Child-Centered Learning

There's a beautiful blog post by Seth D. Webb, the Instructional Leader for the Upper Elementary Department at Free Horizon Montessori, a charter public school in Golden, Colorado, regarding the value of children-centered learning. He gives a beautiful example of what lies underneath the children's work and their more significant connection to their environment and how we, adults, may only perceive what is above the surface, which is easier to see. His post brings awareness to the critical thinking of an excelled child.

Sebastian was a very particular child. Prone to believing he was right and making his opinions known to all, he was a student for whom daily struggles were every day: arriving on time, staying on task, choosing challenging work, doing work that was not always his choice, sticking to a schedule, etc. For a teacher still relatively new to elementary education at that time, Sebastian was a challenge for me in a Montessori classroom of able, driven, and disciplined upper elementary students. 

There came a day when Sebastian began working on a grand castle construction with cardboard and paint, and construction paper. It was a project not directly linked to a unit of study I had introduced, but it seemed to engage him and keep him happy. This went on for days, then a couple of weeks – excluding most of his other work. From my, then, myopic perspective, Sebastian was falling behind. I became worried and resentful and began to react to his intransigence from that ungrounded place of fear.

Teachers are masters at being able to adapt to their immediate environment. In training, a student teacher gets one version of what is correct and just and suitable for children – and works to justify this vision with one's own. Then, in his first posting, he receives the principal's version of what is best and again works to adapt his beliefs to this. Parents, too, offer their perspectives, desires, and needs – which one also factors into his teaching practice. Lastly, but most importantly, the children demonstrate their needs for accurate and deep, and purposeful learning to the teacher.

The teacher is, therefore, asked to wear multiple filters of perception that are often at odds with one another. Or, if not directly opposite, contradictory enough that the teacher can feel stymied and cautious rather than joyous and alive for his students.

Slowly, a change happens. Finally, a teacher wants to do right by all of the multiple stakeholders at the door and will resolve the competing interests to form a vector that forges the correct path between doing a little of each to move forward with a new definition of authenticity.

And so it was with Sebastian and me: me placing demands upon him to do and achieve; he is resisting and acting out with daily bouts of defiance. Yet, there were good days, weeks even, when a balance could be won where he and I felt we were doing our jobs – learning, and teaching.

What I did not expect was that, all along, he was teaching me.

Nearly a month into his work, I told Sebastian it was time to wrap up the project – that it had gone on too long and that the other works he was responsible for were going unaccomplished. Yet, despite previous attempts at bargaining and trading the completion of my list of to-dos for a time in his castle, Sebastian remained determined and undaunted.

When I said it was the end – time to put the castle away for good, to take it home and move on – Sebastian became protective and angry. Unbelievably, in retrospect, I thought this was just another example of Sebastian being determined to work only on his terms. He and I were equally frustrated. I felt that my authority was being undermined, and, as a new teacher in this classroom and school, I believed that it was vital that I make a stand.

Finally, with tears welling in his eyes, Sebastian looked up at me and said:

"But this is my work… It's for me!"

At that moment, everything changed for me as a teacher and a person living in the world. That's when I got it. That wasn't about the curriculum, benchmarks, standards, mandated testing, or the parents' concerns; it was about Sebastian at that moment, in that space, with that work. That's when Montessori's vision and hope for the world all made sense.

I grew more in that instant than in any seminar that any mentor could have taught me. It was about Sebastian having ownership of what he was learning. Without my oversight, he was masterfully delving deeply into personally relevant work. Through that work, he grew in ways I could have never hoped for by prescribing lesson material for him to practice. Once I could see that and accept it as the way forward, everything was transformed for Sebastian and me. We had a deeper connection, and that connection was our mutual love of work.

Many years after that experience, I often reflect on that moment. In training and coaching teachers, so much of what I speak of today is learning to let go, letting the children show you where to go with them and how. Naturally, there is a balance. We have to be mindful not to let the pedagogical pendulum swing to the opposite extreme – where freedom to learn is mistaken for the end in itself. But it is the essence of what we do. "If we only listen, children have an untapped awareness and understanding that can transform their connection to schooling, education, and life." said Seth D. Webb.

-Bumblebee Teacher

Reference: Children Centered Learning – Learning-Centered Children