Water

“We must be taught and we must be willing to accept guidance if we wish to become effective teachers.”
-Maria Montessori

Water is formed by the bond of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. This simple bond is needed for survival by every living thing on Earth. The human body is 66% water. 75% of the Earth’s surface is water. 75% of the human brain is water. 75% of a living tree is water. Water regulates the Earth’s temperature. It also regulates the temperature of the human body, carries nutrients and oxygen to cells, cushions joints, protects organs and tissues, and removes wastes. A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.
Just as the bond of water is key for our survival, so is the bond of our fellow Montessori teachers, and the parents of our students, key for our success as teachers.

“No school is perfect. No combination of imperfect humans muddling along their own uncharted routes will be without missteps. It is easier, sometimes, to focus on the faults of our colleagues than to pull the planks from our own eyes. We feel better about our mistakes by first acknowledging the seemingly larger ones around us. Who notices the chipped paint when the house is falling down?

How does it help though? We critique each other. We point fingers and pick each other apart. We complain to our administration or openly criticize each other. Do we find ourselves better heard for the hostility? Do we improve each other’s practice by first tearing it down? Hardly. We know better than to ridicule the children, yet we feel totally empowered to mock each other. How would you respond to a child who surprised you with this behavior? Would you jump first to conclusions, assume you understood his motivation or intent? Or would you ask gently, ”Tell me more about that?” Would you sit beside him, observe him, try to understand his behavior, which may seem so misguided to you, helps the child? Likewise, we can choose to gather together with our colleagues, to learn with and from them, and in turn to make them open to the support we might be able to offer.

When a single classroom is in crisis, so is the school. As members of a community, our obligation is not fulfilled when we have met the needs of the children within our own classrooms. Chaos spreads. When a cancer is in the body, the healthy organ cannot ignore the illness. But like the survivor who can value life because she has faced death, the learning community that brings itself through crisis so values the calm of collaboration and interreliance. It is when a classroom is in crisis that the support of the community is so dearly needed. We refortify by assuming that even those teachers with whom we disagree believe that they, too, are serving children well. We refortify by suspending disbelief, working with, instead of against the other adults in our communities. Ineffective teachers, even damaging ones, are loved by the children in their care. If for no other reason that the model it offers to the children who love us, we need first to seek the redeeming and redemptive qualities in each other. We chose between buildings bridges or throwing stones.”
(Pg. 35-36 “The Tao of Montessori”)