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?”

Wind

“If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children,
for the children are the makers of men.”
-Maria Montessori

The Greek word for wind is “pneuma”, also spelled “nooma”, which is translated as spirit or breath. As the wind blows it speaks to us. Sometimes as the gentle reminder of a cool breeze on a warm day. Sometimes as the harsh rebuke of a fierce storm. It is always there, a spiritual force, reminding us of our greater purpose.

In “Science Behind the Genius,” by Angel Lillard, she compares the predominant school model to a factory of mass production. As the country industrialized, the factory mass production ideals of efficiency and standardization were used to shape our school systems. Administrators were urged to run schools as a business, viewing teachers as middle managers or assembly line workers and students as products, essentially dehumanizing the entire educational process. Even today, “children in traditional schools are still marched in lockstep through an educational system and even daily schedules and physical structures reflect the factory model…the factory model makes poor sense both from the standpoint of how children learn, and of what society seeks,” (Science Behind the Genius, pg. 9).

Woodrow Wilson once said, “We are not here merely to make a living. We are here to enrich the world. We impoverish ourselves if we forget the errand.” At the core of the Montessori Philosophy, is the understanding of the actual purpose of education. Maria Montessori once said herself, the aim is, “how to live, not merely how to make a living,” and, “there is a moral union of boys and girls pledging themselves to members in a group with a definite moral aim,” (Her Life and Work pg. 358-359). The author of “Her Life and Work”, E.M. Standing, summarizes, “From the bottom of our hearts, we adults of a different world wish you Godspeed, for you carry, literally you carry, in your frail barque, the hopes of humanity and the destinies of the human race,” (Her Life and Work pg. 105).

I've been reading a book called Affluenza by John DeGraff. I found this little nugget of Montessori goodness on pg. 115 in a chapter called "Disastisfaction Guarnteed". From psychologist Richard Ryan who has done studies and showing material wealth does not create happiness, one of which was done with adolescents..."The wealth seekers had a higher incidence of headaches, stomachaches and runny noses. Ryan believes that while people are born with intrinsic curiosity, self-motivation, and playfulness, too often these qualities are squelched by deadlines, regulations, threats, directives, pressured evaluations, and imposed goals that come from external sources of control rather than self motivated choices and goals."

Montessori embraced and understood that the children of today are the adults of tomorrow and the very future of humanity was dependent upon the healthy development of today’s children. The purpose of education was not to mass-produce but to guide each student, individually, through the process of development. Her observations led to discoveries that form the core of the philosophy that allow this important developmental process to take place.

Montessori Moments

What does it look like? I asked myself this question today. I sometimes wonder with deep, sleep robbing, mind occupying anxiety. What does the Montessori Philosophy in action look like in my classroom? I've spoken about it. Been trained in it. Even waxed eloquently for others to hear. But I'm not exactly sure. I have an idea, an ideal even, locked away in the back of my mind, of what I think it should look like, what it is supposed to look like. But that ideal isn't based on anything I've actually seen. It is what my imagination has conjured up based on readings and dialogue with others who I trust have seen it before. I think maybe I have seen a few Montessori Moments, but I am not exactly sure. Do they exist in my public school test driven environment? I don't know. I want to see it. I want to feel it and sense it and breathe it. Like the kid who stays up really late to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus, only to fall asleep and wake up the next morning to see a plate of crumbs and a half empty glass of milk. There is evidence that he may have been there, but you aren't completely certain. This makes it seem like I can't make it happen. I have to let go and just believe that it will. Almost like faith. I'm not sure if I can do that or not. It is such an odd thing to be pursuing something that I am not even sure I have ever seen before.

Have you caught a glimpse? Do you have a Montessori Moment to share that could encourage me and others to press on?

Fire

“If a child is to be treated differently than he is today a radical change, and one upon which everything else will depend, must first be made; and that change must be made in the adult.”
-Maria Montessori


The word ethos is defined as: “The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.”

As I began to study and process the Montessori Philosophy I realized that they could be easily organized into the elements, and used as core values of my classroom, and of a Montessori Public school community. Each element is used as a reminder of important concepts of the Montessori Philosophy. The purpose being to create a common language, to shape the spirit of the culture, to serve as a constant guide as individuals and school communities strive to embrace the Montessori Philosophy in the public school setting.

Fire, Wind, Wood, Earth, and Water are in some way a part of our everyday lives, and are essential to our survival as individuals and as a community. They are also at the core of the Montessori Curriculum: The Needs of Humans Chart, Functional Geography, The Timelines, and God With No Hands. Maria Montessori based her philosophy on the basic elements of child development, and the essentials needed to guide that development. As one engages the curriculum and daily life with the students, the elements will serve as a reminder of who you are striving to be as a director or directress in a Montessori Public school.

Fire is first because it burns. It purifies. It refines. You have to go through it in order to prepare yourself to understand, to grasp the other elements.

If you teach in a public school, you have a state teaching license. If you have a state teaching license you have at least a bachelor’s degree in education and at least a semester of student teaching. At the minimum, assuming you attended pubic schools growing up, or something similar, you have been a part of the standard American system of education for 13 years, plus 4 years learning how to be a facilitator of that system, plus the number of years you have been a teacher in a public school. The minimum number of years being indoctrinated into the “school as factory” process of education is 17. 17 years. The thought processes, the habits, the instincts that are developed during those years run deep. They become a part of who we are.

“Traditional teaching fits both a teacher’s memory and the culturally dominant view of what school is, and teachers who have less understanding of alternatives will naturally fall back on it.”

“Teachers have to work very hard to use unconventional methods in the face of all the structural support schools provide for the traditional method.”
-Science Behind the Genius, pg. 13

In order to embrace the Montessori Philosophy, we must go through the fire. A change must occur in us at a deep, spiritual level. While camping with my family this summer, I noticed several times that the wood on the campfire, the wood that creates the most heat, is burning from the inside out. It has become consumed by the fire, not in a way that it is gone, but in a way that from its core, it is radiating heat outward.

“It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers is more the spirit than the mechanical skill of the scientist: that is, the direction of the preparation should be toward the spirit rather than toward the mechanism.”
-Maria Montessori

Practicing the Montessori Philosophy must radiate from the core of who we are. Our beliefs about education and children, and possibly even the world have to be reexamined and possibly changed. It is hard. But it is necessary.

How To Find Your Way Through The Dilemma

Here are the articles referenced in the Fidarsi Newsletter:

Anything But Standard!

How To Find Your Way.

The Secrets of Successfully Recording a Child's Work.

Can Montessori Work in Public Schools?

Good for us!

As I had the luxury of spending a day in Indianapolis yesterday attending a joyous Curriculum Mapping conference, I noticed that much of what Dr. Heidi Hayes-Jacobs was saying needed to be done in the classroom to benefit our children the most, has been going on in our classrooms at Towles and in Montessori classrooms now for 100 years. Sometimes I may question what I am doing or how I am teaching, but never in my two years have I questioned the method. I think it is amazing how progressive and innovative the thinking was, and is, that Dr. Montessori brought to education across the world. Fidarsi is a great term Josh. Kudos brother.
Also I just wanted to say hi to all and hope the break is allowing for much needed relaxation.

Yeah but...

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. Private Montessori 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 problems. Let's help each other to not use that as an excuse that keeps us from fully embracing the Montessori Philosophy.