Who is in your tribe?
Last week, I was with my tribe – 4,000 passionate Montessorians from around the globe, all focused on improving our individual and collective practices. I sometimes forget from year to year how much value there is in gathering, in being with people who understand why we care so deeply about how children are taught and not just what they are taught. People who care as much about who children are becoming as what they can produce. The energy at these conferences is often palpable – more like a reunion than a convention – with animated sharing of ideas going on in little pockets everywhere.
It set me on a path of wondering about our primal need to love and be loved – to be part of a community. Maslow included “love and belonging” as the third rung on his Hierarchy of Human Needs, right behind physiological needs for food, water, and shelter and the need for safety and security. While not expressly called out in Montessori’s Fundamental Needs of Humans, it could be swept into the category of Social Customs, since that is how we express community. In whatever way we choose to categorize or discuss it, being part of a tribe is something that helps us feel whole, valued, and cared about.
A strong classroom community also provides a path towards normalization, especially in the second and third planes of development when creating the social self rises to prominence. When this community is well developed, students know that they are valued and respected members of the tribe. While children naturally have better friends and best friends, there is a connection between all class members – an ability to think and act in terms of the collective. When the classroom culture arises from this sense of community, grace and courtesy lessons, conflict resolution, problem-solving, and everyday acts like classroom jobs are overtly rooted in how individual behaviors impact the needs and rights of the group. The sense of membership in something that is bigger than “self” not only satisfies the individual’s need for belonging but also provides a framework for each child to develop both self-discipline and empathy for other classroom members – two of the four elements that Montessori said characterized the normalized child and environment.
Sometimes, in our eternal quest for normalization, we lose sight of how radically this differs from the authoritarian model, where the adult makes all of the choices for the children – a model that is expressly designed to promote compliance. Consider for a moment the difference in the way a child views himself in each of the two models and how that will affect the way he views himself as an adult. Even when the classroom is not completely normalized (i.e. most of the time), growing up in an environment where each person is empowered to self-advocate and taught how to balance personal wants and needs with those of others, where liberty is earned through discipline, creates a paradigm that sets the child up to find personal and professional fulfillment in life. He is set on a path to discover his cosmic task. Powerful stuff!
We usually give community building a lot of overt attention at the beginning of the school year, gradually shifting our focus to more academic endeavors after just a few weeks. If we continue to implicitly or explicitly emphasize community in class activities and decisions, if we actively promote and model inclusion and seeking understanding when problem-solving, the community will continue to grow across the school year.
In the closing weeks of the year, in the face of the torrent of activities that populates this time, community building is usually pushed to the back burner, often limited to culminating event(s). This will maintain the tribe, to be sure. But because we have age blended classrooms, much can be gained by actively promoting community as the year wraps up.
Community is built through shared experiences. These experiences can be spontaneous or long planned. They can be first-time events or long-established and much-anticipated traditions. The key to transforming mere activity into community building is mindfully placing emphasis on relating the individual experience to the group experience.
Is the class scheduled to take a field trip in these closing weeks? Bonding can be heightened by pre-trip small or large group preparation activities, especially if children are empowered to determine what will best prepare them for the experience. Capitalize on the trip the day after by having the children share with one another (verbally or through some creative medium) how the trip affected them – how it increased not only their knowledge but also how it changed the way they thought or felt about something.
Is Planting Day part of your school’s culture? Help children take ownership of their part of the project, perhaps through collaborating to plan and prepare the beds assigned to the class (guest speaker form a local garden center optional).
A powerful way to build community is through setting and working towards a common goal. These can be academic, such a goal for everyone to help each other achieve math fact automaticity by the end of the year, or they can be rooted in social justice, such as planning and carrying out a day of service. Bonding through goals is optimized when interdependence is the focus – each person sees his/her contribution to the success of others as integral to group achievement.
Also, food. There is something magic about shared experiences over food. I once had a student tell me that she remembered every lesson she ever ate.
As the weeks wind down, there will be opportunities to bond over transitioning into new roles or new classrooms. That will be a topic of a blog in late April. In the meantime, consider these reflections:
Reflection for Adults: How do I view the “health” of my community? What have been the best bonding activities of the year to date? In what ways have I kept the importance of community on the children’s radar this year? Reflecting on the descriptions of ways to turn mere activity into bonding experiences, what is on the horizon that, with a little advance planning, I can elevate the outcome to include community building?
Thinking ahead, are there traditions in place for children who are transitioning to a new classroom – those transitioning out of my class and those transitioning in? Thinking back to previous years, would these be more accurately be characterized as mere activities or bonding experiences? If I wish to modify current practices, do I need to build buy-in with other teachers?
Reflection for Children: A community is a place or a group in which people feel like a member. They care about one another and feel that others care about them. Members of a community have something in common but are not all alike. Members appreciate their differences; they recognize each other’s strengths and challenges and work to understand each other’s idiosyncrasies and differences. Members of a community help each other to be successful and celebrate each other’s achievements.
In what ways does this describe our class?
How can we do better?
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African Proverb
Do you have a Montessori topic that you would like to see addressed in a future blog? E-mail me at lockhartlearning@gmail.com or PM me through Facebook!