Art Class

Yesterday while doing errands I listened to the conference on temperaments that I've recommended before, specifically to the section about melancholics in order to think about some ways I could better help John. One point the speaker made is that a melancholic can be seen to freeze while doing school work because he feels the need to be perfect, so he might not move on from a problem or task to the next one for fear that the last one wasn't perfect. What looks like laziness or lack of intellect might really be perfectionism and anxiety. The speaker suggested physically covering up all the other problems on the page so the melancholic student sees only one problem. (And, of older students, she suggested limiting their time and requiring them to move on to the next problems.)

I thought of John's reading lessons and how he balks and does silly misbehaviors to try to knock me off track, but when I can finally force him to read, he reads very well. And who wants to be forcing a four-year-old to read? If I'm having to force, something is wrong. But something is also wrong that he can read so well, but won't do so out of anxiety. But I had determined that if I couldn't find a way to alleviate his emotions, I simply had to back off from reading lessons rather than be "forcing" at this early point in education! So today I tried an experiment: I photocopied his reading lesson, and cut up all the sounds and words. Plus I cut his story into single sentences.

The result was that he did so much better! He didn't give me any of his normal rigmarole or protests that "I can't do it." He just read, sounding out words silently and fairly quickly. In fact, I was going to do only one half a lesson, as per our current norm, and he asked to complete the whole lesson. I am grateful to this idea given to me because I think it will help.

Today the children attended the first session of their every-other-week arts and crafts class. They made Saint Spoons, Mary choosing St. Martin de Porres and John choosing Bl. Theresa of Calcutta.

Also, they were given very nice coloring books! Afterward they had free play time in the gymnasium.