A Little Montessori Goes a Long Way
If I could send my kids to The Waldorf of the Peninsula school, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I believe with my whole parenting self, that giving my children the freedom to find joy in their learning, the power of overcoming their fears and the strength of education is one of the greatest things I’ll do with my life. But education philosophy and budgets rarely match up. At $12,000 – $20,000 per year, per child, my hopes of my children being educated in the Montessori philosophy are all but gone.
As the public school system in San Jose continues to decline to dangerously low funding, I find our school’s programs being cut — science, art, athletics — key cornerstones to a well-rounded childhood education. And, thanks to the not-even-remotely-helpful No Child Left Behind Act, our public school teachers are trapped by having to teach to test, not teach to learn. Even the greatest teachers around (ours included), can’t fight off an economy in peril and a broken school system. Teachers find themselves sneaking in art and music, wiggling around systems to find some creativity in their teaching and eek out moments of 1:1 time with kids.
Meanwhile, across town, for the cost of some family annual paychecks, children are learning by touch and feel and movement. Their worlds are filled with peace and balance and a basic belief that their brains are developing just as they should. It’s hard not to hate them. I want my kids to have that freedom to learn, despite our inability to pay $30,000 annually. I’ve thought about this a lot. If I cut our lifestyle down, could we afford Montessori? If I:
Gave up wine: $200/month or $2,400 a year. Nope, not even close.
Gave up organic food: $150/month or $1,800 a year. Why would I give up feeding my family organically?
Gave up both @la_gringa’s and my iPhones: $250/month or $3,000 a year. That won’t work.
If I went from full-time flexible consulting to completely full-time in-house, we’d be able to pull it off, but then, I’d need a nanny, aftercare and, most of all, wouldn’t be there to participate in the rearing of my own children’s lives. That might work for them, but what’s the trade off for having no mommy face-time?
After a year of jealousy, I’ve decided to bring a little Montessori to our home — if we can’t go to a developmental private school, the least I can do is bring a bit of it home to my kids. Although my plan is just coming into action, I’m finding Thing 1 and Thing 2 to be fully engaged in the new system. I’ve started with manipulatives: putting odd things in their art cart — a strange shaped item, a tool they don’t know how to use, a giant vacuum cleaner box. Next, I’ve planned time in their day to let them explore these things and others that they find interesting. When I take down barriers to activities, the kids seem to really respond. Answers that used to be no have turned to yes. Questions like “Can I make myself an Aztec warrior?” are answered with “Of course you can.” So far, I can’t believe how creative the kids have been, how receptive they are to failure, trial and error.
Next on the agenda is to loosen the physical restraints we put on our kids. A Montessori kid I know can climb trees all the way to the top. She has no fear. She’ll sit at the top of the tree, eat a snack and watch the world go by. I’ve seen other parents completely freak out at this kid (and her parents), but somehow I get it. This girl is in no more danger of falling out of a tree as others are from falling off a bike, or getting a concussion from a linebacker’s tackle. I want my children to reach for freedoms physically. Yesterday I told my daughter to go outside and climb a tree. She looked at me like I was nuts, and then, went and did it. A half-hour later she ran back inside, showing off her scraped hands and knees — “I was in the tree!,” she said, proudly.
Finances can keep us from attending private Montessori schools, but not from offering our kids the freedoms to explore the world the way they want and need to. I’m working to get to the place where our home is full of structured freedom — enough room to find their own way and enough structure to help them get there.
Three of my newbie tools:
Journey to Montessori Elementary video
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Bilingualism is Inevitable, So What’s the Problem?
The kids sang and celebrated, paper painted signs hung from the balcony and Colombian music played in the courtyard. From where I stood, this was one heck of a celebration — our teacher had been named the California Bilingual Educator of the Year! I couldn’t stop smiling and watching the Latino children playing and dancing with their white-faced buddies, completely unaware of the minefield around them. Overheard in the hum of the singing and dancing was a parent blurting out, “You’d think we were the minority here,” while another across the yard was heard saying, “It’s not Cinco de Mayo, is it?”
Well, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore. Whites are the minority at our San Jose Unified school, just like other awesome schools in the area, including the renowned Cupertino school district where the Asian population far surpasses that of the white community. And, many of these children are learning in two languages like their European counterparts who master at least bilingualism by age 12. Having children who are bilingual statistically leads to all kind of rad stuff — from advanced math skills, music comprehension and higher AP scores. It leads children to be multi-cultural too. You can bet my half-Mexican butt that no parent with children enrolled in Two Way Bilingual Immersion would ever consider saying the derogatory kind of things parents are overheard saying. What is the problem?
I started my children in Spanish Immersion in Kindergarten. I expected a delay in language skills. Instead my children read at over 90 percent comprehension in both English and Spanish on advanced levels. I expected a lack of integration with schoolmates not enrolled in the Spanish Immersion program. Instead I found my children to be playground ambassadors. I expected my children to resent learning in Spanish when neighborhood buddies got off easy and learned in English only. Instead, my children tout their Spanish-language learning as an elite class.
Of all the things I expected, the backlash from parents unhappy with the Spanish Immersion program at their school was not only unexpected, it was shocking. As a parent, I find myself between two worlds: that where my neighborhood mommies drink Starbucks and get their nails done, and, those neighborhood mommies who wipe the floors at night at the same shops in order to make rent. I find myself championing for a culture that seems as much a part of our community as the other. I live in Limbo between these two worlds.
I’m no fool. I understand that socio-economic status and ethnicity go hand-in-hand here in San Jose and that it’s the expendable-income families that truly make the school go-round. They offer intellectual wealth beyond their financial wealth. They are educated and value education. They contribute time, treasure and talent. Those things are the differentiators at our school that make it a great place to be. Here, in a state where public education is suffering exponentially, we rely incredibly heavily on the families that have something to spare. Our children’s futures rely on it.
But the truth is this: California has nearly as many Spanish-speakers as English-speakers. We are becoming a bilingual state. What else is true is that many Latino families in San Jose just can’t give to their schools in the same way we can. There are few gifts that English-learning families can offer to our local schools. They don’t have the time to give (two jobs!) or the treasure to give. But there is talent to give. And one of those things is helping our English-only children learn Spanish fluently. It’s a special and important way these families can give back to their community, their school, their classmates.
I truly do not understand why bilingual education in San Jose isn’t more embraced. What can be the downside? Better educated, more well-rounded, bilingual, biliterate, bicultured children? I’ll take that risk.
Original post to SV Moms Blog.
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A Good Guy for a Good Cause
As many of you know, our annual Community Tree Lighting Ceremony is Thursday, December 3 at 6:30 p.m. As more of you know, I nearly lost my skull worried over the actual *lighting* of the tree. It’s a bad economy, we all know it. But no lit tree in our town? Really, I need a scotch just thinking of it.
But the tree will be lit and the community will have it’s tradition. This year, we won’t be using a cherry picker or crane to hang our lights —instead, Straun Edwards, arborist and owner of Trees 360 Degrees will deck the tree by doing what he does best: climbing! Our angel wears spikes in his shoes and is a whopping 6-foot-8.
Tomorrow my tree lighting angel will hang the lights. You know where I live? Then come out to see Straun 45-feet sky-high in the neighborhood tree tomorrow at our local elementary school. That’s right, Mr. Edwards’ donation is to *litearlly* climb the giant fir tree outside the school to hang the lights for the tree during the holidays.
We fly home tomorrow to watch Straun climb the tree (kids are freaking out, they think he is SpiderMan). I’m grateful to him beyond what he knows for a cause more important that he could ever guess.
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Tree is Bare, Branches are Full
The tree lighting ceremony drama –lighting up my frustration from here to Thomas Edison’s grave and back — continues. There are a million technicalities, hurdles, economic downturn-rejections and red tape landmines everywhere I turn. All of this, of course, in two languages. It’s sort of borderlining on panic.
But, there is also a fullness I’ve never really experienced before.
In my plea to local businesses to help us put lights on our holiday tree for our local community event, I found gems everywhere. There’s the lady from Discount Lift Rentals who calls me at 9 p.m. to tell me she’s going to call everyone she knows to give us help in finding a boom lift. Then she kindly explains to me the difference between the booms and the cherry pickers and the arms on the things. I’m pretty impressed the chick knows power equipment. That’s hot, in a Rosie ‘Yes We Can!” sort of way. There’s the friend who volunteers her husband and her vacation time to put up the lights — if only we had a way of getting in the tree. Then there’s the tough real estate agent who’s got a kinder than kind heart who offered to make calls on our behalf. And there’s the friend who’s gonna ask the neighbor if he can help. I’ve got a friend who runs a media site that’s willing to bullhorn our needs. And tonight, I’ve got several friends who know a friend who knows a friend….. Everywhere there is help.
And in the strangest way, I feel the tree lighting up.
Don’t get me wrong. There ain’t enough kumbaya in the world to substitute for the dang tree being lit. But sometimes inspiration comes from the people who cannot say Yes, but not for a lack of trying. I love people who try, no matter the outcome.
So we wrote blind letters, cold called and begged every person in the book tonight to help us find a way to light our community tree. And someone, somehow will come through. I know it will happen. And when it does, it won’t just be the person who said Yes that gave the gift. It will be all those I was lucky enough to hear No from that would have if they could have.
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My Big Girl Reader
Reader
My incredible daughter picked up a book the other day and started reading it aloud. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and just sat there looking at La Gringa in amazement.
My girl really didn’t want to read a word of English (she reads in Spanish) until she was good and ready. And until she knew she could do it. And do it well.
We sat there and listened to her read a whole book. From that moment on, she’s reading and reading and reading and writing. Words are coming together for her and the doors are opening up in her otherwise Spanish language world.
She spent a day going on errands with us, at every stop reading, “That says, ‘Enter’” or “Hey mom, that over there says ‘Sale.’” We never got sick of her reading everything she could get her eyes on.
Go girl, go get your read-on.
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Dia de los Muertos
Offering
Great school activity today when a mom came in to teach kids about Dia de los Muertos. I had always known the holiday to be one that was a bit scary, a bit morbid and I could never figure out why the skeletons were always dancing. The mom did a great job at explaining how the food was an offering of smells and favorite thing from family members who have passed on. Fresh fruit, flowers (marigolds), tamales, chocolate and “Pan Muerto,” translated literally to “dead bread” can be made with a family member’s name on it. Very cool tradition. It reminded me of when our family was invited to a Tet New Year celebration for the Vietnamese culture. The habits are so similar. It reminded me a bit of paganism with the concepts of calling the dead with smells and flavors and offerings.
Not scary at all and so beautiful to look at. What a great, and, surprisingly peaceful and celebratory holiday.
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Side Gigs
