Language: English

ISSN: 2215-1249, 2772-7319

Language: English

ISSN: 2215-1249, 2772-7319

Language: English

ISSN: 2215-1249, 2772-7319

Abstract/Notes: This six-week qualitative action research self-study investigated how critically reflecting upon personal heritage while engaging with decolonial, antiracist perspectives would affect perception and attitudes towards Montessori materials, pedagogical philosophy and methodology. With critical pedagogy as a theoretical framework, the researcher surveyed decolonial scholarship for recommendations. She followed a program revealed by the literature. She took two tests at the beginning and end of the study to establish a baseline of bias. For the first two weeks of the study, she engaged with Indigenous peoples' cultural production. She studied ancestral trauma for the following two weeks. To provoke equal understanding and connectedness to her own ancestry, she also engaged with media concerning her own lineage for two weeks. In accordance with critical pedagogy, these engagements were followed by critical reflections, leading to a more aware state that actively resists colonial (and other) oppressions. During the last two weeks of the study she also read about the struggles of and connected with people in the Palestinian territories towards an engaged praxis of solidarity. While the metrics of spiritual preparedness and critical consciousness remained evasive, the researcher observed deepening understanding throughout the study coding and analyzing journal reflections for themes. Recommendations following the study include: a dialogue-centered approach to Montessori teacher trainings, supplementation that includes decolonial knowledges, critical pedagogy, anti-racism, and trauma informed care. Research is needed to ascertain the effects of decolonial preparation upon guides and environments towards critical consciousness development in Montessori children. Indigenous erasure in classic Montessori materials need be addressed.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2019

Language: English

ISSN: 0519-0959

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this action research was to determine the effects of incorporating mathematical projects involving real-world situations into the mathematics curriculum on student’s mastery of mathematical concepts in a Montessori middle school program. The research study was conducted in a private Montessori middle school program with seven, seventh grade students. Data collection methods included archived pre-test and post-test scores from the past two years’ seventh grade students, pre-test and post-test scores from this years’ seventh grade students, field notes, narratives, and student surveys. The student’s displayed excitement in the incorporation of mathematical projects within their mathematics curriculum and the data showed a positive impact on students’ mastery of mathematical concept understanding when the incorporation of mathematical projects were included into their mathematics curriculum.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2013

Abstract/Notes: More than ever before, schools and societies are looking to educate children in and for a global world. In the United States, these efforts have taken the form of increased interest in incorporating global or international perspectives into educational curricula, programs, and policy over the past decade (Hayden, 2011; Parker, 2011; U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Despite this interest in what I call global education, ambiguity remains regarding what it means to provide an education for a globalized world, both in terms of its underlying motivations and its ultimate execution in practice (Ortloff, Shah, Lou, & Hamilton, 2012).Two components often placed at the heart of these efforts in the United States—second/foreign language and digital technology—both reflect and contribute to understandings of global education. This study, rooted in an ecological theorization of discourse, asked how different school actors (teachers, administrators, parents, and students) position these two components in education today, how these positionings differ across groups, and what this means for understandings of global education. These questions were investigated through two complementary approaches: a survey distributed to a large cross-section of schools around the United States and an in-depth focal case study of one school. The survey was distributed to teachers, students, parents, and administrators at a broad range of U.S. secondary schools and assessed perceptions of second/foreign language and digital technology in education today. The focal case study focused on two secondary classrooms at a multilingual immersion K-8 school in the western US over a four-month period; data collection included field notes, analytic memos, and audio/video recordings from participant observations as well as multiple rounds of interviews with five students, four teachers, two administrators, and three parents. Data were analyzed using iterative rounds of inductive and deductive coding (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Saldaña, 2009) and critical discourse analysis (Blommaert, 2005; Fairclough, 2001).Findings suggest that second/foreign language and digital technology were positioned in a range of different ways that had concrete ramifications for schools and that built up divergent understandings of global education. The survey component of the study highlighted common discourses reproduced across groups, including: second/foreign language learning as a way to promote cultural understanding and awareness as well as economic opportunity; or digital technology as a threat to learning and as an omnipresent necessity. The focal school offered a more detailed look into these different discourses and their reproduction across groups. Analysis revealed trended similarities and differences across groups. For example, even though parents, teachers, and administrators often articulated a similar understanding of second/foreign language and digital technology, parental actions suggested more alignment with economic-based understandings of these two components. These differences in how second/foreign language and digital technology should be positioned within a global education created a “battle” between parents and the focal school as well as tension within the learning environment. The impact of these discourses and battles on students was unclear: while students at times voiced the discourses that their parents, teachers, and administrators reproduced, data also suggests that students were influenced by outside sources. These findings suggest that resulting understandings of global education were multiple and divergent across school groups. Data analysis also revealed the potential that anxiety, concern, or even fear of globalization and its effects could undergird adult understandings of second/foreign language and of digital technology: beneath economic as well as cultural motivations for second/foreign language and for digital technology learning resided trepidation about a changing world, changing identities, and the unknowns that lay ahead. This suggests that, underneath multiple and complex discourses, there can be a singular discourse that manifests in different ways, nuancing understandings of ecological approaches to discourse. It also suggests that different understandings of global education could stem from the same place: fear or anxiety in the face of a globalizing world. These findings highlight the need for a global education that equips students to navigate a changing world, its challenges, and any potential fears that may arise from these changes and challenges. The study concludes with a pedagogical framework built around discourse analysis that could offer students tools to understand their globalizing world.

Language: English

Published: Berkeley, California, 2017

Abstract/Notes: Providing education for children residing in remote or difficult-to-access locations, including children in refugee and displacement camps, is a staggering global challenge. In addition to logistical challenges (such as access, infrastructure, teaching professionals and resources), differences in language, culture, environment, and values render conventional (i.e., Western-based, traditional) modes of education unfeasible and frequently ineffective. However, a strengths-based lens reminds us that communities have the capacity to initiate solutions when they have access to the right tools. Historically underrepresented in the literature, Montessori education has been used for over a century by communities all over the world to prepare children through academic and developmental growth to contribute to their local and global societies. Using constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2014) this study explored the application of Montessori philosophy and methods in diverse settings around the world. Analyses were informed by more than two years of fieldwork (including ethnographic inquiry) and conducted from 34 interviews with practitioners (N = 31) in 14 countries to understand where (contexts), why (purposes), and how (processes) the Montessori approach was applied. Final theoretical models were derived from the findings, depicting the ways in which the Montessori approach was applied in diverse settings, including the strengths and challenges involved in that process. Final models illustrated both processes of implementation across settings and the spectrum of application initiated by Montessori philosophy, methodology, and praxis. This study contributes to the literature on global education and Montessori education by informing policy makers, leaders, trainers, practitioners, and communities how Montessori theories of human development may be applied through principles, practices, and methods in diverse and under-resourced locations to serve the academic and holistic development of children via community-based initiatives.

Language: English

Published: Lincoln, Nebraska, 2022

Abstract/Notes: Montessori education is known as peace education. Normalization is one of the most significant concepts within Montessori education and which herself identifies as the “most important result.” The purpose of this study is to find out when and how precisely this Montessori theory of Normalization occurs in deviated children between zero and six years old; to precisely identify the timing, steps, and circumstances of Normalization, and secondly to examine the possibility of the normalized state of children to lead to peace in society. A total of 48 online survey responses were received from around the world. Twenty-one of the participants completed the open-response sections of the survey, and the analysis was primarily conducted based on these total responses. Results from teachers showed that Normalization begins with children’s spontaneous choice of work and comes with a solid and certain length of concentration. After they finished the work, peacefulness appeared in each child. The children experience this Normalization repeatedly and it manifests either as permanently or semi-permanent. This study centers on Normalization as a potential powerful tool for social change since this state is directly linked to concomitant individual and community peacefulness which can certainly spill beyond the classroom walls into general society. Furthermore, this study identifies the importance of analyzing the permanence of the state of Normalization since knowing the conditions for and causes of this permanence is key to both replication in experiments and its potential as an effective means for long lasting social change.

Language: English

Published: River Falls, Wisconsin, 2022

Language: Dutch