Wood

“The definition of school is a prepared environment in which the child, set free from undue adult intervention, can live its life according to the laws of its development.”
-Maria Montessori


Trees are able to grow in all kinds of environments. Pine trees on the sides of mountains, kapok trees in the dense rain forest, date palms in a sandy desert. Each environment provides exactly what each species of three needs to grow and develop.

In the book, “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins, one of the characteristics of extremely successful companies is their ability to find their “Hedgehog.” This is defined as a sharply, fine tuned focus on what you can be the best at combined with what you are passionate about. If Montessori schools, and in my case specifically, Towles Montessori Public School, were to pick their hedgehog, I believe it would be preparing the environment that best supports the development of the students.

If public schools were honest with themselves, their hedgehog would be “to get students to score higher on the standardized tests.” Teachers are encouraged to get through as much curriculum as they can, and do what is necessary to insure the students are prepared to score as high as possible. This is a very teacher and outcome centered approach to education. Montessori Public schools cannot operate with this as their hedgehog. Standardized tests are not going to go away for the time being. But that cannot be the focus. I believe that if we focus on what we are supposed to, as Montessorians, preparing the environment that best supports the development of the students, and determine a way to measure and observe how the student is developing, one of the results will be more success on the standardized tests. But this is not the focus, it is a bi-product of having the correct Montessori focus.

How many times this year did I or one of my peers say, yeah, but we are a public school. How many times did I use that as an excuse to not observe, to not make nomenclature, to not individualize a lesson, or keep track of what a student knows or hasn't quite learned yet.

Why is this used as an excuse, a crutch, to not have to follow through on who we are supposed to be. I was thinking today, because I do think from time to time, that I don't want to use that as a crutch anymore. We are a Montessori school. We are not a public school who happens to like some things about the Montessori philosophy. We are a Montessori school, that is public. There are also Montessori schools that are private, or charter. They are all Montessori, and that is how we need to see it if we are to trust the philosophy. It may seem like a silly little game of language semantics. But words are very powerful. Everytime I say that I serve at a public school, that means that somewhere in the back of my mind, I am acknowledging that I answer to the public school perspective first, then the Montessori comes later. When I begin to say that I serve at a Montessori School, it changes that perspective.

We may argue that those other Montessori schools just don't have the same problems we do. That is a correct argument. But it isn't one that we should continue to use as an excuse. Montessori Private schools have to worry about parents breathing down their necks all the time, trying to control what they do. They also have the issue of fundraising and making sure finances are available to pay the staff and supply the rooms. Many of our peers in Montessori Private schools don't have very good insurance plans, if any at all. Montessori Charter schools have the pressure to succeed immediately and are always under scrutiny, operating under the threat of losing their charter.

We are Montessori - with a public set of challenges. Let's help each other to not use that as an excuse that keeps us from fully embracing the Montessori Philosophy.

I've been contemplating structure for the last few days, not the architectural type, but the organizational kind. I've had a hard time with structure in the last few years. Whether it's the church or government or the school I teach at, I've continually felt that structure exists to control me, and that it is completely unflexible. A few years ago, my family spent three months in LA interning with a community called Mosaic. They had several core values (structure) that guided them. One of which was, structure must submit to spirit. My recent contemplating has been about this value and what it means. I've come to this conclusion:

My recent difficulties with structure have led me to be anti-structure. Which in turn has led to chaos. I've been teaching 4,5,6, graders for half a school year now and I've resisted structure as much as possible. You can only imagine what a classroom of twenty four 9-12 year olds is like without much structure. Yikes.

So back to structure must submit to spirit. In the great story of God, there is this whole period that we know as the Old Testament, in which there is structure galore. All of this structure which is meant to help people live the way God intended them to isn't working out so well, so instead of wiping humanity out, because they obviously are having a hard time following the rules, God sends grace and love in the form of Jesus, who not only shows us how to live and invites us to follow, giving us a choice, but then also steps in and takes the punishment for our inability to follow the rules. Love became more important than following the rules. Structure must submit to spirit. I realize that it's not structure that is bad, but it's the type of structure and the motivation behind it and how flexible it is. Good structure should exist to empower people to become all that they have been designed to be, not get them to conform and be controlled or manipulated into simply assisting in the pursuits of the organization for the benefits of it's leaders. It should also be able to adapt to moments when love is more important than following the rules.

Maria Montessori understood this when she spoke of the prepared environment. The prepared environment allows for independence and growth. It provides protection, beauty, and an opportunity for activity. It liberates the spirit and yet provides a sense of order. Everything we do in our Montessori class, in our Montessori school should have to answer, “Is this preparing the environment that best supports the development of the students?”