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Use Both Hands – A Case for Training Montessori Assistants

By Filed Under: Montessori for Beginners, Montessori in the Classroom Tagged With: This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Training Montessori assistants is imperative for a smoothly run classroom.

If Montessori teachers were given a magic wand for their classrooms, more often than not they’d use it to implement Montessori to the best of their ability. When asked, teachers usually reveal just how many responsibilities they have that can get in the way of their main goals – assisting each child and finding the right material or lesson to meet each child’s needs.

What many teachers need isn’t a magic wand, it’s a personal assistant, and they may have the answer to this need right under their noses. The potential of their classroom assistant is often untapped.

If there are fewer than 10-12 children, a lead teacher just might be able to handle all the responsibilities involved in preparing a classroom and curriculum; observing, planning, and implementing individualized lessons; and keeping up with all administrative duties (such as progress reporting and community building). However, I believe that Montessori classrooms with more than 12 children should have two adults in the environment. This is important for functional and smooth classroom operations.

The Case for Training Montessori Assistants

To have each adult trained to fulfill their unique classroom role is like training both hands to hold the pitcher when pouring water.

All too often, however, only one of the adults is trained for her job. The other adult is often left to cursory and sporadic on-the-job training, given by someone who is meant to teach children, not other adults! The highest performing classrooms I’ve been witness to are ones in which the adults have built a mutualistic relationship with clear communication, expectations for professionalism, an openness to learn from each other, and agreements regarding functions of each role. This mutualism can be learned!

Support staff in Montessori environments are often called upon to overview the environment. This means supervising the children, redirecting children only when needed, maintaining the cleanliness and order of the classroom, and attending to the many chores that surround supporting young children in group settings.

Training assistants can cover an understanding of the scope and sequence of the materials, the importance of the environment, the importance of the quality of their interactions with the children, and their role as an assistant in meeting the teacher’s needs. Such training will ensure they’re better equipped to help the dominant hand pour the water!

What Does Training Montessori Assistants Look Like?

I have a broad perspective as a learner, mentor teacher, and trainer of support staff who work with toddlers through elementary ages. What have I learned? Optimal learning for adults dictates there are multiple modes, such as a guided mentorship and professional development outside of the workplace.

As a brand new assistant, I went to an 8-hour seminar at a local AMI school. While the seminar was great, it was inadequate in terms of follow-up on the job and it wasn’t very comprehensive. My training as an assistant was left to my seasoned mentor teacher and wise Head of School. She takes all the credit for hooking me into Montessori in such a positive way, and for helping me understand what was expected of me day in, day out in that entry level position.

Many years later, there are several excellent in-person assistant training programs offered around the world. Some are affiliated with AMS, AMI, or regional Montessori organizations. Thanks to the universality of the internet, there are now eLearning courses for training support staff, including the one I teach – the Montessori Assistant Toolkit from ClassrooMechanics. To assist the mentor teacher or administrator in best supporting their assistants, ClassrooMechanics also offers the coordinating workshop Supporting Classroom Assistants.

I believe it’s imperative that each adult working in a Montessori classroom build a framework including child development theories, the neuroscience of learning, and principles of Montessori philosophy. These set the stage for specific training in optimizing adult-child interactions, preparing and maintaining the environment, and preparing ourselves for these tasks. Additionally, the role of the lead guide needs to include how to support assistant staff, as the mutualistic relationship that flourishes benefits everyone.

Training Montessori assistants should be a priority, whenever possible. In a nutshell, it is the training of both our hands that pour water without spilling a drop.

More about the Author

Tammy Oesting, Lifelong Learner, Educational Leader, and Innovative Instructor. An American Montessori Society 3-6 and E1-2 certified teacher, Tammy serves the global Montessori community with professional development opportunities by delivering engaging online, on-demand eLearning courses at ClassrooMechanics. Her focus on optimizing classroom performance lead to creating and teaching a live Montessori Assistant Course for years. The need for accessible, quality professional development drove her to put her training online. Tammy and her husband Aaron are location dependent and travel the world visiting Montessori schools and sharing their insights as travel writers at Lands Remote .

How to Observe Children in a Montessori Classroom

By Filed Under: Montessori for Beginners, Montessori in the Classroom Tagged With: , This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

As you may know, delivering a quality Montessori education is a lot of work. Preparing and maintaining an environment that meets every child’s needs, creating curriculum, guiding children to practice community-created rules, reporting progress to parents and administrators, identifying developmental milestones and more, the job of a teacher is overwhelming and depends on a variety of skill sets.

So you might wonder of my accuracy when I make the sincere declaration that there exists a “keystone skill” that is necessary for adults to acquire to effectively deliver Montessori. The skill I’m referring to is observation.

The Importance of Observing Children

Observing children helps teachers accurately infer what is needed to modify the environment or their approach to the child. These conclusions are better relayed to parents and administrators when they stem from actual observations.

For every action of the adult in the Montessori environment, whether it be replacing one material for another, or intervening with a child, or giving a new presentation to a child, there is a thoughtful reason to do so based on the adult's observations. So often what we think must be done is based on our impulses or habits rather than empirical knowledge of what should be done, or not.

Observation prepares the adult to act, but, first, we must prepare ourselves to observe!

In the third lecture of her 1921 London course, Dr. Montessori talked about the preparation of the teacher as analogous to the preparation of scientists in other fields: “Any methodical observation which one wishes to make, requires preparation. Observation is one of those many things of which we frequently speak, and of which we form an inexact or false idea. It should be sufficient to consider what occurs in all the sciences that depend upon observation. The observers in the various sciences must have a special preparation. For instance, one who looks through a microscope does not see what exists there unless his eye is prepared. It is not sufficient to have the instrument and to know how to focus it. It is also necessary to have the eye prepared to recognize the objects.”

The first steps in preparing for observing children are internal. Our brains are plastic; that is, they grow and change. Our patterns and habits of thought can be changed with practice. One pattern that hinders our ability to capture what we actually see is the “chatter” or fleeting off-task thoughts that float through teachers minds at any given moment.

Dr. Montessori suggested that guides wear a “beaded belt” and move one bead along the belt every time an impulse to act came upon them. Actions are far more effective when founded on actual observations. I suggest that adults working in Montessori environments practice training themselves to quiet their impulsive thoughts and observe what is actually happening before they respond to a child. No beads needed, just a bit of practice.

Consider starting with one minute and building up your ability to quiet your chatter with practice. Practice by watching YouTube videos of children working, or better yet, live in the classroom setting. Jot a tic mark every time a thought pops in your mind that is not something you are actually seeing or hearing in that moment. With practice, you’ll make more space as an effective observer and will know better when to intervene, and when not to.

More about the Author

Tammy Oesting, Lifelong Learner, Educational Leader, and Innovative Instructor. An American Montessori Society 3-6 and E1-2 certified teacher, Tammy serves the global Montessori community with professional development opportunities by delivering engaging online, on-demand eLearning courses at ClassrooMechanics. Her focus on optimizing classroom performance lead to creating and teaching a live Montessori Assistant Course for years. The need for accessible, quality professional development drove her to put her training online. Tammy and her husband Aaron are location dependent and travel the world visiting Montessori schools and sharing their insights as travel writers at Lands Remote .