The Dual Environment: Building a Practice Society as a Co-creation

*Update to my first post* – I spoke to my colleagues who are Montessori certified and it turns out the 5 great lessons I could not find information on are real! They are texts and they are readily available. As I was speaking to the Primary and Intermediate Montessori teachers in my school, a majority of them do not tell the great lessons explicitly anymore. Rather, they prefer more roundabout ways of approaching the same concepts the great lessons deliver. For example, my colleagues struggle to integrate the story of the coming of human beings (see video below for a retelling) while being respectful of our school population that come from devout religious backgrounds.

With this knowledge, I am curious as ever to learn more about the great lessons and try to find ways to integrate the concepts of the lessons into my own instruction.

This was my second session in the Montessori series with Terry was called: “The Dual Environment: Building a Practice Society as a Co-creation”. Initially, I had no idea what a dual environment was, especially since the classroom is the only environment that I usually teach in. What could the second environment be? We were introduced to the concept of the “prepared environment“. It is the space in which we operate and occupy where the appropriate raw materials are provided, and the opportunities for us to flourish are presented. We are the agents of creation in these prepared environments where we can orient ourselves, experiment, and discover. Terry had mentioned that these spaces can adapt, change, and modify as it grows no longer suitable in its current state for the being. Within the context of education, the ideal prepared environment must be properly curated, obstacles must be removed, and raw materials must be provided.

It is up to us to construct such an environment to protect our offspring. This is the mission of education. Let us, therefore, unite our efforts to construct an environment that will allow the child and the adolescent to live an independent, individual life in order to fulfill the goal that all of us are pursuing – the development of personality; the formation of a supernatural order, and the creation of a better society. The human soul must shape itself within the milieu. The child must therefore have his own special environment and the adult must help him.

Maria Montessori, “Education and Peace” Pg. 106-107

In order to create an effective classroom environment, we need to consider the 3 sub-categories of the environment: physical, social, and the psychological.

The physical environment encapsulates 4 points of consideration

• the furniture – Is it easily moveable by students? Is it properly sized for student use? Can it be used for a flexible learning situation?
• the built architecture – Are the features of the room setting students up for success and independence? Are the door handles, windows, sinks, etc. at student level?
• the outdoor environment – Is there a way for students to get outside as a means to work and explore?
• the materials – Are the materials in the room conducive to supporting the key lessons?

The social environment has 3 considerations

• the prepared adult – Is the teacher trained in the methodology? Have they provided the correct materials to support the great lessons? Are they well taken care of?
• the community of children – Is there a multi-age mix of students (preferably 3 years)? Students are co-creating the classroom and practicing their skills to enter society.
• the activities of community learning – What is the procedure and protocols for the daily routine? The culture brings real life to the classroom setting.

The psychological environment represents the duality of teacher and students, so it only has 2 considerations

• fostering culture – What is the class culture? How does the class mark celebrations, holidays, and somber occasions? Can and will these procedures be modified or shifted to better suit the needs of the class?
• co-creation in action – Are the students given freedom to execute their ideas in a controlled and safe space?

Terry had mentioned that at the core of the prepared environment is the concept of “Love”. Not exclusively the love students and teachers will share with one another, but rather the genuine love for the ordinary and the binding love for the universe. Within this concept of love, students are given the opportunity to challenge, change, and re-create what is in their class when the space evolves alongside them.

Because I am seldomly in Montessori classrooms for more than 10 minutes, I have only really taken notice to the physical aspect of the prepared environment of the rooms. The classes all have a beige, natural wood aesthetic, have the same manipulatives in their rooms, and the configurations constantly change. I thought that this was merely a design choice, but it is more rooted in how the space can better work for the students in the room. I love the idea of giving students the opportunity to change the classroom as they see fit. I worry that my classroom could not fit that Montessori style as my tables are physically roped together into 2 large long tables where cables neatly run on the underside. There is little choice in what the furniture can do. My furniture are not natural wood in the same way the Montessori furniture is to create that calm environment. My students are assigned seating to create order within the short prep times, and students don’t waste time choosing where to sit and with who. I do not have the luxury for a lot of co-creation in my room due to the time constraints. By the time the classes discuss and decide on something, the period is over, and the lesson has not be completed. Although I feel like I am not adhering to the physical or psychological environment, I do believe that my social environment is strongly based in the Montessori methodology. I am on my journey to becoming an even more prepared adult – learning more about the practice and making sure the materials I curate serve a purpose. When I teach the Montessori classes, the multi-age communities are thrust upon me and the older students often offer up their leadership to help the younger students with their learning tasks. Our activities for community living are consistent and we have procedure for everything. For example, students know that the first 7 minutes of the class are dedicated to typing practice. When we finish work, they must self-assess, peer-assess, and then I assess. At the end of the session, they sign out of their laptops, push in their chairs, and stand quietly to be dismissed (the primary students do two hand gestures we call: “peace and quiet” 🤫✌️). I would like to speak with my Montessori colleagues and my administration about whether or not we could replicate a Montessori classroom in the physical sense to the best of our constraints. That way, the transition from their classroom to mine is less stark and the students in the regular stream can experience what a Montessori classroom looks like.

The final major concept Terry brought up in our session was the concept of “going out“. He had eluded to this in our first meeting where he said “you need a going out program in order to be practicing Montessori learning” (Millie, 2023). When students are outside of school and they are outdoors, they go out and do things independently (i.e. explorative play, practicing sports, building things with raw materials). They eventually figure out a solution to their problems. They put their learning to use and “nature reconnects the human to their spirituality” (Millie, 2023). The idea of going out involves students who have developed a skill set to transfer these skills from the safe environment of the classroom to the real world. In order to progress with these skills they’ve learned in school, students must broaden their boundaries of their prepared environment. These are not to say that these are field trips, or even full class excursions. These are small groups of students making contact with society. They are acquiring skills, creating a process for which they are going out, adapting the plan as they go, and developing their independence. For example, a small group may be learning how to round numbers. They may plan a going out trip to the grocery store where they round the prices of foods to the nearest dollar. For an added challenge, they might want to give themselves a food budget and see approximately what they could buy with their funds.

Terry offered a lot of advice when it came to his considerations for when a teacher may be setting up a routine for going out. He suggested allocating shelf space in the classroom to it by having town maps, local phone books, scripts for contacting businesses readily available. He also posed the idea that parental chaperones would be the ones taking the students out on the excursions, but not on their child’s experience day. That way, one’s parent wouldn’t feel the need to interfere with the child’s learning. Below is a handout provided by Terry with regards to his considerations for a going out plan, alongside an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Maria Montessori’s Book “Childhood to Adolescents”.

Within my classroom context, the idea of going out into the community is not viable. It is easy to blame the nature of my prep position and the time constraints, but I also worry about creating a have and have-not situation where the Montessori students can use tech time as a time to go out into society, while there is no precedence for our neighbourhood student to do the same. Those students have not been taught the routine of going out, nor have parents consented to the idea, so it would prove to be greatly difficult for students to use their time with me to engage with the community in this manner. That being said, I would be more than happy to support Montessori teachers with chaperoning a going out activity with some students on my free periods or when classes get cancelled. I would love to see the Montessori way in a real-life setting.

This week provided a lot of food for thought. I am still a little hung up on the whole cosmic education thing, but I am making more steps toward making more meaning into how I can connect my teaching with the great lessons of the Montessori method. I feel as if the further I get into these sessions, the more concrete ideas I’m learning more about. I am very much looking forward to the next session in January which is all about assessment. How does one assess a Montessori child if every one of them is on a different learning path, yet they still have to meet the criteria of the core competencies of our curriculum? I hope I can walk away from that session with more knowledge that I can integrate some of the Montessori-style assessments into my practice.