Home School Life

The Girl loves food. She almost always has a little nibble in her mouth and has a fine appreciation for the culinary arts. Above is a picture of her working in her book during main lesson today. Amid the tabletop full of pencils, books, and bags is an empty popcorn bowl and a mug full of cocoa. I’ve been questioning the wisdom of letting her nibble during our lessons as I’ve found her often distracted by whatever delicious morsel she is currently savoring, but I haven’t decided to lay down the law. . . yet.

It has got me thinking, however, about the temperaments, and using them as a tool for teaching. When I was teaching a classroom of students I usually tried to incorporate something that appealed to each of the four temperaments in each lesson. I got to a point where I could pretty reliably predict when each student was going to engage in the lesson based on his or her temperament.

How do you appeal to the different temperaments? Here’s a quick run-down (I’ve included the element that corresponds with each temperament, as it is the easiest way for me to think of the temperaments.)

Phlegmatic (Water) — Phlegmatics love food. They are often slow-moving but once you set them on a repetitive task they will do it until the cows come home. Phlegmatics are generally easy-going and don’t get too riled up about things. In a classroom seating arrangement they are often given the arduous task of providing a buffer between the more volatile personalities in the room. Having quite a bit of phlegmatic myself, I find it quite easy to appeal to them. Any story including eating,  slowly savoring a sensory experience or finding the repetitive aspect of a task is quite satisfying for the phlegmatic. A really long long division problem, a drawing of a field of flowers — with each individual flower drawn (again and again), and knitting are all tasks that appeal to the phlegmatic.

Choleric (Fire) — Fire and water don’t mix — and neither do the choleric and the phlegmatic. These two personalities can drive each other crazy! The choleric cannot abide by anything long and drawn out. Let’s cut to the chase and get it done! This is the person in the classroom you can really count on to do the chores, and do them well. It can be exceedingly difficult, though, for cholerics to wait for others. They are also, quite often, extroverted, which means that sometimes they just HAVE to get out of the room to keep the peace. Because of this cholerics are great errand runners. In the classroom seating arrangement the cholerics often sit on the fringes of the room so they can get out quickly and easily without disrupting the class too much. They love stories about people who have done difficult things but accomplished them in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. People who have tremendous strength of will are inspiring to cholerics and they need to be met with other cholerics to learn, grow and be put in their place from time to time. I always found it quite difficult but necessary to muster up my choleric side when I needed to face up to one of my choleric students. Cholerics love timed multiplication tests, bold drawings with easily controlled colored pencils, and arduous tasks like woodworking.

Melancholic (Earth) — Melancholics feel the weight of the world. They love truly sad stories where all hope is completely lost. They are disappointed, actually, when it all turns out okay in the end. For the melancholics it is best to savor those tragic moments in a story so that they don’t begin finding their own little tragedies. Melancholics are best sitting in the back of the room, surrounded by other melancholics they can commisserate with. In fact, there is a school of thought that suggests all of the temperaments be seated together — not easy when it comes to the cholerics! — but I found this grouped seating to be particularly valuable for the melancholics. Tasks that appeal to the melancholics are those that are exceedingly difficult — handwriting is labored over, drawings are faintly but meticulously done, and division is far more satisfying than multiplication. We tend to want to cheer up the poor melancholics, but they are happiest when they are allowed to wallow in their sadness.

Sanguine (Air) — Sanguines like to flit and fly through their lessons. Thoughts stay on their minds for only a minute before they are cast aside for the latest new idea. They like stories that move quickly through many different places, with lots of characters, and hugely varying plot-lines. They don’t like things to get too sad, they don’t really dwell on anything long enough to get sad about it. In the classroom the sanguines sit together in the middle of the room where the class can help to hold them in a bit and they can hopefully observe the flightiness of their fellow-sanguines and become so irritated that they notice it in themselves. Sanguines love tasks that include variety. Math lessons should include everything — a little multiplication, algebra, even a little geometry for fun! Wet-on-wet watercolor painting is satisfying in it’s simplicity and the sanguines are often the first ones finished. Pattern-making and hand-sewing seem like tasks sanguines would enjoy as they require such a wide variety of skills.

Now, as a homeschool teacher, it is not my goal to pin my daughter’s temperament down and teach to it — our days cannot be full of lessons about spaghetti and ice cream. Rather, her temperament can be a guide and give me a clue towards finding a “way in” with a particular subject. For example, if our lesson for the day is on ferns (as it was today) I can try to find the aspect of ferns that would appeal to her phlegmatic side. Today we drew ferns, with leaf after elegant leaf covering our main lesson book pages.

The goal, of course, is to balance your temperament so that you can draw upon the different aspects of your personality when needed. This is easier said than done, though, and most of us will always be able to say the one or two temperaments that are most strong within us.