Opinion

Put down those textbooks and turn off the screens. Here is a great way for kids to learn

Reading the great books will change your children’s lives — and yours

By Arthur Herman , Beth Herman Fox News

Published September 26, 2026 7:00am EDT

Comments Facebook Twitter Threads Flipboard Print Email Add Fox News on Google

close

Video

1619 Project founder expresses regret over education choices for daughter

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo discusses 1619 Project founder Nikole Hannah-Jones admitting she regrets enrolling her daughter in a high-poverty public school in Brooklyn on 'America Reports.'

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

It’s late September. Kids are firmly back in school; routines are established and reading lists set. But what exactly is on the menu? The usual textbooks, which, if they’re in a government school, are often written by committee (with an agenda), range from uninspiring to outright woke.

Or maybe most of your child’s school curriculum is delivered via lifeless and impersonal computer screens.

But there is an alternative, a source whose advocacy first transformed the task of educating children over one hundred years ago. Virtually unknown to public school parents, the British 19th-century reformer Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) has long been the hero of modern homeschooling in America, and the movement’s best-kept secret weapon.

WE GREW UP BEFORE SCREENS TOOK OVER. OUR KIDS DESERVE THAT CHANCE TOO

But her ideas and theories are not just applicable to the home-schooling community. Parents and educators can greatly benefit from Mason’s ideas about children and reading, which are even more relevant today.

Students who read the great books will find them far better than the dull stuff of textbooks. (Ryan McVay/iStock)

Creating a thirst for knowledge, and lifelong love of learning was Mason’s goal. If children developed an early........

© Fox News