On riding the roller coaster

Montessori Life, Summer 2003 by Miller, Heather

SECONDARY STORIES

Spending June and July in Houston may not seem ideal to most people, especially those of us who call the Northeast home, but spending the early days of summer in Texas greatly appealed to me. There were the obvious reasons: warmth and sunshine every day, more than one country music radio station, and an excellent Mexican restaurant on every corner. However, the most compelling reason for spending 2 months away from my family was the opportunity to attend the Houston Montessori Center's Secondary Teacher Education program and return home in August as my school's first middle-school teacher.

I arrived in Houston with great enthusiasm, expecting to spend the next 8 weeks of my life as a student. I did not expect, however, to spend those weeks as a middleschool student. After all, I'd already successfully completed the seventh and eighth grades and, as I'm sure you understand, had no desire to relive my adolescence.

Hesitantly, I entered the classroom as a "seventh grader." Instantly, I experienced deja vu. Who are these people? Where do they come from?How much do they know? What will they think of me? What should Isay? How should I act? Just be yourself. Yeah, right.

As I reflected on and dealt with many of the same emotions and issues I'd experienced in my adolescent years, I tried to focus on my assignments. After all, I went to Houston to learn. I read a lot, completed planning grids, wrote five-- paragraph essays, performed skits, diagramed sentences, conducted science experiments, researched Native American tribes, and did math homework.

In addition to the individual work, there were many assignments and activities that required my classmates and me to work cooperatively with one another. We participated in an abbreviated R.O.P.E.S. course and spent a weekend at Blackwood, a local land lab site. We even ran a business-a morning cafe-for a couple of weeks. Right now, we are working on our year-end research projects. Like the students we're now teaching, we, too, needed to figure out how to work together with different personalities and respect differences of opinion.

Even more important than learning the content of the middle school curriculum was learning from an adolescent perspective. Adolescents are at the crossroads between childhood and adulthood. They are unique and delicate individuals who are learning every day about themselves and their place in society. They are on an emotional rollercoaster ride, between the highs of self-confidence and the lows of self-consciousness. They are still children who need our guidance, encouragement, support, and, most of all, patience and understanding.

My classmates and I were told at the beginning of last summer that we couldn't ride the roller coaster with our students. Last summer, we were given the opportunity to take one last ride, so that we could enter our classrooms ready to provide the stability and safety our students would need. Truth be told, roller coasters scare me! So, with my feet now planted firmly on the ground, I'll watch my students ride. If they feel a little nauseous, I'll give them a bucket. If they want to rest a while, I'll help them sit down. If they want to ride again, I'll encourage them.

HEATHER MILLER teaches at Harborlight Montessori School, Beverly, MA.