Deepening Our Connections

As we gaze into the candles and fires that form the centerpieces of many of our winter traditions, we can explore the relationships humans have to the physical world. 

- Could it be that it is not only cultural nostalgia that draws us to these iconic practices?   

- Could it be a tickling of our ancestral past - memories of family celebrations, taken deeper, blending into feelings of protection from the unknown wild? 

- Is it a distant perception of our ancestors sitting around a fire for warmth and security? 

What lies deeper still? 

- Could it be that at some profound level we have an awareness of our intimate relationship with the universe? 

- Can we can draw connections between our celebrations of light and the fact that we all come from light – light of the great improbable flaring forth, that tremendous burst of energy that erupted from nothing into all that we now know, and more? 

How incredible to help children make the leap between the bundles of energy dancing in our eyes at the holidays, and the photons present at the very beginning of everything. We are all children of this light.

(This piece was originally posted here on December 9, 2011).

Mindfully Celebrating the Holidays

In Montessori classrooms we go to great lengths to make connections between cultures and countries across the globe and throughout time. Rather than isolating people through their differences, we celebrate the commonalities we all share.

One way that this is accomplished is by using the Fundamental Needs of People to compare how such diverse cultures meet their basic needs: nutrition, shelter, clothing, belonging, defense, transportation, communication, self-expression, the healing arts, and spirituality.

On this last need, our class discussions become especially rich. We ask questions that provide opportunities for deep reflection: Why is it that so many cultures from so vastly different regions of our planet have celebrations this time of year that involve light? Our conversations reflect an understanding of the need for sunlight for warmth, as well as energy for growing crops for sustaining a community. We discuss the literary image of light as being one of hope and possibility, and of darkness one of wasting and despair. 

What children take away from these conversations is that humans develop practices that are grounded in their most basic needs. If we look first to these needs as we approach understanding our various ceremonies, we may find that we’re not that different after all.

(A similar piece to this one was originally posted on December 9, 2011).

The Winter Solstice

In a Montessori classroom, the opportunities for curricular cross-pollination are many: a teacher’s presentation may lead to deeper questions that enrich and extend; a student-led study may pull from all areas of the curriculum before it feels complete. Each content area is able to influence the others, depending upon the medium required of the educational journey. Working together, the teacher and child use the resources before them to create meaning from their academic investigations.

There is, of course, another plane to this interweaving of curricula - one that lies in the space between the pages of our albums. At times, the studies we embark upon create far more questions than provide answers. While we may be able to label, define, describe, and share some parts of the universe and its rhythms there is still great mystery that leaves us all in awe.

In The Winter Solstice, written by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis, the search to make sense of one such mystery is beautifully illuminated.

Chronicling ancient people from Europe and North and South America, Jackson and Davey create a feeling for how some of our forebears approached the coming darkness and prepared for it’s hopeful return.

This time of year, as the days get shorter and the air temperatures fall, we all can feel something of a kinship for our ancestors. Can you imagine how the ancients must have approached the changing of the seasons? What practices and beliefs were created to explain the change, and provide for a return to what was hoped for?

Jackson’s writing reads like a whispered story over a fire, while Ellis’ painting places us beside people from many cultures as they share with us their way of knowing. Older students can both grasp the scientific basis for the changing of the seasons, and can marvel at how the ancients grappled with what must have been a very tenuous and scary time each year.

Share this set of vignettes with your students and staff. Allow them to explore that sense of wonder that comes from trying to understand people from the past. Like we do when discussing the Fundamental Needs, each new perspective on the human condition brings the possibility of new depths to our learning.

Enjoy the reading, and Happy Solstice!

The Winter Solstice

Story by Ellen Jackson, illustrations by Jan Davey Ellis

ISBN: 1-56294-722-2

Discover other Winter Solstice related activities bellow:

http://www.ellenjackson.net/winter_61490.htm

(This review was originally posted on December 3, 2012).

The Roots of Loving-Kindness

Caring for the Dream

How does one nurture the spirit of an institution?

How does one care for the employees and physical spaces that make the dream real, but also the dream itself?

How does one nourish the abundant creative energy needed so that the separation between actors and stage is seamless, and that each person spiritually inhabits the very mission and vision of the institution?

As local leaders in education we must be able to articulate and stand by the people, pedagogy, practices and policies of the schools we create. We need to be able to speak to each like they are parts of our family, parts of our bodies - each piece necessarily influencing and informing the whole. These are the interwoven fundamentals that, when realized authentically and kept healthy, speak to the very essence of our schools’ existence.

Too often do we stumble in the shadow of great intention, put our heads down, and simply move through our days. To work in such spaces without dynamic interplay between these fundamentals is to inhabit a spiritually empty husk: a mission without truth, a vision without possibility.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can deliver on our promise to foster unique environments that speak to the needs of all those involved: children, their families; school staff, faculty, board members; and members of the wider school community.

Start with what you know.

People – Who We Are

Our employees are tireless, creative, dynamic, radical, unabashed, open, curious, eager – seekers every one. Through an ever-expanding understanding of human development, social relations and scientific inquiry we create our core ethos. We believe in the power of positive relationships and vibrant learning opportunities to transform children’s lives.

Pedagogy – What We Do

Maria Montessori’s view of children, and her holistic approach to learning, provides an exceptional framework for reforming and reinvigorating our schools. In approaching education as a process to be explored, as an ever-unfolding journey of experimentation – rather than the static binary relationship of prescription and recitation – Montessori shows us the way forward.

Practice – How We Do

We start with the child. A curriculum does not drive our work with children; rather, it serves as a map for the journey. The children, then, help to create what is studied; they are partners in the creation of the universe that unfolds before them. What they desire, what they need, how they present from moment to moment constantly reshapes the forward progression of learning, and the attainment of new knowledge.

Policies – Why We Do

The policies that we create and then enact reflect the philosophical underpinnings of who we are and what we do. They are manifestations of these broader fundamentals; they codify the spiritual ground of our community, our pedagogy, and our practice.

Once articulated, our conception of the people, pedagogy, practices and polices of our schools informs every aspect of our work – from the classroom to the boardroom. If any of these four fundamentals becomes fragmented or diluted we must stop, reassess and reconsider the way ahead. We cannot continue to move forward until we can do so with authenticity and truth. Belief is a powerful thing, but only as powerful as the quality of its manifestation.

How we imagine our schools can be, is how we imagine our families can be; our communities, our neighborhoods; our towns, cities, states and nation. Our schools are the crucibles in which a more fully awakened collective consciousness can be catalyzed.

Artists, Alchemists and Advocates

Rocking Your Inner Giraffe: Cultivating Loving-Kindness for Yourself & Others through Nonviolent Communication

Rocking Your Inner Giraffe: Cultivating Loving Kindness for Yourself & Others through Nonviolent Communication from sethdwebb

Charting the Free Horizon: Creating and Maintaining Positive Partnerships in a Montessori Classroom

Charting the Free Horizon: Creating and Maintaining Positive Partnerships in a Montessori Classroom from sethdwebb

How We Say, What We Say - Part III

In November of 2011, shortly after starting this blog, I created a “wordle” of all of the text of the posts to date in an effort to explore how I was saying what I was saying. It was certainly an interesting reflection of my priorities and sensibilities; at least, in how I expressed them at the time:

How We Say, What We Say

In June of 2012, I created another wordle upon which to reflect:

How We Say, What We Say - Part II

Now, a year and ten months and thirteen posts later, here is a third glimpse into the weight of the words I choose.

Try it out with your own work: www.wordle.net

The Alphabet Tree

In Montessori schools steeped in rich practice, elementary-aged children learn to see the world’s cultures and their histories through the filter of the Fundamental Needs of People: Food, Shelter, Clothing, Defense, Transportation, Communication, The Healing Arts, Self-Expression, Spirituality, and Belonging. Examining how humans across time and the global landscape meet the same needs allows for new understandings based upon the similarities of our experiences, not the differences.

Of these needs it is often the last, Belonging that stands out for children: at its most basic, the need for being cherished and cared for by others.

As children mature, they learn that Belonging is not only the desire to be loved and supported. We see it palpably as children move from a naturally selfish stage (as toddlers), to one where deep caring resides (in the elementary years), to where justice is paramount (as adolescents).

Indeed, in each of us there exists a tremendous yearning to be a part of something that matters. At some critical point in our lives the predominant function of personal survival transforms so to allow extending ourselves to work for the greater good. One’s definition of Belonging swells as one grows to include the pull to contribute to something greater than ourselves, to help create something that will, in turn, benefit the whole.

*                    *                    *

I have been thinking a lot lately about bravery and courage: when, faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, one embraces the uncertainty and fear of the unknown and move steadily forward towards Truth. 

What does one do in the face of injustice?

What does one say when conventional wisdom encourages silence?

What does one feel when one’s actions fall short of being true to one’s soul?

Oftentimes it can be the simplest explanation that carries the greatest weight.

First published in 1968, Leo Lionni’s classic The Alphabet Tree creates a story that is both a children’s tale and timeless parable.

In it, letters of the alphabet that once enjoyed a sunny existence - each on its favorite leaf – are blown asunder by a sudden and fierce wind. As the gale ceases, the letters lay huddled and frightened unsure of what to do. Aided by a wise friend, the letters slowly join together – making words; combined, perhaps they will be able to withstand the next storm that blows in. When the wind does return, the letters - now united in unique ways - are no longer fearful and resist being blown away.

But that is not the end. Lionni seems to ask us: Is it enough to just survive?

In the story, another friendly presence next greets the words and exclaims, “Why don’t you get together and make sentences – and mean something?”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? It would be easy to look back on one’s successes and relax, letting others now take up the fight. After all, the wind can be cold and strong; it has great volume and its reach is vast. And yet, can we not find the strength within ourselves to boldly step into its path?

Will we have the resolve to do the right thing?

As our story comes to its ambiguous conclusion the sentences are coached to further action, to not rest in the comfort of their most recent achievement. Indeed, it is not enough just to be good, the friend states; better to “say something important”.

*                   *                    *

Stories such as these serve as powerful as allegories to our lives and our work with and for children. Through them we gain a profound way of understanding that comes from the use of metaphor. Educators and school leaders can consciously use these fables to elicit the deep thinking so necessary for new and dynamic growth.

In the book, letters become words, which form sentences, which create statements – paralleling the arc of living and working in community. We, too, develop along a similar path: moving from existing solely as individuals, to collaborating with others, to expressing the community’s voice, and lastly shining out a unified vision in action.

When is the time to take the next step?

When you feel your conscience unsettled.

As one’s sense of Belonging is strong enough to loose the attachment to what is comfortable, real and profound learning can take place. Transformative change comes from taking risks and extending oneself beyond the ease of the familiar. To venture over that edge, into unknown territory where security is not guaranteed - that is the mark of one’s commitment to living fully.

The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni

ISBN 0-679-80835-3