Dr. Jack Beckman, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Covenant College, Look Out Mountain, Georgia
Dr. Jack Beckman has thirty-four years of educational experience – as an Early Childhood teacher, an educational leader in the Christian school movement, and latterly as an Associate Professor of Elementary Education at Covenant College. He has an ECE BS from Georgia State University (1976), an MEd in Curriculum and Instruction from Covenant College (1998), and an MPhil in Educational Research (2002) and PhD in Teacher Education from Cambridge University (2004). His interest in the life and work of Charlotte Mason began in the early 1990s where he designed a school curriculum based on her ideas and then developed several schools under this philosophy and model. Both his MPhil and PhD centered on Mason’s distinct approach to teacher training and the fidelity of her ideas throughout the span of teacher professional identity growth from preservice through retirement. Both archive and oral histories provided the traces and voices for his thesis. He has published numerous articles and contributed chapters to When Children Love to Learn (2004) and Schools as Communities (2007).
Ms. Laurie Bestvater, Administrator and Home Educator, New York
Laurie has been inspired by Charlotte Mason’s philosophy since the early 1990’s endeavoring to apply it with all grade levels as a home educator, in classroom and tutorial venues, and teaching ESL to adults. Laurie completed an undergraduate degree in Religion and Literature at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont. and a master’s in Religious Studies at the University of Windsor, Ont. with a focus on ethics. Involved with non-profit organizations much of her professional life, Laurie has increasingly applied Mason’s understandings to the design of materials and program for community and grassroots organizations. Her particular interest is in the transformational power of story and she loves reading, writing and organizing around ideas. Laurie has a grown daughter in Ontario, a son studying at Covenant College in Georgia and currently lives in New York with her husband, Bryan, and son, Caleb who continues his home education. Laurie also teaches AP Composition for Davis College and is project manager for The Charlotte Mason Education Centre curriculum project.
Ms. Lisa Cadora, Instructor, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Cincinnati, Ohio
Lisa Cadora first learned of Charlotte Mason as an undergraduate education student at Covenant College through Ranald and Susan Macaulay. She has pursued Charlotte Mason education ever since, teaching in the public school system in Walker County, Georgia; Intown Community School (a ChildLight School) in Atlanta, Georgia; the Ambleside School of Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Texas; and currently in the Early Childhood Education Department at Cincinnati State. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education from Covenant College and a Master's Degree in Education in Language and Literacy from Georgia State University and is a trained catechist in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Lisa lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where her husband, Matt, pastors Faith Presbyterian Church. Their son, Alex, currently resides in the Pacific Northwest and is sorely missed by their two dachshunds, Hondo and Schatzie.
Dr. Donna M. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Dakota Wesleyan University
Donna Johnson began her career as an educator thirty-five years ago. Before her three daughters were born, she taught elementary and special needs children in public schools in South Dakota and Minnesota. She began teaching her own children at home in 1989 and continued through 2004 when her youngest completed high school. The Johnsons’ homeschool emphasized literature and music and was greatly influenced by the teachings of Charlotte Mason via Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s book For the Children’s Sake. Donna has a B.A. in Elementary Education from Southwest Minnesota State University (1975) and an M.S. in Special Education Learning Disabilities from Minnesota State University Mankato (1984). She earned a reading specialist certification and her Ed.D. from the University of South Dakota in 2008; her dissertation examined the relationship of narration and reading comprehension in a sixth grade classroom. She has presented at numerous conferences on special needs, reading, and various CM topics and recently completed two years of teaching students with special needs in a public middle school. Currently, she is on the education faculty at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD. Donna and her husband Chris serve on the board of directors for the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators.
Ms. Marlene Power, Librarian, Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
For the past 18 years, Marlene Power has worked as Public Services Librarian at Redeemer University College. Prior to that, she worked in the University of New Brunswick Archives, creating database records for archival collections. That experience has been helpful for her current work with the Charlotte Mason project, particularly in creating a database of digital images -- the Charlotte Mason Digital Collection (CMDC). This has involved visiting the Armitt Museum and Library in the lovely Lake District of England in order to assess the Charlotte Mason Collection, to see for herself some of the riches in this hidden gem of a collection. She also spent some time taking pictures of the archival documents and setting up procedures for others who came over to work on the project. Back home in Canada, much time has been devoted over the past year to creating the database of the images, to make them globally accessible over the internet. Marlene will demonstrate how the Charlotte Mason Digital Collection can be used by students, teachers, parents, home educators and scholars who are interested in the ideas and accomplishments of Charlotte Mason.
Dr. J. Carroll Smith, Dean, School of Education, Gardner-Webb University, Boiling Springs, North Carolina
Carroll Smith has spoken on various topics related to Charlotte Mason. Currently he teaches graduate and undergraduate education classes at Gardner-Webb University and enjoys working with children, teachers, college students, and The Charlotte Mason Education Centre. He was a teacher and a principal for 21 years before coming to Gardner-Webb University where he is beginning year ten. Having grown up in eastern North Carolina, he attended East Carolina University for his undergraduate degree and his master's in school administration. He completed his terminal degree and wrote his dissertation on Charlotte Mason at Virginia Tech. Carroll enjoys reading, gardening, and discussing ideas with friends. He and his wife, Andra live, work and play in Boiling Springs, NC. They have two adult children, Corban and Anna.
Ms. Jennifer Spencer, Doctoral Student, Gardner-Webb University, Boiling Springs, North Carolina and Teacher, The Village School, Gaffney, South Carolina
Jennifer Spencer has worked for thirteen years in home, private, and public schools with children in preschool through high school. She has a bachelors degree in early childhood education and a masters in elementary education, and she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from Gardner-Webb University in curriculum and instruction. Her passion for Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy and practices keeps her involved in a wide range of activities, including research, writing, speaking engagements, consultant work, and curriculum development. Jennifer currently teaches fifth grade at The Village School in Gaffney, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, her two children, and their dog. The main focus of Jennifer's Mason research is in the area of language development, especially the importance of oral language.
Dr. John Thorley, Retired Principal and Dean, Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside, Cumbria, England
John’s last full-time job before retiring was as Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Teacher Education and Training at Lancaster University, and also Principal of Charlotte Mason College at Ambleside. Before that he had been Head of Trinity School, an 11-18 comprehensive school in Carlisle, UK, and before that a school inspector and a teacher. He was trained as a classicist, and was formerly Chairman of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers and President of EUROCLASSICA, a federation of classics teachers from all parts of Europe, with which he is still much involved. His main areas of research and teaching are Greek history and Medieval Latin. He has published books on Athenian Democracy and on Documents in Medieval Latin, as well as articles on classical and medieval history, and on Charlotte Mason.
Dr. Deani A. Neven Van Pelt, Assistant Professor, Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Deani Van Pelt, B.Com. (McMaster), B.Ed. (Toronto), M.Ed. (UWO), Ph.D. (UWO) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Redeemer University College, Hamilton, Ontario where she instructs courses in social and legal foundations of education and education psychology. As primary and co-investigator in a number of funded international research collaborations on private schooling, religious schooling, and home schooling she is frequently interviewed by national media on education policy issues. She was honoured for excellence in graduate studies with her thesis Charlotte Mason’s Design for Education, and through grants received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada continues to probe the contours and potential of this growing educational philosophy. A former teacher in the math and business departments of public and private secondary schools, she and her husband home educated their three children for more than a decade.
Ms. Victoria Waters
Victoria Waters holds master's degrees in comparative literature and librarianship from the University of Chicago and has worked primarily as a library cataloguer for over thirty years. She also homeschooled her son, now a music student at the University of Michigan, for the whole of his K-12 education. When she read For the Children's Sake, she immediately saw that this was the only way that she could teach, but felt that she needed more information than it provided. For the past twenty years, she has been searching for this information and sharing it with others. Her projects so far include a little magazine called The Skylark (published 1995-97), the publication of Marian Ney's book Charlotte Mason, a Pioneer of Sane Education, and the website charlottesdaughters.org (no longer online) which compiled information from 1920s PNEU term programmes into a form more accessible to U.S. and Canadian teachers. She is especially interested in the later history of the PNEU and ideas and books that have grown out of PNEU experience or resonate with Charlotte Mason's thinking.