Redeeming Childhood: How a Charlotte Mason Education Gives Back What Modern Schooling Has Taken

Written By Elise Poppe

My parents approached homeschooling with trepidation. I had been in a Montessori school that had continued to not meet their idea of what they wanted socially and academically for us. I came home and, though I had developed a love of learning in some subjects, others had been horribly neglected. The discussion between my parents was a comment from my salty father who said, “If we mess them up we can always send them back to get fixed.” We all laugh, but I’m glad they messed up in all the right ways. Their other concern, “socialization” was also answered by my dad when he said, “We won’t send them to the gutter, but we can bring the gutter to them” when he introduced us to such shocking material as “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “the Matrix,” and “The Rolling Stones.” Despite the “loss” of what culture said was important: “friends” I would never speak to again, learning about serious topics way too early, and time in the classroom wasted on meaningless activities, I came home to a much richer family and educational culture. I have come upon many parents these last months struggling with many of these ideas. 

Charlotte Mason, the British educator whose methods have quietly shaped thousands of thriving home schools, offers a vision that answers many concerns. She began from the belief that “children are born persons”—whole, unique human beings with minds capable of engaging with the great ideas of the world. Education, she said, “is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,” meaning that it happens in the context of the home and family culture, it is shaped by the training of good habits, and it is fed by a rich, varied feast of ideas.

Mason’s lessons are short, focused, and full of life. Rather than slogging through the same workbook page for an hour, a child might spend 20 minutes in history, told through the vivid pages of a living book written by an author who loved the subject, then 15 minutes in nature study, sketching a butterfly from life, then 20 minutes in math before moving on to Shakespeare, music, or handcrafts. Learning is active: instead of filling in blanks, the child narrates—telling back, in his own words, what he has read or heard. This simple act trains memory, comprehension, speaking skills, and critical thinking all at once.

The result is not a shorter education but a more concentrated and fruitful one. John Taylor Gatto, an award-winning New York schoolteacher who left the system to expose its hidden purposes, noted that in twelve years of public schooling, less than two of those years are spent in genuine academic work. The rest is consumed by transition, repetition, waiting, and crowd control. The long school day was never designed for optimal learning. In the late 19th century, industrialists like Rockefeller and Carnegie openly stated that the purpose of education was not to cultivate philosophers or independent thinkers but to create a compliant, standardized workforce—and to keep children separate from their parents for most of the day.

In a Mason home, those hours are redeemed. The mornings brim with beauty, ideas, and skill-building; the afternoons belong to the family—reading aloud, exploring outside, learning handcrafts, visiting neighbors, or simply enjoying one another’s company. This is not isolation; it is the slow, steady cultivation of a rich family culture. True socialization, after all, does not mean spending all day in an age-segregated group learning how to fit in. It means learning how to live well with people of all ages—how to hold a polite conversation with an adult, how to help a younger child master a skill, how to work alongside others toward a common goal. And the kind of discipleship that shapes character happens best when parents walk beside their children, giving them responsibilities they are ready for, rather than thrusting them into situations that demand maturity they have not yet gained.

The difference this makes can be startling. Take Eli, who at age nine was labeled “behind” in reading at his local school. After two years of short Mason lessons with living books and narration, he was reading The Secret Garden on his own, delighting in the language. “When I stopped measuring him by the school’s yardstick and started feeding him beautiful words, he bloomed,” his mother said. Sophie, age eleven, studied history through rich narrative accounts and original sources; without any prompting, she began drawing connections between the Magna Carta and modern ideas of justice. Daniel, a Mason-educated twelve-year-old, joined a local birding club of mostly adults. He learned to keep detailed field notes, lead walks for younger children, and engage in meaningful conversation with people decades older than himself.

In contrast, Maria, age seven, attended a “top-rated” public school but dreaded mornings. Her days were dominated by worksheets and leveled readers far below her ability; by midyear, her joy in books had vanished. Jason, age ten, memorized dates for a social studies test but couldn’t explain the causes of the American Revolution a week later. Rachel, age thirteen, spent her energy at school navigating cliques and avoiding bullies; though she was surrounded by peers, she often felt isolated and unseen.

Gatto warned, “Schools are not failing; they are succeeding in doing what they were designed to do… turn children into obedient citizens.” But whatever an education is, he said, “it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist… it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die.” Mason would have agreed—and would have added that the test of a child’s education is not how much he knows, but “how much does he care, and about how many orders of things does he care?”

Homeschooling in the Mason tradition is not about recreating the factory model at home. It is about giving children the feast of ideas, habits, and relationships that will nourish them for a lifetime. It is about restoring to families the hours that modern schooling has stolen, and about raising not just competent workers, but whole human beings—thoughtful, curious, resilient, and deeply rooted in love.

RESOURCES:

On the History and Purpose of Modern Schooling

  • John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling – A collection of speeches exposing the real functions of the school system.

  • John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education – A deep dive into the origins and intent of compulsory schooling in America.

  • Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency – Examines how industrial models reshaped schools in the early 20th century.

On Homeschooling and Family Culture

  • Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Children’s Sake – A modern introduction to Charlotte Mason’s ideas and how they transform family life.

  • Karen Glass, Consider This – Connects Mason’s philosophy with the larger classical tradition.

  • Sarah Mackenzie, Teaching from Rest – On keeping peace and joy in the homeschool journey.

Articles and Online Resources

Elise Poppe
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