The Loft Proposal

I have so many stories from my classroom that I want to share and I am so far behind! But this one had to take precedence, as it was one of the greatest experiences, yet.

At our old facility, from which we moved in the summer of 2011, I had inherited the room that had the loft. I was so excited when I saw that classroom on my interview tour. I remember telling my parents that I would love to have that room, but wouldn't hold my breath. I was ecstatic. I loved using it. I would get a birds' eye view as I observed the children moving around the classroom. Children used it when they didn't feel well, or just wanted to get away for a bit. We were devastated when we couldn't bring it to the new facility with us. 

Here is a picture of it after we had moved everything else out of the building:

Many of my students last year had been in that old building, and of course would ask for it. They were sad, but gradually accepted that it was gone. One of them was actually proud because his father had taken it to be reused elsewhere. This year, I am down to just a handful of kids who were in that building. Today, out of the blue, one of those boys asked me why we didn't have the loft.

"Well," I replied, "When we had to move here, [the boss] said we couldn't have it anymore for many reasons. Besides, where would we put it?"

He looked at me with a deadpan expression and said, "So, get rid of the SmartBoard!"

I swear I didn't put him up to this, as I know many of my readers know how I feel about the SmartBoard. And ironically enough, had the loft actually come with us, that's precisely where it was designated to go had the giant SB not arrived. Oh yeah, here is the monster-sized thing:

This is actually a picture from BEFORE the giant arm came out from the top, that is used as the projector. But, I digress...

Anyway, so I told him if he was really concerned about it, he could go ahead and talk to The Boss about it. He recruited one of his younger friends to go with them. The office staff later told me that they came in very serious and demanded to see The Boss (only using her proper name). With hands on his hips, he told her that we needed our loft back and wanted to know what to do. She asked them to draw a picture and to leave it for her later. They returned to the room to let me know.

I happened to have this picture on my computer still, so I opened up the file so that they could see it to draw it. He then used it as a talking point as he gathered other students around him. He told them how every part of it worked, all of the shelves and tables and what-not that had been around it, and how wonderful it had been. He also started listing reasons why we should get it backed and called it his "Business Meeting."

So, I offered to transcribe their reasons and tried to play Devil's Advocate as I came up with more questions for them to solve. When we were done, I typed it up. We printed it out. The little group signed it and then delivered it to The Boss for her to peruse. She told them that she would look it over and then meet with them later. They are determined to meet with her at 9 am, so I hope she does!

Here is what they had to say:

REASONS WHY WE NEED THE LOFT

1. It was very quiet up there.
2. We have tables and knee tables, but we need more room to work with more people.
3. You can put knee tables under the loft.
4. If it is too sunny and you forgot your sunglasses, you can work in the shade under the loft.
5. When it is so hot, you can get cooler under there.
6. It was so quiet up there, that you didn't need to come down to turn off the lights to tell people to be quiet.
7. It was so nice up there. You could see everything in the room and see all the people. You could pick your work without having to walk around. You could look, see what the work was, and then pick it out to take back to the loft. You didn't have to walk and walk and walk and make your legs tired.
8. The bench was up there. You could take a book and just turn the pages. No one interrupted you like down here.
9. I think it would be nice and quiet and not disturbing like down here.
10. The loft was so relaxing.

 HOW WOULD YOU GET THE LOFT? 

"How big is the box?"

WHO IS GOING TO BUILD THIS?

[The custodian.]

HOW WILL YOU PAY FOR THE LOFT?

• Doing jobs, like cleaning works. 

• Collect all of the money at my home.

• Chiropractic job

• Go to all the classrooms to clean all of the works. ("You guys realize that we're going to have to be at school for a long time to get all of that cleaning done, right? We may have to sleep here!")

WHERE WOULD THE LOFT GO?

~~Take down the SmartBoard.  It doesn't work, anyway, so we don't need it.

~~We can move the language shelves, put up the loft, and then put the shelves back under the loft.

~~We cannot block the bathroom, the exit door and the door you come in.

So, there you have it. I'm particularly fond of the sunglasses reason, myself.

Trying to get a loft into the classroom is going to be a difficult task. There are so many factors that must be taken into consideration, such as space, cost, and insurance with liability. We may be able to come up with some kind of a compromise. And honestly, my classroom isn't really loud this year. I think they just are in love with being able to turn off the lights to ask everyone to use quieter voices. ;-)

I love these guys.

I will keep you posted! 

Let go of your agenda

Even Montessori teachers have to adhere to some sort of agenda. We make plans about what we are going to teach our kids. We have certain requirements that we need to meet, especially when kids are moving on to public schools. And yes, we do need to answer to parents to an extent. That is the crappy part of the job. But the beauty of Montessori is sometimes you can just absolutely let it go.

My first major agenda change happened last week. I was all set to do my Extended Day sound of the week lesson. The kids had just came back from lunch, so they were still changing their shoes. Instead of us always tying the children's shoes, we encourage them to ask a friend. This is one of those skills that children always seem to learn better from each other than from an adult. I vividly remember the boy who taught me how to tie my shoes in Montessori kindergarten.

One of our boys learned how to tie his shoes at the end of last school year and has been very helpful with the other children. On that day, he was feeling a little frustrated with everyone asking him to help tie their shoes. He finally exclaimed, "Okay, everyone! You all need to learn how to tie your shoes!"

I quietly said, "You know, there are dressing frames over in practical life that will help you practice tying shoes."

The boy in question walks over to the bin and gets out the bow-tying frame. "Okay, everyone, watch me!" And he proceeds to give his own lesson on the tying frame. The kids were so excited that they wanted more dressing frames. I didn't yet have them all out, so I went to the storage closet and filled the bin. They gave each other lessons on the dressing frames for a solid 20 minutes. I did finally get around to my sounds lesson, but this somehow took priority.

Today there was a similar story. I did my sounds book and they brainstormed new words. They got out their notebooks to write some of them down. I noticed that the aforementioned boy and another one were doing more than just writing words in their notebooks. The second boy just recently started taking Chinese classes. He is madly in love with his new talent of writing Chinese characters and was teaching the first boy how to make some. He then started showing me some of them and I told him I could add some works to the shelf if he was interested. He got very excited.

I pulled out my laptop and showed him a couple of activities that I already knew. He helped to teach us how to correctly pronounce the Chinese numbers from 1-10. He commented that he wanted to know how to make more of the numbers, but hadn't yet gotten there at Chinese school. So, I hopped on YouTube and found a video about making numbers. I played it and asked him if that looked right. He said yes and got very excited to see how some larger numbers were made. One by one more children came around to watch. Some of them even grabbed their notebooks and were trying to make the characters. They also asked to watch a short video that taught them the color names in Chinese. We watched a few of them repeatedly. Have I maybe found a use for that damn SmartBoard? (Although my assistant and I agreed that we preferred the intimacy of using the laptop, instead.)

It was very exciting for me as well as the children. This is what I love about Montessori education. You follow the child and his interests. And you can learn from him just as much as he will learn from you.

SmartBoard Technology in the Montessori Classroom

Ok, I am being naughty and typing directly on my phone during a SmartBoard presentation at my school. I will be honest that I just do not see the benefits of having such technology in the 3-6 classroom.

I have been told that it is okay because the SmartBoard is manipulative. Yes, it is manipulative. You can move it. But Montessori is more than just manipulation. Maria Montessori emphasized th e tactile part of learning. The child needs to feel the contours of the edges of a shape to understand what differentiates a square from a circle. Just pulling one from a menu and describing what it looks like is not enough. Those details come later in math education. If the,hand is the direct link to the mind, how does this work? Isn't this skipping over a very important step?

It is no secret that I am not a fan, particularly in the 3-6 classroom. Many of my colleagues feel the same way. My school has chosen to be a leader in the technological developments. So,have some others. And yet our presenter has also commented that other Montessori schools were less than pleasant about the opportunity.

I realize that I do not have much of a choice but learn how to use it. I am hoping that someone can possibly convince me of the benefits, because I just haven't yet seen them.