What’s the point of studying social sciences?

By Rose Langridge – English and History Teacher, High School

History is about analyzing the past. It is never finished. The way we remember things over time changes and the things that are really important to us are not always important to the people around us. Ᾱkonga (students) navigate their way through a full history and do not just engage with the good. We include many voices in the narrative of history and we discuss which voices dominate and which voices are left out. Ᾱkonga learn to find empathy for people from the past and also how to critically evaluate the world the way it was in the past.

In senior social studies the emphasis is on now and the future. How can we change the world and solve its ‘wicked’ problems? A ‘wicked’ problem is a social or cultural problem that is either difficult or impossible to solve. There is no template to follow when tackling a wicked problem, although history may provide a guide. In the words of Mark Sheehan a senior lecturer at Victoria University, “knowing about the past is the business of informed citizens”.

Maria Montessori spoke in the same way with the world in turmoil in 1948. She saw the importance of adolescents understanding the government and said that, “It is necessary that the human personality should be prepared for the unforeseen, not only for the conditions that can be anticipated by prudence and foresight … but should develop at the same time the power of adapting itself quickly and easily”. This is the aim of the social sciences, to guide the adolescent and give them the tools to adapt to the world around them.

Most social problems such as political instability, poverty, disease and famine are wicked because they cannot be ‘fixed’. These wicked problems can be seen as happening somewhere else. Whilst the ākonga at Wā Ora are in the lucky position to help others, there are wicked problems that they will face as they leave school – climate change, global youth unemployment, growing social inequality and battling multinational and voter suppression, just to name a few.

And this is also important in the workforce. Managers around the world, when quizzed, said the main thing they were looking for in a prospective employee was someone who can solve unstructured problems with strong interpersonal skills.

We can help ākonga learn how to be designers of change. Though they may not fix the problems, they can indeed mitigate the negative consequences of these problems. In a time when the pursuit of happiness is such a fundamental part of people’s expectations of the world, learning about the problems of the world and engaging in how to help should be a fundamental part of education. We need to empower ākonga to ask difficult questions and to find ways to develop skills to become social change makers.

What Do Shopping for Schools and Shopping for Shoes Have in Common?

Reprinted with permission of Wendy Calise, Countryside Montessori School, USA

So, I am looking for new shoes.

Here is what I want:

Black -Two inches high – Wedge heels -With a strap – Leather – Open toe – Dressy

And I want them by Friday.

Answer: No Problem!

We expect what we purchase to be tailored to our particular specifications. There is almost nothing we can’t find, nothing we can’t ask, and nothing we can’t get delivered. In this day and age, why can’t school deliver my order like every other business does?

Let’s consider some actual parent requests:

  • More homework / Less homework
  • Strict Enforcement of Policy / More Flexibility
  • An Exception for My Child / More Accountability for Another Family’s Student
  • More Attention to Testing / Greater Focus on Real Learning
  • More Technology/ More Hands On Learning
  • More Options for Parent Education/ Fewer Requirements for Attendance at
  • Meetings
  • More Performances / Fewer Performances
  • Give a Student a Bigger Part in Performance…
  • Change the Songs in the Choral Program…
  • Classes Three Days a Week…
  • Print Instead of Cursive…
  • More Book Groups…
  • More Math…
  • Expel Another Family’s Student…

Every time a school agrees to move the goal post for you, you can bet they are moving the goal post for other families as well. And oftentimes the “yes” to another family will come at the expense of your child.

Every time your school faculty and staff deny a request, they are upholding a core value of the school. They are preserving the model of education that you have decided is the very best.

The schools with the greatest integrity and deepest commitment to their work hold fast to their rules, policies and mission; even when it is unpopular in the moment or with a particular family.

This is a critical but very nuanced message. Wā Ora has a clear methodology, a strong mission and a community of families who share a common vision regarding education. The students at Wā Ora are guided by the professional staff that you met during your interview process, not by the beliefs or dictates of other parents.

The clearer a school is about its policies, the more it sticks to its principles and the higher its expectations for families, the greater the quality of the educational experience for the students.

So, what do shopping for schools and shoes have in common?

At a good school, not much.

Nurturing Tamariki at Home – Part 2

By Tania Gaffney – Deputy Principal, Primary and Rata Teacher

This newsletter article picks up where my last one left off, sharing some tips about what you can do at home to help nurture tamariki.

This is a very simple tip perhaps for older children and teens who have electronic devices. When children are in bed, place all their electronic devices are in the kitchen to charge.  This reduces the temptation for them to be up playing games or checking messages at all hours of the night and missing out on sleep that is so vital for their functioning the next day.  Studies have been done showing just how much sleep is being lost by children because of their screen use and it can be as much as 2 or 3 hours a night. There have also been studies showing that those who have screen time right before bed take longer to fall asleep, so it might be a good idea to turn the TV off and put all the devices in the kitchen well before bedtime to help with the winding down process of getting children (and us also!) ready for bed.

Another simple idea (in theory, often harder in practice!) is to give children the gift of time.  Try not to have your children’s lives so crammed full of things to do/places to go/people to see, that they never have any down time (and, in this context, ‘down time’ does not mean screen time).  Children need time to be bored.  When a child says ‘I’m bored’ we can often try and jump in there and fix it with technology, but if we always do this, we aren’t giving them the chance to listen to their own promptings. They need time to run and play, build huts in the yard/lounge/bedroom and read – but not all the time, as reading all the time can be just as isolating as being on a screen. They need time to potter about the house/yard just doing nothing much, to make something with that empty box from the recycling, observe or draw that bird or insect in the backyard.  These, and anything else they think of, are activities that you don’t need to be involved with.  You don’t always need to be there suggesting as this often means the children will rely on you for the ideas. I enjoy this quote from Nancy H. Blakey, a writer and educator, who said,

“Pre-empt the time spent on television and organized activities and have them spend it instead on claiming their imaginations. For in the end, that is all we have. If a thing cannot be imagined first – a cake, a relationship, a cure for AIDS – it cannot be. Life is bound by what we can envision. I cannot plant imagination into my children. I can, however, provide an environment where their creativity is not just another mess to clean up but welcome evidence of grappling successfully with boredom. It is possible for boredo m to deliver us to our best selves, the ones that long for risk and illumination and unspeakable beauty. If we sit still long enough, we may hear the call behind boredom. With practice, we may have the imagination to rise up from the emptiness and answer.”

We can’t expect children who never have time of their own to organise, to turn into adults who can organise their days.

Insights from a Montessori Teacher in Training

By Joel Batson – Tōtara Teacher, Primary

Two years ago I left a job teaching in the New Zealand public school system to teach here at Wā Ora.

Back then, the pull to work in Montessori was heightened by the knowledge I had already gained through my wife and I sending our son along to Wā Ora to be in Pohutukawa class.  I could see that the way Montessori did things was different to mainstream and that those differences aligned with some of the things I had always thought could be done better.

Since then, as a part of my ongoing Montessori training, I have been fortunate to be able to see Montessori environments in action in a number of different settings, both in New Zealand and Australia, at different levels and in different stages of development.

Through these experiences and through working alongside the great team at Wā Ora, my convictions about how Montessori works and what it’s all about really seem to have grown and deepened.

So as I reflect, I find that a Montessori education is truly supposed to function as an “aid to life” (Maria Montessori) and seeks to see and develop the potential in each and every child that walks through the doors.

I see that a Montessori education strives to take care of the whole child.  And yes it really does try to look at the child holistically, meeting the child where they are at and figuring out what their next steps are – physically, emotionally, socially and academically.  The child is then encouraged to consider the spiritual side of themselves; to contemplate the part they have to play in the universe.

I also see that a Montessori education looks to create community.  It is about the child and all those invested in that child’s life and well-being working together to achieve the best possible outcomes for that child.  And that outcome really is a joyful child that is excited about learning and able to think creatively for him or herself.  I see that this excitement for learning can only really occur if it is also modelled by the others in the environment, both children and adults.

In my musings over the past few years I am pleased to find that Maria Montessori in many ways was actually in just the right place as a scientist to stumble upon what could easily be called ‘common sense’.

You do not need to be in a strictly ‘Montessori’ environment to achieve the above outcomes.  Other people in other times and places have taught children in such ways.  But, through the Montessori Method we are privileged to have a proven scientific way, supported by more and more modern research, of making sure that these things can and will happen for as wide a range of children as possible.

A common conversation (and social learning)

by David Starshaw, Mathematics Teacher – High School

 “Where do you work?”
“Oh, I’m a High School teacher.”
“Really? Where do you teach?”
“I teach in Naenae at Wā Ora Montessori School.”
“Wait, Montessori? I thought that was for preschoolers?”
And so on…
I’ve had this conversation χ+1 times where χ is as many times as I can remember. Inevitably, the conversation will then turn to: “So, what’s different about your school?” And this is an enjoyable conversation for me.
I like answering this question because I get to share why I like teaching in a Montessori environment and the listener consistently answers “It just makes sense!” Especially if I’m talking to another teacher. I’m never short for conversation on training days if I mention I work in a Montessori High School.
What makes sense about a Montessori High School, specifically the 12-15 program? We teach them according to their developmental needs. Adolescents have passed the second plane of ‘cosmic education’ where they collect facts, interests and form practice societies. They are in the third plane of preparing for real society and learning to be adults.
How do we do this? We have community meeting once a week where any student can bring up a topic to discuss, agree with one student, disagree with another and be heard by 50 of their peers and teachers. We support students to look after their own needs during long work cycles. Been working on a document for the last two hours? Feeling yourself fading? Take a walk, grab some food, do what you need to do to come back fresh. We expect students to empathise with each other. Through restorative practices, students explore harm done to themselves, others and the wider community. They take steps that they decide are necessary to repair the harm and decide what needs to happen for them to feel restored to one another.
Did you notice that none of the above are ‘academic’? Academic learning happens too. They still learn to factorise quadratics, they can compare a homozygous and heterozygous genotype and can tell you how to “save the bees!” But more so than any other time in their development, their academic interests are diminished and compete with their social interests. “How do I look right now?” “Am I in the right or wrong here?” “Will people laugh if I say that? Or is it too far?”

We match our teaching to what they need to know. And what adolescents need to know is how to become adults that contribute to society, understanding that they have influence in their own lives and in others’, and that they have valuable skills which they can use to gain financial independence. It takes three years for them to ‘get it’. And it’s wonderful when they do.

‘Creativity in the Montessori Classroom’ By Anita Gokal, Kauri Teacher – 6-9 Primary

If we think about the technological revolution in our lives today, we can see that famous people such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page (inventors of google search engine), Will Wrights (inventor of The Sims, Simcity and Super Mario) and Jeff Bezos (the founder of Amazon) are just a few who have had a profound impact on us though their creativity. You may be wondering why I chose these individuals on my list here. To my astonishment, all of them have been Montessori children!

Wow! Isn’t that a big undertaking of a Montessori classroom – to prepare individuals who can create life changing things? Indeed it is!

So how do we support creativity in our classroom when we often don’t see any children’s work on the walls or bulletin boards? This is sometimes a huge question asked of us as educators.

To answer this, I compared two definitions of creativity. According to Dr Montessori, “What is called creation is in reality a composition, a construction raised upon a primitive material of the mind, which must be collected from the environment by means of the senses.” (Spontaneous Activity in Education, pg. 245). And according to the Oxford dictionary, creativity is defined as “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness”.

Both the definitions support the use of ideas to construct and create. In Montessori preschool, children collect sensorial impressions. The precise materials allow children the opportunity to refine and accurately classify and abstract their impressions. The creativity at this age is in using the observation and applying it to identify the known. In primary, however, the children use their imagination to augment things in their work. Every key lesson offers the opportunity to explore and investigate a topic further and all follow up work opens the doors to creation by virtue of using the imagination.

Teaching in a primary class often surprises me with the unique “big work” that the children create in all the classes at Wā Ora. I see these on the deck or outdoors, from making volcano models to making a garden shed; from caring for the animals to sharing community lunches; be it a creation of a simple word problem in math or making the cube of 9 to the power of tens; or researching the causes of extinction of whales or finding the effects of global warming. Our children keep going until they have satisfied themselves, challenged themselves, solved problems, created models, timelines or mathematical solutions of whatever it is that has intrigued and captured their interest.

It is natural that the future leaders of the world who will make a difference for others by creating new and innovative solutions to the issues of tomorrow will be found in no other than a Montessori environment where they can “be more!”

Reflections of a Montessori Directress By Amy Johnson, Kowhai Head Teacher – Preschool

I was recently asked to find a quote from Maria Montessori that I found inspiring and to reflect on it for publication. The biggest challenge for me was narrowing it down to ONE quote!  So I thought I might share a few of them here with you all.

“The most important period of life is not the age of university studies but the first one, the period from birth to age six. For that is the time when man’s intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed.”

The truth of this statement is demonstrated to me every day. Not only in my work with the children, but with my conversations with adults in my life.  Any character attribute I assign myself, I can find its source in experiences of my childhood. This statement also highlights perfectly Dr Montessori’s amazing observational skills and a vision beyond her time. This statement was made close to 100 years ago, before all the scientific developments of brain research that have supported this in so many ways.

“Any child who is self-sufficient, who can tie his shoes, dress or undress himself, reflects in his joy and sense of achievements; the image of human dignity, which is derived from a sense of independence.”

You have all seen it. I see it every day. This is what keeps me sitting on my hands when I see a child struggling with an activity or the acquisition of a skill. “The image of human dignity”… The pride in, and development of, not only the skill the child is struggling to acquire, but of the sense of SELF. There is an incredible development of self that comes from having struggled and conquored something difficult. Next time you see your child working to complete a task… allow that struggle. Yes, you (as the adult) could do that task much quicker, much more simply… but YOU don’t need the practice. And what you can unintentionally take away is an amazing self-building experience for your child, and often an incredible sense of accomplishment. Teach your child to ask for help when he/she wants it (before frustration sets in) and then follow an easy rule: Do NOT help your child unless you are asked to, by your child. I think you will be amazed at how long and hard they will struggle to accomplish something and at the growth of spirit that occurs when the task is completed. Also, try asking your child if they would like your help before your hands reach in to complete the task.

“If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, then there is little hope in it bettering man’s future.”

This is the quote I want to leave you with. For your own reflection, for your thought, and for inspiration.

Montessori Tips for the Home by Tania Gaffney, Rata Teacher and DP Primary

Over the course of my time as a Montessori teacher I have often come across books, readings or professional development that could be handy to parents for application at home, so I have decided to share some of these tips and thoughts with you.

  • Prepare every room in your home so your tamariki can join in fully in your family life and start their journey to independence. For example, prepare a place in your fridge or cupboard with healthy snacks and drinks that children can reach. Use appropriate sized jugs and child friendly containers, so they can help themselves during the day or after school. Remember with this, you need to talk about how much is enough – how often and how much of something they can have. You could go to the shop together and look at options of what’s available. Remember to show in detail how to set-up, serve and clear away.  Be clear with instructions – saying “don’t eat too much” or “don’t make a mess” is not helpful.
  • Make sure all your child’s possessions can be properly contained and displayed for use. If they can’t be, then they may have too much and you might need to cull. Go through these things and take out anything that is broken or incomplete and therefore unusable. Put some toys into boxes and store them so they can be rotated.  This could be every month or twice a term.  This means children will appreciate them more and not grow bored with what they have.  Your child may want to help you do this.  Also spend time making their room attractive with a place for everything.
  • Stay on top of the tidying. This doesn’t mean you should nag your children to do it, rather set some boundaries around it, eg. one thing out at a time. Having a place for everything to go as mentioned above also helps.  When things get overwhelming in the tidying department (as they will, even with the best intent in the world) help them, but divide up the jobs, giving the children jobs that suit their age and stage, while you do a job as well.
  • Supply your child with materials that are creative and open ended and that build up skills that could translate indirectly to the classroom and that connect them to the world of art, culture, language, science, geography and history. Fill your house with books, maps, atlases, a globe, dictionaries. Look at them whenever someone travels, moves or when something current or historical comes up. Spend time in nature with your ākonga.  We are lucky to be living in Wellington where there are all sorts of geological features.  You could find an isthmus, a peninsula, notice the river, walk on the hills, and notice the clouds and rock formations.  Collect things to study.  Take photos of things like different trees or leaves and see if you can name them looking at books from the library.

This is all for now but hopefully these are useful tips that you will have fun applying.

Adolescence and Montessori by Stuart Mason, High School Teacher

A small revolution in Kawakawa occupations work began this term.  Growing plants under cover, composting, setting up a radio station, keeping chickens and preparing a fleet of bicycles are projects being undertaken by our 12-15 year olds that aim to serve needs in the community.  All italicised quotes below are Maria Montessori’s, from Appendix A of ‘From Childhood to Adolescence’.

‘Men with hands and no head, and men with head and no hands are equally out of place in the modern community … Education should therefore include the two forms of work, manual and intellectual, for the same person, and thus make it understood by practical experience that these two kinds complement each other and are equally essential to a civilized existence.’

The occupations units aren’t just a means of occupying students with directed manual tasks.  They are about applying knowledge from the curriculum and elsewhere, in the service of the community.  The teachers have the challenge of making the New Zealand Curriculum a living thing expressed in the form of this project work.  It becomes ‘just in time’ learning rather than ‘just in case’ learning.

‘Adaptability – this is the most essential quality; for the progress of the world is continually opening new careers, and at the same time revolutionizing the traditional types of employment.’

Beforehand, the occupations teachers engaged in quite a bit of planning, thinking through how the new occupations units would work.  But many of the genuine problems of each project remain and students will work alongside teachers to discuss, refine, and implement solutions.  Charles Leadbeater writes ‘Our highest educational achievers may well be aligned with their teachers in knowing what to do if and when they have the script. But … this sort of certain and tidy knowing is out of alignment with a script-less and fluid social world. Our best learners will be those who can make ‘not knowing’ useful, who do not need the blueprint, the template, the map, to make a new kind of sense.’

‘We might call [Third Plane education] a ‘school of experience in the elements of social life’ … The difficulty of studying with concentration is not due to a lack of willingness, but is really a psychological characteristic of the age.’

As established by Maria Montessori at least 70 years ago, and rediscovered and researched since by others, the prime focus of the early years of adolescence is not of the academic and intellectual strain, but is about identity and place within the community.  Our new occupations units agree. Even so, ākonga can often be seen in deep consideration of some pretty heavy-duty science concepts when allowed to choose and explore from the options presented.  With this new work we are now engaged in building up the community, and the school, literally alongside the tradespeople who are finishing the walls of the buildings around us.

Some more thoughts on Cosmic Education by Richard Goodyear, Totara Teacher

I have previously written about Cosmic Education and its central role in the Primary Montessori classes (6-12 years).

This time I’d like to hone in on some of the specifics of how we work with the ākonga to develop their understanding of the great themes of Cosmic Education:  especially unity, for example that all living creatures share DNA, or that planets were formed by the particles uniting; diversity, for example all the different cultures on the planet or all of the different types of stars out there; and interconnectedness, for example our actions affect the environment.

Were you to take a stroll through the Primary classes at the moment, you may see ākonga engaged in studying the timeline of life, researching and making fossils, laying out the planets on a giant scale, creating accurate models of living creatures, the history of the universe, researching cultures from around the world, history and much more.

All these ‘topics’ come under the banner of Cosmic Education for sure, but it’s not the content alone that makes a learning experience for a Montessori child ‘cosmic’ in nature. Indeed, a mainstream school may cover these same topics, but is unlikely to be doing it in a ‘cosmic’ sense.

Sometimes the topics the ākonga end up doing can seem quite unusual. I once had a student who got obsessed by the lungs and respiratory system of crayfish! Mind you, our Montessori teacher albums cover some fairly specialized territory too: Ordovician extinction; the different theories of how humans acquired language; subjunctive clauses in grammar, to name but a few. These are not exactly the topics you’d normally see in a Primary School. I certainly didn’t get exposed to this stuff at Primary School, did you?

But in Montessori education we are ‘planting the seeds’ for further study at High School and beyond. Beyond this method of ‘seed planting’, is it important for a child to learn these things? In a Montessori Primary class the answer is yes. One of the main points of these seemingly unusual studies is the way they can be used to draw children’s attention to those great themes mentioned above.

To use the example above, learning about the respiration of a crayfish may seem unimportant, but it is a springboard for discussing and researching some big ideas, for example: crustaceans have a fascinating body plan, they are a product of adaptation to their environment, they have other vital functions such as reproduction and nutrition that are equally fascinating, they are part of a bigger story that connects with topics in Geology, plate tectonics, Chemistry, even astronomy. It’s all connected. And that’s the key to Cosmic Education.

This weaving of concepts and themes can happen within all of the various topics we present to the children. Thus we can encourage ākonga to research seemingly obscure topics, and we can cover the regular Primary School curriculum, but with a distinctly Montessori point of difference.

Maria Montessori saw that this approach would help children develop a sense of their own purpose and of their connection with their fellow humans and the environment itself.