My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man; I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Oh no! I guess now I may have to write you all a poem honoring the wonder of peanuts!
Peace, Paul

I am grateful every day for the old age handicaps I am suffering so obviously here at our
school, for without fail some one or other of our children takes notice and immediately is
moved personally and comes running over to help me. Their caring is not only a sign of
their love but most importantly also living proof that we the parents and educators
are succeeding in creating with our children a learning community that is aflame with
personal kindness – a Twenty-First Century Shangri-La right here and now!

Sure, because of our students’ high skill scores on the standardized tests, we are known
in town as a Class A academic school, but love trumps mere schooling every time and a
school without such expressed kindness would be unnatural -- a chilly place – not right
for human beings. I am happy that our community has developed home-like, individually
responsive learning environments wherein beings are beloved be they young or old. And
I as one of your elders know at long last that doing such is what life is meant to be– the
creation of a beloved community is our very purpose of being.

Every other day in the morning I am now presenting a philosophy seminar to a merry
band of middle school seekers of wisdom. I send them out into our school community on
a quest to solve the basic query that is the foundation of a successful life here on earth:
What is my purpose? Why have I been given my existence as a Person? Who am I?
What am I here for? In what ways do I matter? Following the advice of one of my own
mentors (Paul of Tarsus), to help these young Socrates discover themselves and to find
their surprising personal connections within this our beloved community, I then told them
to shine their lights on whatever they find around their present lives that is true, noble,
right, pure, lovely, admirable – and to meditate on whatsoever they perceive that is so
excellent, or praiseworthy. Take it all in! I urge them. It is food for your soul – and as I
learned a long time ago, you are what you eat.

Finally, I explain that when such nourishment becomes the stuff of their daily diet,
there will be developing deep inside them the Three C’s necessary for the kind of heroic
life required of them if they are to build a “New World” – courage, compassion, and
creativity. This then is their solemn purpose: bravely and caringly help create a world that
is based on the most divine virtue: Kindness.

Peace,
Paul

    I am a stickler about our using the correct nomenclature when describing the key aspects of our Montessori school. For example, here we are committed to developing “self-directed learners” not merely to managing “pupils.” The root meaning of the word pupils suggests lifeless wooden puppets whose strings are being pulled to get some teacher desired performance. The meaning of the word learners indicates a profoundly personal life-function, a deeper knowing which happens from the inside out in order to become fulfilled.

    When you ask a Montessori child “who taught you to read?” she will answer with joyful eyes sparkling: “Nobody taught me. I learned to read all by myself.” And she is telling the truth because in Montessori there are no “teachers” (the word “teacher” comes from the root taecan which means to point out something directly with your index finger). Because she is in a Montessori school she has “educators” (that word comes from the ancient root educere which describes mid-wifery – the work of one who is assisting at the bringing out into life of a new born child).

    Just so, Montessori education is natural, personal, individual life learning – is learning not for tomorrow’s quiz but for life. This is also why I insist that Montessorians do not amass children narrowly into single age “graded classrooms” for direct instruction, but rather gather them within inter-aged “learning environments” for indirect personalized work on learning opportunities which cover all they must learn to be well-educated.

• The factory mass schooling model is one large building filled with small graded boxes of immobile silent pupils all being taught the same lesson for a forty five minute period by an adult standing behind a big desk.
• The authentic Montessori school is a village of small learning communities wherein multi-age children go about the work of learning all their academic skills naturally – respecting each other while developing their communal moral life together. The adults with them function as guides within their midst – as caring mentors presenting them with opportunities to master all of the basic human skills of our society.
• Traditional schooling is a fixed and regulated following of packaged plans taken from a folder pulled out of a drawer by the teacher who then dictates the same lessons for every pupil placed in that grade.
• Montessori educating is always a work in progress because the educator is committed to following each individual child, every single one a unique person who is ever new as he or she develops natural potentialities.
• The “purpose” of a factory school is to produce well trained products: clone-like pupils.
• The “soul” of a Montessori school is to develop liberated children: independent, self directed learners.
• Well trained pupils study hard because they want to gain the rewards of good grades.
• Self-directed learners work hard because they feel an inner personal responsibility – a conscience to become all that one is meant to be as a knowledgeable and creative human being within a world of ever new possibilities.

    To sum things up: for children to become really well-educated, moral and free human beings, they need to be provided liberty in their schools so they may study and work within small learning communities in which they may create with good conscience their own personal kind relationships and their own academic accomplishments. Is not that what America is all about? We do not want to produce merely skilled capable citizens. We want to raise up men and women who are as virtuous as they are learned – each a “flame at the tip of a candle.”

Peace,
Paul

I saw before me that whether a plant would wilt or thrive depended directly on the good dirt of the garden and on the attentive care of the gardeners. I very quickly became aware of all the natural wonder existing in the realness of agriculture, and that discovery in time became the foundation of my becoming a philosopher and then especially a Montessori educator.

You see, it was from my contemplation on the farm that I realized the human person was the leading edge of all natural life. And just as I witnessed that a plant was only as good as the soil it was growing in, so too the human person’s development depended much on the quality of both the family life and the school community nurturing that boy or girl.

In time, I also came to see that a Montessori learning environment is much more than a school; it is truly a learning community blending the personal striving for excellence by parents, children, and educators. The present state government is putting the financial squeeze on public schooling, but you and I know that Island Village Montessori is not just a school; we are a community committed to the excellent education of our children, and we will prevail.

You as parents and we as educators know the tender vulnerability of our children and therefore also the sacredness of our work. We all have a vital stake in what is happening here in this garden of learning – this precious place of personal development. I have long been celebrating with you that this is truly a community of transcendent education where the essence – the soul – of the child is being revealed as he or she develops. It is the same magic witnessed when we watch seemingly dead seeds buried in the soil become with sunlight, rain, and caring the wondrous reality that is a garden of peas and carrots, beets and corn.

As you can tell by seeing my smile as I greet your children every morning, being a personal part of this wondrous educational garden has been a joy in my own life – has it been a joy in your life? Seeing your smiles shining there as your children leap from your car’s open door into our life makes me think so. We reap as we sow. The true sunshine of my smile has over time created the happy fact that so very, very many of your children now greet me with the sweetest of smiles and a soft so soft sincere wish of a “Good Morning” back to me! Sometimes they even gift me with a flower from their garden.

Likewise as you may know, I have been the resident old storyteller scooting all about visiting each of the learning environments throughout the week with wisdom stories and sometimes also with the dessert of a funny joke too. This spring not only surprised me with bright flitting butterflies but also with the special joy of a shining beautiful face happily telling me almost every morning now: “Dr. Czaja – Dr. Czaja, I have a joke for you!” I wonder if she knows what a ray of sunlight she is to my old soul. The gift of a joke is the gift of a story, and a good story is a give-a-way of kindness.

And then there is the occasional Middle Schooler who having wrestled personally with mind/heart/soul over the many case-studies I have presented in my philosophy seminars of ethical decision making now comes into my office (would you believe it!) as if a resurrected Socrates and puts before me his or her own case-study: “What would you do, Dr. Czaja? What would you do?” Your teenager turning the table on me makes my day for it proves personhood has blossomed and that all our grunt gardening labor has been successful.

It is obvious Island Village has become much more than a school – we are a community that now shines a light from within – we have nothing to fear as long as we act as a community. As a community of parentcators and educators and self-directed learners, we shall prevail.

Peace,
Paul

    And so, fundamental to the academic learning of “readin’ and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic,” you and I as a priority need to provide our children 1) with the presentation of the many sensorial materials that will refine all their senses and 2) with the opportunity to practice the practical life skills common to their culture and 3) with the culminating glory gained by developing personal abilities in art and music.

    The ancient philosophers proclaimed that the senses are the windows to the soul; by helping children to become truly keen and discriminating with all their physical senses, we open them to the deep sources of understanding and wisdom; we make them personally aware of those realities in life, which are awesome. Using their five senses connects them to the concrete world and opens up the possibility to intuit the beauty, truth, and goodness found there.

    Early mastery of the common day tasks such as buttoning clothes and tying their own shoe laces – pouring liquids, transferring beans, and slicing food without accidents – polishing shoes, tables, glass and brass – sweeping and straightening the environment – picking up litter – caring for the household plants and pets – engenders a caring for self and for community. Mastering practical life skills ennoble children.

    When I observe children involved wholeheartedly in their art and music endeavors, I see them continuing to develop a true habit of silence and reflection that is the beginning of contemplation. It is so obvious that they love what they are doing, and this heart-fulness glorifies all their learning now and for the rest of their lives.

    How children pay attention to the task at hand – what psychologists call mindfulness -- affects every dimension of their personal life. By providing ample opportunities for young learners to become intensely involved with sensorial and practical life exercises, with artistic expression and musical performance, we are actually training them in a purely natural way to pay attention – and paying attention we are told is the well spring of our learning, insights, intuitions, creativity, and loving relationships. Being personally aware brings us right into the heart of the matter – and believe you me that is just where we need to be.

    Oh, if only I could be still such a child so full of beans – so bright eyed and just brim-filled with hope and goodness! I say to this happy young celebrant as she begins to leave me, “Stay nine years old now! Don’t get any older – being nine years old is the best age of all – stay nine!” She looks at me with a slightly puzzled smile not understanding – not knowing what I know.

    Do you, dear reader, understand what I am saying? The kindest and, as we say in the Bronx, the “bestest” mentor I have ever had (and I believe the world has ever known) told me that I should live my personal life just as nine year olds do for they abound in Godly virtue naturally, humbly, and superabundantly—more so happy and good than they ever will be here on earth. Now that is a piece of wisdom that made me pause. To be like a nine year old all the time…hmm! To illustrate let me tell you a story:

    Once upon a time in a pleasant desert town located near a majestic beautiful mountain range there lived a happy nine year old girl who had big brown eyes, long brown hair, and who was very kind – in fact she had just joined in a group called Kids Helping Kids which worked at trying to help children less fortunate than she.
You see, “See Gee” -- that’s her nick name -- was blessed with many natural talents. She was a good athlete, a dancer, played the piano, got good grades in school, and was a budding young politician at her school who had just been elected to the student council. I am sure that is why she had gotten up early that weekend morning to go with her next door neighbor to hear the town’s popular United States congresswoman speak. See Gee wanted to learn more about just how some one in government helped people. So that is why she was there with a small group of people gathered that bright sunshiny day with the bluest of skies overhead eager to say hello and to ask her questions.

    But there was a sinister black cloud – a terrible horrid whirlwind of hate – spinning madly there from behind her – that suddenly swept by her – shooting deadly bullets of burning hot lead. Bang! Bang! Bang! -- Bang! Bang! Bang!

    The lovely lady in front of her and people in the crowd were falling to the ground – and then she felt this strange explosion in her body that knocked her down too. And then – and then – she was no longer there. Those still alive could not see what was happening, but See Gee had become a softly gleaming light and she was rising up – above and away from all the mayhem. Up, up she went like a rising morning star – and she was never ever before as knowing, as happy, or as so full of love feelings as then.

    And those still left behind alive in the aftermath were -- after their tears dried-- filled with wonder and admiration and gratitude remembering her-- our good and noble nine year old, See Gee. Oh, to be like her!

    So now then – let us, you and I, let us try our best to be like her – this nine year old -- always kind and caring no matter what – to be there for others – to stand up for all people as servants of the common good.

Peace,
Paul
 

    This year that has just ended has been physically trying for me as my body has begun to show the wear and tear of age, and though this has limited my mobility, it has been a blessing for it has caused me to focus on those values both good and natural that while expressed by the physical aspects of our bodies are most essential to being a person and are beyond mere physical matter and the disabilities of aging. There is that within you and me that is revealed by the expression of our faces, by the genius of our creativity, and by the kindness of our actions – like the beauty we see in nature and hear in music and feel in loving kindness – an eternal reality beyond mere physicality. You and I have been living into this reality of goodness together. I like that communion greatly! Let’s go on confidently, happily.

    I resolve to continue scooting around in my red rocket telling stories and giving philosophy seminars to your children for I know that doing such helps develop virtue in them – and virtue is the most practical of all our learning since it touches the very center of personal life. Becoming virtuous is both existential and sacred because it relates to how we with our personal beings interact with and change our real world for the better. History has taught us that it is not enough to merely be taught skills. We must at the same time deeply learn the value of positive human relationships. Our personal decisions and actions have immediate and global effects. These effects can be plainly seen and have real worth.

     As parents and educators we have the responsibility to evaluate the developmental progress of our children. Testing for the growth of academic skills is routine -- done and recorded and reported daily. How do we evaluate this deeper development? How do we discern the presence of virtue within the children given to our care? In my training lectures I suggest the observational criteria that Dr. Montessori used. She pointed out that children were beings of nature just as plants growing within our gardens. We as “gardeners of the human potential” must discern whether this child is evidently “thriving, wilting, or stunted” there before our eyes. The thriving child displays energy, interest – and is smiling as he or she goes about the daily living in our learning community. The wilting child is tired looking, bored -- seems glum. The stunted child at first glance appears to be engaged but really is spinning wheels and going nowhere, not involved wholly – a statue just there.

    When we see a stunted child we must find some way to awaken interest by fresh enthusiastic presentations that fit and inflame. Responding to the wilting child is most critical since that learner is in a down spiral and requires immediate remediation – often some consultation to uncover the physical or emotional cause of such an un-normal state of being. Ah, but the thriving child is as welcomed as a sunny day and being strong in self-direction needs us only to match the sunshine of his or her smiling face measure for measure with our own smiles as we present new challenges.

    Yes, virtue means inner strength, the health of one’s inner being, and is made very evident to us by a smiling face. Can you imagine my joy as I sit there by the front door in my red scooter and am greeted with so very many smiling faces each morning and throughout the school day? Virtue abounds here, and all is good with this our world. Happy New Year!

Peace,

Paul

    We were still kids; looks like we were just two going on three years of age. I say it depicts me clearly at the peak of my career for it is obvious that I was not a “me” yet, and a sacred innocence was plainly visible in my face. This old photograph reveals very obviously that my primary sense then was my seeing – my simple yet profound perceiving the sacredness of ordinary life right there in front of me, and you can see there in my face the overwhelming happiness I was feeling for all the wonderful things right there in that now of my life as a little child.

    Much later when I had grown up and had become an existentialist philosopher and poet -- a twenty somewhat year old graduate student at Fordham University in the Bronx still -- I was encouraged by a professor to investigate just what the modern artists were striving to reveal to us. I dutifully went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and began to study the artistic renderings within their second floor galleries dedicated to Modern Art.

    I entered one small room in which was hung a single very large painting which was very simply a beautiful blue painted canvas with one diagonal swatch of red paint boldly and dramatically there – I almost heard it as a triumphant shout! I sat on the bench there trying to grasp what this artist wanted to share with me, and suddenly I realized that I too had made just such a painting when I was only a toddler.

    I remembered crawling with a red crayon in my hand into our living room and there with great delight reaching out and making this upward very personal mark on the clean white wall next to the couch. I thrilled in the seeing of this singular contrast of my red crayon line and its sensuous waxy presence there on the flat pale wall.

    I do not recall if our mother was as pleased as I was, but this memory revealed in a flash just what this modern artist was wanting to convey: There is great meaning in one’s becoming a child again – there is a richness in recapturing the innocent epiphanies of first experiences – so sacred, for you are still at that time not yet a self-conscious “me” but totally open to what you are creating – to what you are communicating – to what you are actually living sharing that moment.

    The existentialist philosopher Buber had observed: “What counts is to know and to believe what one experiences and believes so directly that it can be translated into the life one lives.” That is who I was as a child – and that is what I wanted to always be all my life.

    I offer a bi-weekly seminar in existential ethics for our middle school students. By round-table discussions evoked from selected case studies of real life situations in which a personal decision must be made of what is the right thing to be done, I foster an awareness in them that they each possess an innate potentiality to become a virtuous person by deciding to act kindly not selfishly, to be wise and not foolish.

    Having mastered the “Three Rs” they as they enter young adulthood are now ready to discover that becoming an empowered person requires the “Three Cs,” namely, the uniquely human act of honest communication that enables the creation of the almost mystical communion in which two “me s” wondrously become the kind of a “we” our hearts have always yearned for, and from that fruitful bonding of daily shared kindness is born a community that flourishes with the love and with the caring intelligence and with the creation of new beauty that brings true meaning to our whirling, silent, yet glorious universe.

    So I meditate on the little boy that I was then when that snapshot was taken so many years ago, and I can see all these personal potentials that were already being actualized as I drank in life with my innocent seeing – and then as I turn to the children before me in this here and now, I strive all the more to join with our faculty and students in the creation of a true culture of compassion where we each come away from our daily encounters better and happier – which will be so evident by the look of kindness in our faces, by the gleam of joy in our eyes, and by the simple yet profound goodness of our greetings. Worthy of another snapshot!

Peace,

Paul

    Teacher or Educator? Does it really matter which? I believe so. Teaching is the skill training of groups of people for some purpose – perhaps a necessary one like turning out productive citizens or soldiers – but educating is neither about groups nor about directly teaching anything. Educating is the indirect helping of a child one at a time in his or her self-development of becoming a person. Teaching is focused on numbers and statistics – on groups being prepared for some future. Educating is about developing the human potentials of each child – potentials that contain the natural skills needed to succeed at this challenge before him or her in this present moment. Teaching is the training of a set of skills for tomorrow. It is practice this for some distant that. Educating is all about assisting the natural empowerment of a person for today. It is life answering life. Teaching requires us to visualize children as abstractions – as “second graders” – and instructs the teacher to act as a trainer. The act of educating requires us to observe children as unique individuals and calls upon us as educators to reverently lift up this singular child and proclaim: “See! There is life here wanting more life! Right here! Right now!”

    Let me give you an example. Mostly these days I am with children to tell them a story, and when I do some sort of communion connects each of us there during that time making the experiencing of the story a one on one happening. I have come into their learning environment bringing each of them the special gift of wisdom for that day. Story telling is an existential I-Thou relationship. Each child there takes the bread of the story I am telling into their own lives, and their eyes tell me they know I am there as one who is serving them each food for their own heart/mind/soul – that I have come again to give each of them life – more life. I cannot help but feel a humble reverence for the very real and wondrous children each and every one of them sitting there on the circle eating up the wisdom I am feeding them.

    Our work as parentcators and educators has as a priority this simple yet profound obligation to recognize each child as being precious, unique, and truly a wonderful person who shares with us a personal capacity for caring about things, for significant intelligence and creativity, for adding to the glory of our universe. This is why Maria Montessori insisted in her reform of education that the most important part of a learning environment is not found on the shelves full of didactic materials – not within the pages of text books or workbooks – but within the hearts of each of us their elders who are called to understand and respond to each child given us with the daily proof of our nurturing love.