Our Journey At School

A school as an institution has its own path of development. Just like the child and the teacher, a school too has developmental stages.

From the very onset, we were mindful that the many choices we made in our initial years, would create the story of our school; Being the foundation from which our school grew it would impact the path of the school in the many years yet to come.

Reflecting back over the academic year just passed, I have come to realise that we at The Earth School are entering a new phase of development! Pondering further on this, I couldn’t help but liken schools development to the stages of development of children.

Indulge me, dear readers, if you have the time and inclination, to explore this thought further.

Today, we are gradually leaving our years of ‘creation’ – of infancy and toddlerhood and entering a phase of consolidation – the childhood years. We are much like the 6-year-old child, straddling two planes of development.

The first years of The Earth School was a heady mixture of unrestrained enthusiasm and optimism – even through the miscalculations and setbacks that are inevitable during the initial years of an institution. With the Montessori pedagogy as our guide, we were creating something that simply did not exist before. We were pure ’potential’. Each experience carried with it ‘new’ learning and there was much exploration. Slowly, we formed a base for our understanding of the various aspects of a school.

These initial years were prone to many ups and downs.  There was some instability due to the fact that everything was so nascent.  Through these years help always poured in from family and friends in a myriad of forms. They understood our passion and had witnessed us work toward the dream of The Earth School.

For the first time last academic year, we found that the ‘umbilical cord’ cut. We felt it the most when two of our dear friends and colleagues left us to pursue other dreams. It was a time of some insecurity for us.

In retrospect, these changes came at the right time. We had grown enough to sustain ourselves – we now had the resilience for the many ‘reality checks’ that the year was to bring. It gave us the preparation to step into the next stage of growth.

Over the last year, without us realising it, we have changed ever so subtly.  Our understanding of people and human nature has grown. Our understanding of the child has strengthened. We are able to ‘see’ the developmental continuum of the child more clearly. We have come to be more accepting of ourselves and of each other.

We have grown in confidence and born out of this we have started looking more outward, just like the elementary aged child. We have started actively building a more involved larger community. Having had the confidence to open ourselves up, we have been blessed with a supportive and insightful parent body, who have taken our hand to walk along with us. Now each active member is  colouring and shaping the path of our school.

Though the bigger picture of our work has always been in the forefront, I find us asking larger questions more frequently. We have started asking more questions regarding our role in a larger community as well. Today, even our small, seemingly inconsequential actions, sets us thinking about the ‘bigger’ picture. The similarity with the elementary child is hard to miss here!

We have barely begun our journey.  I do not know what tests await us in the future, what learning’s are in store for us. There is much to do and more to build and a long, long path to walk on.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

(Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening : Robert Frost)

Hand Work

Little Girl Knitting by Albert Anker

We do a lot of hand work at school.

There’s woodworking, sewing, finger knitting, fish braiding (initiated by one of the children who also likes the privilege of being the one to present it to the others), weaving, crocheting and more recently, following paper patterns to make soft toys.

This year I plan to introduce children to knitting. Ideally, I would like to show them how to make their own wooden/bamboo knitting needles. It would call upon some of the wood working skills they have already gained and I am sure they will love the process of making the needles.

It is important to sow the seeds of a great many things in the elementary years. Children are still enthusiastic and willing to try their hand at all manner of ‘new’ pursuits. In the developmental stage that is to follow – the adolescent years, one sees this spirit decline. Instead adolescents want to ‘create’. What they do not want, is to start working from scratch on the skills they need to bring to life what they are imagining. If the skills have already been gained then they will use them and express themselves through their creations. This need for self-expression has resulted in substantial blocks of time being put aside for creative and self expression during the erdkinder years.

Work with our hands is important at every age.

“Men with hands and no head, and men with head and no hands are equally out of place in the modern community…” – Dr. Maria Montessori (Childhood to Adolescence)

The Long Bead Chains Cabinet

The elementary finally has the long bead chains rack to show off this beautiful material!

It took a day and a half to put the cabinet together and I could not be happier!

What a far cry from storing them in boxes like we have up until now.

What’s more it was made at a fraction of the cost of those available with the material manufacturers.  Also we used better quality wood to do justice to this superbly elegant material .

Once all the chains were hooked, squares aligned and cubes neatly placed in a row, Violet, one of our ancillary staff commented, “This looks like a jewellery shop”

The children are going to LOVE it!

PS: For those of you who are wondering what the long bead chains actually are : the material allows a child to build an arithmetic square (10 x 10) and then an arithmetic cube (10 x 10 x 10) for numbers 1 to 10!

For example, 10 bars of 10 beads in each bar, fold in together to make a square of 10 (ie 10 x 10 ); the child continues folding in the squares and ends with 10 squares of 10 bars of 10 beads.

She replaces the folded bars for actual squares and when she stacks them up one on top of the other.

Lo Behold! the 10 squares form a cube of 10 (10 x 10 x10).

There are corresponding tickets of multiples that the child lays out and thereby the arithmetic value of a square and cube is also worked with.

Building the basic frame.

Measure measure measure

Checking the hooks

Backing – check; hooks – check; squares – check; cubes – check; SYMMETRY – CHECK!

BEAUTY!

The Making of Timelines

This summer break I have been busy with making the ‘missing’ timelines for the elementary environment.

Having already oriented themselves to their immediate environment in their first plane of development from 0 to 6 years, children in the second plane of development from 6 years to 12 years, seek to orient themselves to the entire cosmos.

In a Montessori environment, the universe itself is opened up to them through ‘Cosmic Education”. The lietmotif of Cosmic Education is the interdependance of all things, both animate and inanimate, and the gratitude that arises from this understanding.

Looking back in gratitude to all the participants in the drama of cosmic evolution is a subtext that plays constantly in the background of the elementary classroom.

The absence of easy accesibility to a vendor who stocks Montessori timelines in India has in fact been a boon. I have always found my understanding of a work crystallise when I am engaged in making the material myself. Moreover, the connection of the ‘hand’ to the material becomes more evident to the children.

Over the past two weeks rolls of cloth have been examined, measured and cut. An enterprising, and possibly only ‘alteration tailor’ in Bangalore has been befriended. Skeins of silk embroidery floss have been pulled out of dusty drawers and the tape measure has become my constant companion.

KHADI

First Stop was Khadi Bhandar, where the fabric was purchased. The patient salesman heard our request for unusual measures of cloth. Meters upon meters of black khadi, strange measures of blue, brown, green and red khadi were purchased.

Gandhi’s beloved Khadi

SREEDHAR’S SHOP ON WHEELS AND THE BLANK TIMELINE OF LIFE

I have to admit this is the first time I have come across this particular piece of ingenuity. Sreedhar, an evidently enterprising gentlemen drove up to school in his tailoring shop on wheels!

For the next 6 hours he helped us put together the blank timeline of life. After hearing me wax lyrical about the timeline and explain the idea behind the colour coded strips of cloth, Sreedhar was sufficiently charmed by the idea of making it.

We had blue for the Paleozoic Era where life predominantly existed in the waters of earth, a brown strip to represent the Mesozoic Era where life invaded the land, a green strip for the Cenozoic Era where grass, mammals and birds evolved and finally a tiny strip of red to represent humans on earth.

The blank timeline is a blank replica of the timeline of life which charts the evolution of life. Children place pictures, labels and cards of information on pre-historic life and paleogeography onto the blank timeline to construct their own timeline of evolution. By engaging in this work they discover many inter-dependancies – the plants, the animals, the rocks, the oceans, the mountains, even the ice-ages, all interdependant, forming the web of life.

The sliver of a red strip at the end, represents humans. It visually communicates the short time that humans have lived on earth, as compared to all the other players.

The child eventually comes to see herself as the beneficiary of cosmic gifts.

Each year I hear, “Earth has been home to the jellyfish, amoeba, sponges etc etc, so much longer than it has been our home!” or “It is amoeba who are really our ancestors!”

Sreedhar’s shop on wheels

All measured up

The completed blank timeline of life

THE LONG BLACK STRIP

The story goes that the idea of the black timeline came to Montessori when she was residing in India. She had recently had a conversation with a child who had told her that there was nothing that he could learn from someone in the West as India had the oldest real civilisation in the world.

Later she observed workers in the heat and dust of Madras laying black cables in the ground.

From these two things was born the idea of the Long Black Strip – 300 meters of black cloth that represented 3 billion years of our universe’s history. The last few centimeters were coloured white to represent the time that humans have lived on earth.

Today we have reduced the 300 meters to 30 meters, and replaced the white strip with a red one.

Though the timeline does not precisely respresent the current accepted date of 4.5 billion years, it is an attempt to create an impression of the miniscule time that humans have made Earth their home.

The Long Black Strip is a compelling lesson in humility.

THE HAND CHART

The hand chart creates an impression about the importance of the hand – of work – to humans.

It is a black strip of cloth representing 7 million years of human evolution. Bang in the center is a picture of a hand with a stone tool. There is also a slim red strip right at the end that represents the birth of writing and recorded history.

All throughout the history of humans, it is their ability to work that has helped them survive.

Here echoes a message: be grateful to those of previous generations who have faithfully, lovingly, and expertly done their work in the world so that you may have life and the benefit of their knowledge!

The Hand

 

People say that narrow paths are difficult to walk about, yet, once you have narrowed down the whole, the vast and the big, to its least denominator, the narrow path is simple,

thanks to the process of reaching it.

Christoph Schiebold

Summer Camps – an ally of a consumerist society

Another academic year has come to a close, here in India. All schools are off for the next 2 months.

This is the time when flyers, billboards, e-mails, radio advertisements, banners, and other modes of advertisement that seem to be eluding me at the moment, streak our city with promises of ‘fun, exciting, educational, creative, life-changing’ summer camps!  Schools, malls, libraries, even large-ish apartment complexes are hosting them. A google search for summer camps 2013, Bangalore, throws up 798,000 results!

Parents are frantic to find the perfect summer camp for their child. Bombarded from every side they wonder if their child will be ‘missing out’ on something stimulating – essential even, if they don’t enroll. Many of these camps are inviting children as young as 3 years!

Most of these summer camps, which are increasingly calling themselves, summer carnivals, are a mish-mash of activities. They are usually a month long and children spend 2 to 3 hours a day being directed through activities ranging from robotics to yoga, to eco-awareness. The camps often promise to build the leader / scientist / artist / socially aware individual of tomorrow, in a fun way.

Summer camps often sell themselves as an anti-thesis to the traditional school system that prevails, BUT, also promise to enhance skills that children can use in this very same school system! They are, in my humble opinion, an extension of the prevailing traditional school system – the one that is failing our children and thereby, us – as a society.

More importantly though, I feel they are symptomatic of an increasingly consumerist society – a society that is failing our children.

Let’s look at some of the implications of a ‘summer camp’.

• children need to be kept busy by adults
• children need to be entertained to be happy
• children learn only in structured, labelled, adult directed situations
• learning needs to be sugar coated for children to happily accept it
• the activities offered by a summer camp cannot be a part of the regular school curriculum

I’m sure there are more implications which I have not thought of as yet.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure, most people who conduct these summer camps are genuinely interested in children and enjoy sharing their knowledge and craft. This is not a rant against the individual who is conducting a summer camp. It is however, a rant about the fact that each year a circus born out of a consumer driven society, failed school system and a myopic view of what children really need, is played out. Each year we lap it up, putting ever increasing amounts of time and not to mention,  money into it.

If an elementary aged child is interested in learning more about something, by all means, join a workshop. But let’s strip away the sugar-coated entertainment, mish-mash value of these summer camps.

At the end of the day, let’s give our children more credit.

I wonder what ‘Dandelion Wine’, the wonderful book by Ray Bradbury would look like had he grown up in todays world.

Do children belong in summer camps during their summer break, is the question that not many are asking, but should.

Journey of a Montessori Guide

via hodgepodgery

Much has been said about the development of the child.

Lately though, my thoughts have turned towards the development of the adult in a montessori environment.

Let me start by sharing my journey.

Fresh out of my training, I couldn’t wait to get into the classroom. I had read and re-read every Montessori book I could get my hands on and I had a deep desire to serve the child. I was enamoured with what could be and with the child.

I spent hours upon hours practicing presentations, planning and preparing the environment but the lack of experience showed. My first year of teaching was a whirlwind and many-a-times I felt lost at sea. Nothing worked with the ease that I thought it would. During the first year, my focus was much on what I was doing. I distinctly remember sometime towards the end of the year being struck as if by lightening by words I had read many times previously –  ”Instead of giving out what she has in herself, the teacher must bring out the full possibilities of the children” (Advanced Montessori Method – Volume 2).

Over the following years, there were times when I remembered these words and times when I had forgotten them.

I was lucky to have the support of a more mature, seasoned teacher at this fragile stage, who encouraged and gently guided.

In conversation with many teachers over the years I have found the experience of feeling lost at sea, mirrored. Many, however have felt too overwhelmed and left the classroom to move on to other things.  The role of guidance and the opportunity to work in a caring, authentic Montessori environment is so important for the new teacher.

In the ‘The Whole School Handbook’ a NAMTA publication, written by David Kahn, Sharon.L.Dubble and Renee Pendleton, The first year teacher is refered to as a Neonate being, where the ultimate task is that of survival.

As I continued on my journey, slowly, things became clearer. Each experience carried with it an immense potential for learning. I clearly remember, my third year of teaching. I was making connections every other day. The ‘A-ha!’ moments were many and frequent. This was a time I was constructing my understanding of Montessori in practice. My most valuable teacher at this stage, was the coming together of a 3 year cycle with the same children. I started out as seeing things as black and white. Slowly the ‘craft’ of montessori, those wonderful shades of grey, requiring discernment and a balance of head and heart, became more apparent to me.

In the ’The Whole School Handbook’, this is referred to as the ‘Consolidation’ phase‘, whose task is that of fluidity- of an integration of practice.

By the sixth year of teaching, my often repeated question was “what now?’. I knew that  my life’s path was connected with working with children and having the montessori philosophy guide that work. This is when I left the school I worked at and briefly tried my hand at consulting and co-conducting workshops …  but I missed the classroom. I longed for the daily rhythm of the environment, the daily watering of a seed sown and most of all – the children. This is when I started ‘The Earth School’.

In the ‘The Whole School Handbook’, this is stage is referred to as the Renewal stage. The task of this stage, if positively navigated is that of, well, renewal.

The stage after this is called ‘The Seasoned Teacher‘ and the task of this stage is a re-dedication to one’s work at a deeper level with a heightened sense of purpose.

The making of the montessori adult in some ways mirrors the development of the child. Each stage lays the foundation for what is to come and is only as strong as what has been previously built. Just as daily living and working in the prepared environment is essential to the development of the child, so is it for the development of the Montessori adult.

What developing teachers need is love, scaffolding, the opportunity to complete a 3 year cycle with the same children and most of all, faith in who they are becoming.

Ode To The Prepared Environment

Today I would like to share a beautiful post written by a dear friend and fellow Montessorian.

Her post about the prepared environment really resonates with me.

There are so many aspects to a prepared environment. The most readily available aspect is of course  the physical environment. But this is just a starting point. The prepared environment is an answer to the whole child, her physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs.

Hope all of you enjoy the post.

Montessori Sojourns – The Prepared Environment

“People are what they are as a result of their own specific environments. The life force adapts itself to fit the environment.”

Nurtured By Love – Shinichi Suzuki