Seen outside Globe Willow class: "I wish this was a boring school and it was longer so I can finish my work."
I was excited to capture this video of a preschool friend doing the 9 Layout recently. The 9 Layout is a Montessori math activity that presents the ideas of place value and increments. Beads representing ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands are counted and matched with the numerals. Here, my friend has completed the ones place and has started the tens. She is adding bars of ten until she makes ninety. (You might turn down your volume. The background is a bit noisy.)
What I noticed when I reviewed the video is how she stops to reflect after each increment. She moves the bars up, adds one, then sits back to review or reflect on the work. This is one of the beautiful aspects of Montessori - or really, just scientific pedagogy in general - the child doesn't need a teacher to step in and say, "Great! That makes 60!" All she needs is to see how to do the work then be allowed to do it. When she is all finished with the tens, then she looks up at me. My mentor, Don Czerwinskyj, made sure I understood the importance of offering a child a reflection when they were finished with work. He told me to wait for the child to finish and watch her face when she looks up. Is she pleased? surprised? excited? confused? Wait for her to assess her own work before offering any feedback. In this child's case, when she looked up at me and seemed satisfied, I said, "Ok. You did it! You completed the tens. Are you ready to count the hundreds?" She said she was and she continued.
A friend of mine told me recently about visiting a preschool where every child's work was praised lavishly. Every painting or block structure was met with, "Oh my! That's the most beautiful picture/castle/birthday cake I've ever seen!!" Montessori educators try to avoid empty praise because it causes children to look outside themselves - rather than inside - for affirmation. Just like adults, kids have opinions about their work and their performance. If a child is happy with her work then we can be happy for her. If she is unsatisfied with her work or feels she doesn't understand it, we can offer empathy, advice, or suggestions - depending on what's needed.
When this student was finished with the work, I snapped this photo just as she added the last thousand cube. She was pleased with herself, as the photo shows.
Now, because my job is to observe and assess her understanding of the concepts she was learning, I noticed that she had only stacked 8 cubes, instead of 9. This was no time for criticism - look at that beaming face! So I commented on how pleased she was with her work. I asked her if we could count all of those cubes. When she got to 8 thousands she realized that she needed one more. She added one more cube, we counted them again together, and I said, "There are 9 thousands and this says 9000. Is that correct?" She said it was, and together we determined that her work was complete. She then put all of the materials away.
Sometimes we think our grown-up words are essential to motivate children to learn and to keep them on track. But most of the time, we could get by with a few words and more time simply observing and offering reflections. Rather than saying, "That's a beautiful painting," we could say, "Wow! You used 5 different colors in this painting. Do you have a favorite?" It requires more work for us to look so carefully before commenting, but it shows the child that we are truly interested in her work. And, we are interested in the process and not just the product.
If words fail us, we can always try those three little words everyone loves to hear, "You did it!"
~ Heather
February in Indiana is tough. It’s 28 days of Arctic cold, howling winds, and brown slush everywhere you turn. The air hurts your skin and the gray sky steals your hope. Do you know why February is only 28 days long? Because no one would survive if it lasted even one day longer. February is the Chuck Norris of our calendar year.
I think February brings out the worst in everyone, even the sweet little children at the Montessori school. So it's often in February when I remind myself that the primary purpose of preschool is socialization. Sure, our Montessori classrooms have these beautiful materials and teachers trained to present them, but our primary goal is for each child to develop naturally into a well-rounded and well-adjusted individual. And for that to happen, each child must learn many, many social skills. Here’s a partial list. Lucky for me, blog inches are cheap!
Preschoolers do all of this really challenging work surrounded by 23 other children who are all trying to do exactly the same thing. (Twice that many, if enrolled for a full day.) Preschool can be very hard work!
Sometimes a child will do something inappropriate to another child and a well-meaning parent will ask me, “Did you tell them not to do that?” Of course. Every day our teachers remind children that hands are not for hurting and to use their words. But listening is not the way young children learn morals and social skills. (Although it IS the way they learn language.) Preschoolers learn by doing and that means that sometimes - lots of times, actually - they do inappropriate things. And gradually, they learn from them.
So, since young children are not born knowing the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and they can’t simply follow our instructions, the grown-ups have to give them lots of opportunities to figure it out with other children. We must provide them with an environment that allows them to safely - with close supervision - make many, many bad decisions. In our preschool classrooms, the teachers expect inappropriate behaviors and respond to them consistently with each occurrence, knowing that they will lessen over time. A child’s “bad” behavior might keep us on our toes, but it rarely surprises us.
And thank goodness for that! Imagine if doctors were shocked to see so many sick patients every day. Or if plumbers were bewildered by clogged pipes. Or firefighters were stymied when houses caught fire. They would not be very effective at their jobs. In order to be effective at my job as a teacher in a Montessori classroom of three to six-year-olds, I have to first: like children, and second: understand that all of the terrible things that children can do to each other are not failings, but simply a natural part of their development. A child who hits or bites or kicks is showing me that she is upset about something and has not yet learned to respond without hurting. It’s my job to help her develop a new, appropriate response while doing my best to keep the other children safe.
I admit that my best isn’t always enough. And it’s not easy to watch these children suffer through the process of dealing with separation anxiety, or a friend’s harsh words, or simple frustration at being unable to dress themselves. I love the children in my care and it hurts to watch them hurt themselves or others when their anger literally comes out of their fingers and toes.
Recently, I was sitting next to two children who had been playing very actively all morning. I will call them Danny and Sandy. They were having trouble working together but they just couldn’t stand to be away from each other. They are each learning how to be friends with someone who drives them a little bit crazy. I stayed close to them so I could intervene and help them resolve the issues that were bound to arise when things got out of hand.
At group time the children got to talking about which animals they liked the most. Danny laughed and said, “My favorite kind of animal is Sandy.” I turned to them just as Sandy pulled back her arm and punched Danny squarely in the face. Danny was really surprised. He thought maybe he was hurt for just a moment, but quickly regained his composure.
Seeing that he wasn’t hurt, I said, “I don’t think Sandy liked it when you called her a name. What do you think?”
“I was just saying it to myself,” he said.
“Well, I'm pretty sure she heard you," I responded.
Having made herself clear already, Sandy had nothing to add.
Did Danny deserve to be hit? No. But he did need to know that Sandy didn’t like the way he treated her. Should Sandy have hit him? No. But she did need to let him know that it wasn’t okay to call her a name. Did either of them “get in trouble” by me? No. We talked about other possible responses and there was no more name-calling or punching that morning. But it’s not over. I will keep those two on my “Watch List” for the rest of the year and when I hear their voices get loud or see them chasing each other I will do my best to be right there to help them work through their next disagreement. That’s my job. Not to punish or shame children, but to help them learn to express themselves and to be good listeners and… ah, just refer to the previous bulleted list.
I have read about preschools with zero tolerance policies for hitting and biting. My question is always, "Where will they send all of those children?" If a 4-year-old is banned from preschool because she has not yet learned to get along with others, what’s next for her? Reform school? Prison? Dr. Phil?
Preschool is THE BEST place for young children to learn how to get along with others. Sometimes it’s tense, sweaty, gritty, even frightening work. But the mis-steps children make in preschool prepare them for a future that is much less secure. A time when they won’t be surrounded by loving adults waiting to step in and guide them to resolve problems peacefully. A time when using hands to hurt can have lifelong consequences.
I am not complacent about children hurting each other and I put myself between thrown punches and sweet little faces every time I can. But I also know that "bad" behavior is not a fault in a child, it signals an important learning opportunity. A child who lashes out is showing us how we can help her. Maria Montessori put it this way,
“The undisciplined child enters into discipline by working in the company of others; not being told he is naughty. Discipline is, therefore, primarily a learning experience and less a punitive experience if appropriately dealt with.”
Please try to be patient with your children and other people's children as we all wait for the Earth to travel just a little further around the Sun. February will become March, winter will become spring, and children who are not yet peaceful will develop a little more self-control and gradually, gracefully learn to cope with the many frustrations of being a small child.
Thanks for reading,
Following Friends to Physics
Free play and building with logs and boards is a realistic way to explore physics concepts. MSGL has an outdoor space that allows for more than just "recess." Outside time is not a chance to get away from the classroom, it's an opportunity for children to use their whole bodies to learn and, most importantly, have fun with friends.
On Thursday, a quartet of boys was getting very silly in the back corner of our Montessori classroom. They were speaking with outside voices and using all available paper to make pretend swords so they could have a pretend swordfight. When I tried to redirect them, they asked to make paper airplanes and see whose would fly the farthest. Although Montessori teachers are known for their flexibility and laid-back grooviness, I could not condone sword-fighting and airplane-flying during class on this, only the second full week of preschool. What would people say?
I empathized with these friends because they wanted to play together and needed to actively move their bodies, but it was still 30 minutes before we (read: I) could even think about going outside where this type of gross-motor play was appropriate. They took a half-hearted interest in another activity and I sat at a table nearby to observe. When they realized I was there to stay, they started putting away their work and chanting with dead eyes and sad voices, "No more fun. No more fun. No more fun." It would seem I had officially become "the man." They went to the other side of the room to build a tower with the brown stair and the pink cubes and within minutes, they were using the smallest brown stair as a lever to launch the smallest pink cube across the rug. Clearly, they were trying to tell me something.
What these boys wanted was action. They are perfectly willing to come in each morning and work on their maps or practice writing their names, but after a time they really want to make things move. And it's not just the boys, of course. Girls thrive on kinesthetic learning activities and they are usually the first to line up to walk across the log seesaw.
In fact, all young children are kinesthetic learners. Most mature into adolescents who can learn successfully through watching and listening, but not all. As long ago as 1979, researchers studying how humans learn understood this:
"Restak (1979) and others have indicated that many students do not become strongly visual before third grade, that auditory acuity first develops in many students after the sixth grade, and that boys often are neither strongly visual nor auditory even during high school. Therefore, since most young children are tactual and kinesthetic learners, such resources should be developed and used, particularly for those who are experiencing difficulty learning through lectures, direct verbal instructions, "chalk talks," and textbook assignments."- See the full article at Education.com
No one is suggesting that preschoolers should be taught through lectures, but sometimes society (or maybe our high school principal's voice in the back of our head) worries us into thinking that if we don't make our children sit down, concentrate, and learn - how will they ever be successful in school or the Real World that supposedly comes after?
Parents sometimes ask, "When will you teach him to sit still and listen to the teacher?" The answer is that he will sit still and listen when what I am saying is of interest to him. It's my job to find the topic that is so fascinating to the child that he can't help but hold his body still so as to not miss a single word. A teacher's job is to be fascinating; but only until the child is so interested in the subject that he sets off to explore it on his own. At that point, the teacher observes and prepares for the child's next question then guides him to find the answers on his own. (Please note: Matters of health, safety, and courtesy are always addressed immediately. No one in the classroom has the freedom to hurt themselves or to hurt or disrupt others.)
Maria Montessori observed that not only do young children learn kinesthetically, they absolutely MUST learn this way for proper brain development.
"Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas." - The Secret of Childhood
So, as a good teacher who believes in a research-based approach to education, I am obligated to consider the kinesthetic learning style of my preschool students. I am also obligated to follow a child's interests because a child who is studying something she is interested in, as opposed to an externally-imposed curriculum, is much more likely to retain that information and build connections in her brain. So why were we still inside the classroom and NOT outside studying the physics of flight and simple machines? Because I didn't know they were interested until Thursday. But now I do.
As a result, my assistant and I will be following our 3, 4, and 5-year-olds into the action-packed world of physics this week starting with the simple lever. We will spend a little extra time outside on the log seesaw for some major gross motor exploration, then we will scale down the kinesthetic experience to make smaller levers inside the classroom using blocks, rulers, pennies, rocks, and pompoms. We will introduce the appropriate words such as "load", "effort", and "fulcrum" and we will figure out how many pennies it takes the raise the rock load. I will do my best to be fascinating. There may be squeals of joy and pompoms flying through the air, but no more "No more fun."
~Heather
"Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek with Carissa Pekny during the 2016 College Championships. Photo courtesy Jeopardy Productions, Inc.
Montessori School of Greater Lafayette (MSGL) alumna Carissa Pekny appeared this week on the “Jeopardy! 2016 College Championship.” A senior studying environmental science at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Carissa was one of 15 contestants competing this week on the TV game show for a chance at a $100,000 prize. Carissa graduated from second grade at MSGL in 2002.
You can watch the contestant preview video here: https://www.jeopardy.com/tournaments/2016/college-championship
Carissa almost didn’t take the call the day an unknown number from Culver City, California showed up on her phone. She gets a lot of phone solicitations and was going to ignore it, but she answered and heard, “Hi, this is Amy from ‘Jeopardy!’” That call was the end of a two-month process that started with an online test in November. Approximately 3,000 students took the online test and Carissa was one of the few who moved on to the regional audition.
“They tell you (at the regional audition) that if you get a call in a few weeks, you will be on the show. If you don’t get a call and you don’t see yourself on the “Jeopardy! College Championship” episode in February, you’ll know you didn’t make it,” she said.
Carissa did make it to the show and she took her parents Joe and Chris, her sister Chelsea, and a West Point friend along to Universal Studios when the show was filmed over two days in January. There were fourteen other contestants and they filmed five tournament episodes each day. She described the “Jeopardy!” studio as being much different than she expected.
“You watch them on TV and think the studio is massive, but the studio is actually really small. There is room for maybe 100 people in the audience,” she said.
Carissa has always liked trivia and she and her mom would compete against each other while watching the TV show at home.
“Jeopardy has been my mom’s dream, too,” she said.
In fact, Carissa was surprised to hear just how excited her mom really was. When she told her parents she was accepted into medical school in November, her mom was happy. But Carissa wasn’t prepared for her response to the spot on “Jeopardy! College Championship.”
“When I called to tell her, I said, ‘Wow, you didn’t even act this happy when I called you a month ago!’” she said.
Carissa started out strong in the first round of the quarterfinals on Monday answering questions about science, history, and popular music, but ultimately it was Emily Sun, a freshman from Columbia University, who advanced to the semi-finals. Carissa said she was a little nervous at first, but her experience as an athlete helped her concentrate on the task at hand.
"Just like any sports game, I was able to focus my nervous energy into focusing on answering the questions and buzzing in on the buzzer," she said.
Carissa’s natural curiosity might be at the heart of her love for trivia. She discovered an affinity for research when she was in Marshall Overley’s chemistry class at West Lafayette High School. After graduating in 2012, she moved on to West Point where she started doing malaria research in her sophomore year. That interest led her to spend 3 ½ weeks in Australia working at the Australian Army Malaria Institute.
“This was a way to do things that I liked doing that had implications for medical research,” Carissa said.
Carissa Pekny, second from left, during Ring Weekend at West Point.
She plans to continue in the field of medical research next year as she begins medical school at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
In high school, Carissa was an accomplished athlete who played on the WLHS soccer, basketball, and softball teams. When she arrived at West Point in July of 2012 for Beast Barracks, West Point’s Cadet Basic Training, she thought she was physically fit but discovered she wasn’t really prepared for that level of physical conditioning.
“I’m not much for quitting things so I decided to stick it out until the school year and not do anything too brash,” she said.
That decision paid off when it became clear that even though she may not have been physically prepared for basic training, she was academically prepared for a challenging course load. On top of becoming a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, every West Point graduate receives a Bachelors of Science degree, no matter what their major, because of the required core of math and science classes.
Carissa Pekny playing rugby for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Photo courtesy of West Point.
Once she made it through Beast Barracks, Carissa went out for the women’s rugby team. She had never played rugby before, but was selected for the West Point team in her freshman year and currently plays inside center. Carissa was named to the USA Rugby Academic Honor Roll in 2015 for being a consistent starter on the team and maintaining a 3.9 or greater cumulative grade point average. The team travels around the country for both a spring and a fall season. She expressed some ambivalence about ending her rugby career at West Point by saying,
“It is rough on the body. I think I’m gonna miss it a lot because my teammates are my best friends here,” she said.
Carissa Pekny pulls a friend on a sled at Morton Community Center in 2000.
When asked what she remembers about her five years at the Montessori School of Greater Lafayette, she recalled her kindergarten year, when the school was located in the Morton Community Center near Purdue’s campus.
“I remember Kindergarten with (teacher) Ginny Meyer pretty well. We used to do this Thanksgiving feast and all the parents used to come and have a feast with us. That was pretty cool,” she said.
Carissa said Meyer had another lasting impact on her life by always making time to listen to her read and making sure she understood what she was reading.
“I always really loved to read. Having teachers that cultivated that skill and made sure that I understood the words I was reading has benefited the rest of my academic career,” she said.
In 2000, she attended the Montessori Elementary I class with teachers Linda Bolam and Jeff All.
“I remember singing with Jeff and his guitar in the circle all the time,” she said. “That was a lot of fun.”
She also appreciated being able to choose her activities from around the room.
“In Elementary there were certain things we had to learn, there were milestones we had to reach,” she explained. “But we had a lot of free activity time and we could just do whatever we wanted. Then the teachers would come around and make sure, first off, that we were being productive,” she laughed. “If we needed help with anything they would help us.”
Carissa Pekny, in blue, looks on as Jeff All and a friend play for the MSGL Kindergarten class in 2000.
One specific subject she remembers learning about at MSGL is the history of the U. S. Presidents.
“This is gonna sound totally crazy, but the reason I like to study the Presidents is because (the Elementary class) had this placemat and that’s how I memorized the Presidents,” she said. “I remember learning a little bit of Spanish, too. I don’t remember it now, but I remember trying to learn it. I think it was with Ana (Orizondo).”
Carissa’s parents were involved in the MSGL school board and helped with the transition from the Morton Center to the current campus on Soldiers Home Road. Her siblings were also MSGL alumni. Her brother, Andrew, now works for an accounting firm in Indianapolis and her sister, Chelsea, works as a pharmacist in Kenya. Carissa is open to where her life after West Point and medical school might take her.
“The great thing about the Army is, if you want to go somewhere you can pretty much go anywhere,” she said. “I’m just really excited to go out there and see what’s out there and serve our country wherever I’m needed.”
This is the first post in the series "I Am MSGL" featuring alumni of the Montessori School of Greater Lafayette. If you or someone you know would like to be featured in this series, please email me at heather@msgl.org.
MSGL Summer Camp is open to Preschoolers through 1st Graders who are currently enrolled or recent alumni and while it is a really great time for all of those kids who have been here before, it is especially helpful for children new to MSGL and for the toddlers who are graduating to preschool. For these children, Summer Camp is the perfect way to ease into the routines of preschool and to set the stage for a successful start in August.
The absolute best part of being a Montessori directress - or ANY teacher, anywhere, I imagine - is watching the children develop and grow. We spend time with your children each day, observing and guiding them, and we get to see them just as they are in that moment. And what they are, as Grace Harvey says, is "totes amazeballs" (totally amazing). They grow in strength, wisdom, and courage right before our very eyes.
Today I will just speak to their courage because courage is the thing that gets your child through his or her day without you. In more stuffy circles it might be called confidence, but when you are only 28 inches tall and mom or dad just drove out of the parking lot, you’ve got to be brave to pull yourself together, to turn to face that great big green space filled with people you don't know and sally forth through the rest of your morning.
Maya Angelou said, "Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistenly without courage." During last week's Summer Camp, there were many examples of children developing their courage and I will share a few.
During Friday's Bike Day, a 4-year-old friend who enthusiastically embraces everything at school stopped his bike right at my toes, looked out at the cars going by on Sagamore Parkway, and said, “I miss my dad and my mom. And my little brother. And our dog. And they are missing me, too.” I listened and commiserated and soon he took off speeding around the course. His courage waned for only a moment then he got back on his bike.
The 5-year-olds are totally courageous (one might even say fearless) out on the bike course and they consider their turn during Bike Day to be a race even though there is no starting line and no trophies. As they put on their helmets, their talk is all about who will win. When D missed his turn to ride with his fellow 4-year-olds, he got to ride with the 5's (a truly courageous decision) alonside his big brother. After the race, D was a little upset that he didn't "win." His big brother reassured him, "No, you DID win, D! Did you see all those people going by you? That’s because you won!” (Just a note: We have a lot of siblings at camp this year and even though we know sibling rivalry is a real thing, you couldn't tell by watching these brothers and sisters interact at school. Whether it's inviting a little sister to play or feeding a little brother apples during snack, your children take good care of each other when they are away from mom and dad.)
The exploding paint activity required all different types of bravery, especially from the teachers. For this activity, the children put a scoop of baking soda and some colored vinegar in a plastic baggie, sealed it and shook it up before throwing it on the ground to watch it explode. If there was no explosion the child could take a pin-puncher and pop the bag. Loud noises, spraying liquids - it's not an experiment for the timid.
Courage hung thick in the air under the willow tree on Friday as children experimented with the log seesaw. Little ones who started out holding our hands as they walked the length of the log until it dropped to the ground were able to do it by themselves after seven or eight attempts. One group of brave 5 and 6-year-old girls inspired their younger sisters and friends to walk the seesaw and soon there there were eight girls waiting in line for a turn. These are some of the same girls who regularly show others how to draw pictures of princesses and fairies in the classroom. For me, this experience was a reminder that when we worry that a child is "only drawing" or "only playing" it's time to take a break and get a cup of coffee while the children follow their interests.
Maria Montessori observed that by using their senses and their big, beautiful brains, children can naturally learn everything they need to about their world. All they need is a caring community of adults to prepare an environment where that learning can occur. She described it this way, "The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”
MSGL provides such an environment in our classrooms and on our beautiful campus that has been created by you and other parents like you. When you bring your child to Summer Camp next week or to Preschool this fall, you are allowing her to bravely conduct her own experiences apart from you. And that requires real courage from both of you.
See you soon!
Heather
“The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!" - Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind
The Spinosaurus
Perhaps you like listening to and collecting phrases like I do. Our Montessori classrooms are great theaters for listening. Three, four, and five-year-olds are intensely thoughtful and they tell us so much about themselves just by talking with their friends.
This week I had the pleasure of working in the Willow, River Birch, and Canoe Birch classes and I collected as many fabulous phrases from the children as I could. The words are theirs, the spelling is mine.
On being the first to arrive... "The only time I'm not first is when Mommy brings me. Daddy is faster than Mommy."
"Frogs lay eggs, right? Butterflies lay eggs, right?"
"I had my birthday before my brother's."
"Our grandpa makes a Donald Duck sound."
While drawing dinosaurs with friends... "It's a Spinosaurus. It's the biggest carnivore on land and it's name means lizard. It reaches in the water just a little bit and snatches a fish with it's crocodile long snout."
"A drobeosaurus has toe claws and it goes 25 miles an hour."
A different dinosaur friend... "It runs 100 and 90 hours. He has a bunch of blood in his body. It's called Spinadoctora Hundreds."
"At my house I have five lipsticks. No, six."
A child was looking for a bike to ride on the playground. I asked, "I see that blue bike is available. Would you like to ride that one?" "No! he said. "I just fell off that one."
"I'm trying to sing Let it Go, in German, but it's too hard." (The children in one class burst into singing "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen at least six times in one morning:)
"Being in the sun is so much fun."
"Will you do something interesting?"
I like to listen to teachers, as well. I overheard a few of them talking about the possibility of having a couple of chickens at school and which type might be best suited to be Montessori chickens.
"They're good egg layers, the Wyandotte's. "And they're peaceful."
"I am concerned about them getting upset and flying up into the pine tree."
"There is a 100% chance of them getting upset."
Wyandotte chick
May all your chickens be peaceful as you enjoy some fun in the sun this holiday weekend.