environment

12 Mar

All Day – All Year Montessori: A Living Community

by Michele Aspinall | Montessori Blog

I love Montessori. Not merely the materials and the way that they call to each child at different stages of development. I love Montessori as a way of living. I love the endless opportunities that a Montessori environment offers each child who enters it. I love the way that the small community that is created accepts every new child as if he was a long-lost family member reunited. I love that the “oldest” children in the environment not only teach the youngest; they mentor, nurture, adore, and protect them. So, why tack on a Before or After school Program at the beginning and end of a child’s school day? Is it truly to suit the child or is it simply easier for the adults to sustain? Throughout the years, I have become a bit of a crusader of All Day Montessori. I am an advocate of eliminating before and after school care in Montessori schools in order to encourage all of these wonderful things to continue to grow into something that resembles a living community: All Day and ideally All Year.

Every day for the last twenty years I have been fortunate enough to call two very special places “home”. I can say with confidence that the children who I share my professional space with today also see it as a home away from home. How can I be so sure? Well, if you were to ask me the same question within the first five years of this very unstable All Day, All Year program I would have likely cried and then said that I wasn’t sure of anything on any given day. If it weren’t for those first terribly unsettling years, I would not be able to say with confidence that children who stay at school for longer hours than a traditional school day, are best served in a Montessori classroom ALL DAY LONG. Their classroom. Their space. Isn’t that what we might call authentic Montessori?

There is a need for longer hours at school. There is no disputing that. Parents are workers and workers are parents, both out of necessity and preference. That’s in large part because many families in today’s economy rely on two incomes in order to pay the bills. The traditional primary class model is one that provides a school day from 8:30 am-3:00 pm. In order to meet the needs of parents and their demanding work schedules, many schools today offer before and after-school care. We (Countryside Montessori School) started, as many do, with a daycare set-up that was offered in the morning before the children went to their Montessori environments and then again after school when class ended. We offered 7:00 am drop- off, which included a light breakfast (cereal, toast, etc.). Also offered, was 12:00 pm lunch drop-in, which included lunch for children too young to stay for extended day. Finally, there was also an after-school option of 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm. This before/after care room could accommodate approximately 35 children at one time. It was available year-round, and only closed on major holidays. Parents could sign-up for any or all of those options – some even on a daily basis. It was named “Care Club”. When Care Club began almost 40 years ago, it contained no Montessori materials. The room was equipped with books, puzzles, blocks and traditional toys. I began directing Care Club when I joined the Countryside staff thirty years ago.

As many daycares can become, the program was essentially a revolving door for adults. The children could never really be sure of who was coming and going. Keeping ground rules consistent was unrealistic. Adults aside, the number of transitions in the children’s day was enough to make anyone feel muddled. Try to imagine every two to three hours being asked to pack up all your stuff and move to another room after you have finally settled in.

The day went a little bit like this for most children in Care Club: Having been pulled out of bed early in order to get to school on time, most days started badly for many children. After breakfast, they played with toys for a short time and then were asked to gather their belongings (again) and head to their Montessori class. After the morning class, all non-extended day children would come back to the day care room to have lunch and nap. After naps, the youngest children would play for a bit and at 3:00pm the extended day and elementary children enrolled in daycare would join us. The daycare room was located in the middle of the school so there would often be groups of children walking past the room to go home. For the daycare children, this was yet another reminder that they were different. Looking back, it is so clear why they weren’t interested in becoming connected to anything . . . they were simply waiting. Waiting for someone to tell them where to go next.

At the time, it seemed to make sense that the children needed “a break” in their day and the way to meet that need was to supply them with material that you’d find in their homes. Toys! As far as the toy selections in Care Club . . . well, they were endless. Subsequently, I felt that if I skimmed back and really focused on making good choices to place in the room, it would make a difference in the children’s behavior. I brought in toys and games that involved concentration and cooperation. However, it didn’t take long to figure out that it made little difference what kind of toy I put on the shelves . . . the children were equally abusive with each one. I’ll be honest with you, it didn’t feel right or even comfortable, but it was representative of how we often see children interact with each other in similar settings. Also, at this time I was not yet Montessori trained. It simply didn’t occur to me that it could be better.

There was something different about the day-care children, this was apparent. They were detached and uninspired with their daycare environment as well as their Montessori classrooms. In the daycare environment they bickered, damaged materials, they were careless and uninterested; in the classroom, they were only concerned with being with each other and waiting for Care Club to begin. What were the children trying to tell us? We continued to observe and explore, exhausting many possibilities along the way. We tried: adding more toys, limiting toys, adding service-oriented tasks for the All-Year elementary, and finally bringing in some practical life-type activities. After all of our best attempts failed, it was time to seek outside assistance. This day, I remember like no other. This is the day Carol Alver turned my world upside down . . . in a good way. I recall vividly when Carol and I sat down to talk about Care Club. I thought she would give me a few enlightening suggestions on how to make some minor tweaks to the program. This was not the case. In a nutshell, Carol said that it all had to go. The toys, the games, the “Day Care” environment had to go. She proposed that we create an All-Year Montessori environment with hours that would accommodate working parents, but most importantly provide the children with a place that they could call their own. I was rattled and fairly uncertain if I had a job the following day.

The school, however, was intrigued. We were not in the position to make the changes that were necessary to do it the right way. So I continued on, doing my best to offer the children an enriching Day Care environment. In the meantime, I also decided to embark on the AMI primary training. At the same time, our Head of School, Annette Kulle charged Wendy Calise, our Educational Director, with the responsibility of devising a daycare program that was pedagogically sound. She was specifically not to be influenced by the needs of parents; the realities of staffing; the space for such a program; the cost of such a program; or even whether we wanted to do such a program. While I kept myself busy with the training, Wendy was doing her own homework on how to make Carol’s idea work.

Two years later we took the plunge. These were the parameters that were devised for a new All-Year environment:

All children enrolled in AYM would be in one class. This would mean pulling the day care children from other primary classes and forming a new fourth class
The daycare hours would be shortened, taking a half an hour off each end of the day
There was no reason that children should not be in a Montessori environment all day long
Transitions needed to be limited
Three staff members for the All-year class were sufficient, one trained directress and two full-time assistants
In order for the All-Year Montessori teacher to not feel 2nd class – her number of days off would be the same as all other teachers in the school
The class size would be 30 – 35 children
AYM would need more space than a traditional class
The room would be designed so that no other children would need to pass through to go home
There would be a place (vestibule) for parents to wait when picking up their children
There would be a full kitchen
And finally, the program needed to be pedagogically sound

There was no doubt that these children were particularly sensitive to transition. Consequently, I made certain that there were few variations that occurred in their day. However, I really wanted to make their day seamless. Not an easy task with so many hours to consider. Also, there weren’t many successful models to follow. There seems to still remain many educators who feel that children need constant change to keep their interest. We had learned first hand in Care Club that it couldn’t be farther from the truth. So this is what I did . . . I observed. And then when I thought I had enough information, I observed some more. Through my observations, I had discovered countless shifts throughout the school day that were not only disruptive but robbed the children of the ownership that they needed in order to finally settle into THEIR class.

The All-Year class is almost 20 years old and in the best place it has ever been. Currently, the class consists of thirty-five children. We are open from 7:30 – 5:30m, 245 days a year. I continue to be the directress in the environment, and I have two assistant teachers. As previously mentioned, this place has become a home away from home for me and for hundreds of children over the years. As difficult as it was in the beginning to make the change, I can’t imagine working and living in any other environment.

When pondering the idea of Montessori all-day long it would be foolish to not reflect on the very first Children’s House. In 1906 Montessori worked with a group of sixty young children of working parents in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. It was there that she founded the first Casa, essentially what we now are calling All-Year Montessori. ‘There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of differing ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community.’ Dr. Maria Montessori (cited in Elizabeth Hainstock, 1986, p. 81 – The Essential Montessori). I am living in a community such as this every day. It allows the younger child to experience the daily incentive of older role models, who in turn flourish through the responsibility of leadership. This cycle is continuous, as those being mentored successively aspire to be the role model. Three to six-year-olds remaining in the same class ALL DAY innately eliminates all titles that the children naturally impose on each other. There are no morning children, extended day kids, or even “kindergarten” labels. They are all in it together . . . everyday. They are classmates. They are friends. They become a family. This environment also promotes the understanding that children not only learn ‘with’ each other but ‘from’ each other, minimizing the need for adult guidance and intervention. The peer teaching in an all year environment has limitless boundaries. The robust sense of community allows the children to become confident in their environment and in themselves, using the knowledge and skills they acquire to express their own ideas and creativity. It assists them in recognizing their value, to respect the creative process of others, and develop a willingness to share, regardless of the risks.

On any given morning, the delicious fragrances of cinnamon French toast, multi-grain waffles, banana pancakes or cheesy skillet scrambled eggs can be enjoyed throughout the halls of the school. As early as 7:30 am, parents escort children into a vestibule that leads into our AYM class. After good-byes are said at the entrance, the child walks independently into the classroom and the parent sets off to work. The child then tends to his belongings and walks into the kitchen area that is adjoining the class. At this time, he has the choice of either having the hot breakfast that is being prepared by his peers or beginning his day in the class. Once breakfast is made and all morning responsibilities have been fulfilled, the children sit to eat family-style. Some words of thanks for the bountiful meal are shared and then thirty-something children begin their feast. Conversation, laughter, and quiet reflection can all be observed during breakfast all year round. It is a perfect way to ease into a day.

As children finish up and breakfast comes to a close, there is more activity just beginning in the classroom. Children arriving after 8:00 am have already eaten breakfast at home and oftentimes are the ones preparing the class for readiness. In an All Day environment where we want the children to ultimately claim complete ownership, it is essential that they partake in the everyday class preparatory tasks that traditionally the adults are accustomed to completing. A variety of work can be observed in AYM anytime between 8:30 and 11:30; the traditional Montessori materials are in constant use as well as activities such as: baking snack for the class, tending to the garden, watercolor painting or cleaning an animal cage. By 10:30 am the children have already emptied the dishwasher twice. In addition, the laundry has been loaded, unloaded and folded for lunch preparation. In every corner of the room, real, purposeful activity can be observed. A living, working community.

Around 11:30 am a few children slowly begin to wash up and wander into the dining area once again to begin lunch set-up. At 11:45 there still may be a child finishing up a word with the moveable alphabet that he is anxious to get down on his rug before joining us for lunch. There is no hurry we have time. Preparation, eating, and clean up takes us close to an hour and a half. Mealtime is an opportunity for growth. Grace and Courtesy lessons have become as important to me as any other tangible material that can be found on the shelves of the classroom. These are life lessons. They are critical in order to maintain peace and harmony within a very extended day together.

After our second meal of the day, we retreat to our backyard. Most of the children in AYM are at school for ten hours a day. Outdoor play is a must, no matter what the weather brings. A few of the very youngest children who need an afternoon nap settle in shortly after some time outside. The oldest children are partnered up with the youngest to tuck them in, sing a song or rub their backs for comfort. When the others are ready to come in from outside, we gather for a few minutes to discuss the day or what’s to come in that particular week. We then begin our second three-hour work period of the day. This is commonly when I observe the most focused work, sometimes from the youngest in the class. It is not unusual to see a child completely engaged in his work at 5:00 pm. For the last hour, the All Year Elementary children typically go outside or to the gym for some large movement. A handful of the three to six year olds who need large movement join the elementary students. The primary children truly value their time with the elementary group. It is another wondrous occasion for peer teaching to take place on a different level.

I am still faced with some apprehension and a smidge of resistance when visiting schools who are considering an All Day model in replacement of their before and aftercare. The hesitance is typically coming from the staff, the teachers who will ultimately have to make the shift from a traditional school day. I get it. Change is hard. Most of us today live in places that lack community. Neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be. Parents and children aren’t home long enough to develop the kinds of relationships with their neighbors that we had long ago. That’s why it’s so crucial that we help to nurture and inspire the children who stay at school for longer hours to develop a community within our Montessori classrooms. Being involved in a community of friends is vital in the growth and development of our children. Community offers support, a sense of belonging, a strong sense of self and of connection. The children feel emotionally and physically safe and valued; they develop social abilities and have a sense of sharing and caring for each other. Let’s work together to continue to create and develop these All Day/All Year communities. Anything of real value is worth the struggle. The children certainly are.

16 May

Why Montessori?

by Jennifer Rogers | Montessori Blog

15 Comments

Preaching to the choir
A persuasive tone in speech and writing lends an urgent and important feeling to any topic. Then again, talking or writing persuasively about the benefits of a Montessori education before an audience of parents whose children are thriving in Montessori classrooms is a little silly. Parents who attend school meetings and read blog posts are among the best. They are typically people who are already thoughtfully engaged in education and parenting.

At every parent meeting, teachers look out into an audience of familiar faces. We notice that the same people also volunteer, ask honest questions in parent-teacher conferences, participate in fund-raisers, and arrive at school on time. We look for their faces in our audiences because the smiles are reassuring, and also because we know our words will make an immediate and lasting difference in the lives of their children. It’s a grand exchange, but asking “Why Montessori?” is a risk. Redundancy is boring, and smart people do not like to be bored.

My response to the “Why Montessori?” question is not detailed or exhaustive. It is a broad-strokes personal narrative, loaded with opinions formed in more than two decades of teaching. The arrangements of space, time, and people that I consider essential to an authentic Montessori education are not doctrinal. Others would answer the same question differently, but accurately.

I could easily add to the following list, but I could not take anything away.

Diversity
The youngest Montessori students gather information through observation and admiration of their older classmates. The oldest students are challenged and often transformed by urgent demands to help and guide their younger peers.

The failure of most public and private schools to incorporate diversity into the formation of classrooms and curriculums has been widely reported. It is an old and persistent problem. The segregation of ages and the standardization of curriculum is a lost opportunity. Standardization and segregation are huge limitations to academic achievement, and to the growth of human understanding.

There are children learning in Montessori classrooms from a kaleidoscopic array of ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds. They learn as much from each other as they do from formal lessons. Geographically isolated Montessori classrooms can be more homogenous than a school located in a diversely populated urban area, but every authentic Montessori school has a student population of mixed ages and abilities. Montessori students are not differentiated by age or intellect.

This diversity is, in my opinion, the single factor that has the most profound and lasting impact on the education of young children. Montessori students demonstrate how much we have to learn from each other as well as how much each of us has to offer our world.

Prepared Environment
Furniture in Montessori classrooms is the appropriate size for the children who will use it. This is also true of the tools, utensils, and materials they will hold in their hands. Pictures hang on the wall at the level of the students’ eyes. Every classroom is organized in such a way that the sequence of learning is materially present on the shelves and obvious to the children. The goals of independent decision-making and internal motivation are built into the carefully prepared environment.

Montessori classrooms are as different as the teachers who tend them, but they evince an attention to order and beauty rarely witnessed in education. Most are filled with light, plants, fresh flowers, and an ambiance of grace. Environments affect the quality of the experiences within them. The earliest memories of learning are, for Montessori students, forever associated with the warmth and peace of their first classrooms.

Purposeful Work
Maria Montessori was educated and trained as a physician. Throughout her long life, she remained fascinated with her observations of human health. The work she offered her students was always purposeful, and it always involved the coordinated work of mind and body. Montessori understood that a strong mind paired with strong hands led to optimum development of a child’s intelligence. This was true with her first students, and it remains true today.

Students in Montessori classrooms have daily opportunities to select their work. Children may repeat the tasks they select as often as they desire, until the task is mastered. Work chosen independently and repeated without interruption often leads to deep concentration. Montessori’s ability to cultivate and protect the concentration of young children through their purposeful work remains one of her most significant contributions to the education of young people.

Skilled Leadership
A traditionally structured classroom usually includes a teacher-directed curriculum. Time and space are marked and organized by the strong, clear voice of a teacher who is trained in an age group or an academic discipline, mathematics, for example, or four-year-olds, or music.

Montessori classrooms are active, creative, and adaptive communities. The teacher’s voice is seldom heard, and she frequently sits beside a child as he or she learns. It might seem that the hierarchical structure of a traditional classroom would require stronger leadership and stricter discipline. Actually, a healthy Montessori community requires a much more intelligent and intuitive style of leadership.

Montessori teachers must be skilled in the practice of observation and comfortable with the independent, purposeful movement of young minds at work. Nationally and internationally accredited Montessori teacher training courses are intense and demanding. This is as it should be. Montessori teachers should be experts in the abstract principles and concrete materials that structure the life of a classroom.

Silence
Visitors to Montessori classrooms first notice the beauty and order present throughout the environment. They also notice the quiet, especially if they are accustomed to teacher-directed systems of education. There are no bells prompting students to change activities or locations, no intercom, and no video or television instruction. Montessori teachers do gather the entire class for special events, singing, or shared story, but the voice of the teacher does not direct the movements of the children throughout the day.

In Montessori classrooms, there are occasions when the classroom is silent, when every child in the community is at work. More often, Montessori environments are characterized by the quiet hum of children at work, moving and talking together about subjects that demand their undivided, uninterrupted attention. In a contemporary culture heavily influenced by the interruptions of technology and the distractions of screens, this is a rare and precious gift.

Why Montessori?
If it were possible for a young child to answer “Why Montessori?” in a phrase or sentence that stretched beyond her limited frame of reference and her real gratitude for the fun she had a school that day, she would probably say, “I found myself!” Though their academic accomplishments are remarkable, the greatest achievements of Montessori students are far grander and more lasting.

Montessori students do have a confident, comfortable understanding of the academic concepts they will rely upon for the rest of their lives. They are academically strong not just for the short-term, but for a lifetime of learning. They also have a realistic understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and talents. They can identify times and places when they should lead, as well as occasions when they should ask for help.

The experience of working in an intelligent community helps children understand both that there are some tasks we must do alone, and that we need each other to achieve our goals. Even our youngest students know how to reach inward and outward. The inner teacher of a healthy Montessori child is more reliable than any methodology or even the guidance of a talented teacher. Our students know how to work toward a goal, how to persevere when challenged, and how to connect in meaningful ways to the people in their home and school communities.

Why Montessori? Because a strong Montessori community is a group of people working together to help each person become the best version of him or herself. The gift of a Montessori classroom is that children begin their education with strong bodies and strong minds working alongside friends who know and love them almost as well as they know themselves.

23 Dec

One Mother’s Story

by Donna Bryant Goertz | Montessori Blog

3 Comments

When I was a young mother living out of state for a year, I learned a lot from a group of mothers working on bringing Montessori to their town, which was, thanks to their efforts, already rich in Suzuki. I took each of their stories to heart, tucking away in my heart for when needed, the values and the points of practice for living them out.

One Mother’s Story

As Christmas approached, Ellen braced herself. It was a dangerous time for a single mom’s budget and self-esteem. As she often did, Ellen reviewed her values and goals. She recalled the preparation for her baby’s birth and her plans for staying home with her. That was nearly two years ago and she felt strong and happy that she had persevered in staying home with her baby girl.

Ellen shook her head as she heard a mother on the radio assert that, despite the fact that she had lost her job, she would make sure her children received everything they wanted and expected for Christmas. She would just put it all on her credit card and worry about how to make her mortgage payment later. “Christmas is for children,” the mom had said.

Ellen disagreed; it seemed to her that Christmas was for families and a parent’s job loss was a family emergency. All members of the family should share, age appropriately, the sacrifices required to return the family to financial security. Besides, no matter who Christmas is for, it is not primarily about getting or giving all the presents one wants. And, certainly, it would be a perversion of all the values of Christmas to use a charge card for presents one couldn’t afford. Even though Ellen was only twenty-four years old, she could see where that could lead.

Ellen thought that the mom was missing a rare opportunity to give her children a gift that would benefit them for the rest of their lives–the example experienced in their real everyday life of bearing disappointment and hardship gracefully, delaying gratification and controlling impulses. Ellen wondered how children could ever learn to “Just say no,” if their parents couldn’t model saying no for them.

Only a few years earlier, Ellen had been wild and free. She had rebelled a little, experimenting with various lifestyles while she put herself through college. Ellen’s degree had not prepared her for a job and she was still searching for her career or profession. She had considered going to graduate school. She hadn’t considered having a baby.

When her baby girl was born, Ellen drove an old car in order to avoid having car payments. She lived in a cheap apartment. Teaching yoga for children allowed her to take her baby along to work, but the short hours and low wages made finances a struggle.

Beans, rice and pasta were cheap, but fresh fruits and vegetables, even in season, were not. Avoiding drinks and juices, deli and specialty items and prepared and packaged foods made a highly nutritious diet affordable for Ellen’s baby and her. Ellen knew that if she were to stay in good spirits and keep her energy up during these years of sacrifice and hardship, she would have to take really good care of her health.

Ellen could make her own clothes and her baby’s clothes as well. She could buy books at the second hand bookstore and yard sales. Sheets and towels were sold at resale stores.

By refusing to have a TV in the house Ellen ensured for herself significantly more time for getting things done at a pleasant pace. She also eliminated the materialistic influence of commercials and the cynical attitudes of the sitcoms. Ellen had a radio and a tape player for her own enjoyment and for providing the particular music she had planned for the baby. Besides, there were no cable bills.

Ellen slept with her baby on a mattress on the floor. A table and chairs and shelves for holding clothing were all the furniture she needed for herself. For the baby, she had prepared a special environment in the living room: a full length mirror mounted lengthwise along the baseboard for her months of creeping and crawling; a closet rod mounted along another wall eighteen inches from the floor for her months of walking while holding on; a little stair step up to a platform with a slide down the other side for adventure; and two long shelf boards to hold her developmental toys and books.

For Christmas, Ellen had bought a square yard of fabric printed with a town and its streets. She hemmed it and bought three little vehicles and five small people for her daughter to move along the streets, in and out of shops, to school and the post office, to church and back home again. A bright red stocking cap with a big pompom and a ball to throw would round the presents out to three, giving her just the right number to open. Ellen gathered a few neighbor children, practiced Christmas carols and took the baby and them caroling around the neighborhood. A few days later she had the same group over to make Christmas cookies. For presents for friends and family Ellen made ornaments.

Ellen thought that, in many ways, having so little money made bringing up her daughter much easier. She considered the temptations some of her friends struggled with and lost, overwhelming their children with far too many toys, video movies and electronic games. Some of their children were bored, hostile and demanding; others were bored, clingy and whiny. A couple of Ellen’s friends felt sorry for her daughter. They thought she was deprived of the normal joys of childhood. Ellen found “joy” to be a poor description of the quality of her friends’ children’s lives and a rather more apt description of the quality of her own little daughter’s life.

It was Ellen’s passionate commitment to herself and to her daughter that she would always do her best to remember what really mattered and live by it. Six years later, when I heard from her again, she was enjoying an upper middle class income, a devoted husband and a second child. Now Ellen’s commitment was being thoroughly tested by the amplitude of her resources, but with her characteristic reflective nature and her ability to persevere, she was able to remain true to that commitment. Ellen and her family continued to choose a life rich with family activities and fairly free of material excess.

One day a friend dropped by Ellen’s house. Even though Ellen’s children were in various stages of recovery from an intestinal virus, she had been working full and half days because of rehearsals and performances at her children’s school where she worked. Ellen’s husband had pitched in by reducing his typical 5:30 am to 9:30 pm work days to nine hours to help out during the family sickness. Carrying a casserole, she had made to help the family out, Ellen’s friend walked into the house expecting a disaster zone. The house was in pleasant order. Her friend expressed dismay crying out that her own house would only look this good if she had been preparing ahead for house guests. Ellen thought to herself that she would not be nearly so concerned with the comfort of temporary house guests as she was with her own children’s daily lives.

“They are creating themselves day by day from their environment. That’s what children do,” Ellen thought. “They invent and reinvent themselves, and make the adults they will become out of the environment I provide for them. This home is their workshop, their studio, their laboratory. It provides the materials, supplies, ambiance, support and framework for my children’s work of self-construction. I’m a mom. That’s my real job. I put my best efforts here. I don’t cut corners or slack off when things are tough. When my children are grown and gone, my husband and I can slack off to whatever degree suits us. For now, we keep the children’s environment, our home, prepared for their best development whether we feel like it or not, whether it’s convenient or not, whether we’re busy or not, even if we’re sick, no matter what. Besides, it’s easier and a lot more fun bringing up children this way.”

One of Ellen’s friends was given to proudly proclaiming that she spent her time on her children, not on keeping her house in order. Ellen considered her own life with children and the long hours she spent playing board games, wrestling, building a playhouse, helping with arts and crafts, making costumes for everyday play, playing chase and hide-and-go-seek and playing dolls. It seemed to Ellen that keeping the home environment prepared gave her more time to spend with her children, not less. “If we are eventually going to clear off the table, pick up the toys, wash the dishes, put the dirty clothes in the laundry, fold the clean clothes and put them away, how does it save time to put it off until later?” Ellen wondered. It always seemed to take at least the same amount of time to do it now as it took to do it later. The difference, Ellen thought, was that cleaning up and putting away now, allowed her family’s playing to take place in a pleasant and convenient environment where everything needed could be easily found. Cleaning up and putting away later would have caused Ellen’s playing with her children to take place in a mess where finding what was needed brought frustration and confusion.

It was the same old “pay now or pay later” choice as far as Ellen could see. Dropping dirty clothes on the floor just meant they had to be picked up later. Leaving the dirty dishes in the sink just meant they had to be washed later. How did this create more time to spend with the children? “Charge it,” seemed to be the principle some of her friends lived by. “Put it on the credit card. Pay later with interest,” thought Ellen.

Later there would be a bigger mess; it would take longer to clean up, and then, most importantly, it would seem pointless to the children to clean up their part at all. “Why now? Why not clean up another day or week later?” they would wonder since “Later” seemed to be their family motto? What difference did it make anyway? Living in a mess was normal for some families; cleaning up was abnormal, something that happened sporadically when mom suddenly got in a certain mood. To the children, it looked unnecessary and no fun. They were used to living in a mess. Ellen wanted to avoid setting up that kind of confusion in her family and in her relationship with her children. She was determined not to lay the groundwork for those losing battles in family life.

It was difficult enough for children to put away a morning’s or an afternoon’s mess, even a whole day’s worth. Expecting them to deal with a couple of days’ or a weeks’ worth of mess would be unwise and unkind. Ellen had a deep sense that keeping up with things during the day was easier, more relaxing and allowed more time for fun.

Once upon a Christmas, eight adults and eight children, three and a half to nearly twelve years of age, from Ellen’s husband’s family gathered at his sister’s house for a dinner party and gift exchange. Beautiful and fragile ornaments and decorations adorned every room of the house. The children alternated between playing back in the children’s bedroom and delicately examining the sizes, shapes and wrappings of the presents that were scattered under the tree in the living room. Four of them spent a long time gathered around a new Christmas I Spy book. Now and then the children became overexcited, shrieking and running around, opening and closing doors. Once, they were sent outside for a while to run off steam and another time a child was hurt in a rough game.

In the living and dining rooms two large tables were set with fine linens and silver. At dinner, the children and adults were seated alternately with families mixed in each room, but with either a mom or a dad beside each of the children under six. The first course of soup was served while the children were seated. They waited to begin until after grace was said and the toasts were made. Because the glasses were wide, the younger children were shown to lift them with two hands.

For the second course, the children carried the fine china plates and helped themselves at the buffet with a little assistance from the nearest adult. They focused on moving slowly and carefully. Staying at the table for conversation while the adults finished eating was difficult, but the children made the effort and succeeded. The adults did the clearing away because of the fine china.

Next it was time to open presents and each person took turns, starting with the youngest. Everyone watched the unwrapping carefully and admired each gift. The thanks were sincerely expressed and genuinely acknowledged. Waiting for turns was not easy but it was important. There were dinosaur models, an extraordinary type of flashlight, baseball cards, puzzles, books and more books. Ellen’s favorite present was a beautiful copy of The Oxford Book of Quotations. A favorite present for her now nearly twelve-year-old daughter, an avid swimmer and soccer player, was a second-hand hard cover copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories.

Ellen was content that she had prepared well for her daughter’s coming adolescence with all its potential for confusion, contradiction and alienation. She meant to keep the ties close, the communications open and the trust optimal. The autonomy essential to the age would be based on her daughter’s strong sense of belonging, her highly developed independence, her history of responsibility and her pride in family culture, traditions and values.

20 Sep

It’s A Material World

by Sveta Pais | Montessori Blog

11 Comments

I have recently become aware that in the arena of Montessori parenting, I am quite the old fuddy-duddy. My first child was born in an age before the release of the iPhone 3G. Conversely, by the time my second child entered the Children’s House, I owned an iPhone larger than the size of her head!

picture of girl sewing — © Maria Montessori

In the olden days, circa 2008, I primarily relied on, for my Montessori information, the Prospective Parent classes at the Montessori School to which our daughter awaited admission. I read a handful of articles by Donna Bryant Goertz and a couple of books: Lillard and Jessen’s “Montessori from the Start,” and “The Absorbent Mind” by Maria Montessori. What I find nowadays, as I encounter those embarking on their Montessori journey, is parents who are inundated with “Montessori-inspired” information from blogs and social media. For some, this plethora of knowledge is useful, for others intimidating, but all too often I find it concerningly misleading or just plain inaccurate. It raises the question: How did I get by all those years in preparing a suitable home environment for my Montessori family, with nary a website in sight?

What is important to my Montessori experience, is access to a school that does very well in supporting parents in bridging their children’s lives between school and home. This support has less to do with materials provided the children- the premise of many a Montessori blog – but, rather, those intangible gifts that support and sustain a wholesome existence: adequate sleep, nutrition, time in nature, screen free living and a family culture where parents are present to their children and each other. The school calls this bridge “Partnership”.

For those Montessori families who do not have the benefit of such partnership, how do we cross that bridge? These are the basic lessons my husband and I took away from our children’s school, which helped us foster the culture of our Montessori home:

In a Montessori home, all obstacles to the child’s struggle for independence and full participation are removed before adding anything. In her book, The Absorbent Mind, Dr. Montessori said that a child’s conquest for independence begins at birth, and that “the child will overcome every obstacle that he finds in his path”. If we believe this to be true, why not just remove obstacles to make a child’s path to independence that much less frustrating, and so much more rewarding? In our home, we have found obstacles to be our own agendas as adults, screens, a propensity to collect belongings that are manageable (or even helpful) for us as adults but are overwhelming and depriving for our children, and expectations of our children that are outside of what is developmentally possible.
In a Montessori home, adults and children work to co-exist harmoniously. From the moment one enters our home, it is evident that children live here, and alongside them, adults. It’s not bright colors or presence of cartoon characters that indicate the lives of our children. Instead, their things are just things, made of natural materials, even fragile, but child size. Where child-size is not possible, like a sink or kitchen counter, there are stools for independence.
In a Montessori home, the needs and the natural development of each child is honored. Being almost six years apart in age, our children will be in two different planes of development until adulthood. We respect this by creating individual spaces for each child, but provide opportunities for them to peacefully cohabitate with each other. For example, our 3-year-old has a small selection of books available in a way that makes it manageable for her to use and put away. In the cabinet next to her book sling is housed our 8-year-old’s set of World Book Encyclopedias. They share the comfortable chairs designated for reading.
In a Montessori home, children are fully participating members of the family. We’ve all experienced those Christmas mornings when the new toys are ignored, but significant time is spent manipulating the boxes in which they were packaged. Certainly toys such as puzzles, blocks, balls, even dolls are enjoyed at our home, but it’s the “wavy chopper” (a child-safe knife) that gets most use. Everyone digs in when there is work to be done, and these are not “chores”; they are just part of our responsibilities as members of a family, and we refer to them as such.
In a Montessori home, children have freedom of choice within a framework of firm and cheerful boundaries, set by their parents. Although the necessary self-regulation can be hard work for some parents, it is possible to hold our boundaries with our children in a friendly and respectful manner. There are times, for instance, when I am short on time and energy, and I want to cook dinner by myself, much to the consternation of my 3-year-old who wants to help. On those days, I have to check in with myself first, connect with my children, set my expectation of them without any ambiguity, and then get on with my task. Although handing her my mammoth phone for distraction would certainly be easier, what I would sadly lose is my daughter’s interest in working alongside me the next night in favor of a more addictive, albeit purposeless, pastime. These are the times when a home environment that is prepared for our children’s self-directed activity is worth even more than the effort in gold.
In a Montessori home, and I should perhaps have put this at the top of the list, parents are continually working on being consistent with each other and with their children. When my husband and I married 13 years ago we were of different religious persuasions, and I found myself slightly offended by the writer Paul’s biblical assertion that “believers should be yoked to believers”. After having children, however, my eyes opened to Paul’s analogy of the wooden bar that “yoked” two oxen as they ploughed. Regardless of our beliefs or spiritual practices, the yoke symbolizes to me the constant communication that needs to occur between parents, so that the work they do together is lighter. With parents working as a united team, family life is mutually supported and joyful.

img_3307-material-world-medium — ©MariaMontessori.com

With my somewhat seasoned and old-fashioned experience as a Montessori parent, I am sometimes disheartened that the true essence of the Montessori philosophy is lost in an age of information and a culture of consumerism. Do our children need those toys which are suggested will “Montessori-fy” their lives, when the day goes by so much more pleasantly outside with a ball? And is there really such a thing as a “Montessori-friendly” television show or app, regardless of how steeped it is in reality?

I contend that we need to get back to basics, and provide for our children a home life that is rich in human connection, and one, as Dr. Montessori said, “invites the child to conduct his own experiences”. In a material world, the best we can offer our children is everything they need; and nothing that they don’t.

02 Oct

Nurture and Nature

by Charlotte Kroger | Montessori Blog

1 Comment

Outside my bedroom windows, along the back property line where my neighbor’s yard begins, I can see the four cherry laurel trees we planted a few years ago. Three of them are flourishing – getting tall and treelike – while the fourth is not doing so well. It is not as tall as the others and is skimpy in canopy. It’s not its fault. When we planted these trees we were not terribly discerning about the location. The gardener helping us said that the laurels should do well whether in sun or shade. So we planted them in an offset row across the back of our yard to serve as screening. We hadn’t taken into account the future growth of all the surrounding trees that now cast that part of the yard into deep shade, where the fourth laurel lives.

The trees came with ‘instructions’ – hidden potential with everything needed to become cherry laurels we could one day count on to screen the back of our property. But the environment in which they grow varied enough that one of four has not lived up to its potential of tree shading.

Nurture and Nature

The environment is nurture; the child in his raw form is nature. There is little or perhaps anything we can do to alter the child’s nature but there is everything we can do to provide the appropriate nurture that nature needs to reach potential and beyond through the environment we provide.

Maria Montessori was very clear about the importance of the environment young children need during the years of their Absorbent Minds and Sensitive Periods. She presented a clear blueprint for the role of the Prepared Environment and the role of the adult in that environment. According to Standing (“Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work”):

“If there is one feature more than another which should characterize the prepared environment it is order.”

“It is hardly too much to say that on the way in which the directress (adult) preserves the order in the prepared environment – or not – will largely depend the success or failure of her class.”

“What Montessori has done is this: realizing the peculiarly absorbent nature of the child’s mind, she has prepared for him a special environment; and, then, placing the child within it, has given him freedom to live in it, absorbing what he finds there.”

“If the teacher (adult) and the children all migrated to another room – leaving the prepared environment – these new relationships would vanish, and with them the inter-related function of the absorbent mind in the prepared environment.” (the Guide/Adult – Children- Environment triangle)

“In this environment only those things are allowed to be present which will assist development. Out of it must be kept anything that would act as an obstacle – not least a too interfering adult. Even such things as are neutral or irrelevant should be rigorously excluded. The constructive psychic energy granted by nature to the child for building up his personality is limited; therefore we must do everything we can to see that it is not scattered in activities of the wrong kind.”

It is clear – we work with the child nature through the nurturing environment – tirelessly and consistently through its upkeep and preparation. This is our role of love, and the environment reflects this love in its readiness (preparedness) to support the child nature. It is through the environment that the adult has any influence on the developing child nature.

Standing further states
“Practical Rules for the Teacher (or adult) in Relation to the Environment”:

Scrupulous care of the environment: keep it clean, tidy, spick and span.
Paint again, sew again, when necessary: beautify the house.
Teach the use of objects; and show the way to do the exercises of practical life (this must be done calmly and graciously and exactly, so that all the children will do the same).
Put the child in touch with the environment (active) and when this is achieved she becomes passive.
Observe the children continuously so that she may not fail to see who needs support.
Hasten when called.
Listen and respond to the child’s appeals.
Respect and not interrupt the worker.
Respect and never correct one who is making a mistake (“teach, teaching, not teach correcting”).
Respect one who is resting and watching the others work without disturbing him or obliging him to work . . .
But she must be tireless in offering subjects again to those who have already refused them; and in teaching those who have not yet learnt, and still make mistakes.
By her care and intent silence she must animate the environment: also by her gentle speech and presence – as one who loves.
She must make her presence felt by those who are seeking; and hide from those who have already found.
She becomes invisible to those who – having finished their work carried out by their own effort – are offering up their work as a spiritual thing.

Ours is one of service to the child nature through loving care of the environment in which he spends his day of development, day after day, be it in the home or in the school. This is the love we show the child – the respect and honor we afford the developing, creative nature and raw potential of the child. It is our partnership with him in this creative endeavor.

02 Sep

Montessori is Developmental

by Peter Davidson | Montessori Blog

9 Comments

“Your children go to Montessori school? I heard that’s fine for preschoolers, but when they are older, won’t they need something different?”

I would guess that many of you have been asked questions similar to this on more than one occasion. It is an indication of the positive reputation Montessori enjoys as a preschool program, but also the relative lack of understanding of its relevance for older ages. It also asserts that older children need a different environment from the little ones. And indeed they do, which is why the Montessori elementary environment is designed so differently from that for the younger ages. What most of these people mean by “something different,” however, is the teacher-centered, one-size-fits-all conventional model of education in which they themselves grew up.

Conventional education is an outgrowth of the industrial revolution, and some psychologists and educators even refer to it as a “factory model.” At its core it is an artificial construct based upon efficiency, like the assembly line. Everyone doing the same thing at the same time on an adult-devised schedule would seem efficient, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, children are not widgets to be assembled, and that system fails to take into account the changing needs and characteristics of children’s developmental stages, much less the needs of individuals. Therefore it not only leaves some children behind, but it doesn’t do a good job of matching up with the developmental needs and characteristics of any. For generations, students have struggled conform to it, like so many round pegs forced into square holes.

Dr. Montessori, on the other hand, flipped this model on its head. She didn’t begin with an efficiency model or any other model or mental construct for that matter. Instead she began by observing how children develop and asking herself the question, “What kind of learning environment would respond best to the changing needs and characteristics at each stage?” Instead of making children conform to an environment, she made the environment conform to the child!

Like many scientists since, she observed common developmental characteristics within roughly six-year increments, which she referred to as the planes of development including early childhood (birth to six), elementary (6-12) and adolescence (12-18). For each plane of development, then, there should be a unique learning environment, reflecting the requirements of that plane.

For example, she noticed that children at the age of 2 or 3 or 4 are very independent and individualistic and learn best through the use of their own hands on their own activity. “Individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development and independence,” she said, referring to this age. Therefore, each child in a Montessori toddler or primary (3 to 6-year-old) environment has the opportunity to identify a workspace on a rug or table, free from interference or interruption. Contrast this to the conventional preschool, where children are constantly asked to share, which goes against children’s very nature at this age, and gives rise to struggles for possession so common in those environments.

That nature changes during the next plane of development as the elementary child becomes intensely social. Oddly enough, this is when children in conventional schools are confined to desks and told to neither talk nor share! Any observer in a Montessori school will notice the difference: in primary, children are largely engaged in independent or parallel activities, whereas rarely is an elementary child working alone. In primary, lessons are given one-on-one for the most part, whereas in elementary the lessons are nearly always given to a group. And in elementary it is groups of children you see working as teams on projects, conducting research, or using materials. Once again it is clearly the case that in traditional elementary schools children forced to conform to environments that are counter to their nature, while in Montessori it is the environment that conforms to them.

I could give many, many more examples, but there simply isn’t room here for a full explication of the characteristics of each plane of development and the way the Montessori environments change in response to them while other forms of education do not. Fortunately, you can visit a Montessori school close to you and experience the changing environments first hand. The more you learn about Montessori and child development, the better you’ll be able answer that question: “when they are older, won’t they need something different?” “You’re right,” you can say, “they need something different, because they are different. But, the different thing they need is still Montessori!”

04 Aug

The Self-directed Child

by Jesse McCarthy | Montessori Blog

7 Comments

“The fundamental basis of education must always remain that one must act for oneself. That is clear. One must act for him or herself.” –Maria Montessori

Early on as teacher, I experienced a dramatic demonstration of this “fundamental basis” while tutoring a unique young girl.

Rachel (I’ve changed her name for privacy) was brilliant in many ways, but also very disorganized. At 12, she would write college-level essays – and then lose the memory stick on which she had saved her work. At 13, she would masterly argue both sides of an historical debate – and then not be able to eat her lunch after class because, well, she forgot where she had put it.

When Rachel and I met for our brief daily “organizational tutoring,” I tried everything to change her destructive habits. We had sticky notes, we had planners, we had parent conferences, we had endless dialogues … we had everything. Yet nothing ever really worked. Until one afternoon.

School had just ended, and Rachel was trudging her way down the steps to our tutoring session, her backpack slightly open and precariously dangling off her shoulder, when next thing I knew the door to the tutoring room swung open wildly and there she was, disheveled, with books literally falling out of her hands. She glanced around the room and with triumphant dejection said, “I don’t know why we even have to do this!”

That’s when it hit me. Rachel had said “we:” “I don’t know why *we* even have to do this!” In an instant, the fatal error in my approach became clear. At the stage of development when adolescents genuinely crave and need a strong sense of independence and self-direction, this young girl had never truly owned her own organizational difficulties. *I* had been the driving force in her attempted improvement, while *she* had never even chosen to begin that process, let alone to direct it.

After a few moments of thinking to myself, “Oh boy! What do I do now??“ I looked at Rachel and said sincerely, “You don’t have to come to tutoring anymore. If you find that you want to work on organization (or on anything else), let me know and we’ll plan a schedule that makes sense for you.” And then I said goodbye. That was it.

I don’t recall whether it was a couple of days or weeks later, but not long after that difficult afternoon we began our tutoring back up. This time, however, *Rachel* initiated the sessions and *Rachel* chose the schedule (how many days a week we’d meet and for how long). After a few months of dedicated work, with the to-be-expected hiccup here and there, Rachel got herself organized – and proudly, glowingly so. And shortly thereafter, our organizational tutoring ended. She no longer needed it.

When I began teaching years ago, I had the view that I can change any child; overtime, however, through working with and alongside hundreds of unique students, I came to see that such a view is more accurately stated as any child can change himself. A subtle shift in phrasing, yet a fundamental distinction in pedagogy. This self-directed approach to education does not mean the teacher, the “guide,” is unnecessary. To the contrary, a thoughtful guide creates the content-rich, and often highly structured environment in which a child can thrive, but only through her own will. As Rachel’s story exemplifies – and as Maria Montessori spent her life both observing in children and demonstrating for adults – growth is impossible to achieve for another human being: “One must act for him or herself.”