The Joy of Learning

As Murphy has it. Today, a mother stopped by unannounced at around 4 p.m, I was having a diarrhea and she had to wait for me for 10 minutes while I finished my business.:-)

She came to check us out because her client’s children were in my Spell to Write and Read class and she heard that I am married to an “angmoh”. She came with the hope that her son will be learning English from the “angmoh”, regretably I disappointed her.:-)

Then, she saw all the Montessori materials I have and asked about them. I explained to her about what we do with 3-4 years old when they enter a Montessori classroom. She was like “That’s all?” “What else do you do with them?”

Well, my Montessori albums filled about 20 two-ring-binders (3″ thick”), the curriculum covered 5 areas( Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language Arts and Cultural) and 18 subjects, and excuse me, ‘What else?’

Do parents expect their pre-schoolers taking up rocket science this days?

The woman also asked me a question that almost everybody asked me: “Phonics? Smart Reader? Something like Smart Reader?”

“Smart Reader” is anything but smart. And has not much to do with phonics.

First, the sounds they taught aren’t right.

Second, parroting is not reading.

Third, your neighbor’s sister’s uncle’s cousin’s son/daughter did really well through Smart Reader for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they have good visual memory, they will excel anyhow with any other programs, in fact will just learn how to read without a program like yours truly who is a true blue visual learner.

Forth, If you think all this phonics thingy are just too difficult to understand since we never learn it in school during our days, I am sure the majority of kindie teachers would too. The blinds leading the blinds, Holland is the destination.
I seriously think the amount of remedial work I have to do with children who have shown dyslexic tendencies and reversal problems had a lot to do with the popularity of the program and the lack of understanding of learning process for many kindie teachers, in another word, induced dyslexia

Will they sue me for defamation for saying that? I am very afraid !:-)

This woman, Wanda Sensari (the author of Spell to Write and Read) called a not so smart program like this: Fickle phonics in her Senate Hearing Speech.

My best friend SP is taking a Montessori course and one of her assignments was to write an essay on “normalization”.

I found her this article that she claimed will “help” her to go to bed earlier.:-)

http://www.michaelolaf.net/lecture_secret.html

I am terribly hopeless when it comes to explain to parents in very plain language what is “normalization”, so I don’t even attempt sometime.

Montessorimum blog on this some time ago

(1) The teachers
The Montessori philosophy is so alien to most of us who grew up in the traditional classroom and it takes a shift in paradigm, a total change of mindset in order to fully understand Montessori philosophy. Many of us picked and choose at the buffet table of Montessori, applied that in our school setting and called it “Montessori”.

Montessori is more than a house of equipments/apparatus/toys, whichever you called it. It’s a way of life and a philosophy that dictates your practices. This required spiritual preparation of the teacher, she needs to feel a sense of calling, to want to commit herself to the total wellness of the child, and forgo her own personality. How many of us can put up our hands and say “I do”? I am afraid I am not withstanding, I am struggling with this on a daily basis and often failed miserably.

(2) The assistants

(3) The parents
Many parents measured the effectiveness or the quality of a program by the amount of homework given. Developmentally inappropriate not withstanding, much of this homework is just useless and senseless. Well, if your child has excellent visual memory, they will do well in whatever schools you place them. The challenge is: to raise a child who see learning as a joyous experience, not just senseless copying work.

What more are expecting from their children, to do tons of senseless and useless repetative workbooks that feed their own satisfaction that: my child “know” this and that?

True learning is more than parroting and doing activities that doesn’t help the child to grow spiritually and intellectually.

(4) The money
If you enter the teaching profession with the money as the only factor, you will be disappointed. To be an honest, dedicated teacher doesn’t pay well.

In order to make more money, many need to adapt to what parents prefer i.e. single aged classroom instead of multi-aged, dive into academic without preparation through practical life and sensorial activities. It’s NOT Montessori without this essential components. People will pay good money to attend one that is not authetically Montessori, because they see the results. Yes, even if the schools skipped practical life, freedom, sensorial and all the important ingredients, and just concentrated on using the Montessori Language arts to teach English and the maths manipulatives to teach maths, they can still produce acdemically capable children. But, what is missing? It’s the normalisation process that we are missing

Though there is no primary school or secondary school that run the Montessori way in Malaysia, Montessori education actually goes beyond the pre-school age.

The approach will be pretty different after the pre-school age, due to different plane of development and different developmental needs.

I found this videos on youtube.

An AMS(American Montessori Society) production for parent education
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RTpAILazPnM

A progressive school in Phuket, Thailand.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sPgtl5f54xU

Since I have only a handful of kids for the morning preschool. I can pretty much handle them all by myself. I hired an assistant for emergency or if I ever decide to have a few days off at places like Tuscany villa rentals. Who will send their children to a school that runs by one person and not wondering what will happen if she has diarrhea?

It’s almost impossible to hire an assistant who is Montessori trained and near impossible to hire an assistant who wants to be trained. I have hired and fired half of dozen of assistants in the last two years.

Instead, I spent a lot of effort preventing the assistants from “helping” me to teach. Whenever I walked out for a few minutes, they would start disturbing the children and turn the class into a bazaar. Most of them also thought they would help me to “teach” since I didn’t do that too often.

Since my father commented that it has much co-relation with how much I paid them. Then, I paid them better, 50% more than the going rate in my area, with a promise of sponsored training if they stay on. Things have not changed much. Most of the assistants would disturb a concentrating child to show that they are actively working. If I told them not to, they will sit there and stared blank, didn’t know what to do. I tried to explain to them about being actively passive until attention needed and the important of being alert and observant. I tried to discuss things that I observed about certain child to help her along. I also encouraged them to read, giving them articles or small booklets to start with. Well, most of them don’t read at all. I think when you weren’t particularly interested in the children nor their education, they are “inconveniences”, and that reflected in the way you talked to them. Children were quick to pick that up !!

I do not have an assistant right now, but a SPM school leaver to help to watch kids and I am letting her go by the end of this week. I found an older woman who is interested to help. She is a nyonya and speaks good English, hope things will work out for better.

I plan to post some pictures of the DIY Montessori materials when I get back the camera. Hopefully after the holidays. Let me know if you are interested and what you are interested to see.

Since the “real” Montessori materials are expensive and I didn’t want my school to be a upmarket thing that many people would not be able to afford, 70% of the materials I have in the classroom are DIY or custome made by a carpenter. In fact you can turn many things around the house even pairs of clip on earrings into Montessori materials with a little creativity. I only bought materials that are not possible to make i.e: knobbed cylinders, or when the store bought ones are visually much more pleasing i.e. world puzzle map.

Found this video on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM1Gu9KXVkk

Many mothers would bargain with me on the tuition fees, one thing that I find it odd and don’t how to handle.I wonder do they do the same when they purchase a bottle of Phentermine! Sometime I would give a discount, sometime I won’t, but over the last two years, I learned that it’s ok not to, because most of them just ask but don’t expect it.

I am not so sure this happened anywhere else. My neighbor who runs a laundry shop claimed that it’s the trait of Malaccans and Penangnites. Well, he is originally from Penang, I guess he probably make that conclusion based on his experience.

Today, something different happened. A mother paid me more than she supposed to and said “Keep the change!” It was RM15 more than she supposed to pay me.

Is she so rich that she decided to pay me more? I don’t think so. She and her family live in a medium cost flat, her husband runs a furniture shop and she drives a lorry delivers furniture, sometime until very late. She is just being generous, I guess.