William Wordsworth, Charlotte Mason and contemporary primary school education

Cooper, Hilary ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7468-9910 (2023) William Wordsworth, Charlotte Mason and contemporary primary school education. Education 3-13 .

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Abstract

The hundredth anniversary of the death of a once famous educator, Charlotte Mason, has stimulated renewed interest and research in her philosophy and her practice in primary education, particularly since this was based on the enjoyment, interests and self-motivation of young children. This paper traces the influence of educational ideas in the poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850). On the philosophy of nineteenth-century educator, Charlotte Mason (1842–1823). First, there are brief biographies of Wordsworth and Mason. Then the paper explores similarities in their refreshing ideas about the nature of childhood, how children learn, learning outdoors, the need for children to have time to explore independently and the importance of a rich vocabulary and good literature. Many of their beliefs are still threatened by rigid curricula, frequent testing and inspections to enforce compliance, which they contested. In conclusion, examples are given of current practice illustrating how the philosophy of Wordsworth and Mason is relevant and how it can be interpreted today.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Education 3-13
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1475-7575
Departments:	Institute of Education > Initial Teacher Education
Additional Information:	Hilary Coopery, Emeritus Professor of History and Pedagogy, University of Cumbria, UK. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	16 Oct 2023 10:51
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2024 15:32
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/7357

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