Teacher Experience in the Montessori School

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My prime teaching time was between the second and the sixth year since I had high enthusiasm and energy to prove that I was the best teacher. Palmer (2007, p. 92) asserts that community cannot take root in the divided life. Long before community assumes external shape and form, it must be present as seed in the undivided self; only as we are in community with ourselves can we find community with others. In this regard, I focused on building positive relationships within the school and in the community. Intimacy is the best therapy for the pain of disconnection. An intimate relationship goes beyond an implicit capacity for connectedness; we explicitly share our deeper natures with each other in the belief that we can be fully known and accepted (Palmer, 2007, p. 93). Following this perspective, I embarked on establish strong relationships with the school administration and the parents in order to win their support in my teaching career.

I believed that the subjected-centered classroom is characterized by the fact that the third thing has a presence so real, and vivid that it can hold teachers and students alike accountable for what they say and do. In such a classroom, there are no inert facts (Palmer, 2007, p. 119). Hence, I focused on developing new learning materials to supplement the curriculum. Moreover, I helped my colleagues to improve their leadership skills. Standing (1998, p. 88), highlights the importance of leadership by stating that Maria Montessori was herself; the personification of what her own ideal teacher should be one who combines the self-sacrificing spirit of the scientist with the love of the disciple of Christ. Tolle (2005, p. 243) emphasizes the importance of creativity by stating that discover inner space by creating gaps in the stream of thinking. Without these gaps, your thinking becomes repetitive, uninspired, and devoid of any creative soar. Thus, I joined organizations such as Science Teachers Association, American Montessori Association, and Bay Area Montessori Teachers Association in order to discover my knowledge and skill deficiencies.

Aligning the schools curriculum to the Montessori system of education was very important to the school. In the third year, the administration invited me to participate in the design of policy and curriculum development. This experience enabled me to acquire listening, conflict resolution, and group facilitation skills. These skills are important because the majority of human beings do not want war, yet wars come. The causes of war are not those, which appear on the surface and immediately precipitate its outbreak. They lie deep down in the collective subconscious of humanity (Standing, 1998, p. 81). Tolle (2005, p. 228) reaffirms this statement by asserting that whenever you are upset by an event, a person, or a situation, the real cause is not the event, person, or situation, but a loss of true perspective that only space can provide. I was keen to generate knowledge that facilitates integration of ideas and information in the disciplines that I taught. According to Hirsch (1999, p. 25), the positive effects of giving children enabling knowledge accomplished a lot more than just making them better behaved. They are better behaved mainly because they are absorbed in learning. Consequently, I focused on delivering the content that is applicable to the real world in order to engage the children, as well as, to improve their behavior and understanding. This involved effective lesson planning and development of instructional materials that reflect current constructs and principles.

As the lead teacher for 1^st and 2^nd grade, I collaborated with teachers of other disciplines in order to analyze and to structure cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching. I supervised the guides who were responsible for designing instructions that develop students ability to use communication skills; apply core concepts; become self-sufficient and responsible team members; think and solve problems; and to integrate knowledge. This involved holding weekly meetings with the guides in order to help them develop the instructions. Standing (1998, p. 85) asserts that when the fascist rule became dominant in Italy, she (Montessori) realized that an education, which had as its aim the development of a strong and free personality could not thrive in a totalitarian atmosphere. This assertion highlights the importance of collaboration among teachers. Teachers often fail because they focus too much in one aspect of their career. This is the dimension of object consciousness, which is the predominant reality for many people, and that is why their lives are out of balance. Object consciousness should be balanced by space consciousness (Tolle, 2005, p. 227). I organized workshops and seminars to help the teachers to develop best teaching practices, as well as, to integrate skills, thinking processes, and content across disciplines.

By the end of the third year, I was in charge of six classes. I met with teachers in the summer of my third year and helped them to setup their classes appropriately in order to accommodate an authentic Montessori culture. The rationale of this strategy is that the childs love of order is based on a vital need for a precise and determined environment. Only in such an environment can the child categorize his perception, and form an inner conceptual framework with which to understand and deal with his world (Lillard, 1972, p. 33). Herman (2012, p. 38) asserts that Maria Montessori understood the importance of interaction with the world to the development of children. In this context, the digital interface is a permanent aspect of our existence.

Like most things in life, we must employ media to our advantage by using it appropriately and in moderation (Herman, 2012, p. 42). Thus, we introduced the use of technologies such as audiovisual and computers in the classrooms in order to improve learning. We also developed assessment rubrics for various grades. According to Tolle (2005, p. 241), test, touch, and smell are sense objects. They are what you experience. Moreover, every experience has three possible ingredients: sense perception, thoughts or mental images, and emotions (Tolle, 2005, p. 241). Thus, we planned for appropriate use of the resources that are available in the school and the community to support learning through field trips and demonstrations by outside experts. Students visited organizations such as H2 club where they got the opportunity to apply their knowledge.

Palmer (2007, p. 101) emphasizes the importance of positive interactions by asserting that the community of truth is an image of knowing that embraces both the great web of being on which all things depend and the fact that our knowledge of those things is helped, not hindered, by our being enmeshed in that web. Towards my fourth year, I focused on maintaining positive classroom interactions through group activities. According to Palmer (2007, p. 39), we cannot demand intimacy and when we try, we only drive each other off. However, the educational liabilities of the therapeutic model run deep still. When relationships are judged by the norm of intimacy, our world shrinks to a vanishing point. Thus, I focused on showing sensitivity to individuals and responding to students objectively.

In the fifth year, the enrolment in my class increased significantly because most of the students had scored above 90% in various assessments. I focused on relating learning with the knowledge and experiences that the students had acquired earlier. I also divided the class into smaller groups by allowing my assistant to help with the teaching.

In the summer of my sixth year, I embarked on evaluating the effectiveness of instructions, which were used in teaching. I also modified instructions based on my reflections, as well as, the comments and evaluation results that I obtained from the classes that I supervised. This strategy was important because the guiding principle of a successful educational system holds that slower children be encouraged to work longer and intensively. Teachers are aware of the minimal knowledge and skill that children must attain at each grade and must cooperate to reach that goal (Hirsch, 1999, p. 90). I assessed programs and curricula in order to make recommendations for improvements. Furthermore, I discussed with all stakeholders the aim and extent of the joint effort to advance the curriculum of the 1^st and 2^nd grade. The collaborative instructional methods were developed and implemented through a joint effort by all stakeholders.

References

Herman, J. (2012). Creating Balance in the New Age of Technology. Montessori Life, 24(1) , 42-43.

Hirsch, E. (1999). The Schools we Need and Why we dont have them. New York: Anchor Books.

Lillard, P. (1972). Montessori, a Modern Approach. New York: Schocken Books.

Palmer, P. (2007). The Courage to Teach. San Francisco: Wiley Imprint.

Standing, E. (1998). From Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work. Penguin Group: New York.

Tolle, E. (2005). The Power of a New Earth. New York: Penguin Group.

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Teacher Experience in the Montessori School

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