Customer Reviews

Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful: Preventing Exclusion in the Early Elementary Classroom

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I had the pleasure to read and comment on this book before publication, and I have been waiting impatiently for its appearance on bookstore shelves.

For over 30 years, Donna Goertz has been painstakingly building a classroom culture that begins to resemble the ideal described in the works of Dr. Maria Montessori. While many settle for a diluted form of Montessori practice (e.g., accelerated math with fancy manipulatives), Goertz's aim is to serve Montessori's ultimate vision of a peaceful world inhabited by adults whose best impulses for creativity, altruism, self-knowledge and moral integrity had been supported at every step by a system of education based on the universal developmental needs of the child. To realize such a vision requires an uncommon level of skill and personal reflection on the part of the teacher.

Goertz has a reputation for taking on the "difficult" children that have not been successful in other educational settings, and much of the book is devoted to case studies of these children as they are gradually transformed by the Montessori classroom environment and Goertz's own masterful interventions. She calls these children "weathervane children" because they are the ones who "show which way the wind is blowing" in the classroom; i.e., being vulnerable themselves, they tend to be the first to show the effects of some aspect of the classroom community that is out of alignment with the true needs of the children. In this respect, says Goertz, they are the teacher's best friends, doing a great service to the community of those more robust children who may suffer in relative silence. (It has been said that the greatest impediment to the advancement of pedagogy is the resilience of children.)

During the 1998-99 school year I assisted Goertz in her classroom, and it is gratifying to see that she has to a remarkable extent been able to capture in words the atmosphere of the school, the "feel" of the classroom, and the personalities of the individual children about whom she writes.

This book is not a handbook of "classroom management," a teacher's self-help book, a "how-to" of Montessori techniques, a critique of traditional education, or an educational memoire. I see it as a lovingly detailed report on the progress of one long-term experiment in creating peaceful, peace-loving human beings through education of the whole person in community. Richly textured, it invites reading on many levels.

The book should be of interest not only to classroom teachers, but also to parents (especially parents of "difficult" children), spiritual leaders, school counselors, psychologists, sociologists, peace educators, and those interested in studies of community formation and life.

Two things about this profound book grabbed me and wouldn't let go. For starters, it absolutely train wrecked the stereotype I have long carried of Montessori schools as the exclusive domain of the "well-adjusted" children of the bourgeoisie. Until now, in other words, an inclusive Montessori school was an oxymoron in my lexicon. But, as Donna Bryant Goertz makes so poignantly clear in every one of the nearly two dozen stories about the, as she calls them, "eccentric" children who have enlivened her classroom in the Austin Montessori school over the past thirty-three years, a good teacher will make every effort to include even the most difficult child. The group dynamic of the classroom must not allow the failure of any child to thrive, she so rightly insists.

Goertz elevates the act of reaching the previously unreachable student to an art form. Consider the case of Argenta, who as her teacher put it, "used pee, and poop and food to control her parents and her teachers." Goertz, like her guiding light Maria Montessori before her, always proceeds on the belief that all children, if greeted with trust and patience -- and without judgment or blame -- will eventually present their own solutions to their inner dilemmas. So the first time Argenta peed all over herself, her chair and the floor, Goertz instantly recognized that the answer to her new student's obstreperousness lay in all that wetness. Rather than scold Argenta, Goertz kindly instructed her to change into dry clothes and clean up the mess.

Then Goertz enlisted the help of several classmates to help Argenta with was to become a daily two-hour ritual for the next several months. Together they got out all of the various cleaning apparatuses that Montessori specified must be part of every classroom, rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

The ritual produced healing on many levels. It eliminated the charge that had always accompanied Argenta's lack of bladder control and so she stopped wetting herself. It created a bridge between the other children and this newcomer who was so wildly different from them. And it even helped strengthen the previously immature muscles in Argenta's hands and arms. By mid-year Argenta was a fully integrated member of the class, reading and writing and crocheting right along with everyone else.

Then there was Herzog, a little rascal with scant ability to focus and a grand penchant for making messes. In a moment reminiscent of the time A.S. Neill joined in with the boy who was breaking the windows in Neill's beloved greenhouse, one day Goertz -- Donna to her students -- interrupted a very surprised Herzog just as he was about to launch one of his daily guerrilla messing sorties. Instead she invited him to help her unravel all of her special balls of colored yarn into one mad tangle. When all the yarn was undone, they stepped back together to admire their exquisite mess. Then, as Goertz did with Argenta, she recruited a bevy of volunteers to help restore order to the yarn. Herzog only required three or four such "treatments" before he moved on to a fascination with spiders. Soon he became the self-appointed caretaker of the classroom arachnids, earning the anxious newcomer much needed status among his peers. By year's end, Herzog was an accepted member of the group.

Goertz furthered endeared me to her work when was careful to point out that it is not only important to include children who are markedly different for their sake, but also for their value to the class as a whole. These children, she writes, are the barometer for how well the classroom is meeting the needs of all the children because they react overtly is ways that the others won't, and in ways that cannot be ignored.

Which leads to the second and most important reason I loved this book: the author's steadfast refusal to permit the labeling or medicating of any child, and her eloquent castigation of the system that relies so heavily on such tactics of exclusion and control. After reading Goertz's stories, only the most closed-minded would fail to recognize that there are other, far better ways to heal children with significant developmental roadblocks.

This is a book filled with deep wisdom about children. Don't miss it.

I discovered this book on a list of Montessori titles. As my son, who is in a Montessori School has ADHD I was hooked by the title. Once the book arrived I sat down and read it in two nights (unheard of given the demands on my time). This book reaffirmed my decision to send my son to a Montessori school. My son's teacher has been working hard to attempt to find the key to unlock my son's potential. I plan to buy a copy of this book for her and a second copy for the school's library. While the book is directed at elementary age children, I strongly feel that many of the ideas and concepts apply equally well to the 3-6 age Montessori children (as well as to older children). Also while the thrust of the book is on interactions in the classroom, it also has excellent suggestions and insights into how best to parent, many suggestions that I plan to implement in my family. In her book Donna Bryant Goertz tells stories of 12 of the children who she has taught (and refused to label as ADD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, etc...) over the past 30 years. While this is not a "how to book", but rather a compliation of her experiences, there are many valuable points and ideas that can be derived from her writings to help teachers approach the "non-peaceful" child. I feel this is a MUST read for every Montessori educator and/or any parent of a "challenging" "special needs" child. Since my son's ADHD diagnosis I have read LOTS of books on ADHD and education this is by far the BEST!

My very first Montessori teaching experience was in Donna Goertz' classroom in Austin Montessori School (her name was different then as was mine). I remember situations in the classroom and on the playground, which, to be honest, terrified me as a newly trained Montessori teacher serving as Donna's assistant. She would often step into one of those "terrifying" frays, placing herself strategically in the middle of everything of importance, and handle the children with respectfulness, fearlessness, and creativity. I still remember those situations with awe, and as I work with the children in my current Montessori school, sometimes wish for the really excentric and challenging children who teach us all so much. My late husband, also a Montessorian, wrote an article entitled "Why Difficult Children Are My Favorites." He remembered the stories I brought home from school as I was learning from Donna Goertz. I recommend this book to any Montessori teacher who finds him or herself silently and guiltily cursing that child who disrupts and seems to defy the normalizing effects of the Montessori approach. It is a gift to all of us.

This book is a collection of stories, insight and practical advice from working with twelve children during the thirty-year teaching career of Donna Bryant Goertz. Donna is a skillful, observant practitioner who provides us with a glimpse of her classroom that characterizes what she considers the absence of "obnoxious", "different", "problem", or "difficult" children. She provides us with the perspective that it is possible to welcome and include every child into a classroom and treat them with respect, dignity and love. The book replaces old habits and paradigms with better tools that build community rather than compliance. It is a MUST read.

This is a wonderful book. Donna Bryant Goertz makes a strong case that 'problem' children should not be tutored, medicated, put in remedial or disciplinary classes or otherwise excluded, but allowed to develop emotionally and intellectually at their own pace in a respectful, loving, supportive, and highly structured environment. Arranged as a series of case studies, the stories of these young students dramatically support Bryant Goertz's thesis, and the personalities and voices of the children shine through. In addition, parents (or others who work with children) can learn much from the discussions of how to approach behaviors that are disruptive to a Montessori community (or household, or playgroup).

Donna's book focuses on the achievements of the children she has educated, and how they have helped to educate each other. She describes children in the process of learning non-violent community building as well as academic skills. She celebrates the ability of the students to put these skills to use in their own classrooms. A great read for all parents and educators.

I have heard of Donna Goertz's work and have been waiting for this book for a long time. It is important for all teachers and parents, especially those who have begun to give up hope for "today's" child.

As the mother of a child who's been in the same Montessori school since she was not quite two, my first response to Donna's book was "Move to Austin! Enroll Katie in this school now!!!" My second, more reasoned response was, "Ask all the teachers at her school to read this book. Now!!!"
My child is growing up in a diverse, multi-cultural world that begs for adults who are skillful at teaching children to negotiate its conflicts and differences. And who are willing to stand by the belief that every child deserves to be included in community- EVERY one.

I read this book form the perspective of a therapist who works with children and as the mother of a child in a Montessori school. I think that it is an excellent resource for teachers, parents and any person who works with and loves children. Ms Goertz writes with a concise yet lyrical style and her love and respect for children is evident.