Happy New Year to everyone! With all that has happened to me personally in 2010, I am hoping for a peaceful, uneventful and happy 2011 for us all.
Now on to what makes me happiest... Though my school is still on winter break until next week (which partly explains my lack of posts), I began a second job yesterday and am now a nanny for a 6 and 4 year old. On my second full (8 hour) day with them, I realized (as I have many times in my life) that no matter what I have planned for the day, what the child is interested in dictates what we will do. I was first formally introduced to this concept in college in my Child Development classes, having to create a full curriculum around an imaginary interaction between children. Spinning a lesson plan off a child visiting the zoo and exciting the class with stories, or bringing in a beautiful leaf that was outside their doorstep to share with the children, will create a deeper love and willingness to learn if the teacher/caregiver/parent takes notice. It does take more effort on the adult's end to develop a plan quickly, but the results may carry the class for months. Today, the 6 year old developed holding a stuffed animal into caring for a baby doll, having a baby shower, ending with creating an animal sound book to read to her doll. None of this was inspired by my ideas, only supported and guided to further her exploration. She not only practiced care of others, but problem solving, writing, and brainstorming. All of this also inspired her younger brother to feed the baby, create a book as well and read it to his teddy bear.
This evening I read a few pages of Catherine McTamaney's The Tao of Montessori, a book I have read before, and will revisit many times again, and the concepts of being a scientist in the classroom seemed relevant. As a teacher and guide, we are nothing if we don't watch the children. Observation, documenting and knowing the child as a whole and as an individual is the base to being able to instill any knowledge. I observed the two children for almost an hour, noting her language, situational rules and ideas, and taking away with me a better understanding of how their brain processing works. In the same chapter McTamaney pushes the concept of being a saint in the class. When thinking of this word, SAINT, I think of doing for others physically, feeding others when I am hungry, clothing them when I am cold, but being a saint in the classroom is different. Yes, we ensure children are cared for- warm jackets, full tummies- but to be a saint, McTamaney states, is "when we are still, when we do not seek to change or to affect or to modify or to improve any other human around us but when, in our stillness, we accept." This is a new concept to saintliness, and something to challenge myself to do. I look back on today, and while we were crafting I found myself rushing around, making deals to clean up half their mess if they clean the other. This was not a saintly action. I was depriving the children of completing a project from start to finish. While it may have been easier/faster/more efficient to do it myself, I took away an experience that was their own.
As much as I miss the classroom, I am looking at these four full nannying days as a time to refresh my Montessori core values, remembering to be a guide not a provider, and using stillness to allow the children to unfold. Do you pride yourself on being the new concept of a saint? Have key observing tips to share? Please share! Here's to making the year full and beautiful.
