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Episode #5 | The Connection Between Reading and Thinking
We all want our children to receive a high-quality education – one that builds knowledge and teaches them how to think. But how do we go about this? Charlotte Mason said that education should be focused on feeding children a feast of living ideas (from books) then narrating what they learn, by speaking or writing about it.
But how does Mason’s method compare to cognitive science today? And why is this method of educating children so effective? I’ve invited the author Natalie Wexler to discuss these questions and more on this episode.
Natalie Wexler is an education writer and the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It (Avery 2019). She is also the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (Jossey-Bass 2017), and a senior contributor at Forbes.com. Her articles and essays on education and other topics have appeared in The NewYork Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and on her free newsletter, Minding the Gap. She has spoken on education before a wide variety of groups and appeared on a number of TV and radio shows, including Morning Joe and NPR’s On Point and 1A. Find out more about Natalie and her work at her website, www.nataliewexler.com, or follow her on Twitter (@natwexler).
Episode Links
The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler
The Writing Revolution by Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler
Quotes
“People are naturally divided into those who read and think and those who do not read or think; and the business of schools is to see that all their scholars shall belong to the former class; it is worth while to remember that thinking is inseparable from reading which is concerned with the content of a passage and not merely with the printed matter.” (Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 31)