We Are A Learning Community, Not an Educational Product

By Heather Strube, Head of School

Part 5: Foundational Stones of Cambridge

The founding board members, parents, and teachers of Cambridge chose the educational philosophy of British educator Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) as one of the formative influences on the development of the school’s core values and distinctives. Mason was a prolific writer of her time, and it is Mason we are quoting when you hear us say, “Children are born persons.” This simple yet profound statement characterizes Mason’s trinitarian understanding of the relational nature of God–expressed in the overflowing love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who uniquely created us as His image-bearers. 

But Mason’s statement was also a protest of her time. When considering the historical context of her writing, Mason’s work served as a resistance to the growing mechanized and industrialized educational system:

“We are told by many in our generation that this small child is a cog in a machine, or even that he is a possession. . . . We must answer: No. You are holding a person on your knee. And that is wonderful.” 

Charlotte Mason

One wonders if Mason had the image of Jesus taking children in his arms and placing his hands on their heads and blessing them (Mark 10:16) as she wrote those words. Cambridge’s agreement with Mason, to see the child as a person, creates space for a model of education that is relational rather than a factory model of standardization. When we approach the educational process as relational, we are acknowledging that Cambridge School is a learning community, not an educational product. 

Just as Mason spoke out against the dehumanizing approach to education during her times, we also must resist the impulse to see education as merely a transaction, reducing it to a product that has been purchased by a customer. As a Christ-centered school, we honor children as persons with choices and loves and wants and struggles. As educators, we pay attention to these children in front of us, knowing that each child before us is rooted in a family (not customers) and within a community that also influences the child. This necessarily means we invite parents along with teachers and students and our surrounding communities into the educational process–we need all of us in this relational engagement for the flourishing and formation of our personhood. 

Our first Head of School, Michael Pollock wrote, “our formation of parents, teachers, and students is uniquely intended to stir the Imagination in each one of us and to exhort each other in the seeking and learning process.” As a Christ-centered school, we are doing something very different from other schools–some things look the same on the outside, but at the core, our deepest convictions are to depend upon God our Father, hold up Jesus as the Master Teacher, and seek the Holy Spirit as our partner in the educational process. 

"God, the Holy Spirit, is Himself the supreme Educator of mankind." This, according to Charlotte Mason, is the great recognition. It is a bold claim, meaning we as parents and teachers find ourselves in divine co-operation with the Holy Spirit "in the direction, teaching, and training of the child." When practiced, "our feet are set in a large room; there is space for free development in all directions, and this free and joyous development, whether of intellect or heart, is recognized as a Godward movement." 

(Mason, Parents and Children)