by Letty Rising
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Once when I was a school administrator, there was an elementary classroom that I observed as being slightly âoff.â A new teacher had taken over the class, and the energy in the community felt differentâŠboth inside the classroom and out at recess. I noticed that there were various small groups of children who had come together to form strong bonds. These bonds became so solid that they were not easily penetrated by others, and as a result, a couple of them in particular were not inclusive to others. It would be fair to say that these strong bonds had transformed into various small social âclicks.â
I spent a lot of time thinking about this, identifying the different variables at play that might be causing this to happen at that moment, vs. not in past years. There was a new student with a magnetic personality who pulled a couple of other students very close, to the exclusion of others. There was a new and inexperienced teacher at play. And along with these things, there is the Montessori environment which allows children the freedom to choose.
Combining these aspects with the freedom we offer in the elementary classroom, some children chose to work or play with their preferred peers, and the teacher didnât see an obvious path to changing this.
When Iâve reflected upon the anti-bias work that many educators are advocating for and implementing within the Montessori community, I have found it to be ironic that the way in which a Montessori classroom is inherently set up, in certain ways, supports, enhances, and facilitates bias. After all, if the children have the freedom to choose, that also means that they could potentially have the freedom to exclude and to stay with the friend group they feel most comfortable with.
I remember when I was a child in a traditional school setting, the teacher most often assigned our seats, which I didnât love because I wasnât able to sit next to my best friends. And yet, sitting next to people who have the same first letter of their last name as me, or whatever random criteria that the teacher used to assign seats, meant that I had the opportunity to sit next to people from sometimes very different backgrounds and experiences than myself, and also sometimes next to people who held different values or came to have very different political persuasions (which of course I wouldnât know at the time, as an elementary student, but found out on social media years later).
Knowing these people, being able to share my own perspective, and seeing them question and analyze their own views because they cared about and trusted me, is a pretty incredible outcome of creating situations where children are working in circles with people they wouldnât typically choose to be with otherwise.
Exercising choice is important, and itâs one of the bedrocks of Montessori pedagogy. And yet, freedom of choice can mean that others experience rejection as a result of the choices made. In a traditional classroom, teachers assign groups of children to work on projects, they assign seats during class, and sometimes during lunch. And while many Montessorians are quick to balk at this practice as not respecting the freedoms of the child, this practice also helps children learn how to work and be with people they might not commonly gravitate to, leading to unlikely friendships that may not have been forged otherwise, had the children been given the choice themselves.
While we as Montessori educators hold in high regard the notion that children can choose who they work with, and who they play with, the truth is that this practice can lead to increased bias and division in a classroom community. Children may continually choose the same work partners because their preferred partners feel like a comfortable option.
Maybe a child who has a need for control has formed a group where they can continually be in the lead and thus have few opportunities to be led by others. Maybe a child who wants to take a more passive role joins a group of people with strong opinions and who take action, allowing the child to sit on the sidelines while others take the lead, having few opportunities to be in a leadership role. Continuing to work with the same work partners for every work cycle doesnât provide opportunities to stretch out of oneâs comfort zone, and can lead to children developing fixed habits and mindsets that can be resistant to change.
We donât need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The advantages of preparing an environment for choice far outweigh the disadvantages when there are proper supports in place to create an environment that is vigilant about addressing the formation of cliques.
If we are fostering an environment of choice, and also creating conditions for children to work with and interact more closely with their non-preferred peers, then we have to be absolutely conscious and intentional about structuring the socially and emotionally prepared environment. I am of the opinion that this is one of the most important things you can do to foster an inclusive and anti-bias mindset in children.
So how can you, as a teacher, facilitate children working with/beside/along with others who are not their preferred work partners?
Targeted and random lesson groupings. There are a few ways in which teachers decide who to group together for lessons. Two of the most common are ability-based groupings and interest-based groupings. And these two groupings, if not careful, can lead to a more divided classroom rather than a more connected one.
For example, it makes a lot of sense in math and language to deliver lessons based on ability. If you have a few children who are struggling with fractions with mixed numbers, it makes the most sense to group these students together to work on this concept than to divide them into other groups with children who are at different points in their fraction journey.
However, children progress at varying rates, and those rates are often not evenly paced or linear. So groups also need to be dynamic and ever-changing to reflect that organic progression. So you might gather the same children together to work on fractions for a few weeks, but then you might start working on some geometry, and you want to mix up your groupings again. Or, 2 of your 4 students working on mixed fractions have attained mastery, so then you may have them join another group working on fractions with uncommon denominators while keeping the two who are still working to attain mastery together.
Resist the tendency for groups to solidify, and possibly even ossify! And the same goes for interest groups. You might have a group of students interested in erosion, and you bring them together for the lesson, and they do some follow-up work. However, the next time you bring students together for a science lesson, be sure to switch up your groups!
I encourage you to resist the tendency to always, or even almost always, group children according to their friendship groupings. This is great to do at times, but it can perpetuate the clicks you hope to open up.
I know that inexperienced teachers sometimes are new at practicing setting boundaries, and the idea of children protesting a lesson because the lesson doesnât include their immediate best friend who they find hard to separate from can make any tired teacher want to take the easy route and say âyes,â to every request that they are grouped in lessons with their preferred partners. But if we are to work at creating an inclusive, anti-bias environment, we have to create unfamiliar opportunities for children, and for children who are exceptionally attached to a friend or who dislike change, this can be difficult.
When giving presentations, the best way to support a variety of children coming together who donât normally spend time together is through targeted and random classroom groupings. Targeting groupings are when you have a specific goal in mind that will lead to a particular outcome.
For example, if you have a new student, you might strategize by creating a group including this new student that includes other students in your class who are naturally outgoing and enjoy connecting with new people. While we want all children to learn to connect with everyone, itâs first important for them to connect with someone, and choosing students who easily connect with others vs students who are slow to warm up to anyone (or anything!) new is a good place to begin.
Another example of targeted grouping: if you have a couple of students who are actively not getting along, you might want to facilitate positive interactions with them through a carefully curated group of children including them, to create some positive interactions. That way, you are there to model and scaffold not only their learning experience but also their social experiences, in hopes that they can overcome their immediate conflict hurdle.
Random classroom groupings might be to include children from various identity circles, including gender, ethnic background, ability, and interest. Creating groupings that are comprised of a mixture of random children from different friend groupings, especially with your encouragement and support, will lead to them growing to know one another better. This minimizes children feeling excluded, or the development of an inner vs outer circle.
Final Thoughts
Helping your students branch out from their preferred partners takes some work, and your solutions to this challenge will be based upon your continuous observation of students both in the classroom and at recess and implementing strategies for change to occur. While we want to honor preferred partners and special relationships in the classroom, we also donât want to miss opportunities to create new connections that havenât yet been formed.
Being in tune with your class through organic conversations with students, discussions at community gatherings, and careful monitoring and observation, will undoubtedly lead to a classroom that is united in friendship and camaraderie, where all students feel that they have an abundance of work partners to choose from.
Letty Rising has been involved in Montessori education for over 15 years. She holds a B.A. in Sociology, a California State Teaching Credential, and an AMI elementary diploma for ages 6-12 and an M.Ed from Loyola University in Maryland. She has held positions as a Homeschool Education Specialist, Montessori Elementary Teacher, School Director, Principal, Montessori Coordinator, and Consultant in several public and private Montessori school communities throughout the years. Letty currently supports schools around the world through professional development offerings, consulting, and mentoring.