SAYINGS

Things that are said to us repeatedly when we are young have an influence on our lives.

Here are some sayings that were repeatedly quoted to me by my Father and that looking back now on those ninety years, have had an affect on the conduct of my life. Here they are:

Don’t put off till tomorrow what can be done today.

Better the day, better the deed.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

A little of what you fancy does you good.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

God is love.

Montessori materials being sensorial are a great help to learning, for children who have not a dominant brain hemisphere and so are ‘Dyslexic’.

Because they have not an eye that is dominant, they cannot skim smoothly along words and lines but move their two eyes together along the word and line and so miss letters. This is why their spelling is so weak.

When they feel the sandpaper letters it is a help with your finger to draw the shape of the letter on the child’s back. The child can then feel the correct way round for him to copy. Children enjoy this feel except of course autistic children who dislike being touched.

It is a help for dyslexic children to have a ruler under the line they are reading as their eyes easily move onto another line.

They can become very good keen readers but will remain weak spellers. However with the aid of computers and spell checks this is not such a likitation.

Many very emminant people who have creative lateral thinking have been dyslexic and had a hard time at the average school.

Montessori suits these children as they are helped to develop their good intelligence in a way that is helpful to them.

Nature and Nature and The Absorbent Mind

If we make a study of genius, we see that the early years and probably the genes plus time to be able to think are the important factors.

Mozart had the genes and also the experience at The absorbent mind’s first three years of life and having a strongly musical environment to absorb with those myriad cells in the frontal lobes, that later die off. Then the second stage from three to six was full of actual practical experience to lay upon that absobed foundation.

John Rickard who received that special gold medal at The Maths Olympiad spent his first eight years with us and was able to feed his mind at the right stages for his unusual development.

When I gave John at the age of 9 ‘The Lives of The Great Mathematicians’ to read, he pointed out to me that they were all in bed ill at some point. John remarked that it was probably because they needed time to think! Now the latest research on Genius has come to the same conclusion!

We are ourselvese continuously developing and trying hard to overcome our many difficulties. In my help each week on the street I see many ways in which we fail. However we as a country are continuing to try to solve our problems and these are greatly helped by friendship and good will.
This is probably the same in most countries and the Athlete’s friendship will help us all to a more equal world with everyone respecting each other.
Personal respect goes beyond politics. I saw so much to commend in my stay there to lecture and meet Montessori teachers and schools. What I remember most was the friendship and many kindnesses.

I think that the Games will help us all to reespect and value each other in friendship.

We are ourselvese continuously developing and trying hard to overcome our many difficulties. In my help each week on the street I see many ways in which we fail. However we as a country are continuing to try to solve our problems and these are greatly helped by friendship and good will.
This is probably the same in most countries and the Athlete’s friendship will help us all to a more equal world with everyone respecting each other.
Personal respect goes beyond politics. I saw so much to commend in my stay there to lecture and meet Montessori teachers and schools. What I remember most was the friendship and many kindnesses.

I think that the Games will help us all to reespect and value each other in friendship.

After going to so many countries around the world I realize how lucky we are in Britain to have such a large and varied bird population.

In Asia there werfe hardly any birds at all in the places I visited. I was told that birds are a food delicacy and so are captured.

I still did not see many birds in Adelaide Australia, nor in New Zealand although there were a few more seen in New Zealand.

America seemed to have many and some were strange to me.

Back here in England there is succh a fantaswtic number and so many different varieties of both large and small birds.

I dhave just returned from Tel Aviv where i lectured. This is a beautiful city with a huge expanse ofsea stretching for miles, and dyet I didn’t see even one seagull!

I came back wiith a virus which came on in Jerusalem where i went for Easter and got Croup. I am not quite better yet and am glad to just sit and watch the bir ds here overlooking the Common and Windsor Castle.
I love seeing this wonderful world but there is also no place like”Home”!

Montessori said that “Modern technology is like an extra
limb for mankind”.
When the small child is learning the sandpaper letters he can tap out the sounds of ‘c’ ‘a’ ‘t’ and when it is correct the picture of a cat comes up.

Remember google and that you can get to wonderful art gallery pictures, watch orchestras and so on.

They are a wonderful “EXTRA LIMB”

The mind of the child in his first three years is so absorbent that he takes in everything around him. He accepts more than one language if it is within his environment.
He copies what he hears and sees. If we shout, he will shout. If we are compassionate he will be compassionate. It is awesome but true and we are sowing the seeds for the future when we are with little children. We should always be kind and repectful in our ways not only with him but with those others around us and then he will reproduce the same behaviour.

Let the child work of course with the bead material.

Put each item of a table onto card with the answer on the back.

The child shuffles the cards and says the queation out loud, guesses the answer aloud and then looks to see whether he is right.

If he is right, he places the card to his right and if wrong he puts it to his left.

At the end he does those again on the left and repeats until he has them all now to his right.

With excitement generally,he does them all again (out loud).
Each time he learns a new table he does all of them again and then the new one.

This material by speaking as well as the movement uses more brain and puts the answers into the long term memory

Little Montessori children play with the bead material and learn to associate counting with the written numbers.

I have seen that when the young child makes the ten bead stair and makes tens, this is the fast link for addition and subtraction.

They enjoy telling of the ‘friends’ fo ten, that the friend of 6 is 4. That the friend of seven is 3 etc.

As soon as they know these they enjoy adding long columns of figures by just counting the tens.

The ‘friends’ help them to understand subtraction: 10 take away the 7 leaves 3.

When taking away with ‘borrowing’ they just take way easily from the ten and add the other figure.

What is The Wolfram Demonstrations Project?
The Wolfram Demonstrations Project was conceived by Stephen Wolfram as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience.

It has hundreds of interactive, open-code Demonstrations–created in Mathematica by users from around the world

The Wolfram Demonstrations Project brings to life ideas in maths, science, and many other areas, from elementary education to front-line research.

All Demonstrations, and the programs that made them, are provided free of charge and run on any computer with Mathematica 6 or the free Mathematica Player.

I go to Israel on Tuesday and to Jerusalem a week later.

The news today of those countries is so sad. The way forward is one very tiny step at a time of agreement.

There should be honorable promises frrom both to respect each other’s tiny children.

The past cannot be undone but we have a new clear day before us all.

God bless the two thousand Montessori schools and all the teachers, who show respect for the uniqueness of the tiny child who can never be replaced.

This way of education for the adolescent is ideal for Home Schooling.

Many parents in England are very disturbed at not being given their choice of school for the next few years for their twelve year old. The way described in previous Blog diaries on this web site would help their children.

I suggest that you get together a small group and follow the suggestions carefully.

Get in touch with other groups for communal activities or at your local youth group or religious community.

They should besides their school work have basic skills for easy adaptation to society. They should have movement with teaching materials for knowing the laws of their society and international law.

They should have access to reference books, for researching their own questions..
In this way they will cover all subjects with real understanding if it is their OWN QUESTION with no suggestion from the teacher!

They need to belong to a choir, listen to music and poetry and do some acting,

Have access to good fiction and particularly at t his age, to biography of someone connected with their favorite activity.

They need meditation and to explore spirituality.

They need full knowledge of both sexes and brain differences and chemical gender differences, as well as physical differences.

They need leisure activities with their friends. These need to contain a thrill of excitement and daring with reasonable safety help such as helmets etc. seen to by an adult beforehand.

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I go to Israel on Tuesday to lecture to answer questions and see schools. My Jewish Montessori teacher is so very kindly taking me to Jerusalem for Easter
Montessori always said that peace can come through children.

Here there is depression, drug taking and alcoholism amongst our children, They need so much to be set free.

The stresses and strains of memorising other people’s facts is not education.

What we need to do:
Bring our children back to play safely together outside.
Let THEM ask the questions and be helped to research the answers
Free them from all homework so that they may have hobbies.
Have talks and practical experience of life skills.
Exchange with other cultures and countries.
Bring our children back into society and NOT keep them in’ prison’ in buildings with only their own age groups.

FREEDOM

We need gradually to set our youth fr ee and to help them to learn life skills.
They need to be part of society again, NOT shut away for years where so often they lose their self esteem. I feel like shouting “Set my people FREE!”

It is in the nature of every Human Being to go through certain common phases of development and chemical make up of their bodies. We need to take heed of these stages and use them fully.

I will go gradually through each stage in the light of the most modern brain and endocrinology research .together with my own practical experiences of family, the present flawed aspects of school, the university stage with their vocational training and pure research and these different needs..
It will also be in the light of what we can learn from our Street People, the drug addicts, and the Binge Drinkers.
You know and I know that we need to rethink, and Set Our People Free according to nature’s vital demands.

Today in the UK the news is about children of even younger ages now Binge Drinking. It urges stronger punishments of parents, of children and of shops selling drink.. .There is still no discussion as to the causes.

The educational system is wrong in many ways and doesn’t suit many who then lose their self esteem and then they drown the pain when they begin not to value themselves.

The present system pressurizes reading, writing, and computation without enough practical understanding. Many whose English is not yet fluent are made to write it instead of learning to converse first.

Later they have to memorise masses of information and to answer other people’s questions and regurgitate for examinations.

The way forward is to have to more cultural activities and physical prowess, .Free play is needed again outside safely, where they learn to conform to their playmates rules and still have fun.

At school they should ask their own questions after stimulating lectures on subjects by top people who are enthusiastic about their own subject and then every pupil should write their own question down and the teacher should teach how to research their own question to find the answer.

From this answer another question would arise from the pupil, as that is the way our brains are made.

As there is no division of subjects in the real world, their research will take them to all aspects.

These children will value their own uniqueness and will not have to drown their feelings with strong drink.

MOTHER’S DAY

Today I am thinking of these people who are hurting:

Many of my friends The Street People who have so often had drug or alcohol addicted Mothers,

The Mothers today who wait for that visit that doesn’t come and who wait for the gift or phone call

For those who receive flowers but who so long for a visit ihat doesn’t come.>

For those whose Mother’s have died.and who miss them so much today.

For all the Mothers who if they had the wisdom they have in old age, who would have done many things differently and who cannot alter the past

For Prince Hasrry who was with soldiers coming home from war who had their Mothers to greet them, and who must have missed his Mother then so much.

From the moment of birth until the end of the sixth year the children just absorb their environment and adapt to it. Montessori pointed this out and modern brain research shows that the brain alters at this later stage and this ability toe absorb in this way, goes.

If we want a child to grow up respecting others, they will absorb the way we treat others and they will follow.

Unfortunately the electronic games on the whole show little respect and the media spotlights the bad rather than the good, so this is where we have to change if we really want reespect for human life to grow.