Pedagogy of Place...

I have just finished up my third week of training, and there's so much work to do that I haven't had a spare moment.  It's been a bit since I last wrote, so let me recap the last week and a half.  My theme for this blog is going to be the topic of our discussions in our recent lectures: Pedagogy of Place, so I will try to tie that into all my ramblings...


When I last checked in, I was at the Montessori Farm School in Huntsburg for the week.  I loved it there.  I  can't imagine a more interesting, safe, warm and inviting environment for a young teenager.  Most of our mornings were filled with lecture, but our afternoons were always filled with a hands-on activity.  The Hershey school (the farm) has divided their week so that they have math, humanities, and occupations on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  On Wednesdays, they spend the entire day on creative expression (art, music, drama, etc) and physical expression (p.e.).  Pedagogy of Place basically means how do you use your place to help you teach.  At the farm it is easy- there are the animals, the kitchen, the garden, the maintenance of everything from which you can pull out a lesson or an area of study.  If you are on the occupation of beekeeping for the month (occupations generally run 4 to 6 weeks) then all of your science comes from that work.  Your language arts and humanities studies can also come from that work.  We basically spent the week learning about how the farm can provide all the lessons and activities for the students' studies.  It was very important for the trainers to stress to us, and then in turn, us to our own students' parents, that living on the farm is not about learning how to farm- it is about providing a multitude of opportunities for a child to become more and more independent so that they are a fully functioning, self-sufficient adult when they enter society in just a few years as a fully participating member.  I cannot leave this paragraph on the farm without mentioning that I learned how to slaughter a chicken...I did the whole progress from start to finish- talk about learning how to be independent :)


This last week we returned to Cleveland for our studies.  As Monday was the 4th of July, there was no class, but we started first thing Tuesday morning at the Montessori High School, which is in walking distance from my dorm room.  Just as the farm is in the perfect place for what it wants to do for the students, so is the high school.  Not only is it in a beautiful historic mansion that has been repurposed as a school in a row of similar houses, it is in walking distance to the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Natural History Museum, The Botanical Gardens, the University, and Cleveland's Little Italy, and the Cleveland Historical Society.  It is also just a two minute walk to Wade Circle, which hosts a variety of different events on the lawn all year long.  This is really where the idea of "pedagogy of place" comes in.    We spent Tuesday making mind-maps- first we chose a topic (I chose natural fibers) and then we traveled to all the various places to gather information on our topic.  My intention was to begin at the botanical gardens and then head over to the Museum of Natural History, but once I got to the botanical gardens, I never left.  (They have an amazing herb garden, complete with a whole section dedicated to plants used for dyes, and their children's garden was spectacular.)  David Kahn's point in having us do this was to show us how the high school students can get their information in an out-of-the-classroom, first-hand inquiry kind of way.  He has students who work as interns at the various places, and a group of his students even got to travel last year to Mongolia on a paleontological dig with a few scientists from the Museum of Natural History.  
On Wednesday, we headed down to Hudson, Ohio, to see an example of an urban Adolescent program. The head of the Hudson Montessori School is Pat Ludick, who has been instrumental in bring forth an adolescent Montessori program in America.  She and David Kahn were among the original small group of Montessorians who met with Renilde Montessori and Cammilo Grazzini to decide what Montessori's vision of Erdkinder really was.  What I really appreciated about Pat's school is that it reminded me so much of The World Learner School- or at least what our possible future will be, as her school has taken 50 years to get to where it is today.  Her adolescent program is small and growing.  They just purchased a small house for the Ado. program, but it is not a farm.  They do their farm work on a historic farm owned by the city, which is about a 10 minute drive from the school.  Pat wanted to show us what a "village model" of Montessori looked like, so she had us head into downtown Hudson for the day.  It reminds me so much of Chaska, with its central park and gazebo and all the historic buildings circumscribing the park.  She divided us up into groups- some of us interviewed the mayor, some of us interviewed elders, some of us talked to shop keepers, and others of us had a walking tour of Hudson.  My crew sat in the park and drew pictures of the historic architecture.  Many of us finished off the day with ice-cream at Hatti's...it was a lovely day.
The next two days weren't as exciting as the first two had been, but they were very informative.  We basically spent all day in lecture, talking about what our places have to offer us and what we need to make sure our places have to offer.  It has really made me think about the setting of WLS for the adolescent students (we're not to call them Middle Schoolers, David says.)  
On top of all my lectures, I still had a set of lexicon to work on and my third essay is due Monday morning- MLA format with parenthetical citation :(  As busy as we have been, our big work is just starting, which we spent some time Friday afternoon talking about.  Each of us has to prepare a prospectus of our program, complete with mission statement, vision, goals, scope and sequence, pedagogy of our place, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  We begin Monday focusing on our areas of study, so I'll be heading off to work with the Language Arts people.  I am, however, going to sit in on the other curriculum areas information as often as I can, especially Occupations/Humanities, as I have to go back and explain all this to my two co-teachers.
But, now it's Saturday and I'm off to historic Kidron to look at quilts and do some shopping with my cousins.  My mom and Melanie are here, too, for the weekend, so I don't foresee that essay on pedagogy of place happening any time soon...it will be a late night Sunday :)

Eight Days In...

Well, I'm on to week two of this experience, and at this point I can hardly keep my eyes open I'm so tired.  We had quite a bit of work due this morning for class, and my roommates and I were up awfully late to complete it- in fact, I don't think one of them even went to bed.  One of our tasks was to write a paper based on the four planes of child development, as Montessori saw them, and talk about how each stage contributed to the development of the adolescent.  Our other work due today was a list of words taken from  Montessori philosophy, which we were supposed to write our own definition for and then provide at least two quotes from Dr. Montessori on each specific term.  This is called our lexicon work- we have a new list for this week, and one for next week, too.  


We only had a morning set of lectures today, which were on the topic of "occupations."  This term refers to   a type of work done by the adolescent students that seems like it would be work around the farm, but it really incorporates the science curriculum along with many other subject areas.  My occupation for the day was "chickens." (Generally occupation studies last around 4 weeks.)  My group began by going out to the chicken coop for some good ol' observation.  We looked at how they communicated with each other, how they moved about the pen, and how they reacted to things in their environment.  We got the chance to try to pick up a chicken, and I am proud to say that I managed to do it on my first attempt :)  After we were done in the chicken pen, we headed back to the classroom, where we all put forth ideas for research.  I was curious about what it would take to make the keeping of chickens a self-supporting endeavor.  Others were interested in area needed for chickens, the different vocalizations of chickens, and more intensive anatomy studies.  We had a bit of time to compile some information and then we had to present our findings to the large group.  Some of the other occupations included pond studies, beekeeping (yes, they did don the traditional white beekeeping costumes, complete with smoke thingy), archaeology, organic gardening, and micro-economy.  The idea of occupations is to not only to cover all the science topics, but to have as many interdisciplinary connections as possible.  Some examples of occupation work left here by past students include a shiitake mushroom garden and a full-size log cabin.  What I came away with was not only an excitement about what occupations we could do with my own crew of middle schoolers, but also a strong desire to get some chickens for our school...


I also unpacked my bags here at the farm, where I am staying for the next four days.  I have three new roommates for the week, and we are all happy with our bunk arrangements (I got a bottom bunk- yeah!)  My chores for my week on the farm include morning meal prep, dinner crew, and mucking out stalls- I've got my boots all set :)  Our homework doesn't decrease just because we are at the farm, and in between daily lectures and class, morning chores, afternoon chores, and evening chores, I have studying to do, which I should be getting to...

Day Two...

I am two days into my Adolescent experience here in Cleveland, and what full days they were.
I reached Cleveland around 6:30 Sunday night, quickly delivered my belongings to my apartment (I am sharing an apartment on campus with three other girls) and then I headed off to a welcome/get your info party for the adolescent program trainees.  There are quite a few of us- well over 50, and we hail from all over the world.  One of my roommates is from the Philippines, and there are others from Mexico, Australia, Sweden, Columbia, New Zealand,  Spain and India.  We have met each morning together in carpool groups to head out to the farm, which is about an hour east.  The ride over and back has been a great chance to get to know each other, as we spend the two hours chatting about our schools and our lives back home.

Once we reach the farm, then it has been straight to lecture.  The last two days' lectures have really been for the benefit of those trainees who do not have much or any Montessori experience.  I am surprised by the number of attendees who do not have previous Montessori training- those of us with a primary or elementary certificate are very few.  We do have a few heads of schools looking to gain in knowledge of the adolescent age group, but most of our group seems to have been hired fairly recently by a school and then sent by that school to this training.  Even though I am fairly familiar with the topics we have covered in our classes, it is still wonderful to hear all the philosophy again.  David Kahn presented our opening lecture, and Jenny Hoglund and Laurie Ewert-Krocker have done some of the speaking, too.  All three have been instrumental in the determining the path of and implementing the Erdkinder (what Montessori called the Adolescent program) here in America.  There are lots of notes to take,  and there is quite a bit of homework to do each night.

The Hershey Montessori School (the farm) is beautiful.  It is far out into the countryside, surrounded by rolling hills and greenery.  I have only gotten to go into two of the buildings so far: our lectures are taking place in the newest addition to the farm, and we meet in the community building for lunch.  Lunch is prepared for us each day by some of the adolescent residents at the farm, along with a few adult helpers.  After lunch, we meet in Socratic seminars to discuss our readings from the evening before, and then at the end of our day, we divide up for chores.  My chores so far have been wiping tables and vacuuming.  Next week will be my week to spend living at the farm.  Then my chores will include care of the animals and the farm environment.

Our evenings back at the dorms have also been quite full.  We ate dinner our first evening at the cafeteria, which was  filling but not quite fulfilling :)  Tonight we ventured up to Cleveland's own version of Little Italy, which happens to be only a few blocks from campus.  There are many museums around our area, too, so tomorrow night we are going to check some of those out.   Mostly though, we have been sorting through our lecture notes and doing lots of reading.

Speaking of reading,  it's time for a few chapters in To Educate the Human Potential (my reading that is due for tomorrow) and then off to bed.  Oh, there's also my daily journal left to write...

The Night Before the Night Before...

I am sitting in a hotel room in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I have spent a weekend of soccer with one of my boys.  I will be leaving him with one of the other families and begin my ten hour trek to Cleveland, Ohio, tomorrow morning.  The car is all packed- computer, printer, food, clothes, sleeping bag, pillow, and Green Bay Packer blankie...all I need to do is throw in my small bag of stuff from the hotel here and head off at 7am.  I should be reading over the essay we will be discussing on Monday in my first day of training.  Instead, I am staring at this screen wondering what to write as I prepare to embark on my five week adventure in to the world of adolescence- or at least the world Maria Montessori envisioned for the adolescent.  I have little to no idea of what my time in Cleveland will be like.  I imagine something like my elementary Montessori training mixed with summer camp.  I hope to come away with a beautiful plan for my own group of adolescents waiting for me in Chaska.  
But first, I have to get to Cleveland...in my husband's stick-shift Corolla...with no cruise control...