This has been the summer for falling trees. First one fell across the street at home early one morning when I was at home alone (sounds like an old movie!). the sound of the city crew running their chain saws at 6:30 AM was pretty surprising. When I walked down to get the newspaper, I couldn’t help but mosey over to where they were working. A tree had snapped off about 20 feet from the ground, taking two more down with it. Right across the road. It’s a good thing I live on a loop, or I would have been late to my training class!

We were at school one evening last week when a couple of trees fell across the road just above the school. Carl went out (during a board meeting of the middle school) to help move them out of the way so the folks who live on that road could get to their homes. The downed trees ended up in our parking lot. Carl assures me that one of the neighbors will cut them up and haul them off before school starts. I hope so.

When we were driving home from that meeting we were met by another tree down in about the same place as the first incident. With the help of our son-in-law, Carl dragged it to the side of the street. We have been driving around it ever since.

This evening we had gone to school to feed the animals when a storm came up. Part of a tree fell in the front yard of the school while we were there. It barely missed hitting the school! More clean-up to do. Sigh.

When we drove home, though, we joked that we should drag that other tree back out into the street and call the city to come clean it up!

In all truthfulness, I’m a bit tired of trees right now. And I bet some inspired student will take trees up as a research topic once school starts!

Note: Our school community was affected by the tragic shooting at the TVUUC yesterday. One of our students was in the play interrupted by the incident and her grandfather was one of the injured.

It is easy in times like these to focus on the negative and become mired in fears and insecurities. It is important to remember that something like this is a rare occurrence in life. If we let ourselves sink into feeling of helplessness or despair, we allow those who commit these acts to have power over us.

I love math. I really do. As a child I did well in math, but I didn’t know how much I loved it then. I had not yet experienced math the Montessori way.

For the past week and a half I have been teaching math exclusively to a group of adults on their quest to be Montessori teachers. For someone who really gets into this stuff, I have to admit that I am pretty much in Montessori heaven during this part of the training.

When I work with children all the presentations are spread over months and even years. But in the summer, it is all compressed into three weeks. We cover the entire progression from the basic golden beads all the way to trigonometry and calculus. There are intricate patterns woven all through the materials and their presentations. The Montessori math is like an integrated organism that has a life of its own.

Today we were approaching the half way mark of the course and I’m beginning to see true appreciation of the beauty of Montessori’s work blossom in my adult students. So I know that they are hooked, too.

Many years ago I knew that I had found my niche when I started my own Montessori teacher-training journey. Then I got to the math part of the course. Then it became more than a vocation, more than a career, more than a satisfying job. I was transformed by the Montessori math. And I see that happening again with some of the adults sitting before me this summer. There is nothing like it. Math in the summer.

I miss the children. I’ve seen some of them around town, in the grocery store, at Target, but that isn’t really the same at all.

It is fun to teach adults. There is that exchange of philosophical ideas that is lacking when I work with children. I enjoy inspiring adults to do the same kind of work that I do. When I’m working with adults, though, it is very much curriculum driven. I have a certain amount of content that I have to teach in a certain amount of time. There is no sense of surprise. No real variation. And I have to give grades to adults.

When I’m working with children, I never really know where the day is going. I may find myself in the middle of a lesson that I did not foresee. Or there may be a new twist in a research project that ignites the entire classroom. Teaching children takes me into unknown territory nearly every day. It is always fresh and never boring.

I enjoy doing both. And both are important tasks. How lucky can one get? To be involved in work that is both enjoyable and makes a difference! To have the chance to change direction at just about the time a change is needed!

Teaching can be exhausting, but cycling through two completely different approaches energizes me for the next kind of class.