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I was pouring a cup of cold coffee from a spaghetti sauce jar when I learned that Sonnie had died. When I’m in Nashville, my coffee is an important part of the morning ritual. I grind the beans by hand in a little wooden grinder. I dust them into this beautiful Dolce & Gabbana macchinetta, taking my time to reassemble it as though I were offering a less…

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It’s summer in the US, a time (for most teachers) of rest, recovery, preparation. It’s the intellectual equivalent of child’s pose in yoga, a retreat because there is more work to do and we need to rebuild our reserves to be able to do it. In my world, it does not mean less work, but a different focus to the work I do. I teach less in the summer, but I …

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You know all the routines, the end-of-school traditions that help to bookend the year your classroom community has spent together, the gardens planted or songs sung, the parents welcomed in and the children to whom you say goodbye. But what about when the transition is yours, when you are ending not just a school year, but your time at a school.

Whether it's retirement or a new adventure or a professional realignment, leaving a school is a complicated and delicate process and, increasingly, we may find ourselves saying goodbye to communities we’ve loved. There may be any number of emotions involved: excitement, mourning, anger, loss. You might be leaving at the end of a long and happy tenure or you may be leaving because you are not a healthy fit for the school, or vice versa. The transition might be within your control or without.

Whatever the cause of your transition, make space for it, in your schedule and in your spirit. When you're leaving a school, you're often leaving a place that has seen you at your best and at your worst, with people who know your strengths and the ones who know your challenges. Especially in a practice as individualized as Montessori, when we are asked to be open and compassionate with the children, teachers are vulnerable to each other in a way that makes leaving a school a fragile balance.

Take the long view. There may be conflicts you want to resolve right now, or difficult emotions that challenge your calm. Even when emotions are high- indeed, especially when emotions are high- err on the side of grace and courtesy. School relationships, like other deeply personal, connected relationships, are messy. If you're leaving to retire or to begin a new adventure, be open about the roller coaster of emotions that might accompany the transition. Other teachers might cheer you on – don't be afraid to remind them that even the changes you choose can be scary.

Give yourself space for sense-making: In leaving a school, you are also leaving the possible self you imagined you would be when you began teaching there. You are leaving the identity that you protected while you were there. You are leaving the relationships that helped you on the hardest days. Don't underestimate how deeply you may experience those emotions, and don't presume that they'll be any more predictable than they were when you were a student yourself. You can't decide that you'll be excited about your next step at 11AM during lunch and then that you'll be scared about it at 3:40 after carline. Make friends with the harder feelings that are predictable to feel, even if they might not be predictable in their appearance. While the context of your professional demands may not allow you to put your own stressors ahead of your work, it's ok to find the time, at the end of the day or with a trusted colleague, to talk about how you're managing.

Model grace. The children learn from you whether or not you're offered a formal lesson. Depending on the age of the learner with whom you work, you may need to be more focused on providing a reliably loving space or more focused on providing an authentically complicated model of adulthood. Don't presume there's one way to manage a transition "in Montessori." Instead, talk with your coteachers and your administrators about how you'll articulate the transition and what questions might arise from parents or other stakeholders. Decide together how to respond to questions from the children, and what timeline is appropriate for sharing the news.

Speak what needs to be said, truthfully and in kindness. Except in the most extreme of circumstances, you should prioritize what the children can understand about the transition and how to convey it in a way that models peaceful-resolution and healthy changes. Change is inevitable, even when it affects you. You have an opportunity to model gracious leave-taking, a lesson to teach the children that may be far more lasting than the value of a melodramatic goodbye. There are people with whom you can and should foreground your own sense-making about leaving a school, including the complicated parts that may make leaving a little trickier. But remember, your job in the classroom may ask you to be authentic, but it should also require you to be professional. Montessori practice asks humility of its teachers. Find the space and people with whom it's appropriate to talk about the hows and whys of this change, but don't let that interfere with your stewardship of the classroom or your focus on the children.

Finally, find the gratitude: Whether you are leaving after a fifty year tenure or you're radically changing your lifeplans or you want to practice Montessori differently than you can at that school, or something else entirely, figure out what you have learned from this experience, how it has strengthened your practice and what you are grateful for. Except in the most extreme circumstances and even if you are leaving on less resolved terms, there is something about this experience that has changed you for the better. Honor it and be grateful for it… it will help you move through the predictable challenges of the time leading up to and the time immediately following a transition, but more importantly, it will help you to persist past the transition having named on your own terms this portion of your life.

Unlike the space you provide for the children, you are not in a position to prioritize your own emotional life while the children are there. Authentic? Yes. But the center of the classroom? No. That doesn't mean you shouldn't practice self-care or ask for the emotional support you need to prepare for and recover from a major life change… it just can't get in the way of the children's work. Whatever the driving force is for saying goodbye, focus on helping the children to make sense of it in the most child-centered and developmentally appropriate way you can, and you may find your own meaning in it at the same time.

#Transitions #Goodbye #teachertalk #ForTeachers

I’m a sucker for the unexpected standing ovation, for those times when I see someone’s performance connect so deeply with their audience that the people watching or listening or singing along are drawn up to their feet. Not the obligatory Nashville Standing Ovation (because, truly, everyone gets a standing ovation in Nashville. It’s the Nashville Way.) I mean the ones where people are standing up because what they’re experiencing, what the dancer or musician or orator or whatever, has made them vibrate so joyfully that they can’t possible stay seated, the kind of standing ovation that comes when you can feel the energy mixing and connecting, the walls of our cells and our spirits and our bodies blurring so we don’t feel so separated from each other anymore.

Moments of joy-driven belonging, when we are so fully more than the sum of our parts, when we are, each of us, more than our own selves, more than our collective selves.

The head of my high school, a well coifed Catholic nun named Sister Cynthia, used to call us, “pearls of great price,” to remind us of the grace and beauty that would come from how we responded to adversity. And she would tell us that “when you sing, you pray twice.” I hold both acknowledgments gently. These days, it feels like a good reminder, that our endurance may lead to something beautiful, that we should still find cause to sing. I had the chance to sing (and pray) recently with PubChoir, a group-sing experience curated by the brilliant performer, Astrid, to take large groups of strangers and turn them into a single instrument in the course of two hours.

Here is the hill I will die on: School is about belonging, or not. Learning is about belonging, or not. Teaching is about belonging, or not. This whole big life thing, it’s about belonging, or not. What these spaces teach us about whether we have a community, whether we have people who see us and understand us, who understand our need to be understood even when they don’t yet understand us, determines, more than our literacy rates or our knowledge of calculus or our ability to navigate AI, what happens next.

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It's time for the end of the school year celebration, teacher thank-you's and summer plans. For teachers and parents, this is a time of year that feels chaotic: thinking ahead to next year, trying to be sure that everyone who supported or cared for the children this year is appropriately acknowledged, making sure everything you wanted to accomplish gets done in the few last weeks of the year.

But for the children, especially children in the First Plane of development with its strong need for structure and order, all this excitement feels more like a disruption than a celebration. While you're getting ready for what's coming next, be sure not to overlook what the children need now.

Give your child notice about the upcoming changes, but not too much. Children in early childhood need about a week's notice before any visible changes in their environment. That is to say, think about a week out from when the child's schedule might change or something in their environment might be new or missing, and let them know the change is coming. Telling children about changes (even good ones!) sooner than their ability to conceptualize those changes causes undue stress.

Give the details they need, knowing that they might not need as many as you do. Explain how whatever is changing will change. "Next week, we will have a big celebration party to say goodbye to this classroom and get ready for summer." "Next Monday, you'll begin swim lessons. After lunch each day, we'll go to the pool together. We'll do that every day for one week."

Offer supports that are at their level: Ask your child what questions they have about the upcoming change. Listen carefully and take their concerns seriously, and remember that they may need time to think about what's changing before they can articulate their questions. Check in as you approach the transition to see what sense they're making.

Engage them: If there are things to do to prepare for the end of the school year, be sure to let the children take the lead. So, for example, if your child is giving a thank-you gift to their teacher, let them help to choose the gift, talking them through what they know about the recipient and what they think would be of value to them. As an adult, you might give a different gift, but the ones that come from your child should come from your child. If there is packing up to do, let them be involved whenever it's happening. You wouldn't want to return to a space that you knew well to learn that someone else had packed up your things while you were gone. The children don't, either.

Be honest about what's coming next: If a teacher is changing positions or if you are going to a new school, be honest, but again, don't offer more details than your child needs sooner than they need them. " Next Friday will be your last day at Willow School. Last days places can feel a little different. What questions do you have about your last day at school?" Answer their questions, but offer the information that's useful to them rather than complicated lists of facts that might be more than they can take in.

Finally, remember, as in all parenting, to offer the truth, in a way they can hear, with the kindness they need to feel safe. Your child may demonstrate all sorts of emotions as they prepare for a big change at school, from fear to excitement, and some of those emotions might end up presenting like they're very different things. A child who's scare might act more energetic or silly. A child who's sad might act more hesitant or assertive. Acknowledge the emotions that you notice, and ask your child to talk about them in a loving way. You're modeling for your child the full range of experience that comes with saying goodbye, both the enthusiasm for what's coming next and the sadness for what you're leaving behind. Let them have the time to make sense of those emotions, and share them compassionately, assuring your child that, even when things change, your love for them remains constant.

#Transitions #FirstPlane #Primary #ForParents

It's time for the end of the school year celebration, teacher thank-you's and summer plans. For teachers and parents, this is a time of year that feels chaotic: thinking ahead to next year, trying to be sure that everyone who supported or cared for the children this year is appropriately acknowledged, making sure everything you wanted to accomplish gets done in the few last weeks of the year.

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We promised the children a different future. We are failing.

Now, more than ever. We are called to care for and nurture the child, not so that they can become more like us, but so that they will not be. When we look at the crises around us, we have to acknowledge that most of them have lasted longer, or been more severe, or impacted more lives because of our own actions as adults.

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I prepared the following for the 50th Anniversary of St. Nicholas Montessori Society in 2023. It was the last time I was able to see my friend and mentor, Sighle, whose leadership informed a generation of Montessorians and whose fingerprints are all over my heart. Reprinted here in her memory.

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It’s been four years since I first bought my camper-van. I was one of those too many people who, watching videos of people’s cross-country adventures from the stagnancy of my living room during COVID shutdowns, was so anxious to get out of the house, get on the road, get anywhere, once the world opened again, that I drove to Alabama, paid too much for a…

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I’m writing this from home, my shoulders still recovering from last week’s sunburn and my toes wrapped up in my winter slippers. It was 72 degrees here on Sunday. It is 33 degrees this morning. The daffodils have opened, but I had to take my coat back out of the closet. It is a liminal morning. In the cycle of the seasons, this is the window that “comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb.” For hundreds of years, we’ve used that language to describe the weather between winter and spring, but I think there’s another connection for our spirits.

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Dear friends,

You are receiving this because you were an early subscriber to Montessori Daoshi. Although the website and bookstore will remain active, I am transitioning the blog space to substack, where posts will continue to be available for subscribers and it will be a little easier for me to add new content.

I’m really grateful for the support and ki…

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It's almost Spring, that season when Montessori conferences pop up like daffodils to enchant and inspire Montessori teachers all over the country. And while it can seem like you don't have time to leave your classroom to go to conference, you should, and here's why:

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When you first learned about Montessori, you may have been enchanted by the peaceful classrooms, by the idyllic language about the nature of children and the hope for the future they offer. You may have imagined yourself a beloved teacher and guide, children gathered at your feet as you offered them a wonder-filled glimpse at the petals of a daisy, blue…

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Look familiar? They should. The Number Rods follow almost the same initial presentation as the Red Rods, a perennial favorite in the Montessori classroom. While the Red Rods demonstrate the concept of length, the Number Rods use that same structure to introduce the child to early concepts of quantity and numeral. For the first presentation, the child co…

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There are some parts of the Montessori classroom that seem to get all the attention: the beautiful Practical Life materials, the engaged constructions in the Sensorial area, the precise Math lessons or the carefully sequenced Language materials. But there\\’s another area of the classroom that\\’s often overlooked: the Cultural Materials.

The Cultural ma…

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