When Maryellen St. Cyr first dreamed of Ambleside School, what was it that she sought to bring to life? With 25 years of our life’s work behind us, I want to bring us back to the foundation of our movement.
Charlotte Mason’s principles reveal profound truths about the nature of the world, the person, and education itself. Embracing these counter-cultural implications unveils the beauty and necessity of an Ambleside education.
Like so many of Charles Dickens’ wonderful characters, Thomas Gradgrind is a caricature but a caricature with a point.
Charlotte Mason was an intensely private person, and some aspects of her life have only come to light over the last ten years. Here are some lesser-known facts about Charlotte.
Our founder Maryellen St. Cyr shares how she came to know Charlotte Mason, how it changed her understanding of education, and how this new understanding is implemented in our Ambleside classrooms. Check out the Making the Leap podcast from our partners at the Herzog Foundation, hosted by Christine and Chris Stigall.
Hannah Whitall Smith, mother to seven, speaker, suffragist, and author, wrote The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life in 1875. I found her timeless wisdom to be refreshing, challenging, and grounding to my soul that teetered on the fulcrum between the eras of modernism and postmodernism.
We are shaped by the ideas that are seeded in us and the relational air that we breathe. And we are continuously exhaling ideas and relational air which those around us will inhale. The question is “What’s in the air?”
How do we inspire and support a sense of caring, duty, thankfulness, and sacrifice? How are the influences of our modern world misdirecting our youth? As a teacher and a parent I have to ask myself, “How am I contributing to the problem?”
In education, as in every human endeavor, there exists the possibility of erring to the left and erring to the right. We live in an age in which the responsibility of adults to be intentional and diligent in the formation of children’s habits is largely forgotten.
For us and our students, the element of beauty, order, offering one’s best, the achievement of accuracy, respect for others as they view or use the work, perseverance, joy in accomplishing something of quality and durability, and other similar benefits are seen in doing quality work. To develop this habit, it is important that we hold high expectations for our children’s work.
