I have officially wrapped up the school year as a Montessori assistant teacher. It was a wonderful way for me to toe-dip into the world of the Montessorian while maintaining a casual work schedule. I will not be returning to the Montessori classroom next year (although never say never to the future). I am going back to my comfortable “home” of High School and counseling, BUT I will be taking plenty of Montessori with me when I leave!

1. A Focus on Brain Development: Montessori was a doctor and ahead of her time in brain science. We now know that her theories around brain development were incredibly accurate as seen in brain scans. I want to be an advocate in all arenas of education for developmentally appropriate expectations in both behavior and academics. This is an area where regardless of if the school is traditional or Montessori or something else this can be applied and advocated for.
2. From Teacher to Guide: There is a reason that authentic Montessorians call themselves guides versus teachers the student is the center of learning in the classroom not the teacher. I plan to take this guide mentality with me. Too often as a young first or second year teacher I treated my classroom like a one woman show, parading about and making sure the focus was constantly on me. I now know that any classroom I enter will look much different even in a traditional setting. I will ensure that I am a trusted resource and setter of limits, but it is the students’ show not mine.
3. Discipline with Dignity: I have always tried my best to treat my students with respect and working in a Montessori environment has only grown that desire. Working with adolescents in particular it is our job as parents and educators to model proper adult conflict resolution. I also plan to continue to ensure that I use logical and natural consequences and encourage my school to do the same.
4. Promoting Joy: Being a “life-long learner” or promoting a “love of  learning” are education buzz words that are often attached to schools or initiatives that totally zap any joy for learning. I really appreciated my lead teacher’s focus and monitoring of the joy in our classroom this year. Whether or not the students are happy to be at school and happy in the classroom was a priority that I had honestly never seen before, as sad as that sounds. I, too, want my students to feel joy when they come to school and when learning and discovering. Joy is a developmental need for all people. 
5. Completing the Cycle: My last take-away is as a parent. I was happy to see what staying in a Montessori environment for an entire educational career could produce and knowing I want my children to continue in Montessori for their entire pre-college education. We had three students that had been in Montessori since PreK 3, that’s 10 years of Montessori experience by middle school! While I learned from all the students I taught this year, there was something about these three that struck me. It wasn’t their academic abilities, but rather an intangible quality of self-assurance. The much sought after “non-cognitive” skills of resiliency and grit that educators all over are goo-goo over right now, these students have it just by virtue of having been in the Montessori environment. I was describing my observation to the principal and she described it as “wholeness”. I thought that was a lovely description. The thought that the students leave school as whole beings really resonated with me.

These five things will stay with me forever and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have grown and developed as an educator.

This post is brought to you by another blog that got my mental wheels turning. The author was comparing costs of preschools for his son and contemplating sending said son to a private Montessori school. The author then posed the question, “Is Montessori worth it?”  The real question he was asking was, “Is private school worth it?” because the sad fact is that in most parts of the country Montessori = private school. He then goes on to conclude that it is not, in fact, fiscally reasonable or responsible. I agree with the premise and conclusion and also commend the author on dispelling the overstated benefits of private education…

BUT the question in the beginning of the post kept nagging at me, “Is Montessori worth it?” In Houston, we are lucky, and potentially overwhelmed, with all of the school options for our children. As a parent, you have private, public, charter, and magnet schools to explore, apply, and choose from. As a parent of two children in a public Montessori magnet school, I wanted to share 4 of the many reasons that I believe that Montessori is worth it (and almost none of them are academic). These reasons are based on my experience as a Montessori parent and teacher’s assistant:

1. No one is afraid to ask for help: One of the first things I noticed when working with the 7th graders this year is how willing everyone was to ask for help. Whether they were advanced or struggling to stay on grade level there was no stigma to asking for clarification or assistance from peers or teachers. This was very different from my experience working at traditional schools where it was like pulling teeth to get students, particularly the “smart” ones, to reach out for help!

2. Peace Education: Just imagine a classroom where two 5th grade boys were having an issue with one another that was leading to a lot of tension and could have easily spilled over into an argument or fight. Now imagine that before that tension got to the boiling point, one of the boys brought up the tension to the class and enlisted the help of a peer mediator or “peacemaker” to solve the tension problem. Then the three students spent, maybe, 10 minutes working it out and everyone was able to move on. I got to witness that bit of awesomeness last week while helping in an Upper Elementary classroom. And you know what was even more awesome, that was normal! That is what you do when you have a conflict. You work it out. You don’t tattle. You don’t need to involve adults to solve your issues. Talk about a life-long, marketable skill.

3. Approaches to Math and Literacy: I am confident that my children would learn and be academically successful in just about any school, but the Montessori approaches to math and literacy continue to impress me in both my children at the Children’s House level and with my students in the Adolescent program. The emphasis on the “why” in math no doubt would have changed my own relationship with the subject altogether.

4. Encouragement of Non-Academic Work: I get obsessed when I see a Montessori classroom humming along during a work period. Students might be hunched over on rug or desk plugging away at an academic pursuit and some might be sewing a pillow or knitting and someone is always engrossed in a book. Love it. Kids sitting in rows, listening to a teacher at the front of the room does not bring up the same emotions. I mean, c’mon, the level of patience and concentration it takes for a ten year old to hand stitch a pillow closed trumps a test prep worksheet any day. Also, if you have never seen an often “too-cool-for-school” thirteen year old boy tenderly pick up a hen and administer eye drops to her infected eye you should, it is quite epic.

These are just a few of the many, many reasons to love Montessori. To love public Montessori. Don’t you want to promote, expand, and protect it? Me too. You can do this by supporting wonderful organizations that are fighting to expand public Montessori access like Friends of Montessori and Montessori for All. You can also register for the Public Montessori Educators of Texas Conference taking place here in Houston on March 7-8 and hear me and a bunch of other awesome, passionate people present.

My family and I moved into our new-to-us home a few months ago. Although I don’ t miss our old starter home, I do miss that I had already done all the front work to make the home accessible to my kids. With this new house, there were many things I did right away to prepare the environment and there are a few things left to do to make all of our lives easier.

Completed Preparations:

-In the bedrooms, both kids have all of their clothes accessible to them in easy to manage baskets or hung as outfits. This means that they can get dressed without any adult intervention.

-In the kitchen the children can access the dish and silverware in low drawers, grab a snack or pack a lunch from either the pantry or fridge, or grab a glass of water when needed. This is a similar set-up to our old house (seen here) but the kids now only use the family porcelain dinnerware and glass cups.

-In the bathroom, the sink is much higher than our previous home, but a simple stool does the job and we continue to use our kid shower.

-In the den, we moved our backpack station to make sure that before and after school run smoothly.

What still needs to be done:

-In the bedroom and bathroom the light switches are too high! My son cannot turn his lights on and off or use the restroom at night without help turning on the light. This has caused frustration in my son and annoyance for me! So our solution, until my son grows more, is to install a light switch extender like this one from Montessori Services. It even comes in a two-pack so I think I will only need one set.

A simple tool that can make a big difference to my son’s confidence.

-In the bathroom, the kids have a hard time turning the shower on and getting to a reasonable temperature as the 1940’s fixture and plumbing is fickle. We will solve this one by adding it to the list of home repairs that we are tackling this spring.

Overall, the house is a great space for all for us and I look forward to tackling these minor problems in the future.

I am a nag by nature. I talk too much and explain too much and lecture too much. My children at the ripe old ages of 4 and 6 already are quite adept at tuning me out. I chose to work on this issue in a slow and evolving way by adding a few sign language words into my parenting tool kit.

We did use baby sign language with both children starting at around 9 months and both used it up until around 18 months when both children took to verbal language and never looked back. I loved how baby sign language freed them up to express themselves when they could understand the problem or idea but could not verbalize it. We didn’t use too many signs in those days just the practical ones for our lives, such as: more, all done, up, milk, bath, sleepy, please, and thank you.

When adding new signs into our routine I wanted to be even more selective. I had to think.  What am nagging them about? What am even I tired of saying? The good news is that both children use some signs in their classrooms so I didn’t have to teach them too many signs!

The signs we chose were:

1. Yes

2. No

3. Stop!

4. Wait (Wiggle your fingers)

5. Calm Down

6. Sit

Result: For my daughter, the sign model age 6, these work quite well. She is responsive to the “mommy look” plus sign which I like to employ in public. I also like to use these signs in calm times. Example: Child: “Mommy, can I get a snack?” Me: *Sign for Yes* My son is hit or miss, honestly. If I tell him “No, stop” he is a big fan of replying with the sign for “Yes” and then doing whatever it was that he wasn’t supposed to do. So, as you can see it is not a magic parenting bullet or anything, but it does keep my words down which makes them count more when I do say them!