Our graduation slide show

I used open source "Open Shot" to make this slide show. It was really easy to learn how to use, and very fun to make. And free.

Discovery: lap harp.

This weekend I was at a friend's house and on a shelf she had a rusty old looking dulcimerish type of instrument that had been given to her by her Russian grandfather. A trapezoidal box with 18 strings that looked fairly complicated. When I was little, we used to accompany my mom's piano playing with an auto harp (which is the instrument that June Carter Cash played, I think) and even with our amateurish playing it sounded beautiful. So I was intrigued.

I asked my friend about the thing, and THEN... she showed me how the music score (sheet?) fits in just so under the strings, and it shows you exactly where you have to pluck the strings with a pick to make the music. So easy! Even in it's rusted state, it garnered my applause when she played.

Immediately I thought, this would be a GREAT addition to a Primary music shelf. How to ask her for her family heirloom?! Of course, I didn't ask. But went home and researched and sure enough, there was the lap harp. For sale kind of anywhere (meaning, on Amazon.) And coincidentally later that night, when looking through the Montessori Services catalog, there it was again. Why I failed to notice it before? The exact same one, at a better price than the other places (meaning Amazon), and extra sheets of music also at a better price.

So I ordered one. And I am the person sitting at the desk impatiently tapping my fingers waiting for it to arrive. I can already picture the very musical five year olds playing songs on it. The addition of a string instrument to our percussion and bells and xylophone orchestra will be very very exciting.

I will update on the results.

What is good.

Point three on the "10 Commandments of Montessori" is as follows:

"3. Concentrate on strengthening and helping the development of what is good in the child so that its presence may leave less and less space for the bad."


There is so much wisdom in this one sentence.

I think about the individual child who struggles. Stopping to celebrate the small progresses, no matter how small. Encouragement. Tirelessness. Patience. And much hope.

Today I was thinking about this in collective terms instead of the individual child. The development of what is good in the group... It was interesting to ponder, "What are the strengths of our group?" "How can I make them aware of and help them develop them?"

And then on to how I treat myself and my shortcomings and errors. Can I focus on the good in myself to leave less and less space for the bad?

Gentleness

"Non-violence is a very deep philosophy. Not only does it require me to harm no one physically, but also to avoid harming anyone's self-respect. Such an ethic requires tremendous awareness and sensitivity. When I have learned to be gentle with myself, I can be the same with others."

"Believe in the child."

We are getting to the end of our Spring Break and preparing for the last seven weeks of school. At this point, I reflect on the journey we've had this year at school and on the individual progress each child has made since August. During the break, I meditated on each child, especially on those with who for some reason or another this year I had moments of disconnect. Instead of leaving this work for the end of the school year, I thought it might be fruitful to stop now and acknowledge each child in my mind while there are still some weeks left in the school year.

Recently, our Conscious Discipline teacher, Helen, visited me at school and we discussed the subject of "positive intent." It is one of the pillars of the CD program, and basically means that if we dedicate ourselves to seeing the best in others, and in cultivating a vision of the child's best self, it is possible that they may see it too. We both agreed that it is a challenging but crucial part of our work as teachers to foster the best mental image of a child as we can. Children are developing their self image based on the messages they are receiving from the world around them. I'd like my message to be one of genuine encouragement, even at my worst moments.

Perhaps this was instigated by reading "The Creative Development in the Child" chapters 26-29 where Montessori discourses at length on children's possible deviations and gives examples of what they look like in the classroom: "a child who is disorderly in movement", "who is very noisy", "speaks in a very loud voice",""putting the Buttoning Frame around his neck", "runs from one side of the room to another jumping over the Long Rods" familiar to anyone?

Contemplating each child in a beneficial way and giving myself the same treatment as well, it was reassuring to read:

"How long does this correction [normalization] take? It all depends upon the child. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes a month, sometimes even a year."


There is still plenty of time.

"She must believe in the child, she must understand that the child loves to work. She must have in front of her eyes, the impressive picture of a child who when left free to concentrate on work, gives every atom of energy to the task upon which he concentrates."

("Creative Develpment in the Child, chapter 29)

Happy Moments Journal

Because I've caught myself focusing a little intensely on some negative aspects of the day at school, I've decided to help train myself. Today I started a happy moments journal, where at the end of each day of school, before I go home I will write at least 3 moments where I felt deeply happy or where I noticed something wonderful. And these are the things I will put into my pocket and take home to reflect on at the end of the work day. (I can see myself in the classroom next week, when one of those moments happens, giving it a bit more importance simply by thinking to myself "Ah, this is worthy of writing in the book at the end of the day.")

The clumsiness of power spoils the key, and uses the pickaxe. - Tagore

How often it's happened that I go to a child, and am so excited to show them something, and when I offer the lesson and the child says "No." Worse yet, he recoils and makes a disgusted face when I kneel down to touch the material that I'm going to present. And inside of me there is a slight panic that says "You're not supposed to be rejecting this- it has been scientifically designed for you to like it!" And I have a split moment where I decide if I'm going to overrule the child ("YOU WILL SWALLOW THIS MEDICINE! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!") or smile mildly (sometimes it hurts) and say "That's ok. We'll do it at another time." It happens to me. Still. After years in the classroom, that I still wage an internal battle at certain moments when this situation comes up.

I picked up "Creative Development in the Child" and there was a passage that addressed this exactly. And it's not wishywashy about it at all.

"It is necessary that we obtain the deep felt consent of the child before doing the exercise. [] When these exercises are not done of the child's own will, they have no success, and are of no use. So the teacher must not only prepare the material but also suceed in establishing this contact. Without this spiritual contact, without the spiritual assent of the child and his eager collaboration, these exercises have no value at all. "

"The teacher may be prejudiced. She may say- What? Must I teach only what the children consent to? Where is my authority, and my dignity? We must understand however, that we can use our authority in many ways, but no one will force a child to do an exercise which he does not choose. Force will only awaken the disgust of the child towards the means of education given to him. By authority, which forces the child who is helpless, to do something we wish him to do because we are powerful, we put out a vital flame of light in the soul of the child. It then becomes impossible to make the child do these delicate exercises."

"A good teacher therefore is one who succeeds in opening the roads to furnish the child with the means he seeks, who can call down the spirit of the child. "

(Maria Montessori, Creative Development in the Child, pg 152-153)

I know that the result when I push the child is most likely going to be negative- usually the child will not repeat the lesson. Give up halfway. And usually lose interest. That's a steep price to pay. But I admit I sometimes wield the pickaxe.

It's good to be reminded why it has to go into the storage. For good.

Parent Participation

Every year, we schedule 3 parent conferences (30 minutes during the pickup time in the afternoon in Nov., Feb., May) and 3 observations (30 minutes during the morning after dropping the children off). All sessions are made optional, but last year I noticed a waning in the number of parents who signed up for observation in the middle session.

Since parents often, perhaps I imagined this, ask me if and when they can come in to work or interact with the children, I decided to change the second session of observation/conference into a participation/conference. For the last 30 minutes of the day for a month, any parent who wants to come in and give a lesson, read a book, teach a song, cook, demonstrate something is invited to.

We had a huge turnout for the participation and it's been really interesting seeing the types of lessons parents have come up with. We've had fly fishing demonstrations, group painting, craft works, book reading, a presentation about Togo... It's nice as well to give the children an opportunity to get to know the parents a bit better and they are enjoying it!

I'm thinking this will be a permanent change in our calendar because it's a great way to improve community spirit, a learning opportunity for both children and adults, and it's actually been great fun.

Mirror Neurons and Empathy

I love the idea of Homo Empathicus from this video. In my A to I training the most fundamental idea that struck me was that humans are hard wired to WANT to socialise, we are social animals, we learn not just by doing but by socializing and observing each other. A major emphasis on our work must be not just on the transfer of the ideas and knowledge/information, but on the RELATIONSHIPS among the children, among the families, the staff. The parts about mirror neurons are a great reminder of our role as primary models of behavior in the classroom.


Since watching this, I have tried to be much more self aware of my expression while I'm at school. What my face is communicating when, for example, I come into a conflict situation between two children or a hurt child can already affect the situation considerably.

Less is more.

I had been experimenting with dramatic reductions in the amount of materials available to the children for the last month. Then, at the AMI refresher course this weekend, the presenter, Annette Haines, said something that really struck me:

"Repetition comes naturally IF the environment is limited enough."

We have a large group of new children this year, all very young three year olds and although it's February, I had been leaning on a lot of transitional materials that I still felt these new children needed to sustain a 3 hour work period. Of course, as it happens with transitional materials (Legos, puzzles, etc.) the older children also end up working with them instead of with other materials. A few weeks ago I decided to just "see what happens" and took away all of the transitional materials, including some of the art works that are ALWAYS out. Not necessarily because I have anything against these materials (ie. clay, crayons, blocks) I still feel that they do have a place in the classroom and are educational, but what would happen without these staples?

I saw someone choose the red rods for the first time in AGES. That was one thing that happened. Explorations with the pink tower and brown stair deepened as children began to work with them more freely (the kind of exploration they had been doing with blocks.) A return to practical life happened when there were none of the automatic "go to" materials on the art shelf. And yes, aside from all these very positive occurrences, there was a slight fluctuation in amount of works out during the day (it took some children time to wander to rediscover the materials on other shelves that they had forgotten were there.)

I had thought that the refresher course was going to end up being a reminder of how all the Montessori materials are woven together into a perfect web of indirect preparations and interconnectivity. I guess what I wanted was the lecture that my trainer at MINW gave us in our last session of training, which inspired me to trust in the value of each material as part of an inter related whole that is the Montessori classroom, without needing to rely on additives.

Yesterday I returned to my classroom feeling strongly about the outcome of the past week's experiments. Feeling more emboldened in the pruning of the shelves, instead of the ever adding-on. Reaching out and not feeling a limit to the depth that the materials presented to me so many years ago have to offer. I am welcoming the mystery of all I have yet to learn about what is right in front of me.

Open

"Stay without ambition, without the least desire, exposed, vulnerable,
unprotected, uncertain and alone, completely open to and welcoming life as it happens, without the selfish conviction that all must yield you pleasure or profit, material or so-called spiritual."

Nisargadatta