Our afternoon work cycle is not nearly long enough. It takes a full three hours for the children to really, really get the full benefit of a work cycle, but we don’t have that time. Even so, what I see is encouraging. Four children are working on pin maps, 2 on SRA folders. A first year student is building the Roman Arch. I can hear Rebecca explaining electrons to a student across the room. In all the room that is the only voice I can really hear. The voices of the students produce a low murmur

Another student is working on a geography folder, one is reading, one is working on a biomes map. One is drawing the flag of Tunisia for part of a country research. Another first year student is practicing cursive writing on a white board. One student is working with a book about plants that is interactive with the computer. I see a student talking to another students and one has just returned from the restroom.

When we return to the classroom after lunch, there is a journal prompt waiting for the children. They dive into that and the move on to our short one-hour work cycle. It may not be long, but it IS busy.

I normally conference with students once a week. We have gotten into the habit of doing that on Thursdays. It is a very enjoyable time for both the students and me since I often use it as a time to rejoice with them about all the interesting things they are learning. Because of a snafu during arrivals this morning, I was late getting started with the conferences today and I thought I was going to be stampeded! I think it was partly because we had not been in school for a couple of weeks, too, It had been three weeks since our last conferences. I had to assure the class that there was plenty of time for everyone before they went back to work and we had a more normal day with conferences interspersed. It gave me some insight into how important the children find the conferences. Hmmm.

I have written before about how expertly our music teacher weaves many skills into the weekly music classes she presents. Today I was further amazed at how she brought the children together into a complex performance within the short time she had. There were separate sections playing different parts and instruments. At the end they were even doing improvisation! It was a joyful noise.

We are involved with starting a new land-based middle school. It has been exciting for the children in our elementary to “see” some of the process. The building is now nearly ready and there has been much volunteerism to get things prepared.

So imagine our despair when we were at the site over Spring Break and the contractor told us that there had been an incidence of vandalism. The sheetrock finishers had left a window open to facilitate drying and someone had gotten in, attempted to caulk a door shut and discharged a fire extinguisher inside.

Then several volunteers gathered on Saturday to lay the water line and the conduit for the phone line and discovered that there had been another visit. This time a door was severely damaged. The sheriff reported that there has been a rash of vandalism in the area during Spring Break.

It saddens me to think that individuals would stoop to such meaningless destruction. What is especially ironic is that had the (suspected) young people attended Montessori, the thought of acting in this way would be totally unfathomable to them. I do so wish we could provide this kind of compassionate learning environment for more children.

Montessori felt that the quest for peace in our world needed to start with our young people. I wish we could make it so.

When a loved one dies, there is no wisdom to guide us through the days, but somehow we manage. Time passes and the heaviness in our hearts lightens, leaving us almost feeling guilty for allowing happiness to blossom again.

A cloud of grief has passed over the school. An infant sibling has died. This tragedy spreads in waves out from the family in our Montessori community to the teachers, the other families and their children, with the children feeling the heaviness the least, but still having it pass over them.

This has taken me into unknown territory, a place I never wished to visit. A sad place with grief surprising me at moments I never expected. At my most dismal moments, I know that my sadness is measured in grains of sand compared to the oceans of grief experienced by our stricken family.

At the middle of this abyss comes the swelling of compassion as families gather together to offer their support, their shared tears, their words of comfort. It is this compassion that will help us all move forward. More than anything I hope that we can ease our injured family out of their grief. It is a journey that will take time. Along that journey there is a very big family of this, our Montessori community, to lend a helping hand. Shared happiness only grows. Shared grief allows it to diminish, though it never vanishes. Compassion.

Those wanting to help our grieving family can contact me. Share your compassion.

I have not been posting about classroom happenings since we have been on Spring Break. I did have the opportunity to visit another Montessori School in Florida, though. Very interesting!

I'll be back in the classroom March 24. And back to regular posting, too.

Hydrogen has one electron and one proton. It’s pretty light! Look at the atom board. It is almost empty.

Look how many electrons and protons and neutrons copper has. It is really complex. Imagine how much energy in all those electrons!

Here is carbon. It isn’t as complex as copper. Did you know that all living things on our planet have carbon atoms? You mean we have carbon in us? Yes, EVERY living thing on earth has carbon atoms. Wow, it must be pretty important.

The heaviest atom must fill all the energy shells on the atom board. Well, actually there are two more energy shells than shown on the board. Wow. That must be a REALLY heavy atom, with lots of energy, huh?

Chemistry at the third grade is pretty heady stuff. This process took an entire morning. Working through atomic mass, isotopes and ions. Determining the construction of many different atoms.

Totally absorbed and engaged. Even forgetting to stop for a snack. No bells to say that it is time to move on to language arts or math. (Of course lots of math was happening in figuring out the composition of the atoms from partial information.)

The excitement of discovering all this information has immeasurable rewards. Rewards certainly not congruent to getting a demeaning grade, even if that grade were an A.

There is no way to adequately explain the real differences between what we do to our children when we expect them to march to our drummer in the form of grades and standardized tests, compared to when we set them free to learn at their own beat. We need to lighten up. We need to be as light as the hydrogen atom.

“A Montessori teacher who has mastered the curriculum and supporting materials, who prepares a beautiful environment for children, and gets from her children the desired results of early reading, writing, and mathematics, is considered a great success. But her success is minimal if she does not equally develop children with integrated personalities.” Mario Montessori

I find this quote especially compelling. We know from experience that even the most gifted children will not be successful if they suffer from what Montessori called “deviations” of the personality. Among these are laziness, lying, and envy. Even the kind of competition that arises from the desire to best others has a negative impact. It undermines the intrinsic satisfaction of learning for the sake of learning.

An interesting article about the cultural attitude toward education in Finland was recently published. One of the things that struck me was that education is valued as an end in itself, not as a means toward getting a better job as in the US. Teachers in Finland have a great deal of autonomy and would consider it an insult to their intelligence to have a prescribed curriculum delivered to them for implementation. They eschew standardized tests in favor of teaching all students to reach mastery before moving on. They have high expectations for student behavior and achievement. Not surprisingly, Finnish teenagers are in first place for math science and language achievement in the World. The US falls about in the middle.

The attitudes in Finland sound very much like what we have in Montessori. And the results are consistent. By focusing on the integrated personality, we actually improve overall academic growth.

Over the years we have kept the minutes of the weekly class meetings that the elementary students have held. I have written previously about how impressed I am with their ability to handle business and make decisions. Those decisions become part of the classroom culture.

I realized that the students could benefit from being able to access those minutes. It was one of those “duh” moments. I bought some small binders and made covers for them. One binder has the minutes of meetings from previous years and one has the minutes from meetings held this year.

I noticed some of the students reading through the minutes today. They discovered who made many of the motions for classroom routines that are still part of what we do. Some of these students have long since moved on to other schools. Some are still here.

There is much history in those minutes. Now the students can read that history and understand its origin. And that gives them a better comprehension of the whole of the classroom culture.

The class brainstormed ideas for ways to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the school last week. They had so many wonderful ideas. We are definitely going to spend part of April 3 celebrating in some of the ways they have outlined. We also plan to plant a tree. Carl and I have been surveying the property for a good spot.

We are going to have a reunion for past students on Saturday, April 5. We are sifting through information from past students to find ways to contact them. This is a huge task. I wish I had some sort of ESP so I could send a mental message out to all those children from all those years. Of course, many of them are not children anymore! If any readers know any NHMS alumni, please let them know about this event to start at noon.

I saw two former students in Kroger this past weekend. And I spread the word about our upcoming party!

A strange phenomenon has developed from this focus on former students. They keep popping into my mind as I wonder how to reach them. I find myself slipping into the past frequently.

But then I’m drawn back into the present. The children want to design a flag! They want to leave this legacy for FUTURE students. I’ve been researching companies that can create a flag for the school. So much to do in so little time.