Last week, I wrote about the idea of faux-responsibility, that is, specific obligations that benefit only a child's future, not their present community. And yet, I have precisely one item for sale in my store, and it is a set of child-friendly school standards. Amazingly, not a single person has asked me about this contradiction. I'm going to explain it anyway.
I'm not a big believer in "school standards," or curriculum at all, except in very particular circumstances (when a person has requested orderly guidance through a topic). However, we live in a society that places academic expectations on children based on their age, and there can be consequences for ignoring those expectations. Even though I don't agree with the standards, it would be unfair to the children in my care to just pretend they don't exist.
So this is how I use the child-friendly school standards in my classroom in a private Montessori school. (The same basic idea applies to a public or charter Montessori classroom, though some of the details would have to change).
I typically don't say anything about school standards until a child is 8 or 8 1/2. My experience is that this is the sweet spot for most children, where the conscious desire to be "responsible" and meet expectations starts to blossom. Before that, the idea that society places expectations on them just isn't meaningful to most children.
When I judge a child or group of children is ready, I bring out the school standards and tell the children something like this:
Here in our Montessori school, you are very lucky because you get to decide how to spend your days and you get to work on what you're most interested in. Most children don't get to make those choices. However, you should know that our society has certain expectations about what children your age should be learning. These lists will show you what your peers in other schools are learning right now.
It's entirely up to you how you use this information. You might decide you want to work through them in order and be sure to learn every single item on them. I'm happy to help you figure out what you need to practice. You might just spot check the lists every now and then. Or maybe you'll ignore them completely.
Before you do that, I want you to understand what the consequences of that choice might be. As long as you're here in our class, there won't be any real consequences, though your parents might worry and you might not do as well on the standardized tests we practice in the spring. But, if you are going to go to another school after your time here, and especially if you are going to go to a traditional public school, your teachers and classmates will expect that you have studied these topics. You might feel embarrassed or have to do extra work to catch up if you haven't learned these things. [For young adolescents, I might add that what they learn now may affect their choice of classes in high school.]
On the other hand, if you follow them too closely, you might be bored and you might lose out on the chance to discover and follow a suprising interest. But the choice is yours.
Let's take a look at the lists together and you can ask me any questions. I think you'll find that most of the items on the list are things that you do anyway.
My approach has evolved over the years. I used to tell children that society gave them certain responsibilities, but I've started to avoid that term as I've come to appreciate the difference between real responsibility and faux-responsibility. Now I prefer to use the term "expectation".
I have also begun to emphasize the children's choice and the consequences of that choice, based on suggestions from William Stixrud and Ned Johnson in their book The Self-Driven Child. They suggest that our job as parents (and in this case, as a teacher) is not to make choices for children, but to ensure that children have the information to make a well-informed decision, and then we allow them to make their own choices, so long as they are in the realm of reasonable. In this case, I feel that most decisions a child could make are reasonable (even if their parents may not agree!), and so I put the child in charge. If concerns arise, I can discuss them with an individual child at a later date.
Share in the comments: How do you give children information to make their own choices?