What follows is a (so far, incomplete) list of American Montessori secondary schools and the unique qualities they have.
Monday, February 20, 2012
A Look into Secondary Montessori Education
Because Montessori didn't write about extensively about secondary education like she did early childhood and elementary, not many secondary Montessori schools exist. I wrote previously that a natural progression from the independence training that early childhood and elementary Montessori schools provide might be an opportunity for children to be completely in control of their own education.
I haven't had the chance to read the translations of Montessori's work, but I've read recently online that she briefly mentioned her idea of secondary schools involving adolescents gaining an education through their experiences working on a farm. Wikipedia has it cited as:
Noted Montessorian Michael Olaf writes that adolescents need to spend time working with money, finding themselves, and trying different unpaid apprenticeships.
I'd like to get more of an idea of some existing Montessori secondary schools. Perhap they will give me some insight or inspiration. I'll create my list here.
Finally, NAMTA published a journal titled The Montessori Adolescent Analysis in Retrospect that I'd like to get a chance to read sometime (although I'm curious what they mean by "in retrospect"). They also host a course called The AMI Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies (hosted at the Hershey campus). I'd really like to attend after I get my Elementary I and II license.
EDIT (2/29/12): Montessori Muddle is a great blog I found that advertises itself as "Middle and High School ... from a Montessori Point of View." From the looks of it, the author talks about a little bit of everything. I can't wait to get reading.
I haven't had the chance to read the translations of Montessori's work, but I've read recently online that she briefly mentioned her idea of secondary schools involving adolescents gaining an education through their experiences working on a farm. Wikipedia has it cited as:
"The essential reform of our plan from this point of view may be defined as follows: during the difficult time of adolescence it is helpful to leave the accustomed environment of the family in town and to go to quiet surroundings in the country, close to nature." (1989, p. 67)Hershey Montessori School in Ohio seems to have taken that quote to heart when designing their school. They have received much recognition. Here is the Montessori for Everyone blog on Erdkinder (German for Earth Child) and the Hershey school. And here is NAMTA's David Kahn on the Hershey school and Colegio Montessori de Tepoztlan in Mexico.
Noted Montessorian Michael Olaf writes that adolescents need to spend time working with money, finding themselves, and trying different unpaid apprenticeships.
I'd like to get more of an idea of some existing Montessori secondary schools. Perhap they will give me some insight or inspiration. I'll create my list here.
Finally, NAMTA published a journal titled The Montessori Adolescent Analysis in Retrospect that I'd like to get a chance to read sometime (although I'm curious what they mean by "in retrospect"). They also host a course called The AMI Montessori Orientation to Adolescent Studies (hosted at the Hershey campus). I'd really like to attend after I get my Elementary I and II license.
EDIT (2/29/12): Montessori Muddle is a great blog I found that advertises itself as "Middle and High School ... from a Montessori Point of View." From the looks of it, the author talks about a little bit of everything. I can't wait to get reading.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
First class meeting reflection
I've tried a few times to write about the first class meeting I facilitated with the third grade class I'm student teaching with, but I can never finish the thought. I get so frustrated so often during my internship, and perhaps I'm internally not letting myself think everything through properly. Perhaps I'm unconsciously afraid of what I'd find if I did. Consciously, of course, I blame everything on the "public school" scape goat. And, of course, I'll really need to give myself honest reflection time, but perhaps just not during my internship. It feels like that would be unprofessional somehow. In three and a half months time, I'll be back to normal (hopefully).
In the meantime, I'd like to actually finish a thought about my first class meeting. During planning for a day in which my cooperating teacher would be gone, I decided it was time to have a discussion with the students. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, however, and wound up improvising most of it while I went along. I knew only that I wanted to touch on respecting each other despite your feelings towards a person, ignoring what others say even when it makes you angry, and disagreeing with others respectfully. At the last minute request of the cooperating teacher in her notes to the sub, I started the dialogue with a story, even though it didn't exactly fit with what I fully wanted to talk about. But, really, without it, I would have hardly known where to begin.
While the third-graders were in P.E., I moved the desks to create a larger space on the floor (because they haven't been taught how to move their own desks quickly like I would have taught them) and taught the substitute how to run my Flip camera so that I could watch the meeting again and reflect. When the students returned, we sat in a circle and I read the short book. They were surprisingly somber during the story.
Afterward, I asked what the story made the students think about. I received answers from the title of the book and a synopsis of what the characters in the illustration did, so I told them that the story reminded me about how the class doesn't always work together as a team. Then we brainstormed problems that students in the class have and solutions to those problems. I wrote on hand-held white boards during the meeting, but transferred the notes to poster-sized paper and hung them in the room afterward. I'll include the ideas below.
When I could see that the ideas had been exhausted and the students were getting anxious, I transitioned to role-playing, hoping to build empathy for the problems we had just discussed. The students were excited for the chance to role-play, perhaps because it meant finally getting up (we had been sitting for around 30 minutes) and perhaps for the near-silly nature of the activity. I had two practice what to do "when someone is bothering you" (here illustrated by one student taping his hands on another and saying, "Bother bother bother..."). The "bothered" student acted out the ideas we had brainstormed, first telling the other to stop, then walking away, and finally coming to tell me. Another set of students acted out what to do when someone near them continued to talk without permission ("Blah, blah, blah..."): tell her politely to be quiet and give her a quiet signal.
Unfortunately that was all we had time for. Now that I know that this group of students responds more positively to role-playing than dialogue (probably because they haven't had the chance to be actively involved in a real discussion), I look forward to future class meetings with just a little less time talking and more time acting out. Hopefully I really can appeal to their empathy this way.
Student-generated brainstormed ideas:
Someone is being mean or trying to get me in trouble
1. Stay in control and be respectful.
2. Say, "Please stop ..."
3. Swallow any mean words
4. Ignore them
5. Use a calming technique
6. Walk away
7. Tell an adult
Someone near me won't stop talking
1. Say respectfully, "Please be quiet, I'm trying to learn."
2. Give them a silent quiet signal.
Calming Techniques
1. Take deep breaths
2. Get a drink of water
3. Go to the restroom to splash your face with cold water
4. Write your feelings
5. Write someone a letter
6. Read a book (with permission)
7. Draw a picture (with permission)
In the meantime, I'd like to actually finish a thought about my first class meeting. During planning for a day in which my cooperating teacher would be gone, I decided it was time to have a discussion with the students. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, however, and wound up improvising most of it while I went along. I knew only that I wanted to touch on respecting each other despite your feelings towards a person, ignoring what others say even when it makes you angry, and disagreeing with others respectfully. At the last minute request of the cooperating teacher in her notes to the sub, I started the dialogue with a story, even though it didn't exactly fit with what I fully wanted to talk about. But, really, without it, I would have hardly known where to begin.
While the third-graders were in P.E., I moved the desks to create a larger space on the floor (because they haven't been taught how to move their own desks quickly like I would have taught them) and taught the substitute how to run my Flip camera so that I could watch the meeting again and reflect. When the students returned, we sat in a circle and I read the short book. They were surprisingly somber during the story.
Afterward, I asked what the story made the students think about. I received answers from the title of the book and a synopsis of what the characters in the illustration did, so I told them that the story reminded me about how the class doesn't always work together as a team. Then we brainstormed problems that students in the class have and solutions to those problems. I wrote on hand-held white boards during the meeting, but transferred the notes to poster-sized paper and hung them in the room afterward. I'll include the ideas below.
When I could see that the ideas had been exhausted and the students were getting anxious, I transitioned to role-playing, hoping to build empathy for the problems we had just discussed. The students were excited for the chance to role-play, perhaps because it meant finally getting up (we had been sitting for around 30 minutes) and perhaps for the near-silly nature of the activity. I had two practice what to do "when someone is bothering you" (here illustrated by one student taping his hands on another and saying, "Bother bother bother..."). The "bothered" student acted out the ideas we had brainstormed, first telling the other to stop, then walking away, and finally coming to tell me. Another set of students acted out what to do when someone near them continued to talk without permission ("Blah, blah, blah..."): tell her politely to be quiet and give her a quiet signal.
Unfortunately that was all we had time for. Now that I know that this group of students responds more positively to role-playing than dialogue (probably because they haven't had the chance to be actively involved in a real discussion), I look forward to future class meetings with just a little less time talking and more time acting out. Hopefully I really can appeal to their empathy this way.
Student-generated brainstormed ideas:
Someone is being mean or trying to get me in trouble
1. Stay in control and be respectful.
2. Say, "Please stop ..."
3. Swallow any mean words
4. Ignore them
5. Use a calming technique
6. Walk away
7. Tell an adult
Someone near me won't stop talking
1. Say respectfully, "Please be quiet, I'm trying to learn."
2. Give them a silent quiet signal.
Calming Techniques
1. Take deep breaths
2. Get a drink of water
3. Go to the restroom to splash your face with cold water
4. Write your feelings
5. Write someone a letter
6. Read a book (with permission)
7. Draw a picture (with permission)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Outdoor Preschool in Norway video
I haven't written anything about Outdoor Preschools yet, but here's a 30 minute video of one in Norway.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Free School / Democratic Education--Introduction
A year ago I heard an episode of This American Life about children and politics. It included a segment about the Brooklyn Free School, a school in New York run democratically by the students as well as teachers. The segment focuses on the participation of the students in the rules, class meetings, and politics of the goings on in the school. This is because the Brooklyn Free School is based on a model by A.S. Neill whose English boarding school, Summerhill School, is one of the first with a democratic foundation. In both schools, students are encouraged to set their own rules democratically with their peers and teachers, everyone's voice counting for one vote. The This American Life segment about the Brooklyn Free School emphasized that rules can be made and unmade by students, but most of the time, nothing is done.
"[That's part of the plan.] You know, so what if there's no resolution? The point is they're left with something to think about. What are you going to do about it? You know, that's more interesting to me than somebody deciding that this is the way it should be. And then it's all easier, and it all goes nicer." -- Katherine Chew on This American Life
More about democratic education later.
Read more:
Wikipedia--Democratic education
Institute for Democratic Education in America
"[That's part of the plan.] You know, so what if there's no resolution? The point is they're left with something to think about. What are you going to do about it? You know, that's more interesting to me than somebody deciding that this is the way it should be. And then it's all easier, and it all goes nicer." -- Katherine Chew on This American Life
More about democratic education later.
Read more:
Wikipedia--Democratic education
Institute for Democratic Education in America
Thursday, January 5, 2012
"Community/Neighborhood School" Idea
Yesterday I watched Designing a Great Neighborhood, a documentary about creating a neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.
I have a love/hate relationship with these kinds of things, sort of Utopia-ish. I'm fascinated with utopian/dystopian novels. I love reading them, but I can't ever sort out my feelings for their ties to the real world. On one hand, it's great to see so much effort going into the creation of this neighborhood--the windows are positioned to take in as much daylight as possible. The roofs, to not block the sun for other buildings. Everything's been planned with such precision. At the same time, you DO wind up with sort of cookie-cutter houses. Yes, they have been designed for efficacy, but the unification IS a bit unnerving.
Those personal feelings aside, I was still fascinated with the documentary and found myself immediately wanting to move there, planning certain details I would have done differently from a design aspect. "My" neighborhood would certainly need schools, of course, because that's where I would work.
At first I considered an elementary, middle, and high school, all in a row next to each other (which is how the schools in the small town I lived in for half of my childhood were positioned, now that I think about it). That way, all of the children could walk to school together with their siblings.
But the more I thought about it, would the high school be necessary? There wouldn't be enough students in the neighborhood to fully populate the high school, so others would have to be brought in--others that would be outsiders. Surely the children could gain enough independence to travel outside the neighborhood on their own to the high school. But then they'd be the outsiders. And they probably wouldn't even get a good education there, anyway.
But wait, if I'd trust that high-schoolers had enough independence to travel the city on their own, that means their former education would have had to create that independence in them. And what better way to create independence in a child than Montessori?
Yes, it's perfect because then the children could transition from a Montessori elementary to a Montessori secondary education. And because I'm not familiar with any secondary Montessori schools, in my mind it looks pretty much like a Free school (which I'll have to blog about later because I realize that I haven't yet).
Well, then, it'll be a three story building, functioning as a community building when school is not in session. The first floor would have the stage for performances, etc. and the early childhood center. The second story would be for elementary aged children, and the third story, for post-elementary. I hadn't determined whether an adult would need to be present on the third story or not. Ideally, the children would be so in charge of their own education that they could function completely independently and only need to visit an adult downstairs occasionally.
It's such a great model for a school, I wish all schools were fashioned after it. Right?
I have a love/hate relationship with these kinds of things, sort of Utopia-ish. I'm fascinated with utopian/dystopian novels. I love reading them, but I can't ever sort out my feelings for their ties to the real world. On one hand, it's great to see so much effort going into the creation of this neighborhood--the windows are positioned to take in as much daylight as possible. The roofs, to not block the sun for other buildings. Everything's been planned with such precision. At the same time, you DO wind up with sort of cookie-cutter houses. Yes, they have been designed for efficacy, but the unification IS a bit unnerving.
Those personal feelings aside, I was still fascinated with the documentary and found myself immediately wanting to move there, planning certain details I would have done differently from a design aspect. "My" neighborhood would certainly need schools, of course, because that's where I would work.
At first I considered an elementary, middle, and high school, all in a row next to each other (which is how the schools in the small town I lived in for half of my childhood were positioned, now that I think about it). That way, all of the children could walk to school together with their siblings.
But the more I thought about it, would the high school be necessary? There wouldn't be enough students in the neighborhood to fully populate the high school, so others would have to be brought in--others that would be outsiders. Surely the children could gain enough independence to travel outside the neighborhood on their own to the high school. But then they'd be the outsiders. And they probably wouldn't even get a good education there, anyway.
But wait, if I'd trust that high-schoolers had enough independence to travel the city on their own, that means their former education would have had to create that independence in them. And what better way to create independence in a child than Montessori?
Yes, it's perfect because then the children could transition from a Montessori elementary to a Montessori secondary education. And because I'm not familiar with any secondary Montessori schools, in my mind it looks pretty much like a Free school (which I'll have to blog about later because I realize that I haven't yet).
Well, then, it'll be a three story building, functioning as a community building when school is not in session. The first floor would have the stage for performances, etc. and the early childhood center. The second story would be for elementary aged children, and the third story, for post-elementary. I hadn't determined whether an adult would need to be present on the third story or not. Ideally, the children would be so in charge of their own education that they could function completely independently and only need to visit an adult downstairs occasionally.
It's such a great model for a school, I wish all schools were fashioned after it. Right?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Why the Author is Getting Her Degree
I'm having a hard time right now thinking that going to public university to get my bachelors in education was the right idea.
I had a short conversation with the cooperating teacher I'm student teaching with yesterday. It went a little like this:
She had obviously been thinking about it after our conversation ended.
Today, a friend linked me to this article about play based learning. Reading it, I knew that my heart firmly agreed. To requote from the article's source, Scientific American,
So why am I doing this to myself? Why am I jumping through all of the hoops that are a bachelor's degree in education when I'm doing my own research online and it's telling me not to structure the lives of small children with "school"?
The semester is over in two weeks, and obviously I'm more than a little stressed about all of the work that's required to be finished.
But aside from that, the question still remains. Why am I getting my bachelor's in education, anyway?
I'm passionate about teaching children, but honestly I feel deep down that my real life's mission will be raising my own children one day.
Why, then?
Because, first of all, I need to show others (including future parents and employers as well as those involved at the Montessori training school) that I am capable of diligent, professional research, reflection, and self-growth. Sure, I can tell them that verbally, even show them research I've done, say, on this blog. But in today's society, the only thing that really gets the message across, unfortunately, is a degree.
Second, because it IS teaching me. It's teaching me the WRONG way to go about education. A good way to know that I'm teaching the way I want to be teaching is by knowing that I'm NOT doing something I don't want to be doing. Plus, all of the experience is certainly good for me.
So, as stressed as I am, as much as I may feel that what I'm being asked to do is asinine and counter intuitive, I really just need to hold out a little longer. Graduation is in six months.
I had a short conversation with the cooperating teacher I'm student teaching with yesterday. It went a little like this:
Her: I know you're looking to go into Montessori, but the reality for me, as a public school teacher, is that I have to get these guys ready for the state test in March. I HAVE to. It's my job.
Me: I know. I know that's reality, and while I'm student teaching here, that's my job, too.
Her: *sigh* I wish I could go back to how I taught when I was teaching fifth grade, which was thematically. When I taught thematically, I could encompass ALL of the subjects, and the students were naturally more engaged because they were earnestly interested.
Me: But you won't be able to teach that way now, anyway, because the district has adopted math and reading programs.
Her: ... You're right. *gets up*
*ten minutes later*
Her: You're right. I wouldn't be able to teach that way anymore. It sucks. *sigh*
She had obviously been thinking about it after our conversation ended.
Today, a friend linked me to this article about play based learning. Reading it, I knew that my heart firmly agreed. To requote from the article's source, Scientific American,
"...parents might be surprised to learn that “just playing” is in fact what nearly all developmental psychologists, neuroscientists and education experts recommend for children up to age seven as the best way to nurture kids’ development and ready them for academic success later in life. Decades of research have demonstrated that their innate curiosity leads them to develop their social, emotional and physical skills independently, through exploration—that is, through play."
So why am I doing this to myself? Why am I jumping through all of the hoops that are a bachelor's degree in education when I'm doing my own research online and it's telling me not to structure the lives of small children with "school"?
The semester is over in two weeks, and obviously I'm more than a little stressed about all of the work that's required to be finished.
But aside from that, the question still remains. Why am I getting my bachelor's in education, anyway?
I'm passionate about teaching children, but honestly I feel deep down that my real life's mission will be raising my own children one day.
Why, then?
Because, first of all, I need to show others (including future parents and employers as well as those involved at the Montessori training school) that I am capable of diligent, professional research, reflection, and self-growth. Sure, I can tell them that verbally, even show them research I've done, say, on this blog. But in today's society, the only thing that really gets the message across, unfortunately, is a degree.
Second, because it IS teaching me. It's teaching me the WRONG way to go about education. A good way to know that I'm teaching the way I want to be teaching is by knowing that I'm NOT doing something I don't want to be doing. Plus, all of the experience is certainly good for me.
So, as stressed as I am, as much as I may feel that what I'm being asked to do is asinine and counter intuitive, I really just need to hold out a little longer. Graduation is in six months.
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