Thanks Tom. I’ll see if I can get the book. I do agree fully with you and this is what I learnt too. That children learn from key children and key children try real hard to learn from the non-key children and normalize with more time in this all accepting, socially cohesive environment.
There are many moments when I see those miraculous transformations happening in both key and not key children in my environment.
And yes, the focus should be the children and the energy spent must be mostly on children. However, I stilll think that we need to work with parents because the child needs harmony too. Especially in the first plane when the child is feeling a big part of his family and school at the same time and especially in situations where the child is in school for only one work cycle. Children want to work and to contribute but when they see drastically different expectations or value systems, they feel confused and sometimes it’s so bad that they experience trauma (Oh my friends help me when I falter. My dad whacks me when I falter. But I love my dad. He is my dad. Why did my friends let me falter? Shouldn’t they also be hitting me like my loving dad? Let me make them hit me. If I hit them, they will hit back and I will feel peace) My worry is this kind of trauma that they experience.
Thank you for your wonderful articles. I enjoyed reading them and could relate to many things.
But I wondered what happened after this:
“We’ll help you pick it up when you’re ready, but you have to do your share,” they insisted
“I won’t do it. I won’t do it!” he raged.
“But it’s your mess. You made it, and you have to clear it up before you do anything else.” They swept the materials together, put it on a rug, and pulled it out of the path.
“I won’t do it. You do it for me! Do you hear me? Do what I say!” he bellowed.
“We’ll help you do it. We already said we would. But you have to start first,” the children reasoned. “It’s your mess. You made it.”
It has happened many times in my environment. While I understand it fully that the needs of ‘key children’ are higher and Montessori environments are wonderful for them, I also feel for the ‘not key children’ who many times give a lot more.
While we can hold these key children accountable or allow for natural or logical consequences to happen, it is not possible to be consistent in a classroom environment (example - a mess can be left as is sometimes but not always). So, key children do not experience consistency in the expectations and consequences in a classroom environment.
I wonder if we can hold parents of key children accountable along with the children themselves. All adults working with these children must have the same expectations. I think that Montessori educators need some practical ideas on how to work with parents of the ‘key children’ as well!
Thank you so much for sharing! My first thought is that you have to read Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful by Donna Bryant Goertz where I took the example from. She tells the full story of Herzog's journey, and it's too much to share here. But perhaps it'll help a little just to extend the anecdote. She writes:
"The children could think and speak this way because they had already lived like this for a year or two of the three-year cycle, and many of them for years before that, in our primary classes. The adults in the school had modeled this way of thinking, speaking, and acting. It's a slow and constant effort for us as adults to relearn how to think and act, but we have to succeed in that effort if we are going to be the children's guides.
When Herzog's screaming and yelling became too much for the children and lasted too long, they pulled the work mat with the spilled materials into the fenced front garden of our classroom. I guided Herzog out there to scream.
"Do you need to go to the bathroom to get a drink first?" the children asked.
"No! No! No!" he screamed.
"Come in whenever you're through screaming, or when you want help picking up," they said. "Do you want someone to keep you company out here in the garden?"
"No! No! No!" he screamed and screamed. Do what I say and do it now!"
"Here's a wet cloth for your face, Herzog, and here's a box of tissues. Are you all right?"
I saw he was playing with sticks and leaves. By now he was feeling ready to accept comfort and help.
"Donna, we'll be outside comforting Herzog and helping him organize the materials, okay?"
And then - reflecting on that story and your comment, I'd say -
1. Notice what amazing lessons and benefits to the other children from this experience. Being able to work in community with others in this way is real learning that will serve them for the rest of their lives. This should be what education is all about. Herzog is not a distraction from their Math practice, he is a key person in the environment that they are learning with and from. This is a really important shift for me - we have to have an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity mindset where we imagine children wrestling over resources. Key children are a value add.
2. I think it is important to work with parents, but I find that the real change happens with children in our environments. The way children are at home is a very different context from the way they are at school. We can have a lot of assumptions and judgements about what the parents are doing right or wrong. I'd rather focus my work on the child in this community.
Thanks Tom. I’ll see if I can get the book. I do agree fully with you and this is what I learnt too. That children learn from key children and key children try real hard to learn from the non-key children and normalize with more time in this all accepting, socially cohesive environment.
There are many moments when I see those miraculous transformations happening in both key and not key children in my environment.
And yes, the focus should be the children and the energy spent must be mostly on children. However, I stilll think that we need to work with parents because the child needs harmony too. Especially in the first plane when the child is feeling a big part of his family and school at the same time and especially in situations where the child is in school for only one work cycle. Children want to work and to contribute but when they see drastically different expectations or value systems, they feel confused and sometimes it’s so bad that they experience trauma (Oh my friends help me when I falter. My dad whacks me when I falter. But I love my dad. He is my dad. Why did my friends let me falter? Shouldn’t they also be hitting me like my loving dad? Let me make them hit me. If I hit them, they will hit back and I will feel peace) My worry is this kind of trauma that they experience.
Thank you for your wonderful articles. I enjoyed reading them and could relate to many things.
But I wondered what happened after this:
“We’ll help you pick it up when you’re ready, but you have to do your share,” they insisted
“I won’t do it. I won’t do it!” he raged.
“But it’s your mess. You made it, and you have to clear it up before you do anything else.” They swept the materials together, put it on a rug, and pulled it out of the path.
“I won’t do it. You do it for me! Do you hear me? Do what I say!” he bellowed.
“We’ll help you do it. We already said we would. But you have to start first,” the children reasoned. “It’s your mess. You made it.”
It has happened many times in my environment. While I understand it fully that the needs of ‘key children’ are higher and Montessori environments are wonderful for them, I also feel for the ‘not key children’ who many times give a lot more.
While we can hold these key children accountable or allow for natural or logical consequences to happen, it is not possible to be consistent in a classroom environment (example - a mess can be left as is sometimes but not always). So, key children do not experience consistency in the expectations and consequences in a classroom environment.
I wonder if we can hold parents of key children accountable along with the children themselves. All adults working with these children must have the same expectations. I think that Montessori educators need some practical ideas on how to work with parents of the ‘key children’ as well!
Thank you so much for sharing! My first thought is that you have to read Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful by Donna Bryant Goertz where I took the example from. She tells the full story of Herzog's journey, and it's too much to share here. But perhaps it'll help a little just to extend the anecdote. She writes:
"The children could think and speak this way because they had already lived like this for a year or two of the three-year cycle, and many of them for years before that, in our primary classes. The adults in the school had modeled this way of thinking, speaking, and acting. It's a slow and constant effort for us as adults to relearn how to think and act, but we have to succeed in that effort if we are going to be the children's guides.
When Herzog's screaming and yelling became too much for the children and lasted too long, they pulled the work mat with the spilled materials into the fenced front garden of our classroom. I guided Herzog out there to scream.
"Do you need to go to the bathroom to get a drink first?" the children asked.
"No! No! No!" he screamed.
"Come in whenever you're through screaming, or when you want help picking up," they said. "Do you want someone to keep you company out here in the garden?"
"No! No! No!" he screamed and screamed. Do what I say and do it now!"
"Here's a wet cloth for your face, Herzog, and here's a box of tissues. Are you all right?"
I saw he was playing with sticks and leaves. By now he was feeling ready to accept comfort and help.
"Donna, we'll be outside comforting Herzog and helping him organize the materials, okay?"
And then - reflecting on that story and your comment, I'd say -
1. Notice what amazing lessons and benefits to the other children from this experience. Being able to work in community with others in this way is real learning that will serve them for the rest of their lives. This should be what education is all about. Herzog is not a distraction from their Math practice, he is a key person in the environment that they are learning with and from. This is a really important shift for me - we have to have an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity mindset where we imagine children wrestling over resources. Key children are a value add.
2. I think it is important to work with parents, but I find that the real change happens with children in our environments. The way children are at home is a very different context from the way they are at school. We can have a lot of assumptions and judgements about what the parents are doing right or wrong. I'd rather focus my work on the child in this community.