Do I personally need to learn about a Charlotte Mason Education?
I’m happy to tell you Yes! If you want to know something, then yes, like anything else, you will need to devote time to the study of it. This is good because studying Charlotte Mason will change your life—for the better. If it seems like hard work, well maybe sometimes it is, but nothing good comes easy. You have everything to gain.
Join a book study for some encouragement. Start a book study. See if there are some other educators who are interested in joining your study of the volumes.
You can read the volumes for free on this site- they are there with the hopes that your study of CM will grow and flourish as you read them.
Can I read other people’s words about a Charlotte Mason Education and still get a Living Education?
Yes, you can. It is helpful to learn from others experience and understanding. It gives us that visual that is sometimes needed to understand what we are aiming towards.
Remember that reading someone else’s interpretation and experience with Mason should not replace your own interpretation and experience. Ultimately, you will need to be immersed in the original source- Charlotte Mason- and use that to form your education experience. Keep the source fresh in your mind, because sometimes implementation and understanding can stray if one listens wholly to other sources.
What do I do if I don’t understand what Charlotte is saying when I read the Volumes?
This happens. Definitely. Charlotte is British so that has its own slant. She is before our time of brief points and quick words. Her sentence structure is rather complex at times, and skimming over one word or comma can have a drastic change on what the reader may come away with from a paragraph.
It took me a several readings before things really started soaking in. Persistence is key. Eventually you will come to follow her thoughts and meaning as well as the actual sentences.
Also keep in mind that she uses sarcasm and a dry humor at times. There were passages that I read a time or two before I realized that she was making fun of something or being sarcastic about it. I had completely misread her meaning. I had even written a note next to one, that read “what to do” when actually she was sarcastically pointing out the faulty system that was being used and was chiding it. But I was new, and didn’t yet know the difference. One has to become so familiar with her themes that when sarcasm is read, it can be recognized as such. This just comes with time and faithfulness in studying and reading.