The Montessori Method
Interview with Maricela Cruz Trevino, Montessori Teacher
What was your own education like?
When I was younger my dad would always have me do math problems, and do multiplication, long division, couldn’t use a calculator and we would just do it for fun. We would take apart old typewriters and try to put them back together, so that was something that was, interesting, using your mind and seeing yourself as someone that figures out things.
My mom was really good about my, I guess you would say addiction to reading. I would read all the time and I loved series books and we’d go to Half-Priced Books. They really tried to feed that love of learning that I had early on.
When I was in second grade, my mom noticed that I was bored and not really engaging in my classroom because I felt that I had already learned a lot of the things that they were teaching. They decided to skip me a grade and I think that shaped the rest of my educational experience from there on, because I started to look at myself as smart, as someone that was good at school, that was good at testing and it really shaped my school identity from there on.
I think about the privilege of being able to feel like you as a parent can go in, that you have enough agency to go and talk with the counselor. I always look at the privilege of being able to speak English and advocate for your daughter. I suspect that I wasn’t in the talented and gifted programs because I don’t think anybody really saw my potential before and it wasn’t until they looked at my test scores and after my mom had talked to them.
Do you remember and how would you describe your greatest teacher?
He was not a typical teacher at all. He was very sarcastic and joked a lot but he truly cared for his students. He forced me to sit down and said that I will not be able to go to my next class unless I wrote down these six colleges; I think that was defining because I had to write down quickly whatever popped up in my head and Stanford was on that list.
What do you think is the purpose of education?
Two things:
One is survival. You need to know how to read, how to do basic math, and a basic understanding of science.
I think there’s also reaching the spirit of the child. I view that as part of our responsibility as educators - to not just work with kids on skills but make them feel like they can mess up and try again, that they are able to feel that they are part of a community of learners, and that they are working with others to figure things out.
Those are the two things - survival and the development of the spirit of the kid.
What are your thoughts on how schools prepare students?
I want my kids to be able to think critically. I am not a fan of standardized testing or giving out homework. I am more about exploring what drives you. I was a high school teacher and so I felt this certain pressure to cater to testing versus understanding and that was very hard for me because I felt like I needed to give them more reason behind what they were doing and why they were learning it.
What do you teach your children?
I want to engender this kind of curiosity in my kids. We were doing a random lesson on magnets because my son realized that these magnets stuck to the refrigerator and he decided that he was going to go put this magnet on everything in the house. He wanted to go outside and we spent 30 minutes or more just trying to see what the magnet would attach itself too; he was gleeful and excited and interested and I didn’t have to force a lesson.
What attracted me to Montessori was that I follow a child which means that I looked at what they were interested in, what they were doing well, what their strengths were, what their weaknesses were and I would guide them to things that I thought would improve or make them more curious.
Also I’m very much about play. I think that they need to move their body and get dirty with their hands and touch rocks and sand. There’s some science behind it too. Those big body movements, especially at the age that they are right now, are really important for them. Lastly I want my kids to take risks - that they know that they can try something and mess up and try again and it doesn’t define them.
Can you explain the Montessori model?
Montessori starts off in the womb. Montessori pretty much thought that everything should be finished around the time that a child is 12. It is possible that many of the things that you would cover in a Montessori classroom might be what most kids would cover until the age of 18. So there are not really Montessori high schools.
I wish I would have known about Montessori before; I would have changed how I viewed education from the very beginning. As a Montessori teacher I had to know where 20 to 30 kids were individually and I love that because I know each of my kids very well and I could guide them where they needed to go.
Montessori recommended that at the time the kids were 12, which is when adolescence happens, that they go work in the field where there’s a need to go back to your body and to go do manual labor. It sounds really weird, but the idea to go back to the earth and work with your hands again was something that she felt would be important.
Quote: “It’s not the load that breaks you, it’s how you carry it.”
Maricela Cruz Trevino
Music: www.bensound.com