Articles
GIVING DIRECTIONS a child will follow
- Helpful Hints For Parents From Parents
- What A Child Learns
- You Can Make Your Child A Better Student
-Play Dough
- Forget the flash cards-encourage play!
-Eight Sleep Tips For Every Child
- What Can I Do To Help My Child Be More Successful
- The Special Language of Encouragement
- An Education for Life: What Children Really Get Out of Montessori
GIVING DIRECTIONS a child will follow
Parents can prevent some problems from occurring if they learn how to be effective in giving directions. The following are some principles that will hep to give more effective directions to your children.
1. Give one direction at a time. If you give a child to much to do at one time, they more often will not do any of it.
2. Give a clear statement of what is expected. Watch out for the traps of generalizations and the “don’ts.”
3. Phrase your directions in a statement form not as questions or wishes. Children do not grant wishes, genies do!
4. Give enough time for your children to begin to follow directions. We suggest you count to ten slowly. Older children may need a time limit if the direction is to complete a task.
5. Be sure you have your child’s attention. Do no assume you do. If necessary, move closer, call the child’s name, and wait to be acknowledged.
6. Keep your tone of voice firm but calm. Remember that you are modeling how to be in control.
HELPFUL HINTS FOR PARENTS — FROM PARENTS
- Be sure your child knows you love him. Sometimes a child constantly feels no one loves him.
- Be on his side. Each child wants and needs a parent’s genuine approval, but needs limits for his behavior. Security stems from knowing you believe in him.
- Enjoy living with your child. This may sound odd, but too often the strain of responsibility can prevent a parent from simply enjoying the growth of a child.
- Share the child’s live with others. Some parents anxious to be everything to a child unconsciously crowd out others and don’t want the child to love a grandmother, babysitter or teacher.
- Remember each child is different.
- Let him grow; don’t push him. Don’t be tempted to make him succeed in areas where you feel you have failed.
- Help you child to become independent.
- Help your child feel useful and needed. He has the human urge to participate, to belong. Denied this, he feels rejected.
- Be courteous to your child if you expect him to be courteous to you.
- Expect your child to make mistakes – his part of learning. When teaching your child, be patient and logical.
What a Child Learns…Through Blocks - - A child has opportunity for using large muscles (lifts, carries, stacks).
- Chooses shapes and sizes
- Learns to use his own ideas
- Learns to make decisions
- May enjoy conversation
- Experiments in working with others
- Learns to put materials away
Through Home – Living Materials – A child
- Plays out home experiences
- Develops muscular coordination (ironing, rocking, dressing dolls, setting table)
- Has opportunity to play alone
- Has opportunity to “help” (cook, iron, wash, and set table, serve food, dust, sweep, and wash and dry dishes, and bathe, dress, feed and rock the “baby).
- May have worship opportunities (thank you at mealtime and others)
- Reveals thoughts and attitudes through conversation
Through Puzzles – A child
- Enjoys a sense of achievement
- Learns to think and reason
- Learns to solve problems
- Learns to work independently
- Has opportunities for choices
- Associates his experiences with pictures in puzzles
- Develops coordination
Through Art Materials – (clay, easel and finger painting, soap and water) A child
- Enjoys sensory experiences (seeing, feeling)
- Has the opportunity to think for himself
- Has outlets for emotional tensions and frustrations
- Enjoys manipulation (squeezing, pounding, rolling, pushing and pulling)
- Enjoys making things and may name his crude products
- Likes color and experiments with it
- Discovers interesting ways to use materials
Through Books - - A child
- May enjoy handling and looking at them
- May get new ideas and develop interests in other things
- Learns to listen to stories
- May add to his previous experiences
- Increases his attention span
- Increases his vocabulary
- Begins to take responsibility for the case of books
Through Nature Materials - - A child
- A child learns to appreciate beauty
- Begins to associate God with his experiences
- Enjoys sensory experiences (seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting)
- Has opportunities for worship
- Become more aware of his surroundings
- Learns to help care for plants and animals
- May develop sympathy and tenderness through association with pets (fish, rabbit, turtle)
- Responds more easily to new situations
Through Pictures - - A child
- Enjoys handling and looking at them
- Learns to interpret them
- May enjoy conversation
- Develops his imagination
- May understand stories and more clearly
- May play out similar experiences
- Likes to play picture games
- Enjoys recognition of familiar objects
Through Music - - A Child
- May become sensitive to beauty and harmony
- May create his own music
- Has opportunity for feelings of wonder and worship
- Feels good inside when music expresses his mood
- Enjoys relaxation and rhythmic responses
- Enjoys listening to singing and playing of records
- Has opportunities for emotional outlets
- May want to sing with one or two others.
You Can Make Your Child A Better Student
By: Colin Greer
Colin Greer, who has written widely on education and public policy, is president of The New World Foundation. We asked him, as both an educator and a father, what parents can do to help their children succeed at school.
Many parents have lost confidence in their children’s schools: Generally low learning scores, tough competition for college, even safety concerns make them feel helpless. It is important to remember, however, that parents still have a great deal to do with a child’s success or failure in school.
The best schools are those where learning is joint parent-student-teacher enterprise, and the best students are those who have been prepared at home to do well in school. How can you help your child become a better student and his school a better school? Here are eight ideas that work:
1. Read to your child. A child who has been “readied” for school at home will learn more easily. Readiness is encouraged by lots of family reading – and by expectations. Playing word recognition games (even with very young children) also increases a child’s ability to learn in school.
2. Talk to your child. Children learn from family conversations too. They learn about ideas and about words and sentence formation. They also learn that their opinions are valuable and that gathering new knowledge often means changing their views-and that this is all right.
3. Do things together. Don’t get too fixated on books. Your home is full of activities and situations that are potential subjects for stimulating conversation and learning. Don’t be afraid of TV: Watch it with your children and discuss what you see. But don’t stop there. Many simple activities can be expanded. When you talk about your pets, consider their habits and needs; when you shop together, make lists and read labels.
4. Respect your child. Learning involves mistakes. It’s a lot easier for a child when he knows he is respected even if he’s wrong. This may seem obvious, but it can’t be overestimated. As children grow older, learning does not flow as smoothly out of play. Mistakes and failure are inevitable, but like persistence, they are part of the process of learning. Let your child know that making mistakes is okay; you make them too.
5. Be an example for your child. There will be hard times and difficult tasks ahead that will require endurance and application from both of you. It’s out of your children’s relationship with you that those qualities will develop and grow. It is from you that they will learn that people can do better if they try again, that finding things hard doesn’t make a person stupid and that people can help each other when they run into something especially difficult. It is from you that they will learn that people have their own learning styles-and will develop confidence in theirs. Finally, it is from you that they will learn that just doing better than someone else is not enough; new learning must be built on a solid foundation, and there are no shortcuts.
6. Get to know your child’s teachers and principal. Children learn most successfully in those communities where parents have established ties with the school. It is important that a child’s teachers and principal get to know you. Your child will feel safer in school and will be noticed more by school adults as a result. Volunteer time in class or in school if you can; keep abreast of school assignments; don’t shrink from advocating on your child’s behalf if schoolwork seems too difficult or too easy. You don’t have to be a parent bully, but it’s important that school adults knows that your child is not alone.
7. Help make your child’s school a community institution. Remember that community life is a strong force against the problems we hear so much about (like school violence and drug abuse). Help set up a small lending library in your child’s school; organize concerts, plays and bake sales in the auditorium. The community can be a classroom too: Students can visit its businesses and public places; they can contribute time in community service and later study with specialized “experts” as teachers. Parents can help make such things happen; school employees often can’t – they don’t have the time, or they don’t have the connections to the community.
8. Encourage your child to learn from other children. Children can teach each other a lot. They learn new skills more easily from other children who have mastered them; often grasping from their peers things they have had trouble learning themselves. In addition, the diversity of family and cultural life your community enjoys is reflected in its children, and your child will be stimulated by these differences through contact with other children. Make sure your child spends plenty of time with friends; it’s worth the trouble to chauffeur them back and forth.
Remember, parents are educators too. Their expectations and involvement in the community are important ingredients in a child’s intellectual and academic development.
Play Dough
When children use play dough, they’re strengthening the muscles needed for using crayons, pens and pencils. As they play, they’re discovering color, shape, texture, and size as well as forming a beginning awareness of such concepts as:
- Part-to-Whole Relationships - understanding that a number of small pieces can make up a larger one.
- Representation - realizing that one object can stand for, or symbolize, another.
- Matching - recognizing how things correspond.
- Transformation - discovering that a material can take many different forms.
-Conversation - understanding that volume doesn’t change when shape is altered.
Enjoy these easy play dough recipes with your child. A simple, positively-stated comment, “Play dough stays on the table” makes clean-up easy.
Food coloring can be added to the water recipe, but plan white play dough is fun to explore on a snowy day. Occasionally divide a batch of dough in two, coloring one half yellow and the other blue. As your child plays, the colors will blend and a new one will emerge.
Play Dough I - Uncooked
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 cups water
3 tablespoons cooking oil
Children enjoy mixing this with their hands in a large bowl or plastic dishpan.
Store in covered container.
Play Dough II - Cooked
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tablespoons cream of tartar
4 cups water
3 tablespoons cooking oil
Forget the flash cards-encourage play!
By: Pat Lytle
Parents want success for children? Well of course they do! However, as success is defined, it is important to note that definitions vary among all people.
Through the years, parents have equated “good grades, academic achievements” as an indicator of future success. Now, we are seeing more research which is putting “EQ” ahead of IQ” as a predictor of success.
So what is EQ? Emotional Intelligence Quotient. In his book by same name, Daniel Goleman redefines what it means to be smart. Research which has been sustained by science’s ability to use brain-imaging has brought clarity to the impact of our emotions.
Feelings of inadequacy block people’s ability to fully use their knowledge. Lack of social skills inhibits full participation in today’s work place. He documents, in determining star performance in every field, emotional intelligence matters twice as cognitive abilities like IQ or “technical expertise.”
As parents seek to support their chidren’s success, the children are often pushed and ultimately “turned off to school work. Workbooks and flaschards are better left on the shelf.
Parents’ time is more crucially needed in supporting their children’s self image, self-confidence, social skills, attitudes and work ethics. Families must instill the values they embrace; schools can not.
One of the best things a parent can do for their children is to provide play dates. Play fosters give-and-take social skills. Children learn to express their ideas, solve problems, work together and enhance their self-esteem.
When I was growing up, children engaged in hours of unstructured play. There were children at home, moms at home. After school, on weekends and all summer we played! We also had time to play before school, play at recess, and play at lunch time, too. Today most schools do not provide play times! How will children learn to interact?
Yes, modeling a love of reading and sharing books for fun is important. Providing experiences like zoo and aquarium trips, picnics at the levee, ferry boat rides, and streetcar rides are great. Talking about feelings and encouragine children to do the same is extremely important. Turning off the DVD/TV and engaging children’s help is extremely valuable. Children that participate in household chores gain skills and competence and naturally follow a “can do” attitude.
Yes, there’s a lot to being a parent. It’s hard to know what’s right, it’s so easy to get swept along with society. Do take the time to evaluate and learn. You’ll be glad to know you are making informed choices.
Eight Sleep Tips For Every Child
By: Elizabeth Pantley
Up to 70 percent of children under age five have sleep problems. Sleep issues are complicated and have many causes. They’re hard to deal with because when children aren’t sleeping parents aren’t sleeping and that lack of sleep affects every minute of every day for every person in the family because lack of sleep isn’t just about being tired. Sleep has a role in everything - dawdling, temper tantrums, hyperactivity, growth, health, and even learning to tie his shoes and recite the ABC’s. Sleep affects everything.
The following ideas are of value to almost any sleeper, of any age. These tips can bring improvement not only in your child’s sleep, but also in her daytime mood and last, but not least improvements in you own sleep and outlook as well.
1. Maintain a consistent bedtime and awakening time
Your child’s biological clock has a strong influence on her wakefulness and sleepiness. When you establish a set time for bedtime and wake up time you “set” your child’s clock so that it functions smoothly. Aim for an early bedtime. Young children respond best with a bedtime between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. Most children will sleep better and longer when they go to bed early.
2. Encourage regular daily naps
Daily naps are important. An energetic child can find it difficult to go through the day without a rest break. A nap-less child will often wake up cheerful and become progressively fussier or hyper-alert as the day goes on. Also, the length and quality of naps affects night sleep - good naps equal better night sleep
3. Set you child’s biological clock
Take advantage of your child’s biology so that he’s actually tired when bedtime arrives. Darkness causes an increase in the release of the body’s sleep hormone - the biological “stop” button. You can align your child’s sleepiness with bedtime by dimming the lights during the hour before bedtime. Exposing your child to morning light is pushing the “go” button in her brain - one that says, “Time to wake up and be active.” So keep your mornings bright!
4. Develop a consistent bedtime routine
Routines create security. A consistent peaceful bedtime routine allows your child to transition from the motion of the day to the tranquil state of sleep.
An organized routine helps you coordinate the specifics; bath, pajamas, tooth brushing. It helps you to function on auto-pilot at the time when you are most tired and least creative.
5. Create a cozy sleep environment
Where you child sleeps can be a key to quality sleep. Make certain the mattress is comfortable, the blankets are warm, the room temperature is right, pajamas are comfy, and the bedroom is welcoming.
6. Provide the right nutrition
Foods can affect energy level and sleepiness. Carbohydrates can have a calming effect on the body, while foods high in protein or sugar generate alertness, particularly when eaten alone. A few ideas for pre-bed snacks are: whole wheat toast and cheese, bagel and peanut butter, oatmeal with bananas, or yogurt and low-sugar granola.
Vitamin deficiencies due to unhealthy food choices can affect a child’s sleep. Provide your child with a daily assortment of healthy foods.
7. Help your child to be healthy and fit
Many children don’t get enough daily physical activity. Too much TV watching and a lack of activitiy prevents good sleep. Children who get ample daily exercise fall asleep more quickly, sleep better, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling refreshed.
Avoid activity in the hour before bedtime though, since exercise is stimulating they’ll be jumping on the bed instead of sleeping in it!
8. Teach your child how to relax
Many children get in bed but aren’t sure what to do when they get there! It can help to follow a soothing pre-bed routine that creates sleepiness. A good pre-bed time ritual is story time. A child who is listening to a parent read a book or tell a tale will tend to lie still and listen. This quiet stillness allows him to become sleepy.
Work with these eight ideas and you’ll see the improvements in your child’s sleep, and yours too.
What Can I Do To Help My Child Be More Successful
Promote child’s self esteem and strive to build on successes.
Encourage child through use of statements such as, “I like the way you did that.” “You’re a great help.”
Provide consistent schedule and routine which gives child a feeling of “security” because they know what they know what to expect. Most children thrive when their mornings, evenings and bedtimes are routine.
Spend time “exploring” the city, participating in activites for young children, reading to your child, talking with your child (on the way, to and from school is a great time to talk) and just plain enjoy him/her.
The Special Language of Encouragement
When comments about children’s efforts are in ofer, we must be very careful not to placae value judgments on what they have done. Too often, we make positive comments in a praising manner. Such comments express our values and opinions, rather than help children believe in themselves.
Be alert to eliminate value-loaded words from your vocabulary at these moments (for example; good, great, excellent, etc.) Substitute words of praise that express the special meaning of encouragement.
Phrases that demonstrate acceptance:
- “I like the way you handled that.”
- “I like the way you tackled that problem.”
- “I’m glad you enjoy learning.”
“I’m glad you are pleased with it.”
‘Since you’re not satisfied, what do you think you can do so that you will be pleased with it?
- “How do you feel about it?”
Phrases that show confidence:
- “Knowing you, I’m sure you will do fine.”
- “You will make it!”
- “I have confidence in your judgment.”
- “That’s a rough one, but I am sure you will work it out.”
Phrases that focus on contributions, assets and appreciation
- Thanks; thta helped a lot.”
- It was thoughtful of you to ________________________.”
- ‘Thanks, I really appreciate ___________________, because it makes my job much easier.”
- “I need you help on_____________.”
- To a family group: “I really enjoyed today, Thanks.”
- “You have skill in ____________. Would you do that for the family?”
Phrases that recognize effort and improvement
- “It looks as if you really worked hard on that.”
- It looks as if you spent a lot of time thinking that through.”
- “I see that you’re moving along.”
- “Look at the progress you’ve made.” (be specific; tell how)
- “You’re improving in…”(be specific)
- “You may not feel that you’ve reached your goal, but look how far you’ve come!”
_________________________________________________
Source: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting - Parent’s Handbook: By Don Dinkmeyer and Gary D. McKay
An Education for Life: What Children Really Get Out of Montessori by Tim Seldin
When we try to define what our children really “get” from Montessori, we need to expand our vision to include more than just the basics: Of course they learn to read, do four-digit mathematics, recognize geometric shapes, and identify the parts of a plant and a mollusk. They also learn how to be a contributing member of a community. A Montessori school is more than a classroom. It is society in a microcosm, and the skills and lessons they learn in this environment extend well beyond the traditional definition of academic success. They are life lessons that were very much needed at the time when Dr. Montessori developed her teaching methodology, and they are life lessons that are still very much needed by our children today.
“The basic nature of our society and the family itself have changed radically, and only an equally radical change in education will suffice.”
John Dewey, School and Society, 1899
In her recent book, The Schoolhome (Harvard University Press, 1992), Dr. Judith Rowland Martin writes that she was not very impressed when she first encountered Montessori education. She understood that Montessori schools placed children in multi-age classrooms and used manipulative learning materials, which may have been very unusal during Montessori’s lifetime, but have since been incorporated into most early childhood and many elementary classrooms thanks to the Open Classroom movement of the 1960’s.
However, Dr. Martin’s understanding of the value of the Montessori approach became clearer when she came across a statement in Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s book, A Montessori Mother (first published in 1912), in which Fisher disagrees with the universal interpretations given to Montessori’s “Casa dei Bambini” or “Children’s House.”
In A Montessori Mother, Fisher wrote, “The phrase, ‘Casa dei Bambini,’ is being translated everywhere nowadays by English speaking people as ‘The Chidren’s House,’ whereas its real meaning, both linguistic and spiritual is “The Children’s Home (or Children’s Community, ed).” Fisher insisted upon this rendering, which she felt offered a much more accurate and complete insight into the character of the Montessori classroom.
Dr. Martin recognized that, “This misreading of the Italian word ‘Casa’ as ‘house’ has effectively cut off two generations of American educators from a new and intriguing vision of what school can and should be. Read ‘casa’ as ‘house’ and your attention is drawn to child-sized furniture, the Montessori materials, the exercises in practical life, the principle of self-education.
But if you read ‘casa’ as ‘home,’ you begin to perceive a moral and social dimenison that transforms your understanding of Montessori’s idea of a school. Once I realized that she thought of school on the model of a home, the elements of her system took on a different configuration. Where before I had seen small childen manipulating concerte learning materails, I now recognized a domestic scene with its own special form of social life and education.”
Reymonds realized that what Montessori had established was not simply a more attractive classroom in which children would be taught to read and write. The Casa dei Bambini represented a social and emotional environment where children would be respected and empowered as individual human beings. It was an extended family, a community in which children truly belonged and readily took care of one another. Montessori described this process of emotional growth as “valorization of the personality,” a strong sense of self-respect and personal identity. Within this safe and empowering community, the young child learned at the deepest possible level to believe in herself. In an atmosphere of independence within community and personal empowerment, she never lost her sense of curiosity and innate ability to learn and discover. Confident in herself, she opened up to the world around her and found that mistakes were not something to be feared, but rather the endless opportunity to learn from experience.
This special relationship that is so common among Montessori children and their teachers and schools is very different from, and much more dramatic than, the experience most children have in school.
“I stated in Montessori at age two, I’m a product of the entire system. I did well, but still, many people wondered if I had been prepared for college and whether I could ‘make it’ in a ‘real school.’ The skepticism was so disconcerting that I never bothered to step back and see what 15 years of trust, respect, teaching, and learning had done from me. When I went off to Northwestern University, I left my support system and community behind and entered a world that was much colder and uncaring. At first, I deeply missed that sense of belonging. I didn’t realize that Barrie had not only given me a second family, but had also taught me how to build new friendships, support systems, and community wherever I go. I now use my years of experience in community building to cultivate secure relationships with people I have come to know. Barrie did more for me than just prepare me academically for college, it prepared me for anything to which I chose to apply myself.
-Frances Merenda, a 1190 grduate of The Barrie School in Silver Spring, MD
To understand how this evolved, it’s helpful to understand the world in which Montessori lived at the time she developed her educational approach.
Montessori was a professor of medicine, specializing in psychiatry. At that time, there was no such thing as Freud’s “talking cure.” There were basically two approaches to the treatment of disturbed individuals. The most common and familiar treatment was to confine people who acted strangely to insane asylums. The second and almot forgotten approach was the “Moral Education” movement that spread across Europe and North America during the 1700 and 1800’s.
These therapeutic communities were villages set off in the country where chronically despondent or non-violently dysfunctional individuals lived in group settings with caring individuals.
The fundemental principle of the Moral Education movement was respect and kindness. Instead of treating their patients as prisoners, the staff acted on the belief that within each human being there is a core of goodness and a “sound mind.” The community lived and worked together as an extended family and developed a sense of belonging that is clearly reminiscent of what we see in our children’s classrooms today.
These communities were much like an Israeli Kibbutz, self-sufficient farming communities in which each individual was encouraged to become more independent while contributing to the overall operation of the village. Patients lived in small homes with a couple who served as their mentors. Surviving reports suggest that a tremendous bond developed among those who lived and worked together. The movement recorded success rates that were far more effective than traditional approaches, returning their clients to their home communities as productive, happy citizens after an average stay of eleven months. A sense of close personal community and positive human relationships was proven successful as a means to help bring these disturbed people back to reality.
Montessori was well aware of the movement through her medical research into innovative strategies for treating the retarded, autistic, and emotionally disturbed. She used this same model with tremendous success in her own work with retarded and autistic children in Rome, and the later hypothesized that even more dramatic results might be achieved with “normal” children. Her first “Children’s Community” was made up of 50 inner city children from dysfunctional families.
In her book The Montessori Method, Montessori describes the transformation that took place during the first few months of operation, as the children evolved into a “family.” The children had a sense of becoming owners of their school. They were encouraged to rearrange the furniture, prepare and serve daily meals, wash the pots and dishes, help the younger children bathe and change their clothes, sweep, clean and work in the class garden. Through their day-to-day involvement in their classroom community, Montessori saw these children develop a sense of maturity and connectedness that helped them realize a much higher level of their potential as human beings.
While times have changed, the need to feel connected is still as strong as ever. In fact, for today’s children it is probably more important.
Whether it’s an inner-city child or a child from an affluent suburb, the sense of community has all but disappeared from our children’s lives. Families regularly move from house to house and from town to town. Grandparents usually live in other cities or other states. Both parents work out of necessity, and when they are at home, they are very, very busy. The “latch-key-child” has become the norm for this generation.
Many children have the sense that they do not belong to anything or anybody, which is why gangs, which give a sense of belonging, have always had a certain appeal for some children.
According to one study after another, astounding numbers of preteens and teenagers engage in sexual activity in their homes after school before their parents come home from work. What is most disturbing is that for most of these children sex doesn’t represent either love or lust, but a simple need for human contact, to be hugged and touched, a need to be not so incredibly alone in this world.
Along with whatever else Montessori gives our children, it definitely gives them the message that they belong - that their school is like a second family.
Studies on the moral and emotional development of children strongly suggests that while there are probably a few children in every thousand who are truly little “gangsters” at heart, a child’s sense of moral reasoning and sense of self are directly related.
Children will normally grow up to be productive, happy, positive individuals if given the right emotional environment. It seems clear that our attitudes about people, the ability to overcome our tendency to be ego-centric, our willingness to share, to compromise, to resolve conflicts non-violently, and our ability to discover a basic sense of self-worth are not qualities that human beings develop spontaneously, but rather through years of experience with caring people who convince us that we belong and give us the opportunity to practice and master these skills of everyday living. As in all things, we learn by doing.
One of the greatest strengths in the approach that Montessori developed is the three-year age grouping that you will find in every Montessori school. By consciously bringing children together in a group that is large enough that is will allow for two-thirds of the children to return every year, the school environment promotes continuity and the development of a very different level of relationship between children and their peers, as well as between children and their teachers.
For teachers the relationship presents itself as a commitment that they make to stay with the children in their class for a prolonged period of time, rather than just jumping from job to job or from classroom to administration. Montessori teachers do more than present cirriculum. The secret of any great teacher is helping the learner get to the point that their minds and hearts are open and they are ready to learn, where the motivation if not focused on getting good grades, but involves a basic love of learning. As parents know their own children’s learning styles and temperaments, teachers, too, develop this sense of each child’s uniqueness by developing a relationship over a period of years with the child and her parents.
Montessori schools give our children not only the sense of belonging to a family, but also of how to live with other human beings. By creating a bond of parents, teachers, and children Montessori sought to create a community where indivuduals could learn to be empowered, where children could learn from older people, trust one aother and find ways to be properly assertive rather than aggressive. To reduce these principles to the most simplistic form, Montessori proposed that we would make peace by healing the wounds of the human heart and by producing a child that is more secure. She envisioned her movement as essentially leading to a reconstruction of society.
Montessori schools are different, but it isn’t just because of the materials that are used in the classrooms. Look beyond the pink towers and golden beads, and you’ll discover that the classroom is a place where children really want to be - because it feels like home.
Tim Selding is the President and Founder of The Montessori Foundation and co-author of The Work in the Palm of Her Hand and Celebrations of Life