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Offering a small school atmosphere for the Corvallis-Philomath community since 1984

Thursday, May 31, 2012

A Shout-out

I wish to briefly salute our wonderful assistant, Marjie, who attended to a medical emergency in class today.  One of our kids had a severe nosebleed that went on and on.  Marjie stayed by his side and followed all her first aid training to stem the flow.  The bleeding, however, refused to cease even after ten minutes.  Marjie noticed a bit of blood trickling from the child's eye and alerted the head teacher to this anomaly.  Since this was so out of the ordinary, we called 911 immediately.  They came so quickly!  Being so close to our local fire station affords us a great deal of comfort and security.  A whole battalion of EMTs, firefighters and police officers arrived.  The child remained calm as did Marjie.  The head teacher, remaining staff and children went (pretty) serenely about their business as the professionals did theirs.  The child's mother arrived and picked up her child to be seen by his pediatrician.  We are certain that all will be well.  I am very proud of the staff and particularly Marjie for handling this (thankfully) rare situation so well.  We are are truly fortunate to have her on staff.

Best regards,
Doni

Monday, May 7, 2012

An Exciting Opportunity

Next Thursday, May 17 at 6 pm at Corvallis Montessori School, Dr Kathleen Lloyd will be presenting a lecture entitled "Creating Pathways for Self-Regulation: A Secret of Childhood."  I have heard Dr. Lloyd speak on this topic before and it is riveting.  She is a relaxed, personable speaker with many years of experience teaching young children in a Montessori setting and she brings not only her personal stories, but much clinical research as well.

Her research and experiences illustrate how important it is for children to have opportunities to lose themselves in an activity and become thoroughly engrossed.  This very act leads them to a more highly evolved state of being.  We see this in the classroom regularly.  A child who has just finished a task that is meaningful, engaging and developmentally appropriate is momentarily transformed into a child who is satisfied, kind, peaceable and motivated to find another stimulating experience.

Many adults, however, do not recognize and respect the importance of a child's concentration.  Many of us think nothing of interrupting a child who is focused and engaged.  As a matter of fact, children who are in this concentrated state emit such lovely, entrancing energy that they are more likely to attract others and therefore be interrupted.  How often do we see a baby looking intently at something and break their gaze by calling their attention once more to ourselves.  "Are you looking at the horsey?  That's a pretty horsey, isn't it?"  Yes, to be sure, conversing with an infant, introducing vocabulary and bonding on an emotional level are vital, but it can wait until the child terminates her engagement herself.

Dr. Lloyd will provide fascinating information for all of us who care about human development.  Not surprisingly to Montessorians, we find that the opportunities for children to devote themselves to self-chosen work that abound in our classrooms brings out this phenomenom again and again.  Dr. Montessori was aware of this dynamic 100 years ago.  It is exciting to see modern-day brain research corroborate her observations and those of us who follow in her footsteps.