Provocations: From the Math Classroom to the Education Revolution
This is part two of the introduction to Provocations, a new education magazine from Breaking the Paradigm. The full publication is available to paid subscribers- thank you for supporting our work!
“This is the difference between the old and the new education. We want to help the auto-construction of man at the right time, so that mankind can go forward to something great. Society has built up walls, barriers. These the new education must cast down, revealing the free horizon. The new education is a revolution, but without violence. It is the non-violent revolution. After that, if it triumphs, violent revolution will have become forever impossible.”
-Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 196
My first experience with teaching was at a public high school with a large portion of students coming from low-income households. I entered the teaching profession as someone who had been successful in the standard education system that exists in the United States. As a student I earned good grades, largely because I learned how to “play the game” - how to be compliant. As a white female, the odds were in my favor to figure out how to sit and be quiet and follow instructions. But I learned a lesson in my very first days of student teaching that I had not learned in all of my education prior: the system that worked for me did not work for everyone.
I remember spending time during my student teaching working one-on-one with a chronically absent student to try to catch them up. After the class period ended, the cooperating teacher told me that I couldn’t dedicate my time to one student like that; I had to focus on the needs of the entire group. I watched helplessly as the student continued to fall farther and farther behind. Ultimately, I completed my semester of student teaching, watching as some students succeeded while others did not. And all the while, we the teachers just kept moving forward in our work, regardless of the level of content mastery of the students. At the time I didn’t think twice about the process of assigning each student a letter to represent their performance in the class - largely based on the quantity of work completed - and then allowing them to move on to the next course, regardless of their level of proficiency.
After completing student teaching and receiving my undergraduate degree, I remember sitting through a 4-hour job interview with the principal of a large public high school. One of the questions he asked me was why I thought that, despite billions of dollars and millions of programs being dedicated to changing the education system to meet the needs of more students, there was still a clear achievement gap. I will always remember the surprise on his face when I answered quite simply, “It sounds like a bad system.” That school was one that attempted to create a system that was less compliance-based by adjusting the weights of grades. Homework - which was said to represent what a student did - counted as 10% of their overall grade while tests - said to represent what a student knew - counted as 90%.
But the system was still flawed. The students that hadn’t been served by this system were not being served any better with the same assignments counting for different amounts. Students were coming to my math class with their guards up. They knew that they didn’t care about math and assumed that I didn’t care about them. Experience had taught them that their relationships with teachers were transactional; the students that did what they were told were valued and praised while those who struggled were ignored, at best, or punished, at worst. Ultimately, I made it my job to connect with these students. To show them that I cared about more than the work they could produce. That I saw them as complete humans, not just empty vessels sitting in a desk waiting to be filled with academic knowledge. It was amazing to see these hardened teens soften when they were simply acknowledged for having lives and priorities outside of the classroom. And once they felt seen and safe, they started to care about their class work.
Fast forward a decade and I found myself working in a Montessori school. I was amazed that an education system existed that actually prioritized human development and connections in addition to academic outcomes. But as I have been able to broaden my view and see how different schools in different parts of the world implement Montessori theory differently, I started to realize that there was still a large focus on meeting academic benchmarks. There were still learners who were being alienated, with the idea of “work” still being transactional. There were adults who still carried with them the remains of their own school experiences. There was still a need for change.
I was fortunate to meet Andrew Faulstich during our AMI 12-18 Diploma course. He and I connected over our feelings of discontentment with the current state of things. We talked a lot about how the changes we see as necessary in improving the outcomes of our education system for ALL young people cannot be quiet or comfortable. We the practitioners must be loud. We must push boundaries. We must get uncomfortable. After all, even Dr. Montessori called for a revolution.
When Andrew first pitched the idea of publishing a magazine, I was immediately on board. I felt that any way that we could spread the word far and wide that education is in dire need of radical change was great. We had already been publishing podcasts and developing training courses; a written publication that would bring together the other bright minds and loud voices in this work felt like an obvious next step. The name, however, was not an immediate “yes” for me.
The Oxford Languages definition of provocation is “Action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately.” Did we really want to actively anger and annoy people? Would that be the best way to gain more support in our endeavor? It took some reflection for me to come around, but ultimately I realized that the answer is unequivocally YES. We were already annoyed and angry with this system that was not working. I imagined Maria Montessori’s anger and annoyance after 40+ years of sharing her research and imploring people to make a vast educational and societal change. And here we are, more than a century after Dr. Montessori began this work, not in any better of a place than when the first Casa opened.
I am thrilled to share this space with so many great people who are dedicated to the radical reform that is necessary to construct an educational system that serves ALL learners. And I hope this magazine will leave you feeling provoked - stimulated or incited to do something - to join the revolution. Rest assured that you will find yourself in good company.
