Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

I so appreciate Karen Glass and the way she brings the hay down from the loft. I do intend to read Charlotte's original volumes, but I started with Karen's books (after For the Children's Sake!) and they have really helped me begin to grasp the philosophy. Consider This has been especially important to me coming out of Classical Conversations which I thought was classical but I've learned is actually neo-classical. To be honest, being "classical" has never drawn me to anything. I just want to be sure I am homeschooling my children in the best way I can to help them grow in character and knowledge of God and because I am always very prayerful about this I know the Lord led me to CM. My ultimate goal in homeschooling my kids is that they have a relationship with the Lord and that they care.

If you want to know what the REAL purpose of Classical Education is, read this. Hint, it’s not the trivium.Karen Glass writes in that pleasant to read, unpretentious way that is rare in scholarly books. It was a really satisfying read because I actually walked away with a better understanding of the interpretations of classical education in ancient, antique and modern forms. Of course as the title suggests, this book helps to show how Charlotte Mason’s ideas fit within the classical tradition.

It’s amazing how my perceptive on this book changed so much. I purchased the audiobook a year or so ago, listened to it half heartedly while going to sleep, and passed the book off as boring.More recently I started reading Charlotte Mason’s volume 1 and joined a discussion group for her ideas. Now I’m listening to this book with fresh ears and I can’t believe how much information the author has to share and how pertinent it is to my everyday homeschool. Really amazing. I’m on chapter 10 and I expect to revisit this book many, many times in the coming years. I’ve also ordered the authors other book on narration.Really appreciative of mother’s like Karen Glass who approach their homeschool with such devotion and deep thinking and then go on to share their wisdom with the world.

What a joy to read! Compelling from the start, if you wrestle with classical vs. Charlotte Mason methodologies, do so no more. I absolutely loved this book. We have homeschooled from the start in “both styles” and I’ve long contemplated how CM is different from classical based on modern definitions. Well, that appears to be my problem. This book will challenge you to ponder what you think you know about classical education and those that have come before us. If you’re caught up in the modern neoclassical movement and find it lacking in your homeschool, I enthusiastically encourage you to “consider this” book! Karen Glass has defined for me what I knew in my heart but could not articulate for lack of knowledge. I will definitely continue this journey to discover more about CM and classical education and strive for virtue, humility and synthetic thinking!

This book is excellent. It might be a little confusing for a person who has no familiarity with Charlotte Mason, but Karen does a great job at filling in those blanks that might otherwise be missed if someone who is unfamiliar with Miss Mason reads the book. My copy is written all over and highlighted. I pretty much wanted to add almost the whole book to my common place book of quotes. I will be reading it again this month. I loved it so very much. I really appreciated the quotes from many of the original Classical founding fathers to help support the assertion that the Charlotte Mason method truly is a classical philosophy. I believe Miss Mason made the Classical model more attainable for the current culture and also put a greater emphasis on stepping back to allow The Holy Spirit to lead the student as that student is learning. I appreciated learning about how the term "Science of Relations", as Miss Mason says it, is really the Classical Educational philosophy of "unity of knowledge". It really brought the whole philosophy into perspective for me.

Consider This is probably the best book on education I’ve read. It explains Charlotte Mason and classical education in a way that is understandable and compelling. I found the discussion on analytical and synthetic teaching the most fascinating.

This was a great read. I've been working my way through Charlotte Mason's original works. I started out "pure" classical - well, what I thought was classical at the time from reading The Well Trained Mind. But, as I was exposed to more and more Charlotte Mason ideas and principles, I found myself combining the ideas from classical ideologies and CM. I've always felt that the two seemed like they should mesh well, but I never really felt like I had a handle on exactly why until reading this book. I'm so glad Karen Glass chose to write this book and share her understanding of how these two methods aren't really exclusive at all. I highly recommend for any homeschooling family. (Note: I'm a homeschooling parent of 3.)

I wish I had read this book in college. It summarized the classical ideal that knowledge can only be attained with a spirit of humility, and that knowledge is meant to educate for character. Knowledge of truth, beauty and goodness should lead to right action. The author shows what the classical fathers believed, and how Charlotte Mason understood and adapted it to her time. Interestingly, her time is not unlike our own, and so this book lays a foundation for anyone serious about education. I Highly recommend this book

This product has been a great encouragement for my wife and I as we consider the different homeschooling approaches and how to find the best approach for our household. Glass gives a helpful and informed perspective on the combination of the Charlotte Mason and classical theory. An essential for any homeschoolers library

This book by Karen Glass is the only one on Charlotte Mason I've seen which offers a really systematic look at her principles and how they fit together to form a coherent picture of what it means to be educated. For this alone I think the book is to be recommended to anyone with an interest in Charlotte Mason. I think this is probably the strongest aspect of the book.I also very much appreciated her chapter, directed to the classical education movement, on the meaning and purpose of "grammar" in terms of the trivium. Placing it in its context as literature is useful and important.There are a number of flaws however that prevent me from giving more flaws, and I think this are around the attempt to deal with Masons ideas as a type of classical education. Glass recognizes that the modern classical education movement is a modern interpretation with its own goals, and attempts to define classical education and ideals historically by identifying it with a set of values common throughout - she refers to this at times as the "classical ideal." Glass particularly associates the "classical ideal" with two characteristics - seeing virtue and right action as the end of education is the first, and having what she calls a synthetic worldview that sees all knowledge as a unity.This I think is where she goes astray. I agree that Charlotte Mason believed in both of these things, and modern classical educators are often dedicated to those ideals in education. I am however, similarly to the review from Dr Thorley, of the opinion that to identify these with some sort of classical ideal is to do some violence to history. Glass herself says that in Mason's own day, the classical ideal had become degraded and lost sight of some of these principles. She also quotes Augustine in setting up her sense of the classical ideal, and yet his comments on his own education, which was undoubtedly classical seems to have been a very common approach in his day, make it clear that it was almost entirely worldly and utilitarian in character. And on the other hand, many civilizations that fall outside of the classical western tradition believed in both of the ideals she identifies. (Indeed, I think it is a great strength of Mason's approach that it is not in any way restricted to one cultural background.)Some of these problems might have been avoided I think if the emphasis had been placed on placing Mason in the context of the classical tradition, rather than trying to present her as a classical educator, which seems to me to be a kind of made up designation. It seems to me though the underlying problem is that the book is trying to make Mason's ideas acceptable and understandable to modern classical educators, who have often seriously misunderstood them. I agree that it makes sense to do this in part by showing how their goals in being "classical" align with her principles. However, I think modern classical education often has little idea what it really means when it uses the word classical, and is itself looking for something simple which does not exist.One source of Mason's principles - one that she mentions explicitly on many occasions - which was little discussed in the "Consider This" is her religious tradition. There is a chapter which is devoted to showing how Mason's supposed classical principles are "Biblical." It does not do this by showing that Mason's worldview is profoundly Christian, but by giving Biblical quotations that seems to support her ideas. I suppose this is fine as far as it goes, but it does little to really elucidate the Christian basis of her thinking, and I think it even tends to be at odds with the more holistic religious tradition Mason belonged to - interestingly one that understands tradition in a way that might throw considerable light on her relationship to the classical tradition.Ultimately, I felt this book was too much concerned with appealing to the American classical education movement to get to a real understanding of Charlotte Mason's educational approach.