Charlotte Mason was a British educator who spent much of her life improving the quality of children's education. She believed that parents would be greatly helped if they understood some basic principles about bringing up children. This belief led Mason to give a series of lectures, which were later published as Home Education,(1886), a book explaining how to apply her principles to children from birth to nine.
The book Home Education is actually six of Charlotte Mason's lectures about the raising and educating of young children (up to the age of nine), for parents and teachers. She encourages parents to spend a lot of time outdoors, immersed in nature and handling natural objects and collecting experiences on which to base the rest of their education. She discusses the use of training in good habits such as attention, thinking, imagining, remembering, performing tasks with perfect execution, obedience, and truthfulness, to replace undesirable tendencies in children (and the adults that they grow into). She details how lessons in various school subjects can be done using her approach. She concludes with remarks about the Will, the Conscience, and the Divine Life in the Child.
I have used a number of her teaching methods with my own children and within my classroom before I retired from being a public school educator. I highly recommend reading what Charlotte Mason has to say. Many homeschool parents embrace her methods but I truly believe that public school and private school teachers would find her teaching methods a wonderful to approach educating the students in their care.
This book, I feel, is a good introduction to the Charlotte Mason approach to learning. Once you've read this book you will probably want to buy her entire home school series. The set runs a bit over $40.00 so buying thi one book will be a cheaper investment if for some reason you don't want to read more. If you decide to buy her entire series click on the book icon below.