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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When a square is more than a square

While we've spoken of the long bead chains before, I wanted to focus on a specific point of interest. Each colored bead represents a certain number and a certain set of that number. When placed in a long chain, children are able to count them, identifying important numbers within the set. So in the Long bead chain of 5 (light blue in color) it has number tags for each set of 5 (5, 10, 15, 20, etc). There are larger tags for each square of 5 (that is, each set of 25). When a square tag is placed on each squared number, a square bead is placed as well. To think that Maria Montessori thought about the concept of squared numbers and considered a means to make it as concrete as possible! To think there are children all over the world who are learning a mathematical concept that they can feel in their hands before ever knowing how to connect it to an algebraic equation. It's quite baffling. What beautiful things God makes, both concepts and man to understand them.

Something I want my students to know...

I've had the privilege of teaching young children for about ten years. From the first fearful step into the 3rd grade classroom of P.S. 154 as a City Year Corps member, to looking up at my ninth and tenth graders during my teacher fellow year at the Collegiate Institute of Math and Science, I've been humbled to be in the presence of these young people. And now, in a primary Montessori classroom, with children who will remember me as one of their first teachers--if not the first teacher they've ever had--the stakes feel higher, even as I have to bend lower to look at my students in their eyes. I sometimes wonder if the message I want to get across to each child comes through in the way I'm teaching. If not, here's what I'd want them to know: Everyday I think about how I can be a better guide to you, and everyday I feel more inadequate to do so. I want you to know that you have far greater ability than you think, particularly the ability to do good in the world....

All that has happened

I know I should be going into the new year with a forward gaze, but I am amazed at what has happened in the world (and in my life!) the past few months. Let me share with you. I began this blog and podcast with the intention of combining many different interests into one intersecting conversation. I am a Christian and I view my life through that lens. That is to say, I strive that everything I do would be done to give glory to God in light of His great love towards me and the world, chiefly shown through the death burial and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. (That was a long sentence.) Under that umbrella, I am a Black man whose career is education. I believe that educating young people has a way of changing the course of their future. I have chosen to adopt Montessori pedagogy as the means through which I educate children. While I've been in education for 10 years, I've been on this specific journey of Montessori philosophy for the last 4 years. I've gone fr...

Grace and Courtesy

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