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Teacher Talk: Persistence

Teacher Talk: Persistence

When you first learned about Montessori, you may have been enchanted by the peaceful classrooms, by the idyllic language about the nature of children and the hope for the future they offer. You may have imagined yourself a beloved teacher and guide, children gathered at your feet as you offered them a wonder-filled glimpse at the petals of a daisy, bluebirds resting gently on your shoulders. Zippadeedoodah. Most days, as it turns out, aren't much like that. OK. None days are

Teacher Talk: Preparing for the New Year

Teacher Talk: Preparing for the New Year

Are your shelves cleaned? Have you reorganized your cupboards? Are they a safe distance apart? Decided whether the loft should be a reading nook or an observation perch? Is it a safe distance apart? Is the label maker out yet? Are your first-day checklists complete? Does your Assistant know where to stand? Are they a safe distance apart? Are the pictures up in the cubbies? Are they a safe distance apart?Have you written those notes to the children? Did you clean the baseboar

Teacher Talk: Breaking Bread

Teacher Talk: Breaking Bread

Montessori teaching is a calling that demands self-care. We are intellectually engaged long beyond after the children have gone home, analyzing our observations, preparing lessons, maintaining the environment, and active models whenever they are present, scientists, servants and saints. It's exhausting. And self-care matters. Finding time for yourself, for restoration and quiet, matter. So does finding time for community. We don't grow out of our need for other people. We don

Teacher Talk: Teacher Motivation

Teacher Talk: Teacher Motivation

For many of us, February days are some of the loveliest. The classroom is buzzing with a happy hum, parents understand the expectations and we are preparing for conferences or narratives that detail how far the children have grown this year. But it's not always unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes the classroom doesn't gel just right. Sometimes there are children who challenge our resolve and our optimism more than we want to admit. Sometimes we wonder whether this is the work fo

Teacher Talk: When Children Are Hurtful

Teacher Talk: When Children Are Hurtful

The child is capable of developing and giving us tangible proof of the possibility of a better humanity. He has shown us the true process of construction of the human being. We have seen children totally change as they acquire a love for things and as their sense of order, discipline, and self-control develops within them.... The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind. - Maria Montessori, Education and Peace We believe this. We really do. We describe children's peacef

Teacher Talk: Observing Writing

Teacher Talk: Observing Writing

We know that part of our work as Montessori teachers is to observe children. We observe to understand their development, that we may better prepare for that development in the materials and lessons we offer in the environment. Before we introduce writing as a lesson, we need to observe the child’s physical and intellectual development for signs of alignment. That is to say, each new lesson should be aligned to the observations we’ve made of the child to whom we’re offering it

Teacher Talk: Observers in the Classroom

Teacher Talk: Observers in the Classroom

Montessori classrooms enchant curious observers. How can so many young children engage so independently at once? How come everyone seems so peaceful? What’s so magical about the materials on the shelves? Montessori teachers are often inundated with requests from people who want to observe our classrooms. While the requests can seem like an endless distraction, creating a space within which guests can learn about Montessori and children can learn lessons in grace, courtesy and

Teacher Talk: Teaching in the Third Plane

Teacher Talk: Teaching in the Third Plane

Oh, you dear, patient, lovely people, you teachers of adolescents, you bold adventurers blazing a new path for an ever widening generation of Montessori learners! What a courageous path you've chosen. Unlike Early Childhood Montessori teachers, you lack the public awareness of your practice. Unlike Elementary Montessori teachers, you lack the specific materials to lean back on. The Montessori guide at the Third Plane of development needs to rely on her understanding of adoles

Teacher Talk: Making Time for Observation

Teacher Talk: Making Time for Observation

You may be getting ready to return to your classroom with a whole list of teacher resolutions in your mind. Maybe you're planning to take more time for yourself this year. Maybe you're hoping to take time to offer more advanced lessons. Maybe you're determined to take time to finish those materials you've been working on. Where to begin? Teaching is a demanding practice, and most teachers feel pulled in more directions than they can count at any given moment. There are so man

Teacher Talk: Hygge

Teacher Talk: Hygge

This Saturday, if you're like most teachers, you find yourself away from school, maybe resting, maybe preparing for the festivities of Christmas at your home, maybe traveling. It's a time to recoup, to cozy in and take stock of the year, to recognize the warmth of the community you've sought to support in your classroom and the one around you in your school. Except that, if you're like most teachers, taking this time for yourself can be tricky. You may feel more comfortable c

Teacher Talk: the Peaceful Teacher

Teacher Talk: the Peaceful Teacher

I hope you're taking time, during what is a holiday break for many schools, to recharge and rest. I hope you're sleeping late, spending time with friends, hugging lots of necks and taking time for quiet. Hope springs eternal. After the winter break, we'll return to classrooms that are generally ready to work. We've put in time at the beginning of the year to establish our norms. The children have had their holiday and often return to school hungry for the predicable routine o

Teacher Talk: Eye of the Storm

Teacher Talk: Eye of the Storm

The month or so between Halloween and the Winter holidays is, for many teachers, a time of chaos and unpredictability. Schedules are awry. Noses are sniffling and everyone seems to be under the weather, and the actual weather is a rollercoaster of warm days and cold, sprinkled with seasonal allergies. All the normality and calm that you'd been so relieved to have finally observed in early October is hiding, swamped under piles of special winter projects, mittens and party day

Teacher Talk: Grace and Courtesy and the Adult

Teacher Talk: Grace and Courtesy and the Adult

"The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint. The preparation for science and the preparation for sanctity should form a new soul, for the attitude of the teacher should be at once positive, scientific and spiritual. Positive and scientific, because she has an exact task to perform, and it is necessary that she should put herself into immediate relation with the truth by means of rigorous observation...

Chaos and Dancing Stars

Chaos and Dancing Stars

It's November... about eight weeks or so into most classroom's academic year, and the time when we start to think of the environments settling in. The tears of the first few days of school may be less often. Hopefully, by now, the children have practiced rolling their rugs and carrying their chairs. The Pink Tower is off the shelf most days and the Practical Life area is abuzz. Maybe there's even some cool Math and Language happening. Or not. Maybe it's still louder than you

On the Autumn Rush

On the Autumn Rush

It's already November, when school routines feel a little more settled and we're starting to feel more at ease. Just as the air starts to turn to autumn and the classroom starts to feel a little less panicked every day, we're hit with the Autumn Rush, that wild time between Parent-Teacher conferences, Halloween and Thanksgiving, when all of a sudden, the routines that we've implemented so carefully and the predictability that we know our classrooms demand is flustered and fli

Math and the Teacher's Spirit

Math and the Teacher's Spirit

Math is a language of the spirit. Really. When Montessori acknowledged that the tendency toward the construction of the mathematical mind was universal among human development, I don't think she meant rote memorization of times tables or the order of operations. We are not driven to develop our stockpile of memorized equations. But we are driven to understand the universe, to identify and define that which is universal, to develop precision and accuracy and balance and beauty

Teacher Talk: Articulating the Freedom for Movement

Teacher Talk: Articulating the Freedom for Movement

As Montessori teachers, we define our service to the children as encompassing roles farther than just those in the classroom. If we are truly serving children, we need also to advocate for them outside of our prepared environments, as parent educators, community educators, and political activists. And if we truly believe Montessori practices reflect the developmental needs of all children, we can't limit that advocacy only to those children whose parents have enrolled them in

Teacher Talk: Empathy

Teacher Talk: Empathy

We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. - Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential The children evoke every possible emotion from us: love, heartache, frustration, admiration, hope... you'd have to be made of stone to avoid having your heartstrings at least a little bit taut most days. We need to take care, though, when we're knee deep in the work of teaching and su

Teacher Talk: Concentration

Teacher Talk: Concentration

When I was a much younger teacher, I had a student enigma, one of those kids who, despite everything I presented or didn't, despite the language we used or the structures we put in place, I just couldn't understand. It was one of the hardest years of my teaching career, knowing there was a person inside of all the behavioral pieces and the outbursts in class and the wandering about distracting other students, a person I could not know and wanted so much to. His parents share

Teacher Talk: The Freedom to Interact (or Not) as Teachers

Teacher Talk: The Freedom to Interact (or Not) as Teachers

Our first goal as Montessori teachers is to prepare environments within which children no longer notice our presence. So, how come this work can feel so exhausting so much of the time? Shouldn't we be increasingly blending into the background, disappearing as the children take greater and greater ownership of their own communities? Make no mistake: invisible is not the same as passive. And some of the hardest work happens in the hours when the children aren't there. In order

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