Whittling
I’m always impressed by the more casual attitude the Europeans have towards children and safety…while Americans obsess over liability in schools (to the point of banning tag), European children seem to have much more freedom to just be and do.
I enjoyed this post on whittling knives for children from British blogger Robin Wood…makes me wish I could teach carving to my students. I’m not sure how well that would go over with some of the parents–aside from the safety arguments, I suspect many would also feel that it’s not a good use of school time, as it doesn’t contribute to the three R’s. But what confidence and practical life skills come from something as simple as being able to carve your own spoon!
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Tags: beautiful things, practical life
MariaMontessori.com
I’ve been looking forward to the launch of MariaMontessori.com, a project led by Matt Hillis of the Montessori Administrator’s Association…he’s set up a great Facebook page and often posts pictures, videos, and other fun tidbits related to Montessori.
The latest installment is a great YouTube video featuring Sue Pritzker, Head of School at Childpeace Montessori here in Portland. The classroom shots were filmed at Childpeace and at Montessori School of Beaverton.
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Tags: you tube, montessori in the 21st century
I found this article in the NYTimes an interesting read, in part because it highlights an aspect of human culture that we talk a lot about in the Montessori elementary classroom–our tendency to work together in collaboration and help each other out. This article explores recent studies indicating that perhaps our tendency to help one another is more of an innate trait than we thought. Specifically, they compare human children to young chimps, looking for similarities and differences in how they interact with each other and with adults, even before they are taught some of the social norms of politeness.
If children are naturally helpful and sociable, what system of child-rearing best takes advantage of this surprising propensity? Dr. Tomasello says that the approach known as inductive parenting works best because it reinforces the child’s natural propensity to cooperate with others. Inductive parenting is simply communicating with children about the effect of their actions on others and emphasizing the logic of social cooperation.
“Children are altruistic by nature,” he writes, and though they are also naturally selfish, all parents need do is try to tip the balance toward social behavior.
I believe Montessorians do well in helping to tip that balance toward social behavior through Grace and Courtesy lessons in the classroom. Giving children the language and opportunities to practice various elements of social norms in a loving, prepared environment without judgment is one of the greatest gifts of a Montessori primary experience.
The main study cited was conducted by Dr. Michael Tomasello, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He recently just published a book called Why We Cooperate, which looks interesting…although my reading list for winter break is already about a mile and a half long!
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Tags: cosmic education, montessori elementary, new york times
Marketing Montessori: Part I
This will be the first in a series of posts exploring the way Montessori schools use their websites to communicate with prospective parents. Please note that I am not affiliated with any of the schools that will be featured in this series and I am not in any way advocating for or against a particular program. My intent is to explore how schools use their websites to communicate Montessori principles to prospective families.
I’ve chosen Pacific Crest Montessori as the first website, in part because it’s somewhat local (Seattle’s only three hours from Portland) and in part because I see this website as the trend that many schools are starting to follow. It reflects careful consideration of how the school community wants to articulate the values, images, and messages about Montessori to prospective parents.
Design
At first glance this site is clean and bright, with simple lines, clear font and an attractive logo that highlights the urban main campus with its rural farm for the adolescent program. The school’s values are listed in a simple sans serif font on the right: respect, community, independence, love of work, joy. The picture slide show on the home page alternates between images of children working and appropriate quotes by Montessori and others. The navigation also includes clear and simple drop down menus. It has a very modern feel to it–simple without being minimalist, professional without coming across as stuffy. It definitely translates well to the highly educated urban prospective families in Seattle seeking alternatives to public education for their children.
The use of images is well executed throughout the site. Montessori schools tend to get bogged down in the text–how to convey such lofty pedagogical theories? But pictures really are worth a thousand words and these images are thoughtfully selected. They illustrate the emphasis on community, self-directed learning and joy that are often described in words but hard to describe to prospective parents in terms that don’t resort to jargon. While there is a fair amount of Montessori lingo on this website, each concept is clearly defined.
Content
The theme of “education for life,” which often prevails in Montessori school literature, is also featured as a tagline on this website as well, and is very prominently outlined with its own space on the navigation bar:
A Montessori education is designed not just to pass students from one class or level to the next, but also to prepare our young children for adulthood. It is designed to reflect the true nature of the learner and to support development that prepares each individual for life — to enter adulthood prepared to enter one’s place in the culture — to support each individual in discovering one’s innate potential and to contribute to the society.
An education for life is an education dedicated to preparing young people to take on their life’s work and to strive to make the world a better place.
Conclusion
Overall, I think this website does a good job of balancing the need for strong content with strong visual appeal. We instantly get a feel for the school’s core values, which are consistently emphasized throughout the site. The images convey a feeling of warmth and community, which is so important for an educational movement that is often portrayed as cultish and too inwardly focused.
In closing, I will include Pacific Crest’s mission statement. I will do this for each website I write about. I find it a useful way to explore my own personal mission statement of why I chose this work, and I always like hearing from others how they articulate the core mission of Montessori.
Our Mission
We ardently create a learning environment that supports children in the development of independence, self discipline and joy.
We work as a community with children, parents, faculty and staff to provide each child with opportunities to reach maximum human potential.
We help prepare students not only for high school but for life — to extend their work to the wider community and to the land.
We encourage our students to develop a sense of their own personal vision and confidence in their ability to make the world a better place.
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Tags: marketing montessori, montessori in the 21st century
Marketing Montessori: Intro
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the forward momentum of the Montessori movement–ever since last spring, when Dr. Steven Hughes came to Portland and gave a presentation to local administrators on the challenges that the Montessori movement has in communicating our work to the broader community of educators and parents. As he writes on his website:
Every club has its own codes and language, and the “Club of Montessori” is no exception. But is Montessori a “movement,” a “method,” or is it “education for the 21st century”? Montessorians know what they mean when they discuss “pedagogy” and “planes,” but does the language they use connect them, or distance them from parents and other interested (sometimes skeptical) parties?
We all came away from that presentation with a sense of inspired urgency to rethink the way we talk about Montessori, and even asking ourselves whether using the Montessori name is in the best interests of moving us forward.
That’s a whole post in and of itself…but I have been mulling over some of the current dynamics of communicating Montessori and thought one way to start the exploration would be to examine Montessori school websites. In this day and age, most schools have a website, even if it’s a simple one. I’m interested in how schools use this technology to convey the essence of Montessori to prospective parents. What is the language being used? What does the design itself convey about the school community? What really speaks to parents as they peruse school websites?
There are lots of great school websites out there, and I would like to try to explore a variety of different types–from the done-by-a-friend-or-spouse pages to the high-end-Flash-enabled sites…over the next few weeks I will post my thoughts on various websites I come across, speaking as a Montessori teacher and former Montessori student.
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Tags: montessori in the 21st century, marketing montessori
Amman Imman: Water is Life
A few weeks ago, I received this post on my bio page, and thought it was so cool that I wanted to share it with you up front and center.
Hi, Lena,
I’m a former Montessori teacher and administrator, currently working with humanitarian organization, Amman Imman: Water is Life. Amman Imman builds sustainable water sources in the Azawak of West Africa, bringing water and hope to this remote region that is severely affected by water scarcity. I’d like to share with you and your readers the service learning program we’ve developed over the last three years.
Wells of Love empowers students as “Heroes of Compassion” – future leaders with a caring, philanthropic spirit – to engage in fundraising and awareness projects that will bring water and hope to some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Over 50 Montessori schools have participated, working collaboratively to build a Montessori Well of Love. My blog tracks their stories: http://montessori-amman-imman-project.blogspot.com/
Would you add my blog to your list of Montessori blogs and our program link http://www.waterishope.org/Wells/intro.html under your list of interesting sites? I’d really appreciate your help in spreading the word about this project.
By working with students in directly changing the world, we are preparing our future leaders!
In hope and peace,
Debbie
This is the perfect example of what cosmic education in a Montessori elementary class might encompass. I’m looking forward to sharing this project with my class and seeing where they go with it.
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Tags: montessori elementary
Pausing for Perspective
First of all, a belated thank you to all who responded to my original post about Montessori teacher training. I really appreciate your perspectives and I’m grateful that you’re so willing to openly share your thoughts with me.
As I’ve reflected more on my original premise, I wanted to make clear that I whole-heartedly agree that there is nothing that beats real, live experience in your own class. There are just some things that you can’t get when you’re student teaching. And I think a lot of my current frustration is less about the training itself and more about my own self-doubt and anxiety over whether I’m really able to successfully accomplish all that I want to as a guide. Of course, the irony there is that ultimately it’s not about what I do so much as how I help create the space that allows the children’s development to unfold naturally.
This is by far the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life and there are some days when I come home and seriously wonder whether I am the best person for this job. It is so, so easy to beat yourself up over the littlest things…and when it’s not going as you hoped, it’s even more challenging to be kind to yourself.
Hence, the title of this post. Let this be a little online reminder to myself that pausing every now and then is good. More than good, actually…it’s a necessary piece of the work that we do…it gives us the space we need to take a breath, refresh, look at a situation with a fresh pair of eyes.
Tomorrow I will be finishing up my progress reports for parent conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m both terrified and excited at the same time…I’ve been reading snippets here and there from Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other, which I’ve been enjoying a lot. I really appreciate her big picture view of the ritual of parent/teacher conferences. She explores the tensions underlying this often stressful interaction, looking at race and class and concepts of expertise and how this all accentuates parent and teacher insecurities. I highly recommend this book for anyone who’s interested in exploring the root causes of conflict and frustration between parents and teachers, and how they can learn to communicate with each other to serve the common goal of aiding the child’s development.
Filed under: book reviews, montessori, personal reflection | 2 Comments
Tags: book reviews, education
This op-ed in the NYTimes is from an education professor at Williams College, Susan Engle. This was a response to Arne Duncan’s recent remarks about America’s mediocre teacher training graduate programs…
This is the piece that I found most intriguing:
“Teacher training can also learn from family therapy programs. Therapists spend a great deal of time watching videotapes of themselves in action, reflecting on their sessions and discussing the most difficult moments with senior therapists to explore other ways they might have responded. In much the same way, young teachers need to record their daily encounters with their classrooms and then, with mentors and peers, have serious, open-minded conversations about what’s working and what isn’t.”
Recently there was an article about how doctors are doing more role-playing of clinical situations with patients…I think teachers should be getting more practice opportunities, both with children, and with parents as well. I have a review of a great book on parent/teacher dynamics in the works…more on that as conferences approach!
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Tags: education, new york times
Follow the Child…
I love this comic, as it highlights one of the core Montessori principles…and it humorously reminds us of the subtlety that is often lost in trying to enact this principle.
Last spring, at the NAMTA conference in Seattle, James Webster alluded to the challenges of how to follow the child. I love what he had to say, and I come back to this passage often…
“We are told by Montessori to follow the child. It seems a simple phrase, but I have labored to understand fully what it means.
Does it mean for me to follow the wishes of that child? Or to follow the needs which I perceive through observation of that child? Or to follow the characterisitics of the plane through which the child traveling? Should I follow the child to today or of tomorow? Should I follow the outside or the inside of the child? Should I follow her strengths or her weaknesses?
I think the answer to all of these is yes. I need need to see the child in all her parts: emotions, skills, physical being, interests, fears, and talents. I need to watch her at rest and at work and play, early and late, in order that I might discover what it is that I can give her that will serve her becoming strong, happy and confident. And because I thought I knew her yesterday, that does not mean that I know her today. She is a living thing, ever changing. Now is when I follow her.”
NAMTA Journal , Vol 34, No 3. Summer 2009. (The Fifth Adolescent Colloquium)
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Tags: montessori
Those who know me well know that I’ve been mulling over the AMI teacher training process a lot lately. Having just completed this training program I’m still in the reflection phase of the whole process, trying to integrate all that I learned into my practice as an educator. Two months in the classroom has given me a lot to think about.
Before I say anything else, I think it’s worth noting that there are many things I loved about my training. The diversity and camaraderie of the training cohort and the passion of the staff are admirable and inspiring. I am confident in my understanding of Montessori theory and ability to give captivating and succint presentations.
But there were also aspects of the training that I found odd, and sometimes downright frustrating, especially given that I am also a Montessori child. My childhood experience of learning was one of direct engagement and exploration. My experience of learning to become a teacher was one of passive note-taking during lectures. It was, to be honest, a very difficult experience for me.
I think my biggest frustration right now is that what I received in training does not feel like adequate preparation for the realities of teaching in a relatively new charter Montessori program (this is its second year). This is not really the fault of the training itself–it was always made clear that we were being given the training to run an “ideal” Montessori program. In my opinion, “ideal” is a not so subtle euphamism for private Montessori programs–that is, programs that have more flexibility in picking and choosing their students to create optimal possibility for achieving a “normalized” class as quickly as possible.
Certain assumptions are made in our training about the kinds of children we will work with–children who are prepared by three years in the primary (3-6) environment, who have experienced a wealth of sensorial and practical life work that directly and indirectly prepares them for the depth and richness of the Montessori elementary experience.
But I will be the first to say, this is not the experience that many of my students have had. And that’s not their fault…but I wish my training had better prepared me to handle the realities of teaching children who do not come from Children’s House programs. Yes, I can apply Montessori theory and principles to this situation, and yes, I am learning new strategies every day…but wouldn’t it be easier if every teacher left training feeling confident that she knew not only how to deal with the ideal, but also how to successfully support a remedial learning process?
To go back to Doug Stowe’s comments in his blog post about the practicality aspect of teacher training, I thought I’d compare number of hours of AMI student teaching (the most hands-on part of the training) to conventional graduate level education programs. In browsing through Portland State University’s requirements for initial teacher licensure, I was struck by how much time candidates spend in the classroom before their first teaching job:
OARs-584-017-0180: Practice and Student Teaching
(3) Student teaching is at least 15 weeks in length.
(a) At least nine weeks are full-time in schools, during which the student teacher assumes the full range of responsibilities of a classroom teacher for the purpose of developing and demonstrating the competencies required for initial licensure.
(b) During the remaining six weeks, the six-week requirement may be met either through full-time or the equivalent part-time experience.
(c) The assignment of responsibilities may be incremental in keeping with the objectives of the experience. In GTEP, Student Teaching I is a half-time experience (20 hours per week or its equivalent) for one quarter, and Student Teaching II is a full-time experience for one quarter.
So, all together, conventional teaching candidates get nine weeks of full-time student teaching and six weeks of half-time student teaching. At 8 hours a day, that adds up to 480 hours in the classroom with regular feedback from an advisor and supervising teacher.
AMI requires 120 hours of student teaching, during which we are only responsible for giving lessons. In fact it is clearly stated that we are not supposed to be in charge of classroom management. In the summer programs, like the one I did, the director of training is unable to actually observe each candidate in the classroom, so other representatives from AMI come for one day to observe and take notes. I happened to have an amazing colleague come to observe me in the classroom…but that one day of observation was not really enough, in my mind.
I can’t help feeling a bit of sadness over this fact. Here we are, training a new wave of teachers in this highly unorthodox methodology, one that requires, in Dr. Montessori’s own words, a spiritual transformation of the adult, and yet, we only get 120 hours to practice? Imagine the depth of experience to be gained with 500 hours of supervised practice in a Montessori classroom, during which we are fully responsible for all aspects of classroom management?
Perhaps I just need more time in the classroom…I will be interested to come back to this post in a year and see how I feel about all of this. I’d love to hear thoughts from other Montessorians about how they felt about their training, AMI or otherwise…especially from those who are now working in public schools. What did you love about your training? What do you wish was different? What would you tell people enrolled in training now? If you could do your training over, what questions would you ask and how would you have organized your time?
Filed under: montessori, personal reflection | 6 Comments
Tags: montessori training
