One School, One Heart: Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright
By Tom Brown
This is the fifth article in a series on Elizabeth Slade’s book Montessori in Action: Building Resilient Schools written for Public Montessori in Action International. So far I have outlined Slade’s “Whole School Montessori Method”, and looked at the three “Core Elements” of the method: Constructivism, Equity, and Coaching. In this post, I look at the first of the main components of the method: One School.
“We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.” Dr. Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential
Montessori schools come in all shapes and sizes - big and small, public and private, accredited and unaccredited, religious and secular, rural and urban. I’ve taught both in a Montessori adolescent program of 120 students at a public charter school and supported a private homeschool hub that operates three days a week out of a community center with only a handful of students between the ages of 5-10. Each of these schools is connected by our common Montessori mission and philosophy and a powerful will to educate children differently.
As well as our Montessori philosophy, there is one other thing that has been consistent in all of these schools - conflict. Every school I have taught at or worked with have all at different points experienced conflict and division across their whole school culture and environment. As a young teacher, I was told so many stories of division, staff exodus, and school closure by experienced Montessori guides. Fissures have erupted around authenticity, training, leadership, family partnerships, special education provision, and behavior management.
Education is already a pressure cooker of strong emotions and competing influences. Throw in the complexities of running a Montessori school and conflict is unsurprising. However, the issue of conflict in Montessori schools, between schools, and between Montessori organizations is, I believe, an existential threat to the success of our Montessori movement. Infighting and division go against the core values of the Montessori Method, which is built upon a philosophy of collaboration, interconnectedness, and peace.
What is One School?
So how can we build a healthier, more resilient movement? How can we build healthier, more resilient schools? How can we create spaces where conflict is productive rather than destructive?
Elizabeth Slade, Executive Director at Public Montessori in Action International (PMAI), has a suggestion, and she calls it One School. This is one of the key components of Slade’s Whole School Montessori Method. Here is how she describes it:
“One School means holding the commitment to the unity of the school without divisions or factions. It means making decisions that support the school as a cohesive entity, using calibration and organization to hold it together.”
One School is a recognition that schools are interdependent, not just composed of individual classrooms, but an interconnected organism that depends upon the success of all of its parts to truly flourish. Creating a One School culture involves a process of self-reflection and community alignment achieved through the implementation of a comprehensive plan of principles, systems, and tools that can help conflict-proof your school.
The first step of One School is recognizing all of the possible fault lines, the areas of division, that exist in the school fabric. This could involve the following:
Trained vs untrained adults
Primary vs elementary
Teachers vs administration
School vs families
Leads vs assistants
Montessori teachers vs SEND teachers
Experienced teachers vs novice teachers
These are the areas of school life where it is easy to slip into an Us vs Them mentality. Along these fault lines, differences in goals, values, and methods seem to clash, and it can all quickly descend into a zero-sum game where everyone feels like they are fighting for their own needs rather than a common goal. Beneath these divisions, Slade notes, are also possibilities for prejudice and bias, for issues of inequity to arise. Read this previous article for the role of equity in the Whole School Montessori Method.
As with Slade’s approach to equity, she proposes several areas of self-analysis that schools should look at to help bring these possible areas of conflict to the surface:
Unity - What are the potential fault lines in your school and how are they being bridged?
Awareness - What are some latent biases and prejudices that exist in your community?
Power - What are the power dynamics at your school? How is power shared? Does everyone feel acknowledged and held as equal?
Structure - What are the structures that exist in the school for addressing issues before they grow? How successful are these processes for all stakeholders?
Autonomy - Do the systems at your school allow for everyone - families, staff, and children - to attain the highest level of functional independence? Are they clear and transparent?
In the book Montessori in Action: Building Resilient Schools, Slade then provides further tools for schools engaging in this self-reflective work.
Calibration & Organization
As well as self-reflection, Slade provides a full road map for implementing a One School culture in your organization. There are two key components to this plan:
Calibration - how to “support all stakeholders in feeling in tune with the mission” or how to create mission alignment
Organization - how to create a structure for your work together as a school that includes everyone
Under calibration, Slade lays out a series of principles and practices for aligning your school community, including weekly meetings process and tools, practices related to role clarity, and an appraisal process and tools. Each of these systems and processes is set up to both create institutional clarity and to empower all members of the school community to be full participants in the forward progress of the school. To create an interdependent, rather than dependent community.
For example, when mapping out a culture for meetings, Slade writes: “Many school meetings revolve around one-way communication where a school leader is talking and everyone else is listening and expected to do what is presented.” A One School meeting model insists instead on everyone having an equal voice in the conversation, and it pairs this commitment to inclusion with a clear structure and set of shared tools.
Meeting guidelines are clear, professional, equitable, and include a follow-up process to ensure action. A universal meeting tool is used across all departments. And then, rather than a top-down meeting structure, regular collaborative weekly meetings are conducted that bring in multiple perspectives. Every week there should be lead teacher coaching meetings, level team meetings and lesson study meetings, leadership meetings, student support and child study meetings with special educators, and assistant meetings. Each individual should expect to participate in 2-3 meetings a week. This then acts as “a means [for] understanding multiple perspectives, valuing everyone’s input, and creating investment in the various aspects of the school.”
This is big work, too big to cover in a simple article, and I encourage anyone who wants to explore these concepts further to read the book, which also comes with tools for implementing these ideas.
Under organization, Slade provides a full road map for how a school community can engage in work together over the course of a year. This includes processes and tools for observation, professional development, and family engagement. I have written about the Whole School Montessori Method yearlong calendar in this previous article on Coaching. Again, the book is rich with tools and suggestions for each of these areas, from family engagement calendars to observation tools.
Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright
Through the Fellowship program at PMAI, I have had the privilege to engage in discussion with teachers at schools who have fully bought into Slade’s Whole School Montessori Method. These are schools that use the Nautilus Approach to Discipline, that follow a One School approach, and that have an established network of coaches. One thing I’ve noticed is that these teachers and leaders have a clear sense of what they need to do to address certain issues. They are not stuck in the weeds, trapped in conflict, but they have a clarity of purpose, a shared language and set of practices, and a sense of unity that must come from the mutual systems that have been put in place.
Schools which lack systems, which lack unity, which lack consistency, and which lack clarity will succumb to conflict. They will lose staff and lose families. Schools that exist as just an amalgam of individual classrooms, or that are held together only by the fortitude of their leader, will struggle to cope with change. I’ll finish with Slade’s own words on the value of a One School approach:
“When people are included and feel like they are part of something important, this leads them to want to stay. People staying and building a strong Montessori school is critical; committed staff and committed families make the school solid, durable, and stable. This gets passed on through generations of people who both work at and attend the school, and the result is a resilient Montessori school.”
Tom Brown
Tom Brown is a 10+ year experienced AMI elementary and adolescent guide with an M.Ed. in Montessori Education. He has worked in both public and private Montessori environments in the US and UK. He is currently working as an educational consultant and writer under the name Marigold Montessori and has supported the growth and development of several Montessori schools and organizations. You can read more of his writing here or connect here.