Friday, May 8, 2009

Yet another reason why observation notes are so important.

Yesterday was such a hectic day at school that at the end of the day Sayenne and I decided to have the "meeting" at the coffee shop downtown. We usually have a 20-30 minute debriefing of observations at the end of our day and we skipped it yesterday opting to let the day rest in oblivion. Today was just another variety of crazy day (I will one day write a thesis on the many flavors of crazy that are possible in a Montessori classroom on an "off" day) and considering we had our fun yesterday we not only looked over today's, but also yesterday's observations.

Going over our observations it was clear that both days were not complete fiascoes. Not bastions of work and concentration either, but there were some brilliant moments in the day, some great works, some concentration, and lots of funny quotes. I am so pleased with both of us that in our notebooks at least, we are able to note the positive aspects of the day even while we were feeling a blanket of anarchy descending on the room.

I was reminded of the importance of neutral observation, of writing just what you see, of how interesting what we choose to focus on is, and how healing it is to go over the notes at the end of a not so good day and realize it was not all that bad.

1 comment:

Sonja said...

Thank you so much for touching on the subject of 'off days' as well as great days. There are not many Montessorians who dare to describe an 'off' day and yet it is so very real and important. It's great to realise that children will be children, regardless of the class they are in. And thanks for reminding us that even on an 'off' day, there are still moments of joy and brilliance to be seen.