them changes because the  ideas that drive our culture do shift.

Does that second principle about good and evil make you a little uneasy? Do you grasp how the authority and obedience principle which is “natural, necessary, and fundamental” gives purpose to education? Do you know how the Way of the Will and the Way of Reason relate to the two primary principles?

What if I could show you—graphically, all on one page—how everything fits together?  And did you know that Charlotte Mason essentially gave us her educational philosophy “in a nutshell”—just one sentence that covers the whole ground? It’s not unlike Jesus’ summarizing the law and the prophets as “love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself.” Yes, there are details, but that’s the essence. Charlotte Mason did the same thing for her entire educational philosophy.

In Vital Harmony will give you a strong, clear grasp of the philosophy of Charlotte Mason, but that is not all. If you read Know and Tell, did you find that the “why” behind the practice of narration made the details of “how” much more understandable? In Vital Harmony is also going to help you connect the philosophy to many of the practices that are part of a Charlotte Mason education. It’s an (easy-to-understand) philosophical book with a practical twist.

And the big question—when will it be available? I don’t have an exact date set, but I hope it will be ready before the end of 2019. In time for Christmas, maybe? Let’s hope so! I’ve been very excited as I’ve anticipated sharing the news about In Vital Harmony (and my cover!) with you, and I hope you’re looking forward to reading it.

Just for fun—which principle do you wish you understood a little better?

Introducing: Encore books!

This is a project I’ve had on the back burner for a while. I’ve come to realize that when it comes to blogging, I mostly enjoy doing a series to accompany a reading or studying project of my own, along with the occasional single post. When I’ve done series in the past, I’ve been encouraged to collect the posts into a digital book so they can be easily read together, but I never took the time to do that.

As the years go by, blog posts scroll down and go off the radar. If you’re a new reader or a mom who wasn’t thinking about a particular topic two years ago, and now you are, the very post you might like to read may be impossible to find. So, I finally took my friend’s advice and created the “Encore” series of digital books to make some of this content more accessible, and perhaps more convenient to read and refer to.

I’ve been working on the project for a while, and quietly published the first two a while ago, although a few enterprising readers have already found them and purchased them. (How did you do that?) I’ve been waiting to have three books ready together so that I could also offer a collection for those interested (it’s a good deal). I will be adding books to this collection, so if your favorite blog series isn’t available now, perhaps it will be in the future.

All the posts, which are free to read on the blog, will remain there. However, I’ve created a bit of bonus content which is exclusive to the Encore book, as a thank-you for those who make a purchase.

This is what I’ve got for you so far:

Book 1:

A close look at principles thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, which are the practical principles added to the philosophical ones, “for the use of teachers.” These are the practices Charlotte Mason found vital enough to include as principles.

Some Practices are Principles (Kindle Version)
Some Practices are Principles (e-pub version)

Book 2:

Charlotte Mason thought she had found the answer to Comenius’s quest for “a liberal education for all.” This is an eclectic collection of observations about the many similarities in their thoughts and approach to education, in spite of the fact that they lived over 200 years apart.

Charlotte Mason and Comenius (Kindle version)
Charlotte Mason and Comenius (e-pub version)

Book 3:

This was not a blog series, but includes a collection of posts that I’ve written to address various questions about the link between Charlotte Mason and classical education. It does not contain absolute answers, but provides material for your own thoughtful consideration. (Hint: If you want to see which posts are included, use the “Look Inside” feature of the Kindle version.)

Classical Considerations (Kindle version)
Classical Considerations (e-pub version)

If you like the idea of loading up your e-reader with several books at once, I’ve collected these first three together in one.

Collection of Encore Books 1-3 (Kindle version)
Collection of Encore Books 1-3 (e-pub version)

And there you go! Something new for anyone interested, and one project off of my plate for the moment. I’ll be giving away a handful of these Encore books on Facebook and Instagram–you get to choose the title you want. I’ll also be giving a few away here on the blog. Not long ago I added a “subscribe via email” button in the sidebar. If you’re subscribed, you’ll automatically be included in the drawing, and if you subscribe by Friday, March 15, you’ll be included, too.

I’m happy to hear your thoughts about this new project. Do you read digital books?