I am reading this wonderful book that I picked up from the library…

homeschoolingwithgentleness

Although I’ve just begun reading it, I can already tell that I will more than likely love it! The first 4 chapters have been so inspiring and enlightening! Suzie Andres, the Author of this book, happens to live here in the same town we live in, and she has such a neat way of writing — Very open, honest, and REAL!  She makes lots of reference to John Holt and Charlotte Mason, two of whom I consider the the most brilliant & inspiring people when it comes to our children and their education. My family is not Catholic, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from those who are, and I have a feeling that this book has so much to offer homeschooling parent’s who question the traditional methods of teaching and learning!

With a double mocha buzzing through my veins this very late midnight-ish evening… I share with you 2 excerpts from Holt’s book “Teach Your Own” (quoted in the above book) that spoke so clear and directly to my heart tonight:

John Holt on What Unschooling Looks Like

“We can sum up very quickly what people need to teach their own children.” First of all, they have to like them, enjoy their company, their physical presence, their energy, foolishness, and passion. They have to enjoy all their talk and questions, and enjoy equally trying to answer those questions. They have to think of their children as friends, indeed very close friends, have to feel happier when they are near and miss them when they are away. They have to trust them as people, respect their fragile dignity, treat them with courtesy, take them seriously. They have to feel in their own hearts some of their children’s wonder, curiosity, and excitement about the world. And they have to have enough confidence in themselves, skepticism about the experts, and willingness to be different from most people, to take on themselves the responsibility for their children’s learning.” But that is about all the parents need.

Children don’t need, don’t want, and couldn’t stand six hours of teaching a day, even if parents wanted to do that much. To help them find out about the world doesn’t take that much adult input. Most of what they need, parents have been giving them since they were born. As I have said, they need access. They need a chance, sometimes, for honest, serious, unhurried talk; or sometimes, for joking, play, and foolishness; or sometimes, for tenderness, sympathy, and comfort. They need, much of the time, to share your life, or at least, not to feel shut out of it; in short, to go some of the places you go, to see and do some of the things that interest you, to get to know some of your friends, to find out what you did when you were little and before they were born. They need to have their questions answered, or at least heard and attended to (if you don’t know, say “I don’t know.”) They need to know more and more adults whose main work in life is not taking care of kids. They need some friends their own age, but not dozens of them; two or three, at most half a dozen, is as many real friends as any child can have at one time. Perhaps above all, they need a lot of privacy, solitude, calm times when there’s nothing to do.

Joyfully,

Melanie

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