Gently Whispering

I'm sure we've all heard by now the term "Whisperer".  Cesar Milan is one of my heroes.  The term originated, as far as I know, with Monty Roberts - the original Horse Whisperer.  His book changed my view of teaching when he cited the most important thing he had learned from his teacher, a Catholic nun.  To paraphrase..."there are no teachers unless there are learners".  In other words, a teacher is just talking to herself, to the walls, to the air when she teaches, unless the student is learning.  Monty's approach to "gentling" horses (his term) was to work in harmony with the horse's nature - to respect its fears, its needs and its desires.  And he applied these principles to education of humans too!  As does Cesar Milan in his books about how to be" a calm and assertive leade"r.

This makes total sense to me.  That is why I find Montessori principles, Conscious Discipline and Virtues Language so powerful.  They work with the child's nature, in harmony with the forces of human development to nurture development - like the role of a gardener.  You can't make a plant grow faster.  And you can't make a daisy grow into a rose.

Adults feign such hubris when it comes to children.  And they are blind to the costs of their own creating.  They come to see undisciplined, unfocused, lazy or resistant children as "normal".  Monty Roberts, Cesar Milan, Dr. Maria Montessori, myself and others see children differently.  If we nurture children in accordance with laws of nature and development, we see children who are naturally self-directed, self-disciplined, who prefer order, who exhibit social sympathy - in other words, children who are in harmony with their environment.

Have you ever seen such a child or group of children?  I have.  It's rare and fragile in this world.  But it will cause you to weep with the sheer implications of it - a world in which folks live in harmony with themselves,  one another and with their environment.

Now let's start a conversation about how to get there...Cheers!