Thankfulness

Grace, Gratitude and Goodness

Gratitude has become popular these days. Psychology has caught up to biblical theology in understanding that a grateful disposition is connected to a healthy mind. What becomes strange to me is the fact that, without Christ, we don't have a direction for our gratitude.

It is a wonderful thing that we can be thankful that we have another day of life, or that we get to work with children (what a privilege!) or that we have food in our refrigerators. But we miss out on deeper joy if we don't know to whom we can be grateful. There is a Person who has given these things to us. Getting to the Person--namely, Jesus--allows us to get to the praise, producing deep joy.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalm 100:4

I often like to tell the children in my care that I am thankful for them, that they are in my class and that I get the chance to see them. This reiterates the reality that they have value. The hope is that they translate this value into participating in the classroom community. This participation can look like lots of things, but particularly valuing others.

What we show is what we teach

In another post, I'll be talking about the beauty and cultivation of Language and how the Montessori philosophy handles this phenomenon. As an addendum, it's important to consider how much children listen to us when we speak. They pick up vocabulary, cultural vernacular, AND tone of voice. If they hear adults complaining around them, I imagine that complaining would become normalized in the way they communicate. Would it not also be true the other way around? What words and actions will we bring to the child while they are in the stage of the Absorbent Mind (or any stage of their development for that matter?) We cannot force them into having grateful hearts. We can only make gratitude a well paved path through many opportunities of showing it, thus making said path easier to find and easier still to journey on their own.

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A return

It's been a long while since I've used writing as an outlet for thinking about Montessori pedagogy. But I have been using my voice in other ways. When I was growing up, I was slow to speak and would more likely be found writing in a journal rather than talking to others. There are some tendencies (not in the Montessori sense) that stick with you, even into adulthood. But lately, even in shyness, I've been speaking more rather than writing; sometimes to my colleagues regarding the lessons I've learned about the classroom; sometimes to parents to remind them that they are doing the most difficult of jobs, and that I know they're child well. But what I'd forgotten is how the written word has a magic to it that cannot--or perhaps ought not--be forsaken. It is in the written word that the ideas of one person can be conveyed, at least in part, to a completely different person. And in that transfer, hearts can be shared as well as minds. It's how I learned about...

With Rods painted red

I first established the idea for this blog many years ago, when I just started working at a public Montessori school in a relatively poor neighborhood. But then life happened. Before I knew it I found myself in a Montessori teacher education program, graduate school, and lead teaching in an early childhood classroom. Being one of a handful of men in my school (there were three of us at the time), I felt a bit of pressure to perform. I was quite stressed and worn down. What constantly brought me back was the primary reason that I came to my school, that I began learning Montessori pedagogy, that I do anything at all: to bring glory to God. Granted, I had to learn the lesson of being satisfied in Jesus by being hospitalized, but that's another story for another day. (I'm quite fine now, thanks). My point is that there was very little time for me to reflect on what it means to be a Montessori teacher, while first being a lover and follower of Jesus. But now I can. On...

What am I reading right now?

I have a habit of reading multiple books at once. Hopefully I'm not alone in this. As I have just gotten off of a wonderful vacation, I took a good chunk of that time to read. And as you might imagine, my reading list is right at the intersection of Race, Religion, and education (I couldn't think of another "r" word that means the same as education). Some of these books are what I'm currently reading, so I don't have a review on it per-se. But hopefully they are helpful. Race How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized trauma and the pathways to mending our hearts and bodies by Resmaa Menakem Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (which could also be in the religion category, but ah well) Education The Tao of Montessori: Reflections on Compassionate teaching by Catherine McTamaney Citizen of the World by Maria Montessori Religion Jesus Knowing God by J.I. Packer The Little book of Christian Living by John Ca...

Grace and Courtesy

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