Our guest blogger is Karen Woltman, a local Montessori proponent and co-founder of the Montessori Elementary School Steering Committee. Karen attended the Montessori School of Iowa City and her children have attended the Montessori Children's Garden in North Liberty. You can read more about the effort to start a public Montessori School in the Iowa City area here.
A bill was filed this week in the Iowa House relating to Montessori programs. If passed, HF 2045 would accomplish four things: 1) have DHS adopt rules for standards and procedures for approval of Montessori training organizations, 2) have the DE add a Montessori accrediting agency to the approved list of independent accrediting agencies for nonpublic schools, 3) have the BOEE adopt criteria for a Montessori endorsement, and 4) have the BOEE create an option for nontraditional preparation for the Montessori endorsement.
Montessori has been part of Iowa's education landscape for over fifty years, with Montessori programs located in communities across the state from Council Bluffs to Davenport and Dubuque. The Iowa City area alone boasts four Montessori programs serving approximately two hundred and sixty students in preschool classrooms each year.
Certified Montessori teachers typically have a bachelor's degree prior to beginning Montessori teacher training, and are fully trained in Montessori philosophy, methods, materials, curriculum, and child development.
It is hoped that the provisions of HF 2045 will support the efforts of existing private and public Montessori schools to continue to provide high-quality Montessori programs and support the creation of new high-quality private or public Montessori programs by recognizing relevant, high-quality Montessori training programs and a Montessori accrediting agency.
If you support Montessori education, please take a few minutes to e-mail your state representative and senator and ask them to support HF 2045. If you are uncertain who your legislators are, you can find them here. The Iowa Senate members and e-mail addresses can be found here, and the Iowa House members and e-mail addresses can be found here.
Johnson County is represented by:
Sen. Joe Bolkcom Joe.Bolkcom@legis.iowa.gov
Sen. Robert Dvorsky Robert.Dvorsky@legis.iowa.gov
Sen. Sandra Greiner Sandra.Greiner@legis.iowa.gov
Rep. Dave Jacoby David.Jacoby@legis.iowa.gov
Rep. Bobby Kaufmann Bobby.Kaufmann@legis.iowa.gov
Rep. Vicki Lensing Vicki.Lensing@legis.iowa.gov
Rep. Mary Mascher Mary.Mascher@legis.iowa.gov
Rep. Sally Stutsman Sally.Stutsman@legis.iowa.gov
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Monday, January 27, 2014
Monday, January 20, 2014
MLK and the ICCSD
The school district here made a well-intentioned but poorly vetted decision to hold school on Martin Luther King Day this year, on the theory that the holiday would be more meaningful for kids if it were accompanied by a day of school programming on King. The many people who protested the decision at last month’s school board meetings made more good arguments than I can repeat here. It seems a particularly bad idea to single out MLK Day, of all holidays, for different treatment, especially in a way that makes it seem like, well, not a holiday. Nobody asks whether Labor Day or Memorial Day might be more educational if the kids went to school.
Many parents explained that they would prefer their children to spend the day in the company of family or at community- or church-sponsored activities. I don’t blame people for wondering whether the school district’s celebration of the day might be less than ideal. Of all holidays, Martin Luther King Day seems like a particularly bad fit for school.
One problem for the school district is that King stood for something: that there was political, philosophical, and religious content to his message. Fifty years later, there is still great disagreement in America about what racial justice means and entails. The school district can’t (and shouldn’t) tell kids what opinions to hold on politically charged issues. As a result, the district is likely to confine its celebration of King to his role in history fifty years ago, rather than to his relevance today, or to limit itself to high-level generalities (civil rights are important; all people are equal under the law) or to some vague notion of “service.” A public school is also poorly situated to discuss the role of Christianity in King’s life, which would be central to any understanding of him. In other words, any school celebration of King is likely to be impaired by institutional constraints.
It doesn’t help that schools are particularly authoritarian institutions, while King’s mission required him to confront authority at every turn. It would be easier for the district to teach about King if it had a history (on the other 179 school days) of emphasizing the importance of individual conscience rather than reflexive obedience to authority, and of welcoming dissent and criticism rather than trying to quash it. It also doesn’t help that the district has been accused of disciplining minority kids, and referring them to special education, at disproportionate rates. At the same meeting at which the board discussed MLK Day, it discussed its plan to require IDs and background checks of parents who want to enter their kids’ schools. (After a lot of people objected, the board decided to revisit the plan at a future meeting, but the central administration is apparently still pushing for it.) It’s hard not to conclude: School district, teach thyself.
So many people want to see our schools as agents for transforming society that it’s easy to forget that the school system is a creature of society and likely to embody as many of its faults as its virtues. An enormous, bureaucratic, political institution is much more apt to reproduce the status quo than to transform it. Trying to urge humane values on school officials is a worthwhile effort, and I certainly don’t think it’s futile. But the state will probably never be the ideal candidate for teaching kids about political protest, civil disobedience, or the rights of the individual against the state; the conflict of interest is too great, and the likelihood of mixed messages high. That’s another good reason not to make kids spend Martin Luther King Day in school.
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Many parents explained that they would prefer their children to spend the day in the company of family or at community- or church-sponsored activities. I don’t blame people for wondering whether the school district’s celebration of the day might be less than ideal. Of all holidays, Martin Luther King Day seems like a particularly bad fit for school.
One problem for the school district is that King stood for something: that there was political, philosophical, and religious content to his message. Fifty years later, there is still great disagreement in America about what racial justice means and entails. The school district can’t (and shouldn’t) tell kids what opinions to hold on politically charged issues. As a result, the district is likely to confine its celebration of King to his role in history fifty years ago, rather than to his relevance today, or to limit itself to high-level generalities (civil rights are important; all people are equal under the law) or to some vague notion of “service.” A public school is also poorly situated to discuss the role of Christianity in King’s life, which would be central to any understanding of him. In other words, any school celebration of King is likely to be impaired by institutional constraints.
It doesn’t help that schools are particularly authoritarian institutions, while King’s mission required him to confront authority at every turn. It would be easier for the district to teach about King if it had a history (on the other 179 school days) of emphasizing the importance of individual conscience rather than reflexive obedience to authority, and of welcoming dissent and criticism rather than trying to quash it. It also doesn’t help that the district has been accused of disciplining minority kids, and referring them to special education, at disproportionate rates. At the same meeting at which the board discussed MLK Day, it discussed its plan to require IDs and background checks of parents who want to enter their kids’ schools. (After a lot of people objected, the board decided to revisit the plan at a future meeting, but the central administration is apparently still pushing for it.) It’s hard not to conclude: School district, teach thyself.
So many people want to see our schools as agents for transforming society that it’s easy to forget that the school system is a creature of society and likely to embody as many of its faults as its virtues. An enormous, bureaucratic, political institution is much more apt to reproduce the status quo than to transform it. Trying to urge humane values on school officials is a worthwhile effort, and I certainly don’t think it’s futile. But the state will probably never be the ideal candidate for teaching kids about political protest, civil disobedience, or the rights of the individual against the state; the conflict of interest is too great, and the likelihood of mixed messages high. That’s another good reason not to make kids spend Martin Luther King Day in school.
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