• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
logo

MariaMontessori.com

A Project from Montessori Administrators Association
  • Home
  • Learn
    • About This Website
    • Montessori Overview
    • Infant/Toddler
    • Primary
    • Elementary
    • Adolescent
    • Montessori Graduates
    • FAQs
    • Glossary
  • Listen
  • search

learn

25 Apr

Learn, Live, Laugh and Love

Jennifer Rogers by Jennifer Rogers | Montessori Blog
3 Comments
Share

Parents and teachers are some of the most inspiring people at work in the world today.  We’ll break into song when the first robin appears, dance a jig when the sun breaks through the clouds, cry on the last day of school, and laugh when it snows in April.

©MariaMontessori.com

We begin each day hoping to impart knowledge.  At day’s end, we consider all we have learned.  Cliché, Pollyannaish, but true:  learning really is the best part of teaching.  The best part of parenting really is seeing the world through the eyes of a child once again.

Our true stories sometimes become parables, investing meaning and value in ordinary days. Laughter and memory help us endure the sleepless nights that are part of the parenting package.

Even the embarrassing stories are too good not to share:

Laugh

Soon after Tommy began speaking in two-word phrases, he started stuttering.  His mother read and sang with him.  She worked diligently to engage him in affirming, accepting conversations.  Tommy continued to stutter.

One evening, after listening to his wife worry over the phone with a speech therapist, Tommy’s clear-headed father said, “Honey, if stuttering is the worst thing we have to deal with, let’s run with it.”

Tommy’s mother is thoughtful, a loving mother caught up in a common but unfortunate drive for perfection. When she laughed, her perspective shifted. In a giggly flash of personal insight, Tommy’s mother realized that stuttering is a walk in the park, compared to many other challenges parents face.

Laughter improves parenting, especially when parents laugh together.

Love

Anna has just returned to her suburban home after a year teaching in impoverished communities.  She talks with teachers and parents about the challenges she faced:  hungry children, poorly equipped classrooms, neglectful parents, and contaminated water.

Anna laughs at the memory of the morning she stood in the shower, busily lathering her shampoo when the water petered out.  “It was a long day,” she said. “I looked ridiculous teaching, and I felt ridiculous.”

Dressed in blue jeans and a white cotton shirt, her sun-bleached hair tied in a knot at her neck, Anna does not convey missionary zeal.  She is a quiet, dedicated teacher.  “I am not religious,” she said. “Mother Theresa was right, though.  ‘Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.’”

Learn

Ben Cooper was one of the brightest kids in his elementary class, the type of student who jumped up and down with excitement when he solved math equations.  Jim and Melinda Cooper enjoyed every moment of their son’s early education.  Ben left for school excited and returned home enthusiastic.

Ben’s teen-age angst caught his parents by surprise.  They assumed their son’s intelligence and extraordinary spirit would trump the defiance that afflicts so many adolescents.  Jim said when he learned his son was flunking his high school math class, he was flabbergasted

“I asked Ben what the problem was.  He said he was supposed to turn in his notes, and show his work.”  Jim sighed.  “Turning in notes accounts for a large percentage of the grade.”

Jim is a fine father, a calm, disciplined and loving mentor for his three children.  As he confided his story, Jim’s smile was honest, generous and easy. “I asked Ben if he had taken notes.  He had.  Ben just didn’t bother to turn them in,  ever.”

“Ben reminds me of myself at his age,” Jim said.  “I remember the feeling of adolescence, the acne and the urge to rebel. I remember thinking my parents and teachers were dumb. I can empathize but, to be honest, parenting an adolescent was driving me bonkers.”

Jim said failure has been a good teacher. “There is only one preparation for parenting an adolescent,” he said.  “Today, the time I have with Ben today is all the preparation I get. I’m learning today is all I need to understand tomorrow.”

Ben is still an adolescent, still growing up, still defining himself and his world.  His parents are growing up with him.  Jim and Melinda take one day at time, relying on the everything-will-be-OK confidence that is one of the marks of good parenting.

Live                                                 

When our oldest son was 18 months old, he had his first case of croup.  He went to bed with a runny nose and awakened at 2 AM struggling to breathe.  He was terrified, and so were we.   We dashed to the emergency room, where the doctors gave him a breathing treatment and sent us home with instructions to see the pediatrician in the morning.

Our son slept late the next morning, but woke up hungry and playful.  The pediatrician told us then that is often the pattern with croup.  Ten years later, we have lived through croup several times.  A calm response and cool, fresh air have replaced the emergency room as our treatment of choice.

I still remember the sympathetic advice offered by the first parent I talked to after our maiden voyage with croup.  Still exhausted from our sleepless night, I told her of our 2 AM trip to the emergency room.

“Well, the good news is, the emergency room gets easier every time you go,” she said.  “Also, you go less often.”

She was right.  Very few accidents feel like emergencies nowadays.  When we do shift into emergency mode, the routine is familiar. We take a good book and make sure we have the most recent insurance card, let the dog out before we go, and head out.  We return home hours later, bandaged and breathing, thankful for the comfort of home and the imperfect life that remains ours to cherish.

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: laugh, learn, live, love, montessori

05 Oct

If At First You Don’t Succeed… GREAT!!

Pilar Bewley by Pilar Bewley | Montessori Blog
8 Comments
Share

Mistakes: we make them every day.  Regardless of their magnitude, they all share one common characteristic: they teach.

“We learn from failure, not from success,” wrote Bram Stoker in Dracula.  Mistakes are essential to our growth and development, and yet in our society, they are taboo.  At some point in our lives, most of us have passed the buck instead of taking responsibility for our errors; in our culture, messing up isn’t something you readily acknowledge.  Since we have such a negative view of failure, we try to protect our young children from making mistakes, and this is the biggest blunder of them all.

©MariaMontessori.com

An entire industry of mistake-proof products for young children has sprung up in the past few years.  There’s the snack bowl with the cross-cut plastic lid so that your child’s cereal doesn’t fall out if the bowl flips over; the ubiquitous sippy cup that doesn’t spill when knocked down; and even a spoon with a rotating handle so the food stays on the spoon no matter how your child turns his wrist!  In addition to giving children a false sense of competency, all of these items and most toys on the market are made of plastic.  Plastic doesn’t break easily… It also doesn’t teach.

In a Montessori classroom and home, emphasis is placed on using real objects for work and play.  Glass breaks if dropped, so a child learns responsibility.  Sharp corners poke if you bump into them, so a child develops self-control.  Wood floors scratch if mistreated, so a child learns to move furniture carefully.  Paper tears if tugged, so a child understands he must be gentle with books.

The child in a Montessori environment (at home or in school) is not punished or reprimanded for breaking an object, but the entire activity (aka, “material”) to which the object belonged is removed from the shelf until the object can be repaired or replaced.  Because it is the only material of its kind on the shelf, the child understands that his classmates or siblings will now miss out on that activity.  He develops a sense of social responsibility and accountability that no amount of preaching can instill.

My favorite moment as a Children’s House guide is when a child approaches a Practical Life material that he has once broken accidentally and which has recently made its way back onto the shelf.  The little three-year old boy eyes the beautiful pitcher and the fragile glass on the tray.  He knows how fun the activity can be, but remembers what happened the last time he was careless.

He holds his breath, lifts the tray, and turns his body.  The pitcher starts to slide and the child freezes.  His eyes widen as he waits for the pitcher to stop moving.  He resumes his trek to a table, unaware of the poise and control with which he moves his body.  He reaches his destination, gingerly lowers the tray, and exhales.  A wide smile of satisfaction and triumph covers his freckled face, and he sets about to pour to his heart’s content.

Nobody praises his achievement, but nobody needs to.  The lessons learned from his mistakes, and his ensuing success, are his rewards.

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” Mahatma Gandhi

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: failure, freedom, glass, learn, maria, mistakes, montessori, plastic, real, responsibility, sippy cup

©2017 MariaMontessori.com - All Rights Reserved.

All photographs and videos appearing on this site are the property of MariaMontessori.com.

They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of MariaMontessori.com.