On this Memorial Day I am thinking of my pregnant cousin and her young son as they wait for the return of her husband from Afghanistan. Yet another tour after surviving an attack on the helicopter he was piloting in 2008 when it was shot down in Iraq. Memorial Day is for remembering the fallen, the injured, and those who suffered. It is a time to thank those who serve and have served. But it is not a time to glorify war. It is a time to ask the questions: Why are we so often at war? What are we doing wrong?
From Maria Montessori's 1932 address in Geneva
to the International Bureau for Education:
“ A Remedy for War: Thoughts on Peace and Education”
from www.markshep.com/nonviolence
Let us look at a phenomenon parallel to war—war’s reflection, as it were, but on the physiological level. I am speaking of the plague, that scourge capable of decimating or even wiping out a whole population, which remained for centuries dreadful and invincible—the plague, propagated by ignorance and conquered only when scientifically studied in its most hidden causes.
The plague, as we know, appeared at long intervals, just like war. It disappeared each time spontaneously, and society—which did not know its causes—could not hasten its disappearance. Seen in those days as a horrendous chastisement, it caused ravages of historic proportions, like war.
Indeed, the plague had a greater number of victims than war, and caused many more economic disasters. In the fourteenth century, a plague in China claimed ten million victims. That same devastating wave swept over Russia, Asia Minor, Egypt, and reached Europe, threatening with destruction almost all humankind. The total of those deaths has been estimated at over 25 million—hence the ravages of the plague were worse than those of any war, even the World War.
Each appearance of this scourge caused a general stoppage of labor, ushering in periods of deep misery. Famine followed plague, and so did insanity, as a notable proportion of survivors were unbalanced. These conditions made a return to normalcy much more difficult and for long halted the constructive work of civilization.
It is interesting to examine the explanations given for this scourge, and to look at the attempts to protect against it. From Homer and Livy to the Latin chronicles of the Middle Ages, we find always the same explanation: The plague is caused by wicked people who spread poison.
Describing the plague of 189 A.D., Dion Cassius relates that throughout the Roman Empire evil men were enlisted and paid to throw about poisoned needles. In the days of Pope Clement VI, the spread of disease was blamed on the Jews, who were massacred. When during the siege of Naples the plague destroyed 400,000—nearly the whole city population and almost three-quarters of the besieging troops—the Neapolitans believed themselves poisoned by the French, and the French by the Neapolitans.
Still more interesting is the trial of two presumed poisoners accused of starting the famous plague of Milan—proceedings that resulted in their executions. It is hard to imagine that a disaster so patently pathological could be attributed to an illegal act and should lead to the trial of men utterly powerless to cause it. With our knowledge today of the plague, this seems absurd. But do we not, in the case of the World War, seek to foist the responsibility upon an individual—the Kaiser, the Czarina, the priest Rasputin, or the assassin at Sarajevo?
Another phenomenon, arising from the instinct of self-preservation, was observed during the most celebrated outbreaks of the plague: the flocking together of those not yet struck down. Crowds assembled in public squares, filled the churches, and formed processions in the streets to chant prayers and carry banners, sacred images, and relics. These gatherings helped spread the disease rapidly among those who might have escaped it.
Does not this remind us of alliances among nations? Those alliances made before the World War were meant to avoid just such a war by establishing a balance of power. It is plain now that it was precisely this system that caused the stupendous disaster, because many nations were drawn into the conflict merely from being bound to others.
Finally, each time after the scourge of plague ceased abruptly, the hearts of the survivors swelled with that hope that never dies. They were convinced that humankind had just undergone a necessary trial—perhaps the last one.
At the end of the World War, did not people continue to hope, imagining that this war—surely the last—had been necessary for the final establishment of peace?
It was scientific research in the realm of the invisible that alone succeeded in discovering the direct causes of the plague: specific microorganisms and their unsuspected disseminators, the rats. Once these factors were known, the plague became recognized as one of countless infectious diseases that continually threaten the health of humankind and that find in a vitiated environment a permanent ground of infection.
Now, in the Middle Ages, people lived indifferent and ignorant amidst unsanitary conditions—coming and going through filth in the streets, lacking water in their houses, choosing to sleep in dark, stuffy rooms, fearing the sunshine. This created a favorable breeding ground not only for the dreaded plague but for countless sicknesses less conspicuous from not disrupting the general workings of society.
Hence, when people fought successfully against the plague, their campaign necessarily aimed at all diseases caused by germs. This was an energetic campaign of public and private cleansing, undertaken both throughout a city and inside every home. And that was the first chapter of the glorious history of humankind’s defense against the last and smallest creatures still threatening its existence.
But personal hygiene—the ultimate attainment of that long fight—has another aspect. It bestowed on health itself a new importance—because a perfectly healthy person, well-grown and strong, can risk exposure to disease without becoming infected. Perfect health, then, became a new ideal, a new goal to strive for.
Now, when humankind started this new quest, the perfectly healthy individual was simply not to be found. Underfed or overfed, people were always filled with poisons—we may even say they deliberately poisoned themselves. But the ideal of personal hygiene reversed those old values, replacing the pleasures of the race to death with the pleasures of the race to life.
By contrast, in the inner realm, we have not yet taken one step forward—we are as backward as the people of the Middle Ages. We live in a state of psychic degeneracy, within a dark and stuffy moral environment. A healthy person from the psychical point of view is as rare today as a physically healthy one before.
If a person were to grow up with a healthy soul, enjoying the full development of a strong character and a clear intellect, they could not endure to uphold two kinds of justice—the one protecting life and the other destroying it. Nor would they consent to cultivate in their heart both love and hate. Neither could they tolerate two disciplines—the one aimed at building, and the other at tearing down what has been built.
Better humans than we are would use their intellects and the attainments of civilization to end the fury of war. War would not be a problem for them at all. They would see it simply as a barbarous state, opposed to civilization—an absurd and incomprehensible phenomenon, as expendable and defeatable as the plague.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
The First Dream of the New Year
The first dream I had this year woke me abruptly that January Friday morning. It wasn't a nightmare, nor a pleasant dream either, just different. It was a dream about teaching, one that had a different kind of wake-up call for me. This won't likely shock you the same way since it was my dream--but maybe...
This is the dream:
There I was, suddenly in a classroom I had never seen before, flanked by two assistant teachers I had never seen before, looking at a class of children, about ages three to six, I had never seen before. Some of the children were standing but most were sitting on the floor directly in front of me. I was standing, surveying the room. I couldn't quite understand what to make of the whole situation. I could tell something was about to happen, but what? Dismissal? Lunch? Playground? Where was the clock in this place? So I turned to look at the assistants who were both staring at me. I guess that's how I had sensed that I was the one who was supposed to be in charge. They were politely mute, but I could read the messages in their eyes, "What's the matter with you?" "Get on with it." "We don't have all day!" Well, that's what their eyes told me. So now I knew what I was, a substitute teacher. I didn't even know whether it was morning or afternoon although I suspect for substitutes that isn't an uncommon feeling.
Suddenly I was saved. Through the hubbub a little girl looked directly at me and spoke in a high whiney voice, "Teacher-r-r, Brenda is being mean to me!" Now I knew what I had to do. I had been called!
Trying not to be impolite, I quickly craned my neck around and asked my assistants, "How much time do we have?" I did it just as though I actually knew what was happening next.
"About four minutes," was the reply. (It seemed awfully specific, but that's what they said in my dream.)
"All right." I took charge. "Children, let's sit down together. I think someone needs our help." (...with four minutes to zero. It was a dream, remember?)
As a classroom teacher in the real world I often sat with my class to discuss the more deeply wounding issues like being harassed by cruel name calling or the fear of being chased or attacked on the playground. Occasionally I would offer advice, but first I would do my best to elicit solutions from other children. Their answers always made a greater impression than mine on the besieged child.. This was what worked for me, sort of, and I stuck with it. Now, in eighteen years of classroom teaching, it had never been my habit to leap to satisfy the attention-getting strategies of small children. But my dream had teleported me to this class, and this was the only handle given to me that allowed me to function in this reality, so I grabbed it. Learning to deal with that handle became the whole purpose of the dream.
Precious moments passed while the class settled into group mode. I looked at the child who had addressed me. "Now I think we're ready. I'm sorry I don't know your name. Mine is Alis."
"Mercedes."
"Mercedes, did I hear you say that someone was being mean to you? Are you trying to say you'd like some help?"
"Yeah, it was Brenda. She's always mean."
"Mercedes, I'm guessing that you already know a lot about problems like this...because you asked for help. I can tell you already know that being mean back doesn't work. Did you know that most people don't stop to think what else to do? When someone is mean to them, they just act mean right back--even though it doesn't work. Well, anyway it never worked for me. And it certainly doesn't look like it works for other people either. What happens to you when someone is mean and you're mean back?"
Several answers came flying at me, not all showing complete comprehension of the question:
"They hit me."
"I'll punch him."
"He kicked me."
"I can wrinkle up her paper."
"I can scatch. I have long nails."
I had to interrupt. "Mercedes, isn't this what you're trying to avoid? This doesn't sound like fun!"
"No, it's just more being mean."
"So what can you do when someone's mean to you? What can you do that doesn't make the meanness worse?"
This time Jack (I think that was his name) answered, "You can walk away." I thought that his mom probably had told him that.
"Yes, I think that would stop the meanness."
Mercedes said, "But that's not fun either."
Suddenly the enormity of the misunderstanding hit me, the lie I had been serving to children for all these years. This discussion wasn't fair to children. It carries untruths at its roots.
I replied, "We're really going to have to work at this. Knowing what to do about meanness is a very hard problem. Maybe it's the hardest problem ever. I'll tell you why. When people ask you if you can read before you know how, you answer that you can't read, and it seems so impossible to believe that you will learn. But your parents and teachers know that you're going to be able to do it because they can do it. They probably felt the same way when they were small, and it didn't matter because one day, one wonderful day, they picked up a book and saw words in it! That was the beginning, and either slowly or quickly after that they were reading almost any book. It happens like that. All of us adults know it will happen for you the same way. You will learn to read too.
"So when we talk to you about how to handle meanness, like you should do this and you shouldn't do that, like why can't you stop fighting with your brother or your sister, we act like this is something you should know long before you're going to read, something everyone knows. But it's a lie. Adults don't really know what to do about meanness either, and they make much worse mistakes than you do.
"How can we help Mercedes make the meanness better? Has any of you thought of a way we could? I know Jack thought of one. Maybe we could all try his for a day to see if it works for us. Or perhaps you have something else you'd like to try when someone is mean, and you could try your way while we're trying Jack's way. We'll meet again tomorrow to talk about how these worked. Maybe we can find a way to make the meanness better for everybody. If we find it, we can tell all the other classes and the other teachers. Then we can write a letter to the President because he'd like to know too. Let's keep asking, what can make the meanness better? Let's be scientists and keep experimenting. We have to remember that paying back meanness with more meanness doesn't work. It makes the whole world unhappy. This is the hardest problem ever, but we can do it if everyone stops pretending they already know the answer and tries to find one that really makes meanness go away."
And all this happened in four minutes. Only in a dream.
This is the dream:
There I was, suddenly in a classroom I had never seen before, flanked by two assistant teachers I had never seen before, looking at a class of children, about ages three to six, I had never seen before. Some of the children were standing but most were sitting on the floor directly in front of me. I was standing, surveying the room. I couldn't quite understand what to make of the whole situation. I could tell something was about to happen, but what? Dismissal? Lunch? Playground? Where was the clock in this place? So I turned to look at the assistants who were both staring at me. I guess that's how I had sensed that I was the one who was supposed to be in charge. They were politely mute, but I could read the messages in their eyes, "What's the matter with you?" "Get on with it." "We don't have all day!" Well, that's what their eyes told me. So now I knew what I was, a substitute teacher. I didn't even know whether it was morning or afternoon although I suspect for substitutes that isn't an uncommon feeling.
Suddenly I was saved. Through the hubbub a little girl looked directly at me and spoke in a high whiney voice, "Teacher-r-r, Brenda is being mean to me!" Now I knew what I had to do. I had been called!
Trying not to be impolite, I quickly craned my neck around and asked my assistants, "How much time do we have?" I did it just as though I actually knew what was happening next.
"About four minutes," was the reply. (It seemed awfully specific, but that's what they said in my dream.)
"All right." I took charge. "Children, let's sit down together. I think someone needs our help." (...with four minutes to zero. It was a dream, remember?)
As a classroom teacher in the real world I often sat with my class to discuss the more deeply wounding issues like being harassed by cruel name calling or the fear of being chased or attacked on the playground. Occasionally I would offer advice, but first I would do my best to elicit solutions from other children. Their answers always made a greater impression than mine on the besieged child.. This was what worked for me, sort of, and I stuck with it. Now, in eighteen years of classroom teaching, it had never been my habit to leap to satisfy the attention-getting strategies of small children. But my dream had teleported me to this class, and this was the only handle given to me that allowed me to function in this reality, so I grabbed it. Learning to deal with that handle became the whole purpose of the dream.
Precious moments passed while the class settled into group mode. I looked at the child who had addressed me. "Now I think we're ready. I'm sorry I don't know your name. Mine is Alis."
"Mercedes."
"Mercedes, did I hear you say that someone was being mean to you? Are you trying to say you'd like some help?"
"Yeah, it was Brenda. She's always mean."
"Mercedes, I'm guessing that you already know a lot about problems like this...because you asked for help. I can tell you already know that being mean back doesn't work. Did you know that most people don't stop to think what else to do? When someone is mean to them, they just act mean right back--even though it doesn't work. Well, anyway it never worked for me. And it certainly doesn't look like it works for other people either. What happens to you when someone is mean and you're mean back?"
Several answers came flying at me, not all showing complete comprehension of the question:
"They hit me."
"I'll punch him."
"He kicked me."
"I can wrinkle up her paper."
"I can scatch. I have long nails."
I had to interrupt. "Mercedes, isn't this what you're trying to avoid? This doesn't sound like fun!"
"No, it's just more being mean."
"So what can you do when someone's mean to you? What can you do that doesn't make the meanness worse?"
This time Jack (I think that was his name) answered, "You can walk away." I thought that his mom probably had told him that.
"Yes, I think that would stop the meanness."
Mercedes said, "But that's not fun either."
Suddenly the enormity of the misunderstanding hit me, the lie I had been serving to children for all these years. This discussion wasn't fair to children. It carries untruths at its roots.
I replied, "We're really going to have to work at this. Knowing what to do about meanness is a very hard problem. Maybe it's the hardest problem ever. I'll tell you why. When people ask you if you can read before you know how, you answer that you can't read, and it seems so impossible to believe that you will learn. But your parents and teachers know that you're going to be able to do it because they can do it. They probably felt the same way when they were small, and it didn't matter because one day, one wonderful day, they picked up a book and saw words in it! That was the beginning, and either slowly or quickly after that they were reading almost any book. It happens like that. All of us adults know it will happen for you the same way. You will learn to read too.
"So when we talk to you about how to handle meanness, like you should do this and you shouldn't do that, like why can't you stop fighting with your brother or your sister, we act like this is something you should know long before you're going to read, something everyone knows. But it's a lie. Adults don't really know what to do about meanness either, and they make much worse mistakes than you do.
"How can we help Mercedes make the meanness better? Has any of you thought of a way we could? I know Jack thought of one. Maybe we could all try his for a day to see if it works for us. Or perhaps you have something else you'd like to try when someone is mean, and you could try your way while we're trying Jack's way. We'll meet again tomorrow to talk about how these worked. Maybe we can find a way to make the meanness better for everybody. If we find it, we can tell all the other classes and the other teachers. Then we can write a letter to the President because he'd like to know too. Let's keep asking, what can make the meanness better? Let's be scientists and keep experimenting. We have to remember that paying back meanness with more meanness doesn't work. It makes the whole world unhappy. This is the hardest problem ever, but we can do it if everyone stops pretending they already know the answer and tries to find one that really makes meanness go away."
And all this happened in four minutes. Only in a dream.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Teacher's Lament
When scoring becomes more important than assessing,
When assessing becomes more important than teaching,
When teaching becomes more important than learning,
Maybe it's time for us to take down our diplomas
And become students again.
When assessing becomes more important than teaching,
When teaching becomes more important than learning,
Maybe it's time for us to take down our diplomas
And become students again.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Montessori Madness
A Montessori friend has given me a wonderful book, Montessori Madness by Trevor Eissler. If you have questions about Montessori education, this Montessori father has the answers. To see a brief video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMRerVtt9g. His book is both wise and funny and quite worth reading, every single page. Here from within its introduction I quote a comparison of Montessori education to traditional education:
From pp. 3 and 4:
“Children in Montessori schools assume full responsibility for their lowest bodily functions as well as their highest intellectual functions. They learn to solve problems by solving them, not hiding them. Montessori children learn discipline by practicing discipline, not by having the teacher tell them to be disciplined. They are naturally self-motivated because they are free to choose their own lessons at the moment they are ready to learn those lessons, and to follow wherever the intellectual thread leads. These students are not trained to wait for a teacher to motivate them before acting. They have long attention spans because every day they practice concentrating on some type of work for extended periods of time, not just until the bell rings for the next class. These students are decisive because they make decisions for themselves – the teacher does not decide for them. These children learn to respect others because they in turn are respected, not dominated. They are active learners because instead of being lectured to as passive observers, they are active participants.”
From pp. 5 and 6:
“I want to pull the Montessori philosophy of education down into the dirt where it belongs. Montessori is about a kid with a stick, digging a hole in the mud – hands dirty, engaged, fascinated, uninterrupted. Montessori should not be the bastion of rich kids and snooty elites able to spend thousands of dollars per year, while the not-so-fortunate kids are herded toward mediocrity like standardized lemmings. It's madness that we don't offer free public Montessori schools everywhere. It's madness that we stay stuck in the traditional way of schooling when it obviously has serious flaws. Yet, at fist glance, the Montessori method is so different from what we are used to, we think this method is madness!
“The old saying, 'The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,' comes to mind. We think someone else's job is better, car is faster, house is bigger, vacation is sunnier. When it comes to Montessori education, the grass is greener. It is better. The grass on the Montessori side of the fence is so verdant lush and full, I can barely make out my three kids in the overgrowth! It's just not fair! It's not fair that the vast majority of children will never get the chance to experience a Montessori school. It's not fair that because of luck and enough money, my kids get the chance to go there, but others don't.
“The goal of this book is simple. I want to convince you, the parent of a young child, to closely observe a Montessori classroom in action and compare it with a more discerning look at your child's current schooling or any traditional classroom. The difference is so startling and compelling that I hope it will prompt you to pull your child out of traditional school and enroll him or her in a Montessori school. I hope parents of preschool-age children will decide to choose Montessori from day one. If this choice is just not affordable, I hope you will demand a public Montessori school in your area.”
To join the discussion or find out where to purchase this book, go to http://www.montessorimadness.com/
From pp. 3 and 4:
“Children in Montessori schools assume full responsibility for their lowest bodily functions as well as their highest intellectual functions. They learn to solve problems by solving them, not hiding them. Montessori children learn discipline by practicing discipline, not by having the teacher tell them to be disciplined. They are naturally self-motivated because they are free to choose their own lessons at the moment they are ready to learn those lessons, and to follow wherever the intellectual thread leads. These students are not trained to wait for a teacher to motivate them before acting. They have long attention spans because every day they practice concentrating on some type of work for extended periods of time, not just until the bell rings for the next class. These students are decisive because they make decisions for themselves – the teacher does not decide for them. These children learn to respect others because they in turn are respected, not dominated. They are active learners because instead of being lectured to as passive observers, they are active participants.”
From pp. 5 and 6:
“I want to pull the Montessori philosophy of education down into the dirt where it belongs. Montessori is about a kid with a stick, digging a hole in the mud – hands dirty, engaged, fascinated, uninterrupted. Montessori should not be the bastion of rich kids and snooty elites able to spend thousands of dollars per year, while the not-so-fortunate kids are herded toward mediocrity like standardized lemmings. It's madness that we don't offer free public Montessori schools everywhere. It's madness that we stay stuck in the traditional way of schooling when it obviously has serious flaws. Yet, at fist glance, the Montessori method is so different from what we are used to, we think this method is madness!
“The old saying, 'The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,' comes to mind. We think someone else's job is better, car is faster, house is bigger, vacation is sunnier. When it comes to Montessori education, the grass is greener. It is better. The grass on the Montessori side of the fence is so verdant lush and full, I can barely make out my three kids in the overgrowth! It's just not fair! It's not fair that the vast majority of children will never get the chance to experience a Montessori school. It's not fair that because of luck and enough money, my kids get the chance to go there, but others don't.
“The goal of this book is simple. I want to convince you, the parent of a young child, to closely observe a Montessori classroom in action and compare it with a more discerning look at your child's current schooling or any traditional classroom. The difference is so startling and compelling that I hope it will prompt you to pull your child out of traditional school and enroll him or her in a Montessori school. I hope parents of preschool-age children will decide to choose Montessori from day one. If this choice is just not affordable, I hope you will demand a public Montessori school in your area.”
To join the discussion or find out where to purchase this book, go to http://www.montessorimadness.com/
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Chicago Disconnection
More than a century ago between 1898 and 1900, Italy's first woman doctor, Maria Montessori, began her work as physician with institutionalized children who had serious learning difficulties. As she tended to them, she thought she saw ways to help them learn. It was evident these children could not learn normally with the traditional whole-class approach so she began to teach them individually. She developed beautiful “sensorial materials” made of wood, many in graded sets of ten, for teaching dimensions like length. After that she created mathematical materials, then even language materials. She would show them to a child slowly, always in an exercise of many short steps, demonstrating how to use them in an organized way. Some time later Dr. Montessori's efforts were rewarded when in spite of all their learning difficulties, these children were able to pass the same exams given to normal children. A phenomenon she became determined to investigate. And so she began to wonder what effect her educational methods might have on normal children.
In 1901 Dr. Montessori returned to the University of Rome to teach anthropology and to study all the famous educators she could find, to the extent of translating Seguin word by word from the French to her own Italian. All this while she continued to set up classes for small children, as well as personally training the teachers to use her method. Finally in 1907, she seized the opportunity to work with disadvantaged children in the poverty stricken, crime ridden San Lorenzo quarter of Rome. And her fame as an extraordinary educator began to leap oceans.
In the United States a surprising number of prominent people had heard of Montessori's success. Dorothy Canfield Fisher and the Alexander Graham Bells were amongst the educational reformers trying to establish Montessori schools here. Some of Montessori's admirers were so enthusiastic that they traveled to Europe to learn firsthand in one of her established schools. Dr. Montessori was unwilling to give her blessing to those who had not proven to her that they understood her method well. This slowed the establishment of schools almost to a stand still. Yet interest seemed to be growing.
Stateside John Dewey was at the University of Chicago, and in 1896 established its Laboratory School. He was working with children older than most of those in Montessori's classrooms. And her schools also included three and four-year olds. In 1906 he resigned from his position at the University of Chicago and returned entirely to academia, leaving his Laboratory School in the hands of his successors. Other than believing that young children should be educated in classrooms, there was little similarity in their approaches. Dewey had enjoyed so much prestige from his experiment that it is likely that he dismissed Montessori outright and without much thought. But Montessori was diligent in everything she put her mind to, and she no doubt wondered how she and Dewey both could be so popular with Americans. Perhaps this is why she was so hesitant to give her blessing to those trying to establish schools in her name. Finally in 1913 Maria Montessori came to the United States to speak to audiences about her work. She was well received for some months until she came to the attention of Dewey's supporters who realized that the two approaches were incompatible. Using the media, even though many initially had welcomed her, journalists now denigrated her work. Her popularity waned. Montessori, made distrustful by the confusion, returned to Italy. She spent her entire life studying and looking for the most effective methods to educate children for life. She worked all over Europe and in Asia. But elsewhere, not here.
In the twentieth century between these early years of the remarkable warring educational reformers and the present, lay catastrophic events: World War I, the flu pandemic, the Depression and World War II, not to mention Korea, Viet Nam and the ominous Cold War Communist threat. So twentieth-century cultures remained stuck in an educational ditch. Pretty much worldwide, no culture was seriously trying to teach children until they reached the age of six years. Here in the United States we sometimes tried to prepare children with kindergarten classes for five-year-olds. In 1948 my parents had to pay for mine. Our public school invited a kindergarten teacher to use a sunny room in the school basement where about eight of us children (only eight of the sixty that would comprise the two first grade classes the following year) met with her for an hour and a half, three mornings a week. I seem to remember being handed money to give her each time my parents dropped me off at school. We children sat around a table to draw with pencils and crayons while she read to us. She helped us learn to print our names. But six was considered the age that a teacher could require a child's attention for a full day. So real education was supposed to start at six. And certainly, given the prevailing classroom structure, there were good reasons for this mindset. But now Montessori education has changed all that.
Now by 2010 Americans have rediscovered Montessori schools and with them early childhood education. This began locally in the 1960's with the establishment of two of the earliest Chicago Montessori schools still in existence: Near North Montessori School founded in 1963 and Rogers Park Montessori School founded in 1966. How did this happen and why? The most common way was that a group of parents who had read about Montessori education would come together to found a school. The problem earlier in the century had been the lack of Montessori trained teachers here. World War II provided Near North Montessori's founding group in Chicago with Katherine Kenneth, an ex-patriot Austrian Jew, who brought with her the experience of working with the Doctoressa herself. Mrs. Kenneth had a tale to tell about those war years. She said that one of the most important things she did with her small charges was to walk daily as a group, longer and longer distances. And then the feared day came during the war when they had to walk a long distance to be out of harm's way. And they did safely. Every one of them. And she smiled a smile like a rainbow.
In 1901 Dr. Montessori returned to the University of Rome to teach anthropology and to study all the famous educators she could find, to the extent of translating Seguin word by word from the French to her own Italian. All this while she continued to set up classes for small children, as well as personally training the teachers to use her method. Finally in 1907, she seized the opportunity to work with disadvantaged children in the poverty stricken, crime ridden San Lorenzo quarter of Rome. And her fame as an extraordinary educator began to leap oceans.
In the United States a surprising number of prominent people had heard of Montessori's success. Dorothy Canfield Fisher and the Alexander Graham Bells were amongst the educational reformers trying to establish Montessori schools here. Some of Montessori's admirers were so enthusiastic that they traveled to Europe to learn firsthand in one of her established schools. Dr. Montessori was unwilling to give her blessing to those who had not proven to her that they understood her method well. This slowed the establishment of schools almost to a stand still. Yet interest seemed to be growing.
Stateside John Dewey was at the University of Chicago, and in 1896 established its Laboratory School. He was working with children older than most of those in Montessori's classrooms. And her schools also included three and four-year olds. In 1906 he resigned from his position at the University of Chicago and returned entirely to academia, leaving his Laboratory School in the hands of his successors. Other than believing that young children should be educated in classrooms, there was little similarity in their approaches. Dewey had enjoyed so much prestige from his experiment that it is likely that he dismissed Montessori outright and without much thought. But Montessori was diligent in everything she put her mind to, and she no doubt wondered how she and Dewey both could be so popular with Americans. Perhaps this is why she was so hesitant to give her blessing to those trying to establish schools in her name. Finally in 1913 Maria Montessori came to the United States to speak to audiences about her work. She was well received for some months until she came to the attention of Dewey's supporters who realized that the two approaches were incompatible. Using the media, even though many initially had welcomed her, journalists now denigrated her work. Her popularity waned. Montessori, made distrustful by the confusion, returned to Italy. She spent her entire life studying and looking for the most effective methods to educate children for life. She worked all over Europe and in Asia. But elsewhere, not here.
In the twentieth century between these early years of the remarkable warring educational reformers and the present, lay catastrophic events: World War I, the flu pandemic, the Depression and World War II, not to mention Korea, Viet Nam and the ominous Cold War Communist threat. So twentieth-century cultures remained stuck in an educational ditch. Pretty much worldwide, no culture was seriously trying to teach children until they reached the age of six years. Here in the United States we sometimes tried to prepare children with kindergarten classes for five-year-olds. In 1948 my parents had to pay for mine. Our public school invited a kindergarten teacher to use a sunny room in the school basement where about eight of us children (only eight of the sixty that would comprise the two first grade classes the following year) met with her for an hour and a half, three mornings a week. I seem to remember being handed money to give her each time my parents dropped me off at school. We children sat around a table to draw with pencils and crayons while she read to us. She helped us learn to print our names. But six was considered the age that a teacher could require a child's attention for a full day. So real education was supposed to start at six. And certainly, given the prevailing classroom structure, there were good reasons for this mindset. But now Montessori education has changed all that.
Now by 2010 Americans have rediscovered Montessori schools and with them early childhood education. This began locally in the 1960's with the establishment of two of the earliest Chicago Montessori schools still in existence: Near North Montessori School founded in 1963 and Rogers Park Montessori School founded in 1966. How did this happen and why? The most common way was that a group of parents who had read about Montessori education would come together to found a school. The problem earlier in the century had been the lack of Montessori trained teachers here. World War II provided Near North Montessori's founding group in Chicago with Katherine Kenneth, an ex-patriot Austrian Jew, who brought with her the experience of working with the Doctoressa herself. Mrs. Kenneth had a tale to tell about those war years. She said that one of the most important things she did with her small charges was to walk daily as a group, longer and longer distances. And then the feared day came during the war when they had to walk a long distance to be out of harm's way. And they did safely. Every one of them. And she smiled a smile like a rainbow.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
How Terry and Tracy learn to write in a Montessori classroom
I offer the following classroom scenario to illustrate one of the frequently mentioned differences between traditional and Montessori approaches to language, writing before reading. Almost always Montessori education offers the active component of any subject before its passive component. This is a key to reaching very young children. Here is one of the earliest Montessori language lessons, tracing a letter and associating its sound.
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It is the middle of February. Terry and Tracy are three-and-a-half-year-old students who seem fascinated with the sandpaper letters that Maria Montessori devised a century ago. These sandpaper letters are individual letters, cut out and mounted on blue and red boards; vowels on blue, consonants on red. We sit on the floor around a low table. I pick up the red board with the t on it. Using three fingers I trace the sandpaper letter t slowly as I would if I were writing it, carefully watching my hand. When I'm through tracing, I look up at the children and say “t,” the soft quick sound made by placing the tongue at the top of the back of the front teeth, and quickly blowing a burst of air across it. Here we do not use the letter's name. We refer to these letters always by their sound. The two children take turns tracing the letter.
“Can we use the sand tray?” asks Terry after each of us has had our turn to trace.
“You certainly may,” I am happy to respond. And we repeat the round of letter-tracing with the additional step of using a shallow box of sand to trace the letter freehand.
A few weeks later Terry and Tracy, who seem to have become good friends, have learned five or six sounds. I invite them to play a game of “I Spy.” The game goes something like this: still at the same table, I trace the letter t saying its sound “t”, and I pass it to each of them to do the same. Then I rather pointedly look around the room. I say, “I spy something big that starts with 't'. Can you guess what I'm looking at?” In this case I am staring as obviously as I can at a table. They would usually take turns trying to guess, but this time my selected object becomes irrelevant to our game because Tracy spots a towel and says “Towel.” In looking for mine, she has found one of her own.
I reply, “Towel! That's even better than mine, Tracy. Can you show us the towel?” Tracy walks to the hand washing exercise and touches the towel hanging beside it.
On another day as Terry and Tracy are becoming more proficient, we are expanding the game by naming objects that have our sound at the end of the word. Terry is quick to point under the table, “foot! foot!” Then on a different day, we tackle the most difficult: finding a word with the “t” in the middle. “Do you think we can find “t” in the middle of a word?” I ask, thinking this could be a hard one, but Terry surprised me again by pointing at the t and laughing, saying, “letter, letter!”
Some other classmates are roaming by, so I decide to change our quest to “I see a girl whose name begins with 't'.” This is fun and often captures the interest of those who may have temporarily lost their sense of self direction.
“Oh,” say Tracy and Terry in unison, “Tisha! Tisha!” So Tisha joins us.
Of course the purpose of this game is to teach. But not to do so by correcting children and telling them they are “wrong.” If you do this at this early age, they will either quit or begin acting silly. Then the lesson they will remember will not be about sounds, but about failure. So what do I do if someone is wrong? When I can, I use everything that happens as a positive teaching moment. First, I try to look puzzled. Then I say the word with the sound in the wrong place. For example, if we are looking around the classroom for an object that begins with “t,” but the child points out a chair. First I would ask, “Can you tell me what you are pointing at? What is it called? He would say, “Chair.”I might look puzzled and then say, “'t,' 't', 't'air?” a couple of times, shake my head and say, “That doesn't sound right to me. Does it sound right to you?” The child usually laughs at the funny word so I repeat my invitation, “It starts with 't.' Guess again.” If all else fails, here in class we never dwell in failure. After any series of earnest but incorrect answers, like the American quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” there is always an “ask a friend“ option.
NOTE: I have used the letter t as an example here for simplicity. We use all the letters in the alphabet in approximately the same way, one or two at first but more as the child becomes at ease with these lessons.
................................................
It is the middle of February. Terry and Tracy are three-and-a-half-year-old students who seem fascinated with the sandpaper letters that Maria Montessori devised a century ago. These sandpaper letters are individual letters, cut out and mounted on blue and red boards; vowels on blue, consonants on red. We sit on the floor around a low table. I pick up the red board with the t on it. Using three fingers I trace the sandpaper letter t slowly as I would if I were writing it, carefully watching my hand. When I'm through tracing, I look up at the children and say “t,” the soft quick sound made by placing the tongue at the top of the back of the front teeth, and quickly blowing a burst of air across it. Here we do not use the letter's name. We refer to these letters always by their sound. The two children take turns tracing the letter.
“Can we use the sand tray?” asks Terry after each of us has had our turn to trace.
“You certainly may,” I am happy to respond. And we repeat the round of letter-tracing with the additional step of using a shallow box of sand to trace the letter freehand.
A few weeks later Terry and Tracy, who seem to have become good friends, have learned five or six sounds. I invite them to play a game of “I Spy.” The game goes something like this: still at the same table, I trace the letter t saying its sound “t”, and I pass it to each of them to do the same. Then I rather pointedly look around the room. I say, “I spy something big that starts with 't'. Can you guess what I'm looking at?” In this case I am staring as obviously as I can at a table. They would usually take turns trying to guess, but this time my selected object becomes irrelevant to our game because Tracy spots a towel and says “Towel.” In looking for mine, she has found one of her own.
I reply, “Towel! That's even better than mine, Tracy. Can you show us the towel?” Tracy walks to the hand washing exercise and touches the towel hanging beside it.
On another day as Terry and Tracy are becoming more proficient, we are expanding the game by naming objects that have our sound at the end of the word. Terry is quick to point under the table, “foot! foot!” Then on a different day, we tackle the most difficult: finding a word with the “t” in the middle. “Do you think we can find “t” in the middle of a word?” I ask, thinking this could be a hard one, but Terry surprised me again by pointing at the t and laughing, saying, “letter, letter!”
Some other classmates are roaming by, so I decide to change our quest to “I see a girl whose name begins with 't'.” This is fun and often captures the interest of those who may have temporarily lost their sense of self direction.
“Oh,” say Tracy and Terry in unison, “Tisha! Tisha!” So Tisha joins us.
Of course the purpose of this game is to teach. But not to do so by correcting children and telling them they are “wrong.” If you do this at this early age, they will either quit or begin acting silly. Then the lesson they will remember will not be about sounds, but about failure. So what do I do if someone is wrong? When I can, I use everything that happens as a positive teaching moment. First, I try to look puzzled. Then I say the word with the sound in the wrong place. For example, if we are looking around the classroom for an object that begins with “t,” but the child points out a chair. First I would ask, “Can you tell me what you are pointing at? What is it called? He would say, “Chair.”I might look puzzled and then say, “'t,' 't', 't'air?” a couple of times, shake my head and say, “That doesn't sound right to me. Does it sound right to you?” The child usually laughs at the funny word so I repeat my invitation, “It starts with 't.' Guess again.” If all else fails, here in class we never dwell in failure. After any series of earnest but incorrect answers, like the American quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” there is always an “ask a friend“ option.
NOTE: I have used the letter t as an example here for simplicity. We use all the letters in the alphabet in approximately the same way, one or two at first but more as the child becomes at ease with these lessons.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Joy
When I was a child, at Christmas my somewhat rotund father would dress up like Santa with a cloth bag of candies and tiny plastic toys over his shoulder and go knocking on doors, house to house, in our neighborhood, saying “Ho, ho ho! Are there any good little boys or girls here?” And passing out rather unspectacular goodies by today's standards. My father loved doing this. Those children of yesteryear seemed to like it too. It worked. It was Christmas. But it was something else too. It was heart throbbing, eye widening, levitating, infectious joy!
There are events in our lives that can jolt us with joy, like a wedding, or the birth of a child. There is a quieter joy when something we have worked on, and maybe struggled with, suddenly comes together. Then there is the joy of working with others who are in an alpha state of creation, becoming the people that they will be. Like children in a Montessori classroom.
This is why I happily awoke every morning at 5:20 A.M., before my alarm, and walked down the hall to the bathroom to shower and wash my hair. Why I wore freshly laundered clothes daily. And I insisted that my son and I have breakfast and I packed us hearty lunches. Why? I had to be prepared. Teaching in a Montessori classroom, I was in the company of more quiet joy than I have ever known. And I had the good fortune to do this for years and years. This joy has had a profound effect on me, and I cannot help thinking it must also profoundly change the way children grow.
There are events in our lives that can jolt us with joy, like a wedding, or the birth of a child. There is a quieter joy when something we have worked on, and maybe struggled with, suddenly comes together. Then there is the joy of working with others who are in an alpha state of creation, becoming the people that they will be. Like children in a Montessori classroom.
This is why I happily awoke every morning at 5:20 A.M., before my alarm, and walked down the hall to the bathroom to shower and wash my hair. Why I wore freshly laundered clothes daily. And I insisted that my son and I have breakfast and I packed us hearty lunches. Why? I had to be prepared. Teaching in a Montessori classroom, I was in the company of more quiet joy than I have ever known. And I had the good fortune to do this for years and years. This joy has had a profound effect on me, and I cannot help thinking it must also profoundly change the way children grow.
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