As a school leader, do you struggle to support your staff as they do their best to support the increasing number of neurodiverse learners in their classrooms at every level? You and your staff are committed to the idea of inclusive education, but what does inclusion really look like in action? And how can you be sure that ALL of your learners and your staff are thriving in an inclusive classroom? Join Montessorian, special educator, and former school leader, Christine Lowry, as she shares the components of a whole school system and structures for success to get you started on the journey. As always, we look forward to a lively discussion as we explore your needs, your questions, and your ideas.
Join Christine Lowry in an hour of conversation as we continue to explore neurodiversity and the questions we have about our work with children. How do we understand “today’s child”? How can the classroom environment and school best meet our students’ needs? What knowledge, strategies, and process can prepare us as we serve and support neurodiversity in our classroom and school? As always, we look forward to a lively discussion!
Through knowledge gained from the experts of her day, and her own observations and experimentation, Dr. Montessori came to understand that all children have strengths, interests, and yes, challenges. She recognized that all could benefit from learning together in a community of “social cohesion.” Today we would call this inclusive education. With 30+ years of research, we understand the value and benefits of inclusive classrooms for ALL learners. We can offer many opportunities in our Montessori classrooms to support and guide all students as we explore the alignment of Dr. Montessori’s observations with our current understanding of neurodiversity and inclusive classrooms. Can our 2025 aspiration as a Montessori community be to cultivate that attitude of the scientist, the open mindset that seeks to discover the needs of our students and not just their differences? Join us in conversation as we follow in the footsteps of Dr. Maria Montessori! In our time, we call this inclusive education. Thirty-plus years of research have shown the benefits of inclusion for all students. We can follow in Dr. Montessori’s footsteps as a lifelong learner to expand her teachings As a Montessorian and special educator, Christine shares her expertise on neurodiversity and inclusive classrooms with schools, educators, and online courses. 1 Montessori. The London Lectures. 2012
Our students with autism, ADHD, and Anxiety have more in common than sensory processing and integration challenges. Sensory input difficulties can certainly feel uncomfortable and even dysregulated much of the time, but it is also common for our students with differing needs to feel isolated, “different or less than,” and that they don’t fit in or belong. Naturally, it can easily lead to emotional and social problems for them in the classroom.
One technique we can use to support these students that can benefit all students, and even us and other adults in the classroom is “micro-moments.” These are brief, easy moments of interaction that help all students feel seen, understood, and valued. Micro-moments contribute to a culture of caring and belonging that are vital to every student’s success- especially those who feel “different.”
When the question becomes, “How do we manage the student whose behavior is disruptive or even aggressive?” we can reframe that question to “How can we support calm behavior for all students?” A primary reason for this behavior is dysregulation of the sensory system. Preparing an environment that supports regulation and calm is one primary way we can prevent, or greatly minimize challenging behaviors for our students. In this hour, Montessori/special educator, Christine Lowry, will share one simple, practical, doable environmental support for ALL students. Join us for a “how-to” in creating a Movement Corner (that really works) and how you can intentionally and explicitly teach and guide its use to bring greater calm and comfort to your classroom.
Are you wondering how you, and your staff, can support and serve the increasing number of students with differences in learning and behavior in a Montessori classroom? Do you wish you had an understanding of how you could lead your school community with a clear vision, and practical strategies that would support your staff, your students, and their families? Join Christine Lowry, Montessori- special educator, in conversation on how we can stay true to our Montessori philosophy while including guidance and systems for successful inclusive education that works for most all students.
For many of us, facing today’s challenges as school leaders and educators can feel overwhelming. What if we could embrace those challenges with a sense of hope and courage instead?
In this 2 part exploration, we will consider how the source of our challenges might be a disconnect with our core values, how we can reframe and accept those challenges as opportunities, and consider strategies to prepare, plan and motivate ourselves and our staff to explore those challenge with confidence and maybe even some excitement for the future.
Outcomes: 1. Gain confidence in your ability and capabilities as a school leader in these times of challenge. 2. Learn strategies for building a strong, collaborative school team with your staff. 3. Identify your current great challenge and plan how you and your team can take positive actions that will align with your values and mission.
For many of us, facing today’s challenges as school leaders and educators can feel overwhelming. What if we could embrace those challenges with a sense of hope and courage instead?
In this 2 part exploration, we will consider how the source of our challenges might be a disconnect with our core values, how we can reframe and accept those challenges as opportunities, and consider strategies to prepare, plan and motivate ourselves and our staff to explore those challenge with confidence and maybe even some excitement for the future.
Outcomes: 1. Gain confidence in your ability and capabilities as a school leader in these times of challenge. 2. Learn strategies for building a strong, collaborative school team with your staff. 3. Identify your current great challenge and plan how you and your team can take positive actions that will align with your values and mission.
As we manage and lead our schools, we have opportunities to teach and guide our staff and our community. If we could intentionally model and create the conditions for nurturing joy in ourselves and our staff, might we reduce our collective stress and experience moments of joy in collaborating as a community? Join in our conversation of exploring what joy means to each of us, and what is getting in our way of experiencing joy more often. Together, let’s imagine what could be possible if joyful moments were part of every day.
Christine Lowry, a Montessori special educator with expertise in language and literacy development, will share ideas based on current research that advocates using a natural, relaxed approach to learn and love reading. She will explain how to use a “serve and return” approach to speaking with your child from birth on, along with ideas on how to increase their vocabulary, structure sentences with ease, and ask “open-ended questions.” Over the last half century or more educators have tried so many ways to teach children earlier and faster to read. Almost all were unsuccessful with far too many children. Now neuroscience has found that repetition, reading, and talking together actually works best. Join us for this interesting and informative discussion.
Montessori school leaders and classroom teachers are expressing their concerns about the wide range in learning and behavior they are seeing in their students. Many feel at a loss in how best to support and “manage” these differences. And too many think the solution is to ask students to leave their schools with the belief that “Montessori isn’t for these children.”
What is going on?
There has been a steady increase in the percentage of students with “special needs” over the past 4 decades in the US. Statistics from the fall of 2020 indicate that 95% (7.2 million) of students with an IEP are served in public schools and 66% of those students spend 80%+ of their day in a general education classroom. Approximately 2% of those 7.2 million attend private schools. There are currently no statistics on how many children with non-documented differences in learning and behavior are being educated in public or private schools.
From federal law to an ever-growing body of research in neuroscience and cognitive science, including the science of reading, as well as an evolving understanding of special education needs, we are learning increasingly how inclusive education can be successful and what educators need to teach a range of learners.
Inclusive education- The What
An inclusive classroom provides equitable opportunities for ALL students to thrive . It is a philosophy, a framework, and a practice for educating all students, not just those with IEPs. As a philosophy, it is a belief that all students deserve full access, full participation, and the needed supports to feel a sense of belonging in community . Inclusion acknowledges and embraces diversity as just another difference in our world.
The current trend in special education is toward the “social model of disability.” This model moves past the outdated, old-fashioned “medical deficit model” that sees disability as a problem within the individual who is “broken and in need of fixing” to be normal, more typical. This ableist view is a deeply held belief that marginalizes differently bodied, differently learning, and differently behaving individuals. Unfortunately, this view is still all too common in our Montessori community and is even still being taught too our schools and educators.
The “social model of disability” sees differences and looks for the barriers, or obstacles that are not within the student but, rather, in the attitudes of the adults, the physical design of the environment, and the “one-size-fits-all” presentations and instruction used. This model moves us beyond our expectations of “normal” to be able to respect and accept all students’ strengths and areas for growth with the belief that every student is unique, and diversity brings value and benefit to our schools and classrooms.
Inclusive Education-The Why
Thirty years of research clearly demonstrates the benefits for classrooms that include all learners. Teachers in inclusive classrooms learn how to guide each child’s learning and positive wellbeing. Students come to appreciate everyone has strengths and all have areas for growth. A sense of belonging for all results in improved emotional and social skills. And as a matter of social justice, students who have had an inclusive education are more accepting and respectful of the wide diversity that is the human species.
Inclusive Montessori Education-The How
Montessori schools, private and public, are likely serving a large number of students with a variety of differences in learning and behaviors. Our schools are becoming “inclusive,” usually by default but what if we could provide an excellent Montessori education to ALL students in intentionally inclusive classrooms? What would it look like, what would take to get there, what are our strengths as an educational community that could be expanded and built upon?
Consistent with the teaching of Dr. Montessori, the “social model of disability “asks us to observe, reflect, and with humility, openly acknowledge the “obstacles” or barriers in our knowledge that are limiting the optimal development that each of our students deserve. We are asked to be the “life-long learner” we hope to encourage in our students. Can we cultivate a growth mindset that enables us to incorporate our foundational Montessori practices with an understanding of “next practices?”
A Montessori Whole School Systems for Inclusion approach begins with leadership committed to inclusion.
The strong leader builds community support among educators and staff with the development of a vision and mission. Working together, the policies and procedures, school rituals and routines, and needed professional development and ongoing mentoring and coaching can expand to “next practices” using a lens of inclusion. Providing teachers and staff with the knowledge, understanding, strategies, and tools they need to learn and practice is the foundation of a Montessori Inclusive School. With growing knowledge comes the growing confidence that can fully embrace the benefits and joys of inclusive classrooms.
Using the Montessori-based Multitiered Model of Support (MTSS) as a framework, Montessori school leaders and teachers can learn to prepare physical environments that support all learners. Schools can develop a whole school behavior support plan that is a continuum of growth in positive emotional and social skills, a “integrated spiral curriculum,” of wellbeing that goes well beyond grace and courtesy to include all five components of social-emotional learning. And when teachers understand universal design for learning, they have a clear structure for providing truly differentiated instruction using Montessori curriculum and materials to support cognitive and academic success in all learners. The most important work, though, as our schools work to become intentionally inclusive is a reflection on our beliefs, our behaviors, and our ways of being as we grow to serve and support all students with equitable opportunity in our classrooms and schools.
Inclusive education is an opportunity, then, for reflection, to learning, and expanding in ways that strengthens our practice as Montessorians while incorporating and integrating next practices of current knowledge. This is our opportunity to follow in Dr. Montessori’s footsteps. Scientific pedagogy has no end point. And as she taught us by her example, learning is ever a process of expansion and evolution of thought and yes, practice. May we honor our mentor by embracing “today’s children” with inclusive Montessori education.
Christine brings a knowledge and experience of special education and Montessori education in her work as an educator of adults in online courses, and as a consultant and coach to Montessori schools. She can be reached at christine@montessori-now.com
Building on our conversation about Myths of Inclusion, this week we will explore the barriers to full inclusion in Montessori classrooms and how we as a community can begin to “break barriers” as we serve an increasingly diverse group of learners at every level.
Join us in reflection as we explore the myths of inclusion with Montessori special educator and inclusion facilitator Christine Lowry.
This 2 part leadership forum will give us the opportunity to discuss common myths and beliefs about inclusive education. Is it right for Montessori? What is inclusion really all about? What are the benefits and the negatives? Join us in reflection as we explore the myths of inclusion with Montessori special educator and inclusion facilitator Christine Lowry.
Using the positive framing approach, shared by Charlie Biggs, we’ll explore how inclusive education is an equity approach rooted in social justice. Diversity, equity, and inclusion- we believe in the concepts. But what does diversity actually mean to us? As leaders of schools, teacher ed. programs, and classrooms, how do we understand what it means to respect and accept the full range of human diversity? What might we need to implement equity in our programs? What knowledge, what strategies, what skills would we need to gain? How do our schools, our classrooms, and our Montessori community work toward social justice?
Join us as we explore and reflect on our assumptions of ableism and how these assumptions impact our beliefs, our behaviors, and our ways of being in our schools, our classrooms, and for our Montessori community. We invite you to contribute to what will be a lively discussion with your Montessori colleagues.
Join us as we explore how SOR informs our instruction using a framework of Structured Literacy. This well- researched framework and its evidenced-based principles of teaching in all components of the reading process at every level aligns perfectly with the Montessori Scope and Sequence of Language while using Montessori materials. Christine has shared the course Dyslexia: A Montessori Solution with now 100’s of Montessori educators at every level. With comments like- “Teaching reading finally makes sense to me.” “Thank you for helping us with a continuum of instruction we can use at every level in our school.”
Hillary Drinkell and Christine Lowry invite you to join a conversation on Supporting Ourselves, Our Teachers, and Our Children during these next several weeks before many of us take a break for the holidays. As leaders, we want to care for and support our tired teachers and our excited children and still tend to our own need to stay calm and available during this especially busy time in the school year. We look forward to sharing your ideas and ours as we offer support to one another.
Join us as we explore the trend called “Quiet Quitting”. By now most of you have heard of this phenomenon. According to a recent Gallup poll, quiet quitters make up at least 50% of the American workforce. Could it already be affecting your school community? How will you know?
