the confident teacher

Really, now. What does it take to become a confident teacher?

I feel so unconfident, so often, that I feel like I'll never, ever proclaim, "I know exactly what to do!!" when faced with some kind of classroom/child meltdown. Hopefully, Montessori teaching will mean fewer meltdowns since there are fewer restrictions on activity, but Primary classrooms are still full of tantrum-containing little ones.

I was just talking with a teacher from my old school who has a few of my students from last year. A few of the difficult ones. That got more difficult as last year wore on.

And I feel...guilty. Like, maybe the way I and my co-teacher handled the end of the year made behavior problems worsen and stay poor in the current school year. Maybe we got too unstructured. Maybe we should have planned more...something. Because it's hard to disassociate from the behavior of the child, even though my experiences with Montessori were what taught me to start attempting that pulling back in the first place.

ARGH.

I wonder when these feelings stop? I know that training in the Montessori method is making me so much more confident than I've ever felt about being in the classroom. There is a real and beautiful power about knowing you can approach a single child in the sea of many and ask, "Can I show you a lesson?" and you've got the key to this whole matrix of understanding that will start unfolding.

I really, really want to work in a Montessori school. Last year, I was on the fence, and I managed to get myself in the not teaching job that I've got at the moment. Now, I've got some knowledge. This is so important to me. I am really going to do it. I don't want to over think, but I need to write a great cover letter that shows my passion and experience in some concise way. (If you are reading this blog, you know I am not so concise, at times...) I need to stop feeling guilty about passing around my references and asking for letters of rec, because that's just part of teaching, and folks understand that, now don't they. And, I've got to do some practice interviews. I really don't even know how to approppriately express my excitement about Montessori because I don't think my voice has enough variety in tone and pitch.

All I know is I will give it my best (and do some nice writing activities to get all my passion into speakable sentance form. )

YAY! HAPPY!

the lesson plan from 1912

Becoming a Montessori teacher means learning the minutiae of the lessons described in the writing of Maria Montessori. It means reading Dr. Montessori's flowery prose about her ingenious cylinders and rods and beads and distilling her poetic conceptions into a numbered procedure for a very generic lesson plan.

This process is tedious, but so incredibly necessary. It elevates the lesson into a scientific operation, but at the same time becomes the artist's script. The lesson plan exists as the notes the artist inspects before the first brush stroke, the script the actor consults before summoning her emotion.

The lesson plan is something meticulous. It breaks down what to say and when to say it, it may well be the first "scripted curriculum". However, the effectiveness comes from the fact that the "script" of actions and words lasts for five minutes or less. It is a scripted, ordered moment in a day that flows loosely. The lesson has demanded the concentration of the teacher prior to the moment. Yet, it is a lesson that can be completed again and again, at a different time with a different child. It doesn't get stale like the instructions for gluing together the latest thematic art project.

Obtaining someone else's interpretation of an exercise is quite easy. Typing your own interpretation and working your hand out during class time to transcribe the details of your intsructors work is not so easy. But definitely time consuming. And that is the idea folks. That's why future doctors have to memorize 5,000 things every year in med school. I'm sure there's a psych study out there that proves that the memorizing and transcribing of info may be tedious work but it gets the brain to a saturation point, where you just start always thinking about things in terms of three period lesson or blood type or civil tort or whatever.

I'd keep going, but I have some sensorial excercises to transcribe. Woo.

books for women's history month

It's time to start the ordering process for that March 1st kick-off. Nicely corresponding with Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2, I might add. I'm a little skeptical of the month mentality which does seem to encourage segregating well-rounded historical information from a year-round curriculum. However, I hope to see these lists as a good reference for future lessons, regardless of whether or not they fall in a certain celebrating month.

Women's History Month gained national regonition only in 1987, so it seems like some of the zeal for celebrating it when I was a child came from its relative newness. And the crappy assignments came because there were so few print resources out there about women.

So...here's what's out there celebrating the accomplishments of women and the struggle for gender equality and freedom of expression.

I am rushed at the moment, so I've checked some favorites over at Powell's, where they graciously list 176 titles that discuss women in history. To see my list, go to powells.com, and type in doingmontessori@gmail.com. Also, feel free to send me an email at that address.

More to come. Now, on to a haircut.

Words about progress

When I think of system reform, I think of road blocks.

When I am trying not to think about systems and think instead of my self, I still often see what's in the way instead of the way.

Thanks to An Old Soul for some bedtime inspiration.

challenging the CW

It wasn't until I worked as a receptionist that I first read Newsweek magazine. In an incredibly slow office, magazine selection becomes very important. I had both Time and Newsweek to select from, but inevitably, I found time to be an inferior product. Why? Because it lacked the ADD-inspired features that Newsweek seemed to tailor to my generation.

So, when I think of the phrase "conventional wisdom" what comes to mind is that little graphic organizer they in the front of the magazine charting the impact of specific news events using an arrow that goes up, down or left to right.

Moving up a level in complexity, I realize that I am old enough and educated enough to have developed my own conventional wisdom. What's worse, rekindling my appreciation for Montessori pedaegogy is challenging all of the conventional wisdom I have picked up from my exposure to the education reformers out there.

Here's the old wisdom:

What we need right now are smaller class sizes. Then teachers can give individualized attention and teach to the multiple intelligences. So, we need money for more teacher. But, better prepared teachers, too. Oh, and equity. Equal pay, regardless of city or suburb or rural location. So, ummm, uh, we need small classes and we also need to abolish property-tax funding structures. Oh, my god, that's, like, so fucking much to do. Where can we start...Shit, but you know, we CAN start. YEAH. We can make these changes. Little by little. Small victories.

That is the kind of frenzy that reformers have to work up in order to face the excrutiating pace of beauracratic change. It requires a lot of mental and intellectual energy to fight the battles over those issues. Folks make a career out of it. Studying educational policy always seemed like a plausible career for myself because it doesn't seem so difficult to collect data and analyse it. Especially when you feel like it is making a difference. You start putting heart and soul into the nuance of the issue in which you are an expert. You love the issue. You care about it. The issue is your child, and your child must succeed. Even at the expense of the bigger picture. Because how can you look at the wide expanse of "education issues" and see past the precious being that you nuture?

That's the question that is erroding away my conventional wisdom. Whether you love standardized testing or project-based learning, once you get excited by your research or your process in appoaching schooling, it's so hard to see another way that will work.

Spending time in public schools, I just don't see the smaller class size REALLY making a meaningful change. There's too much else broken. Equitable funding would be a great step forward for democracy, but what kind of system would this equity fund. Our education system today is built on some nasty old business and industry model.

Ross Periot said, regarding schools in Texas, "We've got to nuke this educational system." Of course a business man is going to use a violent metaphor and have no fucking clue about educating for democracy, but his instinct to renew is right on.

All the Montessori in my brain says we've got to stop the grade level madness. Kids don't develop on little shelves in a supermarket, we've got to let them grow at their own pace. Montessori schools allow for that. Montessori provides a work environment MORE like modern business practices because you are accountable for your own learning (in a gentle way, of course). What are we waiting for? Why can't we imagine this as what is possible? What we want for children?

So, my new CW seems to want to conventionalize the idea that Montessori is just the superior method of educating the very young, no matter what. I'm sure I'll grow to embrace a more nuanced picture, but it will take some time.

For now, on with the broad stair.

a gift to me and you

Girls with purses. I love this drawing.