Message in the Guestbook of Gentle Teaching International
My first experience with John McGee was very meaningful .I invited him in the community –I was involved – in the Netherlands in 1993 and his first question was : “Please introduce me to the most vulnerable people”
From this first moment I was continuously quite impressed about the empathic way he connected people who often are neglected because of difficult behavior . He made contact with unconditional love and he connected them with other people . He inspired us to connect these people with other involved people and everybody became included .
Step-by-step he taught us how to build up a community “bottom-up “ based on the 4 Pillars of Gentle Teaching .

In such a community it is useful to teach/train the caregivers to learn how to implement Companionship and how to become qualified Gentle Teachers . With all of these involved people we could find the way to feel empathic for all people ;which nowadays has been called : “ collective Empathy “ . Each community can become a Gentleness Center in many areas all over the world.
Involved people in each Center are able to connect people from other Centers .They like to share their experiences with Gentle Teaching based on reciprocity ;as they already learnt “bottom-up in their community.

This what actually has been called “ Netwerking” . From this ongoing experience we are realizing more and more the full meaning of what John always mentioned :” The Cultural of LIFE” .From this we learnt as John wrote in a GT Primer( May 2007 ) : Gentleness knows no boundaries .It covers all cultures .It is expressed differently from one land to another.

Anthony Millenaar
More than 20 years involved in Gentle Teaching in various Communities