When I was a much younger teacher, I had a student enigma, one of those kids who, despite everything I presented or didn’t, despite the…
Teacher Talk: Concentration
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Theory
Concentration in the Third Plane
Ah, adolescence. The big emotions. The physical changes. The seemingly endless push and pull between childhood and adulthood, when kids…
Concentration in the Second Plane: 6-12
Just as you feel like you’ve mastered the pace of Early Childhood, you find yourself with an active, blooming Elementary student in your…
Concentration in the First Plane: 0-3
Feeling distracted? Overwhelmed? Like your checklist keeps getting longer but you have less and less time to get it done? In a climate so…
Freedom to Interact (or Not) in the Third Plane
While the intrinsic drive to socialize and the supports needed to regulate that drive were prominent in earlier planes of development,…
Freedom to Interact (or Not) In the Second Plane
We know that one of the noticeable changes as children move into the Second Plane of development is their new interest in social settings…
The Freedom to Interact (Or Not) in the First Plane: 3-6
If you imagine a traditional preschool, you might think about children sitting together at circle time, singing songs all together,…
The Freedom to Interact (Or Not) in the First Plane: 0-3
The Freedom to Interact with Others reflects one of Montessori’s Tendencies of Humans: the Tendency toward Communication. We understand…
Montessori Monday: The Freedom to Interact (or NOT) in the Montessori Classroom
If you think of school as a place in which children are all lined up in their desks or sitting around the same circle, staring ahead at…
Settling In: Making Their Mark in Middle School
When your child was younger, their teachers emphasized preparing the physical environment of the classroom, designing beautiful…