This week at school a child asked “Gavin, can I make an entire timeline of life myself, I know it will take a long time but I really want to do it?”
I asked “Why, What’s your intention?”
He said “I’d like you to take it to Nepal so that children who don’t have many materials can learn about how life started.”
And with that I obviously said “Yes”
They may be those who say “This isn’t in the curriculum, this isn’t in the script, this isn’t what it says on my lesson plan.”
But the fact is that from researching, and creating this timeline, which has already taken several weeks, comes a whole range of skills that we as teachers find quite difficult to teach. And I say to those who question my reasons for saying yes by explaining the skills involved such as:
• Time management – he’s still gotta cover the core subjects
• Research of the organisms involved
• Persistence and determination
• Care and attention to detail
• Intention and empathy. – I mean he’s making for children 10,000km away he’s never met.
• Cooperation and compromise, he recruited a team to help because the job was too big.
Not to mention biology, science, history, geography, comprehension, art, motor skills, time and evolution.
The list goes on and on.
#montessori #pedagogy #primaryschool
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