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Plumfield Academy Educational Methodology: Self Education
Plumfield Academy practices the ideas of the English educational reformer Charlotte Mason, who in the early 1900’s wrote, “self education is the only possible education."
"No teaching, no information becomes knowledge to any of us until the individual mind has acted upon it, translated it, transformed it and absorbed it.
Therefore, teaching, talk, and tale, however lucid or fascinating, effect nothing until self activity be set up; that is, self education is the only possible education." (Mason, A Philosophy of Education, 24).
Self education requires direct access to high quality matter
Self education begins with direct access to great books, artistic materials, and nature.
Students at Plumfield are put into relationship with our finest authors, such as Plato, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Lewis, Twain, and Alcott, and come to think of them as their primary teachers.
"We owe it to every child to put him [her] in communication with great minds so that he [she] may get at great thought." (Mason, Philosophy of Education, 172)
Art, handcrafts, math, science and nature study provide opportunities for hands on work with problems to solve (Design and build your own simple machine) and real life to explore (What is under the shingle of this pine cone?).
Self education requires careful observation
Plumfield students are trained in careful observation. We help them slow down, look, and listen, and attend to reality with care and consideration.
In their reading, students seek to understand the text's actual meaning, setting aside their own opinions and entering into another person's experience.
In nature study, students learn to slow down and become present to life's details and processes. (What sights and sounds suggest an animal may be present?) This manner of listening and looking is itself a way of caring.
For Charlotte Mason, this caring attitude stands at the heart of true education.
"At the end of the day, the question is not how much does the student know, but how much does he care about what he knows? And about how many orders of things does he care? How large is the room in which he stands? And therefore, how rich will his life be?"
Self education requires self activity
Students follow careful observation with a time of integration.
By writing, speaking, drawing or demonstrating, they narrate or "tell back" what they've learned. Students must think through what has been presented, then select, organize, integrate, and finally, give self expression to what they are learning.
There is no hedging with narration: “Whatever a child or grownup person can tell, that we may be sure he knows, and what he cannot tell, he does not know." (Mason, A Philosophy of Education, 172) The student who narrates in oral, written, or graphic form can take immediate satisfaction in the knowledge he or she has gained.
An example of self education
Here’s what one of our fifth graders wrote in answer to an exam question on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
Question 2: If you entered a slave cabin on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, what would you have seen? Her answer:
“In this question, they ask what I would have seen at the plantation. But, as sure as I am that I was not there, I feel that I have seen the cabins, the people, their clothing and the horrible look on their faces. These people, bruised and dirty, were clothed in wretched, pale rags . . ." This eleven year old student underlined the word “have” for emphasis. She claims that she has been made a witness to the horrors of slavery. And, indeed, she has. She has connected with this author and seen everything through his eyes.
Over a period of three months, she established her own relationship with this great thinker, wrote her own narrations, and reflected on her own reactions to his words.. She forged a personal bond with Frederick Douglass that will remain a vital part of her life experience. This is what we mean by self education.
"Thus the child is nurtured, in a sense, not by the teacher at all, but is allowed to interact with especially gifted and varied persons. He [she] responds and grows in a sort of personal dialogue suited for his [her] own self.” ( Macaulay, For the Children’s Sake, 122) |
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| Plumfield Academy 123 Dayton Street Danvers, MA 978-304-0273 info@plumfieldacademy.org |
