Author Archives: Admin

Episode 41: Interview with John Muir Laws

This Charlotte Mason podcast episode is an interview with John Muir Laws (Jack), inspiring naturalist and scientist. Join Nicole to hear how expertise and aptitude are not key to making strides in discovering the world of nature and science, but that, as Mason asserts, curiosity and willingness to explore are. If you as mother and teacher, or your child as student, are intimidated by the field of science, this interview will set you free to thoroughly partake of this part of the educational feast, and if you are intrigued with the field of science, make you aware of how much more you can enjoy it.

Listen Now:

“Marks, prizes, places, rewards, punishments, praise, blame, or other inducements are not necessary to secure attention, which is voluntary, immediate and surprisingly perfect.” (Vol. 6, p. 7)

“Let them get at the books themselves, and do not let them be flooded with a warm diluent at the lips of their teacher. The teacher’s business is to indicate, stimulate, direct and constrain to the acquirement of knowledge, but by no means to be the fountain-head and source of all knowledge in his or her own person. The less parents and teachers talk-in and expound their rations of knowledge and thought to the children they are educating, the better for the children.” (Vol. 3, p. 162)

John Muir Laws’ Website

A Curiosity Framework

Episode 40: Listener Q & A #6

This week’s Charlotte Mason podcast addresses listener questions. Nicole, Emily, and Liz combine their wisdom and experience to address some very frequently asked concerns.

Listen Now:

Rascal, Sterling North

Owls in the Family, Farley Mowat

My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

(Contains affiliate links)

Charlotte Mason and Classical Education

More on Charlotte Mason and Classical Education

Episode 39: Interview with Jeannette Tulis

The Charlotte Mason method applies to many teaching situations beyond traditional classrooms and the homeschool. This week’s podcast is an interview recorded at the CMI national conference with Jeannette Tulis of Chattanooga, TN, who has been offered a unique opportunity to open the world of one family’s children using the Mason model of education.

Listen Now:

The Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv

(Contains affiliate links)

Grace to Build Retreat

Episode 38: Shakespeare

In this week’s podcast, we discuss why Shakespeare was always included in Charlotte Mason’s curriculum. What is the value of Shakespeare as part of the study of literature, and how can we who have little experience with his works enter in and enjoy his feast?

Listen Now:

“Just as we partake of that banquet which is ‘Shakespeare’ according to our own needs and desires, so do the children behave at the ample board set before them; there is enough to satisfy the keenest intelligence while the dullest child is sustained through his own willing effort.” (Vol. 6, p. 245)

“We probably read Shakespeare in the first place for his stories, afterwards for his characters, the multitude of delightful persons with whom he makes us so intimate that afterwards, in fiction or in fact, we say, ‘She is another Jessica,’ and ‘That dear girl is a Miranda’; ‘She is a Cordelia to her father,’ and, such a figure in history, ‘a base lago.’ To become intimate with Shakespeare in this way is a great enrichment of mind and instruction of conscience. Then, by degrees, as we go on reading this world-teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us, and unconsciously mould our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life.” (Vol. 4, p. 72)

“This is what Shakespeare, as great a philosopher as a poet, set himself to teach us, line upon line, precept upon precept. His ‘Leontes,’ ‘Othello,’ ‘Lear,’ ‘Prospero,’ ‘Brutus,’ preach on the one text––that a man’s reason brings certain infallible proofs of any notions he has wilfully chosen to take up. There is no escape for us, no short cut; art is long, especially the art of living.” (Vol. 6, pp. 314-15)

“And Shakespeare? He, indeed, is not to be classed, and timed, and treated as one amongst others,––he, who might well be the daily bread of the intellectual life; Shakespeare is not to be studied in a year; he is to be read continuously throughout life, from ten years old and onwards. But a child of ten cannot understand Shakespeare. No; but can a man of fifty? Is not our great poet rather an ample feast of which every one takes according to his needs, and leaves what he has no stomach for?” (Vol. 5, p. 224)

Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer

The Wonderful Winter, Marchette Chute

Tales from Shakespeare, Charles and Mary Lamb

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, E. Nesbit

(Contains affiliate links)

Interview with Nancy Kelly

Chronological List of Shakespeare’s Plays

American Shakespeare Center

Episode 37: Poetry, An Interview with Bonnie Buckingham

Poetry was a deep love of Charlotte Mason’s, and this week’s podcast explores that wonder and delight as it can unfold in your school day and life. Are you nervous, intimidated, worried, or resistant to teaching poetry? Listen to this laid back interview between Liz and our good friend, Bonnie Buckingham, veteran homeschool mom who learned to love poetry by teaching it.

Listen Now:

“Poetry is, perhaps, the most searching and intimate of our teachers…Poetry supplies us with tools for the modeling of our lives, and the use of these we must get at ourselves.” (Vol. 4, p. 71)

“Heroic Poetry Inspires to Noble Living––”To set forth, as only art can, the beauty and the joy of living, the beauty and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion––to a cause, an ideal, a passion even––the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, that is my ambition here,” says the editor of Lyra Heroica in his preface.” (Vol. 2, p. 141)

If you would like to study along with us, here are some passages from The Home Education Series and other Parent’s Review articles that would be helpful for this episode’s topic. You may also read the series online here, or get the free Kindle version from Fisher Academy.

Parents and Children (Volume 2), Chapter 14

Ourselves (Volume 4), Book II, Section II, Chapter 12

Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Section II (b)

For the Children’s Sake