Maryellen St. Cyr's blog

If a child is to get to know himself, to know who he is and what he cares for, he needs to beunafraid of silence, and this is an area of life where the school has duties as never before.  Inner silence is essential for the flowering of personal identity and exterior silence is nearly always a pre-requisite for this.  The modern concern for identity and the widespread sense of alienation in life and the arts is not helped by the seepage of noise into so many places where it need not be.  More and more of the world is wired for sound, and too often a transistor is carried like a t

Just as the body needs physical nourishment, so the mind needs its nutriment.  It is hungry not only on special “feast days,” but every day of our lives. Charlotte Mason exhorted us to “eat” ideas so we might live everyday.

Many questions come to mind: What does my everyday living look like? What nutriment did I take in throughout the day? What was the nature of this food?  Was it hearty and plentiful, or processed and meager?

Next, we perceive that knowledge and the mind of man are to each other as are air and the lungs. The mind lives by knowledge; stagnates, faints, perishes, deprived of this necessary atmosphere.

A Philosophy of Education, 324.

Ideas may invest as an atmosphere…'The idea may exist as… a mere instinct, a vague appetency towards something, . . . like the impulse which fills the young poet's eyes with tears, he knows not why: To excite this 'appetency towards something'––towards things lovely, honest, and or good report, is the earliest and most important ministry of the educator.[1]

Ideas to Ponder was written by an Ambleside Teacher

At Ambleside we often discuss our “paradigm shift’: from textbooks, grades, and stickers to “living books,” “narrations,” and “habits.” It’s difficult, for many of us. We’re not just learning about a method of education; we’re learning again how to learn. Often I hear a parent say, “I’m glad my kids are getting this kind of education.” You ought to be glad. I would know. I was one of them.

The Order of Bringing Up Children

We often distinguish the order of things by considering the importance of their ends.

I’m reminded of a story that a colleague shared. One of her first-grade students had already identified the end of education. He announced, all in one breath: “We-go-to-school-to-get-good-education-to-go-to-a-good-university-to-get-a-good-job-to-make-good-money!” 

The Order of Things

At the beginning of each New Year, I reflect on the order of things — relationships, time, and professional pursuits. What is in order and what is disorderly? What does it mean to re-order and put things in the right order?

We know that the Will acts upon ideas; that ideas are presented to the mind in many ways––by books, talk, spiritual influences; that, to let ourselves be moved by a mere suggestion is an act of allowance and not of will; that an act of will is not the act of a single power… but an impulse that gathers force from Reason, Conscience, Affection; that, having come to a head by degrees, its operations also are regular and successive, going through the stages of intention, purpose, resolution; and that, when we are called upon for acts of will about small matters, such as going here or there, buy

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. [1]

This week in which many followers of Jesus reflect upon His betrayal, death and resurrection…

We should teach children not to 'lean' (too confidently) 'unto their own understanding,' because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration of mathematical truth and of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide, but in the second it is not always a safe one, for whether that initial idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.