Narration – it’s time to bring back this simple, low-stakes, scalable assessment method What is Narration? Narration is a key feature of the Charlotte Mason Method. Mason was an English educator and reformer who set up a network of schools that hoped to provide a “liberal education for all.” Although her dream was forestalled after …
Category Archives: Education – Purpose
Transforming the Elite
Rather than fear the return of the spectre of public benefit, the aim of the sector should be that when the subject is raised, it is laughed at by all but the most militant vandals – no one but a fool could see what a service they and their products are doing. These schools and …
We should celebrate, not mourn, the cancellation of exams
“Surely now is the golden opportunity for schools, untrammelled by all that gruesome nomenclature of ‘exam specification’, ‘assessment objective’, ‘rubrics’ and so on, to set their pupils’ ‘love of learning’ truly ablaze.” Full piece published on Medium here.
Private Education & Public Benefit
Institutions inextricably bound up with their localities. National treasures with long histories of public service. Sites of collective memory and ritual, loyalty and love. What’s a communitarian not to love about private schools? Regrettably all too much. Read the full piece at The Critic.
21st Century Learning’s “thought-cliches”
Jacques Barzun’s portrait of John Comenius (1592 – 1670) shows that many of the educational nostrums of our day are in fact centuries old.
“The world felt big”
The autodidact is a rare creature these days. I really enjoyed listening to this Talking Politics interview with Tara Westover, who grew up in rural Idaho as one of seven children in a strict Mormon family. Her father did not allow her to go to public school, but she taught herself, ending up studying at …
What sort of knowledge..?
From H W Household’s Reminiscences about Charlotte Mason, courtesy of Charlotte Mason Poetry: What sort of knowledge? Well, they want to hear of Odysseus and Nausicaa, to read the immortal stories of Herodotus, and Plutarch’s Lives; they want to listen to the tale of Thermopylae and Salamis and to learn how democracy raised Athens to her …
Montaigne on Education
Jacques Barzun’s wonderful book, From Dawn to Decadence, has been a companion for more than a decade. Dog-eared, covered in indecipherable marks and notes, its front cover long since torn away, I dip in whenever I can and always emerge refreshed. I’ve just re-read this great passage on Montaigne’s views on education and thought I …
Knowledge is the road to joy
It is understandable that, in the fierce heat of contemporary squabbles, heads and educationalists prefer to talk up the more empirical benefits of a knowledge approach; but, by doing so, they leave the implementation of a knowledge-based approach open to those who would happily squander its joy for its effectiveness. I was really delighted to …
A beautiful speech by H W Household
I have written about Household before. Thanks again to the excellent archival work of the team at Charlotte Mason Poetry, I have just read another of his speeches from the time when he was Director of Education for Gloucestershire in the 1930s. So much of what he says still rings true today. I would love …
Will Orr-Ewing 