In the Montessori classroom, I have been amazed by the power of imagination when applied to some aspect of our world and guided by what we believe to be real. As a vehicle of learning, nothing can compare to it except actual experience. The imagination of children is so keen, it is almost as if they are living it. Montessori said:

“The secret of success is found to lie in the right use of imagination in awakening interest, and the stimulation of seeds of interest already sown by attractive literary and pictorial material, but all correlated to a central idea…”  To Educate the Human Potential

I have always been fascinated with creating the stimulation that she speaks of. I have been intensively researching and writing Waseca Biome’s continent portfolios for the last year. Delving deeply into books and documentaries to gain as much knowledge of the landscapes, people, plants, and animals, continent by continent, as I can. Endeavoring, as a guide, to write material for students that sparks their imagination and makes them feel as if they are truly experiencing the places and people in the portfolio.

Part of my inspiration for the imaginative approach of the portfolios came from a method called “Storyline Scotland.” I instantly recognized it as a tool of stimulation for an imaginary exploration. “Storyline Scotland” was developed by Steve Bell and Sallie Harkness, two Scottish educators. It starts with a theme introduced by the teacher that correlates with the curriculum. In conjunction with the material they are learning, the children create characters that bring the material to life by creating a story they build and enact. When a group of children share this exploration, it touches on that power of storytelling that moves a group of people who are imagining the same thing at the same time. We are experiencing the power of the collective mind. It pulls us in and reassures us that we are not alone and separate.

I got really excited when it occurred to me that the Antarctica Portfolio could be used as a jumping off point for a “Storyline Scotland” exploration of the continent of Antarctica. In the case of our Antarctica study, you would talk about who lives in Antarctica, what do they do, and the impact they have. The stories in the portfolio tell of the scientists and support staff who work there, what daily life is like, and what they are working to accomplish.

The portfolio is written in the second person so that you can easily imagine that you are there and exploring the continent yourself. The portfolio develops a context for the children to choose their characters. Some of the children might want to be visitors and be themselves. They write an essay about why they want to visit Antarctica so that they can win a contest to visit there. When everyone has decided who they would like to be, they then use collage (paper, popsicle sticks, cloth etc.) to create their characters. Each character is to be developed by that student in terms of their personal story; their hometown, their occupation, their relationships with other characters, their hopes and fears about working in Antarctica. There would be a sharing session so all the characters could get to know one another. Antartica is an international community of scientists. Different countries have their own research stations. The children could team up and create different research stations and decide the nature of their research and their nationality.

With the “Storyline Scotland” method, you need a stage. In this case, it could be a giant map of Antarctica. The children could find the location of their research station and place their characters there on the map. They could make two flags, one for their station and one to have at the South Pole. The Antarctic Treaty could be researched so that they know what they have agreed to in order to be there.

Once the stage and the characters are set, it is time to enact the story. The story progresses through a series of incidents and events some imagined by the students and others proposed by the guide. In this case, the arrival of visitors to entertain and inform might be the interactive plot. In the meantime, each station is carrying on their research which would involve actual research to become more informed about their subject of study. If more than one person chose to research penguins, they could collaborate at some point even if they were in different stations. The visitors would need to research their transportation to Hobart, Tasmania where they would board the icebreaker. They would need to be outfitted there with the proper gear.

When people first arrive in Antarctica, they usually undergo some training in how to respond to the extreme conditions there. At the US base, called Mactown, they call it “Happy Camper School.” The class could construct models of emergency shelters. They could respond to a group challenge to devise a way with a rope to search for a lost teammate in whiteout conditions. Conditions could be simulated by wearing white buckets on their heads. There could be discussions of what to do in many different emergency situations.

As the storyline unfolds, the guide has the prerogative of creating surprises. In this case, you could be in control of the weather. You might post the temperature and weather each day. The weather would determine whether you stayed inside or went out in the field that day. If scientists needed a vehicle, they would have to arrange with one of the drivers or pilots. As the guide, you might narrate the conditions of a sudden blizzard during an expedition out onto the ice sheet. The characters involved would have to react and remember their training.

Can you imagine how invested children would become in this process? We have all observed children acting out scenarios on the playground. There is an inherent need to imagine themselves in a different role, having experiences that they don’t ordinarily encounter. How would they respond? What would they do?

How do you wrap it up? At some point, you ask the children what they have learned so far. As it happens in a dynamic classroom, the amount of information that they can absorb when truly motivated is astounding. Then, you ask them what more they wish to learn. Once that is accomplished, you can devise an ending with the assurance that you will explore another topic in this way. In this scenario, it might just be that the visitors leave. Everyone says goodbye.

What I particularly like about this method applied to travel and exploration of different cultures is that the children have the opportunity to operate within a different set of cultural constraints. In Antarctica, according to the treaty between nations, there are protocols about how to interact with the animal life and how to dispose of waste. Within a tribe in the Amazon, there are ways of greeting others and ways of acting in harmony with nature. By giving children information about those cultures and asking them to behave as if they belonged to that culture, they gain the broader perspective that travel can give you. Perhaps, they might gain more perspective than the average tourist. Culture can be a set of habits that make us unaware of the choices that we make. Exploration of other cultures can allow us to think outside of that box. The student’s task in the process of maturation is to become a contributing member of their culture. What if they undertook that with awareness of how other cultures function and theirs might be improved?

Take our cultural attitude toward the environment. The scientists living in Antarctica see the effects of global warming. Their perception is not clouded by politics or economics. They deal in facts and their consequences. Children engaging in this role play can share that perception and gain a new understanding of the global threat to the environment. We can’t protect them from these facts. They will grow to inherit the problem we are creating. At Waseca, we are committed to spreading awareness, especially, among the children. We pledge to donate 5% of the proceeds from all of the new Antarctica materials to the Environmental Defense Fund to make a difference.http://www.storyline-scotland.com/

I’d like to share some thoughts on systems thinking and curriculum development with you all. Systems thinking has been used by modern ecologists to understand the natural world when linear thinking failed them. Systems thinking is not new; Aristotle understood the natural world in this way. Often, however, the study of science and our western culture in general is guided by linear thinking. Born out of the scientific revolution, linear thinking seeks to understand the world by breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces, then trying to put it back together again like a machine.

In traditional education, linear thinking seeks to get the diploma, make an A, pass the test, spit out the fact. Aimed at a predetermined outcome, it accomplishes this by breaking knowledge down into subject area, standards, and facts.

By comparison, systems thinking looks at the whole and seeks to understand by observing natural processes. Systems thinking looks for relationships and connections. It explores how the parts work together to form the whole and recognizes that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The nature of our world is a thing of incredible balance and complexity. As such, we must step back and allow it to unfold its secrets without our interference.

In terms of education, a systems thinking approach would look at the whole child and observe the child to understand their process of learning. The adult would serve as a facilitator, respecting the child’s innate ability to manifest his or her own development. This approach would focus on the process of learning, not simply the information itself. When presenting new ideas to encourage this process, systems thinking would present them in an integrated fashion, focusing on connections and relationships.

Does this sound familiar to you? If you are involved in the Montessori movement, then you are already a systems thinker. Guiding children to become systems thinkers themselves is like teaching Montessori: you are following the flow of nature itself.

When my daughter, urged me to write a “workbook” for the biomes, I was reluctant. Her argument was that she knew from talking to the teachers using the biome materials that there was a need in some classrooms for more structure to guide them through their study of a continent. There should be materials for independent work that tied in the cultural work with the animal and biome studies. I worried that such a thing could be misused and it should carry a warning label. I was worried that children would be forced to finish it and assigned pages for the day.  I jokingly agreed to proceed if this “warning label” would  go along with the new Portfolios.

As I got into the project, I got really excited when I realized this portfolio could serve as a vehicle for teaching systems thinking to children. I saw how the curriculum could be further integrated and give the children the experience of seeing connections and putting the puzzle pieces together independently. I knew from observation how satisfying this experience could be for them and how motivating it was to go on to the next connection. We agreed to make the Portfolios a compendium of the child’s exploration of the continent, a place to collect researches, map making, and art projects, and to tie in the systems thinking exercises that would foster a real understanding the ecosystems and cultures that were being studied.

We worked on North America as a team and came up with the format. I was able to translate some of the concrete manipulative work that I had designed for the work mat to the printed page. I realized that the Portfolios did not need to replace that manual work, but rather, that they would enhance it. The Portfolios would offer opportunities for follow-up activities that the child could engage in independently, creating a collection of their own work that could be kept and shared. We have completed portfolios for North America and Africa. Today we release South America!

The exercises were adapted to each biome chapter, bringing in different plants and animals and their adaptations to that biome. We came up with a way to make the human cultures of the biomes come alive, as we introduce each biome with a native guide who invites the child to take their imagination on an adventure and explore their world. This healthy use of the imagination is what Montessori elementary is all about.

Some examples of system thinking in action:

The child completes graphs that show change over time and is asked to make observations and predictions.

The portfolio encourages reading comprehension by inviting the child to trace the course of the adventure they are reading about on a map.

Stories are told from one animal’s perspective with the suggestion to try writing the story from another point of view.

There are stories where ecological threats are viewed from the perspective of the animals involved. What is it like to lose a part of your habitat? How does it affect you? This is also extended to humans in other cultures. How does deforestation or global warming affect these people?

There are activities where children create food chains and look at the relationship between specific plants and animals to see where and how the energy flows. Symbiotic and mutualistic relationships are explored in this way.

Animals, plants, and biomes are studied in terms of their parts while showing how the parts work together to contribute to the whole.

Math is used to understand key concepts. The child does the math problem to come to an answer that gives them a deeper insight into ecological issues.

Most importantly, the exercises encourage the children to make connections and see how everything is related to the whole.

Sharon Duncan

Resources: The clearest explanation of systems thinking I have found: “The Myth of Progress” by Tom Wessels An online resource for teaching systems thinking to children: http://watersfoundation.org/

Maybe you are wondering and planning how to begin this new school year. Of course, you will begin with the beginning - The BIG BANG. What you do afterwards doesn’t have to be anticlimactic. Last year, I talked with the 6-9 class at the Waseca School in Athens, Georgia about what they wanted to do. After the story of the Big Bang, there was a solar system. We decided to take a journey through the solar system, visiting all of the planets, the sun and the asteroid belt and make a movie of our adventure! I would like to share that process with you as well as the trailer.

We began by dividing up into teams to research each of our destinations in the solar system. These teams would be the experts there. After they had the information they needed, the students worked with me to write their part of the script. All of the ideas came from them, I only helped to refine their ideas, ask key questions and type fast. The script changed to include their ad-libs as we began to rehearse for the production. For costumes, we collected matching knit shirt and pants. We made several belts out of silver lamé fabric over elastic with buckles in the back. I got the logo on the web and printed off NASA labels to wear on our shirts. For the set, I brought in a huge piece of cardboard used to ship a mattress. We cut out a window and spayed the cardboard with silver paint. We made control panels out of construction paper with silver pens and covered them in cellophane to make them look like a glass computer screen.We hot-glued bottle tops for dials and buttons. We painted poster board circles of the correct diameter for each planet to be hung in the window for that specific scene. There was a black plastic (garbage bag) backdrop behind it and cellophane in front. The set was complete.We wanted to add some stop motion action to show our spaceship visiting the planets.We needed to make a model for that. I found a great little video on tube about some homeschoolers making the planets out of balloons stuffed with rice in plastic bags. You can watch it .

just a little monkey business