Are You A Montessori Classroom Teacher Teaching PE This Year?

Are you a Montessori classroom teacher who must teach PE too? It doesn’t seem fair. This is like asking a farmer to cook. The truth is that most Montessori teachers do not get any formal training in their Montessori certification training. Yet, Montessori teachers get extensive training in all the materials of the classroom and sometimes decent instruction on music and art. How is the classroom teacher supposed to teach something they don’t know?

This is the frustrating dilemma many teachers face. Without any formal training, most classroom teachers don't even know where to start. There seem to be two choices, and they both are bad. Choice number one: physical education becomes extra recess. The students get to have fun and maybe exercise, but is that the intention of PE class? Choice number two: completely neglect PE and pretend it doesn’t exist. Obviously, I believe this choice is even worse than the first one. Play is integral, especially in the first plane of development, so even a session of informal or adult-led formal play is better than nothing. Letting children play will give them room to move their bodies and learn some movement patterns like climbing. We know that crawling and walking are instinctive, but many other major motor movements are not inherent; they must be learned and practiced. Many adults don't know how to swim, can't throw a ball accurately, can't do a cartwheel, etc. These movement patterns are not instinctive and must be learned from someone else because they do not spontaneously manifest.

Montessori schools have a reputation for churning out independent, intelligent, caring individuals who are global citizens. However, any alternative teaching method, including Montessori, has a perception that while their students may be smart and emotionally intelligent, they are also weird and unathletic. While this may be an unfair sweeping generalization, I’m sure you have some students (maybe many of them) who fit this stereotype. The kid might even embrace this stereotype as a badge of honor that they are not athletic because they are cerebral and intelligent. However, more and more research shows that the brain has an influence over the body. Research has routinely demonstrated the power of positive thinking, anxiety, and the placebo effect, which has dramatic effects on the body while originating in the mind.

At the end of his presentations, Tony Robbins famously gets people to walk over flaming hot coals due to "mind over matter." While we don't want to drift too far into the unexplainable mystical element of mind over matter, we know our thoughts strongly affect our bodies. Other recent research has shown the amount of pain someone feels is directly influenced by their preconceived notions of the pain they "should feel." Plainly, if someone believes their injury doesn't hurt too bad, their perception of the pain is lesser than someone with the same injury who believes it hurts a lot.

We are still in the infancy of research demonstrating how the body influences our mind. We have known the benefits of physical exercise on mental cognition. Now, we are seeing that physical exercise delays or may even prevent neurodegenerative diseases. We are just beginning to learn how the microflora of our gut microbiome influences sensations of hunger and fullness in the brain. Chronic inflammation damages all tissues in our body, and our brain is no exception. There is so much evidence that points to exercise as the panacea not only for the health of our body but also our mind. If we want to boost the chances of our children continuing to exercise as adults to reap all these benefits, we must ensure they are physically literate.

Too often, we separate our mind from our body. People who claim to be intellectuals but fail to keep their bodies healthy are missing out on an opportunity to optimize their brainpower. The opposite is the trope of the dumb bodybuilder who spends all their day training their body but ignores their mind. We may have students who claim they are not "sporty," but that belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they avoid physically demanding activities, including PE. This becomes a self-perpetuating loop that continues into adulthood. If they are lucky and can break this thought cycle and discover a mode of exercise they enjoy, they can still reap all the benefits of regular exercise. However, think of all the time they missed. What can we do to encourage the child who may not feel as physically adept as they are mentally? Similarly, how can we encourage the classroom teacher, an expert at teaching their minds, to also teach how to move their bodies?

The answer to both questions is to bring the Montessori classroom into the PE classroom. Let’s take something that the child and teacher are familiar and comfortable with and make it the foundation of PE. Now that PE class has a familiar anchor to the Montessori classroom, we can introduce the physicality we may not feel comfortable with. We can do this with familiar and easy-to-learn games, but we always connect these games to concepts from the classroom. We always return to what we know as we venture into the unfamiliar. The physically apprehensive child will gravitate to the classroom concepts symbolized in the game, and this will encourage that student to participate. They will make connections to the game and use their imagination as they play. It will also make the Montessori teacher more comfortable teaching PE by utilizing what they already know in the classroom. This is a drastic improvement if you go from teaching zero PE to teaching a little bit. You might not even have a traditional PE time set outside the classroom, but opt to teach some physical lessons through games. For kinesthetic learners, this may be one of the best ways for these students to understand classroom content. The end product is the same. Your students are more active and physically literate because, as their classroom teacher, you become more comfortable leading them through PE games that integrate with the classroom curriculum.

Believe it or not, it is far easier to be a Montessori classroom teacher who must teach integrated PE than a traditional PE teacher having to teach integrated PE. There is far more work for PE teachers because they must refresh concepts they learned years ago or even learn new topics outright. I believe this is why there has been so much pushback to the idea of integrating classroom content in traditional PE settings. Being a PE teacher is already tricky enough with giant class sizes, limited play spaces, and less familiarity with the students due to fewer physical hours spent with them. Now, they are being asked to learn or relearn many topics ranging from biology, physics, social studies, mathematics, language, etc. Most traditional PE teachers claim it’s not their job to teach those subjects; it's the classroom teachers. However, my bias is that if we expect a Montessori classroom teacher to be able to teach any subject in their class, we can expect our PE teachers to know more than just PE.

The very reason integrated PE may seem so daunting to a PE teacher is actually the strength of the Montessori classroom teacher. They can embrace this style of teaching physical education because it integrates with all the concepts you already know. The classroom teacher can leverage their years of training to venture into this unknown territory. A simple game becomes transformative when metaphors and symbols are injected into it. You already know the classroom content, which is such a head start over the traditional PE teacher in the Montessori setting.

However, suppose you are a traditional PE teacher in a Montessori school. In that case, I am not saying that it is impossible for traditional PE teachers to use my lessons. On the contrary, if you have a traditional PE background and you are now teaching at a Montessori school, these lessons will dramatically help you understand what’s happening in the classroom and ease the transition into this new Montessori environment. While they are certainly the minority, I also know that some traditional PE teachers believe they can do more with PE in traditional education. Integrating classroom concepts into PE retains all the benefits of traditional PE but is enhanced with classroom content. This benefit is two-fold; it improves PE and enhances classroom content. This is the definition of what a co-curricular is supposed to be: something that goes along with and integrates with the curriculum.

So, if you are a Montessori classroom teacher teaching PE this year, or you are a traditional PE teacher in a Montessori setting, or a traditional PE teacher looking for something new, I invite you to take a look at the range of topics the lessons cover. The PE classroom is such a great place to integrate STEM concepts like the scientific method and engineering. Want to learn the culture of a people? One place to look is the traditional indigenous sport of the people. Make it easier for yourself and make your student’s PE experience more transformative this year through integration.