Victory and Peace

Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education. We must convince the world of the need for a universal, collective effort to build the foundation for peace. Love is not the cause but the effect of the normal development of the individual. – Dr. Maria Montessori Quotes from Peace and Education, pages 24 & page 58

The four-year old girls were good friends, but now they’re angry. One said something to the other, tempers flared, and a friendship is in jeopardy. Fortunately, the children are in a Montessori classroom. Montessori schools use many techniques for harmony, but in this classroom they have a peace rose. One little girl retrieves the flower from its shelf, expresses her hurt, and passes the rose to her friend. Together they explore their feelings, and conflict is transmuted into understanding. The children have learned a process to maintain harmony.

In a time of resurging intolerance, we may turn to our classrooms for reassurance. They are gardens of peace, the fields where we sow the seeds of a better world. We may seek solace in the work we do, knowing that the beauty we nurture will in time blossom into magnificent petals of justice, kindness and equality.

Recently I have found myself thinking again and again about victory. We know that peace is more than just an absence of war. But what is a Montessori victory? Do we conquer our enemies? No. We will not repair this world by subduing those who disagree with us.

Do we shout down the bigot? How much better for the world if the bigot abandons their bigotry? How much better if the criminal no longer commits crimes, if the sinner no longer sins? The second World War was conceived when the victors of the first war mistreated the vanquished; a third world war was averted when the conquered became allies. Force without justice is domination, not victory.

A Montessori call to arms is a call to the classroom. This is where we cultivate real victory.

True and lasting peace will arise from our schools, where we prepare the next generation of peaceful leaders. The work we do is ever more vital, and I urge you not to despair at the territory we still have to cover.

Let’s recall how far we have traveled from 1907, when Dr. Montessori opened the Casa dei Bambini in Rome. Nominated three times during her life for the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Montessori worked tirelessly to improve the rights and conditions of women and children. Justice informed her methodology, and peace infuses the very DNA of our classrooms. The strides made for liberty in the past century – the advances made for children, for women, for minorities, for gays and lesbians – do not doubt that even today we see the ripples of her work throughout all the social progress we’ve made.

That the task is not yet complete should not surprise us.

Wherever we look globally, we see the anger and the outrage of those who have felt excluded from the political process. Income inequality is at an all-time high. Far-right parties are rising across the world, fueled by bigotry, economic uncertainty and a populism born of the sense of neglect by elite powers. The political turmoil is only one of the symptoms of our broken world. We do not forget the millions of refugees fleeing war, and the victims of the terrible wars themselves.

Do not be disheartened, for as long as we teach peace there will be a light in this world.

Yes, our work begins in the classroom, but shall we stop there? What else can our school communities do?

It will not be enough for us just to stall some current agenda. When we work to defeat ISIS in the Middle East, Boko Haram in Africa, or unseat some political adversary at home, we earn but a moment’s respite. Unaddressed, hatred and violence will always return in a new form. A lasting peace requires us to heal the deeper wounds of this earth.

Dr. Montessori taught us that when children act out, it is because they have unmet needs. Is this not true of adults as well? Perhaps at no time since the second World War has the planet been so united in angst about the future. Montessori has a healing message for a broken world, and this is the time for us to recommit to telling the story, both inside and outside of our classrooms.

We can begin by speaking our healing message. Shout it from the mountaintop, whisper it in the halls of your school. Organize, promote justice, discuss difficult topics. Model peace in and out of your classrooms. Educate the children and adults in your community. Participate. Engage.

It begins and ends with our conviction that Montessori has a message of peace which will mend this world’s wounds.

Here is my attempt to formulate a Montessori statement on peace. We urge every school to create such a statement and share it. Feel free to use or modify mine as you see fit.

A Montessori Statement on Peace

We believe that we can change the world.

We believe that when you work with children, you touch the future.

We believe that peace is more than the absence of war. We will repair this planet by building a lasting peace.

We believe that anger comes from hurt and that hatred comes from fear.

We believe that a lasting peace comes from understanding, respect and love for all life.

We believe that Montessori is education for the 21st century, and the 22nd, and the 23rd – that this is the best and truest method for preparing children to become the next generation of leaders.

We will prepare the peace by addressing the causes of suffering, and prepare the children in our classrooms to look suffering in the eye and say “no more.”

We believe in the dignity of the child and of the adult. We believe that it is possible for mankind to live in peace and harmony. Moreover, we are going to make that happen.

We believe that all people have a place at our circles. We commit to bringing into our circles those who have been most excluded.

We believe that all voices should be heard. We know that when people shout, it is because they do not feel that we are listening.

We will always stand with the oppressed, but never fail to hold a hand out in peace to the oppressor – for we know that someday they will take it. On that day we will all be free.

We believe the world may be made forever safe from demagogues and dictators. As Montessorians, we know our students will laugh off the shackles of fear that tyrants use to bind the populace. Furthermore, what tyrant could ever arise from our beautiful, peaceful classrooms?

We believe that we may go forward so that we will never go back again.

We know that when we march forward from dark spaces, we will bring all of our sisters and brothers with us into the light – and leave none behind.

[this test was] considered quite independently of the influence of culture and education; and it was appreciated as the expression of an intimate, personal activity of the intelligence itself. But if one of [my students] had been subjected to the test, he would, in virtue of a long sensory training, have chosen the largest and the smallest cube very much more easily… The test would therefore have measured the different methods of education, whereas the psychical differences between the two children, really existent by reason of age or of intellectual attainment, would have remained absolutely obscure. – Dr. Maria Montessori Spontaneous Activity in Education, page 113

Our society no longer trusts teachers. This has serious implications for Montessori schools.

It is because teachers aren’t trusted that we subject millions of students to additional tests every year. There is a widespread perception that public education is failing. Rather than questioning how we teach, or asking if there are ways to improve our pedagogical methods, instead the blame is placed solely on the teacher. Why can’t Johnny read? The teacher is lazy or incompetent.

Testing, they say, shows us which of our classrooms and schools have improved in the past year, and which are failing. If a classroom isn’t measuring up, certainly our teachers are to blame. The only explanation for children underperforming on a standardized test is that someone is not doing their job.

This is like blaming the farmer for a poor harvest after a tornado followed by a drought.

Few teachers enter our profession for fame or glory. Fewer still select this “easy” job so they can coast to retirement. Most teachers don their mantle out of a passionate commitment to children and education. After a few years of being treated with suspicion and forced to teach to tests, it is amazing that any public school teachers retain their passion for education. What will these standardized tests do to the Montessori classroom if we adopt them in our schools?

What’s worse, the children do not benefit from these tests. They seldom if ever see the results of their standardized tests, so they cannot learn from their mistakes. Yet the consequences of their scores can have haunting repercussions. Public school students who test poorly are shunted into less challenging tracks, and are socially shamed. The curse of low-expectations has a tendency to be self-fulfilling, and Malcolm Gladwell has shown how an arbitrary assessment at a young age can painfully reduce children’s opportunities when they mature.

Schools that test poorly can lose funding, see parent flight, and even be shut down. Fearing the loss of federal funding, many school districts have tied student performance to teacher pay, amplifying the pressure placed on children, teachers and administrators. There have been too many teacher cheating scandals to count, but at their root they are a lamentable yet sane response to an insane situation.

You get the behavior you incentivize, not necessarily the behavior you want.

If a company rewards workers for the number of widgets they produce per hour, the company will get more widgets. But the firm should not be surprised when quality goes down. Reward bank officers for the number of loans they process, and we should expect more bad loans. Tell a teenager who doesn’t care about school that she’ll get a car if she keeps her GPA up and you should prepare for the possibility that you’ll be buying a new automobile. But don’t expect her to like school, to retain anything she has learned, or to have developed any life skill more meaningful than “work hard and cram facts when you are going to be rewarded.” This is not the recipe for a life-long learner.

Similarly, if you inform teachers and administrators that their compensation will be tied to how school children perform on a standardized test, then of course many will do everything they can to ensure that those test scores go up. Some of them of course will cheat.

Any knowledge or skills that are not tested will be neglected or abandoned.

So children in public schools are now tested constantly on the subjects that “matter”, English and those STEM subjects like math and science which are emphasized by the Race to the Top initiative and the Common Core Curriculum. In my area, in addition to the regular testing done in each classroom, children in each grade receive four to twelve additional tests, and each of these tests take most or all of a day. One 6th grader I know will take four Cognitive Assessment Tests (CATs), four Measures of Academic Progress Tests (MAPs), two practice End of Grade (EOG) tests, and two final EOG tests. Remember, these are in addition to any testing administered by the teacher. This child will be tested constantly on math and science skills. So it should be no surprise that the school’s weakest curriculum areas are history, art, civics and foreign language.

One of the most glaring problems with the modern emphasis on standardized testing is how poorly it prepares children for the real world. In the age of the Internet, the ability to cram facts into your short-term memory is utterly irrelevant. The ability to synthesize is ever more important, but hard to demonstrate when filling out ovals. Collaboration is a critical skill to succeeding in the workplace, but oddly enough we call this “cheating” when done on an exam.

Unfortunately, anxious parents have also come to believe in the importance of these test scores, and so even private schools are bowing to the pressure to report scores for these standardized tests.

Today I am sorry to report that there is a growing movement of Montessorians who want to adopt the same standardized tests in private schools. Testing, with its emphasis on the extrinsic reward of a score, should have a limited place in a Montessori classroom. But some Montessorians believe that they need to employ these tests to demonstrate that their schools meet the same standards as public institutions. (Please note: Links go to articles discussing this trend, not organizations necessarily supporting it.) There is so much pressure to show that our students meet this standard that we risk forgetting that the standard itself is flawed, and only traditional drill-based methods could possibly attain it.

Let’s remember, this is all because we don’t trust teachers to do their jobs. If we trust teachers, we can utilize better ways of measuring student performance.

I know a charter school where the students are forced to take the same array of standardized tests. But fortunately at this middle school the administration encourages the teachers to endure these rather than obsess over them. Instead, the children use portfolio assessment. They accumulate evidence of learning for each subject area – which may indeed include tests. They can also be essays, photos of projects, posters, etc. The goal is for both the child and teacher to come to agreement on what has been learned. Administration can sit in on these meetings to gain insight into the school’s operation. For students to complete the eighth grade they must present their portfolios to a review board of administrators and local business leaders, something like a mini dissertation defense.

I’m an odd duck in that I actually like tests, and have always tended to do fairly well on them. I am cynical about tests precisely because I often saw myself outscoring people who had worked harder and had a better grasp of the subject matter. I am not speaking only of standardized tests – even written exams penalize the slow, thoughtful thinker and reward test-takers who are artful at cloaking their ignorance in cunning phrases.

I thought it might be useful to list the things that testing can, and can’t do.

Testing can:

• Measure how quickly and accurately student can translate a written question into something they know how to respond to;
• Measure how quickly and accurately a student can present what they know in the manner they believe a test expects;
• Measure how well a child handles the stress of an important test under the pressure of an arbitrary time limit;
• Measure how good a child is at taking tests; for this is a skill that some are naturally better at, and which others can improve at with effort.

Testing cannot:

• Tell how much a child knows;
• Tell how effective a teacher or teaching method is;
• Tell how well a child works with others in an era in which collaboration is ever more important;
• Measure a child’s emotional intelligence or motivation to learn;
• Predict whether a child will be successful in the work place.

This is my list, here’s a link for another.

Testing is not inherently bad, and limited standardized tests are not inherently evil. The problem with testing children is that it is like measuring the size of a diamond by looking at only one facet. As Montessorians, we know there is more to human potential than what filled-in ovals can capture.

I urge our community to remain steadfast in our belief that children’s abilities are much more complex, and much more fascinating, than can be measured by standardized test. And I urge all schools, including public schools, to trust the teachers. Trust them to teach, trust them to determine whether the children have been taught. Allow teachers to help children through the wonder of discovery rather than the peril of state curricula. If we empower teachers to do what they know best, to adapt to each child as an individual, who knows what heights our world might reach?

The unhappiness of man is the most fearful feature of the reality of our times. He no longer feels any genuine joy. He is terrified… The real danger threatening humanity is the emptiness in men’s souls; all the rest is merely a consequence of this emptiness. Dr. Maria Montessori Education and Peace, page 46

Last year when my daughter Hollis was nine, I took her with me to run errands. I parked and darted into the dry cleaners. The car was locked, it was nice out, and I was in for a minute, maybe two. I could have watched her through the store’s glass front, though I didn’t look back.

When I came out a woman yelled at me through her car window.

“You should be arrested!” She screamed.

“What?” I honestly wasn’t sure whether she was talking to me.

“Child endangerment! You shouldn’t be allowed to have children!”

“She’s nine!” I yelled back, though I’m not sure why I did. She yelled again that I belonged in prison, and she drove away.

I’m sure you’ve heard the following story a dozen times or more.

When I was a kid, I rode in the front of the car. A ford pinto. No seat belts.

When I was a kid, I didn’t wear a helmet to bike. I didn’t know anyone who did.

When I was a kid, I’d go for long walks. Just me and my dog. In an actual forest, a mile or more of woods. My mom said I had to be back by dinner, but I was often late.

Three ways the world has changed – but are they really the same thing?

Yes, we have more safety equipment today (seat belts, bike helmets), and I would not seriously argue the merits of a child (or anyone, for that matter) riding around the front of a Ford Pinto. But our perception of ‘stranger danger’ is both out of step with real-world crime rates, and I believe a real hindrance to children’s development of independence.

A recent study found that in 1900, all emotions were expressed in English books at about the same frequency – glee, horror, passion, etc. Though there was some variation, emotional words moved more or less down and in lockstep until about 1975. At that point something startling happens1:

Your interpretation may vary, but here’s mine: in the mid 1970s we became very afraid.

Dr. David Altheide is a professor at Arizona State University, where he studies the language used by the news media. He says:

“There’s now a discourse of fear that pervades society… the sense that danger, dread and fear are pervasive and just around the corner.”2

I think media is a cause, but it also may be reflecting what works in a fear-based culture. If sex sells, perhaps fear is multi-level marketing. My fear increases your fear, which increases the fear of everyone else around us, which leads to the whole nation tuning in every year for shark week or to catch the latest tragedy involving a missing blonde Caucasian girl.

But here’s the thing – violent crime is down, WAY down. According to the US National Crime Prevention Council you are less than half as likely to be a victim of violent crime now than you were in 1981. In 1977 you were three times more likely to be a victim of aggravated assault than today.3 According to another study that compared 19 industrialized nations, the US is below average in both crime4 and violent crime5.

So, the upshot is that we are safer than ever before, yet more afraid.

In that philosophical classic, Pixar’s Finding Nemo, the father fish (Marlin) frets to another fish that he’s promised his missing son that he’d never let anything happen to him.

Dory: Hmm. That’s a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.

Have you heard of Nature Deficit Disorder? This term was coined by Richard Louv, who spent a decade gathering evidence that children’s behavior problems may often be associated with spending insufficient time outside. He suggests that our media culture has “scared children straight out of the woods and fields.”6.

I cannot swear that something bad may never happen to a child who plays outside unsupervised. But I can say that something wonderful happened to this child who did. Yes, I breathed fresh air, and got exercise. But, whether catching crayfish or climbing trees, I was also learning to appreciate nature and revel in its majesty. I learned to be independent, to get a sense of the time of day by the sun, and to become comfortable in my own skin and with my own thoughts.

Preschool children are still too young, even by the standards of the 1970s, to be wandering alone outside. I am not arguing that you abandon them in the woods.

What I am saying is this: it did not take courage for my parents to allow me to play outside, because in their day no one thought of the risks. Today, I ask you to take courage in your child rearing. Understand the risks, and look for opportunities for your children to learn independence.

At every age there will be an opportunity. For the youngest ones, that might be allowing them to play in the other room, unsupervised. Let a child pour, and then carry a full glass, knowing full well they may spill some. When they do, let them clean up the mess on their own with just a little guidance as necessary. As they get older, there may be some dishes they can safely prepare while you are outside the kitchen. And yes, when they are older, consider letting them play outside by themselves. The world is much safer than it was, and much safer than presented by our fear-driven news cycle.

Footnotes

1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0059030
2. http://www.asu.edu/feature/includes/spring05/readmore/altheide.html
3. http://www.ncpc.org/topics/violent-crime-and-personal-safety
4. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_vic-crime-total-victims
5. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_vic-crime-assault-victims
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder