Phenomenon Revealed A Lesson Learned by a Montessori Teacher

I have been working towards this dream/goal of having my own classroom for sixteen years! I have been a co-teacher in a Montessori 3-6 classroom, a paraprofessional in each grade K-6, a long term sub third grade teacher, and a lunch waitress for 5 of those years. I have also been a mom for 27 years. I have learned a lot, yet know there is just as much that I have not yet learned. I realize I have dated myself however my history is critical to demonstrate that learning is an ongoing, forever process.

I have worked with the most academically and behaviorally challenged students for the last eight years. I have witnessed the daily drudgeries of kindergarteners who struggle to sit still, of fourth graders at first grade math level that didn’t understand the concept of making ten, and of sixth graders who couldn’t read beyond the second grade level. I have witnessed their depression, their temper tantrums, violent outbursts, thrown clip boards, chairs, and desks. I have felt their frustrations and despair as they struggled every day to learn and “fit” in. I could easily tell what it was they hadn’t learned and what it was they needed to learn, but I don’t think I ever considered the totality of what they had learned.

Now I find myself with a class of six three years olds, six four year olds, and ten Kindergarteners. Dr. Maria Montessori referred to these ages as the stage of the Absorbent Mind.  The fours and fives spent last year together as threes and fours in a classroom in which chaos was the rule of order.  The circumstances were most unfortunate for everyone involved and the consequences are very real. Chaos was absorbed, chaos was learned. I had heard “bits and pieces” about last year, but truly understood on the day I met my Kindergarteners!

 As a whole class with mixed ages and experiences we have spent fifteen days together. The multitude of inappropriate behaviors are not really that dramatic; however exasperating they seem, compared to what my peers in the upper elementary, middle, and high school grades are experiencing. I am also not that concerned because they are only 3, 4, & 5 and I have all year to teach and re-teach. The lesson in this story has been revealing itself to me as I tried to get a handle on the chaos that kept asserting itself into each “perfect” day over the past three weeks.  I have realized a phenomenon as “the answer”!  I have realized what they have learned and now understand what they have not yet learned! And so, I must teach accordingly.

            All behavior choices are made based on what an individual has and has not yet learned. This may not seem earth shattering to you at first, but I ask you to slow down, back up a bit. Think of a student in your class who is struggling with behavior choices, think of a grown up in your present life that also struggles with their “behavior choices”. Then consider that these less than appropriate choices are simply a result of what they have and what they have not yet learned.

            The next challenge for us as grownups and teachers is to decide what our responsive choice is going to be. Should we react in a way that scolds, punishes, isolates, demeans, belittles, or embarrasses? Or as grownups and teachers do we think before we react? Do we pause to consider the function of the behavior, it is something that has been learned, and it is something that has not yet been learned. If it is a learned behavior that needs to be modified, then as teachers we must teach the appropriate alternative. If it is a behavior that comes from not knowing the appropriate choice, then once again as teachers we must teach the appropriate choice. 

            This must shake you to your core! You must take the time to consider; learned and not yet learned, then teach accordingly.

            I felt compelled to share this phenomenon revealed because I know the truth of the day in the life of an educator and I know the truth of the day in the life as a single mother. I know it is much easier to react when burdened with all of the stresses, pressures, and burdens of the job and everyday life. Reacting is a lot easier than thinking! Punishing is quicker than teaching.

Stop, take the time to think about the individual child who is struggling with making appropriate behavior choices. It doesn’t matter whether they are 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, or even 24. Their brains are only 3, 6, 9, 12 … 24 years old. Think of what they have learned and not yet learned.

We, as teachers, as parents, as spouses, as siblings, and as children ourselves have expectations of how the other people in our lives should behave. Just because we expect something of someone, doesn’t mean they have properly learned it yet. When the students in our class, co-workers, members of our families, etc. make inappropriate behavior choices the natural inclination is to react. Most often our own choice is to react negatively with consequences that scold, punish, isolate, demean, belittle, or embarrass. Stop, take the time to consider; this is because it is what we have learned and because of what we have not yet learned.

No child or adult, no student or teacher is ever too old to learn. Stop, take the time to consider; learned and not yet learned, then teach accordingly.

A Whole New World

Teaching at its core comes from a place of compassion. We all have it. There is a wellspring of love and compassion in all of us, especially us teachers,  but it often gets covered up by our ideas about the world, our egos and identities that we construct, the stories we assemble in order to make sense and survive in an ideal world that we want it to be. Our fabricated ideas about the world that we want it to be often come into conflict with the world as it really is, and this can result in an uncomfortable and uneasy feeling as we combat this experience.  Those moments of unfamiliarity bring about an insecurity that force us to bunker down and entrench ourselves even stronger so that our world view and our ideas about reality do not get upset. We overcompensate to fortify our old ideas and thus become less flexible and adaptable to new situations that we have never encountered. And so, we lose our ability to be compassionate and tap into our empathy. My first couple of weeks teaching at Westinghouse 6-12, in Homewood, brought me to this awakening. I say awakening because it hits at the heart of what great instructing can be and the essence of where it comes from.

There is a particular student that I teach, let’s call her Rachel… She was one of those students that did not engage, stayed to herself and made it clear she did not wish to be bothered. She was frequently late, and when I would address any situation with her to try and reach her, get her to participate or get information to better assist and assess the situation, she would become aggressive, vulgar, disrespectful and defiant. When trying to address the inappropriate and volatile behavior, she became more enraged and would swear directly at me and leave the room time after time. Being the conscientious and respectable teacher that I thought I was, I would try to engage the situation in order for everyone to know that I would not tolerate that type of behavior. I was being driven by fear… Fear that if I did not seem strong and punitive that others in the class would appropriate that same type of behavior because I did not earn their respect. I was also driven by ego that someone was insulting me and that I was looking bad in front of the class as she didn’t acknowledge my redirections or my comments about her behavior. I started to engage in a deleterious battle that made me look even worse.

I was in a conundrum. How could I let her just get away with the insults and defiance knowing full well that her behavior was destructive and detrimental to her wellbeing? If I let her run over me and do what she wanted without listening to my instruction how would I be perceived and how would my reputation get stained? It was a blow to my ego, and this ego made the problem more about me than Rachel. My self-centeredness covered up my compassion so that I was not able to channel my intuition and empathy in order to be of help and assistance. I was transmitting my own anger and frustration and imposing my ideas of how I thought she should be regardless of the circumstances that were most certainly influencing her behavior.  My world view of how I wanted the world to be was not corresponding to this new world as it was.

As a result, I was forced to remove myself from the equation and make it all about Rachel. I made adjustments to her. I didn’t combat her. I put up a mirror to her to allow her to see more of herself. I accepted…. When that acceptance was felt between the two of us, something miraculous transpired. We communicated and smiled. A trust was formed. Rachel slowly began to come out of her shell and participate without my assistance or urging; it came from her own volition.  She literally had made a 180 degree turn. There were still some outbursts of great frustration that were coming from a deep place, but they were not about me. My narcissistic point of view had let me convince myself that it was all about me, which made me respond to an illusory force and problem that I had invented. This fabricated idea was all driven by my ego. Her disdain and attitude had to be about me because then I could control that and make it better since the issue was within me.

We so often get in our own way with our illusory set of perspectives and faulty point of views built on our old ideas and stories that we devise ourselves. It is incumbent that we let go of those preconceived notions to allow for the world as it really is to reveal itself so that we can tap into our compassion and intuition that will lead us to doing the right thing and making right choices in our teaching and methodologies.  It is then that we will show the way and reach our full potential as teachers and guiders.  

I had difficulty reaching Rachel’s mother in the beginning of our failing relationship. There was a reason. When I finally made contact with her to relate the transformation that her daughter was going through and how proud of her I was at her progress, she informed me that she had just gotten released from a federal penitentiary. My old world did not correspond to this new one. Rachel has taught me a great deal.