Montessori Moment Day 2 - Surfer

Yesterday at Rockaway Beach in Brooklyn. This persistent first-time surfer watched and listened as his dad taught him how he rides a wave. The next four hours, he figured he'd learn how to ride some of his own. I didn't catch his best surf - he was really good, but I did catch him riding one of his first waves. No better prepared environment than this! His dad was a great guide, showing him twice and then letting him go.

30 Days of Montessori Moments

Matt Cutts suggests at TED 2011 to try something new for 30 days a la Morgan Spurlock AKA Supersize Me McDonald's guy. Well, not exactly a la Morgan Spurlock, hopefully something that will bring some positive growth along with it. This is his TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

Next 30 days mine is :
Photo/Video + caption of most Montessori (independent + creative + innovative in this case) moment of day posted on this blog. Chance of success - 65%

Let me explain - it should be somebody doing something to solve a problem they're having or accomplish some kind of goal independently without following specific instructions or examples. You'll see a great example of this tomorrow (hopefully).

Send me Montessori Moments/Pictures if you capture them! Or any other good ideas? I'm also going to see what our students come up with for their 30 days and share...

Prove it! - Dr. Stephen Hughes Part 1

There is so much to say about this Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology turned mega Montessori advocate that I needed to make it a multi-part series.  Although it comes as no surprise after years in a Montessori classroom that a pediatric neuropsychologist has become a champion of the Montessori method, it certainly is reassuring to have Dr. Stephen Hughes on board.  His website is a fantastic resource (it's about Montessori kids and it's called 'goodatdoingthings'!) and his talks are required listening for Montessorians. 

In this first introduction I wanted to highlight his insistence on making the value behind a Montessori education more evident to education scholars and parents.  For far too long, Montessori education has held on to a sort of niche status and niche audience and it is time for the offer to become more widespread.  Dr. Hughes calls upon Montessori schools to prove it in a variety of ways.  Keeping alumni records is crucially important (the Montessori Mafia after all, is no fluke), portfolios are key (we use studentjotter.com), and some kind of standardized testing that does not involve preparing the students for the actual test can be helpful in making worthwhile comparisons. 

Montessori philosophy and curriculum often focuses on the internal and implicit.  We know that the drive to learn, explore and achieve is inside every one of our students.  Dr. Stephen Hughes highlights that this classroom (teacher) habit has to change when communicating with the outside world about Montessori education.  Our schools need to work at making our incredible achievements explicit, obvious and statistically significant.

World Peace - Our Humanities curriculum

Just discovered this idea worth spreading from great friend and Ixtatan foundation director Beth Neville.  Super Teacher John Hunter in Virginia has developed an application to the 'World Game' or World Peace Game that allows kids to take control of four completely distinct fictional nations as well as international institutions that broker deals between them.  In true Montessori style, he turned the reins of his 4th grade classroom over to the kids and was rightfully blown away by the results.  In the game, students must bring peace and welfare to the world by solving 50 interwoven, real and complex issues.  Global warming, extreme poverty, child soldiers, disease outbreak, you name it, they're solving it.  His TED talk is definitely worth a listen.  You can tell by the passion in his voice that on top of being an innovator and entrepreneur John is a fantastic teacher.  

Now the World Game idea itself was developed 50 years ago by Buckminster Fuller in 1961.  He writes in the preamble to his Planning Document:


All those who have attained high scholarly capability assure us that real education is self-education. They also say that this self-disciplining is most often inspired by great teachers who make it seem apparent that it will be excitingly worthwhile to take the trouble to bring one self to apprehend and then comprehend variously pertinent data, phenomena and derived principles. The intimate manuscript records of many great self-educated individuals show that they discern intuitively when and what it is that they want to learn.

The truth is that 4th grade kids could probably solve a lot more problems than traditional schools usually give them credit for.  We are definitely playing the World Peace game in our Upper Elementary classroom next year.

A movie has also been made about the John and the game.

The power of being wrong - Laufenberg

More hints and encouragement on how to fail excitedly, successfully and constructively!  This TED talk by Diana Laufenberg is truly amazing and inspirational.  Our traditional schools have stunted our kids' creative growth for so long by focusing on the correct methods and answers to questions that many young students have forgotten how to think and explore.  Showing incredible foresight, observation and keen child development analysis (as always) Maria Montessori made sure to define the role of the teacher as unobtrusive guide for students to use during their path towards discovery. 

Teachers... put down your red pens...slowly step away from your students...

ps. More on infographics (the other topic of her talk) later...  We love them!

Letting our kids be wrong - Wile E. Coyote

It is not how often we are right, but how frequently we dare to challenge ourselves and perhaps be wrong that makes it possible to allow true creativity to remain alive and well in our classrooms. 

Kathryn Schulz shares an outstanding and really funny analogy in a TED talk about the power of being wrong.  She makes the fine but essential distinction between 'being wrong' and 'realizing you are wrong'.  To illustrate this difference she takes her audience back to a familiar scene from the 'Road Runner' cartoons.  Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner off a cliff, close to catching him, runs quite securely through the air until he looks down and realizes the trouble he's gotten himself into. 

Our young students are given the opportunity to be wrong without punishment, so that they are able to boldly explore the unfamiliar and arrive to actual discovery.  Wile E. Coyote unfortunately was mentally unable to reflect on his failed experiments, so he was only able to accomplish half of what we can... on the positive side though, even his precipitous failures were unable to stop him from pursuing his delicious goal!

Flip the classroom

Imagine a school-day with no tedious whole group lessons. 
Imagine a work cycle where students spend their time manipulating and transforming ideas. 
Imagine learning and cementing concepts through experience instead of hearing and forgetting them through disinterest.

Salman Khan's work at the Khan Academy - Flipping the classroom by assigning the lectures for homework and doing actual work during the school day.