17 Jan 2014

From Miss Mason herself

Because sometimes it's good to know what the lady really thought.

Q: When introducing the P.U.S. work should it begin in Standard I?

A: This is in direct opposition to one of our leading principles which is that any child of any age is by nature fit for the work proper for that age and requires no preliminary training.  The boy or girl of 16 or 17 who joins Form V or VI will probably do as good work as one who has worked up to that form from Standard I, although he may be weaker in spelling and composition, reading, writing or sums, and must have special teaching in these.  Our sole reliance is on the latent intellectual power in children.

So there you have it.  How often do we hear variations of this question?  Now we have her answer.

From a notebook written in 1917 by Charlotte Mason, quoted in The Story of Charlotte Mason 1842-1923 by Essex Cholmondeley, p 130

3 comments:

  1. Great to hear. It reassures me that I am making the right decision combining Joshua & Grace again this year for AO4.

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  2. The reason why I say 'reassured' is, there seems to be a large majority of people on the ambleside forums who are against combining years. Even though there is a four year gap between mine it works out great.

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  3. I was in the archives this past weekend and found that most boys went on to Secondary School ( in the early 1900's ) and the girls stayed . They were given a "Leaving Certificate" having meet the requirements and if they would sit for exams like the London Matriculation Exam , they would need some special classes. It also was written that 20 minutes of reading, then 10 minutes of written narration. If you gave 30 minutes of writing, it produced the same as 10. I tried that limited time with my 9-11th graders this past week and it worked better than giving them more time.

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