Tag Archives: toddler

Children are more capable than you know.

03 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Learning, learning environment, Montessori Education, Teachers

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If there is one thing that I have learned through my years in Montessori education, it is that children are capable of far more than we give them credit for. This goes for the toddler who is able to pour water from a toddler-sized pitcher and put on his or her own coat to a fourth-grader who shares insights one would not expect of a child that age. Children are limited only by our expectations.

The question becomes, how do we balance high expectations without stressing children? How do we make sure that our assurances of their capabilities don’t feel like too much pressure? This is not a new question, but one that appears to be asked more and more. As simple as it may sound, one of the best ways to accomplish this is to know the children. Some of us need to be pushed to accomplish our goals. Others are more self-driven, not needing anyone to remind us or encourage us to do more or work harder.

Think about the circumstances that urge you to do your best work. Is it with someone giving you encouragement, support and raising the bar higher and higher? Or, do you find that internally? Do external pushes and prompts feel like pressure to you? We are each different. The key is the relationship, the belief in each child’s abilities, and the bar being set at the proper height for children to thrive.

Food, Architecture and Montessori Education

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Learning, Montessori Education, Teachers

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One of the last places one might expect to find an article about Alice Waters, the owner and chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., is in an issue of Architectural Digest. She may be best known for urging us to eat local and healthy foods, but she is also dedicated to education, helping children learn where their food comes from and how to prepare it. She is a Montessori teacher.

Alice WatersI was awakened around design when I went to France when I was 19. I was living in a culture that really cared about food in a big way. They valued how it was served in all aspects, in terms of what was on the plate, what that plate looked like, and what that napkin looked like, and what things were in the room that reinforced what was on the plate. I just absorbed that sense of beauty connected to food and the aliveness of food. I also see this as a Montessori teacher. Dr. Montessori really believed that the senses need to be educated, that they are the pathways into our minds, and so the idea of something looking right and being able to touch, to be able to smell, to be able to taste, to hear, to listen, these are all ways that we can reach people and we can awaken them. I had that real experience when I was in France, and then I thought about the restaurant in that way, using that subtlety of reaching people through aroma and through their actually touching the food, engaging them and sort of winning them over.

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“Making”

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Wilmington Montessori School

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3-6 Maker Faires17What does it mean to “make” something? The maker movement encourages us to invent, design and tinker with things. At Wilmington Montessori School, our Maker (STEAM) Studios are hubs of activity. Children are learning about their brains and how they work. Toddlers are working with new tools, learning to operate locks and lights, and creating ramps and tunnels for balls to move through. Primary students are creating music using a banana and electrodes. Others are writing code and giving directions to a robot, watching it move haltingly across the floor. They are hubs of activity. Ideas are being explored, mistakes are made, experiments occur (intentionally and not), and learning is happening.

As children participate in their learning, there must be time to think and follow their own ideas. They are encouraged to try new things or do familiar things in different ways. They are privy to others’ ideas, asking questions to build on their own. Our Maker Studios are extensions of our classrooms. The same Montessori principles that apply to the classroom apply here. Children are given the opportunity to design and create their own learning, guided by an adult who observes and offers just what is needed at the right time.  

Purpose of Education

15 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Learning, making a difference, Montessori Education, Wilmington Montessori School

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GCAP Web 1Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to hear two speakers who shared ideas that cause me to reflect on the value and purpose of education today. There is inspiration in learning from others.

Chris Lehmann is the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. He is a bundle of energy and dares us all to think more deeply about what we need from schools. He shared his “biggest” idea early in his presentation. He views the primary goal of education as creating citizens of the world, people capable of making informed decisions that benefit others. Where have we heard that before?

In To Educate the Human Potential, Maria Montessori says, “Children in the first plane of development (birth to 6 years old) have already absorbed the immediate environment and the restricted society they and their families have dealings with. You must try to give the child what he now longs for: the understanding of the world, how it functions and how it affects the life and behavior of humanity.”

The purpose of cosmic education, which she proposes is the task of the child in the second plane of development (6 to 12 years old), is to help us understand ourselves and relate to the world in which we live. We do this by learning about and understanding others; this prepares children for the future.

Schools, educators, parents and the general public worry about the skills being taught in schools. Public education began as a way to make sure that we had a literate populace. That continues to be the general goal of school today. However, it is not the primary goal. Our children have access to facts in more ways than ever before. They can learn and practice skills in so many ways that we could never have imagined. What they need is to learn to think, to wonder, to question, and to consider what has been done and what is possible. They need to understand facts that are presented and consider how they have evolved over time.

If, as Chris Lehmann and Maria Montessori propose, fostering engaged citizens to make responsible decisions for our world is the purpose of education we are well on our way at WMS.

21st-Century Skills (Part 1)

15 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Learning, Montessori Education, Research, STEM, Wilmington Montessori School

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3-6 Maker Faires19Education is all abuzz around 21st-century skills. What are they? Will children have them in place when they graduate? Will they lead to gainful employment? What can I expect to see in my child’s classroom where 21st-century skills are part of the learning?

The next several blog entries will focus on Wilmington Montessori School and 21st-century learning. We hear that term bandied about and agree that we all want children to be well prepared to enter the workforce when they complete their education. We even agree on some language around what those skills may be. However, what we know is that many schools are waiting to prepare students until they are older, even as old as college age. That is much too late. In order to build on these multi-faceted skills, a strong foundation needs to be put into place as early as possible. And where is the best place to begin educating children at such an early age? Nowhere but a Montessori environment, and specifically WMS.