Book Review: Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell
Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit is a short meditation on what it means to homeschool with a meek and quiet spirit. It encourages the reader to put off sinful attitudes such as anger and discontent and put on gratefulness and contentment. I think the biggest revelation to me was that the definition of “meek” is not shy, retiring, or bashful, rather the meek person is mild of temper and not easily provoked or irritated. I’m pretty easily provoked or irritated, so some of the encouragement here was helpful, although I don’t think she attacked my biggest areas of sin (pride! and everything should be perfectly done my way!) and her chapters always left me a little wanting.
I’m a little wary of the Maxwells in general, although I really like Managers of the Homes (with qualifiers) and would like to set up Managers of their Chores. I’m glad I borrowed this to read (thanks, Heather!), it was worth the investment of my time, especially the beginning and ending chapters (and there were some helpful ideas in the middle too).
I like that book very much and have used it several times for a one-on-one study with a younger homeschool mom.
Thanks, Dawn. I've wondered if I should get that book. I am of your opinion on the Maxwells, also. I did get Managers of Their Chores; it is to chores what the other is to scheduling and it was very helpful, except that their system they lay out doesn't work too well with all-little ones. It would work great, I think, if you had mostly 10-6 year olds.
I'll put this book on my list of books I'll be on the lookout to borrow or acquire cheaply. 🙂
My friend who lent it to me has it on her yearly re-read list. It has some good ideas, I just don't think I want to go that far. Plus, I'm not convinced that Teri Maxwell is a good writer, she gets ideas on the page but I'm just not drawn in by her style or captivated by her examples.
I can see how it would be great for the purposes Margaret uses it for … mentoring and using it as a springboard. Maybe I'd have gotten more out of it if I'd used the study questions, but I skipped over them enough to barely recall their existence.
It isn't a deep book but I find myself encouraged & convicted… it is so easy for me to be impatient w/ all my expectations & lists. The book is a good reminder of where my heart should be!
I have the Mangers of Chores & read it a few times… even tried to do it twice but it has never stuck. Still want to try it- though we will probably do a list vs cards.
Apologies for coming back to an old post and commenting but I wanted to mention this about MoH.
I have a friend who has 10 children. She uses it, but in the smartest way I've seen. She took all of that time to put together a schedule, and then she and her husband went over it and highlighted about 6 places in each older family member's column that they really wanted to see happen. So, when she gets behind, she just jumps forward to the next highlighted place and goes from there.
I just thought it was a clever way to not get uptight about it.
Margaret, that's *brilliant* — thank you for sharing!
I was thinking about thinking through which school things will be priority next year; that would be a great idea to do with a school schedule/list, too.
Thanks! This is why subscribing to comments is a good thing to do. 🙂
Thanks, Margaret. Thankfully all my littles have three specific targets: circle time, lunch, and quiet time. If we hit those, our day generally goes smoothly and I feel like we accomplished something. I need to add chores sooner rather than later (for me as well as for the children [grin])