| Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss |
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| Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss (book review by Cay Gibson) Real Learning---Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss is a book I have been waiting to read for a long time. The author is a Catholic homeschooling mother with many years of teaching and speaking on the Charlotte Mason method at conferences and gatherings. She is a wife, the mother of seven children, a newspaper columnist, and a Catholic in love with her faith and family. Using real life experiences and real life church teaching, Elizabeth Foss, with her articulate writing style, takes the reader straight into the heart of her Catholic household. From the basement of her Catholic home in Virginia to a nature study in their backyard, this mother shows you how to build a solid foundation of real life learning with your children. Walk with this “real-life” mother as she takes you for a nature study on the soccer field. Join her and her five athletic sons in her kitchen to celebrate the Catholic liturgical year during teatime. Sit with her as she gives you an inside study on teaching your children, a la Charlotte Mason, with living books as your primary curriculum. She offers a detailed literature unit study for your educational enjoyment. Embrace and enjoy God’s creation as you are invited to go camping with Elizabeth, her children, and friends in the beautiful Shenandoah National Park. Compare her year of burnout with your own times of overwhelming doubt and experience the joy of recovery while embracing real life learning within your own home. What makes “Real Learning” different from the other homeschool, Catholic liturgical books on the market? Elizabeth Foss is a grace-filled writer who sees the beauty and purpose in God’s creation. Her enthusiasm and love for learning with her family is contagious. Her book covers a style of learning that is described as an atmosphere, a discipline and a life. It gives practical guidance for teaching reading and writing. She does not squirm away from discussing math and history and science, but does so with a unique “living” concept that mothers will appreciate. She humbly gives accounts of how to deal with children who have special needs, dejunking household clutter, handling chores and bad days. Foss does not talk at you. She warmly pulls up a chair along side of you, looks at each problem area, and works through them with you. As I took the book Real Learning with me to soccer and dance practices, club meetings and orthodontist appointments, Elizabeth Foss followed along with hands-on suggestions and guidance, theories and solutions. She has written a book that does not dwell on wishful thinking; rather, its pages hold practical doses of reality gracefully bonded with spiritual enthusiasm. It is full of real life experiences mothers can relate to and words of wisdom from veteran homeschooling mothers from all walks of life. Real life mothers contribute their thoughts and ideas as they learn to walk the walk towards heaven while in the hospital with a critically ill child, teaching nature appreciation while living in New York’s inner city, and juggling a home-based business with household and homeschooling duties. In this book, Elizabeth practices what she preaches. In the true exercise of her mentor, Charlotte Mason, she practices the art of “masterly inactivity”. Elizabeth presents great ideas and then stands back…an ever-encouraging presence…beckoning you, the reader, to follow the rabbit trails with your children, learning alongside of them, and walking with your family in a journey of faith through the Catholic liturgical year. Foss saw a need for a book that allows the Catholic mother to think out of the box, yet within the foundation of the home. Tempered by her love for God and her family, Foss writes, “This book is about educating a child in the heart of the family given to that child by his Creator. It is not about school at home---it is about something better.” We all want “something better” for our children. This book shows you that “something better”. It allows you to embrace your child’s uniqueness as being “God-given” and is packed with ideas and guidance showing you how to expose your children to the best that God has to offer them through real learning education in the heart of the home. This book can be obtained at www.4reallearning.com Published by By Way of the Family |
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