On this episode of our special series on education, Emily and Katie explore more deeply true education and what Charlotte Mason did for us by working so diligently to preserve the Western tradition of thinking and learning. They discuss the difference between the "why" and the "how" of educating, the importance of synthesis over analysis, and how the child must receive and digest knowledge herself instead of being force fed pieces of information. They dive into a lot more in this episode so don't miss it!

Play the episode by using the player on this page (below) or find us wherever you listen to your podcasts, or click here.

Commonplace Quotes:

“And what is your name?” he asked, looking searchingly into the boy’s somber eyes. Silence. The same dull silence that had lasted the long train ride to Bielefeld and the long walk in the drizzling rain to the Bethel Reception Center. Even when the grandmother had lagged half a length behind and her umbrella had dripped right into his face, the boy had made no sound. “His name is Gunther,” said the father. “Does Gunther talk?” “Not much,” the grandmother answered curtly. “Do you talk to Gunther?” “What’s there to say—to the likes of him?” snapped the grandmother. The pastor’s arms instinctively held the boy closer to him. “Everything!’’ he said. “The more these poor little ones suffer, the more we have to say to them.” - Bright Valley by Edna Hong

 A scholarly mind is characterized by an ability to make connections, to visualize the relatedness of sundry facts, ideas, and concepts. The scholar’s mind works like a person laboring over a jigsaw puzzle, grouping pieces by pattern, image, and color, while retaining in the mind an outline of the whole picture. - Norms and Nobility by David Hicks

"Because," I said, "the free man ought not to learn any study slavishly. Forced labors performed by the body don't make the body any worse, but no forced study abides in a soul. - Plato, Republic

"In America, the notion of educational values has been thrust forward by sociologists and educationists of the instrumentalist school; it is intended as a substitute for the religious assumptions about human nature that formerly were taken for granted in schools. A "value," as educationists employ that unfortunate word, is a personal preference, gratifying perhaps to the person who holds it, but of no binding moral effect upon others. Choose what values you will, or ignore the lot of them: it's a matter of what gives you, the individual, the most pleasure or the least pain... (His wife, Annette, continued later...) Let it be understood that the transmitting of the tradition of intellectual virtue is a complex process, much more than a matter of uttering platitudes in classrooms." Russell and Annette Kirk, joint address, Washington D.C. December 1989, Seton-Neumann Lecture