Common threads on my theories blanket...

One of the really interesting common threads I see is not just between the theories of Montessori and Piaget but how neither of them originally planned on a career working with children. Montessori was originally trained in medicine and Piaget was originally an epistemologist with a doctorate in biology. Through observation of children both theorists were fascinated with the process of finding out how children learn best, and made it their life’s work. I find this fascinating because I also never planned on working with the education of children so I am intrigued at the connection I see in Piaget, Montessori, and myself.

Another similarity I see between Piaget and Montessori is the extreme value of environment. As someone newly entering the field of education I am recognizing how much environment plays a role in learning and in children feeling competent. It absolutely makes sense in my head but it is something I would not have thought of or placed that much value on had I not read about these theorists. Montessori and Piaget both thought the environment and the relationship that children have with their environment (being allowed to access tools or resources, being expected to return any resources or tools to their proper place when they were done) were extremely important to their development.

One of the other common threads I see between Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, Dewey, and Erikson is idea of careful observation of children and students. Since this is a book about child-centered theorists it is not surprising that carefully observing students is a common theme that is valued, however, some of the examples from the book were particularly helpful to me with how I want to use observation in my classroom. It seems like a no-brainer that a good teacher should carefully observe students and reflect on those observations but reading it, talking about it, reading the examples about why it is important made a much bigger impact on me than someone just telling me that observing my students is important. I particularly enjoyed the example of scaffolding in the chapter about Vygotsky. I want to empower my students to scaffold roofs and not get thrown up on during finger painting. Only through careful observation of my students will I know how to avoid finger painting vomit.