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prepared

18 Sep

Beauty is Everywhere a Welcome Guest

Michele Aspinall by Michele Aspinall | Montessori Blog
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“The Child should live in an environment of beauty”. These words have been my mantra every day that I walk into my All Year Montessori casa. Whether it is a toddler class, primary, an elementary environment, Middle School or even a High School we must create a space for students that reflects peace and tranquility. This space MUST invite the child, the little learner to come in and to embrace the work that surrounds him. This environment has so much to do with the approach of those working there, both adult and child. If your life is cluttered and messy, so will be the environment you create with the children. When considering this space, you must be thoughtful, creative and selfless.

Be extremely thoughtful about every item you bring into your environments. Somehow, connect each of these items to the material and to your lessons. Whether it’s a brass elephant that’s linked to the African animal classified cards or wooden pitchers for the pouring exercise that can be later polished, always be thinking about how to connect the dots and the child’s interest. Also, repair and maintain each and every object. I fully understand the commitment of time that I am suggesting you make when adopting this idea. My children are in class 245 days of the year, up to 10 hours a day and within that time using the materials to their fullest extent. Therefore, the materials can and do take a beating. This is all the more reason to uphold the beauty that is crucial in a living community. Share this important responsibility. When something is damaged, let the children know that it isn’t easily replaced and have them tuck it away in a designated basket or tray for damaged materials until it can be repaired or renewed. Also, be fully prepared for this basket to become a truck when first introducing it to your environments. Nevertheless, the awareness and care that you will begin to witness from every child is worth the front end loading necessary in order to get this started. Eventually, give lessons on repairing material in the class. Who better to care for “their” environment than the children themselves!

Be creative with your space. Don’t be afraid to move a shelf or allow the children to move work tables in order to work collaboratively, even at three years old. This class, this room is the children’s space . . . let them feel that way. Being selfless is probably most important when setting up this beautiful place, something I didn’t consider in my first few years of teaching, likely because I was selfishly just trying to get through the day. The most selfless act when preparing the room is to include the children in every decision you make, shelf you move, or picture you hang. We all gained a true appreciation of beauty and of the prepared environment in our training. Don’t we all feel that our training, and our trainers for that matter, were the very best? Sure we do. Mine actually was the best. Hildgard Solzbacher, AMI trainer extraordinaire. I remember her as the embodiment of elegance and excellence. Hildegard said, “We want to make sure children go into the world with a peaceful heart, but also with a sense of responsibility — not only for themselves, but for others. When a little one walks into a Montessori environment who has never

been here, he looks around — and it really is like a cultural walk — learning everything that you need for your life.” For three summers those words sunk deep inside my soul. And when I completed the training I had visions of this perfect place I was to create. I was a new teacher pioneering a new All Year Montessori program with thirty-two children awaiting me. That didn’t scare me. I had grand ideas. I was ready for them! I was silly. Twenty years ago, I didn’t realize that this environment was not attainable overnight. It was not a matter of arranging a few shelves or hanging a print or two. This was to be a labor of love. Much like a Henri Matisse “Cut-Out”, this space is a piece of art that requires time and layers of texture, color, and complexity. The work of creating such a masterpiece runs deep with organization and beauty at the forefront.

The Montessori prepared environment exhibits reverence for the child and the beauty and order crucial for him to work at his natural, individual and optimal level. If I motivate you, you as creators of spaces for children who will save the world, if I motivate you to do anything hopefully it will be to go back to your environments with fresh eyes. Not just a new way of thinking about the physical environment, but also for the way you help children to see beauty within themselves and in each other. Don’t we need this now more than ever? “You must be the change you want to see in the world”, said Ghandi. Bringing beauty to each child I have the privilege of sharing a space with is one small way of contributing to this unbelievably important responsibility of ours.

At any level, the children’s space should be attractive, inviting, and thoughtfully arranged. This space personifies each element of Dr. Montessori’s revolutionary approach. Natural lighting, soft tones, and orderly spaces set the scene for activity that is concentrated and serene. The material, whether it be stringing beads, the pink tower or square root pegboard are displayed on accessible shelves, encouraging independence as students go about their work. Everything is where it is supposed to be, conveying a sense of harmony and order that both comforts and motivates. Finding joy in learning comes naturally in an environment such as this. Who wouldn’t feel good here? Who wouldn’t feel at home in a place such as this? You might see this as a daunting task. If you don’t fancy yourself a creative person, that’s all right. When I’m not feeling particularly creative I like to refer to the children’s book ISH by Peter H. Reynold’s. I tend to read it when I am feeling stuck and need to be set free. It’s also a book that I read to my children often when they aren’t feeling particularly creative or inspired. It’s a story about a boy named Ramon. His carefree sketches quickly turn into joyless struggles after a negative comment from his older brother. Luckily for Ramon, his little sister sees the world differently. She opens his eyes to something a lot more valuable than getting things just “right.” He ultimately learns that thinking “ish-ly” is far more wonderful than getting it right. In the end, Ramon walks away feeling light and energized. You should walk into your environments every day feeling light and energized . . . and most of all . . . “ISH”.

Many of us function best and are most productive in a space that is prepared. Just as we do, children require a space prepared especially for them. I am a baker. Not professional, I have a day job. However, I bake for several reasons. Baking helps me to find an inner peace; it makes others happy; I love to create things; and for goodness sake I love to eat sweets! Before I get started, I organize, I arrange, I set- up. This brings comfort within the activity. Imagine baking a cake and having to collect each ingredient, but they are just out of your reach. How very frustrating this would be, and likely this would make you throw in the towel. I certainly would. The design and flow of our classrooms create a learning environment that accommodates independence, choice and most of all comfort. When setting up my own classroom years ago I often referred to Montessori’s Six Principles of the Prepared Environment; Freedom, Structure and Order, Beauty, Nature and Reality, Social Environment, and Intellectual Environment. Beauty dwells in each of these principles.

Freedom

In our prepared environment we must provide freedom of movement, of exploration, and social interaction. At the same time, we must protect the child’s wish to be left alone. I believe we often forget about this important implementation when setting up our environments. I found it was especially necessary in my own All Year class. In any class, whether it’s half day or full day, you should be offering the children spaces that encourage self-reflection and time to find that inner beauty as well. My All Year class offers families a place to leave their children for up to ten hours a day. Private areas are essential in order to maintain peace but more importantly, they provide comfort. We know that comfort often helps us to be happier, and when we are happy we tend to be more productive. Don’t minimize the importance of your environment set-ups. By creating a thoughtful and comfortable work environment, you are offering the children limitless possibilities.

Structure and order

Our prepared environments should provide structure and order and also be beautiful, inviting, simple, and well maintained. This is easier said than done. When do we have time for all of this? How many more hours in the day would we need to fulfill these crucial elements? Isn’t there already so much on our professional to do lists? Let me help you with this predicament. Reinvent your environments so that the children are actually responsible for the class. I know we want this for our children. Actually implement it! Empower them to be RESPONSIBLE for the class, the materials, their small community, and each other. There is likely still so much that we are doing for the children that they are perfectly capable of doing independently. Fresh from the training, it was my daily goal to have the class “ready” for the each child’s arrival. This made perfect sense to me. This is indeed what Dr. Montessori wanted . . . or was it? As time progressed in my new All- Year program I realized that the children couldn’t actually take ownership of their new class because much of the preparation was done before they even arrived. Needless to say, my assistant and I were also exhausted because we were tacking on even more time to an already long day. Eventually, with lessons, guidance, and patience and with structure and order there came a true sense of responsibility. Now, the children independently ready the class every morning with very little adult facilitation or interaction. Certainly, this is a point of arrival but a goal that every class should be striving towards.

The children are also perfectly capable of being responsible for each other. An example of this was how I was handling naptime. I would gather the little ones, settle them into their cots, and tuck them in each and every day. The routine was very dependent on me. I finally stepped back and also remembered a quote I had once read from The Montessori Method, “The teacher’s task is first to nourish and assist, to watch, encourage, guide, induce, rather than to interfere, prescribe, or restrict.” There was no question that I was interfering during naptime. I was stripping the children of an opportunity and of a freedom. Again, after many hours, days, and weeks of lessons given by myself, the oldest children of my class have taken on full ownership of putting down the youngest children for nap. They tuck the child in, read a book or sing a song. They may even rub a child’s back before leaving them to drift off to sleep. It has become a time of the day that used to feel stressful and hurried, but now it is a peaceful transition at a time the youngest of our class need it the most.

Nature

It has been a challenge for me to become inspired by nature living in Chicago. This is where creativity helps. Make use of what you have when you have it. Do all you can with the time you have outdoors even if it is a short window of opportunity. We know that nature inspires children and natural materials are essential elements in our environments. So, make each activity come alive by incorporating textures and color that surround us in our world. It is our responsibility to bring this outside world to the children within our small communities. In a time of developed technology, we should connect our children and ourselves with nature more closely than ever before. Carve out a significant amount of time for them to be outdoors. Gardening, painting, woodworking, bird- feeding, sweeping, shoveling, are just a few activities in which the children are connecting with their outdoor environment.

Reality

This is key in the tools and the objects we use in our prepared environments. They should be real, so that the child is actually able to complete a task with success. There is so much now available in order to make this possible and to enable the child to be successful while working. Reality in our materials also reminds me of what often occurs when a child in my casa greets a new visitor. Adorned with designated aprons, two children approach the adult first greeting and welcoming them into AYM, their home away from home. Soon after, they appear again, this time with a menu. Tea, coffee, cocoa, cappuccino, and handmade biscotti are just a few of the choices offered to this often taken aback visitor. The adult fully expects play food or drink to arrive after the children scurry away to prepare in the kitchen. Instead they are delighted to be the recipient of not only a warm welcome inspired from endless grace and courtesy work, but also refreshments made with love and pride.

The prepared environment is also a Social Environment. “What is social life if not the solving of social problems, behaving properly and pursuing aims acceptable to all? [It is not] sitting side by side and hearing someone else talk…” Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind. This is what makes our spaces so unique and special, children interrelating through work and play with their peers. With this interaction, empathy, compassion, kindness, and beautiful positive character traits are learned for life. There is beauty within each child that is nurtured and brought about through our Grace and Courtesy lessons. We were taught of these lessons their importance and the impact they could make on our environments, but these lessons are particularly easy to push to the side. We don’t see them. They are not visible on our shelves. Oftentimes we don’t see the positive impact within the lesson itself. Grace and Courtesy lessons petrified me in my first few years of teaching. Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, and Language, these lessons in our albums are so meticulously mapped out for us to follow step by step. Conversely, there is so much that can go horribly wrong in a grace and courtesy lesson. When Hildegard spoke of Grace and Courtesy she made it sound so easy, so magical, and so beautiful. It is all of that. Nonetheless, she neglected to tell me that there will be times that the children will find me uninteresting, my words will come out wrong, and occasionally they might even walk away in the midst of a lesson. I urge you to persevere! I did. Make grace and courtesy a priority at all ages. Don’t stop. Let it germinate in your environments. The list of possibilities is endless and at the same time critical in maintaining beauty within your environments: observing a friend, taking a turn, greeting a visitor, making an apology, and offering comfort . . . let these lessons reign! If you make Grace and Courtesy a priority, you will begin to see beauty in a different way – beauty in every interaction.

Finally, the prepared environment is an Intellectual Environment, which is the result of the five preceding ideals (freedom, structure and order, beauty, nature and reality, and social environment). Through these standards, carefully upheld in our environments, the whole personality of the child is developed. After reexamining these principles, hopefully you will be able to look at your environment with fresh eyes that are able to see beauty in everything, even on those particularly rough days in your classroom.

Hopefully it leaves you feeling light and energized, able to savor all the beautiful feelings, beautiful surroundings, beautiful interactions and beautiful people and if nothing else hopefully feeling just a little bit “ISH”.

Have a beautiful start to your school year.

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: beautiful, beauty, children, courtesy, environment, lessons, montessori, prepared, space

02 Oct

Nurture and Nature

Charlotte Kroger by Charlotte Kroger | Montessori Blog
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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.

DSC_0896-medium 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”:

  1. Scrupulous care of the environment: keep it clean, tidy, spick and span.
  2. Paint again, sew again, when necessary: beautify the house.
  3. 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).
  4. Put the child in touch with the environment (active) and when this is achieved she becomes passive.
  5. Observe the children continuously so that she may not fail to see who needs support.
  6. Hasten when called.
  7. Listen and respond to the child’s appeals.
  8. Respect and not interrupt the worker.
  9. Respect and never correct one who is making a mistake (“teach, teaching, not teach correcting”).
  10. Respect one who is resting and watching the others work without disturbing him or obliging him to work . . .
  11. 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.
  12. By her care and intent silence she must animate the environment: also by her gentle speech and presence – as one who loves.
  13. She must make her presence felt by those who are seeking; and hide from those who have already found.
  14. 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.

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: child, environment, montessori, nature, nurture, potential, prepared, respect, work

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