Let's talk about your kids.

Hey...

You.

Yeah, you!

I want to talk about your kids. That's right. Your kids. I don't even care if you have kids. You should know enough of them to be able to reflect on what I have to say. So finish watching that video on ebaumsworld and settle in. This is important.

I was reading "Discovery of the Child" today by Maria Montessori. I'm a dork, I know.

Think about the years when you had the most learning happen to your children. It was probably between the ages of 0-6. Why is this? It's the time when they are naturally exploring their environment, trying to master the environment, and willing to try things to make mistakes and try different ways of adapting to those mistakes. A child learning to walk might try to stand up, but realizes he cannot. His next step is to crawl over to a shelf and pull himself up.

This is done naturally. This is done with movement. This is done without the parent lecturing the child on the steps of how to learn to walk. It's done without the child sitting at a desk listening to lecturers talk about how to walk.

As your child gets older (preschool...kindergarten), they naturally develop a sense of questioning. They are always exploring new things. Parents often get frustrated with "Why" questions all the time. Welcome them. They are a fantastic opportunity for you to learn as well. One of the best computer technicians I have ever met used to read his college level computer books to his 4 year old. He said he did so because the 4 year old would always question what things meant. He said if he can explain it to a 4 year old, he knows he understands it perfectly.

So why am I writing this blog? I'm writing to ask why parents, in general, have willingly given up on their child's natural inclination to investigate new things and have simply complied to the idea that they are not going to learn quite the same way any more. Maria Montessori wrote:

"A proof of this (repression in education) may be found in the use made of desks and seats to match. Here we may see a striking example of the mistakes made by earlier materialistic educators who stumbled badly in their efforts....

...The hidden motive behind all this seperation of the children was to prevent immoral actions in the classroom, even kindergartens!...

...Everything is so arranged that, when a child is firmly fixated at his desk, he is forced to assume a position thought to be conductive to his health."

Stop and think about that for a second. What desks have done is taken away the very thing you, as a parent, found fascinating about your child. And I'm not (nor is Maria Montessori) necessarily talking about desks in general. You can imagine exactly the type of school desk we're discussing here. But, more importantly, education has changed, especially starting at the first grade, into something where immobility is practiced more than learning.

Think about when you take your children to an interactive science museum. Your child moves from activity to activity. They try everything out. They ask questions. They read about what they're doing. We come home, after spending $30 (we got them ice cream too) ... oh ... $150 (we had to use 1/2 tank of gas to drive around that day). We say, "Wow! I am so amazed at how much they learned at the museum." We do that on a Sunday, then send them on Monday to a science class where they sit in a desk and read about leaves while looking at pictures of leaves from a book. It never occures to the teacher to leave the book behind, give the kids a bag, go outside and have them collect some leaves, then sit down in a nice place to tear them apart and have the students investigate the different parts. The learning that happened in the science museum sparked an interest in you, as a parent, that happened years ago when they were first learning to walk, speak, or read. Yet, somehow, we gladly send our children to schools where they are immobile and inactive during the teaching time.

As a side note, I am not saying there aren't teachers that do well in a "desk" type environment. I feel one of the greatest teachers I had, Katie Gregg, (Mrs. Gregg back then) was clearly a huge inspiration to my style of teaching. Mr. Cronin's "Apocalypse" class in High School set me in the direction of a love for Scripture. There are others as well. They all did it VERY creatively, but it took a lot of thinking outside the box for that to happen. I will say, in my reflections, that I did not find most of the teachers I encountered outside of my Montessori years very good at inspiring me to learn.

So now the question is posed to the parents of the World:

"Why are you not demanding a more interactive approach to your child's education? Why are you allowing a test-driven educational method to prevail? Why are you not screaming out to the school board to look at other methods of education which have demonstrated a better track record than what we are presenting our children with today?"

I am NOT simply talking about Montessori, though I do have my bias there. The real issue here is that we understand so much about what is developmentally appropriate for children, yet schools fail to impliment that understanding into a classroom setting.

I think this is the most critical time for Americans, especially, to be seriously pondering this question as education in our country has severely plummeted in the last few years (thanks, George Bush!). I seriously doubt my blog is going to make much of a difference in that regard. Hopefully, I sparked a few minds that they might go out and ask their friends the same question.

I always have people question whether Montessori can really give children discipline. Think about the science museum again. I have been to several museums and I do not recall many instances where a child has been destructive to the museum. I do not recall any fights breaking out. I do not recall any child saying to another, "You're stupid!" or anything similar. I recall children eagerly moving around, trying things out, moving to the next thing. The discipline is all internalized. The most interesting ideas are met with "Awww...cool!" The most interactive parts are often met with a child telling another child how to work the machine. There is learning and there is teaching. What has happened is we have taken this idea of "disciplined" to mean "only engaged by following along with the teacher's discussion and not being a disruption." Is that seriously a disciplined child?

Since I no longer work in a Montessori school, I have noticed students are "disciplined" by the simple fact that they've taken their boredom out on scribbling on desks, drawing in their books, or throwing erasers. It is not their fault. I won't even say it's fully my fault. It's the environment's fault. I would honestly do the same thing if I had to sit in a desk from 8 AM until 9 PM every day and listen to people talk. Before working here, my students took out their boredom by putting that material away and choosing something else more challenging. Talk about a change of styles on my part. No wonder I'm having trouble adjusting to the new job.

Feel free to disagree or agree. Would love to hear your comments. If you do comment, try to answer this question: "Why are you not screaming out to the school board to look at other methods of education which have demonstrated a better track record than what we are presenting our children with today?"

If you don't answer that question, that's ok too. Just wondering overall thoughts.

Matt