Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors

  

 

While perusing my local library’s children’s section, I found a wonderful collection of playful poems, insightful science and glorious artwork. In Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors, written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beckie Prange, the reader is treated to an engrossing portfolio of fourteen success stories from the timeline of life.

    

I was spellbound just opening the book to the endpapers. What greeted me was an impressionistic illustration of the history of life on Earth. Using 46 meters of cotton string and the brilliant colors of the rainbow, Prange recreates and elaborates upon the Long Black Line. Rather than stretching down a long hall, or across a field, this timeline bends and swirls to fit within a much smaller space. Interestingly, the effect is as profound, held in our very hands.

With each page I was drawn deeper, continuously fascinated by the discoveries I was making – new knowledge about organisms, some of whom I thought I knew quite well.

But that’s part of the magic, right? To allow for and celebrate the known becoming new and strange again.

I greatly appreciated how Sidman and Prange chose, for some of their examples, species that are more often maligned than revered. How refreshing to see a positive and inquisitive voice brought to grasses, crows, dandelions and coyotes. In an age where the pursuit of ease and cleanliness seems to be paramount for many adults, to find in this book organisms often given a bad reputation for being irritating or troublesome was especially gratifying.

As with contemporary compendiums on topics of nature and survival, this book too also brings to light some of the present dangers that threaten the species highlighted within. Sidman’s text, however, is well balanced – allowing for the notation of real threats without resorting lambasting humans outright – for nothing is quite that simple.

The final line offers both the hope and challenge that humans bear:

“Our cooperative nature leads to acts of great kindness and compassion, while our competitiveness – combined with a tendency to crowd out other species – makes us one of the most destructive species on earth.”

I invite you to add Ubiquitous to your classroom collection. It will enchant readers of any age, and provide for the possibility of great discussions on our place and role in it all.

Enjoy!

Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors (ISBN: 978-0-618-71719-4)

Teaching with Spirit: Maria Montessori's Cosmic Vision

One of the great pleasures of being a Montessori educator is the opportunity for reflection and renewal that is made possible by the work we do. Recently I had no less than a spiritual awakening when considering our craft.

An elder Quaker friend of mine was speaking of the importance of discernment when attempting to move forward when challenged; that is, letting go of our own preoccupations so to let the Divine inspire our actions. Through this process, one winnows the desires, thoughts, and personal attachments that might otherwise cloud guidance from Spirit.

It struck me profoundly that this is what we attempt to do in a Montessori environment: prepare ourselves to be open to receive the Light of each child.

In our schools we approach children with unprejudiced hearts – so to be led by them. I wonder, however, if we have missed the full import of what Montessori was intending. What if Montessori’s vision was much more profound? What if the mandate to “follow the child” was to mean something far greater than a technical approach for working with children?

What if it implies that the act of teaching must be transformed so to allow for the conscious care-taking of the Spirit within the children we serve?

 

*                 *                *                *                *                *

Montessorians often use the term spirit to describe the indescribable, that part of a child that is unique and original and ever-unfolding. Given the weight of the term, such talk is usually couched as a holistic view of the child – one that encapsulates cognitive, social, emotional and physical development - yet that remains special to each individual. In that manner, we commonly talk of the children as spiritual beings, eager for learning and attachment.

I contend that there is much more that we can do. I believe that when Montessori spoke of preparing the classroom, she meant laying the temple bare for worship. When she wrote of preparing the teacher, it was much more than good eating and sleeping habits, and time for oneself so that one could be present for others.

Rather, it was something much more profound. At the core, she too asks us to enter into a pattern of discernment, separating our wants and needs and desires, our fears and preoccupations and external directives, so to illuminate the Light of the child. When Montessori tells us to "follow the child" it is akin to reminding us to let the Divine show us the way.

• When we speak of preparing the teacher, we are preparing ourselves as mindful tenders of the Light.

• When we speak of preparing the environment, we are preparing the cathedral to receive the worship that is the work we do together.

• Guiding becomes stewardship.

• Manipulatives become meditations.

• The flow-state that a child reaches with her work is evidence of a complete unification between oneself and Spirit. 

*                 *                *                *                *                *

What if we were to re-frame our practice as a spiritual one? Can we find that center – beyond curriculum alone - to the root of Montessori’s cosmic vision? What if we were to shift our mandate, to become one of tending to the Light that is within each child? If we could create an opening for such spiritual transformation, imagine what would be possible.

There is nothing more important than to be present for the children in our care. We are the stewards of their Light.

Children Centered Learning - Learning Centered Children

Sebastian was a very particular child. Prone to believing he was right and making his opinions known to all, he was a student for whom daily struggles were common: arriving on time, staying on task, choosing challenging work, doing work that was not always his choice, sticking to a schedule, etc. For a teacher still relatively new to the field of elementary education, Sebastian was a challenge for me amongst a Montessori classroom of able, driven and disciplined upper elementary students.

There came a day when Sebastian began working on a grand castle construction, with cardboard and paint and construction paper. It was a project not directly linked to a unit of study which I had introduced, but seemed to engage him and keep him happy. This went on for days, then a couple of weeks - to the exclusion of most of his other work. From my, then, myopic perspective Sebastian was falling behind. I became worried and resentful, and began to react to his intransigence from that ungrounded place of fear.

Teachers are masters at being able to adapt to their immediate environment. In training, a student teacher gets one version of what is right and just and good for children - and works to justify this vision with one's own. Then, in his first posting, he receives the principal's version of what is best, and again works to adapt his beliefs to this. Parents, too, offer their perspectives, desires and needs - which  one also factors in to his teaching practice. Lastly, but most importantly, the children demonstrate to the teacher their needs for real and deep and purposeful learning.

The teacher is, therefore, asked to wear multiple filters of perception that are often at odds with one another. Or, if not directly opposite, contradictory enough that the teacher can feel stymied and cautious, rather than joyous and alive for his students.

Slowly, a change happens. A teacher, so wanting to do right by all of the multiple stakeholders at the door, will resolve the competing interests to form a vector that forges the truest path between: doing a little of each to move forward with a new definition of authenticity.

And so it was with me and Sebastian: me placing demands upon him to do and achieve; he resisting and acting out with daily bouts of defiance. There were good days, weeks even, when a balance could be won where both he and I felt like we were doing our jobs - learning and teaching.

What I did not expect was that, all along, he was teaching me.

Nearly a month into his work, I came to tell Sebastian that it was time to wrap up the project - that it had gone on too long and that the other works that he was responsible for were going unaccomplished. Despite previous attempts at bargaining, and trading the completion of my list of to-dos for time on his castle, Sebastian remained determined and undaunted.

When I said it was the end - time to put the castle away for good, to take it home and move on - Sebastian became protective and angry. Unbelievably, in retrospect, I thought this was just another example of Sebastian being determined to do work only on his terms. He and I were equally frustrated. I felt that my authority was being undermined and, as a new teacher to this classroom and school, I believed that it was important that I make a stand.

Finally, with tears welling in his eyes, Sebastian looked up at me and said:

"But this is my work... It's for me!"

A that moment everything changed, both for me as a teacher and as a person living in the world. That's when I got it. That is wasn't about the curriculum, benchmarks, standards, mandated testing, or the concerns of the parents; it was about Sebastian at that moment, in that space, with that work. That's when Montessori's vision and hope for the world all made sense.

I grew more in that instant than in any seminar, more than any mentor could have taught me. It was about Sebastian having ownership of what he was learning. Without my oversight he was masterfully delving deeply into personally relevant work. Through that work, he grew in ways that I could have never hoped for through prescribing lesson material for him to practice. Once I could see that, and accept it as the way forward, everything was transformed for Sebastian and me. We had a deeper connection, and that connection was our mutual love of work.

Many years distant now from that experience, I often reflect on that moment. In training and coaching teachers, so much of what I speak of today is learning to let go; that is, letting the children show you where to go with them and how. Naturally, there is a balance. We have to be mindful to not let the pedagogical pendulum swing to the opposite extreme - where freedom to learn is mistaken for the end in itself. But it is the essence of what we do. Children have an untapped awareness and understanding that has the power to transform their connection to schooling, education and to life -  if we only listen.

A Call to Action

 

A Montessori school can be an empowering community center where hearts and minds meet, are strengthened, and challenged to do more. It is the bridge between a child’s family and culture, and one’s society and the greater world.

There - children, parents, faculty and staff work together to build a new foundation for rich and conscious living.  

The blessing and challenge of charter Montessori schools is that many of our families come in search of something that’s different and better for their child. What they don’t realize, and what we often fail to articulate in both publicity and practice, is that to come to a Montessori school is to embrace a life-changing, and affirming, shift in being.

To send your child to a Montessori school is to accept it as a place for deep rethinking of how we live our lives.

Charter Montessori schools, too, can become so overwhelmed with doing justice to both state standards and the Montessori approach and curricula that neither is accomplished well. And so goes the reputation of what is “Montessori”.

In an attempt to appear just as good as conventional public schools we dilute the power and potency of what we can offer.

We tend to apologize for how we’re different, instead of celebrating what we’re doing.

For charter Montessori schools to move ahead, we need a fundamental re-centering of who we are.

With every day we are consciously moving forward to that place of deeper understanding – where our souls and our outward lives meet. As members of a Montessori community we help knit the fabric that holds our society together; and more: we have the potential to remake the very yarn we use.

Let us make our words and actions so meaningful and resonant that the hearts and minds of our families can find their centers in our schools. 

Change begins with each of us, every day.

A Classroom Without Walls

 

We each have an incredible gift: the ability to engage children with the world - indeed, the universe - that surrounds them and, of which, they are an integral part.

Working with children, our job is one of setting the kindling for the wonderful sparks of curiosity and deep interest to spring forth. While there may be a linear progression of lesson delivery in our albums, we don’t always teach that way, nor do we make overt and obvious the connections between the seemingly disparate ideas and materials across the curriculum that we share.

We wait for the “ah-has.” It is up to the students, alone or collectively, to do the work of the synapses – to make those links, to leap the gaps between ideas towards a holistic understanding of everything around and within them.

There is a way of knowing that comes from being genuinely part of what you are attempting to understand. That is, an authentic knowledge rooted in sensorial experiences that tickle and surprise. Through slowing down and taking our time, looking at the familiar from different perspectives, we can deeply explore the wild spaces around us. So it can be with the natural world outside the classroom.

When we venture forth into nature with children our intention is to make connections, becoming so familiar with the natural world that we receive it as a source of deep insight and practical wisdom.

Do we teach in a spontaneous way?

Is the time we spend with the children of ‘full value’ and authentic?

What role does nature play in our days?

Does it appear as trips out-and-about or as an integrated and seamless part of the children’s learning environment? Both?

What pedagogical value has the experience of wild places?

Finding the Wildness Within

As a classroom teacher, I remember fondly our studies in Human History: first examining and classifying the human animal; then drawing connections between our closest living relatives, and most recently to the epic stories of the earliest of humans and how they changed with and adapted to their dynamic living environments to suit their needs.

This part of the cultural curriculum is comprised of a series of presentations, discussions and activities that highlight, at their roots, the unavoidable and startling idea for many of the children that we are of part of the animal kingdom – in fact, from and part of the natural world.

Through our own evolution humans have developed incredible technologies to use in the act of making our lives more comfortable and efficient. From the hand axe to the microprocessor, we have created incredibly complex tools and systems to better our collective lives.

Today, I wonder what has been subjugated; what primordial internal rhythms have taken a back seat through this process of discovery and creation. Not purposefully - just due to the ease and convenience of innovation.  I would argue that for people living in the ‘developed’ world it is our instinctual knowledge that has been buried.

“To Touch and Feel is to Experience. Many people live out their entire lives without really Touching or being Touched by anything. These people live in a world of mind and imagination that may move them sometimes to joy, tears, happiness or sorrow. But these people never really Touch. They do not live and become one with life.”

- Hymeneyohsts Storm, in Seven Arrows (1972)

Perhaps, for many of us, the most readily accessible instinctual knowledge comes in the form of the oft-quoted ‘freeze, fight or flight’ response; that is, in times of sudden stress, the rush of adrenaline that our bodies feel prior to wishing invisibility, throwing a punch or turning and escaping.

This is the visceral pull of our animal ancestry, the survival skill of our ancestors that kept them (and us) alive. It’s the surging feeling in our body when we narrowly avoid a car accident, for example. The rush is overpowering and memorable – a taste of what it felt like to be a wild predator or prey.

The instinctual skill set, of course, also includes a more subtle way of knowing:  knowledge of the seasons, local and regional geography and weather patterns, the flora and fauna common to your home-ground, etc.

Through our lives are we searching, questing for intimacy?

Can a profound connection to the natural – as the ‘other’ animals experience it - deepen, enrich and inform your life and way of living?

I believe so. I believe that there is a thirst within us all to regain the original knowledge of the Earth. Look at children as they play in the natural spaces around them. There is an intensity and exuberance expressed that appears so wonderfully organic. They appear to distil joy from their experience of the world.

“What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet

once more, to follow the grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks

where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!”

- Helen Keller, in The Story of my Life (1903)

When was the last time you, as an adult, experienced such grounded elation and connection? Let us go out with our students and experience the world through the heightened and unencumbered senses of childhood.

Walking in the World

The traditional view is that there are two ways of interacting with the natural world, and with anything outside of yourself, I suppose: first, recognizing it as something similar to you, perhaps near enough to be considered part of you; and, second, as an ‘other’, outside and perceived as ‘distant’ from yourself.

The two views are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is an overlap wherein resides the zone of integrating new ideas that inform one’s true self.

“I would like to learn, or remember, how to live…not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular--shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands? But I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical sense and the dignity of living without bias or motive.”

- Annie Dillard, in “Living Like Weasels”

from The Annie Dillard Reader (1994)

Sometimes when we venture outdoors with children we do so with a finite goal in mind, one big take home message. When this agenda overrides the ‘draw of the wild and the will of the child’ we find ourselves frustrated, struggling to keep the students listening and focused on the guide or program.

When given the chance to explore a nature-space many children can barely contain themselves – the urge to run, jump, sneak, creep, climb, crawl, sit quietly, sing madly resonates within them so strongly. Let’s all remember to have fun out there – maybe even for the sake of pure joy itself!

“ I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused – a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.”

- Rachel Carson, in Sense of Wonder (1965)

Begin by just going out, exploring and experiencing - trying hard not to put limits on the form of exploration chosen. Hold too tight the reins, and you immediately suffocate the potential and possibility inherent to the child’s internal momentum and the game is up, lost. Just go out and see what happens. Then gather and share what the children discovered.

The next time that you venture forth, return to the same place (for there is comfort in the familiar) and change the format a bit: invite the children to sit quietly for five minutes, thinking, writing, drawing. Then offer a chance for open sharing and cooperate reflection on the collective experiences.

“Don’t do something. Just sit there”

 – Crazy Creek Company motto, Red Lodge, Montana USA

In the days and weeks that follow, extend the period of solitude and quiet until – when you call everyone back together it begins to take them longer and longer to pull themselves away. Then you know that the connections that they are making are from the heart and that the children have formed a dynamic friendship with nature that is very personal.

You can vary how you wrap-up these experiences: sometimes with a period of sharing; at others, just a mellow gathering and return to the classroom. Often the quiet space following such a personal encounter serves as the fixer for a very memorable time out.

In time, the ecological literacy and emotional comfort that the children have developed transfers nicely to a deepening of more formal scientific studies and conservation service projects. Their newfound sense of belonging extends to a feeling of responsibility: not just do the children enjoy going out, for themselves - they are called to do it.

When we mindfully explore nature with children we facilitate a conversation between the child and the wildness of which s/he is a part. Let it take over.

Walking the Talk: Giving Voice to the Vision

 

As parents of Upper Elementary students can attest, many pre-adolescent children have a newfound righteousness that is not shy about making itself known. These children can be passionately attached to certain definitions of right and wrong, and can argue vehemently in defense of their opinions. What’s equally noticeable, however, is that unless the adults in their lives provide the structures necessary to turn these ideas into actions, these same children miss out on critical learning opportunities.

When fielding such passion-filled commentary from Upper Elementary children, parents and teachers alike can develop meaningful and measurable experiences for children to explore their beliefs more deeply in ways that build real success and breakthrough. 

In pursuit of this aim, adults might ask themselves:

·    What are the systems and structures available to me that a child might explore to bring life to her/his passions? 

·    In what ways can I foster the development of real and purposeful action?

·    In support of such action, what are the possibilities for failure and disappointment? For joy and empowerment?

In both home and classroom environments, discussing one’s feelings and opinions can find great grounding in exploring empathy. Often confused with sympathy (feeling for another), empathy goes a step further to actually imagining or remembering how it feels (or would feel) to be another; that is, to walk in another’s shoes. Empowering children to understand that everyone possesses needs and feelings as real as their own is an essential building block of conflict resolution and lasting peace.

It is not enough to just believe strongly in something; it needs to be actualized to become real. Adults can mindfully model this transformation by showing children the steps needed to achieve the desired ends. Such partnering can be a powerful learning experience for all those involved. 

Historical Empathy: Montessori & "The Settlers of Catan"

The upper elementary Montessori cultural curriculum allows for multiple opportunities for children to uncover meaning from the daily patterns and lifeways of people of the past. Analyzing these practices with the filter of The Fundamental Needs of People, students can develop a resonant sense of why people of the past made the choices they did, and why people today do as they do. 

In a Montessori environment, the discipline of social studies involves working to form an understanding of those that have come before. Much deeper than merely memorizing dates and heads of state, students are provided the structure, time and resources to explore others’ motivations - a kind of historical empathy. 

In the mid-1990s, German game designer Klaus Tueber created a game that allows players to experience what it might be like to settle, struggle and thrive in a new and unpopulated land. He named this island Catan. 

Each player begins with several settlements and roads, oriented across the board. To be successful, players have to combine strategy and chance to collect the necessary amount of timber, wool, stone, brick and wheat. Over the course of the game players build additional settlements and roads, and can expand their initial properties into cities - collecting the necessary materials through the roll of the dice and trading resources with fellow players. From time to time a "robber” is introduced to the game that blocks the acquisition of needed resources, and leads to the sudden loss or gain of what is required to advance. 

"The Settlers of Catan" is an engaging game with authentic, real-world-like demands and consequences. It can be used beautifully in the classroom as a way of further contextualizing history. The game can easily be woven into studies of exploration, settlement and colonization. 

More recently Teuber created “The Settlers of the Stone Age”, a fantastic historical take on his original game. In this version the parameters are very similar, but the context is early human development and migration out of Africa and across the globe. 

In this game, players have to do more than just garner the necessary resources for survival. In order to spread into different regions of the planet – each with its own climatic extremes and transportation challenges – players have to develop advanced skills and strategies through the use their coveted resources: this time hide, meat, bone, and flint. 

What I appreciate about this version of “Settlers” is the element of resonant choice; that is, players understand the true value of the resources they require and their meaning. What’s more, in playing they can feel the significance of a resource’s loss, gain or intentional use to their early human ancestors. When you have meat, you have the energy to travel. When you have meat and hide, you have the resources to add another explorer to your tribe. When you have flint, bone and hide, you have the materials necessary to establish another camp. 

Desertification helps to drive players out of Africa. A Neanderthal serves in the same capacity as the robber in the original “Settlers” game; this time, the idea of biological competition for resources becomes clearly understood. Once in Asia players must fend off the great saber tooth tiger. In the game the presence of the tiger effectively blocks access to a particular resource. Discussions can be had around the meaning of the presence of these great predators to early humans – both in terms of limiting the ability of a tribe to  fulfill a need, as well as actual predation. 

Throughout the game players must progress through specific skill development to support their ever-present need for resources. Without these skills players must remain confined to specific areas on the globe. In the development of Clothing, players must "master" making shoes, tanning hides, sewing, creating clasps, and jewelry. In Construction, they must learn to build simple hide tents, bone-walled huts, boats, tallow lamps, and make cave paintings. Players must also move through specific Hunting skills: developing flint points, harpoons made of bone, stone axes, the bow and arrow, and animal totems. And, in the preparation of Food, players learn to build fires, create stone hearths, store foods, make pottery, and form statues. 

"The Settlers of the Stone Age" is a wonderful tool to employ when teaching children about early humans. It is a role-playing game that offers students the chance to internalize their learning. Through considering one's needs, weighing risks, and vetting probable consequences children in an upper elementary classroom can experience profound shifts in their understanding of our past while at play.

For Montessori educators, making history come alive is part and parcel of what we do. Using the "Settlers" games allows us to step aside and let additional learning unfold - experienced first by the children. 

Link to the Official "The Settlers of Catan" Website

Elegant Collaborations: The Work of Byrd Baylor & Peter Parnell

 
I adore the way that Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall have collaborated over three decades to create beautiful and poignant stories for children and adults alike. These are simple tales in form and layout, yet profoundly complex when read again and with fresh eyes - there is magic hidden in them.

I have used these stories in my classrooms as introductions to larger concepts, and also just for the space and breath they provide. Each of these fables is a meditation on old ways of knowing, some prehistoric and some as old as the Earth itself.

How do we truly and deeply connect children to their world?

In the push for digital literacy we cannot forget and forgo the importance of children feeling the world around them. It is not enough to show; we must provide experiences for them to do: to touch, to smell, to listen, to taste, to be still and to know.

In The Way to Start a Day, Baylor and Parnall remind us of the simple ritual of greeting the Sun each morning. When we intentionally share our interest in these cosmic rhythms, we demonstrate its value to our children. Taken further, we can overtly connect our practices to the rituals of our ancestors, and to people across the globe and through time.

These connections are like the colors on the palette held by a painter, each color a new way to represent the detail of the subject being painted. When we root our modern lives in the natural patterns around us, and connect to the rituals held by cultures around the world, we add to the richness of what it means to be human.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to this next voyage around the Sun.

The Way to Start a Day, by Byrd Baylor and illustrated by Peter Parnall

• ISBN-13: 9780684156514
• ISBN-10: 0684156512

Follow the link below for more information:

Other Books By Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall 

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 no thing 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.

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 cultures across the world and through time have met their needs for survival: 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.

The Three Questions

 

In this beautifully rendered retelling of Leo Tolstoy's short story, Jon J. Muth creates a simple and resonant opening for deep conversations with children about character. 

• What is the best time to do things?
• Who is the most important one?
• What is the right thing to do?    

I have used this fable with upper elementary students as a way of elaborating upon discussions of freedom, personal choice and responsibility. I begin with just the three questions, prior to reading the story. Students can journal their responses individually, have small group conversations, or share their ideas through a facilitated class discussion; each of these strategies has worked well in my experience. 

Partly because of the richness of the watercolor illustrations and partly due to the eloquence of the text, students immediately grasp the immediacy of the needs of the characters involved - they can feel the significance of what transpires.

I encourage you to explore this story on your own, and then share it with students when you are ready. It is a life-affirming tale that can bring clarity to one's own world view, and strengthen the ties of a community who shares it.

Enjoy the reading.

The Three Questions, by Jon J. Muth (ISBN: 0-439-19996-4)


For More Books About Peace:   
http://www.menaspeacemakers.org/programs/mentor/books

Evolution & Intelligent Design: Science & Stories in the Montessori Cultural Curriculum

 

            Montessorians do a wonderful job of being open to and welcoming of many different cultures and global perspectives within the broader Cultural Curriculum. In our classrooms we often share other ideas on the origins of the universe and the emergence and development of life (myths, legends, family beliefs, etc.). Such practices help develop tolerance and morality.

            In our effort to be inclusive and build community, however, we cannot become so permissive that we allow such stories and philosophies to replace science. The cultural stories that are shared are not equivalent substitutions for the scientific explanations for the same events. This is a separate and distinct discussion to one of beliefs. Evolution is a scientific theory, not a philosophy resting on faith, “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 King James Version). Our scientific discussions in no way rule out the possibility of a creator; they merely focus on the data gathered and reviewed.

            In order to speak with authority, it is important that teachers have a firm understanding of what biological evolution is, and of its principle mechanisms: natural selection and genetic drift. The theory of biological evolution is “the process of change in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next” (Dorer, 2008). Natural selection causes “heritable traits that are desirable to become more common in a population; traits that are not, are eliminated (Dorer, 2008). “Organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring”(Oxford American Dictionaries, 2005). Genetic drift refers to “random changes over time” (Dorer, 2008) “owing to the chance disappearance of particular genes as individuals die or do not reproduce”(Oxford American Dictionaries, 2005). Educators need to know the science underpinning the theory of biological evolution, and the empirical, data-driven and peer reviewed examples that support it.

            I believe that it is important that we use the word science to denote the kind of study we might be engaged in at a particular time. We need to define what “being scientific” looks like so that children and their parents understand that we are, in fact, taking sides.

            According to the Oxford American Dictionaries (2005), science is “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” It is a way of knowing that is grounded in objective study and the testing of ideas. Biological evolution is a theory, “ a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something”, where supposition means “an uncertain belief” (Oxford American Dictionaries, 2005). A theory is only uncertain, however, because it cannot (yet) explain everything that we observe occurring in nature. That doesn’t mean that what it can explain – scientifically – is less valid (Jones in Barlow, 2006, p. 67). 

            Creationism is a religious philosophy that “the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation (Oxford American Dictionaries, 2005). It is a story, but not a scientific one. Likewise, Intelligent Design (ID) is also a religious perspective – this one attempting to use science as a mechanism to legitimize its validity. There are two principle tenets of ID: “that life, and the complex processes by which cells do their work, cannot have been produced by that combination of chance and necessity known as Darwinian evolution” (Peterson, 2005, p. 413); and, “ the kind of information embodied in things that are designed can only be produced by an intelligent agent, not by undirected material causes.  Design, they say, is empirically detectable…in living things” (Peterson, 2005, p. 413). Backers of ID believe that reasonings such as the theory of evolution are “wholly insufficient…to explain the specified complexity that characterizes life at the cellular and molecular level”( Peterson, 2005, p. 418).

            Principle ID proponent and spokesperson Michael Behe, professor of biology at Lehigh University and author of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge of Evolution, believes that some biological systems are “irreducibly complex”(Behe, 2002)  – that is, to break them down into their component parts would be to find examples of structures that do not operate alone and are therefore not consistent with the “numerous, successive, slight modifications of prior systems”(Behe, 2002) as required by Darwinian evolution. Behe sights the flagella of bacteria as one such example.

            The evidence for irreducibility, however, has not been found. “Evolution produces complex biochemical machines by copying, modifying, and combining proteins previously used for other functions” (Miller, 2002). In fact, citing Behe’s flagella example, Miller goes on to show how some of the proteins involved do work independently and can be acted upon by natural selection.

            Another supporter of the intelligent design concept, Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong writes about ten “icons” that he believes indicate flaws in the theory of evolution. Wells “suggests that Darwinism encourages distortion of the truth” and claims that “[s]tudents and the public are being systematically misinformed about the evidence for evolution” (p. xii). One of Wells’ principle examples, however, that comparative drawings of vertebrate embryos faked by the German scientist Ernst Haekel are still being taught as credible examples for evolution has been wholly discredited by the scientific community. “Regardless of Wells’ religious or philosophical background, the Icons of Evolution can scarcely be considered a work of scholarly integrity” (Miller, Janata & Olson, 2006).

            In a 2005 ruling against the Dover [Pennsylvania] Area School District that had required the inclusion of Intelligent Design in the ninth-grade biology curriculum at Dover High, Judge John E. Jones III cited the American Association for the Advancement of Science in their contention that “the Intelligent Design movement [had] not proposed a scientific means of testing its claims and that the lack of scientific warrant for so-called ‘intelligent design theory’ [made] it improper to include [it] as part of science education”(Barlow, 2006). Jones ruled that intelligent design was a “religious theory. Therefore it should not be taught in a science class, not even as a counterpart to evolution. Teaching intelligent design would violate the Establishment Clause because it substitutes a particular religious theory over a scientific theory (ACLU, n.d.).”

            Dr. Steve Case, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas and former chair of the Kansas Science Curriculum Standards Writing Committee, believes that the intelligent design idea is a “God of the gaps” concept; that “God lives in the gaps in our understanding”(Miller, Janata & Olson, 2006). If we introduce intelligent design as a viable scientific theory in schools we set children up, he reasons, to have either a “crisis of faith” or to be “anti-intellectual”( Miller, Janata & Olson, 2006); either students learn more of what the scientific evidence shows and in turn question their faith, or they turn wholly away from learning because if the universe is so complex, we cannot possibly understand it, so why even try.

            As teachers, then, we face an ethical dilemma in treating the stories that are brought to the Montessori cultural curriculum as equivalent to the science explaining the same events. Part of it is how these stories are brought to the fore. Myths, fables and legends used to demonstrate the myriad ways humankind has attempted to explain the strange and mysterious seem to me an entirely valid inclusion. Stories paired, however, with empirical, data-driven and peer reviewed scientific observations and experiments creates controversy in the discriminating minds of elementary-aged children where there is none. The disconnect is one of beliefs, not science.

            For older students, with a solid understanding of the scientific method, biological evolution and natural selection, a discussion of the history of scientific thought could be incredibly enlightening. Then, the tenets of creationism and intelligent design might be teased out and set beside the scientific evidence for evolution. This would be a philosophical discussion about the history of scientific thought – not science itself, because there is no scientific evidence to support either creationism or intelligent design.

            In our younger classrooms, then, let us explore what cultures from around the world have created to explain the mysterious and sublime. Let us truly revel in the similarities of perspectives and belief systems that people from across the globe share. But, let us not treat any of these stories as valid alternative scientific explanations for the theory of biological evolution. To do so would be to misrepresent science as purely conjecture taken on faith.

References

1. ACLU. (n.d.). Know your rights: A guide for public school students in Colorado             [Brochure]. Retrieved from http://www.aclu-co.org/education/youth/sybil_liberty/index.htm

2. Barlow, D. (2006). Dover schools’ unintelligent design. Retrieved  August 31, 2009.         From http://eddigest.com/

3. Dorer, M. (2008). Intelligent design, science and the Montessori curriculum. MediaSite    Recording. St. Paul, MN: St. Catherine University

4. Miller, S. & Janata, J. (Executive producers), & Olson, R. (Writer/Director).             (2006). Flock of dodos: The evolution-intelligent design circus [motion picture].              United States: Prairie Starfish Productions           

5. Natural History Magazine. (2002, April). Behe, M. (2002). The challenge of             irreducible complexity: Every living cell contains many ultrasophisticated             molecular machines. In R. Milner & V. Maestro (Eds.). Retrieved August 31, 2009 from, http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html 

6. Natural History Magazine. (2002, April). Miller, K. (2002). The flaw in the             mousetrap: Intelligent design fails the biochemistry test. In R. Milner & V. Maestro (Eds.). Retrieved August 31, 2009 from, http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html 

7. Oxford american dictionaries. (2005). Dictionary [computer software]. Apple             Computer, Inc.

8. Peterson, D. (2008). The Little engine that could…undo Darwinism. In J. Noll             (Ed.), Taking sides: Clashing views on educational issues (pp. 412-419). Dubuque: McGraw Hill.            

9. Wells, J. (2000). Icons of evolution: Science or myth? Why much of what we teach          about evolution is wrong. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc.