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As we consider the different areas of practical life exercises, we might see that care of others follows a natural expansion from the child’s activities in care for the self and care of the environment. Before we can truly take care of others, we need to know how to take care of ourselves, and at […]
One of the many universal learning and teaching principles used in Montessori education is the idea of the prepared environment. Created and maintained by the adults in that space, a prepared environment consists of four components: people, tools and objects, ideas and nature. What does a prepared environment look like? Let’s start with an example […]
The importance of letter writing? In my life, letter writing may be the thing that made the difference. In 1971, for more than a year, and almost 200 letters, I corresponded with a young man I met briefly in Germany. What did we write about? Mainly, we wrote about the books we were reading and […]
One of the many things I have come to appreciate about my Montessori teaching experience is this idea; in their efforts to self-construct an adult human being, children’s initial work is care of the self. From this core work of care of the self, the child is drawn to other activities in caring for the […]
In the mid 1940’s European psychiatrists studied the development of babies in institutions, deprived of the emotional warmth of a mother, father, or one-on-one caregiver. These researchers saw infants who failed to thrive and had a high two-year mortality rate. What seemed to heal these children was human touch. Touch communicates powerfully. For our children touch […]
Pay attention. As a child that phrase meant to stop whatever else I was doing and focus on the requested activity. The phrase, paying attention, connotes immobility. Here’s the paradox of paying attention. Learning involves movement. Movement done automatically activates few new connections in the brain for learning. When we pay attention to our movements, especially for […]
In my many years of working with young children, there is one question I hear frequently from parents and teachers: How do I get children to listen to me? When we are confronted with tantrums, defiant behavior, or worse, it’s difficult to know what to do. But these situations are usually avoidable, or at least […]
My natural proclivities tend toward optimism. During these past three years of pandemic disruptions, though, I’ve had to remind myself more than once of the old joke about “there’s a pony in there somewhere.” As I visit with folks, parents and grandparents, we’re beginning to see the pony. It really is there! Our pony has […]
My schooling consisted of six elementary schools, one junior high, one high school, three colleges and two Montessori institutes. I’ve attended schools in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Oregon, Ohio, Washington, D.C, Germany, and Costa Rica. The similarities in all these schools are striking in the fact that the teacher lectured at the front of the room; there […]
It’s been a long time coming. And now it seems to me we can’t ignore our situation any longer. It may have begun in 1989 with the introduction of Game Boy, which for those of you who don’t know, was played on a handheld device that required only the use of thumbs. By 1993 […]
