Last week, I hopped into my car to run an errand and tuned into the middle of a radio interview of a woman who works with adolescents; I was just in time to hear her proclaim that we humans are hard-wired to crave drama. Really? Contrary to what social media might suggest, many of us eschew drama – it is draining. As I reached out to change the station, she clarified her position, saying that we all long to be part of the big story; we long for our lives to have meaning. At that point, she had me. Great Lessons. Cosmic Task. Context and relevance. I’m in.
Her admonition was that if we don’t give children opportunities to engage with good drama, they will create random drama or bad drama to fill the void. Brilliant.
What is good drama? In short, good drama fosters empathy; it pulls participants and observers outside of themselves and into another’s world; less us vs them, more we. It shifts the focus from making sure that I get what is due me to an awareness of our inescapable interconnectedness. It promotes the paradigm that the most sustainable path to success is ensuring that all can be successful.
With all of the Montessori big stories built into our curriculum, shouldn’t our classrooms be immune to personal drama?
Perhaps we should take a critical look at how we are involving our children in big stories. If we dutifully and beautifully give all the Great Lessons once each fall and then move on to “the real curriculum”, if our Cosmic Education lacks cohesion, we might actually be fostering curricular consumerism – – the very thing that the Great Lessons and other awe-inspiring lessons are designed to combat. If our “real curriculum” lacks meaningful, challenging content in context†, if children are moving through work with a checklist mentality, we are likely creating an environment that allows or encourages children to think of learning as lacking in relevance – someone else’s story.
Our challenge, then, is to look at every day as having the potential to be part of children’s big stories. These big stories might be the classic Great Lessons or they might be something unique to a child’s passion, interest, or ever-evolving self-image, including the child’s sense of becoming accomplished in a particular skill and his sense of his place within the social group. When we mindfully connect everything we bring into our classrooms to children’s big stories, we connect them to good drama.
We help children see themselves as part of a big story in many different ways. We do so mindfully when we:
put each lesson in context with prior learning…
- Anchor new cultural content in human history as provided by Great Lessons and other subsidiary lessons.
- Link factual and procedural knowledge to prior knowledge through “what do we already know?” questions that encourage effortful retrieval.
- Pique personal interest and inspire wonder and wander through “what-if” and “what do you want to know?” questions.
- Preserve the big picture view of a procedure by intentionally showing how a new concept or step in the procedure relates to previous steps. (This is particularly relevant in linear-sequential curricula like math.)
empower children – show them that they make a difference in the classroom community…
- Relate individual choices for words and actions to the good of the community, whether the specific topic is doing classroom jobs without reminders, or practicing hospitality towards visitors, or acceptable behavior public settings like field trips.
- Involve children in problem-solving. Side benefit: results will be more effective and long-lasting because children have ownership of the solution.
- When the class makes decisions (rules, policies, or even what ingredients to put on pizzas for the party) guide children to consider the good of all over personal preferences.
promote children seeing themselves as essential to the success of their peers…
- Everyone is good at some things and less good at others. Nurture children’s connection to the success of other community members through peer-to-peer teaching and through celebrating everyone’s successes.
- Advance the idea that Personal Interest Work, while of particular relevance for the individual, benefits everyone when knowledge and passion are shared.
use literature, especially fiction, to develop empathy…
- In Literature Circle, be certain that children are prompted to reflect on how the words and actions of one character impact another. When possible, relate circumstances and feelings in the story to real-life events in the children’s lives. (Relate text-to-self and text-to-world.)
- If a child is having a particular issue, use literature to help her feel less alone in her struggle. Consult your local children’s librarian for books that relate to specific feelings or difficulties. Recently a Montessori friend shared the story of how she helped a child who felt a bit like a social misfit by recommending the novel Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli. This young adult novel explores the fall and rise and fall and rise of a high school girl’s popularity and her struggle with being true to herself. When the child expressed her appreciation of the book, the teacher asked her if she would like having that book as a lit group selection and the child gave an enthusiastic “yes!”
- There is no drama like theatrical drama! Can the children read or participate in play(s)? A very popular novel choice in my classroom was Avi’s Nothing But the Truth.
involve the children in meaningful, self-directed community service… What could be more effective in connecting children to good drama than engaging in something bigger than the self?
- Guide the children to choose who (within some limits) – which population or cause do they most want to support? The more choice they can exercise in this decision, the greater their involvement in the big story. Side benefit: when we are aware of others’ difficulties, the more easily we can see our own struggles less personally – more as being part of human condition.
- Be certain that the choice is well-linked to why – the story can only be a big story if there is significance to the children’s activity. If the community gets behind the chosen cause, what difference will they make? The magnitude of the difference is immaterial – the fact that there will be a difference is the focus.
- Encourage formal or informal research before the children choose what they will do to support the cause – the type of support that would be the most helpful is not always what would be the easiest or most fun to carry out. Most organizations will gladly accept financial donations, but often something that involves personal effort and more directly relates to the recipients is inherently more rewarding. Visiting and making an authentic connection with residents of an assisted living facility may produce more opportunity for children to see the impact of their efforts than having a read-a-thon to raise money for a cause.
- Empower the children to choose how they will serve (how they will raise money or prepare to visit the elderly). Again, the more hands-on children can be with the planning and decision-making, the more connected they will feel to the big story. If a financial donation is the only way to impact a particular cause, designing an activity that is somehow related to the cause will add meaning. For example, if the children want to support the ASPCA, organizing a furry scurry or having a sale of pet-themed items will add relevance to the children’s efforts.
Reflection for adults: Where do the children have opportunities to engage with good drama? In what ways can good drama be introduced to the classroom environment and/or curriculum? If you offer the Reflection for children, below, to your class, your next steps might be to read all of the responses, edit out those that would be inappropriate as a class activity, and bring the most common responses to the class at a future meeting. Invite the children to discuss the top responses to try to build a consensus: what cause(s) really fire the group up? Is it enough of a passion to inspire action? Initiate the process where children determine the who, why, what, and how of community service.
Reflection for children: Montessori schools are committed to peace through social justice. We believe that by helping ensure that everyone’s needs are met, we can achieve a more peaceful world. Social justice issues arise every day for people, animals, communities, places, etc.
What causes inspire you? What makes the cause(s) particularly compelling to you? How does that fire your passion? Do you have any ideas about the kind of support that they would find most helpful?
† See the 3/1 blog, Defending Normalization, for more thoughts on providing challenging content and context.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson