Category Archive:
Teaching and learning principles

Do You Teach Values?

Do you teach values

”Do you teach values?” a telephone caller asked. Back in the early 90’s parents were upset that values were being taught in school. Controversy brewed and bubbled. Do you teach values? The question caught me off guard. How can you not teach values, I thought, because of the very nature of values? Whether we are […]


Relight the Candle

relight the candle

Five-year-old Tommy walked over to his mother, Judy. ”Write my name for me, Mommy.” ”Tommy, you know how to write your name.” ”But I don’t ‘member,” he said. Tommy’s mother, Judy, phoned me, near tears, about this conversation. Judy’s concern was that Tommy had forgotten something as seemingly simple as the three letters in Tom. […]


Discovering Constellations

discovering constellations

Let us give the child a vision of the universe…for all things are part of the universe and are connected to form one whole unity. ~Maria Montessori A vision of the universe begins with looking up at the stars. ”The sky is the ultimate art gallery just above us,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. All we […]


Stuck With a Problem? SOAR

stuck with a problem soar

At times we seem to be ensconced in recalcitrant situations. We try to move forward, and our strategy doesn’t work. We resolve to get our two-year-old to stop biting. Our ten-year old forgets to clean his room–every Saturday. Our fourteen-year-old refuses to go to church. Whatever we do to encourage or cajole our children into […]


Understanding Self-Discipline

understanding self-discipline

It has been said that the only true discipline is self-discipline. With self-discipline we take ownership of our own behavior. We take responsibility for our lives. As we discipline our children we might consider that our goals should include these objectives of helping our children take ownership of their behavior and responsibility for their lives. […]


Current Ideas on Teaching Reading

current ideas on teaching reading

Over one-third of the fourth graders in America can’t read. This number hasn’t changed in the past 10 years. You might ask, ”What is the problem?” Reading instruction for the most part hasn’t been based on science, but instead has been based on ideas such as whole language or phonics, without systematic testing of hypotheses […]


You Can’t Say You Can’t Play

Exclusion begins early in life, and it can be observed even in preschool settings. In days a class divides up into three main groups: Leaders who say who gets to play in their games, The children excluded from the games The children in the middle who live in fear of being rejected. For the kindergartner […]


A Walk in the Leaves

walk in the leaves

I can’t help it. I love to go out in the fall and gather leaves. I enjoy looking at the reds, yellows, oranges and browns of deciduous leaves against the turquoise skies of a crisp autumn day. I savor peeling the paper off a broken crayon to make leaf rubbings that accentuate the veins, shape […]


The Deep Well Of Time

deep well of time

It’s here!  To help you with storytelling, Montessori style. Michael Dorer’s new book, The Deep Well Of Time: The Transformative Power of Storytelling in the Classroom. This summer I was lucky enough to preview an advanced copy and I loved Michael’s stories. How I wish this resource had been available when I was in the classroom. […]


To Lead A Child To Learn

steps to reading

Helen Keller wrote, ”Anybody can lead a child to a classroom. It takes a teacher to lead a child to learn.” Keller is perhaps the most famous of students of the 20th century. Her teacher, Annie Sullivan, taught Helen, who became blind and deaf at the age of 19 months, how to communicate and connect […]