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MFS Design Session Supplemental Documentation page 1

Montessori Family School Design Session

Supplemental Documentation

This document is supplemental documentation to the real time record published on the web (http://www.innovationlabs.com/mfs_web/) for the Montessori Family School March

23, 2007 Mission, Values and Vision Workshop.

by Michael Kaufman

257 Castle Glen Road

Walnut Creek, CA 94595-2642

Table of Contents

Mission Statement ...............................................................................................2 Values Statement .................................................................................................2 Vision....................................................................................................................3 Marketing Slogans ...............................................................................................7 Additional Thought Stimulators..........................................................................8


Mission Statement The Montessori Family School exists to provide an education that produces good humans - because peace is only possible when people feel valued. We create a harmonious and peaceful environment by valuing our teachers, parents, administration, and children. The future and well-being of society is held in the hands of our children. How we educate and care for them will determine the kind of society we will become. To make the world a better place, we need strong and thoughtful people; all children have the potential and opportunity to become independent, purposeful participants in the community when given love, support, respect and the tools to pursue their innate curiosity. We recognize that in order for education to happen, the emotional, social, physical, spiritual and intellectual needs of children must be met. MFS is a community that values an education that evolves and adapts to the changing needs of the child, society, and the planet. We work to prepare children to create order out of chaos and to thrive in the real world. Through individualized curriculum, we create an environment that fosters a love of learning which allows children to pursue their own education. Values Statement At Montessori Family School we educate the whole child; mind, body and spirit. We provide a global, holistic education which fosters moral and ethical integrity. We honor the Earth and all living beings and strive to preserve the resources of our planet. We strive to create a diverse community of students who think critically, self-reflect, and continue a lifelong spirit of inquiry (love of learning). We integrate life lessons into the classroom experience. Families, teachers, students (and others) collaborate to meet and maintain individual needs of each child.


Our Vision Five years from now we envision all young people – 12 years old and above – having the opportunity to travel as part of their learning experience. By then, learning is primarily through real-world problem solving and is connected to the larger world outside of ‘school.’ One way of making all of learning connected to life is to create ‘real town’ within MFS. This would allow young people to experience how things really work. Five years from now we envision having young people involved in the community through service learning and community outreach. By then we will be a Green School. We can imagine more outdoor and environmental activities like gardening, first aid and camping being part of the experience at MFS. We see the arts as integrated into the curriculum – like theatre, movement, music, poetry and clay. We see things like photography and film being integrated into the curriculum – and technology is integral as well. We also see nutrition as a component of the experience at school. All staff at the Montessori Family School clearly understand our philosophy, principles and pedagogy – and this is expressed in all we do, our space, our practices, how we spend money and what we do with parents. This might also manifest in having a green van to use, demonstrating reuse and recycling with clothes and toy swaps and as well as how we grow food. In five years we have a dynamic


culmination of the experience at MFS for 12 year olds and a clear transition middle school. This might be a trip to Washington, DC or a trip to somewhere in the world (like a rain forest). By 2012 we have completely Montessorified the operations of the school to support and realize this vision. We have communicated to and with everyone involved in the system –

the Board, the administrators, the families, the teachers, and the students – where we are going and how we want to get there. Everyone that participates with MFS does so with a clear understanding of our vision and the philosophy behind it. In some ways our vision is like a lesson plan for the school, like the goals we set for our classrooms, and our leadership is facilitating the

school to achieve these goals. Leadership has challenged itself to facilitate the system – to enable it, to remove the barriers and to free up the people IN the system to experience joy and success in the movement towards the realization of this vision.

In the process of facilitating the system to achieve these goals there are some big things we will be doing together – and we’ll be learning along the way. The learning we do along the way will help us with the longer-term vision. In order to realize these goals we are buying a building. This is a very exciting prospect, and one that provides some key ingredients for us to STRUCTURALLY support some of the things we want to do together to realize our goals. At the same time we are taking on this wonderful opportunity to have a new building and a new place to learn together we will be making some changes to the PROCESSES and the


way we work together. One of the ways for us to think about these changes is to think about them in terms of Montessori philosophy.

At the same time we are buying this building and making this move we will begin to Montessorify the way we work together. To facilitate our learning together we will have to clarify some of our roles. Some of the things the head of school has been responsible for doing will

begin to change. This will relieve some stress and also allow for more focus among our team. The board has begun a process to help clarify the responsibilities of head of school and to help relieve some of the stress and burden that several of the roles create. Some of the roles that may be taken on by others could include fund raising, human resources, admissions, and office management. Making these changes in leadership will provide the staff some needed clarity and guidance so they can do their job of transforming the lives of children. Our philosophy and practice is quite different from what most parents have experienced for themselves in their education. As part of enrolling their children in our school and becoming part of the Montessori Family School community we will need to orient them to Our Way of Working and Learning. They will have certain responsibilities as part of our community and there will be a significant amount of two-way communication between parents and teachers. In addition to creating feedback loops between parents and teachers we will create feedback and communication


loops with the Board, the staff and administration. We will begin having exit interviews to continue to learn how we can improve and grow to make our working environment the best it can possibly be.

To make the needed changes we will need to spend more time together as a whole staff – and the staff will need to spend more time working and planning together. Some of the planning will be for the move and some of the planning will be around small program changes we can begin to make in the near term.

In the next few years we will begin to implement green education with the intention to become a completely green school in five years. Around the time we begin the movement towards becoming a green school we will also start engaging with our larger community in different ways. Early on that may look like teacher exchanges or student exchanges and possibly include community learning opportunities. Later on that may take the form of community and public service projects.

We will also begin tapping into the talent we have in our extended community. Parents of children at MFS have talent that can be utilized for the benefit of the entire school. Through all of this we will work to provide a sustainable financial foundation for the school.


Marketing Slogans During the day on Friday I had a couple of thoughts about developing a marketing message. The following are possible marketing slogans to consider – or to use to spark further conversation towards developing one that you feel better about. The one I thought of first was:

Montessori Family School A transformational experience – for life!

After thinking about it some more the following are also options:

Montessori Family School A transformational and sustainable experience – for life!

Montessori Family School A transformational learning experience – for a life time!

Montessori Family School

A sustainable learning experience – for a life time!


Additional Thought Stimulators The following concepts and models are offered as thought stimulators and instigators for further conversation among the staff.

Spheres of Influence During the session there were a couple of questions about the concept of spheres of influence. The following is an expanded explanation of the concept as it might apply to the Montessori Family School. The sphere of influence model may be helpful in thinking about systems and in thinking about making changes to systems. This model suggests that each person has a sphere of influence and can really only be responsible for transforming their sphere of influence. One of the questions was about where the parents fit in this model. Technically, the parents fit inside and are a part of a different system – that overlaps with the system of the Montessori Family School.

If we were to draw the spheres of influence model for the system that includes the family it might look something like this: The child exists within the family, the family exists within the community, and the community exists within society. If we were to draw the model of the Montessori Family School we might draw it like this:

The child exists within the classroom, the classroom exists within the school, the school exists within the community. In thinking about the school and the where the parents fit into this spheres of influence model we actually see that the two system overlap – with both systems having influence on the child. As part of the philosophy and vision of the Montessori Family School there is a strong desire to have the parents participate in the classroom as well as support the learning of the child at home. If we were to draw these two systems as overlapping systems we would be able to see the relationships between the spheres of influence of both systems.


The child exists inside of two systems – the family system and the classroom. If we were to look at the overlapping parts of these models one can extrapolate from this the inter-relationships between the classroom, the parents and the community. This model can also be a way to explain to parents the potential value in working with and interacting

with the classroom to support the child.

It is not shown in this model but it is implied that the school is mostly influenced by the leadership of the school – which includes the head of school, and the Board of Directors. It is the responsibility of leadership to design the system and to insure the system is sustainable through time – and to make the necessary changes to be sustainable through time. NOTE: Administration might be thought of as part of

leadership or might be thought of as being part of the system. The distinction would be if administration is included as designers of the system then they would be part of leadership. If administrators are not designers but operating within the system then they are working IN the system.) Additional NOTE: This model, presented in this way, is significantly influenced by the fact we live in a society that has as an underlying operating principle of a hierarchic model of organization. Hierarchy is seen in nature and hence is a natural phenomenon. As humans we have an opportunity to understand and use hierarchy to our advantage – but we also have the responsibility to learn about other forms of organization to use when hierarchy isn’t the most optimal form of organization. There are many people in the world experimenting with alternative forms of organization. Dr. Deming offered the following model as an organization chart:


Ricardo Semler and the work he has done with Semco (his family’s business) was mentioned in the workshop. That’s another model to become aware of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Semler). I would recommend learning about others. Structure Influences Behavior One of the concepts that is worth understanding is encapsulated in the phrase – structure influences behavior. Dr. Deming, early in his career, said that 85% of a worker’s performance is determined by the system they work within and the remaining 15% can be attributed to their individual effort. Dr. Deming was a statistician. Before he died he was saying that 94% of a person’s performance is a product of the system and only 6% can be attributed to their individual effort. It is very important to understand the power of the structure of an organization – conscious and unconscious – and how it influences the behavior of people. If this understanding is taken to heart one would have to completely change the way we see people and the way we judge behavior. An additional saying that is worth considering is: Structure Wins. Put a good person into a bad system and the system will win. Self-Facilitating is Very Hard My partners and I are master facilitators. We have been designing and facilitating learning experiences for an accumulated 75 years. I can tell you from direct experience that it is extremely hard to facilitate our selves. This concept can be connected to the ON the system versus IN the system model. We have found we have to choose between being a facilitator of a meeting or being a participant in a meeting – in our own meetings. It is extremely hard to be a neutral facilitator and be interested in or attached to the content of the meeting. Our productivity in meetings is dramatically reduced if we do not separate those two functions and become clear about the difference between those roles.

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