Almost all the teachers I know are busy creating their classroom learning environments. These teachers are anticipating students who are eager and excited to be back in the classroom! This year will be different than most. We have some students who have been doing distance learning, others homeschooling and some who have been in class all year. Yes, we know the virus is still here and many schools will require masks for their students. Whatever policy your school adopts, just remember, that there are three basic important key players in the Montessori method of education: the beautiful children, the engaging environment, and the prepared teacher.
The preparation of our environment is important, but our students also need adults who are prepared! Our students need to feel the security that only a confident and caring adult can give. It is in the little things like greeting each child warmly at the beginning of the day that can make a big difference in a child’s day. Make a concentrated effort to get to know each child individually and develop a relationship with the child and the family. Be PRESENT in the moment with the child through interaction. Sitting and having lunch together and classroom discussions will make the child feel valued and loved. Our individual lessons with the children are also a time to connect. A small thing that can make a big difference is a SMILE! “A smile to a child is like sunshine and water to a plant.” Carl Jung
As you prepare your environments, make sure your practical life is truly inviting with new materials and exercises. This is the first area that a child is introduced to in our classrooms. These lessons assist the child in developing hand and eye coordination, independence, and concentration! So, take your time and create interesting and beautiful practical life activities. Truly observe the children and note what interests them. Need ideas for new practical life materials? Simply check online and Montessori Services! This is an area that will need to be changed and made new throughout the year. At the conclusion of our year, I introduced sewing buttons and it was loved by all. During the winter months, we did weaving and made potholders. Lots of concentration & hand and eye coordination with these practical life works!
As guides to the children, we are never truly perfect in our interactions and perceptions of children. We should continually attempt to be growing in our understanding of the young child. So, aim at reading and educating yourself about the method and children. Finding time to do this can be a challenge. I would suggest putting it on your calendar to read an article or check out a Montessori blog or website and if time and opportunity exists, take a workshop! As our knowledge grows, so should our love and appreciation of the young child’s mind and spirit. “Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission.” – Maria Montessori What is our mission? To serve, protect and lead our young children to a lifetime of learning.
Our character should reflect a caring attitude toward the child, a person who is always calm and at peace. “By her care and intent silence, she must animate the environment: also by her gentle speech and presence as one who loves.” -Maria Montessori Take careful examination of your mannerisms. “Do you animate the environment? Do you speak in a gentle manner or demanding?
A simple truth is that in our environments, there is not just one or two guides or teachers, but each child in our multi-aged classrooms can be a mentor to another. “There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease.” Maria Montessori For years I have invited older or more mature children to help younger children. This is a wonderful practice that develops responsibility and caring within all children.
As your school year begins there will be some children who display difficult behaviors but a simple truth that has really helped me in all my years of teaching is this: “Discipline is reached always by INDIRECT means. The end is obtained, not by attacking the mistake and fighting it, but by developing activity in spontaneous work.” The Montessori Method, p. 350. So, if a child is engaging in a difficult behavior, re-direct, it can be as easy as saying, “Come with me, I want to show you something!” Then present a work that you know he will love and one that will engage his whole being. Something off the art shelf is great as well as many of the practical life works that involve water or food preparation. Perhaps variations with the Sensorial materials and a blind fold is like magic!
Remember, that it is important to establish routines and procedures beginning on day one! Then be consistent with those routines and procedures. They should be so consistent that your class can run without you being there!! Our goal should be independence of the child as well as having a joyful classroom. You can not have a joyful classroom without joyful teachers and children.
“Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.” – Maria Montessori
Begin each day with a joyful attitude, one where you are thankful for each child in your class. The children will feel that joy and it is contagious!!!