"Never interrupt a child at work." So says one of the most often-repeated reminders to Montessori teachers in the Early Childhood classrooms. These classrooms are designed to capture the child's attention, to direct it to meaningful, authentic work, and to allow it to develop, bit by bit, over time, as children become fully absorbed in the activities they choose. How is it that we so often see third-year students engaged in lessons that might take an hour or even two to compl

Imagine it: you’re at your work, fully absorbed in the task in front of you. Your attention is focused on your project. You’ve finally hit a pace and you’re getting it done. And the phone rings. What happens to your work? For most adults, getting interrupted from our work means broken momentum. The rhythm of our work is disrupted. It’s hard to get back on track. If we’re concentrating deeply, absorbed in our work, the impact is even more significant. We may be disoriented. We

Just as you feel like you've mastered the pace of Early Childhood, you find yourself with an active, blooming Elementary student in your house. They're louder than they used to be. They're more kinetic. They're goofy in ways you didn't know possible. This is an age that's making sense of a much larger, much more complicated world than younger children could process. The glitter-in-a-windstorm quality of the Second Plane is not intentional: it's the result of competing motivat

"Never interrupt a child at work." So says one of the most often-repeated reminders to Montessori teachers in the Early Childhood classrooms. These classrooms are designed to capture the child's attention, to direct it to meaningful, authentic work, and to allow it to develop, bit by bit, over time, as children become fully absorbed in the activities they choose. How is it that we so often see third-year students engaged in lessons that might take an hour or even two to compl

Feeling distracted? Overwhelmed? Like your checklist keeps getting longer but you have less and less time to get it done? In a climate so full of distractions, the ability to concentrate on just one thing at a time, until it is complete or until you choose to move on, is both invaluable and at risk. The same is true for children, whose everyday lives are filled with "stimulation" that's supposed to help them learn or keep them entertained but may, instead, be keeping them fro

Imagine it: you’re at your work, fully absorbed in the task in front of you. Your attention is focused on your project. You’ve finally hit a pace and you’re getting it done. And the phone rings. What happens to your work? For most adults, getting interrupted from our work means broken momentum. The rhythm of our work is disrupted. It’s hard to get back on track. If we’re concentrating deeply, absorbed in our work, the impact is even more significant. We may be disoriented. We

Just as you feel like you've mastered the pace of Early Childhood, you find yourself with an active, blooming Elementary student in your house. They're louder than they used to be. They're more kinetic. They're goofy in ways you didn't know possible. This is an age that's making sense of a much larger, much more complicated world than younger children could process. The glitter-in-a-windstorm quality of the Second Plane is not intentional: it's the result of competing motivat

"Never interrupt a child at work." So says one of the most often-repeated reminders to Montessori teachers in the Early Childhood classrooms. These classrooms are designed to capture the child's attention, to direct it to meaningful, authentic work, and to allow it to develop, bit by bit, over time, as children become fully absorbed in the activities they choose. How is it that we so often see third-year students engaged in lessons that might take an hour or even two to compl

Feeling distracted? Overwhelmed? Like your checklist keeps getting longer but you have less and less time to get it done? In a climate so full of distractions, the ability to concentrate on just one thing at a time, until it is complete or until you choose to move on, is both invaluable and at risk. The same is true for children, whose everyday lives are filled with "stimulation" that's supposed to help them learn or keep them entertained but may, instead, be keeping them fro

“Why is it so quiet?” If you’re expecting your child’s classroom to be more like a circus than a sanctuary, you may be surprised by how quiet Montessori classrooms tend to be. What may be even more surprising is that the quiet isn’t a rule of the classroom. It comes naturally from the children at work, with little urging from the adults. How can this be? Aren’t children naturally loud and raucous? They can be, just like adults are in loud and raucous settings. But children wh