Manifesto For Education
As my 3 year old daughter, Emerson, has grown and excelled in her Montessori school, I’ve thought more and more about what my hopes are for her future education and what I believe an education should provide.
There’s a great deal of talk these days about standards in education. I believe that it’s time for a new type of standards. I’ve attempted to put together a set of 10 belief statements that highlight the positive perspective of Emerson’s education and my own learning experiences.
I didn’t set out to write statements that are exclusive to Montessori, but rather aspirational for the schools that I hope will help Emerson become the best possible version of herself.
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I believe children deserve a PERSONALIZED and PURPOSEFUL education. They should be free to do INDEPENDENT, SELF-DIRECTED and FASCINATION-DRIVEN work. The classroom should be an ENVIRONMENT OF BEAUTY that allows for FREE MOVEMENT and COLLABORATION. A commitment to EXPERIMENTATION and DISCOVERY during childhood will create a foundation for lifelong learning.
1) PERSONALIZED - I believe that a child deserves an education that is responsive to his or her individual spirit and learning style, utilizes all of the senses, and focuses on his or her dynamic development as a whole person (i.e. emotional, physical, social, spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual.)
2) PURPOSEFUL - I believe that a child with a positive conception of purposeful and concentrated work is prepared to be present and satisfied with his or her life’s work.
3) INDEPENDENT - I believe that a child provided an environment for independent decision-making is also prepared for responsibility in an ever-changing world.
4) SELF-DIRECTED - I believe that a child who learns the value of self-direction and self-correction will develop a positive self-image in a world requiring self-motivation.
5) FASCINATION-DRIVEN - I believe that a child with freedom to concentrate on his or her fascinations develops a capacity for both self-discipline and self-initiative.
6) ENVIRONMENT OF BEAUTY - I believe that a child who is taught the value and responsibility of learning in an environment of beauty and harmony will appreciate the value of beauty and harmony in one’s life.
7) FREE MOVEMENT - I believe that a child requires purposeful movement and activity as an integral component of realizing his or her full intellectual potential.
8) COLLABORATION - I believe that a child engaged in a classroom collaboration of diverse ages and cultures gains an open, empathetic, and respectful perspective on participation in a community.
9) EXPERIMENTATION - I believe that a child who is free to exercise critical thinking, experimentation and creativity will have an appreciation for the world of entrepreneurship and innovation in science and art.
10) DISCOVERY - I believe that a child started and supported on a journey of self-discovery will also discover the possibility of self-fulfillment and a lifetime of learning both inside and outside the classroom.
Is there something missing? Is something not clear? Does something seem misplaced, overstated or uncomfortable? Don’t worry about formal remarks. I’d just love some kneejerk wisdom from others who care as much about education as I have grown to.
Thanks to Bobby George and many others for feedback on this draft.
With my gaggle of nieces and nephews, education is a big concern of mine. What role do you think public schools play into this? How can we make some of these ideal standards more accessible to all children? My nieces and nephews attend Catholic preschool/kindergarten/elementary school but will have no choice when it comes to middle or high school, and there is no Montessori school in many rural communities.
Thoughts?
I think this is exactly why I’m so interested in what elements add up to a quality education, Abby. It’s quite likely that Emerson will spend 12 years in a public school. And, to be clear, I think these are things that ALL children deserve, not just my little nuggets.
As the son and husband of public school teachers, I recognize the challenges. However, as a parent, I don’t think this requires me to change my expectations and standards. Ah, the rub!
In the end (or perhaps the beginning), I thought it was important to agree on standards and expectations before figuring out how to include them in all schools.
Who knows what this will grow up to be?
I agree whole-heartedly with you on a lot of your standards. Especially since so many of them are the opposite of current concept of standards. Knowing how different my six nieces and nephews are, it is frustrating to think that some of them will most likely be forced to learn in ways that aren’t natural to them. One of my nephews has already seen these issues in his classes because of his obvious advanced intelligence (humble brag) and he’s only a first grader!
I just wish there were a clear path on how we make these shifts.
I like all of these starting principles, but I would add one more element - time. I think providing a child with control over when they do something and how long they spend on it is a critical piece of the learning process. It’s implied in many of your standards, but I think it needs to be stated explicitly.
In my experience as a public school, first grade teacher who tried to encourage choice, self-direction, and exploration, the inflexibility of time was one of my greatest frustrations. I often had to interrupt/end some amazing exploration because our class HAD to be somewhere else, NOW. And I never could convincingly explain why we had to do math after lunch, or why now is a time for writing, not for reading, or why even though we’re having so much fun sharing stories, we have to stop. I couldn’t be convincing because the choices were relatively arbitrary, they weren’t mine to make - and they certainly weren’t choices the students could make.
For me then, helping teachers and students have more control over their time in the classroom is the foundation for almost all of the standards you lay out.
Fantastic point, Hilary! I’m so glad that you jumped in and shared.
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Hilary-I agree with you wholeheartedly about the element of time. My son is in 1st grade and I have a daughter who is still in Montessori. Sadly I live in a small college town so the Montessori School can barely find certified teachers to move to our town to teach there. So it only goes up to K. I would have my son in a Montessori environment at least up to 6th grade if I could. Just for the reason of having enough time to complete a project, as well as having choices. Even his teacher, who has decades of experience teaching 1st grade, dreads having to show us the graphs that shows where he is in math, etc. from tests he took on a computer after the 1st two weeks of school. I wish there was a chance to truly reform the schools but I am not very optimistic.
I agree with every point that is listed here. I think it’s also a list of what is sorely missing in public education. Public education geared to standardized tests has a strong tendency to leave out teaching problem-solving and creativity. In my teaching at Brown-Mackie college (mostly math), students were typically incapable of using principles to solve problems unlike the ones they had encountered in class or in the textbook. If i asked them to take the slightest leap of extending what they had learned, they were baffled, and often outraged.
Also, public education is almost totally focused on mental work. There is no opening of the heart or the spirit. This is especially tragic for the younger children, who are rarely exposed to natural beauty or spiritual learning. Basically, our children are treated like machine components that fit into the industrial world like cogs in a machine. it’s time we gave up our fixation on measurability and opened up our children to the wonders of life and their own unique gifts.