Charlotte Mason Conference Resources
The lectures and Keynote presentations from our conferences are listed below- click on the appropriate button to access them. The lectures will appear in a pop-up window, so please make sure that your browser is not set to block them.
Speaker: Jennifer Spencer
BiographyJennifer Spencer has worked for thirteen years in home, private, and public schools with children in preschool through high school. She has a bachelors degree in early childhood education and a masters in elementary education, and she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from Gardner-Webb University in curriculum and instruction. Her passion for Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy and practices keeps her involved in a wide range of activities, including research, writing, speaking engagements, consultant work, and curriculum planning. Jennifer is the assistant director at The Village School of Gaffney.
Topic: How Firm a Foundation: Rebuilding Education in the Mason School (2009) How Firm a Foundation examines the underlying principles that support Mason's methods. The paradigm of education with which most of us grew up was rooted in classicism and industrialism, both of which are very humanistic and materialistic. If we simply add Mason's methods to those existing ideas, we fall way short of the mark. A comparison can be made here to the ideas of salvation through works and salvation through grace; we want the behaviors to be an outward expression of a pivotal change that has been made in the heart. Therefore, we will study Mason's Great Recognition and the role of the Holy Spirit in education, the nature of knowledge and the nature of the learner, and the implications for methodology.
Speaker: Jason Fletcher
BiographyJason was born in St Louis, raised in Salem, Oregon from age 5. He travelled to L'Abri in England in early 1993 where he met his wife, Fiona and since being married they have lived in Cambridge, UK. Jason earned a BA in Theology/Biblical Studies from Wheaton College, and a M.Phil in Church History from Cambridge, followed by a one year teacher training course. He taught religious studies, history and politics at the secondary level for 4 years prior to becoming the manager, and then director, of the Jubilee Centre, an evangelical think-tank based in Cambridge. He left that in Jan 08 to work full time as the headteacher of Heritage School, established in September 07. Fiona and Jason have two children: Maisie (8) and Seth (6).
Topic: Relational Paradigm of Christianity (2008) The debate about the place of assessment in education has been going on for a long time, and still continues unabated. In England as well as N. America the debate has reached new heights, as governments increasingly want to exercise control over the school curriculum and over what they perceive as educational standards.
Christianity is a relational religion, a worldview with a concern for relationships at its heart. In this lecture, we will look at how the Scriptures give us a relational agenda with applications extending from public policy to everyday individual decisions. Practical examples of how relational thinking affects our ordinary lives will be discussed with attention given to the five dimensions of relational living. Brief applications to education and Mason’s work will conclude the lecture. Attention is given to responding to today’s concerns for “going green,” climate change, global warming by thinking about care of creation within a relational agenda.
Speaker: Dr. John Thorley
BiographyJohn recently retired as Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Teacher Education and Training at Lancaster University. He had previously been Principal of Charlotte Mason College at Ambleside, and before that Head of Trinity School, an 11-18 comprehensive school in Carlisle, UK. He was trained as a classicist, and was formerly Chairman of the Joint Assoc. of Classical Teachers and President of EUROCLASSICA, a federation of classics teachers from all parts of Europe. His main areas of research are Greek and Roman History; he has recently published Athenian Democracy (Routledge). John will give us a further look the ideas and beliefs of Charlotte Mason.
Topic: 'Science of Relations' v. 'Examinable Content' (2008) The debate about the place of assessment in education has been going on for a long time, and still continues unabated. In England as well as N. America the debate has reached new heights, as governments increasingly want to exercise control over the school curriculum and over what they perceive as educational standards.
But any extensive programme of assessment, especially national systems that demand uniformity of curriculum, assessment and of teaching methods, is liable to narrow educational opportunities for children, not extend them. One of Charlotte Mason’s key concepts was that education is a Science of Relations, by which she meant that children should be brought into contact with a wide range of knowledge in such a way that they can relate to it and make it their own. And this is in direct conflict with most national assessment systems, and certainly that in England, which now puts an ever greater emphasis on a narrow range of basic skills at the expense of a wider and fuller curriculum.
So where are we heading?
Speaker: Lori Lawing
BiographyLori Lawing has come to appreciate Charlotte Mason’s love of “living books.” In addition to teaching her own children (ages 13 12, 9, 7, & 5) she delights in teaching Shakespeare to a group of 30 students ages five to thirteen. She has written six condensed scripts of Shakespeare’s plays (without altering the language of Shakespeare!) Lori is a pastor’s wife and a 1985 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in public speaking. She was a member of Chapel Hill's speech team, competing in oral performance of literature. For the past five years she has served as the Director of the annual competitive speech tournament for 100+ students in the southeast United States.
Topic: Integrating the Curriculum with History as the Pivot and Living Books as the Medium (2008) Charlotte Mason said education is an atmosphere. With history as the pivot and literature as the primary medium, our schools and homes can provide an atmosphere where “children express ideas that fill them when exposed to great materials.” As we move through history, we integrate all the disciplines that apply: geography, art, music, literature, archeology, nature, church history, philosophy. We create a world for the children, not segmented, unrelated subjects. They’ll even role play their history; “living in a single time period until they practically think the same thoughts as the people they study, learning the intricate details of one person's life.” Participants will leave with samples of integration that span multiple disciplines and ways to make more of their own. Why bore them with out-of-context dates and lists, or detached, flat summaries from textbooks? A whole world is waiting to be recreated in the minds and hearts of our children.
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