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Dear Father, hear and bless thy beasts and singing birds; And guard with tenderness small things that have no words. Perhaps you remember this childhood prayer. For me it is a call to duty. Young children often do not have the words to express themselves. I see our job as adults is to help children […]
Many people are astounded when I tell them I didn’t give homework to my elementary students. There are many reasons I didn’t give homework, but the main one is fairly simple. The reason for coming to school is to work and to learn. If students are doing what they are supposed to do in school, […]
Parents, imagine no homework to supervise and therefore no forgotten assignments. Teachers, consider having no homework to assign, grade, record and monitor. Alfie Kohn in his book, The Homework Myth, advocates abolishing homework based on a survey of educational research that shows there is no connection between homework and academic success. For the past twenty […]
During a visit with a group of ladies in their late seventies, I discovered that they each had notes tucked away, written by their children and grandchildren. Not every note from every child, but ”treasures” from letters, notes and cards received over the years. I’m imagining that a piece of paper that someone’s held onto […]
Betty Edwards in her book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, explains that around age ten our logical “left-brain” style of thinking begins to dominate and overrides our creative “right-brain” type of thinking. Our left-brain thinking criticizes our work, and out of our mouth comes words like: That doesn’t look like a bird. You can’t draw […]
Sustainability seems to be a current buzzword. Product labels proclaim sustainability. Clothing is sustainable. Tuna is sustainable. New construction is sustainable. Marketing types seem to be playing upon our ecological concerns of making sure we don’t run out of resources, that we aren’t unwittingly spending our grandchildren’s inheritance. When I opened my first Montessori classroom, […]
Five-year-old Samantha leaves her lunchbox at home at least once a week. Her mother, Lori, makes a special trip to school to bring Samantha’s lunch–a thirty-minute disruption to Lori’s day. Who owns the problem of getting Samantha’s lunch to school? Samantha or her mother? Some parents feel that they own all their children’s problems. When […]
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.Proverbs 25:11 Our daughter, Dana, came home from her freshman year of college and suggested that we play the Dana Game. ”I’ve taught all my friends at school how to play it.” ”How do we play?” I asked. ”We’ll go around in a […]
”Humans would degenerate without the child to help him rise. If the adult does not waken little by little, a hard crust will form around him and make him insensible.” ~Dr. Maria Montessori Being in the city is interesting, to say the least. Surrounded by world-class restaurants with scores of ethnicities, shops, theatres, museums, galleries […]
In the early 1980’s Howard Gardner introduced the concept of multiple intelligences to contrast with the predominant verbal and math skills necessary to do academically well on tests and school grading. When we look at the whole child in a multi-faceted manner, we have a valuable tool that can help us aid a child’s development. […]
