Charlotte Mason gives us a thoughtful vision to the significance and purpose of a ‘literature lesson’ to a child’s education. At Ambleside Schools, we believe as she does that ‘a child ‘gets moral notions’ from these stories.
At Ambleside Schools we wholeheartedly agree with Charlotte Mason’s premise that children are born with an innate desire to know. They’re “pre-wired,” so to speak, to naturally learn and grow — to “self-educate.”
A vital principle in an Ambleside education is the idea that ‘Children are Born Persons.’ Charlotte Mason reminds us that children are made in God’s image with great capacity and born with an innate desire for knowledge.
I didn’t simply read about Abraham Lincoln or study algebra in the same way that other secondary school students did. Rather than having reading assignments for homework, I read and discussed living books together with my classmates. We made discoveries and came to understanding, and I was enlightened to the past.
As an Ambleside teacher, preparing and teaching a lesson is a lesson itself — a great adventure that takes the teacher on his or her own path of discovery. We search, we read, we consider, we ponder, we reflect, we gain insight … we’re inspired. In the preparing and planning we grow and learn ourselves. The text is the teacher, and the teacher is taught. And each subject has its own distinct path of learning.
Amid growing and urgent demand from families for alternative educational models for their children, Ambleside Schools International has launched an expanded effort to bring its comprehensive homeschooling mentorship program to more families to train them in the Charlotte Mason philosophy and Ambleside Method.
In the five years since graduating from Ambleside, I have held close the loves that it shaped in me. I love peaceful learning; Ambleside formed in me a diligence and deep interest which outlasts and supersedes the bribery of grades, the perfectionism that drives procrastination, and the harshness of hurry.
May 2023 marked the trip to Washington, D.C., when Ambleside high school students from around the country gathered together for a time of learning in our nation’s capital. It was a beautiful week. We shared meals and delighted in conversations with other students of a similar age, who are participating in the same educational model that we are.
