Montessori Method
noun
a system for teaching young children, in which the fundamental aim is self-motivated education by the children themselves, as they are encouraged to move freely through individualized instruction and physical exercises, accompanied by special emphasis on the training of the senses and the early development of reading and writing skills.
I cannot describe to you what a typical Malaysian person looks like. The moment we walked through the queue across the border from Thailand I was on high alert scoping this new country out. During our taxi ride to our ministry site my nose was pressed to the glass figuring out this culture and these people. As my feet carried me through buildings, restaurants, schools and churches, as I walked over concrete, into trains, and through the city, I was perplexed by the variety that I saw.
Malaysia is a melting pot.
And the classroom I am teaching in this month is boiling.
Most of these kids, a good 80%-90% of them, are refugees. In our classes we have kids from India, Syria, China, Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan, and Malaysia. And on Friday April 1st I walked into something way over my head. A room of twenty-five seven to nine year olds. This was Dignity for Children’s lower primary first floor classroom, taught through Montessori Method (see definition above, but pretty much no assigned seats, no desks group tables and chairs, and the kids have a lot of free reign). I am pretty sure if I did not have veteran teacher and sassy teammate Debbie by my side I would have called it quits on the first day.
I did not. I have survived and here is an excerpt from my own journal from April 15 to prove it.
“I have strength today. I didn’t the last couple of weeks.
I have taught for two weeks now in a Montessori classroom. I sit beside kids who are everything but Malaysian and I watch how the Devil has ingrained in us that different is bad. I see how the pride of the tower of Babel really mess us up, as I can see pain in their eyes, hear it in their words, but I cannot communicate. What I wouldn’t give for the world to be able to speak and understand everyone.
My natural tendencies in response to their natural tendencies to hit, kick, mock, tattle, and hurt one another is really no better. I grab, want to yell, lose my cool, and have to refrain myself. I have slammed my hand onto tables and stared evil eyes at the trouble makers, only to see one of the girls learn them and start flashing them back.
I have to change. I forget that anger stirs anger, even if my anger is more righteous than theirs. I have been working on my calm voice, my patient sigh. I ask for the object they are fighting over instead of joining in the grabbing war, but I still need work.
For the first week and a half I crawled into my bed after our eight hour days, unable to do much else besides eat, play cards, read young adult fiction (finished five Percy Jackson books in five days), and sleep. So much sleep.
The day, the kids, and my anger had drained me.
The kids are refugees. You can look at them and see a sense of not belonging. Dignity is doing what they can to love on these kids, show them they belong, and show them their true worth, but the fight is hard and everything is uphill. So right now, the division and anger among them is apparent. Violence. Attitudes. And victim mentalities.
Debbie and I have a motto this month, “Sometimes the ones who need love the most will ask for it in the most unloving of ways.”
And they did. They did not care if you caught them fighting, or yelling, or teasing. They were the one who was wronged, they were the one who was hurt, even if they were the ones throwing the punches, it was the other kids fault. I would break up their fights and they would threaten to hit me (very empty threats, a fist raised and wide eyes, but they knew better).
I would watch fights happen right under my nose. My hands on both of their shoulders and my calming words in their ears did nothing. They would kick and punch and not care that I was standing right there.
How do I bring love into this? How do I love someone who is oblivious to the love available to them? Why do we become so easily blinded by fear and anger?”
God has been teaching me a lesson throughout this entire World Race experience. If you have been keeping up with my blogs, you may have heard me say this before – I am helpless. I cannot change anything. I am usually inept to handle the situations we come across. And it is not just me. This is for all of us. We are all helpless. Long term and short term missionaries alike. To the most qualified to the youngest of Christ’s soldiers. We. Cannot. Save. Anyone.
But we are loved by the One who can. And He wants to do His work with us and through us. He is a Master Craftsman, which means He enjoys His craft. He is as much about the process, the journey, the project, as He is about the final project. He enjoys it when I get to feel rightfully small and He gets to be glorified to the amazing huge God He is.
This month I saw division and fear. Anger and hurt. I saw kids who already know what it feels like to feel unloved and unsafe. Debbie and I spend much of our days trying to limit the yelling and the cursing. We have gotten pretty good at telling by tone, volume, and other cues when a kid is swearing in another language. We also break up fistfights, confiscate items being thrown, and try to turn down the girl drama.
As I write this blog we only have one more day left to spend in the classroom. We hope to spend another day blessing the staff and the teachings, reading with the kids, helping them with their spelling, breaking up for first fights, asking for the 1,127th time for it to be quiet, and loving on them the best we can in our own “helpless” way. But God will work through that helplessness, I truly believe in that.
James has been helping Dignity in many different ways this month. One of the ways was helping them with a special project they are working on.
A big thank you to everyone who donated. You helped us raise $650 towards this project. That money will help Dignity upgrade the windows and doors for this family for better security and a safer home.
The Dignity for Children Foundation is all about giving children a chance to break the cycle of poverty through education. The school brings together local and refugee children. The teachers and the staff care a great deal about these kids, not just their education but their safety outside of school as well.
There are some students that live in a dangerous area and whose home is not safe. The staff wants to help out this particular family which is new to Dignity, but they need support. The family has 6 children (from infancy to teenagers), the parents, and a grandmother who needs constant care. That’s nine people. They live in a single bedroom apartment in a government housing complex.
It’s a dangerous living situation for the children. The bathroom and kitchen window that lead to hallway are missing glass and are haphazardly boarded up. Though all other apartments on the floor can be seen with a security grill on the windows and doors, only the remains of a door grill can be seen here. The main door has no handle or locks anymore. Instead a chain wraps through the door around the door frame through a hole in the cement wall. The cement around the door frame is breaking away so the entire frame moves a little when you open the door.
The bedroom has no bed frames, just a few mattresses strewn across the floor. The remnants of electrical switches and lights are still dangling in place though serve no purpose anymore. The walls of the entire place are peeling back multiple layers of paint and the floor is chipped cement.
The kids are grateful to get to start school. The family is extremely sweet and very exited to meet us, though we don’t even share a common language.
Help us to give this family some peace of mind for security! Help us give them a place to lay their heads at night and a space they can call home. We have the people to do repairs and we are able to start making small improvements right away. Everything you donate will help this family and possibly more just like them! Even if you can only donate a little, it may be enough for a pane of glass for the windows or a new lock on the door. Every little bit will help make an improvement to this family’s home.
