Reflections from Consider This - Chapter Six....

In keeping on with our study of Consider This, Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass, let's turn to Chapter Six, 'Drawing the Circle Closed'. Chapter Six is very short. Here Glass draws a circle based on her ideas presented in Chapters Three, Four, and Five. It was somewhat of a review of former chapters in what appears to be an attempt to connect the dots.

In Chapter Three, we learned that classical educators didn't separate character training from academics. Glass asserts that knowledge transformed into action becomes virtue.

In Chapter Four, Glass shows us that one must be humble in order to be teachable. This idea of humility aligns with Charlotte Mason's Principle 3.

In Chapter Five, we begin the study of was Glass has termed, 'synthetic thinking', which is based on Charlotte's writings. Basically, synthetic thinking is developing what Charlotte calls the 'Science of Relations' in her Principle 12.



In Chapter Six, Glass states,

These three things - pursuit of virtue, humility, and synthetic thinking that motivates to right action - form a complete circle that is the essence, the heart of what motivated the classical educators. We might call it the "classical ideal." It is a pivot, or the hub around which all classical educational methods revolve. (Ch. 6, p. 47)

It appears that Glass has reduced classical education to three elements, virtue, humility, and synthetic thinking. She then pulls from Charlotte Mason's philosophy to mesh her ideas with these three elements. I'm interested to see what Glass has in store for the second half of Consider This and whether or not she can close the gap between Classical Tradition and a Charlotte Mason education.