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

The circle is complete.

This is the one and only

firmament; therefore

it is the absolute world.

There is no other world.

The circle is complete.

I am living in Eternity.

The ways of this world

are the ways of Heaven.

Allen Ginsberg

(Keri put this on her Facebook today, and it made so much sense to spread it. )

One day I'm going to whistle?

The Real Work

by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Observation and Record Keeping

(Jessica with observation clipboard, after helping the child will write down what the child had difficulty with.)

I am very pleased so far this year with the observation format and record keeping that Jessica and I have been using. Part of it was passed along at the AMI Refresher Course last year by Molly O'Shaughnessy and modified somewhat for our classroom. I have needed quite a bit of help in the organizational department to keep a solid record of daily/weekly observations and after many years in the classroom, feel more confident than I ever have with our record keeping system.

My trainer Ginni said different things work for different people, and then described in a little detail her method of using index cards and recipe boxes to keep track of what was happening in her room. I've tried different approaches during the year, but feel most comfortable with what we're using now.

For daily observations, we have form that we put on a clip board that we keep with us in the classroom during the day. On it I write the works I see used with deep concentration, general works chosen, issues, moments of distraction, lessons given and possible lessons for the future. This is what it looks like.



Once a week or so, we also chart the work flow of the group during the 3 hours of uninterrupted work. This gives us a general idea of how the days are developing, and at what time we should be ready to give small or whole group lessons. The work flow chart is can also be found in the book The Absorbent Mind.

On the clipboard also goes a sheet of possible individual and group lessons, taken from a master work plan that I keep in a bound book. I refresh this sheet about every two weeks adding to it as the weeks progress. I use it as a reminder of what possible lessons to give children who are free or need help making choices during the day. (this is what it looks like: weekly lessons form) At the end of the week, I track the lessons given to each child in the book, and this serves as my master individual work record.

At the end of the week, I meet with Jessica and go over our observations sheets of that week. I used to file these observation sheets, but more recently I admitted to myself that I NEVER refer to them again and that I needed a more structured weekly summary to help me with lesson planning and general history of the work going on. So I made up a weekly summary sheet where we are filling in the most useful bits of information filed in a binder that I feel will be useful also for future reference. This is what it looks like.

In the end, what I keep as permanent record are the master individual and group lessons book, the weekly summaries, and the work flow charts. It sounds like a lot of bureaucracy but in the end, I do feel like I have a grip on what's happened, and a useful tool for preparing for the future.

I'd love one day to find and learn to use a digital record keeping device that could magically spit out a paper that details the work each child has done that week, and the lessons they've received and mastered with exact dates, and even suggest the lessons for the next weeks but until that magical Montessori app is developed and made free (heck, I'd even pay for it!) I will settle on my old fashioned whole bunch of semi organized papers.

Jamming- Child made holiday gifts for parents

This year, we made placemats and orange jam for holiday gifts from the children to the parents. It took several days to make them, but they were well worth the effort.

For the placemat, the children drew a picture of their family and colored it on one side, and on the other side, the children's handprints in paint. Then I ran the cardstock through the cold laminator and rounded the edges with scissors.




The orange jam is marmalade, technically. We had orange grating available as a work in the classroom for several days and I showed it to four and five year olds.




Then eventually we peeled the grated oranges as a group, sectioned them, and removed seeds.



And then the cooking part was made with mostly teacher assistance. Children could do all the measuring though.

We collected jars for putting the jam in and the children decorated their own labels.



I super recommend this easy and yummy gift for the holidays. In the future, I think we'll give a small loaf of child made bread to go with the jam.


Recipe (tripled for 22 jars):

2lb Oranges/Rind
4lb Sugar
2 pints water/collected orange juice
2 lemons

Wash the oranges thoroughly.

Grate the peel off of as many as you can.

Peel off the remaining white parts, remove seeds, section by hand (keep all the juice).

Squeeze two lemons worth of juice.

In a very large pot, cook the oranges, juice, and water for about 40 minutes- rolling boil (we cooked it for about 1 hour because it was 3x the recipe).

Add the sugar and boil again for about 30 minutes. (If you don't trust the setting or the jam, add a few boxes of gelatin- I did.).

Let it stand for about 15 minutes and the ladle into very clean jars.