Decisions, Decisions

by Anne Kruk, All Day Primary Lead Teacher

A couple weeks ago, Kristi substituted in the Upper Elementary class and shared an interesting moment from her day with me.  Upon coming in from recess, Kristi asked each student what they were going to work on. 

She received quick answers:  “I’m working on long division;”  “I have out an algebra work;”  “We’re writing a play;” “I’m making a periodic table;’ “We’re building a volcano.” 

“It only took about three minute to get answers from 22 children. And it was all substantive and impressive work!” Kristi said, and I groaned. 

I, too, ask each child in my class after recess what work they would like to take out.  My Primary students are rather less decisive than their Upper El counterparts.  They weigh their options; consider what others are doing; discover their first choice of work is already in use; reconsider at length; then, eventually, take out a work. 

Some are quicker than others, certainly, but it is not unusual for a child to sit with me for ten minutes, as I read a book aloud, until they finally decide what they would like to do.  Hence, my envy at the Upper El’s rapidfire decision making. 

“I wish my students would do that,” I said to Kristi, with a sigh. 

“That’s the point!” she said, “They will!”

I was overlooking the obvious, of course.  Those self-aware, decisive students had not simply sprung into being upon entering the Upper El classroom for the first time.  They were exercising a skill that they had practiced for many years, starting in their primary classrooms: learning to recognize their interests and desires, and follow through on them. 

Maria Montessori called this “developing the will,” and compared it to “the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up stone by stone.”  To build up this will, children need the opportunity to make choices on their own.  “Decisions taken every moment on the smallest things.” she said, “are the stout little stones on which the strong structure of personality is built.”*

 Reflecting upon my own K-12 public school education, I learned a great deal of meaningful academic content from caring, intelligent teachers, but the school system itself treated me as part of a group, gently pushed from class to class and grade to grade without asking for individual input.  The first time I had any responsibility for the content of my own education was in high school, deciding on electives.  How powerful would it have been to be in charge of those choices at a much earlier age, as our Primary students are at CFMS?

 The most basic responsibility of adulthood is deciding what to do with your life, and then actually doing it.  Ten minutes of debate on the relative merits of the brown stairs versus the pink tower may seem excessive to me as an adult, but for a child, making the decision is part of the work itself.  Each decision is one “stout little stone” in their foundation, and if it helps them grow into confident elementary students, and adults prepared to build lives they choose for themselves, then those are ten minutes excellently spent.

*Montessori, Maria. The Advanced Montessori Method: Spontaneous Activity in Education. Trans. Florence Simmonds. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1917.  Pages 184-185.