Christian Montessori Fellowship

Christmas comes and goes too quickly. The anticipation, the excitement builds and then suddenly it’s over. As a child, nobody ever explained the “Twelve days of Christmas.” It was a long song that took forever to sing. (A lot like “Father Abraham”!) Have you ever studied the song? On one hand it really is for the birds. Half the lyrics deal with ornithology – one partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, six geese a-laying and seven swans a-swimming. But outside of that maybe we need to go back to the days when we celebrated the twelve days of Christmas. From the birth of Christ until the Epiphany with the Magi. The twelve days may give us time to savor the season and the reason. Peace on Earth and good will to men takes time to nurture. It is in this same spirit that we spend our lives in a Montessori environment – creating peace on earth and good will to the children.

And it is these blessings of peace and good will that we experience and want to share with the children of the world. Each of us in our corner of the world is getting to do that but there are thousands of corners of the world where children neither know God nor the great joy and peace that comes from learning in this unique way. Each of you is doing an amazing work in Christian Montessori. You are a “city on a hill”, a light to the possibilities of what Christian education can be. And your success is critical to both spreading the Gospel and sharing Montessori. Matthew 5:16 tells us “Let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.” Supporting and encouraging your efforts is a major purpose of the Christian Montessori Fellowship. Providing resources for parents and teachers is part of that support. But there is one other major purpose for which we need your help.

We want to teach the children of the world but we can’t do it without you. You are the foundation on which this movement is built. Your very existence as a school and as a teacher speaks to the real possibilities of this transforming way to teach and to live. But to reach the world requires the efforts of many people. Just running a classroom or a school requires great energy and is often a daunting task given all the challenges we face from society culturally, educationally and now in particular financially. So what do you even have left to give?

That same question was asked by the prophet Elijah to a widow at Zarephath (I kings 17:10-17). He asked for a piece of bread and she replied that all she had was a little flour and oil and she was going to make a meal for her and her son, “That we may eat it – and die.” (It sounds as if she could have used a bailout.) Give me some bread first, he said. And your flour and oil will last. And they did.

I can’t promise you that your support of the fellowship and the important work it represents will result in any easier time for you economically. I don’t guarantee you that you will receive extra money in the mail or under your door. But what I do know is that your donation to the work of helping children all over the world will bring a big smile to our Heavenly Father’s face.

In one sense, we are your missionaries to the world. You have your own mission field right where you are. But there are countless other fields that your giving can help seed with the Gospel and with this fantastic way of educating. We are getting ready to put our training programs on line to be able to reach schools and teachers all over the world. The Good news is too good to keep to ourselves. We need to shout it from the house tops and we have the ability to do so – with your support.

Please consider a donation – I know everyone is asking for them – but if Christian Montessori is dear to your heart – please put some of your treasure here. Jesus commended the widow (Mark 12:44) who put in her two coins at the temple treasury.
She didn’t give out of her wealth but out of her poverty. (She may have well been a Montessori teacher.) She gave out of her love. I’d like to encourage you to do the same. Visit our website www.crossmountainpress.com where you can find a tab for donations and memberships. God bless you for your consideration and support.

In the movie “Miss Congeniality” one of the running jokes about the beauty pageant – scholarship program is that every contestant always answers that what they want is “World Peace”. It is a high, worthy and lofty goal. The irony of world peace is that it does not start with the world – it starts with us, then moves to our families, our communities, our state, our country and then the world.

Most people living in the troubled corners of the world are just looking for safety and stability and food and water. Those of us who continue to enjoy those things have the luxury of pondering the way to create that peace that the world so desperately wants.

Montessori educators have really taken to heart Dr. Montessori’s vision of world peace. God gave her a unique tool on which to build this quest. And great hearted people have made this quest their own. Montessori education is a great transformative experience. And the seeming miracles that occur in children’s lives (and adults) are awe inspiring. And many Montessorians truly believe that if anything could bring peace on earth it would be a generation of Montessori children.

However, there is one great caveat. It is not education, not even Montessori education, that will usher in a world of peace. It is the spiritual transformation that occurs in the child. The environment, the attitudes, the guides, the treatment and nurture of the child makes this transformation possible. The Montessori community wants to nurture children intellectually, socially, physically and emotionally. Many stop at that point. Yet there are others who realize the spiritual nature of the child and therefore are looking for ways to nurture children spiritually but many don’t see “religion” as a viable, acceptable, effective way of bringing that about. In this group you have people who don’t want to “offend” anyone by teaching religion. You have others who have had negative experiences and you have others who have no personal experience with religious faith. Yet, these people (some of the most wonderful people I know fall into this category) feel a great need to instill in children an ethical and moral component for their lives. Montessorians have become known for their enthusiastic search for new ways (new age) to instill spirituality in children. The challenge is how to empower that spirituality.

Dr. Montessori writes that normalization has been likened to a conversion. And normalization in its ultimate form is a conversion – but that conversion must include the Christian spiritual. The wonderful soothing ideas, feelings and emotions generated by non-Christian spirituality lack the one ingredient that will bring peace both to the individual and to the world. They lack power.

An airplane is able to leave the ground because it has power. Once aloft if it loses power it begins its descent back to earth. Human effort can take us so far for only so long. But when we are connected to the source of power our motivation and ability to soar becomes unlimited. When Jesus taught, the crowds were amazed (Matt. 7:29) because He taught as one who had authority – power. When Jesus was sleeping in the boat (Mark 4:38-39) the disciples woke Him up, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” “He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Peace! Be still!’” The disciples were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!” He had power.

The challenge for us at Christmas and all year long is to believe Jesus’ words in John 14:12. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to my Father.” Later in verse 27 He says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” This is the time of year when we celebrate along with the angels (Luke 2:14), “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

World peace is a wonderful goal and aspiration. But the power to achieve that goal does not come through the intellect but through the transformed, converted heart filled with not only the power of love but the power of God. It comes with the Prince of Peace.

May you have both a Merry Christmas and a Blessed Christmas.

Maybe you’ve heard the classic song, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” It’s a great fun song that says if I had my two front teeth I could wish you Merry Christmas. So why would anyone (in their right mind) wish for their wisdom teeth? It seems that when we “get” them at 25 or 30 that they cause a lot of problems and pain. There is an old joke that says I’ve already cut my four wisdom teeth – I’ve volunteered, chaired a committee, been fired and bought a used car. Each of these can certainly be a learning experience. Some experiences have happy outcomes, others do not. And life continues to bring us experiences that can help us develop wisdom.

Scripture tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature with both God and man.
There are dozens of proverbs in the Bible that extol instruction, learning, knowledge understanding, discernment, insight, judgment and wisdom. And there is a hierarchy, not only in the use of the words, but in an understanding of their meaning and value. The founding fathers of our country had a far more rigorous education than that being offered our own children today. Today’s emphasis is on the lowest rung of this intellectual hierarchy – the pursuit of knowledge. With our emphasis on facts and testing we cause our education to be both mind numbing and passionless. Our emphasis on memorization and regurgitation takes the life out of learning (making it dry bones) but even more importantly tends to exclude both the wonder and mystery of God and His creation.

Our challenge in Montessori is to use all of the God-given insights to reach the goals that God intended for His children. Our first challenge is to have our own minds transformed to the goal. Montessori is more than just doing a better job than what the competing educational philosophies offer. It is a totally different way of looking at the child, at education and at life. Montessori is a spiritual journey lived out in an educational setting. That is a starting place. Trying to make a concrete definition of Montessori education certainly includes concepts such as hands on, individualized, an environment, observation etc but these are trees in a unique forest. In “The Secret of Childhood” when Dr. Montessori wrote “There is no method, there is only the child.” she was emphasizing the relationship between the adult and the child and not concentrating on the ‘formula” of interactions. Interestingly, one does not “do” Montessori any more than one “does” Christianity. Both arise out of a relationship.

It is not just the method but the goal that truly differentiates Montessori education from the rest. A lot of educators do hands on, create environments and try to individualize but their results are not the same because they do not start with the same end in view – the transformed child. They start with wanting an educated child which is far different than a transformed or “normalized” child.

Dr. Montessori, like most pioneers and explorers, didn’t know what was on the other side of the educational mountain but after she made those discoveries she retraced her steps in order for others to be able to follow. She literally saw a promised land, populated with the new child and she was anxious to take others with her. It is again ironic given that so many people consider Montessori education a place where children can do “anything they want”, that the operative word in Montessori’s writing to bring about this transformation is the mundane and common word – training. But isn’t that what all schools of education consider that they are doing – training? Again, the difference about Montessori education is the end goal. And it is that end goal that changes everything.

Modern education sees learning to be about knowledge where God sees education to be about wisdom. You can have knowledge without wisdom but it is difficult to have wisdom without knowledge.

Most educational systems start with the training of the intellect. The insight Dr. Montessori was given was to start with the training of the senses. From that beginning she certainly moves on to the training of the intellect and her experiences led her to also look at the training of the spirit of the child. A deeply spiritual Catholic woman (her writings are filled with her Christian spiritual insights) she came to a realization that to meet the needs of the child she had to include the spiritual dimension.

But when she looks at the training of the will of the child she further separates herself from the rest of the educational field. Many educators, parents, and professionals for years have considered the “breaking” of the will of the child to be important. Dr. Montessori looks at the training of the will (which in the end may be of more significance than all the other trainings) as being crucial. Much of life is made up of small details and small actions that performed over a long period of time create an outcome not always envisioned from the beginning. A few calories extra each day become pounds. Actions become habits, habits become character. Acts of kindness practiced over a long period of time lead to an attitude of happiness and contentment. Constant complaining leads to its opposite.

So what is the singular action that both defines Montessori education and leads to the transformation of the child? It is choice - choice with all its attendant responsibilities, consequences and privileges. (It is this same choice that makes Christianity what it is – a relationship based on choice – “Choose you this day whom you will serve.”) It is not coercion but choice. Scripture is full of choice – choose life, choose wisdom, choose God.

It seems way too simple (most profound things are.) Choice! Choice is not the first word we use in describing Montessori education nor in explaining normalization. But what part of our description of Montessori is not touched and transformed by choice? Hands on, a prepared environment, individualized, working out mistakes, grace and courtesy, silence, freedom, discovery and on and on.

The significant difference in understanding the place of choice in transformation is that choice is not random or uninformed. Our experience shows that too much choice, overwhelming choice, paralyzes and does not free the child (or the adult). So what makes choice a blessing and not a curse? We come back to training. Again, Montessori is NOT doing just what you want but (like life) making wise choices. And this is the beginning point of transformation.
Knowledge alone is not enough. And knowledge alone and by itself does not confer wisdom. It has been said we gain experience by our own mistakes but we gain wisdom by observing the mistakes of others. Why do you think that the scriptures are full of moral and ethical failures – as well as grace and redemption? For us to learn wisdom! Scripture teaches that the “fear (the awe) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And to make wise choices you have to have the options from which to make a choice. Defining Montessori as “meeting the needs of the child”, requires that the spiritual dimension, as well as the physical, emotional, intellectual and social components be present in the environment. It is not possible to choose what is not present. And to fail to acknowledge the majesty and awe of God and His creation is certainly to shortchange the “education” of our children.

Education has to be about more than just knowledge – it has to be about wisdom if our children are going to be able to love and serve God with their whole heart. And yet even wisdom by itself is not enough! Well, for Heaven’s sake what is enough? That is an excellent question for those of us who want to train, educate and nurture children to ponder.

Dr. Montessori came upon a revolutionary insight when she understood the need to train the child’s will. Most of us were raised in school and home with the emphasis on the “negation” of our will – doing what you’re told when your told to do it. There was little emphasis placed on choosing to do what’s right because it was what’s right. Movement in a Montessori environment is not negated or prohibited but it is directed toward a purposeful goal under the control of the child. Will, is accorded the same respect as movement – it has a purpose, it has a function, it needs to be under the child’s control

When Jesus was asked what is the most important commandment, He answered “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Loving God with our whole heart is the spirit; loving God with our soul are our senses; loving God with all our mind is the intellect but loving God with all our strength – has to be our will.

Solomon, the wisest man, had great knowledge and great wisdom and yet at the end of his life he followed strange gods. What was lacking in Solomon? Might it have been the will to do what is right?

Montessori education has been given to us as “A Pearl of Great Price.” This new booklet from Cross Mountain Press will help you articulate this unique spiritual and educational heritage. This is a great book to give to pastors, board members and other people who you want to understand why Montessori is truly a spiritual journey lived out in an educational setting. Order today at www.crossmountainpress.com

There are four stages to Santa Claus in life:
First you believe in him.
Then you don’t.
Then you become Santa Claus.
Then you begin to look like Santa Claus.

There is probably no better example of imagination versus fantasy than our North Pole friend. The reality of Santa Claus is that he was a Christian bishop who lived in the 4th century in Turkey. He was noted for his generosity. Those are the facts – the rest of it is fantasy. And so what’s our challenge?

Dr. Montessori writes in “Spontaneous activity in Education”, “But how can the imagination of children be developed by what is, on the contrary, the fruit of our imagination. It is we who imagine, not they; they believe, they do not imagine.” Santa Claus is a wonderfully “imaginative” icon of the best of the generosity of the season – but it is a fantasy. And to teach our children anything else is a disservice to them and to their lifetime quest for truth and reality. Now I’m feeling like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Santa Claus brings up many wonderful memories and feelings but the reality is that when we share the “varnished” “truth” of Santa Claus we are doing harm to our children. (Now, I’m also Chicken Little, and the sky is falling.)

Harm? With the sweet story of giving and holiday cheer? Unfortunately, we imagine – they believe! And that’s the problem. When we present a lesson, we tell the child “This is red. This is blue. Touch the red. Touch the blue. What is this? Now, what is this?” When we give the lesson, we are opening the door for the child to reality and to be able to name and define his environment. The young child is not yet ready for abstract concepts like honor and justice. All that he knows is presented to him as reality – and truth. What would happen to the child after three or four years of having presented “This is red. This is blue.” you one day tell him, “This really isn’t red. This really isn’t blue. This is green and this is yellow.” Confusion? Distrust? Perplexity? “But I wouldn’t do that to a child? So then why do we carry on this sweet fantasy when it causes this future confusion?

The four great characters that enter a child’s early life are Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Jesus. If you are “untruthful” about the first three, are you to be trusted about the fourth? Does the fantasy of the first three impinge upon the truthfulness of the only reality in the quartet? These are wonderful sweet cultural icons and stories but are they worth planting the seeds of disbelief in the credulity of our children? (Credulity is defined as readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence.) We are far more familiar with the terms incredulous – unwilling to accept what is offered as true, skeptical; and incredible – too extraordinary and improbable to be believed. Dr. Montessori writes, “Religion is not a product of fantastic imagination, it is the greatest of realities, the one truth to the religious man.”

Our service and dedication to the child must be based on reality and truth. Better to lose the fantasy of Santa Claus than the reality of Jesus – the one we really celebrate at Christmas.

In “Spontaneous Activity in Education” Dr. Montessori gives a full analysis of the difference between imagination and fantasy. For many of us we tend to equate one with the other. And our observation of children seems to indicate that children have rather fanciful imaginations – again confusing the terms. Her emphasis on not telling “fairy” tales to young children seems overly strict and kill joyous. Yet, her reasoning has great insight.

Imagination has its basis in reality. Fantasy is outside of reality – talking cats, flying dogs etc. “The true basis of the imagination is reality.” “To develop the imagination it is necessary for everyone first of all to put himself in contact with reality.”

“When man loses himself in mere speculations, his environment will remain unchanged, but when imagination starts from contact with reality, thought begins to construct works by means of which the external world becomes transformed”

Imagination changes things – fantasy does not.

So why are fairy tales (cartoons?) to be discouraged for young children? Because they do not reflect reality. But we don’t want to discourage imagination people will say because imagination is closely aligned with creativity and art.

“Yet no one can say that man creates artistic products out of nothing. What is called creation is in reality a composition, a construction raised upon a primitive material of the mind, which must be collected by means of the senses.”

You cannot draw a house unless you know what a house looks like. You cannot put words together to create a poem or a story unless you know what the words mean. “No genius has ever been able to create absolutely new.” “It is necessary that every artist should be an observer … in order to develop the imagination it is necessary for every one first of all to put himself in contact with reality.” “The immortal art of Greece was above all an art based on observation.” And Dr. Montessori goes on to say, “The more perfect the approximation to truth, the more perfect is art.”

So what makes a poem, a play, a picture or a story “art”? Part of it, naturally, is the aesthetics. But the other part (and this is where great art comes in) is that you don’t “see” the art because the art is swallowed up by truth. What makes a novel classic? Is that it continues to speak truth across time and space. Have you ever watched a second rate movie where the dialogue didn’t ring “true” or the action was implausible? Real art brings us to truth. Again, imagination is based on reality. And the training for imagination is cultivated by observation. St. Paul writing to the Philippians (4:8) says “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” Is this not a case for observation and exercising imagination to reach this goal of truth?

Dear Friends,
Barbara and I have been involved with The Urban Connection – an inner city non-profit ministry since last November. They invited us to come down to view the work that they are doing in the housing projects - everything from after school tutoring to job placement, GED prep, food banks and encouragement for the community. They had a vision to start a Christian Montessori preschool – that is where we come in. The project is dear to our hearts for a number of reasons. Dr. Montessori started her first school in a housing project. If there is anything that can transform children (and their families) it is a Christian Montessori education.

For months, we have been meeting with their board, their staff and prospective teachers. We have begun the first steps to help them set up the program and to train their new teachers. They have just been given a building that formally housed a Head Start program and so we are progressing. Next month we will start renovating and begin setting up the program. The urban connection staff is busy raising money for the ongoing project as well as raising volunteers to get the facility in shape. This is where we would like to invite you to join us. We would like to raise $20,000 so we can fully train the new staff and help shepherd the program along. This is a unique opportunity to actually make a life-changing donation. In fact, we can share nine benefits that will come from this one project.
1. Children will receive a superlative early education. Montessori education is still going strong 101 years after starting its first school in a housing project in Rome. The latest brain research and the latest educational studies keep confirming (without intending to) the validity of the Montessori approach.
2. The children will receive a deeply Christian education.
3. The program will impact families because of parent education and involvement.
4. The local community will receive a dramatic emotional and civic boost by having such an outstanding program started in their midst. Excellence in any part of a community, not only challenges the community to do better for themselves, but brings every one higher just by its presence.
5. This is a long-term drop out prevention program. Children quit school in 9th or 10th grade because they did not adequately learn to read in first grade. No one likes to stay in an environment where your inadequacy is highlighted every day. In a Montessori setting good reading skills are often in place by five years old and in many cases by four years of age – and even younger.
6. The school in turn will become a community training center to give training as a Montessori teacher to local residents. There is a big difference between being a day care worker and being a Montessori teacher. It starts with the difference in salary and earning potential and extends to such valuable intangibles as self-sufficiency, pride, financial independence and self-worth.
7. The program will serve as a model to replicate itself in other areas of San Antonio and beyond. There is already interest in Dallas even before the program starts because they see the potential.
8. The training program will create an additional platform for the establishment of more early education Montessori programs around the country.
9. The same training program will be used to help establish early learning programs around the world. We have requests for help from Kenya (where they are starting a school for Aids orphans), Liberia, South Africa, Romania, Latvia and Japan.

If you would like to make a donation to support our involvement in this program you can make checks out to Cross Mountain Forum which is our 501 © 3 tax-deductible organization. We can also accept credit cards. There will also be opportunities to physically help paint, clean and set up. This is a fantastic opportunity for some young children to get a great leg up in life. Montessori provides not only the finest education but the greatest training in responsibility, initiative, self-discipline, goal setting and success. And your help and support would be greatly appreciated.

The DNA of all mankind shares the “O’ chromosome. It is not a biological chromosome but a spiritual one. And it is this one chromosome that makes impossible all the goals of mankind that are not built on a relationship with Christ. Our best moralists, our most dedicated educators, our idealistic politicians all declare that all we need is better morals, better education, more money to deal with poverty and then man will be “good” and society will be great. But it is that pesky “O’ chromosome that prevents heaven on earth, or some variation of it.

Without God (and there have been many societies that have tried it – Nazi Germany, Russia, China) all we wind up with are millions of dead bodies and even greater inequality and injustice. Without God, all man has is this longing to surmount (if not survive) the curse of the “O’ chromosome. There is no real power – not even the greatest will power – that really can make us “good”. And for everyone in a society that might come close to the ideal of being good, there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands (millions?) who come no where near this goodness. The “O’ chromosome is a zero. It makes us impotent in the face of evil. It often makes us choose the evil rather than the good.

So how do we deal with the negative power of the “O” chromosome? First, you have to recognize it for what it is. It is the impossible imperfectability of mankind without divine intervention. Now, this is where we lose the moralists, the politicians, the elites, the intellectuals and most educators who believe we can become “good” by our own efforts. They want no divine intervention nor do they want to recognize the need of divine intervention (or even design.) They want to ignore the reality of the “O” chromosome because if they acknowledge it they have to deal with it and its source.

What is frightening to modernists is the unbearable reality that the “O” chromosome springs from original sin. A concept they cannot countenance nor embrace without acknowledging their need for a redeemer, a transformer. Or the reality that there is no way to get to “good” without going through God. It is only when that “O” chromosome is yielded to God that we have the possibility (and the power) to become good. It is the redemption, the transformation of the “O’ chromosome when immersed in God that gives us the possibility to become what He intended for us to be. The “O” chromosome is a capital “O”. It is all that counts to us. And without God it will continue to be a zero. But when you submit that chromosome to God and let God envelop it; let God swallow it up, it begins to change. It starts off as Go“O”d. And as we are transformed it becomes Go“o”d. And as His power, His love, His life flows through us we have the opportunity and the joy to become “Good.” And it is that goodness and only that goodness that will transform the world.

Educating parents is not a major subject in Montessori training. Parents are not a major subject in traditional educational settings either. The traditional attitude is “Let us do our own thing.” This does not work effectively for Montessori. Montessori is transformational. First, the guide has to be transformed. We are seeing the child with whole new eyes. Then our children become transformed by the living process through the environment. But if the parent doesn’t enter into the transformational process, then both your good work and the efforts of the child are compromised. Parent education isn’t a luxury – it is vital. “Getting Your Money’s Worth” is a booklet to help educate your parents to the multiple benefits of a Montessori education.

What brings this home so dramatically is a conversation I had last week with David Robinson, super star basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs. I had given him a copy of “A Pearl of Great Price” and was sharing about the Christian spiritual inspiration behind Montessori. He related that his son attended Montessori for a year but he had no idea of what was involved. Here is an intelligent, successful man and father who wants the best for his children and no one educates him about the lifetime benefits and value of a Montessori education. What makes the story even more poignant for me, is that David went on to start and fund Carver Academy to help disadvantaged young people to get a great education. With parental education Carver Academy might well have been a premier Montessori school. (There is still hope.)

Visit the website at www.crossmountainpress.com to review the table of contents and several chapters of the book. Parent education is vital!