Gentle?

I haven’t been commenting, but I’ve been watching this thread, and I gotta say it again-you guys are great!  What a thorough, well thought out, honest, real discussion.  Thanks everyone.  

Trying to think through some of the things that have been said here. Would it be over-simplifying to say that all this is perhaps analogous to feeding our kids healthy food? We feed them the food that we know will be healthy, life-giving, and so on; and we require that they eat it. We limit the “junk”. But the manner in which we require the one and limit the other is a gentle manner, one that respects and honors the child as a person. 

And in the same way we do not give the child nothing but easy, fluffy work to do. We require much from them. We know that is what their minds and imaginations and thought processes will thrive on, and we don’t accept half-hearted efforts. We teach them (gently) to give their best effort in their work.

Am I getting anywhere close to an understanding? Or am I totally missing it?

Forgive me, but I haven’t had time to read through the responses but wanted to quickly comment, that for me, gentleness is reading a passage to memorize over 1 or 2 times per day until we have it memorized (and enjoying it) or practicing math until the facts are remembered rather than hard core drill. Same with history dates, grammar rules, etc. We enjoy a living book and can remember that date in our minds because our minds categorize things naturally (1800’s, Little House book and Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, etc).

Isa 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.  We build upon small bits of information daily and better remember those ideas, while developing  a love for learning in the process. 

Tara

I have been digging in the depths of my memories where my young school years live – I can say our education in the CM school was thorough, not easy or fluffy, but there was no harshness from the teacher/s – discipline was handled in an even handed way, no yelling, no humiliating and parental involvement was always a part. It is funny but my memories of school from 5-11 years old are of happy, carefree days learning and being outside a lot. My high school years in a traditional school are very different and not at all happy memories. I came out of my younger school years able to read well, do basic math, know countries, speak some foreign languages,at least the very basics – learned embroidery and drawing, basic cooking, gardening and a whole lot about nature. There was a joy to each day, which in later school years was gone and along with it the wanting to learn – sadly big school took away all my joy in learning. So CM in practise in the 50s/60s in England in my own experience was full of expectation. Great things were expected from us, manners and morals high on the list, and the short academic lessons were thorough but taught in a way that never felt harsh or anything of that sort. However our teacher/s were not pushovers, they were able to show their disapproval in our behavior or work in ways that were not unkind or humiliating – in that sense it was gentle but extremely effective. I think one of the reasons it worked so well then was because parents back then at least in my area were very involved with the schooling and manners were expected not only at school but at home as well. Homeschooling lends itself well to CM because the parents really care about the education they are giving their children, and those schools that work on the CM method have students whose parents want that kind of teaching and learning. I would like to think it would work in a normal PS but without the parental reinforcment of habits, morals and manners – it seems to me to be unlikely. As for the boy/girl divide – there was none of that in my little school – the boys did needlework and cooking and we did simple experiments and simple woodcraft with them – we were expected to do the same math and science and they were expected to enjoy the same literature. We all had Bible study and hymn singing first thing every morning and were taught prayers and hymns in readiness for church and to say at home. It is a real and excellent education, no doubt about that.