Ubiquitous Change

When did you first realize that the pandemic was going to change our day-to-day lives at a fundamental level?  Believe it or not, here in the US, it has been about 6 months since we began life in the liminal– the transitional space from our previous way of structuring our time, our community, and even our identity, to our new way that is yet to emerge.  During this time, we have been called upon to make sweeping changes to our mindsets and behaviors.  In every aspect of our lives, we have had to learn how to modify our habits and attitudes to prioritize the good of all ahead of our own personal comfort and preferences. 

During this same timeframe, as we all know, there has been a long-overdue outcry for authentic social justice for people of color and for people in poverty.  This awakening is also calling upon many of us to make sweeping changes to our mindset and behaviors.  And the planet itself has been sending us messages of the need to change in the form of wildfires, floods, hurricanes, record-setting arctic ice melt, and even murder hornets.  And of course, there is this little pandemic that we are living with…

It has indeed been a traumatic 2020, with each person’s experience being unique and extraordinarily personal according to their circumstances and experiences. 

HOLDING OUR COLLECTIVE BREATH

Many have responded to these many and varied demands for change by putting one foot in front of the other, courageously designing, and revising, and implementing (and re-revising) plans and protocols.  While that resiliency no doubt got us through the initial pivot last March, it is not sustainable over the long haul.  We cannot thrive if we are getting by, focusing on today while holding our collective breath for the next change to come. It is time to acknowledge that change is going to be with us for some time to come. 

It is not just the big changes, like widespread school and business closures; it is also the temporary and sometimes incremental changes.  In education, it is the toggling back and forth and back and forth between in-person and online learning accompanied by changing opinions on what constitutes best practices and a changing demographic of the class as families opt-in or opt-out of in-person learning or have to unexpectedly self-isolate.  We cannot anticipate the timing or magnitude of changes to come, but there is little doubt that they are coming, and not as a singular event.  Until such time as we develop herd immunity, we are likely to be dealing with changes large and small on a daily or weekly basis. 

CHANGE AND TRAUMA

As we have discussed in previous blogs, even change that we willingly choose is stressful;  how much more so are the changes that are thrust upon us?  Each time that we come up against something that we must learn to do differently, each time we have to cancel or postpone an event, each time we have to engage mindfully to accomplish something that we used to do quickly and easily on “auto-pilot”, we experience a micro-trauma.  The cumulative effect of all of these micro-stressors is that they build upon each other and upon larger-scale traumas.  Something that we could handle with aplomb in a normal year can seem insurmountable in the current environment.  We become chronically alert, wired for fear.  In aggregate, this can produce feelings of overwhelm which, left unaddressed, can result in total paralysis

It is time to take a longer view of the changes that are awaiting us.  Perhaps we need to look at our present ever-changing landscape as not being liminal or transitional, but as our new (temporary) long-lasting normal. 

A NEW NORMAL?

If we believed that this time of rapid, repeated, and somewhat unforeseeable change is our new normal, what would we do differently?   First, I believe that we would build a community that is less dependent upon physical presence, that embodies flexibility and nimbleness while promoting resilient, interdependent identities.  Secondly, we would mindfully include trauma-informed practices in our work, both for ourselves and for the children.  Fortunately, these two goals are mutually reinforcing in many ways.

The latest issue of Montessori Life (Fall 2020) featured a timely interview with Colleen Wilkenson on the subject of trauma-informed care.  In it, Ms. Wilkenson said, “The most important aspect of a Montessori classroom isn’t the pink tower or the colored bead stair – it is the relationship you have with each and every one of your students.” 

This is something that we know well how to accomplish when we are in-person, and which many have noted is so much more difficult to do with online instruction.  What if we intentionally design a classroom culture and community that is built on relationship, with as many practices a possible that remain the same between locations, so that a bare minimum need to be changed when the location or protocol changes?

BUILDING AN ADAPTIVE COMMUNITY

Following is a plethora of ideas of simple things that can be done to help build strong connections with children and a resilient, adaptive community.  Some of these ideas are “best practices” whether in-person or online.  Others are ways to make the two delivery platforms feel more alike so that when toggling between locations there is less to manage.  Hopefully, there are a few that resonate with you as something that would improve your process when in the classroom, online, or both.

Social/Emotional Environment & Practices

• One of the first things that we are taught in training is to crouch down or kneel to speak to a child on an eye-to-eye level. We probably all do that naturally when in-person. The online equivalent to that is to have conversations where the child is looking only at you and visa-versa.  This can be accomplished in a group setting (in many platforms) by having everyone set the controls to “Speaker View” rather than “Gallery View”.  When listening to a child, spend some time looking directly into the camera rather than at the image of their face on the monitor, to give them more of a feeling of eye contact.  When transitioning to in-person learning, whenever a group discussion begins, remind children to adjust their settings to “Speaker View” – making eye contact with whomever is speaking.
• Nothing builds a connection with a child more effectively than periodically having some 1-on-1 time to check in on how they are doing academically, emotionally, and socially.  This is accomplished both organically and systematically in the classroom but must be done more intentionally when online.  Spread 1-on-1 meetings with the children over a number of days to avoid it becoming a stress-producing “have to” on your checklist.  And feel free to check in with some children more often than others – don’t establish a schedule that the children/families come to expect!
• For many years, we have talked about the importance of providing children with an emotion-vocabulary.  When children “own” words like angry, frustrated, anxious, and disappointed, they are better able to recognize the difference between each of these words, which leads to more effective remediation; decreasing frustration is different from letting go of disappointment.  Never has having a refined emotion-vocabulary been more important.  In class meetings, consider discussing pairs of emotional words: antonyms like anxious and calm or near-synonyms like excited and energized.  Discuss how the pair are alike and how they are different, and challenge children to use them in a way that is appropriate to something they are already doing (i.e. literature discussion).  Imagine what that will do to discussions of feelings in group meetings and academic lessons! 
• Online can feel like a safer place to share feelings.  If it seems like children are less apt to share in person, consider asking everyone to sit in a circle facing outwards for a particular discussion. 
• If the in-person start of the day is typically a social time for children to greet one another, offer the first 5+ minutes of an online lesson as a time for children to talk to one another freely at least a few times per week.  At first, there will probably have to be a prompt, like, “What did you do last night after dinner?”  Excuse yourself visually from the meeting for that time period to avoid it becoming an adult-moderated discussion, but monitor the conversation from nearby for appropriateness, just as you would in the classroom.  Then, if the tradition is to call children to a lesson by ringing a bell, ring a bell to start the meeting or lesson.
• In the classroom, children will organically choose to work with one another.  This satisfies an identified need of children in this plane of development to develop their social muscle, responding to the herd instinct.  It can create important opportunities for conflict resolution and to learn time management skills.  These life-lesson opportunities arise less organically with online learning.  Consider making lavish use of break-out rooms for things like follow-up work.  If two children remain in a breakout room until a particular synchronous work is complete, they can support one another just as they would in the classroom.  If your technology permits it, you can even pop into the breakout rooms to see how children are doing, just as you might in the classroom.
• If online you use break-out rooms to ensure that everyone has a chance to share their thoughts, initiate the same process in the classroom with pair-shares, where children answer a given prompt with the person sitting nearest to them.  For bonus points, call both the online and in-person process “breakouts”.  For longer in-person breakout sessions (partner work) consider sometimes doing a “breakout room shuffle”, where partners or teams are established by pulling names randomly from a bag just like computer-assigned groups, particularly if children are newly returned to the classroom setting and unaccustomed to choosing partners.
• Be sure that celebrations that are part of the classroom tradition are included when online.  I recently saw a touching video of a birthday-boy at home, carrying a globe as he walked an ellipse that his parents had taped onto the kitchen floor. 
• Remember that this is the age for developing not only social muscle but also imagination.  Consider Readers’ Theater as a way to promote both of these, using text from literature or from work written by children in response to lessons or personal interest work.
• When the class is predominantly meeting in person, have a computer in the classroom dedicated to teleconferencing with children who are isolating at home.  The conferencing can be child-child, child-teacher, or child-class.

Physical Environment & Practices

• If the in-person practice is to change into slippers in the classroom, make that an online practice too.  Remember Mr. Rogers changing his shoes at the beginning and ending of each episode?  Perhaps this is a ritual that can be established online too.
• Mimic the online process of muting at the beginning of a lesson by using the same words whether online or in-person, “Please mute yourself as we begin the lesson.”  For “bonus points”, create tickets for each child to bring to the lesson that say mute in red on one side and unmute in green on the other side.  Instead of raising a hand, the child flips their ticket to the unmute side, to show that they want to add to the discussion. 
• Mimic the in-person process of keeping personal belongings in a zipper pouch, cubbie, or tackle box by asking the children to do the same at home.  Begin each lesson by having children hold up their notebook, then the planner, then the supply container in front of the camera, just as we sometimes ask children to show us that they are prepared to begin an in-person lesson.  Mimic end of the day clean-up by asking children to tidy up all of their supplies while still on camera, before signing off.
• If the online practice is for each child to stay online at the conclusion of a lesson until they have completed one example of the process demonstrated, this can easily be adopted when in the classroom.  To reinforce the “sameness”, develop an end-of-lesson mantra that is used irrespective of location, such as, “It is time for you to try this now.  Stay with me until you have completed one ____, and then hold it up so I can see it.  If it looks like you are on the right track, I will wave goodbye, and then you can go to work independently.”

Academic Environment and Practices

One of the most difficult things about online Montessori classrooms is not having the same degree of confidence that we are connecting with the children and the children are connecting with the materials.  That is largely because as Montessorians, we are process people.  We know that if children’s processes are solid, the product will also be sound; we also are keenly aware that it is possible for the child to produce a satisfactory product without understanding the process.  Here are a few ways to check in on these vital connections.

• If your technology allows it, as part of a lesson, send children to breakout rooms with 1-2 people each to practice an example and then pop around between the rooms, checking on children’s processes
• Have some time at the end of the day/week for each child to show and describe their favorite work of the day/week.  Ask follow-up questions that get to the process aspect of the work.  For example, if the work was symbolizing sentences, ask the child to describe how they typically approach a new sentence; do they always look for the verb first, or do they go from left to right?  If the class is large, consider having a different group report out each day; groups could be created by grade, birth month, alphabetically by first or last name, or any other distinguishing element. 
• Occasionally include as part of a follow-up having the child give the lesson they have been practicing to a parent (if the parents can allow the child to remain in control of the lesson), a sibling, or even a stuffed animal!  Children can videotape their lesson (initially with parent help) and post it for your review.  If children enjoy sharing their videos with one another, Flipgrid can be a great tool.

This is a long laundry list of ideas intended to stimulate your own thinking about what will work for you and your children.  Each is designed to reinforce the beautiful relationships you already have while promoting practices that transcend the specific location from which you are delivering content.  Most of these require nothing more than intentionality and a bit of repetition to put them into practice.  Of course, some will apply more or have greater appeal to you than others.   If you have practices along these lines that you would like to share with other readers of this blog, please share them in the comments. I know people will appreciate your ideas!

Above all, remember that there is no playbook for what we are doing.  We must be good observers and detectives to learn what connects us most deeply with the children and what connects the children most deeply with concrete learning.  This makes it ever more important to stay as deeply connected to Montessori philosophy as we can.  It is so easy when we are charting unfamiliar territory to become so embroiled in the “have-to”s like making take-home packets and learning the online technology that we forget why we became Montessori teachers in the first place – it is still and always be all about the kids! 

Reflection for Adults

• What change in my situation/practice am I fighting?  Does thoughts of that change bring out frustration, anger, fear, or some other emotion?  What if this change was a new normal and that everything is proceeding according to a benevolent plan, leading to some greater good?  Would I feel and act differently?

Reflection for Children (choose one)

• Who in the class do you know the least about?  What can you do in the next week to get to know that person and how can you share things that make that person unique with the group?
• What have you done in the last 6 months that you have never done before?  What have you done in a different or new way?   Doing new things often takes courage, putting aside any concerns or fears and trying something new anyway.  How would you like to practice social, academic, or emotional courage in the next few weeks?  What would support you in that?

Image by Roy Buri from Pixabay 

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Yogi Berra