Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0971889511 ISBN 13: 9780971889514

Publisher: By Way of the Family Press, 2003

This book is not about "school at home"--it is about something better. It is about Real Learning.

Homeschooling pioneer Charlotte Mason wrote with great wisdom about providing young minds with a living books education. She urged teachers to present great ideas and stand back, allowing students to form relationships with the ideas.

Elizabeth Foss carries Miss Mason's philosophy from the idealto the real. How does the busy home-educating mom balance the various needs of a houseful of children? How does she provide short lessons and free afternoons while ensuring that her children receive a thorough and well-rounded education? Exactly how does she use living books to teach history, geography, literature, and scienc? How does she incorporate nature study, the arts, and soccer practice? How does she create in her home an atmosphere of sanctity with Christ at its center, an atmosphere of love in which the whole family can grow in holiness day by day?

How does she manage all this and still get dinner on the table?

With passion and grace, Elizabeth Foss explores these questions and more. Real Learning is a rich and detailed examination of how to let "eduation" spill out of your home classroom into every aspect of your family life. More than a curriculum guide, it is a look at a lifestyle which aims to nourish the whole child, the whold family--heart, soul, and mind.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Foss, wife, mother, and writer, home educates her large family in South Riding, Virginia. Her column on faith and family life for the Arlington Catholic Herald has inspired and informed readers for ten years--both in the Arlington diocese and on the World Wide Web.

Despite an honors degree in eucation from the University of Virginia and several years' classroom experience, Elizabeth strongly believes that the most meaningful learning, for both parent and child, occurs at home. As moderator of the popular Charlotte Mason in the Catholic Home e-mail list and website, Elizabeth has introduced scores of home educators to a method of education that allows enthusiastic learning to go hand in hand with sanctified living.

As this book went to press, Elizabeth was awaiting the birth of her seventh child.

Review:

Real Learning will give you an extra boost of support to get through even those difficult days. -- Patrick Madrid, editor of Envoy Magazine

Elizabeth Foss does a masterful job translating Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education into practical methods for Catholic home educators. -- Cathy Duffy, author of Christian Home Educators' Curriculum Manual

I look forward to any of Elizabeth's work. I know her material will help me be a better homeschooler. -- Laura Berquist, author Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum