Bloggy McBlogerson

Ah, blogging. My new best friend. I have to say, that as much of a stink I put up in the first place, I am starting to really get the hang of this nonsense. Hey, you might even catch me blogging about my two-week vacation in August. In fact, I might even start blogging about my weekends and what sorts of educational wisdom, questions, and, as Elicia would put it, “mind blowings” that occur in my every day life!

But really, joking aside, I find myself really thinking about this stuff every day. I love that the ONLY option we have for this program is to do it full time. And I love, as Zalika said, that even though our cohort gets a bit nutty with worry from time to time, we are a dedicated bunch that brings a certain intensity and scholarliness to each subject we take on. And I love it! I love being completely wrapped up in school and being ABLE to be. Talk about privilege—look at us and how awesome our situation is!

But I also agree with some of the things we’ve been discussing in class lately about how you ultimately have the choice and control over a lot of things in life. Each of us, for one reason or another, chose to be here. And we each made it happen. We made the decision to take school seriously enough to have the smarts to get into such a good school. We also were all willing, one way or another, to make the financial sacrifice to be at Lewis & Clark, not the cheapest school, but in my opinion, the best and most exciting in the area. Good for us! And you know what, after talking to some peers who are in programs at PSU and George Fox, believe me, we have made the right decision.

I love the notion of teaching as a political act, something that the LC MAT program in particular is all about, and can’t help but think that every one of us will bring this aspect into our classes in one way or another and make some major differences in a lot of lives and in society all together.

And much like Beth, I am feeling like these past 6 weeks have flown by and could have used a few more in these classes. But that just shows how dedicated we are and how seriously we take all of this. Big ups, everyone.

Finally, I would like to share a wonderment I have been having (you know, so I don’t have to blog about it this weekend, or in August). In this class, even though I came in with a VERY biased opinion of Montessori schools, I ended up LOVING her philosophy. However, I think that my biases come with some good reason. I felt the way I did about these school because all the kids I knew who went to them tended to be my rather, okay, super well-off friends who attended the school in elementary, then went on to our private middle and high school. But it seemed like these people all came in with something special indeed, but also a lack of knowledge of how to get along in a “normal” and therefore real-world school. Also, the only other prior connection I had prior to this was my brother’s girlfriend spouting about the school because she works at one. She has a 6-year-old daughter, who I spent more time with than my own brother this part Christmas, who had also just started attending a Montessori school and no-doubt had grown up with her mother’s Montessori-like parenting techniques.

To get to the point though, and thus to my question, I noticed that all of the kids I’ve encountered who have been deeply entrenched in the Montessori world seem to lack a very necessary set of real-world skills. I refer mostly to the skill of patience, but also to the sense of selflessness. Please, go along with my gross over-representations here that I realize are unfair….Because Montessori kids have the opportunity to kind of do whatever they want for as long as they want, they seem to miss out on some vital skill-building around work-ethic and stick-to-it-iveness. I see this being manifested in our already “Me-oriented” and “I NEED it now” society and tend to think that it would only be deepened by such a classroom environment. What does a teacher in a Montessori classroom do about those kids who don’t just love working on their projects? I know, observe and shape the project to something that they’d like. But how does a Montessori theorist prepare their elementary students to successfully transition into a regular public school classroom without losing any of that-which-is-awesome about the theory? I would love to have the opportunity to visit an actual Montessori classroom to seek some of these answers...

My apologies for how scattered this blog has turned out—I think of my brain as a fried-egg right now!