“How can you achieve a culture of peace in your classroom?”
Imagine walking into a classroom. All the students are moving with purpose, care, and precision; there’s a quiet buzz of activity in the background and one adult is quietly assisting a child. This is the epitome of a Montessori classroom. This is what so many Montessorians envision when we imagine a peaceful classroom.
This is often referred to as a culture of peace.
A culture of peace does not just happen, it is achieved through an ongoing process. It requires planning, navigating, negotiating, and inner work.
Why a Culture of Peace is So Important in Today’s Classroom
Peace is a critical part of today’s classrooms. A “peace education” lays the foundation and builds the soul of our next generation. Teaching young children how to work together and interact in a kind, respectful manner that honors each individual in the community is the most important task any teacher, parent, or guardian is faced with. In order for peace to become habitual, we want to take advantage of the fact that during the formative years children are learning how to engage, interact, problem solve, and have empathy for others. By starting early, educators across the world can begin to sow the seeds for a peaceful world and society.
Creating peace in Your Montessori classroom goes beyond just teaching about it and reminding the children to “be kind” and “do the right thing.” As Montessori guides and parents, we need to take a step back and critically look at the process.
The first thing is that we need to do is to commit to making peace education a priority. For most of us, this is what attracted us to the Montessori practice in the first place—peace education.
How to Create a Culture of Peace in Your Classroom: Modeling Peace and Respect
Be the Peace
Be the peace you want to see from the children. Check your struggles at the door. All teachers have “stuff” that we are dealing with. It’s important that when you are with your students, you are FULLY present with them. You are there 100% and committed to them. This is the part of the “inner preparation” that Montessori talked about a lot. Preparing the environment begins with preparing yourself.
Ask yourself a few questions, what are you doing to take care of yourself so that you can be fully present? What kind of practices are you engaged in that will help preserve the sense of “peace” that you wish to create? Do you need to add or change anything? Are you taking care of ALL aspects of yourself, mind, body and spirit? We are ALL wired differently, and this practice comes easier for some than others, and that’s okay, it’s just up to you to figure out what works for you.
Remember, this is not always perfect, this practice is fluid, and it’s just that, a practice. This practice is the key to a peaceful classroom, because once you embody the peace within yourself, the energy you transmit will transcend the classroom.
Model Respect
Establishing RESPECT as a foundational governing principle in the classroom is paramount. If you want to create a culture of peace in your classroom, you should start with modeling the respect you want to see in the children.
Then, you can begin to have regular lessons, reminders, and examples of what respect is and what it looks like. The three basic rules of respect generally are: 1) Respect yourself, 2) respect others, and 3) respect the environment. Look for ways you can exhibit these rules—from quietly watching someone work, to holding the door for others, to picking up a piece of litter, to doing your best—and model those for your students.
A culture of peace does not happen overnight, nor is it ever perfect. As teachers and parents we are all faced with countless challenges—some which are within our control, and others beyond what we can control. The key to this is to focus on what you can do to create a culture of peace. This may be different every day, and you may have to start again each day, and yet, our children will continue to grow and learn, because that is what they are wired to do!
In Peace,
Kristen and Spramani
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