More than ABC and 123...

Are ABC’s and 123’s enough?

Of course, we all know that they are not. But it took me years to find some place that gave me a concrete list of the “what else” that we focused on in the Montessori classroom, as well as scientific research to back up the importance of the list (https://www.mindinthemaking.org/life-skills). Last year, I had started sharing some thoughts on this topic in our newsletter. Of course, the pandemic put a hold on many priorities. I would like to start up again, with some review and learnings from the past year.

The Montessori Philosophy and many other schools of thought agree that rote memorization is not the way forward. In the age of Google, and Alexa, and Siri, knowledge of facts itself is not going to be what is valued in the future. While it may be hard to predict what the world will look like when our children are adults, making use of this knowledge in new and innovative ways is already and will continue to be increasingly important in most careers.

Executive Functioning Skills! It’s a phrase that is used often in early education and it encompasses all of those “soft” skills that we know children need and we know that most good schools provide. It involves all the skills needed for a child to manage their thoughts, actions and emotions to be able to achieve a goal. Studies have shown that these skills are better determinants of “success” in the future rather than only “knowledge”.

It seems like a daunting task for parents, to think about what these skills are and make sure that we are teaching them to the children. The good news is that most of these are “lessons” we teach our children as they grow up and through normal experiences. I’ve listed these skills below to think about and will spend the next few weeks going into detail on how we address these skills in the classroom as well as ways to create more “teachable” moments at home with your child.

• Focus/Self Control
• Perspective Taking
• Communicating
• Making Connections
• Critical Thinking
• Taking on Challenges
• Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

To try something new, I’d like to ask, what skill would you like to see a deep dive for in the upcoming weeks? (A sly way of hearing back from who reads the posts along with a thank you for those who have sent comments and reactions to previous posts!)

An Example of putting together some Executive Functioning Skills from the Classroom:

Map making! So many families have seen their children come home with beautiful maps. Focus, critical thinking, taking on challenges and some self-directed learning: these are just some of the skills that come together to make a map. Some technical skills such as spatial awareness and fine motor skills are essential as well.

Let’s take a look at the steps needed to make a map:

• Color a small control map to match the puzzle.
• Take the puzzle out on a blank piece of paper and make sure it fits together.
• Trace all the pieces and color the large map.
• Write all the country names.
• Cut them out (and not lose them afterwards!).
• Glue them on the map.
• Put the dots on the countries and names.
• Match the numbers on the dots.

These steps are student led, with a bit of help from the teacher on tracing, writing the names for the child to copy below and the dot step.

Now, let’s think about what a child has to be able to do to make a map. As a 3 year old, she might take out the map to work on as a puzzle. At the same time, other works help her practice her fine motor skills and she slowly learns where pencils, scissors and paper scraps go in the classroom.

Once she has mastered many of these fundamental skills, she may want to take on the map. In addition to the above-mentioned technical skills, the completion of a map is also a culmination of various executive functioning skills. The ability to focus for long periods of time, the ability to take on a challenge and being able to organize the work and think through next steps are just some of the main skills that the child demonstrates when they finish a map. Everything in the following picture has been worked on and gotten together by the child:

Does everyone make maps? No! But when each child is ready, they ask and spontaneously take on longer projects in the classroom.