Abstract/Notes: Research demonstrates that community-building in schools is an integral aspect of student success. Based on a foundation of research findings related to the importance of implementing community-building into all aspects of a school, community-building activities, including five specific classroom strategies (parent visits class to tell about child, weekly newsletter with interactive activities, bi-monthly open-house hour where children explain school work to parents, Valentine letters filled with true compliments, and a cultural celebration unit focused on Africa), were implemented in an urban magnet school. This school was moving toward racial integration as well as implementation of a Montessori education program. As predicted from research information, incorporating community-building strategies geared at creating a welcoming climate, at improving faculty interaction, at fostering collaborative classrooms, and towards on-going and open teacher/parent communication and collaboration resulted in positive outcomes in what could have otherwise been a difficult, negative or unproductive situation.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1007/s10643-008-0290-z

ISSN: 1082-3301, 1573-1707

Abstract/Notes: All the basics of the Montessori prepared environment are put into an extraordinary context of community and nurturing through personal encounter. The article emphasizes the longitudinal impact of an intentional community that results in character and concentration and looks to the spiritual attributes of the child in relation to the tangible parts of the prepared environment. Connie Black advises us that spiritual development entails appropriate love, respect, security, and generosity. Correlating achievement with the teacher's understanding of community and the prepared environment, the harmony of the Children's House is the point of origin for social and moral development. [This talk was presented at the NAMTA conference titled "The Montessori Oasis: Prepared Pathways for a Sustainable School Community," Columbia, MD, October 3-6, 2013.]

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: The authors accept urban reform as their main calling with their aim being to break the poverty cycle with a multi-faceted, educational, and family-centered approach. The authors speak about providing a broad range of education programs and social services including low-cost housing in comfortable apartments for single mothers, early childhood educational programs, adult education programs, career coaching and job skills training, family support referrals, a home visitation program, a children's garden, whole-family practical-life orientation, and a community center. [This talk was presented at the NAMTA conference titled: "Montessori from Birth to Six: In Search of Community Values," Minneapolis, MN, November 7-10, 2013.]

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Abstract/Notes: Supporting multilingual learners’ access to equitable and socially just language education requires more from teachers than a critical stance and language awareness. Teachers of multilingual students must understand how their awareness and ideologies drive their actions and how their actions can generate new awareness both inside the classroom in pedagogical choices and outside the classroom in interactions with families and community partners. To aid teachers in moving through cycles of applying awareness to action, the authors designed the Community Action Plan (CAP) assignment for a family and community engagement course. This article outlines the components of the course curriculum and the conceptual framework that guided its design. The authors also provide a case study of how one novice teacher, Katrina (co-author), navigated the curriculum. They offer suggestions for how language teacher educators might guide in-service and preservice teachers to implement CAPs of various types to promote socially just language education for and with K–12 learners.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1002/tesj.552

ISSN: 1949-3533

Abstract/Notes: The following research assesses how daily singing and music in an elementary classroom impacted the sense of community, care of materials and cooperation during clean up time. This study involved daily singing of a set of songs with lyrical themes of cooperation and unity, and then playing of recorded versions of the same songs during clean up time. The eight-week study involved 16 participants between the ages of 6 and 9 at a private school in Minnesota. Each individual completed a pre and post-survey. During clean up time, observations of helpful behaviors were recorded, and any relevant quotations noted. Results of the surveys showed an increase in student enjoyment of group singing, and in the understanding of the terms “cooperation” and “community.” There was also an increase in observed helpful behaviors throughout the intervention, particularly in material care. Results show that daily group singing has a positive affect on building community, and increases cooperation levels while caring for materials. Further research may include using group singing to teach other topics such as environmental care, racial equality or academic subject matter.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016

Abstract/Notes: In the period 1919–1933 the experimental and community schools in Hamburg tried to put into practice a new model of schooling without a set curriculum that was based on providing a considerable amount of freedom for pupils and teachers. These experiences were introduced in the Netherlands by way of magazines published by the New Education Fellowship (NEF) or Dutch journals edited by educationalists and university professors. The Hamburg schools were also visited by Christian Anarchist teachers who were connected with new schools in the Netherlands and who already had experimented with new ways of life in small communities. In this article we describe their experiences in Hamburg. Their observation reports would not trigger a growing interest in a social community type of schooling; in general Dutch teachers, even the socialist ones, did not change their preference for the traditional classroom system of education. More individualistic methods from Montessori and Parkhurst (Dalton Plan), supported by university professors and inspectors of education, were considered to have more potential for changing the classroom system from within.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2014.927513

ISSN: 0030-9230, 1477-674X

Abstract/Notes: Working in the urban environment of Dallas, Texas, executive director of Lumin Education Terry Ford shows how schools which might normally be competing with each other can support each other instead and forge a community amongst themselves, ultimately serving the families of the area more successfully. Ford highlights using the classroom model of the prepared environment and the core value of grace and courtesy to help build widespread community by fostering a culture of mutual respect, compassion, and love.

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Abstract/Notes: John McNamara's historically rich descriptions of his adolescent community life in one school where he taught the same children from grade one to grade eight sends a warm message of the merge of elementary and middle-school personalities as they are beginning to understand the wonder of growing up. Their letters and speeches remember the impact of their Montessori community as they look at their own knowledge and humanity. His students speak simple truths about how their school made them comfortable with themselves, their classmates, and their work in the past and present and for the future. [This is an update of an article first printed in "The NAMTA Journal" 31.1 (2006, Winter): 69-77.]

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this action research study was to determine how community building music would affect the transition time in a primary Montessori classroom. The researchers were two female preschool teachers in public Montessori schools. The participants, aged three to six years old, were involved in a daily clean-up time, which took place before the study began. The teachers added a music intervention for four weeks to see if the dynamics of clean-up time would change. The teachers documented the research study using qualitative and quantitative data tools. The data tools included student surveys, teacher journals, a timer log, and a classroom tracker sheet. The intervention findings showed an overall decrease in the amount of time students took to clean up and an increase in happiness and community involvement in the classroom. Future researchers should consider the pre and post student survey be completed on an individual basis. Additionally, increase the length of baseline data collection and intervention.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2020