Finding Our Way

“We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.”   Maria Montessori

I doubt that the world has ever seen this play out so dramatically as in our present situation.  Amongst the daily news of case counts and new restrictions, have you also noticed the people and companies who are responding in solidarity with humanity?  Some companies are making their services available at no cost, particularly to educators, children, or lower-income families.  Other companies are offering to suspend payment for essential services when needed.  Entertainers are posting free concerts.  Museums are offering free virtual tours.  Some are starting efforts to fundraise for food banks and to find creative ways to support small businesses.  Yes, some people are still hoarding toilet paper and others are continuing to practice behaviors that threaten their own health and public safety.  But as the reality that this pandemic will be with us for some time settles in, it is gratifying to see people stepping up to help meet the needs of others, forging connections.

Today’s Prepared Environment Includes Digital Resources

The needs of our students have not changed.  Our ability to meet them in the coming weeks has changed.  There are abundant sites all over the internet sharing ideas of how educators can tap into digital resources to continue to deliver content to children who are sheltering in place or practicing social distancing.  These resources can be incredibly helpful for those navigating digital space without a lot of prior experience.  As this period of isolation drags us (some of us kicking and screaming) into the digital age, the skills we build now will doubtless serve us in unexpected ways in the future.

The resources that are most frequently popping up right now are about the mechanics of delivering content.  As such, many focus on the technology of connecting, and on assignments and accountability.  It is up to us to determine how to keep our content consistent with what children have experienced in the classroom, to connect with prior learning.  One creative post I saw on Facebook showed a teacher using food items in her home to represent Golden Bead addition.  I don’t remember the totality of the scheme, but it was something like using packages of Ramen noodles to represent thousand-cubes, single-slice cheese to represent hundred-squares, cheese sticks to represent 10-bars, and individual M&Ms to represent units.  Talk about striking the imagination!

Teaching the Whole Child

As Montessorians, we know that content is but a part of what we deliver to children each day.  We teach the whole child.  Children in the second and third planes of development are intensely focused on finding their place in their social setting and on creating their social selves.  So, as we begin to find our way in the new world of distance learning, part of our focus needs to be on meeting the social/emotional needs of the children. 

We need to creatively explore ways to interact with children and, just as importantly, for them to productively interact with one another.  Here are a few ideas just to stimulate thinking.  Some of these are things people have reported trying.  Others are my own ideas.  I hope that as you read through this list, you find one or two that appeal to you and that these will inspire you to add your own ideas.  If so, please report back on things that have been successful with your children.

• Have a 20- or 30-minute morning meeting every day at a set time via Zoom, Google Hangouts, or another platform.  This allows the community to continue to come together and maintain its identity.  It also means that everyone needs to be up and dressed by that particular time, so it sets a routine, which is good for everyone.  Preserve whatever rituals you can from the classroom (daily weather report, special responses at attendance, morning jump-start activity on the board, etc.)
• Resurrect Lit Groups. Small groups can have book discussions just like the ones in the classroom, again preserving a bit of normalcy.
• Make research collaborative.  Create opportunities for children to research in pairs or trios, with each contributing the facts that they discover on their specific topic into a Google Doc, accessible only to you and the small group. 
• Make expository writing instruction collaborative. Provide the instruction that you normally do in the classroom on outlining, webbing, paragraph structure, or another aspect of expository writing and use the facts that the children gathered in pairs or trios as a database for practicing the writing process.  It can be very interesting to see 2 or 3 people each write an expository piece from the same facts, comparing their results.
• Make narrative writing instruction collaborative.  It is tricky for children to collaborate on writing a story if they jump straight into the writing stage.  If children have been learning about story grammars (setting, characters, conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution), it is easier to have them collaborate on planning the story rather than the actual writing.  Then they can each write a story that flows from the plan or they can take turns writing different parts of the story.  For those with more experience with story grammars, a fun activity begins by organizing the class into groups of three children with similar writing ability.  Offer a broad prompt and ask every child to write the beginning of the story including describing the setting and introducing the characters and the conflict.  After each has written the beginning of the story, they pass it off digitally to another person in their group of three.  Each child reads the beginning of the story that they received and writes the middle of the story – the rising action.  When all have completed the middle, the stories rotate to the third person in the group, who reads what has already been written and writes the climax and resolution.  After three rotations, there are three complete stories.  Each story returns to the person who wrote the beginning, usually triggering surprise and often laughter at where the story went after it left their hands.  In a small group “meeting”, each person can share what they had in mind when they started the story and what they
• Integrate opportunities for children to provide a short video response to a prompt.  A great app that was just recommended to me by a friend is FlipGrid.  In brief, the adult sends out a prompt.  Children respond to the prompt and to each other by video.  The adult can set the maximum time for each response.  A prompt might be to ask the class to tell one fun or interesting thing they discovered or accomplished the previous day, with the maximum time per response set at 90 seconds.  Or a prompt might be to perform a poem from memory with the maximum time set at 3 minutes.  For a tutorial of FlipGrid, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xxhqEfrtIk
• Integrate opportunities for children to present to each other.  Children will love seeing one another.  Part of instruction can be about what makes presentations lively and interesting (a life skill). If using a platform like Zoom, a team of 2 or 3 children can even present to a group jointly, switching off presenters for different sections of the presentation.  In some cases, it will be more appropriate for children to present to a subset of the class – perhaps only the children in the same grade.  You can set the stage as appropriate.
• Include Personal Interest work.  This time is ripe for encouraging children to take a deep-dive into something that has captured their attention, whether the range of topics is completely open-ended or somewhat constrained.  Right now, for example, when travel is limited, each child could be invited to take an imaginary trip somewhere.  This idea comes from personal experience: during WWII, my mother worked in the office an ordinance manufacturing plant in Wisconsin.  This was a time when travel was restricted due to gas rationing.  Every day at lunch the office manager took a road map out of his top drawer, put his feet up on the desk, and took an imaginary trip.  After lunch, he would tell my mother everywhere he went and what he saw and did along the way as if it were a real road trip.  Children taking an imaginary trip could report back on what they saw and did on their trip that was educational, recreational, and transformational.  (For math work, have them estimate the cost of the trip or the distance traveled.)
• Get the children outside of themselves.  It is well known that physical isolation encourages mental, emotional, and spiritual isolation.  One of the best ways to combat these hazards is through acts of kindness or service.  What can children do from/at home to be of service to others during this time? 
• Get children’s hands busy. Can each child learn a new Practical Life or Art skill and then share it with the group? 
• Refine rote skills.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if, when our social isolation is done, the children returned to the classroom in full possession of their math facts?  It is something that we wish for, but with all of the fascinating things typically going on in our classrooms, we rarely achieve.    I highly recommend Xtramath.  It is free.  The teacher sets up a class roster and gives access to the children.  The software assesses for known facts and those that are missed or slow, offering practice only on those facts that are needed.  When a child misses a fact, the software doesn’t buzz or make some other objectionable noise to send the child into fight or flight.  Instead, it just stops until the child realizes that it is wrong and corrects the error.  Then, that same fact is asked again within a minute or two.   The teacher can view a report that shows who has practiced and for how long, and what level of proficiency each child has achieved.  Check it out at https://xtramath.org/#/home/index. To make this collaborative, children can choose a study-buddy who can keep track of what facts their buddy is working on and can practice facts verbally by phone or just text or email the buddy a random fact to solve at various times during the school day. 
• Check-in with children.  Remember that this is new and uncomfortable for them as well.  Letting children talk to you or to each other about what they find challenging and what is unexpected (and sometimes fun) helps them process what they are feeling in a safe environment. 

Teaching the Whole Adult

Remember that children are looking to us to know how to react to all of this uncertainty.  They need to know that even though we are physically separated, we are still connected.  Now more than ever, they need to know that they are loved.  We can help this by preserving as much normalcy and tradition as possible, as we have already discussed.  But a lot is conveyed in our demeanor.  We need to present ourselves as being calm, positive, and optimistic and remain firmly anchored in facts rather than speculation.

But what if we aren’t all of those things?  What if we are struggling with our own feelings of anxiety and fear?  Two ideas:

1. Proactively work on Self-Care.  Read and reflect on this article from TedTalks, and take the six steps to heart: https://ideas.ted.com/dear-guy-im-incredibly-anxious-about-coronavirus-what-can-i-do/?utm_source=recommendation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explore&utm_term=ideas-blog-1 . Beyond that, do what most works for you. Meditate.  Reread Montessori’s writings on the Transformation of the adult.  Spend time in nature.  Spend 90% of your time in your Circle of Control or Circle of Influence.  And give yourself tremendous credit for everything you have done so far.  You are one of the rock stars of this story!
2. Fake it till you make it.  We do this often in the academic arena – usually with lessons that we haven’t quite mastered.  Sometimes, particularly in times of crisis, we are called upon to do this with and for our children.  Whether we are dealing with a natural disaster, acts of violence, or this current pandemic, we must be able to set aside our own feelings for the good of the children.  Conjure up the strongest, most positive version of yourself.  If you feel like you haven’t got it within you, channel someone you know.  Step into that role, that persona, as you prepare to interact with your children.  It may feel inauthentic at first, but consider it as practicing the person that you want to become.  And since your interactions with the children will not be live for some time, know that you don’t have to fake it for very long at one time – only as long as the Zoom meeting!  Before long, the persona will start to feel more and more natural.  It may actually help you become the person that you most admire!

When it comes right down to it, we are all navigating uncharted waters.  No one can tell us what to expect from hour to hour, let alone from week to week.  Our real challenge, as teachers and as human beings, is to do our best every day with what we are given and be content with that.  We will be most effective if we can work within this new (hopefully temporary) system, not wasting energy on things that we cannot change, but focusing on the things we can control or influence.  Watch out for one another: drop supplies for someone who can’t leave the house, call your extrovert friends to be sure they are maintaining social contact, send words of encouragement to parents and co-workers.  In this way, our lives become about more than responding to a crisis – be begin to bring about a peace that the world badly needs.

 “We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”

– Dalai Lama

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

AMS Community Chats connect.amshq.org.  Click on All Communities and then choose the “communities”  (Teachers, Public and Charter Montessorians. AMS en Español …) that you wish to follow or engage. 

Educator Temporary School Closure for Online Learning: a Facebook group that acts as a hub for breakouts into specific areas of questions or support https://m.facebook.com/groups/1584726155013357?id=1584726155013357&ref=content_filter&hc_location=ufi&_rdr

Montessori Teachers Facebook group: a private group that accepts people who are practicing teachers at any level, has breakouts by level.  Apply to be admitted to this group and then go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/2265830539/permalink/10157972722765540/ for discussions on how to navigate closures.

Montessori Elementary at Home During School Closure:  Parent Support is also a private group. Apply for membership to engage with ideas on how to support parents at home with their children. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=montessori%20elementary%20at%20home%20during%20school%20closure%3A%20parent%20support&epa=SEARCH_BOX