To Be a Help to Life

''No man is free who is not master of himself.''

~Epictetus

A flower begins with a seed sprouting from the earth with the seed leaves coming out of the ground first. The plant grows a stalk and sends out more leaves. On the stalk or branches of the plant, small buds form and are protected by the calyx of the flower. One day when the bud is large enough, the days are warm enough and there is the right amount of sunlight and rain, the calyx begins to open, and the flower appears.

The petals of the flower begin to unfold from the calyx. The pistil and the stamen become visible. Bees and birds visit the flower and spread the sticky yellow pollen from the stamen from flower to flower, fertilizing the plants. After fertilization, at the base of the pistil, the ovary begins to swell to produce the fruit, in which seeds for new plants are embedded.

A plant grows, a flower blooms and fruit ripens, all in an observable and predictable sequence for each species of plant. Weather, water, time and location are some of the factors that influence the growth and maturity rate of a plant.

Humans are more complex than plants, but each human personality unfolds in accordance to a pattern of growth.

''To be a help to life.'' That is the Montessori teachers' credo.

To be a help to a plant, we plant it in fertile soil in an appropriate climate. For example, without a special environment orange trees won't grow in Arkansas. To be a help to a plant, we assure that the seedlings are watered, weeded and protected from being trampled. As young plants grow, we protect them from deer and rabbits. We stake the tomatoes. As the plants mature, we check the plants for signs of disease. We prune if a shoot makes a plant unstable or nip the buds if a plant overproduces.

As we care for plants, we don't pull up a plant and look at its roots to see if it's growing. We watch and observe. We don't have to run tests on a plant to see if it's growing normally. We watch and observe.

As the plant matures, we harvest and enjoy not only the fruit of the plant but also the fruit of our labors.

To be a help to life.

Plant, water, weed, protect, strengthen and harvest. Obvious work for helping plants. A plant's success is ensured in a garden with a knowledgeable gardener.

Children need a place where they are watched, nourished, protected and strengthened until adulthood, until they are masters of themselves.

Be a help to life. Watch. Nourish. Protect. Strengthen. Then enjoy the harvest.

Next week: Parents Are Real People

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

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©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Independence and Concentration

''Concentration and distractibility are particular sensitive indicators of a variety of conditions affecting children. Highly concentrated activity suggests that the child's finding satisfaction and challenge in a task. Distractibility suggests trouble of some kind, social, psychological or whatnot.''

~Jerome Bruner, Under Five in Britain

Zach began the 18th hole of miniature golf. Twelve-year-old Zach was ahead and one under par. A wager of a pizza with my husband was in the balance. Zach stayed focused and won the match by two strokes.

There should have been fireworks. The band should have played a Sousa march. The mayor should have presented Zach with keys to the city. Why?

Because I had finally observed Zach having concentration and independence, two traits needed to be a fully functioning person. I say ''finally observed'' since I have known Zach since he was six years old and in my classroom. Zach needed constant supervision and encouragement to finish simple tasks. It would take him all day to finish six math problems or write ten sentences. A mule stuck in the mud would have shown more independence and concentration than Zach.

Now I witnessed the independence and concentration that would serve him well for rest of his life. I was elated. Overjoyed.

Children who are having trouble developing independence and focus in their activities usually drive the adults around them to distraction. These children, though, need to be directed to activities that hold their interest and attention. (Sorry, television, computers and video games don't count.) From a glimmer of interest and attention, concentration builds. Zach showed interest in singing, doing plays, designing props, drawing, gardening, fossils and animals, so I tried to incorporate these interests into his academic work. Pure academic work did not hold his interest.

Five-year-old Bradley had begun to read short phonetic words. After Spring Break, he returned to the classroom unable to sound out the words he had known two weeks previously. Trying to coax him into reading activities was met with a firm, ''No, thank you,'' as he continued to cut strips of paper from our scissor-cutting lesson. His first day back, Bradley cut strips of paper all day long. At clean up, Bradley asked if he could take some paper home.

''Fine,'' I agreed, hoping that his mother didn't ask me what he had done all day.

The next day, Bradley cut paper strips in the morning and afternoon sessions. Day Three, I visited with his mom. ''I've never had a student do an activity like this for three days straight. I'm not sure what to think, but as long as he's showing concentration, I'd like not to intervene.''

Bradley's mom nodded. ''He's come home and cut for at least two hours. Surely, he'll want to do something else soon.''

At Day Ten, Bradley had cut through every cutting exercise paper we had. He had cut straight lines, curved lines, zigzag lines, and spirals. Day Eleven Bradley entered the classroom and selected a reading exercise. Bradley spent the next six weeks involved in reading and writing exercises with not a pair of scissors in sight.

What I learned from Bradley was this: If you observe children doing purposeful activity independently and with concentration, let them be. Observe, and know that they are headed in the right direction, even though the work might not be what you would choose for them to do.

If we allow our children to listen and follow their inner teacher, whether it is playing miniature golf or cutting strips of paper, we can be assured that the independence and concentration from one activity will be transferred to subsequent activities of interest.

As I watched Zach calmly and coolly birdie that last hole and when I heard Bradley read ''hippopotamus,'' I knew that their concentrated activities in non-academic work had served them well.

Next week: To Be a Help to Life

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

The Child in Nature

''There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.''

~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

A visit to a toy store in a California beach town uncovered a new product, a mud pie kit. The packaging information offered that the dirt was sterilized, just add water. Plastic bowl, molds and spoons included. Holding this package, selling for 15 dollars, I felt a deep sadness for the child who would use this plaything.

One of my gifts is my clear memories from age two. How many happy hours and afternoons I spent digging in the side yard, making mud creations decorated with leaves, sticks, mulberries and stones, while sitting on a coveted flat rock or brick.

On summer afternoons, the east side of the house would be cool and shaded, populated with rollie-pollies and an occasional June bug. Evenings were spent in the back yard chasing lightning bugs, waiting for the sky to darken enough to see the Milky Way after a vibrant red and purple sunset, serenaded by cicadas. Mornings we were out chasing bumblebees in the clover.

Spring afternoons we discovered the first crocuses, daffodils and tulips, pussy willows, forsythias and my mother's favorite, asparagus. As we dug under the blossoming plum, the tree hummed with the pollen collection of bees.

Autumn leaves were used to make mountains, forts and jumping piles. I spied the stars from the back of the car, and the Big Dipper seemed to point the way home from my grandparents' house on winter evenings.

My earliest recollections are of my interaction with nature. These are calm and peaceful memories, the ones I reach for when I seek solace. The sun is as warming as my father's smile; the wind as caressing as my mother's brushing my hair.

Richard Louv, in his recent book Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, shares my concerns about our children's disconnect from nature through the prevalence of television, air conditioning, computers, video games and our underlying parental fear of ''the bogeyman.'' Louv is concerned that we are robbing our children of an essential connection and relationship to the earth. A connection that makes our children feel part of nature, not apart from it. A relationship that creates a sense of joy and wonder. A link that creates curiosity, meaning and context in all of our lives.

In our urban and suburban zoning, children are losing the creative interaction of playing in nature through treehouse building. They are losing the opportunities for creek and wood exploration and being alone--experiences that create confidence, self-reliance and a powerful sense of place. Many schools are shortening or eliminating recess and outdoor time, allowing our children even less interaction with the outdoors.

Twenty minutes of being outside can make the difference between having a good day or a bad day. Connecting to the earth can make the difference between having a joyful life or feeling lost and adrift.

Let's be creative to find ways to maximize our children's outdoor experiences. Let's give them the names of as many plants and animals as possible. Let's allow them to get dirty and mess up our yards, our parks and our playgrounds a bit with gardening and building exploration. Let's permit them to stay up to see Orion move over the horizon and command the myths of the sky. Let's teach them to pay attention to the minutiae of life--the clouds, the wind, the sounds of leaves, the flight of birds.

As Richard Louv writes, ''Passion does not arrive on videotape or on a CD; passion is personal. Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.''

Next week: Independence and Concentration

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Extending the Olive Branch for Our Children's Sake

''The troubling nature of censorship is clearer when it falls on the very young. A certain kind of silence, that which comes from holding back the truth, is abusive itself to the child. The soul has a natural movement toward knowledge, so that not to know can be to despair. In the paucity of explanation for a mood, a look, a gesture, the child takes the blame, and thus carries a guilt for circumstances beyond childish influence.''

~Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones

A few weeks after a child development seminar, I got a phone call from Daniel.

''I think I've done something that is not easy to undo. After I heard you talk about the sensitive period in a child's development for social relations and how we are laying a foundation for relationships right now for our children, well, I realized I may have done something that will cause my children not to value their relationship with me later in life.''

A red flag went up in my head. ''Maybe I need to recommend a psychologist or a lawyer,'' I thought. ''Or read Daniel his Miranda rights.''

Daniel continued. ''I haven't spoken to my grandmother, who practically raised me, in almost five years. She's never seen our youngest child. My grandmother said something years ago that deeply offended my wife and me. She tried to apologize, but we told her we didn't want to see her again.

''After your talk about how children learn about social relationships from what we model, I realized I've created a template for my own children to treat me like I've treated my grandmother. I would never intentionally do anything to hurt my children. Now I see that my grandmother didn't intend for her remarks to be so painful. It's strange, but I can't even remember what it was that was so horrible that I banished my grandmother from our family. I need to fix this. What do I need to do?''

I thought Daniel was courageous to step up to the problem and address it in such a forthright manner. Daniel was wise to see what he might be creating for his own children.

I encouraged Daniel to send his grandmother a note, invite her to lunch or call her on the phone--whatever way he could think of to make contact.

''Daniel, I assure you that all of us have acted in anger, frustration or immaturity and have done things we regret. All we can do is try to make connection again and continue trying until we do. We might find rejection, but more often than not, our offers of reconciliation work.''

Daniel called his grandmother that day, leaving a voice message. She called him the next day, and that weekend she saw her great-granddaughter for the first time. It was a tearful reunion, with both Daniel and his grandmother promising to be more understanding of each other.

For the sake of your family, yourself and your children, be as valiant as Daniel and extend the olive branch to someone today.

Next week: The Child in Nature

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing