“BUILDING FOR PEACE: CREATING A BETTER WORLD
THROUGH THE JANE ADDAMS BOOK AWARDS”
BACKGROUND/LITERATURE REVIEW
In educating for peace, Montessori looks to the child as “both a
hope and a promise for mankind” (p.31). In a “campaign against
war” (p.29), she argues that first and foremost, “education is the
best weapon for peace.” (p.28). The cultural practices for peace
shaping literacy classrooms around the globe may take many
unique forms, however, in order to understand the impact of our
pedagogies across a wider perspective, it is imperative to consider
how these practices are socially constructed. In this article, I aim
to describe how spaces for critical literacy through “reading the
world” (Friere, 1968) were created in an early childhood mixedaged Montessori classroom. By studying this process, I critically
explored the ways in which young children transacted with two
pieces of children’s literature
representative of diverse perspectives regarding historically
relevant issues of equity, race,
and gender of America’s past.
Through viewing these reading
events as opportunities to consider divergent viewpoints regarding issues of social justice
and peace, the following research questions guided this
study:
DATA COLLECTION:
Data were collected over a four-month period, two times per week
during community meeting time as well as through focus group sessions.
PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES FOR PEACE
Catherine McTamaney (2007) calls for Montessori classrooms to
embrace ideals that allow us to love unconditionally and to be accepting while finding “commonalities to unite rather than to separate” (p. 1) She posits that through this, peacefulness shall ensue.
Similarly, Coe (2003) argues that to cultivate this peacefulness, the
classroom ideally should emulate a balance of self, community, culture, and environment that will then serve as a basis of peace and
global education. In order to instill this sense of peacefulness, and
urgency of peace on a larger global scale, the research site accomplished this community building though the daily “Community
Meeting” in order to explore the “Word of the Week” (McColloch,
2008).
WORD OF THE WEEK: AS DEFINED IN THIS STUDY
The Elementary 1-3 Montessori program is currently in their third
year of the “Word of the Week” program
Words for the week are selected collectively by the classroom teachers to illustrate tenets of peace, to include virtues (Gardner, 2011) or
character building words such as “determination”, “generosity”,
serenity”, community”, etc. For this study, two “words of the week”
were selected and implemented, to include: “perseverance” and
“courage”.
Word is introduced on Monday, and then paired with children’s literature throughout the week that illustrates said word
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do children transact with pieces of award winning children’s literature in order to analyze and make sense of themes
of peace?
2. What Montessori pedagogical practices are already in place
that allow for rich and meaningful conversations to emerge?
RESEARCH METHODS AND
DISCUSSION OF VALIDITY
DESIGN: In order to carry out an inquiry process that explored
a social or human problem (Creswell, p.15), a case study design
was selected.
SETTING: “Amazing Things for this World”
• Mixed-age Elementary program (1-3) in an AMS affiliated
program within an NAIS member school
• Mid-sized urban city in the Northeast
PARTICIPANTS: 6 children in total, 5 girls and 1 boy, 2 Year
ones, 2 year twos, 2 year threes
In collaboration with the three classroom teachers, criterion sampling was used to achieve diversity in year levels only.
RESEARCHER ROLE
• Participant observer (Creswell, 2012)
• Data were collected via focus group interviews, observation,
field notes, student artifacts, photos
• Data were first coded and then analyzed (Glesne, 2010) searching for constant themes within the data
• Data were triangulated and member checking occurred via student participants and classroom teachers
DISCUSSION
Through the lens of critical literacy, the Montessori children in
this mixed-age classroom were able to celebrate tenets of peaceful
harmony through close dialague with their peers. The “word of
the week” strategy provided multiple opportunities for the children to consider new vocabulary words in general, and virtues of
peace specifically. The Jane Addams award winning children’s
books served as a rich canvas for the children to explore lived experiences related to social justice and equality issues of America’s
history in order to contemplate peaceful solutions for today.
Themes of “good” and “change” were observed in the field work
collection, clearly showing the intrinsic desire to promote the
power of peace not only locally, but on a global scale.
Dialogue is utilized to co-construct meaning
REFERENCES
THE JANE ADDAMS AWARD WINNING
PIECES OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
“The Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards are given annually to the children’s
books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace,
social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as
well as meeting conventional standards for excellence. - Janeaddamspeace.org
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909, written by
Michelle Markel and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, published by Balzer & Bray,
an imprint of HarperCollins. Clara Lemlich, the young woman profiled in
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 was barely in her
twenties when she helped to lead the largest walkout of women workers in US
history. A Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, Clara found work in the New York
garment industry, only to discover that the working conditions were abysmal
and unjust. When the mostly male union leaders urged caution, Clara stood up
and demanded a general strike. Despite threats and brutal retaliation from those
in power, Clara helped to create change. Winner, Books for Younger Children,
2014.
We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song written by Debbie Levy and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton and published by Jump at the Sun, an imprint of Disney-Hyperion. “When...people sing out, they can change the
world.” Widely known as a Civil Rights anthem, the song has a long history
that started well before that period, and continues to inspire around the world
today. With lively illustrations and moving prose, the book explores the power
of community through the story of one song. Honor Book for Younger Children, 2014
– janeaddamspeace.org
Coe, B. (2003). Creating Optimal Environments for Adolescents.
Montessori Life. 15 (3), 31-36.
Creswell, J. (2006). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing
among the five approaches. New York: Sage.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Bloomsbury.
Gardner, H. (2011) Truth, beauty and goodness refreamed. Educating
for the virtues in the age of truthiness and twitter. New York: Basic
Books.
Glesnse, C. (2010). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction. New Jersey: Pearson.
McTamaney, C. (2007). The tau of montessori: Reflections on compassionate teaching. Inidana: iuniverse.
Montessori, M. (1992). Education and peace. Oxford: Clio Press.
Children’s Books
Levy, D. (2013). We shall overcome: The story of a song. New York:
Disney Hyperion.
Markel, M. (2013). Brave girl: Clara and the shirtwaist makers’
strike of 1909. New York: Balzer & Bray.
FINDINGS
Theme One: Conversations for Creating Change
• Intrinsic desire to seek peace in the world while being cognizant that this could lead to change in a positive way
• Through goodwill for mankind, the children worked towards
an analysis of social justice inequities to promote a future of
change
Milly: I have a connection to Serena and Laura, if the white people were doing this in the book, if they would figure out how not
nice they were being, they could maybe change a little bit. If they
figured out how mean they had been in the past, then you figure
out what you did before and then change.
Clarice: I don’t think it would be very nice [to live during the civil
rights movement] because of they way they had been treating
black people. They should have read this book and changed.
Serena: So, if like, um, this story is true, which it probably is, it
should be all over the world…it should be passed on, it could be
spread and passed on.
Theme Two: “They Broke the Golden Rule”:
Goodness and the Montessori Child’s Perceptions of Characterization
• underlying theme of giving a voice to those that can’t be heard
presented in this data simultaneously with the trait of “goodness”.
• Howard Gardner (2011) defines this trait in terms of “ethics of
roles” and “property of relations with other human beings”
(p.78)
SP (researcher): What do you think Maria Montessori might
think about the books we have read in community circle?
James: I think she would try stopping it because I think she made
up the Golden Rule. Her Dad wanted her to be something, but he
never wanted her to be a doctor. She wasn’t treated fairly [at
home].
Ariana: I think she knew how it felt to be treated like that. She
knew how black people felt because she was treated [unfairly] like
that herself.
SP (researcher): In thinking about our word of the week, persistence”, what do you think this is a story about? [We Shall Overcome]
Serena: In this book, it’s about a bunch of people fighting for their
country. They had a lot of patience and persistence to wait but
they didn’t wait one second to sing the song because they were
doing the golden rule, but the white people weren’t.
Milly: it’s kinda like if it was happening today, you would have to
overcome. If white people were trying to take over African Americans today, it’s their country, too. It’s and African American country. They should be allowed to make their own rules.
Clarissa: I agree with Milly that is is their country. But the whites
weren’t listening, it wasn’t fair at all.
Ariana: It’s just the Golden rule. It should be everywhere, not just
in America, not at Nardin, everywhere. The Golden Rule is to
treat others in the way you want to be treated. They [the white
people] broke that.
AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2015
Sarah Pfenninger • [email protected] • Graduate Reading Program • College of Education and Organizational Leadership • University of La Verne