Wednesday, April 22, 2009

St Anselm and Child Discipline...and Our Unschooling...

The saint for April 21. Yesterday.

St Anselm was treated harshly by his father. He resolved to leave his home when a young man...As a monk and abbot, he pondered on how we treat children and wrote about the discipline of children, of the boys in the schools.

An abbot told Anselm, then Archbishop of Canterbury, of the difficulties he was having in bringing up boys in his care.

The abbot was a disciplinarian, beating the boys for each and every misdemeanour.

Anselm could not contain his disagreement:

"In God’s name", he burst out, "I would have you tell me why you are so incensed against them. Are they not human? Are they not flesh and blood like you?"

The boys, he said, need "the encouragement and help of fatherly sympathy and gentleness", not blows.
Don't you love that line about encouragement and sympathy..about remembering that children are people ( very Charlotte Mason-ish)?

So, Tuesday, I thought about St Anselm's words. While we worked through a French Reader together and I did Kumon work.

We read about Julie and her friend Marc, at school in Paris. How tout le monde parle francais ...Everyone, literally, all the world, speaks French!


We went to a birthday party..we went to Borders and I bought the book Inkheart for us to read, as French Class is going to the cinema next week to catch that movie - after our French lesson, of course! I admit to having a bit of a crush on Brendan Fraser ( he's so cute).


St Anselm...discipline of children..French..Inkheart..Brendan Fraser..we have such full and illogical unschooling days!

6 comments:

Hopewell said...

Very interesting and YES very "CM" Good words for me to remember in dealing with my own son, too. I'm anxious to hear what you think of Inkheart. My d has read 2 wildly popular books lately and been totally underwhelmed. Inkheart is another she's been wanting to read.

Leonie said...

It is good to have reminbders, isn't it - and there is often always one chld who "test" us..I haven't started Inkheart yet but Anthony (13) has - he's read about five chapters so far...

Chris said...

Thank you for the information about St Anselm. I like him and I do love that line about encouragement and sympathy. I'm looking forward to seeing Inkheart. We bought the book at Borders after Kumon. Hopefully will finish before the movie.

Leonie said...

He is an inspiration, a reminder...Anny is reading Inkheart now...

Amy R said...

What a great post. I'd heard of St. Anselm - and that's as far as it went. Thank you for telling us about his "fatherly encouragement and sympathy".

Leonie said...

Fits in so well with St John Bosco!