Dear Parents,

I recently had the opportunity to represent Ambleside at a Christian school fair hosted by Shepherd Christian School in Chantilly, Virginia. When I arrived, the other school representatives and I set up tables full of admission materials and school swag and then we moved into the sanctuary, along with visiting parents, for the formal program. The main address was on the critical need for Christ-centered education. Then school representatives were given five minutes to share a bit about their individual school’s distinctives.

While preparing for the event earlier in the week I had no problem collecting artifacts for our display. I actually had an overabundance of materials and needed to thin out my haul—I was going to be the one transporting it, after all. I have always thought that prospective parents need to see examples of our students’ work, so much of what I brought were student journals, plus a few books from our curriculum, a copy of Charlotte Mason’s A Philosophy of Education, and a weaving from a previous kindergarten class.

When it came time to prepare my remarks however, I was stumped. Thinking about what I wanted people to see was easy: a geography journal with hand-drawn maps of Asia and Africa; a cursive handwriting practice book; a nature study journal with artfully rendered dry brush watercolor paintings; a narration journal filled from the first page to the last with student retellings; and history and science journals with meticulous illustrations, maps, and narrations.

But what did I want them to hear? I was only given a few minutes to share so what I needed was that two-minute elevator speech I’ve been meaning to write. Tell a story? No. Focus on Mason’s first premise that children are persons? No. Three tools of education (atmosphere, discipline, life)? No, that would all take too long.

Looking back, I’m not sure what I ended up saying. It’s all a blur. If I could have a do-over, another chance for a five-minute speech on Ambleside’s distinctives, I would focus on what Charlotte Mason’s philosophy looks like in practice. It would go something like this…

There is no place like Ambleside. At Ambleside, our students work in journals that represent work begun and work completed. We do not use photocopies and loose leaf paper that lack connectedness and overarching purpose, with no beginning and no end.

Our students are provided with a large and varied curriculum that enriches their lives with both the concrete and the abstract. They daily encounter beauty, inspiration, and most importantly, ideas.

Instead of being sent home with hours of homework, special projects, and extra credit points to chase, Ambleside students are encouraged to get outside, pursue their own hobbies and interests, enjoy dinner with their families, and settle in with a good book.

Our teachers never tell students that they need to pay attention to certain facts that will be on a test. All that we do is worthy of our attention. Our students are not sent home to cram only to forget the next day. They attend in class and then tell what they know both orally and in writing. Through that daily practice, they grow in knowledge and gain composition skills to boot.

Our students aren’t pitted against each other in pursuit of the top student ranking, best at this or best at that. Weak and strong are in our classes together, learning from one another in a way that is relational and natural. We don’t need to moralize and give lectures on this dynamic because its intrinsic value is “in the air.” Our teachers see students as having capacities that are limitless, instead of defining them by their weaknesses.

We remember at Ambleside that children have requirements of the mind that need tending: intellectual food in the form of ideas. We feed them, if you will, from a vast buffet—some taking more of this and some more of that, but all leave satisfied, enriched, and inspired; not bored, stressed, and indifferent.

Students at Ambleside thrive. They are not just passing time; they are not just passing from one grade to the next. They are learning to live well through the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge and the development of habits that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Students at Ambleside are known, not just by their teacher, but by the administration, their classmates, their buddies, nay, the whole school.

We deal with issues relationally instead of resorting to a demerit system. In word and deed, we strive most earnestly to come alongside parents in pointing children to the creator of the universe, God Almighty, and His Son, their savior, Jesus Christ.

Charlotte Mason said, “Not to be good, nor to be happy is the chief thing, but to know, to possess the knowledge of God… For this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

There is no place like Ambleside.

Yours truly,

Krise Nowak, M.Ed.

Head of School

There’s No Place Like Ambleside