ABSTRACT
Title of thesis: CULTURAL RELEVANCE AND MONTESSORI
Corinne Massey, Master of Arts 2006
Thesis directed by: Dr. Martin Johnson
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
This master?s thesis research consists of a study in which the theoretical and
practical congruencies between Equity Pedagogy, an essential component of multicultural
education, and the pedagogical elements of Montessori Education are examined. The
goals of this study are multi-tiered, existing on both a practical and an intellectual plane.
On a practical level, the goals relate to Montessori classroom practice and Montessori
teacher education programs. In considering the praxis of a small set of public school
teachers, the practical relationship between Montessori and Equity Pedagogy begins to
emerge. Praxis was explored using non-intrusive observational techniques with no
videotaping. The researcher observed the teacher?s manner of addressing the students in a
variety of classroom contexts. Student?s actions were recorded only as they are pertinent
to the teacher?s praxis, and identifiable student characteristics were not recorded. At no
time during classroom observations will the researcher interrupt or attempt to intervene in
teacher-student interactions. Interviews will follow observations in order to examine any
discrepancies between teacher praxis and teacher ideology. This research will present an
ethnographic case study of the public Montessori program in a suburban county
bordering on a large city.
CULTURAL RELEVANCE AND MONTESSORI
by
Corinne Massey
Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
2006
Advisory Committee:
Professor Martin Johnson, Chair
Professor Marvin Lynn
Professor Victor?a-Maria MacDonald
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables.....................................................................................................................iv
Chapter I: Introduction..............................................................................................1
Context........................................................................................................................5
Goals...........................................................................................................................6
Rationale.....................................................................................................................8
Chapter II: Literature Review...................................................................................10
Montessori Education...............................................................................................11
Influences on Montessori Education..........................................................11
Evolution of Montessori Education...........................................................14
Montessori in the Public Domain...............................................................18
Philosophical Underpinnings and Pedagogical Systems............................19
Tenet I...........................................................................................22
Tenet II.........................................................................................25
Tenet III........................................................................................28
Multicultural Education............................................................................................31
Historical Roots of Multicultural Education...............................................31
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.....................................................................34
Philosophical Underpinnings and Pedagogical Systems............................37
Tenet I..........................................................................................39
Tenet II........................................................................................42
Tenet III.......................................................................................46
Theoretical Nexus of Montessori and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.....................51
Chapter III: Methodology..........................................................................................54
Research Questions...................................................................................................55
Methods....................................................................................................................55
Site and Participant Selection...................................................................................56
Data Collection.........................................................................................................59
Validity.....................................................................................................................65
Implications..............................................................................................................65
Chapter IV: Findings.................................................................................................67
Biographical Sketches..............................................................................................68
Manjit Bakshi.................................................................................................68
Jenny Lind.......................................................................................................72
Pamela Stone...................................................................................................76
Judy Borchelt...................................................................................................81
Research Question 3.................................................................................................86
Research Question 4...............................................................................................116
Chapter V: Discussion and Conclusions................................................................128
Findings..................................................................................................................128
Implications............................................................................................................146
iii
Future Research......................................................................................................150
Appendix A: Interview Questions...................................................................................152
Appendix B: Codes.........................................................................................................155
References.......................................................................................................................156
iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1.....................................................................................................................20
Table 2.2.....................................................................................................................52
Table 3.1.....................................................................................................................60
Table 3.2.....................................................................................................................62
Table 4.1....................................................................................................................118
Table 4.2....................................................................................................................119
Table 4.3....................................................................................................................120
Table 4.4.....................................................................................................................121
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Chapter I: Introduction
Since the Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ruling overturned
the fallacy of ?separate but equal? schools, many Americans have lost sight of the issue
of equity in schooling. It has been assumed that because schools have been legally
integrated, equality of educational opportunity has necessarily ensued. The vast body of
research on the ?achievement gap,? under its various designations, shows otherwise. In
fact, schools today are not only characterized by significant discrepancies in the
achievement of African American and Hispanic students as opposed to White and Asian
American students, but they are also increasingly segregated. Although this segregation is
de facto as opposed to de jure, (Kozol, 2005) it is nonetheless a growing problem,
characterized not only by the ?achievement gap,? but also by immense discrepancies in
funding, teacher quality, and curricular integrity between predominantly white and
predominantly minority schools (Kozol, 2005, Darling-Hammond, 2004). However, even
when socio-economic status is accounted for, the performance gap persists. The average
black student, at 18 years old, performs similarly to the average white student of 14 years
old on standardized measures (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003). Some theorists argue
that race identification accounts for this discrepancy (Steele, 2004), while others argue
that minority students do not want to be seen as ?acting white? (Ogbu, 1992; Osborne,
2001). Still others refute these theories, pointing to a large body of research indicating
that minority students value achievement, want to succeed, and experience success in
appropriate educational settings (Lee, 2005). Assuming that this is the case, the
responsibility then falls on teachers to enable success within all student populations. It is
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the intent of this research paper to examine such possibilities for change at the classroom
level through the implementation of pedagogy that is transformational and social action
oriented (Banks, 2004).
This research project will examine the theoretical and practical congruencies
between the pedagogical facets of Multicultural Education and those of Montessori
education. Both James Banks and Christine Sleeter (Banks, 2004; Sleeter, 2001) refer to
pedagogy that is multicultural in nature as Equity Pedagogy. In particular, this paper will
examine the element of Equity Pedagogy put forth by Gloria Ladson-Billings and
referred to as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. This type of praxis aims to improve teaching
and learning for minority students. Additionally, it will attempt to unfold the core
principles and underlying theoretical tenets of Montessori pedagogy. In examining those
ideas, it will then move towards a comparison between the two educational methods, with
the purport of illuminating the elements of these two bodies of thought that are congruent
to one another. Lastly, the literature review will conclude with a proposed theoretical
framework, merging the major facets of the two ideologies under examination into a
?Culturally Relevant Montessori.? The research component will have as its starting point
the nexus revealed by the examination of the extant literature on these two pedagogies,
and will then attempt to explore the ways in which this nexus appears in classroom
practice as well as in the perception of classroom teachers. In moving from this
theoretical base into an intersectional examination of pedagogy in action, this research
will enter new territory as it attempts to uncover the convergence and divergence of
practice from this constructed nexus through the use of observation and semi-structured
interviews. The results of this study will then be used to revise the theoretical framework,
3
based on the data collected in the field, integrating theory and praxis into a proposal for a
transformed Montessori pedagogy that is social action oriented.
A growing population of researchers is looking to teachers and teacher educators
to move towards improving educational opportunities for students of diverse
backgrounds. Within the broad framework of Multicultural Education, this particular
body of research falls under the heading of ?Equity Pedagogy,? one that exists ?when
teachers use techniques and methods that facilitate the academic achievement of students
from diverse racial, ethnic, and social class groups (Banks, 2004). Among the most
influential researchers attempting to define and refine this notion of Equity Pedagogy as
one that is ?Culturally Relevant? or ?Culturally Responsive? are Geneva Gaye, Gloria
Ladson-Billings, and Jackie Jordan-Irvine. These researchers concur in their strongly held
belief that it is not the student's culture that needs to change to fit the schools, but rather
the school culture that needs to change to fit the students. As the population of the United
States becomes increasingly diverse, and increasingly connected to a global society,
meeting the needs of a diverse body of students is becoming a requirement for the
maintenance of a diverse work force integral to upholding the social and economic
structures of this nation. This urgency is symbolized by the recent elevation of Gloria
Ladson-Billings to the position of president of the American Educational Research
Association (AERA), one of the nation?s most influential educational research bodies. In
her research, she defines the essential tenets of a pedagogy that is culturally relevant as
one that provides all children with the means necessary for academic success, upholds a
pedagogical praxis that is ?culturally competent,? and links thought processes to relevant
social reform through civic action (Ladson-Billings, 1994; 2001).
4
Within this framework for culturally relevant teaching there exist many
similarities to the framework for Montessori based pedagogy. This congruency has been
touched upon at the theoretical level by a handful of scholars including Asa Hilliard, Nel
Noddings, and Frances Lowden (Hilliard, 1998; Noddings, 1992; Lowden, 2001). The
American Montessori Society is actively calling for more research on multicultural
education and practices that serve more diverse bodies of students. However, this call for
research has yet to become an explicit reality, and the theoretical similarities that exist
between these two separate schools of thought have yet to be explored in praxis. The
theoretical bases of Montessori which require the teacher to look to each child?s
individual needs and to build upon the extensive body of knowledge that they already
possess upon entering school, to practice education as a process of drawing out what is
already within the child rather than inserting knowledge into an empty vessel, and to
consider the education of children as a means of achieving world peace are clearly
congruent with the theoretical foundations of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. It is not
improbable, then, that the Montessori classroom may provide a pedagogical cadre for a
practice that is culturally relevant and it is the intention of this research to explore this
possibility and to open up further pathways for research-based exploration. As the
Montessori school movement in the United States continues to grow, it is increasingly
urgent that these schools find the means necessary for directly addressing the promises
and challenges implicit to serving a diverse community of students.
5
Context
While this movement towards cultural competence in Montessori Schools is
important to all Montessori schools as they serve children in an increasingly global and
diverse society, it takes on a particular urgency in public Montessori Schools, which, like
all public schools, have the fundamental responsibility to educate every child. Since the
first Public Montessori Program opened in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975, more than 360
public and public charter Montessori schools have opened across the United States. This
growing body of schools occupies a unique position in the current educational climate, a
space in which the ideological stance of Montessori teachers necessarily encounters that
of the public school system. The teachers in these schools are often both trained as
Montessori teachers and certified as professional educators by their various states.
Although this duality presents many possibilities for empirical and phenomenological
exploration, the goal of this research project is to explore the extent to which a small
sample of these Montessori trained teachers exhibit multicultural awareness and
competence in their pedagogical practice, as well as the degree to which they embody the
theoretical foundations of the Montessori system. The use of a small sample will allow
for more meaningful and probing inquiry and will open up possibilities for larger scale
research projects.
This exploration will be preceded by an extensive examination of the available
literature on Montessori and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, their inherent meanings, their
shared ideals, and their divergences. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy will serve as a
framework in which to situate a diverse body of research on specific practices that are
culturally relevant or responsive. This examination will be limited to the philosophical
6
and practical tenets of the implicit pedagogies of these two ways of thinking, and will not
broach content, curriculum, or school reform, except as they relate directly to pedagogy,
although these are clearly important elements of education that is multicultural. This
review of the literature will serve as the theoretical lens through which four Montessori
teachers in a public school will be examined in their praxis. Eventually, this examination
of theory and praxis will serve to open up multiple possibilities, not only for the
implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy in Montessori classrooms and teacher
education programs, but perhaps also for some crossover between traditional teacher
education programs and Montessori teacher education programs as their interrelatedness,
strengths, and challenges are brought into consideration.
Goals
The goals of this study, then, are multi-tiered, existing on both a practical and an
intellectual plane. On the broadest level, the goal of this study is to work towards opening
pathways for communication between members of the Montessori community and
University-based teacher education communities in an effort to create possibilities for
knowledge exchange between these two groups. On a practical level, the goals relate to
Montessori classroom practice and Montessori teacher education programs. In
considering the praxis of a small set of public school teachers, the practical relationship
between Montessori and Culturally Relevant pedagogy will begin to emerge. This
emergence will serve to highlight the degree to which Montessori teachers are prepared
to serve diverse communities of children. Furthermore, the use of interviews preceding
and following observations will examine teachers own levels of self-awareness and
7
perceived competence in contrast to actual competence in culturally relevant and
Montessori practices. This difference in perception of the teacher and perception of the
observer may illuminate some of the ways in which practices that are alluded to in
Montessori teacher education programs need to be taught more explicitly, so as to merge
awareness of the ideas that predominate in the field of Montessori and those that
predominate elsewhere in the educational field. The intellectual goals of this study, while
closely related to the practical goals, are more focused on the theoretical congruency of
Montessori and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, with the intent of proposing a merged
framework for a practice that is a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori.? Therefore, this study
will not only serve to examine the practice of four teachers, but to open up possibilities
for the further examination of classroom practice and teacher education programs with
the ultimate goal of creating ideological bridges between culturally relevant pedagogues
and Montessori practitioners.
This study, which will attempt to answer the question ?How do Montessori
teachers in public school systems reflect the theoretical components of Montessori
practice as well as those of culturally relevant practice, especially in their nexus, and in
what ways are they aware of this nexus in theory and in practice?,? will be an
ethnographic case study of the public Montessori program in a culturally diverse
suburban county bordering on a large city. It will be a case study in that it is a study of a
bounded system, comprised of four classrooms in one pre-k-5 public Montessori school.
It will be ethnographic in the sense that it will draw on participant observation of
classrooms within these schools as well as semi-structured interviews of teacher
participants for the collection of data.
8
Rationale
An exploration of possibilities for culturally relevant practice within Montessori
settings provides a unique opportunity to examine structural change in schools that is
oriented towards personal and cultural identity development with a socially conscious
agenda. Each of these pedagogical stances has been correlated with increased academic
and social success in urban schools. Several empirical studies exist that purport to show
academic advantages related to Montessori as opposed to traditional education
(Dohrmann, 2003; Moore, 1991; Clifford & Takacs, 1991; Rothman, 1997; Duax, 1989).
The benefits of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy are detailed by Ladson-Billings (1994). In
spite of the apparent benefits, both pedagogies present possibilities for change in one area
while leaving other areas unexplored. More specifically, Montessori provides a concrete
pathway towards structural and curricular change at the classroom level that is oriented
towards personal identity development. CRP, on the other hand, focuses much more
specifically on student to teacher interactions conjoint with curricular changes that are
oriented towards cultural identity development. Banks (2004) discusses four levels of
multicultural curriculum reform. The first level, ?The Contributions Approach,? attempts
to reform curriculum through celebrating the holidays, clothing and other discrete
elements of a diversity of cultures. It is sometimes referred to as the ?foods and festivals?
approach. The second level is referred to as ?The Additive Approach,? adding content,
concepts and themes from various cultures to the curriculum without changing its
structure. The third level, the ?Transformations Approach? changes the structure of the
curriculum to enable students to view concepts and ideologies though diverse
9
perspectives. The final level, ?The Social Action Approach,? provides students in
transformative settings with the ability to make decisions about social issues and take
actions to help solve them. The fusion of a Montessori ideology, which offers structural
reform at the classroom level, and a Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, which has a strong
emphasis on social action, may offer new possibilities for developing a pedagogy with
specific implication for both personal and cultural identity development through the
implementation of change at the curricular, pedagogical, and structural level. In other
words, Montessori provides a transformative structure in which a social action oriented
approach may be implemented.
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Chapter 2: Literature Review
This literature review has as its locus the intersection of Montessori education and
Culturally Relevant pedagogy. First, it will seek to define the nature of the Montessori
educational philosophy. Next, it will identify and examine the essential theoretical tenets
of a Montessori pedagogy as well as the principles that support the enactment of those
tenets. It will also situate Montessori within related scholarly paradigms. From there, it
will similarly define, delineate, and explore Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in theory and
in practice. This examination will have as its starting point the situation of Culturally
Relevant Pedagogy within Equity Pedagogy, one of the basic areas of research in
Multicultural education (Banks, 2005; Bennett, 2001) and a brief historical exploration of
the roots and evolution of Multicultural education. After having laid out the meanings
and purposes of these two paradigms, it will seek to identify the convergent, congruent
and divergent elements of their philosophical cores, something that has not yet been
adequately explored by scholarly research. Finally, it will use this comparative analysis to
build a theoretical framework defining a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori.? This
philosophical comparison will serve as the foundation for the ethnographic research to be
undertaken, namely the exploration of Montessori pedagogy in practice, and what, if any
role Culturally Relevant Pedagogy plays in this practice. In other words, how do the
theoretically congruent elements of these two methods emerge in practice? Having
examined the available extant literature, it will be apparent that this intersection has not
been sufficiently examined in previous scholarship, neither in theory nor in practice.
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Montessori Education
To describe the Montessori system of education is a difficult task, not only in its
complexity and distinctness from a ?traditional? American pedagogy, but also in that the
name of the system is derived from the name of its founder, thus rendering the lines
between ?thinker? and ?thought system? imprecise. It is necessary, then, to consider this
system in several fragments, first considering the origins, than the historical evolution,
and finally the state of Montessori in present day America. Additionally, as a tradition of
education, Montessori incorporates philosophical underpinnings, curricular content, and
pedagogical systems. Because of the extensive nature of these three elements, this review
will limit itself to an examination of pedagogy and philosophy, and will not broach
content matter, an appropriate exploration of which would require a separate literature
review, and which is not pertinent to the research questions at hand. Furthermore, for the
purposes of this review, in order to clarify the individual parts of this multi-faceted
system, it will be necessary to consider each segment as a separate entity before
considering the interaction of the theoretical tenets as they occur in practice. This
interaction will be the focus of the ethnographic research, whereas the literature review
will segregate the minutia of praxis in an attempt to more clearly define the theoretical
underpinnings of the system under review.
Influences on Montessori Education
Before considering what entails a pedagogy that is Montessori, it is useful to
consider the origins of this pedagogy through an examination of the identity of Dr.
Montessori including her situation in time and space. Maria Montessori was born in Italy
12
in 1870, at a time that preceded women?s suffrage, and in and era of intense educational
change in the United States. By the time that she graduated from medical school as the
first Italian woman to do so, the one-room schoolhouses in America had largely been
consolidated, at least in urban centers, into more ?efficient? schools based on the factory
model of production and geared towards assimilating immigrant children into the
American populous through a process of ?subtractive schooling? (Valenzuela, 1999;
Tyack, 1972). In Europe, a movement towards universal education at the early
elementary level had similarly influenced educational thought over the course of the 19th
century. Montessori, in particular, had been influenced early in her career by two strains
of educational thought, one pertaining to early childhood education, and the other
pertaining to the education of children with special needs (Kramer, 1976).
As a newly graduated doctor, however, Montessori?s interest in education began
with clinical psychology. During her early career as a clinical psychologist, she worked
with mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed children in Rome (Kramer, 1976). It
was her attempts to educate these children, using sensory-integration, which eventually
turned her interests to the education of ?normal? children. Out of her work with these
children labeled as ?deficient,? and ?delinquent,? proceeded her belief, radical at the
time, that ?delinquency? is not innate, but is brought about by inadequate education and
other socially disruptive factors. She was particularly influenced in her research by the
work of two French clinicians, Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard and Edouard Seguin. Their work
had stemmed from the education of one boy, known at the time as the ?Wild boy of
Aveyron,? who had been found in the outskirts of that French city and seemed to possess
neither formal training nor informal contact with humanity. Itard subsequently developed
13
a series of manipulative materials that succeeded to some degree in teaching the boy the
alphabet and some primitive spellings. His work was carried on by Seguin, who
innovated the field of special education through his focus on respect for the needs of the
individual learner, the stratification of intellectual growth into stages ranging from
physical movement to intellect, and always beginning with a focus on activity centered
education (Kramer 1976).
A second strain of influential thought for Dr. Montessori stemmed from the ideas
emanating from the field of early childhood and elementary education at the time,
especially the notion of universal education. Beginning with the work of Jacob Rodriguez
Pereira, who, as a contemporary of Seguin, relied heavily on the use of the senses to
educate deaf-mute children, thought in this field was quickly dominated by Rousseau,
who believed that the application of sensorial education to all children would aid in the
development of the innate intelligence of man. Rousseau?s work, however, was largely
based on philosophical conjecture and lacked scientific grounding. His ideas were
brought into the schoolroom by Pestalozzi in Italy and Froebel in Germany. Both men
also focused on sensorial education, and coupled this belief with a strong idealism that
built on the notion that the quality of life of impoverished peoples could be greatly
improved by education. In addition to a reliance on sensorial stimulation, Pestalozzi also
incorporated movement, field trips, and differentiated instruction into his pedagogy. In
his method can also be found a movement from concrete stimulation to abstract
comprehension, a notion of primary importance in Montessori?s pedagogy. Froebel, as a
disciple of Pestalozzi, applied his ideas to the education of even younger children and
began the international movement towards universal kindergarten, which continues
14
today. Although the kindergarten classrooms that resulted integrated many of the
concepts of sensorial stimulation that Froebel laid out, they neglected to place the child at
the pedagogical epicenter and remained in the tradition of teacher-centered education
(Kramer 1976).
Evolution of Montessori Education
The Montessori method originated in Rome, Italy in 1907, with the first opening
of a Casa dei Bambini, or ?Children?s House? in a tenement building in the San Lorenzo
district. This first school served only primary children, between the ages of 3 and 6.
Although she based her ideas on the work that she had done previously with special
needs children and on her research on early childhood education theory, she did not have
a fixed set of ideas when she opened the school. Rather, she would use this school as a
center for observation of children, and meticulously record their reactions to various
materials, as well as their intellectual and physical development using a variety of
quantitative and qualitative data instruments that were considered scientifically
appropriate at her time. A full discussion of her findings can be read in The Advanced
Montessori Method (Montessori, 1991), in which she outlines her observations made
over the course of the first several years at the children?s house. What is important to note
is that she based her subsequent pedagogical method on her observations of the children
in this and subsequent children?s houses, encompassing education for elementary aged
children (Kramer, 1976). These findings are more thoroughly discussed below.
The first appearance of Montessori in an American publication was in 1909, in the
New York based The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine. This and subsequent articles were
15
descriptive but not prescriptive, and did not provide any critique of the method although
they did compare Montessori to the then popular Froebelian kindergarten method,
especially in terms of the difference between Montessori?s accelerated reading program
and Froebel?s recommendation that reading be put off until later in childhood. Between
1909, and 1913, when Montessori first visited America to discuss her educational ideas,
her method was often discussed in both professional and lay journals as well as at state
teacher?s meetings and meetings of the National Education Association. Many American
educators went to Rome to visit her schools, including representatives from Columbia
Teacher?s College and Harvard School of Education. By the time of Montessori?s visit,
schools following her method had already opened in New York and Boston and several
public school systems were considering adopting her method. The opening of a school by
Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, DC, the publication by the Harvard School of
Education of The Montessori Method, and the whole sale manufacturing of her materials
by a New York firm all contributed to Montessori?s rising popularity in the United States
at this time and her decision to make the then time-consuming trans-Atlantic journey to
visit the United States (Kramer, 1976, pp. 153-171).
Despite early enthusiasm for Montessori and her method, by the post-World War
I period traces of this enthusiasm had all but vanished in the United States, not to
resurface until after the second world war. In part, this loss of interest was due to the
publication of an influential essay by William Kilpatrick, a student of Dewey and
professor at the Columbia School of Education. In this essay, The Montessori System
Examined, Kilpatrick criticized Montessori for failing to present ideas that were new,
giving credit to John Dewey for the ideas of liberty and practical life skill development
16
that Kilpatrick found to be most meaningful to the Montessori method (Stoll-Lillard,
2005). Speculatively, the temporary demise of her system in the American public and the
long-term exclusion of her ideology from academia may also have been related to her
lack of flexibility, her desire for control over all aspects of her system, and the discovery
by the still puritanical American public of her illegitimate son, Mario, whom she brought
with her to the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, where she had a demonstration
school, in 1915 San Francisco (Kramer, 1976).
Today in the United States, the Montessori movement is again growing in both
the public and private sectors of education. Of the more than 4,600 schools, at least 360,
or close to 8%, are public Montessori schools (www.montessoriconnections.com). The
Montessori movement is represented not only in schools, but also in two scholarly
publications, NAMTA and Montessori Life. Additionally, two professional organizations,
which differ somewhat in their interpretations of Montessori?s work, oversee teacher
education and accreditation of Montessori schools. Of these associations, the American
Montessori Society and the Association Montessori Internationale, the former is
characterized by a more flexible and culturally interpretive view of Montessori?s work,
whereas the latter adheres more closely to her original writings. Because of the lack of
flexibility in the AMI ideology, this paper relies on the interpretation of Montessori
according to AMS philosophy. Montessori education has also been incorporated into
some University level teacher education programs, including Xavier University in
Cincinnati and New York University?s Steinhart School of Education (www.amshq.org).
In spite of these evolutions, Montessori has not been given the same academic attention
17
by teacher education programs as her contemporaries, Piaget and Dewey, have merited in
recent years.
The ideological underpinnings of the American Montessori Society closely follow
and build upon the work of Nancy Rambusch, who was instrumental in re-igniting the
Montessori movement in the United States during the 1960s, a part of which movement
was the adaptation of certain aspects of Montessori's work to fit more closely with the
demands of contemporary culture (Cossentino & Whitescarver, 2005). Rambusch framed
the re-introduction of Montessori into American culture as a ?transmutation? of historical
ideas that would adapt to contemporary American society. This transmutation enabled
Montessori teachers in the AMS tradition to more liberally interpret Montessori?s
theories to suit the needs of their school and student cultures. This idea of divergence
from the traditional set of practices sanctioned by Dr. Montessori was a radical departure
from the philosophy of AMI and produced a rift in the Montessori movement that still
characterizes schools and teacher education programs today. Cossentino and
Whitescarver argue, however, that it is the tensions created by this rift that keep the
central tenets of Montessori at the locus of the movement, as the arguments produced by
the divergent camps produce discussions that focus on child-centered pedagogy, freedom
with responsibility, and education for peace.
The AMS philosophy statement for the 100-year anniversary of Montessori
education states the following:
Because of its global approach, Montessori is uniquely suited to public schools, where children of
many backgrounds are grouped together?. Montessori students learn to develop critical thinking,
18
conflict resolution, cultural sensitivity and collaborative problem-solving skills that are ideal for
modern workplace environments.
Additionally, they define their ?mission [as] to promote the principles and practices of
Dr. Maria Montessori within the context of the American culture.? (www.amshq.org)
These two statements combined present a progressive and flexible view of Montessori
education in the context of contemporary American society. One facet of this study is the
examination of the validity of those statements in order to push members of the
Montessori community to listen to the broader currents of educational thought, especially
education that is multicultural, in an effort to cultivate authentic and productive dialogue
in the educational community. The term dialogue is used purposefully in opposition to
the concept of debate, with the intent of producing collaborative ideas based on inter-
group cooperation.
Montessori in the Public Domain
Since the first Public Montessori Program opened in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975,
more than 360 public and public charter Montessori schools have opened across the
United States. This growing body of schools occupies a unique position in the current
educational climate, a space that is neither fully ?public? nor fully ?Montessori.?
Literature that pertains to Montessori in private school settings does not necessarily
pertain to Montessori in the public school domain. Although most Montessori teacher
education programs do not distinguish between preparation for the public and private
school settings, most teachers who enter the public schools are required to undergo
extensive supplemental training to prepare themselves not only for Montessori
19
certification, but also for state certification. In some instances, including in the large
Suburban County, teachers may apply some of the credits earned during their Montessori
training program to their state certification program. This difference of teacher
preparation requirements indicates a difference in not only what is required to be a
"highly qualified" Montessori teacher in the public versus the private domain, but also
what the meaning and experience of teaching in each setting entails. The rapidly growing
body of public Montessori schools in this country indicates a demand for further research
in this area (http://www.montessoriconnections.com/schoolsdirectory.shtml). An initial
study on a public Montessori program in Milwaukee suggests that students from public
Montessori schools outperform peer control groups on math and science measures and
perform similarly on reading and overall GPA measures during high school years, long
after students have left Montessori (Dohrmann, 2003). This suggests a possible long-term
positive impact of Montessori. This paper will draw on research that sheds light on the
practice of Montessori and pertains to the experience of Montessori teachers and students
in diverse settings to lay a foundation for direct inquiry into the experience of teachers in
a public Montessori setting.
Philosophical Underpinnings and Pedagogical Systems
In order to define the Montessori paradigm, it is essential to include both the
paradigm according to Montessori's original work, and the ways in which that paradigm
has been transfigured to fit into contemporary American society. Montessori believed that
the purpose of education was to prepare the child to be a global citizen, both concerned
with the development of world peace and prepared to be an instrument of this
20
development. Essential to her educational beliefs are the ideas that education must follow
the developmental needs of the child, foster independence, and promote the development
of a ?world peace? (Montessori, 1978, p. 16; 1985, p. 7; 1992, pp.56, 103; 1994, p. 5). Of
the teacher she said: "Instead of giving out what she has in herself, the teacher must bring
out the full possibilities of the children (Montessori, 1916, p.30)." This idea is echoed in
current scholarly research on culturally relevant pedagogy, which refers to teaching as
pulling knowledge from within children through a process of listening (Schultz, 2003;
Meier, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1994). The American Montessori Society (AMS) builds
upon these core Montessori beliefs and expands upon them in order to bridge Montessori
and contemporary American society. AMS describes the essential elements of Montessori
both in terms of the quality of the teacher and of the environment (See table 2.1 adapted
from www.ams-hq.org).
Table 2.1
The Montessori Teacher is characterized
by:
The Montessori Classroom is
characterized by:
 An understanding of human
growth/development
 The direction of a well prepared
teacher.
 Observational skills needed to help
students create an individualized
learning plan.
 Meaningful partnerships with the
classroom families.
 An understanding of the appropriate
development and application of
 A diversity of didactic materials,
activities, and experiences,
21
didactic materials in every core
subject area.
Montessori and otherwise, that
support student learning.
 An array of teaching strategies that
support child-centered education
 A multi-aged, multi-graded,
heterogeneous student group.
 The ability to manage the
classroom in a nurturing,
supportive, challenging and
disciplined manner.
 Uninterrupted work time in a
supportive and encouraging
environment.
A full discussion of the pedagogical system developed by Montessori would
include an emphasis on praxis as well as an emphasis on curriculum. As a system,
Montessori provides guidelines not only for pedagogy, but also for content knowledge.
Because the focus of this research is on pedagogy, however, manner of delivery will be
prioritized over curricular content, the latter of which will be included only as it fits into
the overall schema, and not as a specific set of lesson plans. It is important, however, to
be aware that each Montessori teacher receives an extensive set of specific lesson plans
that are meant to guide his or her content delivery. In this respect, an important
distinction is made between the two polarized accrediting agencies, AMS and AMI, in
that the former uses the work of Montessori as a curricular and pedagogical starting
point, and then allows for creativity and curricular reform as needed from the classroom
teacher, whereas the latter requires a much stricter adherence to the works of Dr.
Montessori. However, these curricular differences aside, the pedagogical guidelines
22
remain similar and closely relate to Montessori?s original ideas with some modifications,
which will be noted as necessary.
Tenet I: Education should serve as a process of drawing out what is already within each
individual child.
At the most fundamental level, Montessori education corresponds to the notion of
?child-centered? education. In the development and refinement of her beliefs about
educating children, Montessori relied primarily on direct observation of children in
schools that followed her method. In a sense, Montessori can be thought of as a grounded
theory, in that the method itself evolved over time as research was conducted. As this
process of observing and collecting data progressed, Montessori developed a belief in
developmental periods, which she referred to as ?planes of development.? ?Montessori
believed that schooling should correspond to the child?s developmental periods? (Lillard,
1996). With the developmental needs serving as the underlying base for the pedagogical
and curricular structure of the classroom, Montessori found that the incorporation of a
child?s culture into the school environment served as a point of entry into the classroom
for the child. ?For the child to progress rapidly, his practical and social lives must be
intimately blended with his cultural environment? (Montessori, 1994, p.13). Therefore, to
teach each child according to individual needs not only means to understand and build on
personal attributes, but also to respect and incorporate a child?s cultural background.
Montessori schools are purported to accomplish this ?drawing out? through the
implementation of pedagogical strategies and structures designed to allow children to
23
develop concentration, build on their own their own interests, and to rely on intrinsic
rewards as opposed to external motivation in the pursuit of education.
Stoll-Lillard (2005), in an extensive review of the core principles of Montessori
education, examined each of the ideas that contribute to this process of ?drawing out.?
She found that, when situated in current psychological research, the enactment of these
principles strongly correlated with increased success in experimental settings. While
many of these principles support all of the basic tenets of Montessori education, it is
appropriate to discuss them here as they all relate to structuring education in a way that is
child centered. The eight principles as discussed by Stoll-Lillard are as follows:
 That movement and cognition are closely entwined, and movement can enhance
thinking and learning;
 That learning and well-being are improved when people have a sense of control
over their lives;
 That people learn better when they are interested in what they are learning;
 That tying extrinsic rewards to an activity, like money for reading or high grades
for tests, negatively impacts motivation to engage in that activity when the reward
is withdrawn;
 That collaborative arrangements can be very conducive to learning;
 That learning situated in meaningful contexts is often deeper and richer than
learning in abstract contexts;
 That particular forms of adult interaction are associated with more optimal child
outcomes; and
 That order in the environment is beneficial to children. (Stoll-Lillard, 2005, p.29)
24
The Role of the Teacher in ?Drawing Out?
Montessori believed that ?instead of giving out what she has in herself, the
teacher must bring out the full possibilities of the children? (Montessori, 1916, p. 30).
In order to do this the teacher in a Montessori classroom needs to develop the ability to
observe the children through both a commitment to the process of observation and
through the development of self-awareness that enables teachers to filter out their own
inclinations and prejudices (Stoll-Lillard, 2005, p. 265). Montessori believed that by
watching the children without passing prior judgment or imposing prejudicial beliefs, the
teacher would learn to discover their needs. Today, this observation entails a broad
variety of assessments, depending on the particular school or classroom, and corresponds
to the notion of ?diagnostic assessment? that has risen to importance in educational
circles during in recent years. Observation and assessment for a Montessori teacher,
however, is not limited to academic subject matter, but entails careful monitoring of the
social, physical, and psychological progress of the child to the extent that the teacher is
capable. As in many schools, Montessori schools rely as needed on support services from
tutors, special educators, occupational therapists and others to fully meet the needs of
each child. Observation in a Montessori classroom also guides the teacher in the
preparation of lessons, which should be tailored to individual or small groups of children
and provide instruction at the precise level for which these children are prepared. This
type of constant observation allows for curricular adjustments and individualized
educational plans for each child, enabling competent teachers in well-designed
25
Montessori classrooms to act according to Montessori?s belief that ?teaching must only
answer the mental needs of the child, never dictate them (Montessori, 1985, p. 7).?
Tenet II: Education should foster independence and encourage freedom with
responsibility.
A common misconception surrounding Montessori education involves the belief
that children are free to do as they like in the classroom. The reality of what Montessori
intended her schools to be is rather different. Montessori?s notion of freedom was not
analogous to anarchy. Rather, Montessori believed in providing strict guidelines for
children to act freely within. She also felt that children who crossed these appropriate
boundaries should be given what amounts to a ?time out? of the group (Kramer, 1976).
This freedom with responsibility, although commonly misconceived, is essential to the
successful enactment of a Montessori based pedagogy. The provision in Montessori
classrooms for limited, developmentally appropriate choices is not only integral to the
concept of drawing upon a child?s own interest and prior knowledge but also lays a
foundation for responsible citizenship, which Montessori felt to be the ultimate goal of
education. Montessori (1991) felt that ?there is, undoubtedly, a fundamental difference
between understanding and learning the reasoning of others, and being able ?to reason??
(p.166). The latter, she believed, cannot be learned through lecture or observation, but
only through experience. This experience of choice allows for personal error and
correction, preparing the child for ?real-life? situations and developing within the child a
sense of competence. This development depends both on the skill of the teacher and on
the quality of the environment in which education occurs. This environment should
26
provide a structural framework of books, materials, technology, and practical implements
necessary for the pursuit of knowledge. This framework is often referred to as the
prepared environment, and includes separate, ordered centers of activity for every
curricular area.
Asa Hilliard (1996) refers to ?the human metaphor of Montessori,? a term he used
to describe the ?view of the human being implicit in the Montessori method? (p.123).
This view of the child centers around respecting the needs of development, including a
need to use the five senses in gathering information, manipulating one?s environment,
and initiating tasks. Hilliard believes that children are born with the innate ability to
initiate tasks, and that they lose this ability only when it is repeatedly thwarted by their
surroundings. Montessori, he argues, through the process of enabling children to make
decisions, fosters this ability to initiate tasks and sustain attention. This not only enables
children to develop naturally, but also allows the adults around them to see them for who
they are. Csikszentmihalyi and Rathunde (2005) connect this ability to initiate tasks to
increased levels on intrinsic motivation fostered by the school environment and
experienced by students. They argue that the emphasis in Montessori classrooms on self-
direction in a supportive and highly disciplined environment are closely linked with
current motivation theories, including goal theory and optimal experience theory, or flow.
Goal theory refers to the differentiation between performance oriented goals and task
oriented goals, finding that task-oriented goals raise levels of intrinsic motivation. ?Flow?
theory studies the relationship between instrinsic motivation, task-focus, and
concentration. They find that, when compared to demographically matched students in
traditional middle school programs, students in Montessori middle schools report feeling
27
more energetic, more interested in their work, and experience greater feelings of intrinsic
motivation.
The Role of the Teacher in Fostering Responsibility
Montessori (1999) described the role of the teacher as ??support[ing] as much as
possible the child?s desires for activity; not wait[ing] on him, but educat[ing] him to be
independent? (p. 57). She saw the development of this independence as depending on two
basic variables, the adults that guide the child and the environment in which the child
lives. The teacher, as the adult responsible for the child?s education, has several roles to
play in fostering independence. First, the teacher provides the guidelines within which the
child can make choices. This type of teaching is referred to by Stoll-Lillard (2005) as
authoritative teaching as opposed to permissive or authoritarian teaching. Authoritative
teaching sets firm guidelines within which children can make choices, insists that these
guidelines be followed, and encourages children to act responsibly and independently
within the set guidelines. Second, the teacher gives instruction in every curricular area.
This instruction not only helps the child to make sense of the world that he lives in, but
should also open up possibilities for exploration and expansion on the part of the child.
This curriculum is both developmentally and culturally appropriate, and progresses in
difficulty from concrete to abstract and in content from ?big picture? to detail. Third, the
teacher maintains the prepared environment, which is in itself structured in an organized
manner so as to encourage limited, responsible choices. Finally, the teacher relies upon
the child?s family for support in the development of an individualized curriculum and
28
encourages parents to reinforce developmentally appropriate behaviors at home
(Montessori, 1989).
Tenet III: Education should prepare the child for a life of service to humanity and
stewardship of the global environment.
Beyond the essential goals of delivering content and developing character,
Montessori saw a broader, more global purpose within the education of children. She
believed that education was a tool for the development of world peace. This broadly
stated belief rested on two basic components. The first of these was the development of
intercultural understanding among students. She believed that the child?s ?adaptation [to
one?s own time, place, and culture] involves the capacity to meet new situations and to
have the intelligence and courage to transform them when change is needed? (Lillard,
1996). The second of these lofty goals was the nurturing within children of a love of, and
desire to care for, the natural environment. Her goal was for children educated in her
method to grow up to become ?stewards? of this environment. At the locus of these goals
was a notion that by educating children to be independent, nurturing, and compassionate,
the future citizens of the world would be better prepared to meet the demands of an
increasingly international society. Montessori students were ?accustomed to the free
exercise of will and judgment, illuminated by imagination and enthusiasm. Only such
pupils can exercise rightly the duties of citizens in a civilized commonwealth?
(Montessori, 1985, p.1).
The structure of the classroom supports these goals through the consistent reliance
on cooperative learning and learning in context as primary bases for delivering
29
instruction (Stoll-Lillard, 2006). The multi-age grouping and looping practices essential
to Montessori support cooperative learning, while the individualized curriculum and
reliance on teacher observation and child-centered initiation to set the pace of the
curriculum support the implementation of learning in context. Learning in context and
learning about issues of real social import was further supported by the concept of ?going
out,? which refers to a specific field trip that is planned and implemented by the children
in response to an educational need that arises during their work. Montessori developed
the concept of going out as a result of the belief that ?a child enclosed within limits
however vast remains incapable of realizing his full value and will not succeed in
adapting himself to the outer world? (Montessori, 1994, p.13). ?Going Out? may also
represent an opportunity to invite parents into the classroom, or to visit parents in their
places of work. Many Montessori schools seek to involve parents in a plethora of
activities, and some private Montessori schools are run as cooperatives and require parent
participation as a condition for enrollment.
Cossentino (2005) supports the notion that Montessori contains structures that
inherently support a pedagogy that trends toward stewardship of the global environment.
However, her research represents a linguistic shift from a pedagogy of peace, as
described by Montessori, to a pedagogy of love that is reminiscent of Paulo Freire. She
argues that underlying the classroom practice of Montessori is a deeper layer of meaning
that she refers to as ?ritualizing love (p. 231).? Cossentino describes this pedagogy of
love as being enacted by the teacher through the enactment of the virtues of respect for
children, belief in the importance of developing internal motivation, and child-centered
pedagogy. Through practicing a pedagogy that includes these structural elements, the
30
teacher develops a pedagogical system that is transformational, with the ethic of love at
its center. She describes this love as ?the driving force in the progress toward human
harmony (p.234). ? Noddings (1992) describes the ethic of care in the Montessori
classroom in a similar light, in her discussion of teaching children to care for themselves,
one another, and for their environment. Noddings stresses the importance of
implementing a pedagogy that is specifically aimed at teaching children how to care. In
the Montessori classroom, she describes the physical order produced and maintained by
cooperative efforts of children and teacher as ?designed to induce the serenity of the soul,
or what Montessori called grace? (p.140). Noddings alludes to the underlying principle of
teaching care in the Montessori classroom, the instruction of grace and courtesy towards
self, others, and the environment.
The Role of the Teacher in Educating for Peace
Montessori believed that ?preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing
peace is the work of education? (Montessori, 1992, p.24). She saw the education of
children as the only path towards a stable and lasting global peace, as opposed to the
short, intermittent, and location specific periods of peace that characterized the 20
th
century and continue to characterize the world today. The possibilities for fostering social
awareness and providing opportunities for social justice are extensive. James Banks
(2004) describes four levels of curriculum reform (p.15). The least effective of these, the
?Contributions Approach,? often referred to by teachers as the ?foods and festivals?
approach, has a tendency to predominate in many Montessori Schools. Montessori
schools, for example, may celebrate International Children?s Day through dressing up in
31
costumes, singing songs, and trying foods from different countries (Duckworth, 2006).
Within the classroom, teachers are inclined to provide opportunities for exploring other
cultures through research projects that represent Banks? level two, or ?Additive
Approach? to curriculum reform. However, Montessori?s vision for peace education was
much more embedded than this. She describes teachers as providing structural changes
that correspond more closely to Banks? level three curriculum reform, the
transformational approach. Duckworth (2006) describes this as a ?positive? approach to
peace education in which students and teachers work together to create peace. This is
opposed to a ?negative? approach to peace education that is characterized only by the
absence of violence. While teachers participate in this type of structural reform through
the student-centered, community oriented structures such as cooperative learning and
student choice that Duckworth describes, possibilities still exist for taking the peace
education curriculum further. Banks? fourth and penultimate level of curriculum reform,
the ?Social Action Approach,? provides students with direct experiences in identifying
problems, brainstorming solutions, and enacting campaigns for change. This type of
reform fits into the ideology of structural change reflected by Montessori and studied by
Duckworth, but involves a conscious commitment on the part of the teacher to bring
peace education out of the realm of ideology and into an action oriented curriculum.
Duckworth cites an instance of this type of commitment at the City Montessori School in
Thailand, where students? work is focused on service and participation in such projects as
rural education, local government initiatives, and forestry programs. Such active
engagement in civic life represents a commitment to teaching social action on the part of
the teacher.
32
Multicultural Education
Historical Roots of Multicultural Education
Multicultural Education today can be traced back to at least two early movements
in the field of education (Banks, 2004). These historical movements, ethnic studies and
Intergroup education, have both significantly influenced the evolution of multicultural
education, yet they are entirely distinct from one another. They hold in common their
focus on diversifying school curricula, but they differ radically in motivation and ultimate
purpose. In spite of these differences, both movements still have visible legacies in
multicultural education, and a discussion of their historical roots is appropriate. These
resulting legacies lie at the center of the tensions experienced by multicultural theorists
and practitioners, with some scholars arguing in favor of embracing diversity without
recognizing and examining differences in group identity and their causative historical and
socio-economic factors. Many others, however, advocate for a critical approach to
multicultural education that is predicated upon understanding and recognizing difference
in individuals and groups, and the role that group difference plays in structuring schools
and society.
The Intergroup Education movement sought to build racial harmony without first
recognizing the injustices experienced by racial and cultural minorities (Banks, 2004).
Significantly, the leaders the Intergroup studies movement were majority White
academics. This movement grew out of a need to address growing racial tensions in the
increasingly diverse society of the United States in the early 20
th
century. It focused on
content knowledge related to learning about different racial and ethnic groups with a bent
towards including social action in the classroom curriculum. In spite of the predominance
33
of ideas that were similar to those that guided the early ethnic studies movement in terms
of social action and content knowledge reform, the Intergroup education movement
included neither a focus on empowerment of minority groups nor a vision of ethnic pride
and solidarity. Rather, these educators were working to create a singular culture that
provided opportunities for sharing of diverse cultural backgrounds.
The Ethnic Studies movement is based on the idea that the propagation of
knowledge among African American people should be centered in African and African
American culture and the enhancement of the African American community (Banks,
2004). The leaders of this movement were mainly African American, originating from
diverse sectors of the economy. Early roots of this movement can be seen in the work of
W.E.B. DuBois and Carter G. Woodson. DuBois and Wilson spearheaded what is now
referred to as the Early Ethnic Studies movement, contending that for an African
American to be educated in the true sense of the term, he needed to be educated in a new
tradition, one that is not dominated by European thought but rather controlled by the
African American community (Woodson, 1933). Scholars such as DuBois and Woodson
created transferable knowledge in the form of articles and texts to be used in centers of
African American learning both in schools and in colleges (Banks, 2004). As a part of
this movement, Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926, the tradition that has
now evolved into Black History Month and continues to be celebrated in schools across
the United States today. The Black Studies movement that began in the 1960s was born
out of this Early Ethnic Studies movement.
As schools and society continued to evolve, diversify and integrate, the
field of Multicultural Education remained nascent and experienced a prolonged period of
34
emergence throughout the 1970s. During this time, Intergroup Studies disappeared in the
wake of the Civil Rights movement only to resurface later in a Liberal approach to
multicultural education. Concurrently, the Ethnic Studies movement was radically
changing. While desegregation efforts posed challenges to many communities, many in
the African American community grew impatient and called for an enhanced sense of
racial pride. This included, but was not limited to, a demand for community control of
schools, a Black history curriculum, and increased representation of African Americans
in school staff (Banks, 2004). As Multicultural Education became a recognizable field,
made salient by the efforts of such scholars as Geneva Gaye, James Banks, and Carl
Grant, it still struggled to define itself. Tensions arose between those who would take a
more diplomatic approach and those who favored radicalism and proffered revolutionary
thoughts and ideas. Additionally, Banks has identified a gap between theory and practice
that continues to challenge multicultural educators. Today, these tensions remain visible
and create a necessity for examining both theory and praxis in order to understand the
discrepancies.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
In two diverse conceptual frameworks for multicultural education, Christine
Bennett and George Banks both describe Equity Pedagogy as one of the four major tenets
of Multicultural Education (Banks, 2004; Bennett, 2001). Banks and Bennett both include
Equity Pedagogy as an integral dimension of multicultural education. Banks? description
focuses on a paradigmatic understanding of ways to teach minority children, ranging
historically from a cultural deficit model to the current struggle between the more
35
empowering cultural difference model and the ?at-risk? model that has reintroduced
cultural deprivation theory using new terminology. He touches upon both learning styles
and teaching styles, and includes a special emphasis on language within the domain of
second language acquisition and application (Banks, 2004). The foci of Bennett?s Equity
Pedagogy cluster are broader, including School and Classroom Climate, Student
Achievement, and Cultural Styles in Teaching and Learning. The emphasis of the first
genre in this cluster is on the exploration of positive school and classroom climates in
terms of the axiological orientation of teachers and administrators using student
achievement and inter-group relations as corollaries. The second genre offers a discussion
of Student Achievement focusing on effective teaching of historically underserved
children. The third genre, Cultural Styles in Teaching and Learning, further emphasizes
the role of culture in effective pedagogy and specifically the role of the teacher in
understanding student culture and implementing relevant pedagogy.
As a primary example of a researcher focused on Equity Pedagogy, Christine
Bennett offers Ladson-Billings. Although Bennett places Ladson-Billings and other
culturally relevant theorists in the genre of cultural styles in teaching and learning, it is
possible to draw links between the tenets of CRP as defined by Ladson-Billings and the
other two genres falling under Bennett?s Equity Pedagogy. In considering the elements
of effective teaching as put forth by Ladson-Billings and others within the construct of
Bennett?s framework, the central position of pedagogy in the emergent conceptual
framework becomes evident. A synthesis of Banks?, Bennett?s, and Ladson-Billings?
conceptions of pedagogy reveals a conception of equity pedagogy in which the emphasis
is on social action as the ultimate pedagogical tool. In addition, a synthesized framework
36
for understanding Equity Pedagogy reveals an increased focus on the intersectional
nature of identity within the development of cultural competence in the classroom. This
component includes the self-examination and examination of others by both teachers and
students who will consider race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, age,
or religion, among other factors in the formation of identity. This central component of
the framework being developed draws from Banks? discussion of the role of difference
theorists in disempowering racism and related ?cultural deprivation? paradigms. It stands
in opposition to the use of terms such as ?at-risk? that serve to revive deficit theories of
understanding cultural difference. Furthermore, it makes central Ladson-Billings?
discussion of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and takes the tenets of this pedagogy as its
own core and as its means of integrating the three surrounding components, reform at the
personal, curricular, and societal strata.
This review will begin with a discussion of Ladson-Billings and then use this
discussion as a framework within which to situate with other major scholars and bodies
of scholarly thought within in this field. Bennett describes the characteristics of an
effective teacher as including pride in teaching, awareness of societal conditions of
discrimination and injustice and non-assimilationist pedagogical stances. Their teaching,
the defining elements of which are high levels of academic success across all areas,
student cultural competence, and the ?drawing out? of the child?s valuable, and valued,
home culture, clearly reflects their axiological orientation. This definition fits closely
with the three tenets of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as put forth by Ladson-Billings in
Crossing Over to Canaan. She asserts that culturally relevant pedagogy
37
?is based on three propositions about what contributes to success for all students,
especially African American students. These propositions are:
 Successful teachers focus on student?s academic achievement
 Successful teachers develop student?s cultural competence
 Successful teachers foster student?s sense of sociopolitical consciousness
(Ladson Billings, 2001, p.144)
The exploration of current trends in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy will explore research
on these three tenets, followed by a discussion of alterations or additions to this
framework suggested by contemporary multicultural theorists, and culminating in the
synthesis of these ideas into a new framework that, when integrated with the framework
for understanding child centered pedagogy as defined by Montessori, will serve as the
overarching conceptual map for the research presented by this paper.
Philosophical Underpinnings and Pedagogical Systems
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), as Gloria Ladson-Billings names it, can be
understood as the intersection of practice and theory related to the education of African
American and other historically underserved students. CRP is also referred to in research
as pedagogy that is ??culturally appropriate?(Au & Jordan, 1981), ?culturally congruent?
(Mohatt & Erickson, 1981), ?culturally responsive? (Cazden & Leggett, 1981; Erickson &
Mohatt, 1982), and ?culturally compatible? (Jordan, 1985; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987)?
(Ladson-Billings, 1995). Although Ladson-Billings (1994) conceptualizes of these
pedagogical stances as ?models for improving practice and developing grounded theory,
38
(p. x)? she stresses that her conception of CRP is not prescriptive and does not provide
?lists of things to do to achieve effective teaching for African American students? (p. xi).
Gaye (2000), whose concept of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy is congruent in many
ways to Ladson-Billings ideas, differs in that she does put forth the belief that specific
pedagogical practices have been shown to be effective with African American children.
Gay point out that ?ethnically specific learning styles?[are] tools [for] improving the
school achievement of Latino, native, Asian, and African-American students by creating
more cultural congruity in teaching-learning processes? (p.147). Theses learning styles
differ across cultural groups and within cultural groups according to what Gay refers to as
?mitigating variables? of culture, such as gender, age, and social class (p. 11). Howard
(2001) concurs with Gaye and mentions the importance of continuity of linguistic
discourse between school and home and an emphasis on oral language or storytelling to
reinforce written concepts in addition to more general culturally congruent practices. The
notion of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy includes three basic tenets that have
implications on at least two distinct levels. These tenets, as defined above, are primarily
based on the beliefs held in common by successful teachers of African American and
other historically underserved children, which have been found to hold to a central core
across multiple research contexts (Ladson-Billings, 1994; McIntyre, Rosebery, &
Gonz?lez, 2001; Hollins & Oliver, 1999; Gaye, 2000). Through the implementation of
these beliefs a second strata of this pedagogy is located in the practices that have arisen
out of these theoretical stances and have been shown to be effective when implemented
across a variety of social milieu.
39
Tenet 1: Successful teachers focus on student?s academic achievement
What do teachers believe?
Ladson-Billings (2001) bases the above statement on a variety of observed
classroom practices and related conversations with teachers. In The Dreamkeepers,
(Ladson-Billings, 1994), she describes the culturally relevant teacher as holding a variety
of beliefs related to student achievement. This ?teacher sees teaching as ?pulling out
knowledge?-?like mining? (p. 34). She contrasts this with the traditional, factory-based
model of education as a process of assimilation, through which the teacher deposits
knowledge into the child. As an adjunct to this belief is the notion of knowledge itself as
something that is not fixed or static. Rather, the culturally relevant practitioner believes
that ?Knowledge is continuously recreated?and shared by teachers and students;?[it] is
viewed critically? (p. 81). Many researchers and theorists in the social sciences, who see
knowledge as constructed and contextually based, share this notion (King, 2004). This
view of knowledge is critical to a multicultural perspective because it helps to reveal to
dominant role of Euro-centric knowledge in the curriculum and a corresponding lack of
Afro-centric knowledge. Understanding knowledge construction as a process that
involves both teachers and students then becomes essential to an equitable focus on
academic achievement. This understanding directly correlates, and even enables the
teacher to believe that all students can succeed (p.34, p.44). A final belief held in
common by successful practitioners is a personal belief that teaching is a profession and
that they have chosen this profession as a career path to which they are dedicating their
lives as opposed to a job to which they simply report. Irvine (2004) describes African
40
American teachers in Atlanta as holding this same belief in teaching as a calling. These
teachers, although steeped in an understanding of the scientific principles of learning,
view teaching as an art rather than a science (Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 34, p. 35).
How do they enact their beliefs?
The teachers in Ladson-Billings? study not only held beliefs about the possibility
of academic success for all students, but also enacted classroom practices based on these
beliefs. She found that a central component of their praxis was an interaction with their
students based on respect and cooperation, in which students are treated as competent and
correspondingly demonstrate competence (Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 123). In particular,
Ladson-Billings (1994) notes that several of the teachers she observed made use of inter-
group cooperation in the classroom, encouraging students to support and sustain one
another?s academic and personal efforts. Additionally, teachers themselves modeled such
verbal encouragements, explicitly telling students that they had the ability to succeed at
whatever activity they attempted. She quotes one mathematics teacher as coaching
students by saying ?Don?t let it [pre-algebra] scare you? (p.120). In conjunction with this
inculcation of self-efficacy into students? personal academic concept, these teachers help
all students develop the skills needed to develop the level of excellence they are taught to
expect from themselves. This means meeting the children where they are academically as
opposed to expecting them to have already learned a certain concept or set of concepts. In
order to accomplish this, teachers must treat academic instruction as paramount, as
opposed to cultural assimilation or what is commonly referred to as classroom
management. Within this instruction, it is essential that students, teachers, and parents
41
have the ability to practice ?educational self-determination? (p.137), a concept that
includes student pacing, localized curricular control, and a framework of listening
amongst all persons involved in the educational process. Finally, Ladson-Billings
describes the penultimate characteristic of these teachers as the innate passion with which
they approach their practice.
A wealth of literature in the field of multicultural education supports these
pedagogical enactments of contextual instruction, fostering independence through student
pacing, and expressing a belief in all children as essential to a practice that is culturally
relevant or responsive. McIntyre, et. al. (2001) assert that teachers can bring about
academic success for all by seeing every child as an individual with a wealth of cultural
knowledge and by believing that students can learn and that contextualizing instruction is
one way of engaging them (p.10). They go on to describe the manner in which successful
teachers structure curriculum to answer the needs of the child through incorporating the
children?s home cultures into instructional practices. They sum up the principles of
fostering academic achievement for all students as including the necessity to think deeply
about the children from both personal and cultural perspectives, to see children as whole
people as opposed to partially formed adults, to engage in continuous learning and to
participate in learning communities outside of school and to contextualize instruction in
real and pertinent situations. Hollins and Oliver (1999) also emphasize the importance of
contextual instruction in a collection of essays describing lessons that are based in both
content and culture. Howard (2001) elaborates on the importance of educating the whole
child through the use of holistic instructional strategies that reinforce academic skills
while also sustaining the social, emotional, and moral growth of the child. Schultz (2003)
42
emphasizes the importance of listening to students as individuals, as collective groups of
learners, and as members of community through both informal observation and more
formal inter-group dialogue as a means of enabling successful practice among teachers
and correspondent success among diverse learners. Finally, Greene (1995) builds upon
these ideas and adds the notion of fostering independence among children through
pedagogical praxis. She believes that ?to teach, at least in one dimension, is to provide
persons with the knacks and know-how they need in order to teach themselves? (p.14).
Jordan-Irvine (2004) echoes the ethic displayed by the teachers in The Dreamkeepers
through a description of culturally responsive practitioners who not only hold high
standards and express belief in their students, but reinforce this expressed belief through a
form of caring she refers to as ?other-mothering.?
Successful teachers develop student?s cultural competence
Conflicting Views of Culture
The question of developing student?s cultural competence is a complex one due to
the conflicting definitions of culture within the field of multicultural education. These
definitions range from a symbolic systems analysis understanding of culture as
representational, constructivist, and changing, to a socio-cultural systems analysis
understanding of culture as a fixed set of shared beliefs and practices passed down from
generation to generation. Within literature relating to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in
particular, McIntyre et. al. (2001) take a definitively symbolic stance with regards to
culture, stating that ??lists (of cultural traits) are based on false assumptions about
culture and its transmission and that no list can be flexible and dynamic enough to
43
describe an individual?s point of view, let alone the points of view of a group of
individuals? (p.7). A different point of view can be found in the Ladson-Billings (2004),
who draws upon the work of Foucault (1991) and Bennett (1992) in her assertion that
?culture is created through the processes of social management, and that it is both the
object and the instrument of government.? This definition views culture as material,
changeable and interactive, but also as a political entity with direct relationships to the
power hierarchy of a given society. Ladson-Billings goes on to assert that measures
towards standardization of curriculum and assessment reinforce the mythology of the
dominant culture as superior, and underline the reliance of dominance on subjugation. As
such the hierarchical nature of culture can be understood as a necessity for the
maintenance of power and privilege. Gaye (2000) uses culture to refer to ?a dynamic
system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and beliefs
used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others? (Delgado-
Gaitan & Trueba, 1991 in Gay, 2000). This definition also views culture as one element
of an inter-subjective reality that evolves over time and place. What is important is to
understand that each individual author means something slightly different, and sometimes
radically different, when they refer to culture and cultural competence. This section will
attempt to shed light on these constructs in their specific contextual realms.
What do teachers believe?
A culturally relevant practitioner holds a specific set of beliefs regarding both
their own cultural identity and that of their student. Primarily, this teacher believes that
identity, in its multiple visible and invisible layers, is important to instruction. They are
44
careful not to ignore the visible traits of identity but rather to take conscious note of these
physical characteristics and to build their understanding of the student upon them. In
particular, they take care not to ignore color (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Ignoring color,
asserts Ladson-Billings, masks ?dysconscious racism? and limits the teacher?s ability to
see and meet the needs of a diverse student body. In addition to these external
characteristics, however, are a wide range of internal traits that teachers work to discover
and value within their student populations. Ladson-Billings describes the use of rewards
structured to validate a wide range of student activity and work that helps students to
foster a belief in the inherent importance of diversity of identity and action. In addition to
believing in the value of diversity among students, however, there is an inherent belief in
the value of acknowledging and exploring one?s own cultural composition. Ladson-
Billings more fully explores this notion in Crossing over to Canaan, an exploration of a
teacher education program designed to inculcate the principles of Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy in new teachers. Other researchers in this field also report on the importance of
valuing student diversity through a variety of teacher beliefs. Successful teachers of
historically underserved students in Kentucky share a common vision of every child as an
individual with a wealth of cultural knowledge, a vision that underlies their belief that all
of their students can learn (McIntyre et. al. (eds.), p.10).
How do they enact their beliefs?
Practitioners of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy possess a wide range of
pedagogical skills that directly reinforce their belief in the importance of developing
students? cultural competence. The teachers in Ladson-Billings (1994) study enacted this
45
belief in at least three essential ways. First, the teacher helps students make connections
between their community, national, and global identities. Teachers accomplish this by
bringing the student?s cultural backgrounds to the center of the classroom curriculum and
pedagogical practice. One of the teachers described by Ladson-Billings studies current
events with her students and then helps them connect current events to their own lives
and circumstances. An example of this type of practice is having the children bring in
articles about the war in the Persian Gulf and then discussing the relationship between
that war and local resources, including the many soldiers drafted from their local
community (p. 49). Related to this concept of connecting curriculum to student?s lives is
the notion, essential to CRP, of building on what students know through the use of
scaffolding. Scaffolding entails allowing the students to build upon the knowledge that
they bring to school with them in order to develop more advanced concepts. A third
essential principle in the development of CRP is the need for the teacher to honor and
respect students home culture through such practices as incorporating student?s home
language into instruction, enabling the practice of code switching among students, and
valuing the students written ideas before critiquing their grammatical constructs when
evaluating written work.
Ladson-Billings (2001) discusses a second critical component of fostering cultural
competence. She asserts that before teachers can recognize and affirm student?s cultural
heritage, they need to be comfortable with their own cultural selves. This competence can
be developed through an initial, pre-service home-stay with a family in the community
where the teachers will be placed. She envisions this home stay as a six week time period
during which prospective teachers act as family members, not as researchers or
46
professionals. Additionally, cultural competence among teachers should be furthered
throughout the teaching year through a service learning partnership with a local non-
profit agencies, churches, and community centers. A third component of developing
personal cultural competence involves interacting with students in their home and
community settings. This notion of developing personal cultural competence through a
variety of community-based activities is echoed by Moll & Gonzalez (2004). They
describe an approach called ?Funds of Knowledge,? a concept that requires teachers to
enter students? homes in order to examine the forms of capital that a specific family
possesses and to then use this information to structure the curriculum. They believe that
both teachers and students will benefit from building the curriculum up from a deep
understanding of the familial knowledge that enables families to function as economic
and social units on a daily basis. McIntyre et. al. (2001) also encourage teachers to build
curricula around students? lives and to learn about students through getting to know their
families and communities. They sum up this approach to cultural competence with a call
for ?using minority and working-class student?s fund of knowledge as the centerpiece of
instruction? (McIntyre, et. al., eds., 2001, p.8). Finally, Zeichner and Liston (1996) also
focus on the importance of developing personal cultural competence for prospective
teachers. They focus on the notion of critical reflection in conjunction with developing a
critical lens through which to view the conditions of schooling as a means for this
development. Critical reflection entails writing journal entries about daily classroom
experiences. It differs from a more traditional notion of reflection in that it entails the use
of multiple and diverse lenses to examine one?s own praxis. Zeichner (1999) also
emphasizes the role of action research in helping teachers to understand and incorporate
47
their student?s identities into their pedagogical practices in their efforts to move towards
learner-centered practices.
Successful teachers foster students? sense of sociopolitical consciousness
This third tenet of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is arguably the most important,
and helps to situate Ladson-Billings? work within the construct of ?critical
multiculturalism? (Ladson-Billings, 2004). She argues that various groups of scholars,
educators, and politicians have attempted to appropriate the term ?multicultural
education? for their own purposes and in so doing have denuded it of meaning as a term
standing on it?s own. However, through the incorporation of a social justice agenda into
the field and the use of story in research based narratives, multicultural scholars can re-
appropriate the term for their own agenda of civic action and societal change. She cites
McLaren (1994) as putting forth the idea that ?multiculturalism without a transformative
political agenda can be just another form of accommodation to the larger social order?
(p.53). Gay (2000) echoes these arguments in pointing out that ?intention without action
is insufficient? (p.13). She, like Ladson-Billings, believes that thinking about and being
aware of injustices, while necessary to incite change, are in and of themselves useless
acts. Gay goes on to argue that without developing the competencies necessary to support
good intentions, philanthropists and other do-gooders often end up creating more harm
than good. An essential element of an education that is culturally responsive, then, is that
of ?developing socio-civic skills for effective membership in multicultural communities?
(p.20). Jordan-Irvine (2004) cites an African-American teacher as summing up the
48
importance of teaching beyond the curriculum in her own assessment that she does not
teach mere academics and her subsequent assertion that ?I teach life.?
What do teachers believe?
Ladson-Billings (1994) finds that ?teachers with culturally relevant practices see
themselves as part of the community, see teaching as giving back to the community, and
encourage their students to do the same? (p.38). The teachers in her study chose to teach
in less affluent, predominantly African American communities for a wide variety of
reasons, but all of them chose freely and purposefully to work with this population of
students. Perhaps because of that choice, these teachers see themselves as giving back to
the community in a positive way, and feel grateful for this opportunity. As contributing
members of the community, teachers are also cognizant of themselves as political beings.
Ladson-Billings asserts that teacher education programs have a responsibility to ?provide
teacher candidates with opportunities to critique the system in ways that will help them
choose a role as either agent of change or defender of the status quo? (p.133). The
teachers in her study have all been exposed to such opportunities through informal
settings, and have chosen to be agents of change. They feel that enacting this agency in
the classroom means passing on the opportunity to make such a choice by ?helping
African American students better understand the world as it is and equip them to change
it for the better? (p. 139). Similarly, Jordan-Irvine (2004) identifies a need for teacher
education programs to train teachers to be culturally responsive and suggests that
researchers look to members of the community in question, in her case African
Americans teachers, as role models for cultural outsiders.
49
How do they enact their beliefs?
The most basic element of a change-oriented pedagogy is the creation of
communities within classrooms. Ladson-Billings refers to these communities as families,
and identifies factors that are essential to their creation (p. 54). Fundamental to these
factors is the concept of ?humanely equitable? relationships. Teachers are responsible for
fostering this type of relationship between themselves and their students, among the
individual students, and with classroom families. Teachers encourage and invite parent
participation in classrooms, participate in their students? lives outside of class through
attending church events, leading girl-scout troops and maintaining other types of
quotidian presence in students? community lives. An integral part of this community
building is encouraging cooperative learning and a sense of shared responsibility for the
well-being of all. Another integral component of fostering socio-political consciousness
is helping students make connections between their community, national, and global
identities. Ladson-Billings (2004) explores this notion in depth as she describes the
process of creating change-oriented curricula on the part of student teachers. One of these
novices helped design and instruct a unit on AIDS, a subject with which some of the
students had personal experience. ?Despite the children?s young age, the unit dealt openly
and honestly with this difficult subject area at an appropriate instructional level? (p.66).
Through her interaction with one particular student whose grandmother had died of
AIDS, this student teacher learned ?that students? academic achievement is intimately
tied to the things they care about; they learn what they love? (p.66). Through community
building and directed socially relevant activities, teachers and students engage in a
50
collective struggle against the status quo which helps students to understand the
difference between societal expectations and their own innate possibilities and to
overcome negative stereotypes and assumptions through academic and civic
achievement.
Ladson-Billings (1994) also describes a culturally relevant conception of
knowledge as one that views knowledge as ?continuously recreated, recycled and shared
by teachers and students. It is not static or unchanging? (p.81). Teachers in her study help
students arrive at this conception of knowledge by enabling them to understand the power
of their own abilities to create knowledge through such activities as writing, editing and
informally publishing written works within the classroom. They also incorporate books
and music from the students? own cultures into their classrooms in order to demonstrate
the wide variety of publicly validated knowledge that is available to students and reflects
upon their cultural as well as their personal selves. Other researchers call for teachers to
help students understand the nature of knowledge as constructed, contestable, and
culturally centered. Banks et. al. (2001) describe the third principle for teaching and
learning in a multicultural society as the need to ?help students understand that
knowledge is socially constructed? (p.3), through the analysis of texts, perspectives, and
voice. Banks (2004) further defines this area of inquiry as ?Knowledge Construction?
which has a specific focus on the decoding of texts, media, and materials to understand
the implicit biases they carry. Bennett (2001) discusses a similar genre of multicultural
education that she refers to as ?Detecting Bias in Texts and Instructional Materials.?
While both Bennett and Banks segregate the deconstruction of knowledge from the
concept of equity pedagogy, extending this concept into classroom practice forms an
51
integral part of educating children for socio-civic awareness and an activist stance
towards change.
Theoretical Nexus of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Montessori
As Gay (2004) asserts, ?Principles of child-centered education and the basic
tenets of multicultural education are very similar (p. 38).? Ladson-Billings (1995)
similarly examines the concept of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as ?good teaching.? She
discusses the need for all good teachers to draw upon student interest and ability levels in
fostering academic success, to use culture as a vehicle for learning, and to develop in
students a sense of ?critical consciousness,? through which students learn about civic
responsibilities and engage in civic activities. Given that Montessori is a child-centered
pedagogy, it is logical then, that many of the essential tenets of Montessori and Culturally
Relevant Pedagogy are congruent, if not convergent. Lowden (2000) asserts that western
educators such as Montessori drew their concept of child-centered education directly
from the African concept of Kindezi, a culturally centered approach to rearing the young.
What remains to be seen is the extent to which specific Montessori schools and teacher
education programs are preparing their teachers to engage in ?good teaching? that is both
based in Montessori theory and extends beyond this body of work when necessary. For
the purposes of this comparative exploration, the term ?congruent? will be used to
describe principles that fit into a similar category of theory or praxis, although they are
not explicitly the same. The term ?convergent,? on the other hand will be reserved for
those principles of theory or praxis that are a precise match. The few terms that are
discordant will be described as ?divergent? and explored briefly, although these are not
52
the explicit focus of this research paper. Table 2.2 provides a comprehensive comparison
of Montessori Culturally Relevant Pedagogy based on the research examined in this
chapter. A discussion of the convergences, congruencies, and divergences discovered at
the theoretical and pedagogical levels can be found in chapter five. The discussion, like
the table, examines the theoretical bases of each of three tenets and then explores the
pedagogical principles implicit to the implementation of these core tenets in the
classroom.
Table 2.2
Montessori Equity Pedagogy
Comparison I: Education should serve as a process
of drawing out what is already within
each individual child.
Successful teachers focus on student?s
academic achievement.
Theory Education is child-centered and
focused on drawing out of personal
and cultural selves.
Teacher sees teaching as ?pulling out
knowledge?-?like mining?
Teachers are set firm guidelines for
children to act freely within.
Teachers interact with students based on
respect and cooperation.
Teachers practice a pedagogy that is
caring.
Teachers practice caring or ?other-mothering.?
Teachers foster opportunities for
cooperative learning across age and
ability levels.
Teachers foster opportunities for inter-group
cooperation across ability levels.
Teachers tailor lessons to meet the
needs of the individual child.
Teachers practice differentiated instruction so
as to meet individual academic needs.
Teachers situate learning in relevant,
?real-life? contexts.
Teachers situate learning in relevant, ?real-life?
contexts.
Teachers observe children in a
manner that is open-minded in order
to gain insight.
Teachers listen to students as individuals, as
groups, and as members of community.
Monitor the social, physical, and
psychological progress of the child
Teachers consider the ?whole child? in their
instruction.
Pedagogy
Teachers foster intrinsic motivation
and avoid extrinsic rewards
Teachers use rewards to validate student
activity
Comparison II Education should foster
independence and encourage freedom
with responsibility.
Successful teachers develop student?s cultural
competence.
Theory Education should respect the
developmental needs of the child.
Student?s personal interest is at the
center of the curriculum and
Education should recognize and respect the
multiple layers of identity, including color,
ethnicity and culture.
Student?s cultural background is at the center
53
pedagogical practice. of the classroom curriculum and pedagogical
practice.
Helps students make cross-curricular
connections within the prepared
environment of books, materials, and
technology.
Teacher helps students make connections
between their community, national, and global
identities.
Teacher draw upon a child?s own
interest and prior knowledge
Teachers build on what students know through
the use of scaffolding.
Teachers enable children to choose
and initiate educational tasks and to
learn through personal error and
correction.
Teachers enable educational self-determination
through student pacing and localized curricular
control.
Teachers encourage parents to follow
the developmental needs of the child.
Teachers honor and respect students home
culture.
Teachers learn about the child
through observation.
Teachers learn about students through listening
and getting to know their families and
communities.
Pedagogy
Teachers learn to filter out their own
prejudices in the classroom.
Teachers are comfortable with their own
cultural selves.
Comparison III: Education should prepare the child
for a life of service to humanity and
stewardship of the global
environment.
Successful teachers foster student?s sense of
sociopolitical consciousness.
Theory Education as a tool for the
development of world peace and a
foundation for responsible
citizenship.
Education as a tool for the justice oriented
social change and a foundation for responsible
citizenship.
Teachers encourage engagement in
civic life through ?going out.?
Teachers provide opportunities for social
awareness and action.
Teachers build classroom
communities through reliance on
cooperative learning and multi-age
grouping and looping.
Teachers build classroom communities through
cooperative learning and shared responsibility
for the well-being of all.
Teachers invite parent participation in
the classroom and in ?going out.?
Teachers invite parent participation in
classroom and participate in their students?
extracurricular lives.
Teachers foster development of
intercultural understanding among
students.
Teachers foster socio-political consciousness
by helping students make connections between
their community, national, and global
identities.
Teach children to care for the natural
environment.
No provision exists
No provision exists. Teachers help students understand the nature of
knowledge as constructed, contestable, and
culturally centered.
Pedagogy
No provision exists. Prospective teachers have opportunities to
critique the system.
54
Chapter 3: Methodology
Research Questions
The research questions to be answered are:
 In what ways are the Montessori paradigm and the Culturally Relevant
Pedagogical paradigms congruent?
 In what ways does the ensemble of teacher preparatory experience
influence the role of cultural relevance in a Montessori teacher?s praxis?
 In what ways do Montessori teachers in Public Schools perceive their
practice as being compatible with the components of a ?Culturally
Relevant Montessori??
 In what ways do teachers exhibit a praxis that is compatible with the
components of a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori??
This research draws on the large body of historical research and original
theoretical writings as well as the small body of scholarly research in regards to
Montessori and build on that research to develop an understanding of what it means to
practice Montessori. Additionally, this research draws upon the extensive body of
research on Equity Pedagogy, one of the basic tenets of Multicultural Education (Banks,
2004, Bennett, 2001). Equity Pedagogy serves as a broader framework in which to situate
Gloria Ladson-Billings concept of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as well as related
research that uses analogous terms, such as Geneva Gaye?s concept of Culturally
Responsive Pedagogy. Finally, it builds upon any existing literature that pertains to both
55
of these paradigms as a starting point for a more complex and multi-layered theoretical
and practical comparison.
Methods
This study is an ethnographic case study of the public Montessori program in a
culturally diverse suburban county bordering on a large city. It is a case study in that it is
a study of a bounded system, comprised of the lower elementary Montessori team in one
public elementary school spanning pre-kindergarten through fifth grade (Bogdan and
Biklen, 2003, 55). It is ethnographic in the sense that it will draw on participant
observation of classrooms within these schools as well as semi-structured interviews of
teacher participants for the collection of data. This study is semi-structured in the sense
that it begins with a tentative plan for research and then evolves in response to the
phenomena being studied, the lower elementary Montessori teachers in this public
elementary school (Maxwell, 2005, 82). The interviews are semi-structured in the same
sense, building from a pre-conceived list of questions for guidance and then evolving in
response to the participants. A case study is appropriate to the nature of the phenomenon
as a bounded system. An ethnographic methodology is integral to this particular case
study because the nature of the questions in exploring both process and meaning calls for
both participant observation and semi-structured interviews. As an ethnographic case
study, this study presents in-depth findings in regard to specific classrooms in one public
school setting. This research presents the possibility for further studies to determine the
generalizability of the findings (Bogdan and Biklen, 2003, 33). This research is carefully
56
aligned with the IRB regulations of the University of Maryland and was conducted after
receipt of IRB approval.
This study was modeled, in part, on the research conducted by Ladson-Billings
(1994) for The Dreamkeepers. Although the intent of the study differed, because it was
predicated upon the concept of culturally relevant practice as developed in this book, it
followed several of the established conventions. Like Ladson-Billings exploration, this
research sought not to be objective, but rather to provide an authentic view of teachers
pedagogical stances and practices. Additionally, the model of using interviews as a means
of accomplishing ?good conversation with each? teacher (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 149),
was used, as well as the practice of sharing transcripts with teachers to invite
collaboration. However, the study was limited by time considerations and by the limited
availability of Montessori teachers in this public school setting, preventing the researcher
from engaging in active participant selection or from conducting the quantity of
observations conducted by Ladson-Billings.
Site and participant selection
I conducted my research in one public Montessori school in a suburban/urban
county. This county is located on the border of a large city and is geographically small
but dense in population, with a population density of almost 8,000 people per square
mile. Both its citizenry and its school children reflect a broad diversity, with about 43%
of the population being Hispanic, Asian, African American or Multi-Racial. This county
is also one of the most highly educated in the nation, with 30% of the citizens holding
graduate or professional degrees. The site I have chosen is a large Montessori school that
57
is characterized both by proximity to a major urban center and by a student body that is
culturally diverse. These two characteristics make it similar in some respects to the types
of settings in which Gloria Ladson-Billings performed her research on culturally relevant
pedagogy. The demographics of the student population in Pinewood Community, where
Ladson-Billings (1994) conducted her research, differed significantly from this setting in
that the Pinewood School district had significantly higher numbers of children living near
or below the federal poverty line, as well as a larger percentage of African American
students. While the two districts are similar in terms of culturally diversity and proximity
to an urban center, they differ in terms of supervisory structure. Notably, the county I
have chosen has retained the same superintendent over the course of 8 years.
The Montessori program in this county is housed in five schools. Founded in the
early1970?s, this program rose from a belief that providing preschool services to families
in lower income areas of the country would help to eliminate the achievement gap. The
elementary program was not added until 1995. Because of the late arrival of elementary
in the history of this system?s Montessori program, four of the schools maintain only pre-
school classrooms, while only one school houses an elementary program. Because this
study pertains specifically to Montessori at the elementary level, this school was chosen
as the research site. The school itself is located in a majority African American
neighborhood and receives some title I funding. With a total student enrollment of 460,
the makeup of the school is10.5% Asian, 47.5% African American, 23.9% Hispanic, and
16.9% Caucasian. The diversity of this school and the receipt of Title I funding, coupled
with its geographic location, give this school similar characteristics to the schools
examined by Ladson-Billings in The Dreamkeepers. These same elements provide this
58
school with characteristics that are similar to the demographic elements of the first
Children?s House founded by Dr. Montessori.
The Montessori program at this site is housed in a building with another, more
traditional, graded program. The two programs share administration, specialist teachers,
and a parent teacher organization. However, although the school itself is very diverse,
and housed in a community that is largely African American and Hispanic, the
Montessori program does not reflect the surrounding community to the same degree that
the graded program does. This discrepancy arises due to the difference in entry criteria
for the two programs. The graded program is a community school and draws from the
surrounding community. The Montessori program, on the other hand, is the only
elementary level Montessori school in the county and therefore draws from the entire
system. Parents in the county must fill out an application to attend this program, and in
the case of applications exceeding the capacity of the program, entry is based on a lottery.
Children generally start at three, and parents of three and four year olds pay tuition based
on a sliding scale that correlates to income. For this reason, the Montessori classrooms
are more likely to include students from other, more affluent parts of the county than are
the graded classrooms. I intend to note the racial balance in each classroom during
observations.
I worked with four teachers at the lower elementary level (grades 1-3). These
teachers were selected because they are the only four lower elementary Montessori
teachers other than the researcher herself that work at this particular site.
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Data Collection
Semi-structured Interviews
The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with the teacher participants
both on-site and off-site. Two extensive interviews were conducted with teachers before
beginning classroom observations. These interviews served to situate the teachers
theoretically according to self-perception of practice. Because of the quantity of data
collected, the interview process was broken into two interviews so as not to overextend
the study participants and so as to allow time for researcher reflection between the first
and second interview. The first of these interviews gathered data for a brief biographical
sketch that details teacher preparatory and prior teaching experiences, teachers?
background in multicultural education, and the decision to become a teacher.
The second interview honed in on pedagogy, using a series of questions about classroom
praxis to explore teachers? pedagogical stances.
Prior to these interviews, the researcher prepared a list of questions that
specifically address the ways in which teachers feel that they reflect the intersection of
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Montessori Pedagogy. These questions, found in
Appendix A, served as a starting point from which more probing, impromptu questions
were added as necessary to elicit the necessary information form teachers. Teacher?s
responses to these questions in turn served as a point of departure from which to delve
further into teacher?s conceptions of practice in the public Montessori setting. The use of
semi-structured interviews, in which the interviewer planned ahead and yet remained
60
flexible in order to fully incorporate the participants ideology, allowed for an increased
presence of authentic voice in this portion of the research.
A third, less structured interview occurred after all data had been collected. This
interview was very brief in many instances and simply allowed for the discussion of any
misunderstandings of classroom practices, discrepancies between teacher perception and
observer perception, and other necessary clarification. Questions that were prepared prior
to this interview were based on interview transcripts and teacher specific observations
and varied depending on need. In some instances, no follow-up conversation was needed.
Impromptu on-site conversations and other informal interview data were also used
to supplement these semi-structured interviews. See table 3.1 for a flow chart depicting
the interview and observation process.
First Interview
Second Interview
Classroom Observation
(On-Site Conversations)
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Create Second Questionnaire
Conduct Follow Up (2
nd
)
Interview
Table 3.1
Interviews have been selected as the primary method of data gathering in order to
shed light on the teachers? own perceptions of their practice. Furthermore, the selection
of interviews as a mode of data collection allows the researcher to work around school
scheduling conflicts.
After interviews were conducted, the tape-recorded data was transcribed
verbatim, with the exception of irrelevant information or language. The transcripts were
then submitted to the study participants for member checking and the revised transcripts
were used in the data analysis process.
Observation
Two one-hour observations of each classroom were conducted. Observation was
chosen as a means of data collection in order to gain insight into the ways in which
teachers put into practice the theoretical bases of the two paradigms being compared.
These observations were necessarily somewhat brief and small in number due to the full
62
time teaching status of the researcher, who had to use a combination of professional leave
and personal leave time to observe. Therefore, the observations were supplementary to
extensive interviews. The use of these two methods of data collection also enabled the
comparison of the praxis and ideological frameworks of the teachers in this study.
Observations were scheduled ahead of time and reflected different time periods of
the day so that data could be collected on each teacher for a variety of different time
periods. This is important because of the structure of a Montessori classroom. Although
subject areas are not segregated into time periods, as in traditional classes, each part of
the day represents a different instructional setting. For example, in many Montessori
classrooms, the first three hour period of the day represents what is referred to as
uninterrupted work time. During this time, teachers are giving small group lessons while
students are working independently on their classroom assignments. The afternoon block,
on the other hand, may include a period dedicated to teacher led read-aloud, another for
silent reading, and a whole class instructional period for history, geography, or science.
While every Montessori classroom is structured differently, the vast majority of them
possess a predictable structure to the day that more or less resembles the structure
described above and depicted in table 3.2. Because of this structure, observations were
not generally reflective of one curricular area or one specific lesson. This is due to the
nature of the Montessori classroom, in which many subjects are being simultaneously
pursued. Rather, observations reflected the general activity of the classroom as well as
any specific instructional practices recorded during the given time period. Instructional
practices included direct instruction, guided practice, and coaching of students who are
working independently. Because the focus of this research is on manner of pedagogical
63
delivery, and not on content knowledge, this did not adversely affect the research. In
many ways, it provided more opportunities to observe the teacher in a broad variety of
instructional activity, lending a rich quality to the data collected.
Table 3.2: General Schedule Adhered to by Most Teachers in This Study
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
9:00-
12:00
Uninterrupted
Work Time
Uninterrupted
Work Time
Uninterrupted
Work Time
Uninterrupted
Work Time
Uninterrupted
Work Time
12:00-
1:45
Lunch/Recess/
Specialist
Classes
Lunch/Recess/
Specialist
Classes
Lunch/
Specialist
Classes/ Early
Dismissal
Lunch/Recess/
Specialist
Classes
Lunch/Recess/
Specialist
Classes
1:45-
3:15
Various
Afternoon
Activities
Various
Afternoon
Activities
Various
Afternoon
Activities
Various
Afternoon
Activities
3:15-
3:30
Dismissal
Procedures
Dismissal
Procedures
Teacher Work
Time
Dismissal
Procedures
Dismissal
Procedures
Observation data was collected through the use of copious note taking. This
researcher did not request access to the teacher?s lesson plans, because the focus of this
research is not on the planned activities but on the actual praxis. This type of data
collection is the least intrusive to classroom practice. Data was collected primarily
through the use of narrative style notes, which were then organized into a grid. These
notes focused on the teacher?s interactions with the children, and captured dialogue,
movements, and tone of voice. Because it is also the most subject to human error,
observation data was collected, reviewed, and organized into a matrix and then returned
64
to the teacher for review. This participant review or member check served as a check on
researcher error and also provided valuable insights into teacher?s perceptions of their
own teaching.
Analysis
Once teachers have reviewed the observational data and provided feedback, it was
returned to the researcher for coding. The key principles identified in table 2.2 were used
in the coding process. The researcher hand coded the data using the lists of codes found
in Appendix B. Hand coding was useful in that certain observations or interview answers
were coded as being reflective of the many elements of an emergent framework for a
?Culturally Responsive Montessori? as recorded in table 2.2. Data collected from
interviews and classroom observations were analyzed both according to individual
teacher and to determine instructional patterns across the set of participants. For the
analysis on individual practices, data from each teacher were coded according to key
terms and ideas that indicate an association with the specific practices that exist at the
nexus of the Culturally Relevant and Montessori paradigms. These coded data exist in
two subsets, interview data that reflects teachers perceptions of their own practices and
observation data, which reflects that which teachers actually do. Once this data was
gathered according to individual teachers, it was sorted into a narrative matrix, comparing
and contrasting teachers according to their perceptions and their practices. The narrative
data was then used to construct a new theoretical framework based on the intersection of
the literature review, teachers? ideologies, and teachers? praxes.
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Validity
As a Montessori teacher myself, the researcher had the benefit of insider status,
which included extensive knowledge of Montessori stemming from certification courses,
several years of teaching in both private and public settings, and conference attendance,
over the course of my research. However, this may also become a threat to validity in that
a bias towards seeing Montessori as a desirable form of practice as opposed to more
teacher-centered practices may emerge. Also, as a classroom teacher, teaching in the
same school as the subjects, the researcher may tend to sympathize with teacher?s
challenges and this may inhibit the objective deconstruction of their practices in the data
analysis of observation step. The research will be protected from this by the use of
member checks, technological coding, and the use of multiple methods discussed below.
In order to compensate for these possible validity threats, multiple methods,
including observation and interviews were used to triangulate the data. Additionally,
member checks were used periodically by having teachers review observation notes and
interview transcripts for misunderstandings and clarification prior to the coding and
researcher review process.
Implications
The information gathered over the course of this study will be valuable on several
different levels. Primarily, understanding the ways in which Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy and Montessori intersect and diverge will open up new realms of research for
both Montessori teacher education programs and traditional teacher education programs
wishing to diversify their content knowledge and praxis-based courses. Furthermore, this
66
understanding will help administrators in schools serving minority students as well as
Montessori teacher education programs to better prepare and support teachers to practice
a Multicultural pedagogy, regardless of their underlying theoretical paradigm.
Additionally, the results of this study may be useful to develop studies on a larger scale in
order to understand the relationship between these two paradigms and the possibility for
collaboration and mutual exploration within their respective teacher education
communities. Finally, development of a more clear understanding of the ways in which
these theoretical congruencies reveal themselves in practice will lay a foundation for the
further comparison of the Montessori paradigm to the Multicultural paradigm, especially
as it pertains to pedagogy. This foundation will be useful to the development of a
multicultural component of both staff development and teacher education programs for
both public and private Montessori schools.
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Chapter 4: Findings
This chapter will present the findings for research questions 2, 3, and 4. The
literature review ends in a summative exploration of research question 1. First, it will
give an overview of the study?s participants, including biographical data, reasons for
becoming Montessori teachers, teacher preparation and professional experience. From
there, this chapter will enter into a thematic examination of teacher?s perceptions of their
praxis and the corresponding researcher?s observations of this praxis. The research
questions that this chapter will examine are:
 In what ways does the ensemble of teacher preparatory experience
influence the role of cultural relevance in a Montessori teacher?s praxis?
 In what ways do Montessori teachers in Public Schools perceive their
practice as being compatible with the components of a ?Culturally
Relevant Montessori??
 In what ways do teachers exhibit a praxis that is compatible with the
components of a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori??
The data presented in this chapter was conducted using two interviews and two
observations of each teacher. The initial interview gathered biographical data, while the
second interview probed teacher?s for their perceptual understanding of their own praxis.
The two observations provided snapshots of the classroom, with an emphasis on the
teacher?s manner of interacting with the children both in and out of lessons. Finally, the
researcher, in sharing the same work site as the other teachers, was able to ask them
clarifying questions throughout the process. Telephone conversations and e-mail were
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also a mode of communication in setting up appointments and requesting clarification of
observed behaviors. In order to protect the identity of teachers, pseudonyms are used.
Biographical Sketches
Each of the teachers studied brings to the classroom a unique perspective derived
from a combination of life experiences, personal, cultural, and educational. In conducting
these conversations, the definition of teacher preparation expanded from the narrow
concept of formal training courses and professional development to include a wide
variety of life experiences, thought processes, and educational background. While all four
teachers have come to the same location, work with similarly diverse student populations
in small classrooms of 15-20 students, and have chosen the same teaching philosophy to
guide their praxis, each teacher?s praxis presents itself as unique. In an effort to
understand the development of each, specific pedagogy, the following section undertakes
an explanation of the individual, cultural, and pedagogical identities of each teacher
studied. This section pertains to research question 2: In what ways does teacher
preparation influence the possibilities for practicing components of a Culturally Relevant
Montessori in a public school classroom?
Manjit Bakshi
Manjit is a veteran teacher of almost 25 years. She is married and is the mother of
two girls, one a sophomore in college, the other a sophomore in high school. She grew up
in southern India, in a large family. She shared her childhood home with 45 relatives,
including immediate and extended family. As a child, she attended a Montessori school,
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directed by a woman who was trained by Dr. Maria Montessori herself. After finishing
her secondary studies, Manjit was encouraged by one of her uncles to take a Montessori
teacher preparation course, which had come to a nearby village. She did so, and
completed this coursework during her late teenage years. Upon completion, she attended
a University in India, and received a bachelor?s degree in political science and English as
well as a master?s degree in English. Manjit does not hold a diploma in the field of
education.
Manjit has taught in a variety of settings in her lengthy teaching career. While still
in India, she worked as a Montessori trainer assistant for three years. When she came to
the United States to join her husband, she worked in a private, Montessori school in
McLean, continuing to work at the primary Montessori level with children between the
ages of three and six. When this school closed she moved to another private school in
Neighboring County, where she worked for 14 years. She described both of these private
school settings as serving predominantly white middle and upper class students during
those early years in the states. However, over the course of her fourteen years at the
Neighboring County based school, she reports a drastic change in the population which
first diversified and then became predominantly African American by the time that she
left.
Manjit first moved from private to public school in the late 1990?s, motivated by
the higher salary scale. By this time, she had completed her lower elementary Montessori
coursework and had been teaching at this level for three years. She describes this
transition as
?a nice experience actually. I took a class from Jenny Lind. I had 25 children I think. It was a
very nice class. It was a mixed class. It was diverse. It was a public school system so there was a
graded program and the Montessori program. We had to deal with the administration because it
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was a graded program too. Then of course we did what we could in our Montessori classrooms but
we could not have bulletin boards, and other things as they expected.
Manjit reports that although they were asked to do things that she did not find congruent
with the Montessori teaching philosophy, such as using sticker charts to track behavior
and putting up special bulletin boards, the principal was very understanding and did not
force them to do things they did not want to do.
Again motivated by a higher salary scale and a closer proximity to her Northern
Virginia home, Manjit moved to the school in which she currently teaches almost five
years ago. Of her current position she says:
I like working here, even though half the school is a graded program. The principal that was here
the last four years did not bother us, did not come to our class and expect us to do something that
we wouldn't want to do. She would give us that freedom I would say. Of course there were a few
things that we had to cater to, like the testing, which I thought, here in a public school you just
have to do it.... [The new principal] doesn't come to the class and say anything?. She's made
some changes, but I think they are working.
Although Manjit does not possess a diploma in the field of education, she has
taken a wide variety of educational coursework to receive her dual level Montessori
certification as well as her Virginia State teaching license. Because she is trained at two
different levels, Manjit recollects two distinct experiences at her separate teacher
preparation centers. In discussing her first preparatory course, she often finds it difficult
to recollect details as this particular course was so long ago. She does recall the
significance of being trained by a personal representative of Dr. Montessori, and the high
degree of care she was required to take in making her classroom materials. She describes
this experience as being
?excellent I would say. It was a lot of work, but very good training. They did expect a lot of us,
especially when we wrote our albums and we made the geometry and biology nomenclature cards.
They were very, very particular about how we made those cards. The trainer was a very lively
teacher.
She took her lower elementary training more recently, at a training center in
Washington, DC. This was also an AMI training center, and she completed the
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coursework over three summers rather than take a one-year leave of absence from
teaching. In recollecting her experiences there, she recalls the intensity of the
coursework, particularly the written component and the material making requirements.
She also recollects the value of the practicum component of this preparatory course,
which takes place over the course of five weeks in three different sessions of observing
for one week and then working for four weeks in the classroom. She divided her
practicum between a private and a public Montessori school, and had two distinct
experiences. In the private school, she remembers enjoying her teaching experience and
observing the teacher redirect children to their work if they were misbehaving.
In the public school, on the other hand, she describes observing the teacher
?use public school materials. The Montessori materials were there, but they were full of dust.
They were hardly being used except for the fraction material which was being used, at least while
I was there. The rest of the material was just sitting there collecting dust.
There she also observed the teacher handling discipline problems by using punishments,
such as sending the child to the principal?s office. She speculates that this practice may
have resulted from the public school culture, or from the nature of the population that she
reports was mainly African American. In evaluating her experiences, she recollects
feeling inspired by the math materials and prepared to teach math content. She feels, on
the other hand, that the preparation for teaching language was minimal and could stand to
be improved upon.
Alternately, she describes her state certification coursework as being a mix of
valuable courses and meaningless courses. Because she did not hold a degree in teaching,
she had to take multiple classes in science, math, history, geography, and social
foundations of education. This last in particular she reports feeling was not connected to
what she does in the classroom. Although she enjoyed the reading, she can no longer
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recollect its specific content. She found that some of the courses, particularly one in great
literature, were valuable both in content and in structure, in that Montessori teachers and
graded classroom teachers took the courses together and could share in one another's
different perspectives. She also reported finding meaning in a special course called
TESA, which reminded her to give equitable attention to and take responsibility for each
student in her classroom
After 25 years of teaching, Manjit still feels that she would benefit from
additional coursework, particularly in the area of reading. She also believes that while she
is comfortable with classroom management, having someone come in to work with the
whole school on this issue could be helpful. She feels strongly that while teachers deserve
autonomy in their classrooms, ?In the common spaces and I think there should be some
common discipline.?
Jenny Lind
Jenny is a classroom teacher of more than 27 years. She is the mother of two
teenaged children, both of whom attended Montessori schools as children. She grew up
in Sri Lanka, where she lived into her early twenties. There she took her primary teacher
training, inspired by a brief stint as a volunteer in a home for children with special needs.
Seeing these children learning through the implementation of the Montessori method
showed Jenny how much children were capable of doing, helping her to see outside of the
traditional Sri Lankan idea that children are to be cared for extensively into their early
teenage years. Like Manjit, Jenny took her primary teacher education course before
attending college, which she did not do until after moving to the United States. Also like
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Manjit, she completed her undergraduate degree in general studies, although she then
went on to receive a master?s degree in Montessori Education as part of her elementary
training.
Jenny has taught at two different age groupings and in three different countries
over the course of her 27-year teaching career. She began teaching at the primary level,
ages three to six, while still living in Sri Lanka. After moving to the United States, she
first taught for one year at an affluent, predominantly Caucasian school in Southern
California. She then moved to a more diverse, less affluent private school in Chicago,
where she worked full time and went to college. She did not decide to take her lower
elementary training course until after moving to Sweden, where she lived after she got
married. She remembers that
In Sweden, the situation was very different, because all the private schools were subsidized by the
government. Anybody can afford to have their children there so it was a very mixed group, when
it comes to socio-economics. But when it comes to ethnicity there wasn?t very much diversity at
all.
When her older child started in a lower elementary classroom, she became interested in
this age group and flew back and forth to Washington, DC for four summers to earn her
master?s degree from an AMI affiliated program in conjunction with her lower
elementary certification.
After ten years in Sweden, Jenny moved to the Washington, DC area, where she
first worked in a public school setting. This was her introductory experience teaching
lower elementary students. She describes this first class as being a diverse mix of African
American and Caucasian, with some Hispanic, Philipino, and Vietnamese students. While
she found the students to be similar in nature to other classes she has taught, she was
shocked by the teaching practices of other adults. She recalls that
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Coming straight from Sweden it was terrible. It was terrifying, even as an adult, it was terrifying
to see the ways the teachers treated the children. The loud voices and the language [they used]. I
was totally unprepared. Not the Montessori teachers, but the graded teachers.
After two years there, she moved to her current teaching position, where she is now
teaching her seventh year.
Unlike teaching in Neighboring County, her first experience at the new school
was marked by intense behavior problems with one child in particular. She remembers
that ?One child was constantly being picked up by the police?outside, for setting fires.
He was in second grade.? Although she recollected that in the classroom,
He was very much part of the group. His academics were a little bit lower but he was in trouble
outside the school all the time so he was pulled out for counseling and things like that. His mother
was a single parent and she would very rarely come if called and so he was more or less alone
most of the time. The social worker was involved, the counselor was involved, and the county was
involved in this child's case. To be honest I didn't have much experience with a child with such
severe needs. Everybody, I just followed their lead. I don't think he was very much supervised at
home.
Despite this challenge, she felt very supported by the school community in coping with
these issues.
Jenny has had a variety of preparatory and professional development experiences
that have contributed to her development of a coherent praxis in myriad ways. She places
value on her primary Montessori training in Sri Lanka, which took place over the course
of two years and included an extensive practicum experience. Like Manjit, she expresses
high regard for her teacher educators who studied with Dr. Montessori while she was an
intern in India. She feels that this course emphasized the Montessori philosophy and
particularly the importance of humility in the presence of children. She also stresses that
teaching was
seen not as a profession but as a...vocation...and that after the two years I was ready to go into the
classroom and totally knew what I was doing because of the one year of teacher training, of
actually being in the classroom for one year.
She also feels that both the evening lectures and the practicum experience were of equal
importance. From the practicum experience, which took place under the direction of three
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different teachers, she recalls the importance of practical life activities, such as table
washing and sorting, and movement. She also feels that she learned the importance of
?speaking individually to the children, never punishing them as a group. The intrinsic motivation
was what I saw very much, trying to appeal to the child?s sense of right and wrong and never
condemning or humiliating children in front of others. Those kinds of things. Respect I think was
a huge part of it.
She speaks of her elementary preparation in a similarly positive light, although
the lessons she values from this stage of her learning are somewhat different. She recalls
that on ?The first day I just fell in love. It was just so fantastic. When she talked about
cosmic education and presenting the Universe to the child I was hooked.? She also
remembers feeling fascinated by the math materials and the idea ??that the children
could get these more advanced concepts at such a young age,? as well as the emphasis on
fostering independence and going out into the real world as part of the elementary
curriculum. Finally, she recollects learning about the difference between the younger
children and the older children and
Just totally embracing the idea of following the child. In the primary it is so much more concrete.
It is mostly showing by example how to do the practical life, the sensorial. You don't get that
much into the abstract. But here [in the elementary] it is so much in the abstract. Actually seeing
that in the classroom, seeing that if they really find an interest and get hooked on that how their
behavior changes. So that was the elementary classroom.
Jenny feels that her Montessori preparation was very complete, but could have been
improved by additional coursework in art and music education to facilitate cross-
curricular connections. She also feels that there could stand to be more time spent on
reading and writing in the elementary classroom.
Unlike her feelings in regard to her Montessori training, Jenny does not place a
great deal of value on the coursework she was required to do to receive her Virginia state
certification. When asked if she found value in any of these, she responds simply, ?No.?
She has difficulty remembering the titles of the courses in math, science and history, but
does recall that
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one of them was really, really bad...through Holy Cross. I mean I felt that we had much better
methods and materials to present the same ideas and the same concepts. I think I took one in
geometry....
She has found value in some of her professional development opportunities, although she
feels that most of them have built upon concepts that are already in use in a Montessori
classroom. However, she continues to take coursework and feels open to learning more,
particularly in art and music.
Pamela Stone
Pam is a young, Caucasian woman in her fourth year as a Montessori teacher.
Pam grew up in Rhode Island with two younger sisters. Her father was gone for much of
her childhood, living and working in another state, and she feels that this time at home
with her mother and sisters was greatly influential in her development of a passion for
helping others. Pam?s parents were both of French Canadian origin, as were the majority
of the citizens of her hometown. Pam was driven by a love of learning about new cultures
to move to Maryland, where her father lived, when it was time for her to attend college.
She recalls that ?I never really appreciated that culture until I move down here and now
I'm getting a greater appreciation for it. I never thought it was a culture because that?s
what I grew up with.? A series of frustrating experiences with chemistry classes, a close
relationship with a young cousin, and a friendship with an elementary education major all
led Pam to switch direction during her sophomore year of college from Marine Biology
to Elementary Education. It was not until she returned from the Peace Corps and needed a
job, however, that she decided to become a Montessori teacher.
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Although Pam has only been a full time contract teacher for four years, a variety
of experiences in educational settings add to her practice. Throughout college, she
worked first as an assistant and then as a lead teacher in an inclusive childcare center
where she ??worked with kids with autism, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, down's
syndrome, and kids that did not have any known disabilities.? As a junior in college she
spent three weeks in Costa Rica studying farming and ecosystems, inspiring her to go
into the Peace Corps directly after college. She recalls learning that she had been
accepted into this program, remembering
When I got the letter saying that I was going to Lesotho, I didn't even know that that was a
country. I [thought] ?oh my gosh? I don't know how to plant, I don't know how to farm, I don't
know how to grow my own food?I went into it not knowing really what I was getting into except
that I was going to learn about another culture?. On the day that we got on the plane, [I was]
thinking ?what was I doing?? I was so sure that I needed to be doing this.
Pam spent two years in Lesotho, living with a family and working with elementary
students and teachers in a small village. She recollects that the teachers in her village
were not prepared to receive professional development from the Peace Corps, but rather
expected that the volunteers would be teaching. Pam remembers that
I was doing model lessons, which I think was a challenge and I learned from that experience that
you cannot?motivate people to do something that they don't want to do, that they have no interest
in doing.
Another great challenge for Pam in this experience was working to find common ground
on disciplinary issues. While the teachers in her village practiced corporal punishment,
Pam felt very uncomfortable. She recalls that
I tried to teach them other ways of dealing with it and at that time I didn't know about the
Montessori way or the ?Positive Discipline? way and I was just doing a lot of rewards. I [said]
?Everybody bring in a can that you find on the street and every time we catch you being good lets
put a rock in it.? They [the teachers] needed some kind of immediate reaction, something that
would make an impact on the kids at the time. So beating them was an immediate reaction.
When the beating didn?t stop, Pam talked with the teachers about it, and they agreed to
ask her to leave the room before implementing this type of punishment. Again, she
remembers
78
I would sit outside and hear the kids screaming. That was really hard for me, being forced to work
in an environment that did things that I disapproved of. It was a cultural thing. I was friends with
the teachers. As much as I sat down with them to talk about my beliefs, it was also a cultural thing.
They were back in the 1950's. Where we are now, its like?stuff that they were doing now was
happening in our culture in the 1950's.
The disconnect between Pam?s concept of her responsibilities and what the teachers
believed Pam was there to do led to a great deal of frustration. She began to skip days of
work and to focus on other projects, such as building a collection of books from
donations from home and painting local and global maps on the school walls. Pam also
involved herself in HIV prevention education.
After two years in Lesotho, Pam returned home and was faced with the economic
realities of re-entering life in the United States. As she searched for a substitute teaching
position, someone mentioned a small Montessori school in McLean, Virginia. She recalls
doing some internet research in regards to Montessori and feeling that the ideas fit with
her philosophy of education. She took an assistantship there, and when they offered to
pay for her to work towards her Montessori certification, she accepted. The next year she
started teaching full time. Nicole describes the environment at her school as being
predominantly Caucasian, and very wealthy. She refers to feeling that
...the parents were not allowing their children to be children and they wanted them to be Einsteins.
They were not giving them?what kids need and they were putting the pressure, lots of pressure
on the teachers. The administrator at that school was not very nice. It just wasn't working for me
or anybody else that was there. I needed to get out.
The spring of her first year there, she began an aggressive job hunt that led her to the
position in which she currently teaches. She recalls feeling of this public, Montessori
environment that "Ahhh...this is where I belong." In this school Pam serves a population
that is both culturally and economically diverse. She feels supported by the staff as a
whole, and feels that, in spite of the challenges she faces, everyone in the school is
collectively engaged in looking out for the kids.
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The ensemble of Pam?s preparatory experiences is broad. Unlike Manjit and
Jenny, she holds a diploma in elementary education from a nationally ranked University.
Additionally, she has had training from the Peace Corps, holds a lower elementary
Montessori certification from an AMS accredited program, and has taken a wide variety
of professional development courses to maintain her Virginia state certification. At
different times in her career, different coursework has stood out for her as valuable.
During her time in the Peace Corps, for example, she felt lucky to have had her
elementary education background and experience. While she felt culturally well prepared
to live in a different society, she did not feel that they fully prepared her for the didactic
part of her responsibilities. At other times however, she has felt critical of her teacher
preparation program, with the most severe criticism being that a wide gap existed
between the theory she learned at school and the practices she observed in the field.
?the stuff that I got in my elementary ed. program was all about the current research, you know
constructive learning, and all of these great things and group work and all of this stuff but when I
went to student teaching hardly any of it happened. [The theory] just made sense to me but I didn't
see it and I didn't see how you could do it in a traditional classroom.
These feelings of frustration over the disconnect between what she learned at school and
what she saw in practice returned to her years later when she first saw a Montessori
classroom. She felt that this type of classroom offered structural possibilities for
implementing the practices that she embraced during her undergraduate preparation. In
spite of these misgivings, overall she now asserts that
I feel like my education training was valuable. I think it sparked a passion in me that still exists
today for working with kids and for finding the best ways to help children learn. I think just
[learning] the structure of giving a lesson [was valuable]. The observation part of it I think really
helped me?. Math, I look at my math methods courses, science courses, all of it left little seeds in
me. Not big ones, but just little seeds that kept me growing.
Pam also had her first exposure to the concept of positive discipline during her field
experiences, and she feels that this set her on the path towards her current disciplinary
stance.
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Of her Peace Corps training she reports valuing the instruction of cultural norms,
the language instruction, and the gradual transition from a large group of Americans into
an interim family and finally into a more permanent residence. During her interim
residence in particular, Pam recalls a balance between learning basic survival skills in her
courses during the day and learning cultural lessons from her host family.
I went outside without ironing one day and I got in trouble from the family. I was so annoyed. I
was almost going to be late for class and they made me come back and iron my skirt. But it?s a
symbol. I represent the family and so that was a learning experience.
She reports feeling well supported and confident in her own abilities as a result of this
support. She did not, however, feel that they prepared the teachers in her village to
receive her, leading to the frustrations that she ultimately felt.
Pam felt similarly that her Montessori preparatory course was valuable in many
ways but left some holes in her pedagogy. Notably, in spite of the compression of
information into a nine-week course, she felt prepared to teach lessons. However, she did
not feel that she had a firm grasp on the philosophy, and like in her University based
program, she felt that the reading instruction left much to be desired. In her professional
development work, she has attempted to fill this gap through courses in reading
instruction. She has also worked with the reading specialist. In addition to attempting to
mediate her lack of preparation for teaching reading, she has also focused on arts
integration through courses in world music and cultures and a special program with the
Kennedy center. Finally, she has taken the opportunity to build on her concept of peace
education, which she feels that her children need.
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Judy Borchelt
Judy is a Caucasian teacher who possesses a wide array of teaching experiences
accounting for 16 years of teaching, of which she is in her fifth year as a full time
Montessori teacher. She grew up in a rural area of the United States as the middle child in
a family of five, attending a small college in Ohio for her teacher preparation program.
From there, she taught for two years before going back to school full time to get her
master?s degree. Although this degree in Public Administration was meant to lead to an
educational policy job, Judy became interested in international development and went
into the Peace Corps after school. As a result of this work in the Peace Corps, her life
went in a different direction for an extended period of time, taking her to Cameroon for
five years and then to Indiana, where she worked on a research project for two more
years. The birth of her children ultimately led to her exposure to Montessori, which she
became enthralled by, but she was unable to take the necessary coursework until after her
children grew older. As she prepared to do so over a ten-year period of time, she spent
time working as a substitute and assistant in Charlotte, North Carolina and lived for
another year abroad in Nigeria. Judy finally returned to the states with her family in 2001,
took the Montessori teacher preparatory course, and began teaching full time. After two
years in a private school, she was drawn to the free tuition offered by public school and
the chance to serve a socio-economically diverse body of students. She reports that ?I
was curious because I had started?as a public school teacher so I just wanted to
see?whether...truly the kids would be transformed like I had seen in private school.? She
reports after three years in her current post that she had seen evidence of such
transformations.
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Judy?s wide variety of teaching experience is a large part of what led her into
Montessori. Because her undergraduate degree was in elementary education and special
education and included an extensive practicum component, Judy reports that she felt
prepared to enter her first classroom near Gary, Indiana, in an inner city school for high
school students with special needs. While she felt prepared to teach content, however, she
reports that she did not feel prepared to deal with what she refers to as ?inner-city?
discipline. She felt frustrated by the policy of suspending students, feeling that it would
merely send them back into the same types of behavior on the street that they had already
gotten into trouble with. It was this frustration and concern that led her back into school,
thinking that she could make a difference at a policy level.
Upon receiving her graduate degree, however, Judy decided to go into the Peace
Corps, where she had a very different experience in an educational setting. There, she
was engaged in
?a field work type of teaching. I was teaching women that belonged to a food cooperative and
they were selling beans and? buying palm oil. I was going out to different villages and teaching
accounting and how to keep track of the coming in and going out of different goods. I had a
motorcycle and I would go to different villages and talk with the women and teach them there. I
[also] worked at the main cooperative in the village that I lived in helping them to work with the
data that they had from bringing in palm oil from down south.
From there, she went on to work as an associate director of the Peace Corps, living for
three more years in Cameroon. This worked also involved some instruction, but it was
more oriented towards training new Peace Corps volunteers, for which she relied
extensively on the body of knowledge she had accrued during her own time as a
volunteer.
In the early 1990?s, she returned to the classroom in an international school with
an immersion focus in Charlotte, NC. Here, she was struck by the disciplinary system,
which affected her own teaching and the learning of her children. This was a system of
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receiving a green, yellow, or black card depending on your behavior. She was shocked
that, in an integrated school with a large percentage of African American students, they
would use the color black to represent the worst behavior. She felt concern about the
message this sent about color. The experience of her own children with this system also
concerned her. She remembers that
I would say [to my daughter], ?Tell me about your day,? at the end of the day. She would say ?I
stayed on green all day? or she?d say ?I was on yellow and I felt so bad.? [If I replied], ?Tell me
about some of the things that you learned,? [she would not remember].
She contrasts this memory with what she had observed while her son was in a Montessori
school, and recalls feeling that she needed a change. This feeling was compounded by her
research on how people self govern around natural resources and her husband?s research
on how people learn to organize and self govern.
Everything that I had read about Montessori was about teaching children to be centered within
themselves and to be able to self-guide and be self-governing. So all of the theory that I had been
reading about what are the natural outcomes of this [led me to be] just really fascinated that Maria
Montessori had a theoretical framework and?a philosophical framework that guided everything
that she espoused.
After many years of contemplating a career change, Judy finally took a job with a private
Montessori school in Northern Virginia upon her return from Nigeria. She describes this
school as culturally diverse and mainly middle class, and remembers feeling a great deal
of excitement about her position there. After two years, however, she felt driven by a
desire to serve a more socio-economically diverse population in a setting closer to her
home, and took her current teaching position, in which has remained for three years.
In addition to her many life experiences, she holds several teaching credentials
and has done a great deal of additional coursework for professional reasons including
maintaining her Virginia state certification. She places value on her undergraduate
teacher preparation coursework, which included a wide variety of student teaching. She
remembers her decision to enter the teaching profession:
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I always just really was attracted to working with children. My mother had a great influence on
my life. She taught handicapped children in swimming. My University allowed a lot of hands on
work in the classroom. It was a requirement. I had a wonderful mentor as a professor at that time.
He held debate classes and we learned how to do public debates on education. We had a fantastic
reading professor, a professor that was the director of the highlight magazine at that time. A lot of
professors [were] connected to the community, the greater community. So those are just some of
the things that inspired me.
She also recalls an emphasis on videotaping and reviewing emergent classroom practices,
which she now feels is remarkable for the time frame in which she attended school.
While she felt very positively about all of these elements, she did not feel prepared
following graduate for the disciplinary component of teaching in an inner city
environment.
She also values the training component of the time she spent in the Peace Corps.
I felt grateful for all the people who had gone ahead of me who had done this work. A lot of the
people who trained us were former Peace Corps volunteers or Cameroonians who had invested
their lives in training cross-culturally. There is such a beauty about the passing on of knowledge.
We were just put out in the middle of a brand new culture and there was a safety and a comfort to
knowing that many had gone ahead and had made it and had done it beautifully.
She recollects her first entry into the country, into the French speaking part of Cameroon,
and the great sensitivity with which the teachers at her school brought the new volunteers
through the immersion experience. In addition to the skill of the training staff, she also
values the hands-on nature of the experiences, including the opportunity to visit different
cooperatives and see how they were run before she began her own work. Finally, she felt
that she benefited from the specific cross-cultural components.
...There were a lot of cross-cultural things that we built into the training about how one could
approach a villager. For example you?never shake hands with your left hand, you never serve
food with your left hand. We were taught many, many things like that.
Although she felt well prepared for the work that she did there, she did feel that an
additional emphasis on safety and health training would have been beneficial, and she
later incorporated these ideas into her own training programs.
Many years later, Judy took her Montessori training, an experience which she also
valued in many ways. She again felt impressed by the dedication of the training staff and
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the longevity of their commitment to teacher education. She also recollects valuing ?The
way in which we were taught [and] the way in which Montessori becomes a part of a
person.? Like her training in Cameroon and during her undergraduate career, she again
benefited from the hands on nature of the work.
I thought that was very valuable, the fact that we were physically required to make materials even
though it added to the intensity of the training. It was really valuable just to see the methodology,
do the methodology and have materials ready when we started teaching.
Additionally, she felt that the philosophy course brought together many of the elements
of things she had learned in the past and helped her to build a cohesive framework to
guide her teaching. Now, in her present teaching position, she feels that the process of
learning through assembling albums, or collections of lessons, really has helped her to
understand the integrated nature of the curriculum. However, she feels that her summer
training was missing a ?big picture? framework, what Montessori teachers call the ?Great
Lessons? in history and geography, which helps children tie together the pieces of what
they are learning in other areas. She also feels that the program needs to place greater
emphasis on the elements of teaching, such as parent education, that occur outside of the
classroom.
The final piece of Judy?s coursework includes classes that she took for personal
and professional growth. Following her time in the Peace Corps, she spent about a month
in France taking an intensive French course to increase her linguistic ability. She has also
taken several courses towards recertification in Virginia. Of these, the upper elementary
Montessori training was particularly important to her. She also felt that the child abuse
training, which gives teachers specific parameters for handling instances of abuse and
neglect in Virginia, was useful. Finally, she found that several ?gifted? courses, in
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spelling and poetry in particular, have added to her ability to integrate the state
curriculum and the Montessori curriculum.
She feels that the collection of these diverse teaching experiences, which drew
from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds in myriad places, have led her
to ??a humbling and emptying out of preconceived ideas so that new ones can come in.?
She also recalls the importance of cross-cultural training and language training in foreign
countries. She also values the acquired knowledge ??that people learn in different ways.
I have learned a lot about how to get information across to people from different
backgrounds. I worked really hard on [this].? Finally, she feels that ??it is just really
critical to realize that every child is a gift.?
Research Question 3
How do teachers perceive their practice as being compatible with the components of
a Culturally Relevant Montessori?
Interviews with all four teachers in the study yielded a large body of evidence
indicating that they believe that knowledge is a process of drawing out what is within
each individual child. The vast majority of this data resulted from the second interview,
which was praxis-oriented in nature. Teachers were asked to share the practices that they
perceived as being successful, as well as those that were challenging, and to define the
goal of education and the respective roles of teacher and child in this praxis. They were
also asked to discuss their own conception of what it means to be a Montessori teacher,
along with the successes and challenges they meet with in the task of living up to this
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standard. Finally they were asked to talk about previous exposure to multicultural
education and to define the ways in which they incorporate diverse identities into their
classroom praxis. What arose from these conversations was then coded and categorized
according to the essential components of Multicultural Montessori praxis. The resultant
themes were categorized into the three major components of this praxis.
Teachers who teach in a Culturally Relevant Montessori tradition believe that education
is a process of drawing out knowledge.
The teachers in this study were not asked directly about drawing out, and yet all
four of them express agreement with elements of a pedagogy of drawing out, although
there is some difference in the weight they afford their responses and the manner in
which these are expressed. Because the most controversial component of the fused
framework lies in this section, the teachers are asked to talked about the use of internal
versus and motivators directly. Certain teachers talk more about providing the guidelines
necessary for drawing out to occur, while others focus more on the ways in which the
environment and the children within it foster this process of drawing out. Only one
teacher, Judy, directly states a guiding philosophy of drawing out, a belief that
We are all unique and different with incredible talents and?my role as an educator is to unlock, to
help children unlock and to see through many different ways in which we bring out knowledge in
the classroom what maybe some of their hidden talents are. I think there are some people who go
through life and they don't discover [these talents] and I think that?s really sad.
All of the teachers, however, express ideas about their praxis that are in agreement with
Judy implicitly, if explicitly diverse. The components of a drawing out pedagogy that
were identified in the teachers? beliefs are laid out below.
Firm Guidelines
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Jenny and Manjit, the two most experienced teachers, both talk about the
importance of providing firm guidelines in the classroom for children to act within. Jenny
talks about the importance she places each fall on bringing her new students, the
incoming first graders into the classroom culture ?so they become familiar with the
classroom expectations. I believe a lot in being a good model myself, [in] modeling the
behavior that I want from them, [in] the other kids being good role models too.? Manjit
returned to this concept of firm guidelines repeatedly during her interview, providing
examples of what she does in order to reinforce the acceptance of these guidelines.
Well, sometimes, if a child is very distracting and I'm in a lesson I invite the child to sit next to me
and he or she has to sit very quietly and just be there. Either they listen to what?s going on or they
are in their own little worlds, I don?t know. That?s one strategy I use. Another strategy is I move
them from the group they are in and try to isolate them? so hopefully they would focus on their
work. That?s another one. In the past I have tried sending them to another classroom also, which
sometimes works.
She also iterates that the child?s own responsibility, ?first and foremost? is to follow
directions. Finally, she discusses the notion that some forms of behavior are totally
unacceptable and need to be addressed with strict consequences, such as being sent to the
office. ?Hitting is unacceptable and they need to know that.? Neither Pam nor Judy
explicitly mention firm guidelines in their interview, although they speak about other
components of discipline.
Pam also describes the evolution of her grasp on firm guidelines, which she
involves the students in creating.
?The first year it was rules. Classroom constitution, which I think is very extrinsically driven.
Then we made expectations, which are kind of a lighter way of saying rules, but they are also
extrinsically imposed even though they came up with them. But this year we called them
classroom responsibilities and I feel like that is a more intrinsic way of the kids looking at their
responsibilities and how it affects that environment?. Whenever the class has gotten out of hand
we just sit and we review the responsibilities and talk about why we have them and it really
becomes ingrained, it really does. They talk about it? with each other.
Respect for Students
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Only Jenny explicitly mentions the importance of respecting students in the
classroom. She talks about the teachers she observed during her student teaching, saying
that what impressed her and stayed with her was their manner of ??speaking
individually to the children, never punishing them as a group and the intrinsic motivation
[that resulted].? She also recollects their ?trying to appeal to the child?s sense of right and
wrong and never condemning or humiliating children in front of others. Respect I think
was a huge part of [what made their classrooms work].?
Cooperative Learning
Judy, Jenny, and Pam all mention the importance of cooperative learning to their
successful praxes. Judy talks about the implementation of Montessori at the lower
elementary level as a process of observing and guiding the children as they are ?working
together in different groups,? and observing the ?rotation of those groups [and] the
energy that comes from those groups and the flow of that and redirecting the flow or
directing the flow.? She also identifies this group work as one of the essential elements of
a Montessori framework. Jenny also talks about the importance of groups and capitalizes
on this by using it as the defining element of the children?s role in the classroom. She
feels that their work is to learn ?how to support each other and work on their own
learning.? She finds that the current scheduling at the school, which divides the children
into groups by grade level for their specialist classes, is problematic because
The children are divided by grades. I think...learning happens vertically and horizontally, not just
horizontally. I think they have a lot to learn from each other. Some of the first graders are very
advanced and I think if it was a multi-age group, I think it would be better. This whole idea of
community building that we work on, children helping each other, working together, I think its
much more difficult when its a group of children that are the same age that only get to see each
other during specials. That is a problem.
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Here, Jenny articulates her perception of the importance of multi-age grouping in the
Montessori classroom, in which cooperative learning is an essential part of the process.
Pam talks about cooperative learning more specifically, giving an example of how
it helps her students to integrate their own cultures into the classroom and share with
others. ?I have this little boy who has wanted to teach Spanish and I made this Spanish
animals work and he taught it?. The kids who wanted the lesson were the Spanish
speaking kids.? Pam goes on to talk about the relationship between this second language
development and vocabulary acquisition. She also discusses how the continuum of
materials provides opportunities for the younger children to ask the older, more
experienced children for support. Overall, Pam reiterates what Judy and Jenny stated
about the importance of cooperative learning, and also provides insight into how this is
enacted in the classroom.
Differentiated Instruction
Jenny, Manjit, and Pam all discuss the importance of differentiated instruction in
the multi-age Montessori classroom. While in some ways it is evident that this
differentiation is necessary with three different age groups, their thoughts provide insight
into why it is an integral part of a pedagogy of drawing out. Jenny starts out saying that
giving individual lessons helps the students to build upon their own identity as an
individual, elaborating on this notion by explaining that teachers guide children to grow
intellectually
?By showing them the concepts and showing them where the material is and letting them work
[with] the research work for example. In the beginning I'll take the newcomers and we'll work
together on how to write a report?beginning with the very basics of identifying what they are
interested in and then finding a book. Distinguishing between fact and fiction and finding the
information they want in the book. Coming up with the questions. So...mostly by showing them.
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Here, Jenny illustrates her belief that the work done by the children guides their
development. Manjit expresses that this part of being a Montessori teacher comes most
easily for her, saying ?I feel very successful at doing all the lessons...after ten years of
elementary.? Pam, as the youngest teacher in the study, also feels that she has
?Really started to figure out how to meet children?s needs, and how to try to be more patient with
them. To try to accommodate what messages they are trying to send to me through behavior,
through work, through avoidance of work and so on.
She goes on to explain that she does this through preparation of the environment and the
materials as well as professional development that is tailored to her students needs. She
talks about having a child with sensory integration needs, explaining that she
?Went to conferences and read so much about SI and went to a workshop about it and learned
how to meet the needs of children who have either kinesthetic needs or sensory input [needs] in
any way, [and that] now this little boy in my class [this year] may be more successful in my room
because of that [time invested previously].
Pam?s enthusiasm for learning about every student in order to properly differentiate
instruction demonstrates the importance of this instruction to her practice. She goes on to
define this differentiation in public school terminology. ?Somebody once said that
[teaching in] ?the Montessori way? is like having an IEP for every kid in your class.?
Contextual Learning and Real World Experiences
Judy, Manjit, and Pam all touch upon the importance of providing children with a
framework in which to situate their learning, and a reason to reach for new knowledge.
Judy believes in
?Inspiring kids to believe that not all knowledge has been discovered and that they truly are in
the process of discovering. They could name a very high number that has never been named. They
could be the scientist that is going to find out that this Universe is expanding and we are going to
see new and different things. They could be the ones to find it. They could find a fossil that is
unnamed. Inspiring them to believe that they are exploring....
Manjit also talks about the importance of motivating children with purposeful
exploration. She talks about the lessons in history, geography, and science as tools with
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which ??we can help children see where things were, where they are, and where they
could be in the future [and to understand] that they are the ones that would make a
difference in the future.? Pam also talks about the importance of real and hands-on
exploratory experiences in contextual learning. She describes the lack of enthusiasm she
was met with when she tried to have the children study ancient cultures through literacy
integration. ??The kids were just... not so enthused about it. They don?t take it to where
they want to take it when it?s just through a book.? These examples demonstrate an
understanding of the importance of materials, field experiences, and scientific exploration
in the classroom for children of this age.
Observation and Listening
Judy, Jenny, and Pam, all touch briefly on the role of observation and listening in
their instructional settings. Judy describes her current classroom situation, in which some
students have yet to settle into learning, by placing the impetus on the teacher to continue
?observing and trying to figure out what is their best motivator,? rather than on the child
to shape up and fit into the existing structure. Jenny talks about withholding
consequences until she has repeatedly observed the same behavior and provided chances
for reform, implying the importance of observation in building a respectful interaction
between teacher and student and in preempting obvious behaviors before they occur.
?I think it?s a logical consequence because of what has gone on before. I mean very often
this is a child I would have observed over a period of time doing something inappropriate
and being given several chances to correct their behavior and still choosing not to do it.?
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Pam feels grateful for the observational strategies she learned as part of her
undergraduate degree in education. ?I feel like there were still some strategies. The
observation part of it I think really helped me.? She explains how this has guided her in
meeting the needs of her students, as she is
?Always looking for? a gap in instruction or in the materials [when the children don?t
understand a concept]. So I think that that for me is also just being a good observer and I think my
observation skills [have] become much stronger over time.
Pam goes on to explain that, in addition to uncovering academic needs, she is also able to
discover the motivations of children
?Through interviewing and through finding out what they do out of school and watching them on
the playground [and]? in the classroom. Just observing their behaviors. [One] little girl was so
all the time and?I think that a lot of her reading development came from doing dramas and things
like that in the classroom.
Pam explains how observation helps her to meet the needs of each individual child and to
understand the components that need attention.
Rewards, Punishments, and Intrinsic Motivators
Unlike the other components of the framework, teachers were asked explicitly
about their feelings in regards to intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. It was explained to
them that this conflict presented the most glaring difference between Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy and Montessori Education, with the former explicitly condoning the use of
rewards in the classroom and the latter explicitly condemning and use of external
motivators or punishments. What follows is an exploration of the themes that arose
during this portion of the interview.
Each of the teachers explicitly states a firm belief in the value of intrinsic
motivation. Judy explains how for her, this belief stems from her background in
international development. She worked on a project that examined the nature of self-
governance and group organization, and then felt drawn to Montessori because
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?everything that I had read about Montessori was about teaching children to be centered
within themselves and to be able to self-guide and be self-governing.? Judy also believes
that part of her work as a teacher is to inspire children towards productive self-
governance. Jenny also expresses a belief in
?The Montessori philosophy of freedom and responsibility. I think that a child comes into a
Montessori classroom and their interests are respected and they're a lot of time given the freedom
to explore those interests. I think Montessori's whole idea of when a child is acting on their
interests and that interest is satisfied, that content that comes from that? results in peace within a
child, and it affects the whole classroom. I think freedom and responsibility is the most important
thing. Giving the children choice to explore their own interests. I think in the public school we
can?do that when we manage to teach the required curriculum but still give them time to do
things that they want. Long periods of time, sometimes over days. The resulting satisfaction the
child gets I think translates into good behavior.
Here, Jenny explains a belief that developing intrinsic motivation precludes a need for
rewards and punishment. Manjit also believes in the penultimate importance of fostering
intrinsic motivation.
Well, the foremost thing is to provide to help the children become free with discipline?not just
freedom where they can do anything they want to. It comes from inner discipline I would say?.
They can move around with a purpose. They are not just moving around aimlessly?.
Manjit also recognizes the difficulty of developing this intrinsic motivation for a child,
expressing a belief that it is hard work to understand all of the components of purposeful
activity in the classroom. Pam also iterates the importance of intrinsic motivation, which
derives from her time in the Peace Corps, where she realized that ??its really hard to
motivate people to do something that they don't want to do, that they have no interest in
doing.? She believes deeply not only in the power of intrinsic motivation but also in the
absence of ? extrinsic rewards in the classroom, [which] really helps them focus on the
importance of learning and on work.? She goes on to express a firm belief in children?s
desire to ??fit in and take care of their environment?. I think most kids are passionate
and empathetic.?
These teachers also place limits on self-governance, however. Judy explains that
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?Not working is not a choice,? going on to explain that she does not permit random acts
of destruction in the classroom because the children have chosen to destroy. ?Randomly
knocking stuff off the wall or taking rulers and slashing the curtains, that's not acceptable.
The teachers believe in enforcing their limits through the use of logical or natural
consequences. Judy firmly states that ?Yes, there are consequences. The work is
removed. My first year I had a little boy who slashed people with rulers that had a little
metal strip on them so I put the rulers away. I worked on?helping him?[through]
physical spacing of furniture,? which provided him with boundaries. Manjit expresses
some frustration with the sole reliance on a philosophy of believing in internal motivation
and redirecting the children to work when they misbehave. ?...Following the Montessori
philosophy you try to direct them back to work, but at times they are just not motivated.
You know I look at myself and question myself [but] some children do lack that internal
discipline.?
Because of such frustration, teachers sometimes feel obligated to be creative and
rely on other disciplinary systems. Some teachers also extend consequences one step
further, using language to provide a link between the action and the consequence that
may not otherwise be apparent. Judy is reluctant to take away children?s recess.
I believe in recess. I believe in large motor [development] and so ?what I have said is that if you
then cannot choose and you're really using your recess time [in class] then you need to think about
that because we have our hands are our guides and we need to be using our hands constructively.
Jenny describes a process of isolating a child from the group when they are not compliant
with classroom guidelines.
Occasionally I have asked one or two children? to leave the room, just step outside for a few
minutes. They take their work outside?[only as a result of] either or physically or verbally
attacking another child.
At times, after several reminders to work quietly, she also resorts to asking the children to
separate within the classroom. Pam feels that consequences can be as simple as the child
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being rejected by other children, excluded from the group for poor behavior. She also
believes that for children of this age, ?the disappointment that you [the teacher] have in a
child?s behavior is enough punishment for them.?
At other times, teachers rely on positive, work related incentives to bring children
to where they need to be in the classroom. Pam believes that providing the opportunity
for children to contribute to the classroom through making materials helps to motivate
them positively.
I had a little boy last year who made a parts of the volcano work and its on the shelf. He left last
year to go to the fourth grade and this year the kids are using it. The kids saw him in the hallway
and they said, "We're using his work! We're using his work! We used your volcano work and
we're learning about the parts of the volcano."
She also believes that the process of watching other children become excited by work
helps to motivate children. Jenny also recalls a process of motivating a child to work
through providing him with time to pursue his interests once he had completed his
required assignments. ?He would have to finish?his assignments, and then he could
draw, or even? make an illustration that went with the lesson.... I don't know if it was so
much time to do it or showing him the opportunities when he could use his artwork.?
Pam has also relied on work as a motivator in a ?sticks and carrots? sense of the word.
However, she has struggled internally with this system, and is trying to back off of it. She
talks about a student who
?Really wants to make mud bricks. I said you're not making any mud bricks until you can get the
work done that I?m asking you to do. I don't know if he?s working towards it or not. I read in The
Science behind the Genius that if you give kids that incentive to do what they really want, the
work that they do before that is going to be so much more minimal. If you say ?Okay, you can
work on the art project after you do this word study. That word study is going to be completely
rushed not their best work, and then they're not going to have a lot of time to focus on that art. So
both works are going to be minimal.
Many of the teachers have developed their beliefs about rewards and punishments
through experience. Judy describes the disciplinary system used by a school that she
worked in when her children were still in elementary school.
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I started teaching at that school and their discipline system was set up such that they had a
board?. If you were good all day there was a green slip that was put in a pocket and if you were
sort of good then it was yellow and if you were not so good then it was red but if you were really
bad it was black This really bothered me because this was an integrated school and there were a lot
of African American kids there. [We were sending them] the message that [the] really bad?color
was black.
She goes on to describe her daughter?s preoccupation with this system, to the point where
all she could remember at the end of the day was the color of her behavioral slip. Judy
also spent time in a school where students were suspended for their ?bad? behavior, a
system which she felt sent struggling, inner-city high school kids back out onto the street,
denying them educational opportunities and reinforcing their opportunities to get
arrested. Jenny also comes from a place of having had a negative experience with
consequences. She describes
Coming straight from Sweden [to Neighboring County]. It was terrible. It was terrifying, even as
an adult, ?to see the ways the [graded program?s] teachers treated the children. The loud voices
and the language. I was totally unprepared [for] punishments.
Such experiences, in part, have led her to believe that this type of discipline system
causes ??the children [to] become dependent on somebody else for their moral
judgments.? Manjit also describes being required to use external rewards for the children
in another public school setting. But, she says, ?I didn't do it for too long. I just didn't
want to do it, I guess.? Pam has much stronger feelings about her exposure to a strong
form of consequence. She explains that in Lesotho,
I did not feel completely prepared for?corporal punishment. That was something I had to deal
with on my own and I told them that I didn't like it. I tried to teach them other ways of dealing
with it.
She drew upon her student teaching experience in a public school that had used a reward
system, which she described at length in her autobiographical sketch. Pam has also had
negative personal experiences, as an adult, with extrinsic rewards, which have led her to
feel that they are insulting to children. She describes being in a class in which ??they
asked me to do a task and if I got the task done first I would get a piece of candy. I was so
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insulted?because they weren't respecting my pace. They weren't respecting my way of
learning.?
However, in spite of their strong feelings, Judy, Pam and Manjit express some
doubts about the preeminence of a plan that relies solely on intrinsic motivation and
logical consequences. Judy describes how
?Pam and I have gone on this journey of the whole issue of intrinsic motivations and where that
all starts. [We have asked ourselves] where is Skinnerian vs. Intrinsic motivation? ...Are kids
naturally born understanding how to work within an intrinsic motivational setting? I just think that
there is a body of knowledge on both sides that needs to be tapped and explored and I will admit
that I am, even after having two children and teaching, still working on the whole issue of
incentives and motivations?Some of our kids really respond immediately to what I call a
graduated sanction which means they are waiting?for the loud voice, because they hear that? in
other places. [However] I feel very comfortable working with intrinsic motivators in my
classroom. I have never been the type of person who gave M & Ms for potty training?but I know
lots of people who do. I am really curious about what is the end product of that?. No one is
paying our kids to go and take things off the shelf or...[saying] if you do that math work you get
four pieces of candy. We know from what Maria Montessori said that the hands are the great
healer. Work is the great healer.
Manjit explains that she is not adverse to praise, which is considered by many to be an
extrinsic motivator. She feels that although ?In my practice I have not done the external
rewards? I don't mind saying ?yes, you did a good job.? Not all the time but some
children?will be a little more motivated to go on.?
Manjit and Pam both address the issue of coexisting in a space with a program
that uses a system of external rewards. Manjit feels that
As a school I would say if everyone is walking in the hall and the graded teachers expect their
children to walk quietly in a line but some of us [Montessori teachers], we don't care about
that?its kind of chaotic [and] the children get mixed messages?. In the common spaces and I
think there should be some common discipline.
Pam expresses frustration with the disciplinary tactics suggested by the resource teachers.
The first thing they say for a behavior problem is come up with a behavior chart. I don't agree with
having a bucket of candy, I don?t agree with having toys and I don?t agree with having a lot of the
things that they suggest that I see other teachers doing. So I've come up with my own tool for
observing positive and negative attention getting behaviors and I don?t know if that works yet
really. I've seen this little boy start to self-monitor though, to look at his behaviors as positive and
negative.
At other times, though, Pam feels that behavior charts and extrinsic motivators may serve
as a bridge to intrinsic motivation for children who have never experienced it before. She
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recounts two instances in which such a system was effective in her perception. An
example of this describes a ?little boy who was depressed [for whom external rewards]
got him to the point where he was loving work again.? However, she encountered
problems in trying to remove the reward system once the desired behavior was achieved.
Teachers who teach in a culturally relevant Montessori tradition believe that the
development of individual students is central to classroom practice.
The teachers in this study were asked about the ways in which they incorporate
children?s cultural identities into their classroom practice. While all of them responded to
this question with some strategies for honoring and incorporating culture, their level of
thoughtfulness and awareness in regard to this issue varied. At other times during the
interviews, this issue surfaced in multiple ways, with teachers expressing a perception of
their practice that fit closely with elements of developing individual and cultural
identities. The components of a pedagogy that incorporates student?s individual and
cultural identities into the classroom and builds curriculum and classroom structure
around those identities, as were identified in the teachers? stated beliefs, are laid out
below.
Incorporating Cultural Identities into the Classroom
All four teachers were asked directly about this issue, and all four responded with
varying depth. Judy, in particular, broaches the issue before she was asked about it, and
her opinions on this subject are thematic to her overall responses. Judy speaks about the
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value of her experiences living abroad in two different African cultures for more than six
years. One of the lessons she took from that time was the idea that
?People learn in different ways. I have learned a lot about how to get information across to
people from different backgrounds. I worked really hard on trying to learn better ways?. I'm
learning about discipline techniques in different cultures and some of them I guess I don't want to
know about.
This indicates a culturally responsive manner of pedagogical delivery, while other
components of her interview focus on adding to and sometimes altering the curriculum.
She speaks specifically about inviting Hispanic, North African, and Asian families to
share elements of their culture. Interestingly, she does not identify African American
families as a separate culture.
We mainly wove?the bridges [between school and home] within the classroom and the class
work that we have been doing. We've had holiday celebrations where they've brought different
foods or we've tried different recipes for different countries.
Interestingly, she expresses a belief that these practices not only fit closely with a
Montessori pedagogy but also were condoned by Montessori as she built her theoretical
framework. She talks about the importance of studying world cultures through history
and geography, beginning with ancient civilizations and moving through modern
cultures. She feels that as a result of these studies, ??kids start to see that they are
connected to the oneness of human kind.?
Pam also focuses in on this issue of incorporating and building upon cultural
identity throughout her interview. Pam touches briefly upon the notion of altering
pedagogy to better serve culturally diverse students.
As far as [teaching the second language learners]?in the classroom I?m learning that I have to
really speak slowly. Very few will tell me slow down. So I?ve come up with little hand
signals?because the behaviors start when they don?t understand what is being said?. I?ve been
trying to do a lot more vocabulary development in the classroom and it?s interesting.
As part of this vocabulary development, she invited a Spanish-speaking student to help
her developing flashcards and then asked him to teach lessons to other children. She also
feels that as a teacher, she needs to be conscious of the materials in the classroom and
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types of texts she is making available. She discusses the importance, emphasized in her
University preparation, of ?Making sure that what you are using with children is
culturally diverse. So that they see that there are not only white characters in every
book.? In Lesotho, she enacted this practice by painting a wall-sized map of the country
in the schoolhouse, giving children the opportunity to learn about their own geographical
surroundings. However, the majority of Pam?s responses that fit into this category
correspond to Judy?s notion of adding to the curriculum. At several points during her
interview, she spoke of ?celebrating? cultures, a large part of which revolved around
having celebration in the classroom around holidays and sharing foods.
We do a holiday celebration every year. This is by the kids choosing that we do this?. We all
pick a holiday. Last year I had two Muslim children in my class and so we looked at Ramadan?
[as well as] Hanukah? Christmas?Kwanza?[and] a Mexican thing, Los Posados?. Parents
have come in to talk and they share they stories with the kids and so we have a big celebration and
everybody shares what they did. Every group has some kind of food or some kind of cultural
experience even if they're not from that culture, to celebrate it.
Jenny and Manjit both respond to this question more briefly, and correlated ideas
do not resurface throughout their interviews as they do with Pam and Judy.
Jenny talks both about being aware of the materials in classroom and about celebrating
cultures through a holiday celebration similar to the one discussed by Pam. Manjit
discusses an approach that is more transformative of the curriculum, in which children
study different cultures throughout the year, write about them, and then share their
knowledge and some representative food with their classmates.
Incorporating Individual Identities into the Classroom
Because one of the basic premises of Montessori is that the teacher should follow
the lead of the child, it is not surprising that all four teachers talk extensively about
building upon the children?s individual identities in the classroom. Judy speaks about
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this issue as both a success and a challenge. While she saw one of her greatest challenges
as figuring out the ??key personality quirks in children,? she also feels that this is one of
the things she puts the most effort into.
I really feel like I work hard at helping each child become who he or she is going to be on their
journey the time that I have them?. Its one of the key things that I really love about Montessori
because there are many ways in which we can guide children and many ways in which they can
heal themselves in the room. I think that's one of the key ones.
Furthermore, she feels that this exploration of self is one of the key elements of a
Montessori pedagogy, and is the key to helping children discover where they are going in
life. When children leave her room, she hopes that they will take with them, among other
things, the knowledge ?that every child has something to offer to the world. We are all
unique and different with incredible talents.? Like Judy, Jenny feels that meeting the
child?s individual needs is a point of great success for her. She, too, feels that this success
is essential to a Montessori practice, of which she feels that all of the essential elements
are subcategories of ??following the child. Within that falls? meeting the child?s needs,
giving them the freedom with responsibility, being aware of their developmental stages,
all the nuts and bolts...fall into that.?
Manjit and Pam talk about this issue from a different perspective. Manjit
discusses how a course offered by the county made her more aware of the need to
accomplish this identity development with all children. This course ??made me more
aware of the fact that I should be asking questions to all the children not just focusing on
a few.? Pam continues to seek coursework to help her meet the needs of every child,
including those with exceptionalities. She finds that although a class may seem specific to
only one child, it later helps her in her praxis with other children. She also talks about
learning to incorporate identity development through a source external to Montessori, her
University teacher preparation program, which ??was valuable and I think it sparked a
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passion in me that still exists today for working with kids and for finding the best ways to
help children learn?? Like Judy and Jenny, Pam feels that this recognition of individual
needs is one of her greatest successes, although for her she feels that it is still emergent.
I think I?ve really started to figure out how to meet children?s needs, and how to try to be more
patient with them. To try to accommodate what messages they are trying to send to me through
behavior, through work, through avoidance of work and so on.
Pam gives an example of how she draws out knowledge through the observation and
development of individual interests.
I try and focus on their passions.... [One student] didn't really care about China but I [suggested
that we] do a timeline of fashion. I bought a coloring book about the Chinese costumes or their
clothing and she made a timeline out of it. That really got her excited about the Chinese culture
and was excited to participate more in it.
In this way, Pam was able to draw a student into the required curriculum through the
foundation of her own observed interests.
Fostering Independence and Developing Freedom with Responsibility
While all four teachers discuss this issue, their responses represent a variety of
conceptions about what it means to build a responsible independence in the classroom.
Judy talks about a continuum of approaches that the children take to the environment, and
the way in which she attempts to meet them where they are.
I am starting to think that there is a continuum of a way in which a child approaches the
Montessori environment?[on] my report cards? I write about this continuum of self-guidance.
As we know some kids can just come right into the room and really just be very curious about
everything on the shelf and other children need guidance about how to select and how to make
choice. There are all sorts of lessons about how to make choices, [and about what to do] if you are
overwhelmed with this room.
She feels committed to working with children on this continuum, though, because she
sees that ?The children's role is explorer and discoverer on their journey.? She also feels
that not only do children need to practice freedom with responsibility, but that the
practice of this freedom is responsibility for each child. While Judy is hesitant to
encroach too much on the child?s decision-making ability, she does express that ?not
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working is not a choice,? and that children are not permitted to behave in ways that are
destructive to the classroom.
Jenny also places great importance on the concept of developing a responsible
independence within each child in the classroom. She alleges herself to this idea as one of
the foundational concepts that brought her to Montessori. She feels that this notion is the
one that truly makes the classroom function.
?I think it all goes back to the Montessori philosophy of freedom and responsibility. I think that a
child comes into a Montessori classroom and their interests are respected and they're a lot of time
given the freedom to explore those interests. I think Montessori's whole idea of when a child is
acting on their interests and that interest is satisfied, that content that comes from that, it, you
know, it results in peace within a child, and it affects the whole classroom. I think freedom and
responsibility is the most important thing.
As the teacher, she feels that her role in this is to show the children how to work by
introducing them to new materials and concepts on a consistent and necessary basis.
Finally, Jenny couches this belief in terms of an underlying faith in children. ?Yes. I think
it?s...that belief that it is the child who creates herself and believing...in the end that
everybody wants to be good person.... If you give them the right tools, the environment to
fulfill themselves and to fulfill their potential.?
Manjit also places her belief in this tenet of a Montessori philosophy at the
forefront of her work in the classroom. She feels that ??the foremost thing is to provide
to help the children become free with discipline?.? She talks about observing other
teachers enacting this in the classroom during her practicum experience, describing the
difference between a private and a public Montessori school
Well at ?private school? it was a little different I would think. The teacher goes by as
Montessori says that you direct the child to work and when the child is wandering away or is
misbehaving [you do this]. [At public school], the child misbehaved and the teacher couldn't
handle him he was sent to the principles office...I did see that.
She does not pass judgment on these two different teachers though, but states that she,
too, has experienced difficulty in enabling freedom with responsibility at times. Although
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she speaks of a variety of strategies to help them, she feels at times that children are not
motivated to seek out independence. Yet, even with the most difficult child, she has
found that engaging them in work is the saving grace, implying that with responsibility
comes an inner calm that cannot be found in disruptive or destructive behavior.
Pam also talks about the importance of this issue in developing children?s self-
respect.
Kids having choice of the work?gives them all sorts of good feelings of just having that control
of their environment. I think that leads to the self-respect and self-confidence in themselves to be
able to make those choices and the fact that I can trust them with that.
Like Judy, and Manjit, however, she does not always find that this process is an easy one.
She discusses her work with a school counselor, an African American woman.
She?s really helped me learn to refocus [and] to look at how I talk to children and just observing
the behavior and giving them the power to make the choice. It works with every kid. I feel that it
makes them think.... The more you point things out that the kids are doing wrong, even as simple
as ?your shoe is untied,? ?they can have the slightest amount of control in their lives. It makes a
difference.
Pam goes on to express a belief that is similar to Jenny?s that helping children to develop
this independence is a question of having a strong faith in their innate ability to learn and
behave in a pro-social way.
Making Cross-Curricular Connections in the Classroom
Judy, Jenny, and Pam all talked about the importance of making cross-curricular
connections in the classroom. Judy focused in on how she sees the students making these
connections naturally, referring to them as gifts of the children?s discovery.
The one thing that really stands out are just the gifts the kids discover. The discoveries are always
made. Today we were talking about early humans and how some mammals do have tools and how
they use tools to get termites out of the ground. One of my little girls found a book, just in the
middle of the day and found a chimpanzee eating termites off of a stick and just immediately
shared that with a couple of kids and she shared it with me. It was somewhere in the room. I didn?t
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even have the book out and she discovered it.... We were studying ancient Mali last year and one
of my little guys went out to recess and he all the sudden started swinging three hula hoops and he
said "oh, those are the colors of the Mali flag." Just those connections are really nice. I see them in
this population too.?
Judy?s emphasis on cross-curricular discovery is based in her understanding of the
curriculum as a inter-woven fabric. Although she feels that the weaving together of the
different curricular strands is a challenge, she feels that is foundational to children?s?
process of discovery. This is an issue that she feels deeply about, identify curricular
integration as one of the core tenets of a Montessori practice. ?I think that just the way
[the classroom] is set up?teaches comparative analysis. It teaches inter-disciplinary
[learning], comparisons, similarities, and differences, and kids start to see connections all
over the place.? Manjit talks about how the historical and scientific backdrop provided by
the history and geography lessons help the children to understand their place and the
possibilities for their futures. Pam again discusses the valuable contribution made to her
curricular approach by sources external to Montessori. She explains that she is part of an
arts integration study-group that works with the Kennedy Center.
I really feel like arts integration really helps kids from every walk of life. Just being part of the
experience, truly being part of it and having to think about the content through the art and the arts
at the same time. I?m really loving that. I?ve taken only two classes on it now, and then every
month we go to another class and we meet every month to discuss what we?re doing and support
each other.
Personal Error and Self-Correction
Judy and Jenny talk briefly about the empowerment experienced by students
when they are given the time and the tools to correct their own errors rather than being
corrected by an adult. Judy feels that this process is integral to a functional classroom
practice. Jenny feels that it extends beyond the curriculum and into behavioral issues. She
talks about giving the children multiple opportunities to correct their own behavior before
intervening. When she finally does intervene, she feels that ??It?s a logical consequence
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because of what has gone on before?. Very often this is a child [has been] observed over
a period of time doing something inappropriate? given several chances to correct their
behavior and still choosing not to do it.
Student Pacing in the Curriculum
Jenny is the only teacher to talk explicitly about the importance of student pacing
in the curriculum, although it is tied into other areas of identity development. She feels
that giving students the power to learn at their own pace is a integrally tied to the pro-
social behavior she sees in her students as opposed to students who are not allowed this
freedom. When ?all the children are not being forced to do something at the same time... I
think they are more satisfied and at peace with themselves.? She also relates this student
pacing to the concept of following the child, not only in terms of differentiated
instruction but also in terms of differentiated pacing.
Teacher?s Relationship with Parents
All four of the teachers in this study express some frustration with parents, with
some of the teachers zoning in on single parents, parents of low socio-economic status,
and African American parents. Because of the sensitive nature of this data, teacher?s
pseudonyms will not be tied to their ideas. Some of the teachers talk about trying to
understand who the kids are culturally, specifically through an examination of at-home
disciplinary practices. For two of the teachers, however, this examination comes with
frustration at the use of corporal punishment in some homes. One of the teachers in
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particular struggles with the boundaries between school and home, recounting a speaker
who last year asked the teachers to
?Stop thinking about the home connection. We need to spend our time thinking about what we
are doing here [at school]. I struggle with that. I think that there are home and school connections.
Not that I would stop working really hard and doing everything I could in the classroom to help
children because something is not going right at home?but I think that there have to be bridges,
backward and forward linkages, home and school, school and home.
Three of the teachers directly express frustration with certain parents. One talks
about a second grade child who ??was constantly being picked up by the police? She
iterates that ??His mother was a single parent and she would very rarely come if called
and so he was more or less alone most of the time.? Another teacher talks about parents
in a private school setting as pushing their children too hard ?...the parents were not
allowing their children to be children and they wanted them to be Einsteins?I felt like I
probably could have continued with the children if they didn't have their parents.?
Several of the teachers mention attempting to educate parents about Montessori,
but much less emphasis is placed on learning from the parents in a positive sense. One
teacher is in constant contact with a specific parent whose child is struggling. She has that
child call home during the day when he is not being cooperative. Two of the teachers talk
about sending newsletters on a regular basis, and the school requires biannual parent
conferences as well. For one teacher, school to home communication is seen as a
strength, from which she derives a lot of support. This same teacher discusses the
importance of ?being aware of the fact that we have so many cultures and making sure
that all those children's cultures were respected and honored.?
Teacher?s Concept of Culture
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Two of the teachers, Judy and Pam, talk extensively about their own cross-
cultural training. It is important to note, however, that while Manjit and Jenny do not
discuss this, they too have a background that is cross-cultural. For a more extensive
discussion of teacher?s concept of their own cultural selves, see the autobiographical
sketches.
Teachers who teach in a culturally relevant Montessori tradition believe that the goals of
education extend beyond content knowledge.
The teachers in this study were asked directly about what they felt to be the
ultimate goal of education. All of them responded with very similar notions, more or less
well developed. Many of the components of a pedagogy that is social-action oriented also
surfaced as themes in their interviews. Many of the teachers echo the sentiments of Judy,
as she explains that the goal of education, in her view, is to
?Figure out our place?. We have all kinds of data we say about how the universe started but
why is a question that no one has really answered and I believe that is our quest. We are all
looking and seeking the why. Finding our place in relationship to others in our family, our
community and the greater world.
Pam added to that the notion that children need to build a love of learning, so that they
can
?Be successful in the world and? be happy?and be doing what they want to be doing. The
[idea is] to prepare them so they can follow through on what they were meant to be doing. I think
that the classroom environment needs to provide a safe place for that to happen.
Overall, teachers? responses to the question of the goal of education fell into two main
categories, the development of a responsible citizenship and the development of world
peace.
Jenny, Manjit and Pam focused specifically on the development of a responsible
citizenry as a major goal of education. Jenny feels that the development of ?responsibility
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towards each other and themselves should be the ultimate goal.? She feels that this
development hinges upon a strong feeling of faith in the child on the part of the teacher.
Manjit begins by talking about the development of basic skills, but then quickly transfers
her thoughts to larger ideas. She feels that education of children has the task of
?preparing them for life,? and like Jenny she feels that
[The goal is] to help them be good citizens, ...usually people are interdependent. They come to
realize that we are all interdependent on each other in some way or the other. It may not be
directly but indirectly. Then in order to be a good citizen they need to participate in the community
or wherever they are. If it?s a school community or a home community they also have a role to
play there. Their role as a child may be in aiding the other children; they may help adults, etc....
Pam also expresses the development of elements of responsible citizenry, although she
does not mention it directly as Manjit and Jenny do. She feels that an educational process
that leads to the development of responsible citizenship should show children how ??To
be compassionate and to think about how their actions affect the world around them and
how they can create a better future for those that follow. Not just for them but for the
whole world.? Pam?s statements here come close to linking responsible citizenship to
social justice oriented education, which culturally relevant practitioners espouse.
Although Judy does not talk directly about citizenship, she does discuss education
for the development of world peace extensively. She thinks about world peace in a broad
context, feeling that talking about world peace is synonymous with
?Talking about the universe. We are talking about taking care of the environment, this beautiful
planet that we have?. We're talking about [the notion that] we all have...the same needs and we
have empathy for people in Iraq that are being murdered and children who can't live freely on the
street. It?s about the Universe.
In spite of her deep commitment to this type of education in the classroom, Judy feels
that Montessori teachers have a tendency to get caught up in semantics, using language to
define their practices that do not translate easily into compatible ideas with other sectors
of the educational field. She talks about how the graded program teachers at her school
become frustrated by this
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?Whole idea of peace, for example, the language we use is so abstract that they would prefer
character education. [They think] that this would help clarify what we are talking about. So
reflecting as Montessorians we need to think about when we say peace what do we mean.... For
some people, people have really fought hard to get where they are and they haven't been able to
[achieve this] in a peaceful way. So there is this whole [dilemma of wondering] ?Does it take
friction to get us where we need to be?? ?Does it take revolution?? ?Where does peace fit??
Judy revisits this dilemma again in her interview, espousing a strong allegiance to the
notion that peace does in involve friction, and that even in the classroom some discomfort
is necessary in order to achieve real community. Of this notion she determines that
We don't get to Peace without hard work. I don't think Mother Theresa would have said that
people who are hungry should sit there and think about peace. They need to think about ?what can
we do to help ourselves so that we can get something to eat.?
Jenny and Pam do not dig as deeply into the definition of peace as Judy.
However, they do discuss the ways in which Peace Education is implemented in a
Montessori classroom. Jenny sees this implementation as being integral to the foundation
of a Montessori pedagogy. She feels that the respect for children, student initiated pacing
and incorporation of the individual?s identity into the classroom lead to a more peaceful
environment. When asked about the meaning of Peace Education, she describes the basic
daily interactions of the classroom, feeling that ?...in the classroom I think its the way we
treat each other?the way we talk to each other, the way we interact with each other.?
Pam takes a different approach, again focusing on drawing in added curricular
components to the basic Montessori design. She talks about a Peace Curriculum, written
by Sonny McFarland, and explains how it addresses the need her children have ??for
them to look at the love that?s inside everybody [and to] focus on the positive.?
Building Classroom Communities
Jenny, Manjit, and Pam all discuss the importance of building community to the
healthy functioning of a Montessori classroom. Jenny identifies this as one of her
pedagogical strengths, asserting that she is ??very good at facilitating a classroom
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community so the kids feel safe, they enjoy coming to school and learning.? She
describes this process as being an investment of time and energy in the incoming students
each fall, explaining that she feels lucky to be able to keep the students for three years so
that each year she has only a small group to focus on. She also feels that the children?s
responsibility, in addition to their own learning, is to support one another?s learning.
Finally, she discusses the benefits of multi-age grouping in this process of building
community. ?This whole idea of community building that we work on, children helping
each other, working together, I think its much more difficult when its a group of children
that are the same age?.? Manjit and Pam agree with elements of Jenny?s beliefs, with
Manjit reinforcing the importance of learning to be a community member while in
elementary school so that later in life one can fulfill the duties of citizenship. Pam agrees
with the notion that community building is made easier and more meaningful be the
presence of three age levels in which children model for other children.
[The goal is] to help them be good citizens, I would say?. A good citizen...again where
they...usually people are interdependent. They come to realize that we are all interdependent on
each other in some way or the other. It may not be directly but indirectly. Then in order to be a
good citizen they need to participate in the community or wherever they are. If it?s a school
community or a home community they also have a role to play there. Their role as a child may be
in aiding the other children, they may help adults, etc...
Pam also identifies community building as one of the essential elements of Montessori.
Fostering School to Home Connections and Participating in Student?s Lives
Jenny, more than any of the other teachers, emphasizes the importance of bringing
parents into the classroom and being a part of her students? lives. Of her parents, she
explains that
? I tell them in the very beginning that [in] my classroom I have an open door policy. They are
welcome anytime. Even if they just come in the morning and? stay for a bit, [it?s] fine?. I write
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a newsletter on a regular basis, ?weekly I would say. I see a lot of them. They come up to the
classroom?. I call them. It?s something I've built up. Like if I organize something I make sure I
contact them personally. I want to make sure that everybody comes. Usually everybody does.... I
call them; I email them, even two or three times.
Jenny not only invests time and energy to draw her parents into the classroom, but also
invests time being a part of her students? lives by eating lunch with them in the classroom
every day. She talks about the value of ??making sure I try to interact with the child
every day?. I think our lunchtimes are a huge help to me that way. It is amazing, you
know, interacting socially with children. That situation really gives me an insight into
who they are and what they are thinking?. We talk about their interests and what
happened over the weekend?.?
Fostering Inter-Cultural Understanding in the Classroom
Judy and Pam touch briefly upon the notion of fostering inter-cultural
understanding in the classroom. Judy talks about how she is preparing herself to build
cultural bridges by learning more about other cultures.
I've studied a lot about Vietnamese culture and have Vietnamese friends so there is a bridge there about
knowing some of the cultural differences that might come up. I'm learning about Hispanic culture and how
there are allegiances to one's country [in this culture].
Pam also talks about learning about cultural sensitivity through her work in the Peace
Corps. She goes on to describe how her Montessori training taught her to celebrate
cultures and how her teacher preparatory program at the University showed her how to
look at her prepared environment with a critical eye. She also talks about the application
of this knowledge to her classroom practice.
We do a celebration of a culture. We celebrate Egypt [for example]. Everybody that wants to join
the study studies Egypt and we try to look at the fundamental needs and we study all the aspects of
the fundamental needs through Egypt. I choose a month and we do a [cultural] focus in each
month. I?m not sure if that works best and not everyone agrees with me the way that I am doing it.
The kids really get so involved into it and it becomes a whole class celebration of culture.
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Interestingly, neither Judy nor Pam mentions African American culture as being a culture
that they are investigating or studying with the students.
Knowledge Construction
Pam is the only teacher talk about an awareness of the way that children construct
cultural knowledge in the classroom, and she does not talk explicitly about teaching
knowledge construction. Rather, she explains that her University teacher education
program focused on ?Making sure that what you are using with children is culturally
diverse. So that they see that there are not only white characters in every book. Making
sure that your classroom reflects cultural diversity and celebrates it too.?
Critique of the System
All of the teachers had critical reflections on the internal workings of the school
as a system. While some of the teacher?s focused on previous places of employment,
other talked about the school by which they are now employed. Because of the sensitive
nature of this information, teacher?s pseudonyms will not be attached to their statements.
One of the recurrent themes of teachers? critique has to do with disciplinary
tactics endorsed by public schools. One teacher talks about a previous place of work,
describing the use of a behavior chart that she felt preoccupied the students to the point of
not being able to effectively learn. ? I felt that the discipline should be carried out a
different way and maybe incentives should be a little bit different.? The same teacher felt
similarly frustrated by another school that constantly suspended students for their
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behavior, pushing them back out onto the streets. Another teacher talks about the issue of
discipline at the location of this study. She explains that all of the teachers ?? have the
same problems, but we deal with them differently, and? sometimes I think more
successfully. We don't have the same level of need or behavior problems that they [the
graded program teachers] do.? She goes on to explain what she dislikes about the
disciplinary approach taken by teachers outside of the Montessori program at the school.
She feels that
?The way that some of the adults interact with the children is not what I would call ideal. In the
lunchroom or recess, even the specials. [They tell the children] just...do what I tell you to do, don't
ask [questions]. I encourage my children to...ask questions...I make it a point to tell them way
before I ask them to do something. [They are] not respecting them as individuals.
Another theme relates to the lack of communication between two different
programs housed in the same school. One teacher feels that ?Its all of our
responsibility...to try so hard to hear each other....? She continues with a description of
how this responsibility is not being met, because teachers
?Are stuck in a circle at this school where we are almost like children?. There is this constant
process of trying to make things equal and I have a chapter from a book that is called "Equal is
Not Better." Equity is a good idea but if everybody is reaching for being totally equal then we are
going to look totally alike and we will wipe out diversity.
Another teacher talks about specific concerns that result from this lack of
communication. She is frustrated that the children are divided by grades for specialist
classes, explaining her feeling that ?...learning happens vertically and horizontally, not
just horizontally.? She feels that this difficult situation results from a lack of deep
listening on the part of administrators at the school. Of the principal she says that
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?I feel that she hasn't listened at all. She really doesn't listen?. I just feel very strongly that we
have an administrator who is not interested in learning anything about Montessori and who just
uses information, bits and pieces of information, to suit her own agenda.... I really, really strongly
feel that she doesn't listen.
A third theme revolves around the mandated curriculum, elements of which are
felt to be trite and unnecessary, even counter-productive, by some teachers. One teacher
discusses the challenge presented by ??integrating the required curriculum. Some of [the
standards]?I don?t think are developmentally appropriate. The concepts are harder for
the kids and there's not relevance. Things are taken out of context?.? Another teacher
agrees with this assertion, explaining her struggle with the content and the mandated
memorization of concepts.
I think that the curriculum and the pressures from the county definitely affect?the flow of life in
the classroom. [It] is hard to [follow the child] sometimes when you have to make sure that they
know whom Betsy Ross is and what she did. To make sure that they memorize that by first or
second grade doesn?t seem to add to the flow of life in the classroom.
These teachers seem to feel frustrated not by the integration of standards they perceive as
valuable, but by having to teach concepts by a certain date and being required to teach
content they view as arbitrary.
Some of the teachers go to great lengths to attempt to explain the origins of these
misunderstandings. One teacher feels that it is a question of semantics.
Never before have I worked in a situation where it really has come to me that we are speaking a
different language. We have really come up against it here.... [It is like living in another culture]
and you're trying to get your ideas out but? not [succeeding at] it so you ask yourself, ?what am I
not doing or saying, what can I do to make myself better understood? We?ve done a lot of that
here.
Another teacher believes that
The whole environment of working in a school that has two programs [is hard] ?Having to
constantly explain what the program is about and then being misunderstood. I think there are a lot
of misunderstandings. Some are really [about]...being on the defensive all the time and not having
administrators who are Montessori trained. I think [the misunderstandings are] because [what we
are doing] is so different? from what they're doing?. I don't know if they feel threatened?.
A third teacher presents a very different view of sharing a school with a graded program,
saying that she feels that there is a lot to learn from teachers who teach in a different
discipline. ?I like working at [this school], even though half the school is a graded
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program?. Of course there were a few things that we had to cater to, like the testing et
cetera, which I thought, here in a public school you just have to do it. You can't just say
no.?
Research Question 4
In what ways do teachers exhibit a praxis that is compatible with the components of
a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori??
Each teacher was observed twice over the course of two weeks in late October
and early November. The data collected was organized into grids, showing behaviors
corresponding to a culturally relevant Montessori praxis. The tables cross-categorized the
data according to the three major categories discussed in table 3.2? , Along with the
origin of the evidence in the teacher, the environment, or the students. Tables 4.1-4.4
present a combination of data gathered during both teacher observations. For a discussion
of the data collected in these observation tables, refer to chapter five.
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Table 4.1 Judy Leventhal
Evidence
?
?of drawing out knowledge
from the students personal
and cultural identities.
?of fostering independence
and encouraging freedom
with responsibility.
?of fostering the
development of world peace
and responsible citizenship.
?in the
Environment
* The room is segmented
into curricular areas,
providing for differentiated
instruction.
* There are many areas
available for cooperative
learning work, both on the
floor and on tables.
* Evidence of children?s
work decorates the room,
indicating a pedagogy that is
caring and respectful.
* Many non-fiction books
are available, providing
possibilities for ?real world?
exploration.
* Choice is evident in the
materials located throughout
the room, providing
possibilities for cross-
curricular connections and
fostering independence.
* Evidence of children?s
work hung throughout the
room indicates the
incorporation of children?s
individual identities into the
classroom.
* Music and artwork from a
variety of cultures are
evident in the classroom,
providing possibilities for
the beginning of inter-
cultural understanding.
?in the
teacher?s
praxis
* Differentiated instruction
is evident in lessons in
writing, sense observation,
art, and drama.
* The teacher circulates the
room, asks questions, and
stands back to observe,
indicating a practice of
observation and listening.
* At times, firm guidelines
are expressed, through
asking children to work
quietly, and insisting that
children follow directions
and choose work.
* Respect for students is
evident in the teacher?s tone.
* A caring pedagogy is
evident in the provision of
snack, and the sharing of
joys and concerns with the
children.
* The teacher sometimes
exhibits external rewards in
the form of praise.
* Freedom with
responsibility is fostered
through observing
responsible behavior out
loud to the children.
* Independence is fostered
through allowing the
children to go to the
cafeteria by themselves to
get their lunches.
* The teacher uses s
questioning methodology to
pull out prior knowledge.
* The teacher leaves
students to work alone
during the independent
practice phase of each
lesson, which guides them
towards independence.
* Children?s individual
identities are incorporated
into the classroom through
the sharing of joys in circle
time and appreciations at
lunch time.
* The teacher introduces a
material for the sharing of
joys and concerns,
providing for community
building.
?in the
students?
behavior
* Children are working
independently on a variety
of projects, both together
and separately, displaying
internal motivation as well
as cooperative learning
techniques.
* Children are engaged in
and comfortably switching
between a variety of
meaningful activities,
indicating a degree of
freedom with responsibility.
*Children care for the
classroom environment at
clean up time.
* Children practice grace
and courtesy thorough the
use of problem solving
materials.
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Table 4.2 Manjit Bakshi
Evidence?
?of drawing out
knowledge from the
students personal and
cultural identities.
?of fostering
independence and
encouraging freedom with
responsibility.
?of fostering the
development of world
peace and responsible
citizenship.
?in the
Environment
* The organization of the
materials into curricular
areas allows for
differentiated instruction
and hands-on work.
* The numerous four
person tables provide space
for cooperative learning.
* The extensive body of
materials available for
choice in each organized
area provides for fostering
independence and making
cross-curricular
connections.
?in the
teacher?s
praxis
* The teaching of small
group lessons shows
cooperative learning and
differentiated instruction.
* The teacher displays
observation and listening
skills by using questioning
methodology and visual
monitoring both while in
small group lessons and
while standing aside or
over a child?s work.
* The teacher?s calm tone
of voice is respectful.
* The teacher fosters
intrinsic motivation by
directing the children back
to their work.
* The teacher provides firm
guidelines by directing the
children to follow social
norms, initiate and
complete work, and to
accomplish specific tasks
following lessons.
* The implementation of
one on one lessons,
observed several times,
allows for individual
identity development.
* The teacher draws upon
prior knowledge through
the use of questioning in all
lessons observed.
* The teacher verbally
restricts the students from
misusing the materials, and
guides children who are not
working back to work,
fostering independence and
freedom with
responsibility.
* The teacher redirects a
confused child to ask his
classmate rather than
asking the teacher,
fostering independence.
* The teacher shows the
children how to carry
materials, encouraging care
of the environment.
* If the teacher sees a child
misusing a material, she
reminds him of the
appropriate handling or
asks him to put it away.
* The teacher is observed
giving a lesson about the
fundamental needs of
humans, demonstrating the
value of good citizenship.
?in the
students?
behavior
* While the teacher is
giving lessons, the majority
of the children are engaged
in their own work, showing
evidence of intrinsic
motivation.
* Children work in small
groups and help one
another at times, showing
cooperative learning skills.
* The children are engaged
in a variety of activity from
multiple curricular areas at
most times during the
observations, displaying
independence and freedom
with responsibility.
* Children?s planet work
displays a cross-curricular
connection between science
and writing.
* Children choose work
independently, exhibiting
task initiation.
* Students help each other
with their work,
demonstrating a sense of
community.
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Table 4.3 Jenny Lind
Evidence?
?of drawing out
knowledge from personal
and cultural identities.
?of fostering independence
and encouraging freedom
with responsibility.
?of fostering the
development of world peace
and responsible citizenship.
?in the
Environment
* The division of the
materials into curricular
areas provides for
differentiated instruction.
* A job chart shows firm
guidelines.
* A cozy red chair suggests
a caring pedagogy.
* Materials for building
Indian villages, provide for
?real world? learning.
* The materials available
provide for fostering
independence and cross-
curricular connections.
* The display of children?s
work, flags of the world,
and a child?s personal
timeline show incorporating
individual and cultural
identities and honoring the
home culture.
* The flags of the world
show possibilities for
creating inter-cultural
understanding.
* The display of the child?s
personal timeline shows the
inclusion of parents in the
classroom culture.
* The job chart is an
indicator of requisite care
for the environment.
?in the
teacher?s
praxis
* The teacher provides firm
guidelines through clear
direction followed by
consistent reminders, setting
parameters for student
activity, redirecting children
to their work, giving the
children leadership
responsibilities, and
checking student work.
* The teacher shows respect
for students by preparing
them for activities and using
calm, polite language.
* The teacher practices a
pedagogy of caring by
reading with the children.
* The teacher groups
students, providing
opportunities for
cooperative learning and
differentiated instruction.
* The teacher shows skill in
observation and listening by
using questioning and
circulating the room.
* The teacher fosters
intrinsic motivation by
redirecting children to
work, at times giving praise.
* The teacher calls upon
prior knowledge through
her use of a questioning
methodology.
* The teacher fosters
independence and freedom
with responsibility by
asking older students to
guide younger students,
directing children to do
what needs to be done,
redirecting children to their
work, asking leading
questions, asking that the
children verbalize their
choices, scaffolding choices
by breaking them into steps
and providing students with
jobs in multiple contexts.
* The teacher incorporates
individual identities into the
classroom by displaying
work, giving individual
lessons and allowing them
to choose jobs.
* The teacher respects
student pacing by listening
for readiness to move on
and giving lessons.
* The teacher provides
opportunities for multiple
groupings through the
completion of projects and
readings, and pairing
students during work time
to help one another, giving
students the chance to build
community.
* The teacher encourages
students to care for their
environment and the
materials in it, and invites
students to help prepare the
environment.
?in the
students?
behavior
* Students learn in realistic
contexts as they build
models of native American
villages.
* Students make appropriate
learning choices, exhibiting
intrinsic motivation.
* The children prepare
themselves for lessons and
work, indicating
independence and freedom
with responsibility.
* Children take out work,
initiating tasks.
* The students initiate care
of the environment,
indicating internalization of
this process.
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Table 4.4 Pamela Stone
Evidence
?
?of drawing out knowledge
from the students personal
and cultural identities.
?of fostering independence
and encouraging freedom
with responsibility.
?of fostering the
development of world peace
and responsible citizenship.
?in the
environment
* The room is divided into
curricular areas displaying a
wide variety of materials
providing for differentiated
instruction and hands on
work.
* A job chart displaying
pictures of the children and
evidence of children?s work
around the room are
evidence of a pedagogy of
caring.
* The job chart is also
evidence of firm guidelines.
* The rocking chair and
cozy reading corner suggest
a caring pedagogy.
* The extensive body of
materials available for
choice in each organized
area provides for fostering
independence and making
cross-curricular
connections.
* The display of children?s
work, a sorting material that
depicts each child?s personal
and cultural interests, and
the pictorial job chart are
evidence of the
incorporation of student?s
individual and cultural
identities into the classroom.
* A peace area includes the
peace book and several
activities, showing evidence
of community building and
education for peace.
* The job chart is evidence
of a requisite care of the
environment.
?in the
teacher?s
praxis
* A consistent use of
questioning, circulating the
room during independent
work, and answering the
children?s questions are
evidence of observation and
listening.
* The request that disruptive
children separate, the
requirement that children
choose challenging work
and keep their work tidy,
and the occasional direction
of children back to work are
evidence of firm guidelines.
* The teacher displays
respect for the students
through her quiet tone and
calm demeanor.
* At times the teacher
evidences external rewards
through the use of praise.
* Differentiated instruction
is evident in the giving of
small group lessons.
* The teacher incorporates
children?s personal
identities into the classroom
through the use of
interpretive questioning.
* She fosters independence
and freedom with
responsibility by holding the
children accountable for
their work verbally and with
work plans, and by giving
them scaffolded and guided
choices.
* Twice, she fosters
independence without
responsibility. Once when a
child chooses not to come to
a lesson and that choice is
verbally validated, and once
when she voices the choice
of not following directions
as a legitimate choice.
* She allows for student
pacing by listing lesson
requests from children.
* The use of language
regarding ?love-lights? is
evidence of her community
building efforts.
* The calm way in which
she addresses the children
and fully includes them in
choice is also evidence
community building.
* She encourages children
to keep their workspaces
neat, fostering care of the
environment.
?in the
students?
behavior
* Some children work
diligently and make choices,
evidencing the development
of intrinsic motivation.
* At times children work
together in groups,
displaying an aptitude for
cooperative learning.
* Some children choose
work that appears
challenging and engaging,
providing evidence of
freedom with responsibility
and task initiation.
* Children are seen cleaning
up after themselves,
showing care of the
environment.
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Observation provides evidence of a pedagogy of ?drawing out? knowledge
 In the environment
The four teachers in this study demonstrate the ability to create an environment
that fosters the drawing out of knowledge in very similar ways. Their classrooms were all
segmented into major curricular areas, with each area containing several shelves stocked
with hands-on materials for learning about the area. Examples of this include large puzzle
maps of the seven continents for tracing and labeling, base ten bead bars, manipulative
alphabets, and scientific classification charts depicting animals from each of the five
kingdoms. Although the materials vary somewhat from room to room, the basic materials
are the same. Each room evidenced many areas available for cooperative learning work,
both on the floor and on tables. Many non-fiction books are available, providing
possibilities for ?real world? exploration.
There were some differences in the environmental design as well. Judy, Jenny,
and Pam all display evidence of children?s work, decorating the walls of the room,
indicating a pedagogy that is caring and respectful. Jenny and Pam each displayed job
charts, indicating firm guidelines, and Pam?s job chart, which displayed pictures of the
children, was also evidence of a caring pedagogy. Jenny and Pam both had cozy reading
areas, with a large red chair in Jenny?s room and big cushions in the library corner of
Pam?s room, suggesting a caring pedagogy. Jenny?s room contained materials for
building Indian villages, relating to a field trip she had taken the day of the first
observation, evidence of a ?real world? context for learning.
 In the teacher?s praxis
123
The elements of praxis observed also contained many similarities. The teaching of
small group lessons by each teacher shows evidence of fostering cooperative learning and
differentiating instruction. All of the teachers display observation and listening skills by
using questioning methodology and visual monitoring both while in small group lessons
and while standing aside or over a child?s work. Similarly, they all used unfailingly calm
tones of voice, indicating a pedagogy of respect.
There were some differences here as well. Jenny and Manjit were observed
fostering intrinsic motivation by consistently directing the children back to their work
when they were idle or disruptive. Jenny and Manjit also showed evidence of providing
firm guidelines by directing the children to follow social norms, initiate and complete
work, and to accomplish specific tasks following lessons. Pam and Manjit both separated
children who were disrupting the work of others. Pam also required that children choose
challenging work and keep their work tidy, and sometimes directed children back to their
work, evidencing some firm guidelines. Like Pam, Judy sometimes redirected children to
their work and asked for quieter voices. Pam, Jenny, and Judy were all heard using praise
to reinforce positive behaviors. Jenny provided very clear direction at all times and
through followed up with consistent reminders, and setting parameters for student
activity. She also provided the children with leadership responsibilities, and consistently
checked student work. Jenny and Pam were observed practicing a pedagogy of caring by
reading with the children. Judy practiced a caring pedagogy by sharing snack with the
children and talking with them about their joys and concerns.
 In the students behavior
124
In all four teacher?s classrooms, children work in small groups and help one
another at times, showing cooperative learning skills. However, only in Jenny and Manjit
classrooms were the majority of the children are engaged in their own work during the
teachers small group lessons with other children, showing evidence of intrinsic
motivation. In Pam and Judy?s classrooms, some children were working diligently and
making choices, evidencing the development of intrinsic motivation. Finally, in both Judy
and Jenny?s classrooms students were engaged in realistic work such as corn shucking
and building native American villages, providing for learning in realistic contexts.
Observation provides evidence of fostering identity development in students
 In the environment
Each of the teachers studied displayed the ability to foster identity development
through the extensive body of materials available for choice in each organized area,
providing for fostering independence and making cross-curricular connections. Pam,
Jenny, and Judy all displayed children?s work, evidence of the incorporation of children?s
identities into the environment. Pam also had several materials available for choice that
were either child-made or related to the children?s interests. Jenny displayed a child?s
personal timeline, showing honor and respect for the child?s home culture.
 In the teacher?s praxis
All of the teachers? praxes showed evidence of fostering identity development in
multiple ways. They each incorporated children?s personal identities into the classroom
through the use of interpretive questioning. They were also observed fostering
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independence and freedom with responsibility in different ways. Pam holds the children
accountable for their work verbally and with work plans, and by giving them scaffolded
and guided choices. She also allows for student pacing by creating a list of lesson
requests from children to guide her teaching. Jenny fosters independence and freedom
with responsibility by asking older students to guide younger students, directing children
to do what needs to be done, redirecting children to their work, asking leading questions,
asking that the children verbalize their choices, scaffolding choices by breaking them into
steps and providing students with jobs in multiple contexts. She respects student pacing
by listening for readiness to move on to more difficult concepts and giving individual
lessons. Judy fosters freedom with responsibility through observing responsible behavior
out loud to the children. In her classroom, the children move towards independence by
going to the cafeteria by themselves to get their lunches. Judy also incorporates children?s
individual identities into the classroom through the sharing of joys in circle time and
appreciations at lunchtime.
Not everything that was observed fit into the framework. Pam was observed
fostering freedom without responsibility. This occurs twice, once when a child chooses
not to come to a lesson and that choice is verbally validated, and once when she voices
the choice of not following directions as a legitimate choice.
 In the students behavior
The children evidence identity development in a variety of ways. In all of the
classrooms, the children are engaged in initiating and sustaining a variety of activity from
126
multiple curricular areas at most times, displaying independence and freedom with
responsibility. In Manjit and Jenny?s classrooms this was more often the case.
In Manjit?s class, children?s work on planets displays a cross-curricular connection
between science and writing.
Observation provides evidence of fostering responsible citizenship
 In the environment
There is less evidence in the teacher?s environments of this indicator, although
some exists in each classroom. All of the teachers' students help each other with their
work, demonstrating a sense of community. In Pam?s classroom, a peace area includes
the peace book and several activities, showing evidence of community building and
education for peace. Both Pam and Jenny display job charts, evidence of a requisite care
of the environment. Jenny also displays flags of the world, indicative of possibilities for
creating inter-cultural understanding, and a child?s personal timeline showing the
inclusion of parents in the classroom culture. Judy and Pam in particular have music and
artwork from a variety of cultures, providing possibilities for the beginning of inter-
cultural understanding.
 In the teacher?s praxis
The teachers evidence this indicator in very different ways. Manjit shows the
children how to carry materials and reminds them of the appropriate handling when they
are misusing them, encouraging care of the environment. She is also observed giving a
lesson about the fundamental needs of humans, demonstrating the value of good
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citizenship. Pam talks about the children?s ?love lights? being dim bright. This language
from the Peace Education program she is using indicates community-building efforts.
She is also observed to fully include the children in choice, further evidence community
building. Finally, she encourages children to keep their workspaces neat, fostering care of
the environment. Jenny provides opportunities for multiple groupings through the
completion of projects and readings, and pairing students during work time to help one
another, giving students the chance to build community. She also encourages students to
care for their environment and the materials in it, and invites students to help prepare the
environment. Judy introduces a material for the sharing of joys and concerns, providing
for community building.
 In the students behavior
In all classrooms, the students are observed helping one another, with their work,
demonstrating a sense of community. They are also observed cleaning up after
themselves, showing care of the environment. Judy?s students are also seen practicing
grace and courtesy, an element of community building, through the use of problem
solving materials.
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Chapter V: Discussion and Conclusions
This chapter will present the conclusions of this research project. First, it will
examine each research question in a separate section. Then, it will suggest the
implications of this examination through the presentation of a theoretical framework and
a discussion of possibilities for enacting the tenets of this theoretical framework in the
Montessori community. Finally, this chapter will conclude with a call for future research.
Part I: Findings
Research Question I: In what ways are the Montessori paradigm and the Culturally
Relevant Pedagogical paradigms congruent in theory?
An examination of the literature reveals that Montessori and Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy are theoretically similar in at least three ways. Both Montessori and Culturally
Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) are essentially child-centered methods of practicing pedagogy
that emphasize identity development and foster social awareness through engaging
students in socio-civic activism. Overall, these two pedagogical stances converge on
these three major theoretical points, with very few differences existing at the pedagogical
level.
At the academic level, these two methods are theoretically convergent, with both
focusing on a concept of praxis that is aimed at drawing knowledge out of children as
opposed to a more traditional, Lockean, blank-slate model of depositing knowledge into
empty vessels as though banking. Additionally a number of convergences exist at the
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pedagogical level. Primarily, expressed teacher attitudes towards children are similarly
expected to be respectful, firm, and caring. Both Montessori and Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy encourage teachers to foster opportunities for cooperative learning across
ability levels, with Montessori emphasizing cross-age cooperation. Similarly, both
methods call for differentiated instruction to enable teachers to meet the needs of
individuals and groups of children regardless of their level of prior knowledge. Finally,
both methods of instruction purport to be based in relevant, real-life contexts that address
the ?whole? child through holistic methods of education. These seven principles of
instruction remain consistent across both methods as the primary means for ensuring
academic success for all.
While a comparison of means of achieving academic success for all students
reveals multiple convergences between Montessori and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, an
examination of personal and cultural competencies reveals congruency at best. While
Montessori focuses on developing self-awareness and sense of personal agency, CRP
examines the possibilities for development on a broader, culturally centered level.
However, the focus on intrapersonal identity development within the Montessori
curriculum provides opportunities for further development that is more globally centered.
Furthermore, Montessori does allude to the need for intercultural identity development,
which suggests that had she conducted her research at a different time and place there
may have been more discussion of cultural competence. At the theoretical level, both
methods focus on the necessity for intrapersonal identity development, in which teachers
and school environments foster growth at extra-curricular levels. For Montessori,
however, this growth is limited to the development of personal awareness, independence
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and decision making. For CRP, this growth pertains to the multiple layers of identity,
including color, ethnicity, and culture.
At the level of praxis, there are several additional possibilities for congruence and
a few possibilities for convergence between Montessori and CRP. Both methods continue
to refer to a pedagogy that is child centered, but Montessori looks to the developmental
needs of the child while CRP expands the definition of needs to include needs that are
centered in color, culture, and ethnicity. As child-centered pedagogies, both methods
demand that the student?s interests be placed at the center of the curriculum. However,
Montessori does not thoroughly define the origins and scope of student interest while
CRP clearly states that these interests should be based in the student?s cultural
background and should provide opportunities for cultural enrichment for all students. In
terms of cross-curricular connections, which are integral to learning, Montessori does not
clearly define the scope of these connections, although it is evident that connections
should be made at least within the classroom environment and between the classroom
environment and the surrounding community. CRP more explicitly defines these
connections as being made between students? community, national, and global identities.
Montessori and CRP more overtly converge in terms of the methods used to develop
students? intrapersonal identities. Both philosophies agree that scaffolding, or building on
students? prior knowledge, is essential. Additionally, teachers should enable what CRP
refers to as ?educational self-determination,? the practice of involving students in their
own curricular pacing and localizing curricular control so that students and teachers may
focus on content knowledge that is pertinent to their local communities and specific
classroom contexts. A third convergence relates to learning about children through
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sustained visual and auditory observation. Finally, both methods mention a need for
teachers to develop a sense of comfort with their cultural identities and to refrain from
passing judgment on children based on observations made through unfiltered cultural
lenses.
An examination of the theoretical underpinnings of both Montessori and
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy reveals a core value of preparing children to be responsible
and proactive citizens. These two methods, developed in very different times and places,
both call for education to foster a sense of ?sociopolitical consciousness? in students.
Whether this consciousness relates to students? communities, their countries, or the
global environment, a strong convergence of belief is clear, with differences mainly
pertaining to the language used to express this need. Both methods encourage teachers to
provide students with ample opportunities to engage in social action that is meaningful to
them. Teachers are encouraged to focus on community building through cooperative
learning, although Montessori teachers rely on looping and multi-age grouping to
reinforce diverse, long-standing, dynamic communities. CRP, on the other hand,
explicitly mentions the necessity for encouraging a sense of shared responsibility for all
students? academic and personal success. CRP is also clearer in its call for parent
participation in classroom communities, which although a common practice in
Montessori schools is not explicitly mentioned in her research. A final point of
congruence is the fostering of intercultural understanding among students, which is more
pointedly referred to in CRP as the need for teachers to help students make connections
between their community, national, and global identities.
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Although no clear divergences emerge in this area of praxis, there are several
points that are uniquely mentioned either by Montessori or by CRP. Montessori, for its
part, clearly indicates a need for students to learn to care for their classroom and outdoor
environments as preparation for what Montessori referred to as ?stewardship? of the
global environment. No such mention is made in CRP although this type of responsibility
is congruent to other needs expressed by culturally relevant theorists. CRP does,
however, mention two important principles which are not discussed by Montessori and
which are indispensable to CRP. Teachers in this tradition should provide students with
opportunities to critique knowledge in its various forms, to deconstruct knowledge as
presented in school, and to understand the nature of knowledge as dynamic, created by all
types of people, and arguable. Furthermore, in preparation for instructing students in
knowledge deconstruction, teachers themselves should have ample opportunities in their
preparatory courses to critique the system and to understand its faults. Although
Montessori does not examine these needs, it is possible to imagine that in an environment
where independence of thought and movement are integral to learning, teachers may find
room to help children decode the knowledge in which they are immersed.
Overall, two major points of distinct divergence can be found between the two
methods. While Montessori insists that teachers foster intrinsic motivation and avoid
external rewards, Ladson-Billings refers to successful practitioners as using rewards to
promote academic achievement. Stoll-Lillard (2005) cites extensive research that
suggests that giving rewards de-motivates children and results in lowered levels of
performance on future, unrewarded tasks (Chap. 5). Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde (2005)
similarly suggest that Montessori?s practice of emphasizing internal as opposed to
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external rewards results in comparatively high levels of experienced affect, potency,
internal motivation, and interest among middle school students. An additional divergence
appears in the area of identity development. While CRP plainly asserts that teachers and
schools should respect students? home cultures and draw on familial knowledge bases in
the development of the curriculum and implementation of pedagogy, Montessori is
somewhat less clear in the treatment of this topic. An examination of Montessori?s
written work regarding the family suggests that she placed an emphasis on teaching the
family developmentally sound practices as opposed to listening to the family and learning
from their wisdom. This is directly oppositional to the notion that schools stand to learn
from families. Extensive research on the value of familial knowledge suggests that there
is room for updating the views held by Montessori at the time of her research in favor of
a more culturally sensitive praxis.
Overall an examination of these two pedagogical stances, developed in different
cultures and at different times in history, reveals many similar notions. Ultimately, the
two ideologies both claim to place the child at the center of learning; to respect the
developmental, personal, and cultural needs of the growing child, and to prepare the child
for responsible and proactive citizenship. An examination of these ideas as they are
revealed in classroom level practice stands to illuminate the possibilities for dialogue
between two previously segregated ideologies.
Research Question 2: In what ways does the ensemble of teacher preparatory experience
influence the role of cultural relevance in a Montessori teacher?s praxis?
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Interviews with the teachers in this study reveals the inadequacy of examining
teacher preparation programs alone in considering the impact of the preparatory
experience on classroom teaching. Rather, the data collected suggests that four major
themes define the impact of teacher preparatory programs on preparing teachers to
practice a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori.? These themes, cross-cultural experience,
teaching experience, teacher preparation, and prior exposure to multicultural education
create an ensemble of preparatory experience. Based on the four teachers in this study, it
appears that living for a prolonged period of time in another culture, significant
experience with teaching in diverse settings, perceived rigor in teacher preparation
programs, and a reflective exposure to ideas in multicultural education beyond what was
experienced by these teachers are the essential components in the preparation of
culturally relevant Montessori teachers.
Each of the teachers involved in this study has lived for a prolonged period of
time in at least two cultures. While two of the teachers were born and raised abroad, two
others grew up in the United States, later moving abroad for work. Each of the teachers
talked about their cross-cultural experiences during their interview. For Manjit and Jenny,
their experience in American culture was their first experience abroad, their primary
cultures being Asian. Both teachers took their first training course in their primary
culture, then moving to the United States in their early twenties. While Manjit came to
the greater metropolitan area in which she currently lives and stayed to raise her family
and work, Jenny went from California to Chicago and then married a Swedish man and
lived in Sweden for 11 years before coming to her current location. For Judy and Pam, on
the other hand, a drive to learn about other cultures and to make a contribution led them
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to live abroad. Both started out as Peace Corps volunteers in Africa. Pam then returned to
the United States to continue her teaching career after two years abroad. Judy, on the
other hand, returned to Cameroon and then later to Nigeria for a total of 6 years of living
outside of the United States.
In Crossing over to Canaan, Ladson-Billings (2000) suggests that inter-cultural
experience is integral to the development of a culturally responsive pedagogy. The
experiences of these teachers in multiple cultural contexts would suggest that they are at
least in an emergent phase of developing personal cultural competence. It is unclear from
the data, however, the degree to which each of them has internalized this awareness. Judy
speaks about an ?emptying out? of preconceptions, which has then allowed her to open
up to new ideas. Judy, Pam and Jenny, however, all expressed some conscious discomfort
with ideas from other cultures. For Judy and Pam, the idea of corporal punishment as
practiced in certain cultures creates an intense discomfort. Jenny, for her part, rejects the
idea of incorporating pop culture into her classroom when she disagrees with the ideas
expressed in pop culture, specifically in certain rap music. Manjit also expresses some
cultural stereotypes in her interview, suggesting that her concept of culture and personal
cultural competence is also incomplete.
Each of the teachers in this study is characterized by multiple teaching
experiences and a length of teaching that exceeds five years. While Pam is the youngest
and least experienced teacher, she holds three years of experience in an early childhood
center for children with special needs, two years of resource teaching in Lesotho, and is
in her fourth year of full time contract teaching. She has also worked in four settings that
differed greatly from one another and from the cultural context in which she grew up.
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Judy has the second least amount of experience, as she is now in her fifth year of full
time contract teaching as a Montessori teacher. However, she also has taught in a wide
variety of settings, including an inner-city environment in Illinois, Charlotte, North
Carolina, Cameroon, and two very different Montessori schools. Like Pam, Judy has
taught uniquely in situations that differ from the rural farming cultural context in which
she grew up. Both Manjit and Jenny have been teaching for more than twenty years. In
Manjit?s 25 years of teaching she has taught at the primary (3-6 year old) level and the
elementary (6-9 year old) level for more than ten years each. She has also taught in a
wide variety of settings, from her first years of teaching in India to an affluent school in
McLean, VA, followed by 16 years in Maryland at both private and public schools and
then finally returning to Virginia to work in a public Montessori school. Jenny has a
similar teaching record, having begun her 27 years of teaching in Sri Lanka, followed by
California and Chicago, then moving to Sweden, and returning to the United States to
teach in Maryland and now Virginia. She too has taught in a wide variety of settings at
both the primary and lower elementary levels, both in private schools and in public.
An examination of the preparatory and professional development coursework of
the teachers in this study reveals two emergent themes. First, each of the teachers studied
has completed more than one credential in the field of education. While these credentials
are diverse, it is important to note that each set of credentials includes both a Montessori-
specific component and additional coursework taken for initial certification or
recertification. Second, the teachers similarly found value in two components of this
credentialing process, the Montessori training and the recertification coursework. All of
the teachers reported in some way feeling that the Montessori coursework was intense.
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When asked to describe their elementary coursework, the first responses of Pam, Manjit,
and Judy were ?A lot,? ?Very intense. Very, very intense,? and ?Very intense,?
respectively. However, they all found enormous value in it, most notably in terms of the
math content and the philosophy for most of them. Several of the teachers also referred to
recertification coursework as valuable. Pam and Manjit found that courses in reading in
particular added value to their classroom practice because they had not felt particularly
well prepared by any previous experiences for the teaching of reading. Two courses,
Words Their Way and Poetry Alive, a spelling and a dramatic poetry course offered by
the county in which they work, seem to be of particular value. As Jenny expressed, she
appreciated this course because it built upon what she already tries to do in her
classroom.
All of the teachers also discussed a common exposure to ideas in multicultural
education, although they had differing opinions of its value. They spoke about a lecture
by Dr. Kunjufu, who spoke to them about the African American culture. Judy felt that he
was encouraging them to stop blaming parents for children?s problems in school. She
seemed to agree with this, but felt unsure of the ways in which Multicultural Education
gives credence to incorporating the home culture into the classroom. Jenny felt that Dr.
Kunjufu was a very controversial speaker. She was uncertain about some of his ideas.
His idea for example that black children should be taught by black teachers, I don't think that?s
necessarily true.... [His idea] that we have to incorporate...rap?. I really don't know if that is
necessary. I can understand using rhythmic music or...I don't think its necessary to bring the
language [associated with rap]....
She went on to say that she disagrees with the values expressed by some rap music and
does not want that in her classroom. Manjit felt that the speaker was attacking teachers
who were not African American. Pam, who had exposure to other ideas in multicultural
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education as part of her undergraduate teacher preparation, agreed with many of his
statements and was especially affected by his culture specific commentary on Latino
female students. She has incorporated some of his ideas into her classroom.
It is apparent from this examination of the four teachers concepts of multicultural
education that none of them has had enough exposure to fully understand and incorporate
the elements of this type of pedagogy into their classroom practice.
Research Question 3: In what ways do Montessori teachers in Public Schools perceive
their practice as being compatible with the components of a ?Culturally Relevant
Montessori??
Overall, teachers perceived compatibility with elements from each of the three
categories of the guidelines for a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori? practice. Their
perceptions fit into three categories, a philosophy and practice of building upon the base
of understanding students already possess through drawing out their prior knowledge, a
philosophy and practice of incorporating the various layers of students identities into the
classroom and working to develop the multiple elements of identity through fostering
independence and freedom with responsibility, and a philosophy and practice of
educating for world peace, responsible citizenship and social change. The elements of
each of these three categories that were expressed by teachers as being integral to their
practice and understanding of Montessori are delineated in three categories below.
All of the teachers express ideas about their praxis that are in agreement with the
components of a drawing out pedagogy. However, not all of the components of this type
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of pedagogy surface in teachers? perceptions of their practice, and some surface only
superficially or only in one or two teachers interviews. The only elements that are
identified as being essential to all teachers? perceptions of their practice have to do with
rewards and punishments, and the importance of fostering as opposed to hindering the
development of intrinsic motivation. Most teachers spoke about setting firm guidelines,
implementing cooperative learning and differentiated instruction, teaching and learning in
relevant, realistic contexts, and observing and listening to children. Only Jenny talked
explicitly about the integral role of respect for students in classroom practice. Teachers
did not talk directly about practicing a pedagogy of caring or incorporating the whole
child into instruction, although some of their responses alluded to these elements.
Teachers? discussions of rewards and punishments as opposed to intrinsic
motivators are of particular importance. Unlike the other components of the framework,
teachers were asked explicitly about their feelings in regards to intrinsic versus extrinsic
motivation. It was explained to them that this conflict presented the most glaring
difference between Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Montessori Education, with the
former explicitly condoning the use of rewards in the classroom and the latter explicitly
condemning and use of external motivators or punishments. All of the teachers agree that
intrinsic motivation is highly valuable and should be fostered in the classroom. However,
there is a recognition of the challenge of fostering intrinsic motivation that takes place,
with some teachers expressing a feeling that certain children have not yet experienced
this and that it is harder for them to demonstrate signs of internal motivation than for
other students for whom it comes more naturally. The teachers face this challenge in
different ways, with some of them enforcing limits through the use of logical or natural
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consequences. Other teachers redirect children to work when they are misbehaving, and
resort to secondary tactics only when this does not work. These may include limiting free
playtime when children are irresponsible in the classroom and isolating the children or
regrouping them to work with others.Teachers may also use incentives that are work-
related, such as allowing a child to do a favorite activity after a less preferred activity is
completed.
In spite of their commitment to intrinsic motivation, teachers are not convinced
that this system is perfect. There is some concern, for example, that holding up an activity
as a reward may diminish the quality of work done in both activities, with the student
rushing through the first to get to the second, and then having limited time to do the
second. Judy, Pam and Manjit express some doubts about the preeminence of a plan that
relies solely on intrinsic motivation and logical consequences. Pam in particular feels that
behavior charts and extrinsic motivators may serve as a bridge to intrinsic motivation for
children who have never experienced it before.
The data collected in regard to the incorporation of students? identities into the
classroom reveals that all of the teachers possess some strategies for honoring and
incorporating culture into their praxis. Their level of thoughtfulness and awareness in
regard to this issue varied, however. There are four components of a pedagogy that
incorporates student?s individual and cultural identities into the classroom and builds
curriculum and classroom structure around those identities that were most important to all
teachers, as per their own expression of their beliefs. These are the incorporation of
cultural identities into the classroom through content and pedagogy, the incorporation of
individual identities into the classroom through identifying children?s interests and needs
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and guiding them to achieve them, fostering independence in the classroom through
scaffolding choices, asking questions, and listening for students ability levels. Most of the
teachers also emphasize the importance of creating opportunities for cross-curricular
connections in the classroom. Only some of the teachers discuss the importance of
student error and self-correction, and the value of experiences in a diversity of cultural
settings to their classroom practice. Only Jenny directly emphasizes the importance of the
students? role in pacing their individualized curricula. The elements of this sub-category
that did not emerge in discussion were the importance of pulling out prior knowledge to
build upon and the role of task initiation in developing student?s identities.
A particularly controversial topic under this sub-heading is in regards to the role
of parents in the classroom and the relationship between teachers, parents, and students.
All four of the teachers in this study express some frustration with parents, giving the
impression at times that this is one of the elements of their pedagogy that they felt least
prepared to handle appropriately. Some, but not all, of the teachers directly admit to
feeling that the children of single parents, parents of low socio-economic status, and
African American parents are more challenging to work with. Others seek to understand
the children?s culture through an understanding of their parents, regardless of their level
of frustration. One teacher in particular, however, thinks of school to home
communication as a strength of her pedagogy as opposed to a challenge, and spends
extensive time and energy on strengthening her relationship to parents, something that
she feels benefits her practice greatly. Overall, the teachers seemed to feel torn between
divergences between their own and parents? ideas about discipline and a belief in the
theoretical importance of honoring the child?s home culture.
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Many of the components of a pedagogy that is social-action oriented surfaced in
teachers? interviews, both as a result of direct questions and indirectly as elements of
their other responses. Overall, teachers? responses to the question of the goal of education
fell into two main categories, the development of a responsible citizenship and the
development of world peace, with all of the teachers responding that one or both of these
are essential to the goals of a Montessori pedagogy. However, while their responses
indicated a belief in a broader goal for education, they did not show a conscious
connection between these lofty goals and a social action oriented curriculum as a means
of achieving these goals. Rather, the responses remained largely abstract and teachers?
ideas about how to achieve world peace in particular through education appeared under-
developed. In addition to expressing their beliefs about the goals, several other elements
of this third component of ?Culturally Relevant Montessori? practice also emerged. Most
of the teachers also talked about the importance of building classroom communities.
Some of the teachers talk briefly about fostering inter-cultural understanding in the
classroom, although the notion of how to do this seem limited to ?The Contributions
Approach? level of understanding curriculum reform. Only Jenny emphasizes the
importance of bringing parents into the classroom and being a part of her students? lives,
not only investing time and energy to draw her parents into the classroom, but also
investing time being a part of her students? lives by eating lunch with them in the
classroom every day. Pam skirts the idea of knowledge construction but does not talk
about teaching children to deconstruct forms of information delivery.
The last essential element of developing a social action oriented pedagogy is the
personal critique of the system by teachers. All of the teachers in this study had critical
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reflections on the internal workings of the school as a system. In particular, teachers had
qualms about the manner of disciplining children using rewards and punishments as they
observed in the more traditional, graded-classrooms. They also felt exasperated by a
perceived lack of understanding between themselves and their counterparts in the graded
program, and a feeling on the part of some teachers of not being listened to or understood
by the administrator in the building. A final area of critique is in regard to the state
mandated curriculum, elements of which are felt to be trite and unnecessary, even
counter-productive, by some teachers.
Research Question 4: In what ways do teachers exhibit a praxis that is compatible with
the components of a ?Culturally Relevant Montessori??
The four teachers in this study demonstrated at least some ability to create an
environment that fosters the three tenets of a Culturally Relevant Montessori pedagogy in
at least some ways. Through their interactions with children and their environmental
design, teachers demonstrated a pedagogy that was consistent with their perceptions
although different in some of its manifestations. Some of these abilities were consistent
from classroom to classroom, suggesting consistency in school culture and teacher
preparatory programs. These included the organization of spacious environments with
many curricular choices and the giving of small group lessons to foster the drawing out of
knowledge. Additionally, all of the teachers used questioning in their praxis in order to
draw out knowledge.
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There were some differences in teacher?s praxis as well. All of the teachers
created comfortable environments, but not all incorporated the students into that
environment through a display of their work or cultural artifacts. Teachers also
demonstrated caring in inconsistent ways. While all teachers used quiet voices, only some
of the teachers shared snack or lunch with their children. Additionally, while all of the
teachers expressed a belief in firm guidelines, only the two most experienced teachers
consistently directed the children back to their work when they were disruptive. This
additional direction had the effect of creating an atmosphere that felt both calm and
purposeful. Additionally, these two teachers? students displayed the most consistent self-
directed behavior, suggesting an inherent value in this type of redirection. Teachers often
were observed limiting choices and guiding students to make decisions, but this was
accomplished in different ways. In the classrooms where children appeared to be quieter
and more directed, older students were asked to help the teacher to guide younger
students, and choices were given in small pieces. In these classrooms, the teachers had
many mechanisms in place for creating a truly ?responsible? freedom. These teachers
also expressed a distinction between freedom and freedom with responsibility. In the
classrooms where freedom without responsibility was allowed, student behavior
demonstrated a lower degree of self-regulation.
The area of ?Culturally Relevant Montessori? praxis that was the least
demonstrated was the third tenet, that of guiding students towards a responsible and
socially active citizenship. While all of the teachers spent time building community, their
methods were inconsistent from one classroom to the next. In all classrooms, however,
the students were observed to be helping one another, cleaning up after themselves, and
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showing care of the environment. This indicates that on some level teachers efforts to
foster community are successful. It is possible that observations were not lengthy enough
to reveal social activism among students, however, the lack of focus on this aspect in
teachers interviews as well suggests that this is an area for professional growth among
this group of teachers.
Part II: Implications
The synthesis of the results of this study and its literature review provide the
foundational elements for a theoretical framework to guide the implementation of a
?Culturally Relevant Montessori? practice. An examination of this conceptual framework
provides implications of this study for teacher education and for classroom practice.
Teachers who teach in a Culturally Relevant Montessori tradition believe that education
is a process of drawing out knowledge.
 Teachers set firm guidelines and use natural incentives and logical consequences
to reinforce them.
 They differentiate instruction and provide opportunities for cooperative learning
in realistic contexts.
 They practice a pedagogy that is caring and respectful, based on listening,
observation and critical self-reflection.
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Teachers believe that the individual and cultural identity development of individual
students is central to classroom practice.
 They are comfortable with their own cultural selves and attempt to remove
cultural bias from their instruction.
 They build instruction around students? personal and cultural identities.
 Teachers foster independence with responsibility through educational self-
determination.
Teachers believe that the goals of education extend beyond content knowledge into a
social-action oriented curriculum designed to foster the development of world peace.
 They incorporate opportunities for awareness and social action into the
curriculum, especially through ?going out?.
 They build classroom communities that include teachers, children, and families.
 They help students make connections between their community, national, and
global identities.
Implications
Teachers in this study were found to be proficient in several of the proposed
tenets. First, they consistently differentiated instruction and provided opportunities for
cooperative learning in realistic contexts. They also practiced a pedagogy that is caring
and respectful, based on listening and observation. All of the teachers worked to build
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Culturally
Relevant
Montessori
Teachers believe that the
goals of education extend
beyond content knowledge
into a social-action oriented
curriculum designed to
foster the development of
world peace.
Teachers believe that the
individual and cultural
identity development of
students is central to
classroom practice.
Teachers who teach in a
Culturally Relevant
Montessori tradition believe
that education is a process
of drawing out knowledge.
They incorporate
opportunities for
awareness and
social action into
the curriculum,
especially through
?going out?.
They build
classroom
communities that
include teachers,
children, and
families.
They help
students make
connections
between their
community,
national, and
global identities.
Teachers foster
independence
with responsibility
through
educational self-
determination.
Teachers set firm
guidelines and use
natural incentives
and logical
consequences to
reinforce them.
They build
instruction around
students?
personal and
cultural identities.
They are
comfortable with
their own cultural
selves and attempt
to remove cultural
bias from their
instruction.
They practice a
pedagogy that is
caring and
respectful, based
on listening,
observation and
critical self-
reflection.
They differentiate
instruction and
provide
opportunities for
cooperative
learning in
realistic contexts.
148
classroom communities that included teachers and children, and built instruction around
students? personal identities. In almost all instances, teachers clearly fostered
independence with responsibility through educational self-determination. Finally, all of
the teachers incorporated field experiences, or ?Going Out,? into their students learning.
However, some areas of need indicate possibilities for professional development
and for growth in Montessori teacher preparatory programs and professional development
activities. Teachers did not all set clear, firm guidelines. In some cases, there seemed to
be some lack of clarity in terms of the appropriate use of natural incentives and logical
consequences to reinforce what guidelines existed. Teachers did not all engage in a
critical self-reflection (Zeichner, 1999), nor did they appear entirely comfortable with or
aware of the role of their own cultural selves and cultural biases in their instruction.
Although they did include field experiences in their curriculum, they did not appear to
explicitly focus on social action in these or in classroom experiences. Aside from one of
the teachers, none of them seemed to fully incorporate families into their classroom
communities, nor did they seem to help students make connections between their
community, national, and global identities. Finally, although students? individual
identities were central to the classroom, their cultural identities did not seem to be as
essential to the teachers? praxes.
This study suggests that improvements in several areas would increase the ability
of teachers to act collaboratively with students as agents of change. For acting teachers,
cohesive, carefully structured professional development opportunities built around
classroom discipline, complex identity development, critical self-reflection and social
149
action would provide the most logical course of action towards a Culturally Relevant
Montessori pedagogy. For pre-service teachers, making preemptive changes to both
University teacher preparation programs and Montessori teacher preparation programs
around the same themes would be a more coherent venue. Based on the observed
?missing pieces? described above, the multiple possibilities that exist for improvement in
teachers? praxes toward a Culturally Relevant Montessori can be grouped into two major
categories, teachers? self-perception, and teachers? classroom practices.
Perception underlies practice, so working towards a more cohesive concept of
identity is a meaningful starting point in the development of Culturally Relevant
Montessori teachers. The concept of identity is highly complex, particularly in the case
of professional adults who need to grapple not only with their own personal, professional,
and cultural identities, but also with those of the children and parents in their classrooms,
which are often diverse and differ from the teachers themselves. A professional
development unit around identity development would need to start with an exploration of
these three different facets of identity and how they interact and change within each
individual. This exploration would need to examine the concept of culture, and to help
teachers not only to develop personal awareness but also to see how identity acts as a lens
through which they see their students. From here, teachers would be introduced to the
concept of critical self-reflection (Zeichner, 1999), and provided with opportunities to
practice this type of deliberative evaluation independently and with colleagues.
Critical self-reflection provides a logical bridge into the second phase of
professional or pre-service development, the role of culture and cultural concept in
classroom practice. Some of the teachers in this study evidenced a need for a more clear
150
vision of disciplinary practice in the classroom, a foundation for successful practice. The
collaborative development of a cohesive disciplinary plan between teachers with the help
of multicultural and Montessori specialists would serve as a way to begin to build this
foundation. This plan, according to the framework for a culturally relevant Montessori
practice, would include the implementation of firm guidelines and the reinforcement of
these guidelines with natural incentives and logical consequences. Both critical self-
reflection and peer observation could be used in its implementation. From there, teachers
would benefit from an understanding of how home culture and classroom culture are
integrally related, and a framework for drawing families into the school and drawing
from the wisdom of families. Finally, teachers in this study showed a need for tools to
help them to build upon their ideals of social action and to incorporate opportunities for
student agency and social progress into the classroom.
Future Research
Due both to time limitations and a limited availability of public Montessori
teachers to study, this study presents significant possibilities for future research. First,
larger scale studies undertaking various public Montessori programs for study would
clearly provide more opportunity to uncover and confirm the emergent trends in this
study. The inclusion of a quantitative component of this study, gathering data about the
practice of the tenets identified above using surveys, would further support the relevance
of these findings. Second, the creation of teacher study groups based on classroom
observations and interviews, as per Ladson-Billings (1994) would provide opportunities
151
for teachers to share their own insights into the process of developing a Culturally
Relevant Montessori.
152
APPENDIX A: Interview Question Overview
Interview 1: Biographical Data
1. How long have you been teaching?
2. Where have you taught? Describe these places.
3. Tell me about your decision to become a Montessori teacher. When did you make this
decision? What factors in your personal life influenced your choice? What factors in
your professional life?
4. What, if any, experience did you have within the field of education prior to becoming
a Montessori teacher?
5. What experiences did you have outside of the field of education that you feel are
pertinent to your decision to become a Montessori teacher?
6. What was your pre-service teacher preparation program like? This includes any
preparatory courses taken prior to entering the classroom. Please talk about any
University based preparation first.
7. What things were most valuable to you at this stage of your preparation? What things
have you found valuable in the field?
8. Now lets discuss your Montessori training. Where did you do your coursework? How
would you describe this experience?
9. What things were most valuable to you during your training? What things that you
learned at this time do you now find to be of the most value?
10. What, if any, additional courses have you taken to receive/maintain your state
certification?
153
11. Which of these courses has been most meaningful to you?
12. What, if any, areas of weakness do you see in your preparatory coursework. What do
you feel would have benefited you but was not offered or not fully covered?
Interview 2: Praxis-Oriented Data
13. I?d like to gather a little more biographical data. Can you briefly talk about your own
background including your upbringing and your family?
14. What, if anything, drew you to public school in particular?
15. In what ways do you see yourself as a successful teacher?
16. What are your major challenges as an educator?
17. How do you define your role in the education of children? The children?s role?
18. What do you see as the ultimate goal of education?
19. What do you see as the central tenets of Montessori?
20. In what ways are you able to adhere to these tenets in your practice?
21. What, if any, obstacles do you face as you work to adhere to these tenets in your
practice?
22. What do you know about Multicultural Education?
23. In what, if any, ways are you able to integrate these concepts into your practice as a
Montessori teacher?
24. In what ways do you meet the culturally diverse needs of your students?
25. How do these practices relate to the Montessori paradigm?
26. How do they relate to your understanding of Multicultural Education?
27. In what ways do you incorporate children?s cultural identities into your classroom?
154
Interview 3: Follow-Up Interview
This interview will be used to clarify processes observed in classroom praxis. Questions
will be prepared on a case-by-case basis.
*These questions may not all be asked in a given interview.
155
APPENDIX B: CODES
DO-Education as a process of drawing out knowledge
 FG-firm guidelines exist and are reinforced
 RS-respect for students is apparent
 CP-teachers practice a pedagogy of caring
 CL-cooperative learning is implemented
 DI-differentiated instruction is implemented
 RC-learning is situated in real-life contexts
 OL-observation and listening to children are integral to praxis
 WC-whole child is considered in praxis
 IM-intrinsic motivation is fostered/ evidenced
 ER-external rewards are used
ID-Identity Development is a part of classroom praxis
 CI-cultural identity is valued and integrated into the classroom
 II-individual identity is valued and integrated into the classroom
 FI-Independence is fostered
 FR-Freedom with responsibility is evident
 CC-cross curricular connections are made
 PK-Prior knowledge is called upon
 TI-task initiation is evident
 SP-pacing is student driven
 PE-parent education and advice are implemented
 PH-parents are asked for advice and input, are honored and respected
 TC-teacher exhibits awareness and understanding of own cultural self
UG-Ultimate goal of education
 RC-responsible citizenship
 WP-world peace
 SC-social change
 CB-community building
 PP-parent participation in classroom/ education of child
 TP-teacher participation in student?s life
 IC-intercultural understanding
 CE-care for the environment
 KC-knowledge construction is studied in class
 CS-teacher critique of system
PC-Preparatory coursework
AC-Additional coursework
VC-valuable coursework
UC-useless coursework
156
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