This week, a group of about seven Lower Elementary children (ages 6-9) made a Going Out trip to further their research on the art, history, and culture of Native American peoples in the Puget Sound area. (Going Out is a topic worthy of its own future post.)

Sometimes it seems like peace in the heart is in short supply. Bomb blasts in Baghdad, civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and yet another tragic school shooting less than 50 miles away. Our hearts go out to those who are suffering pain and loss. It feels especially shocking when terrible things happen in schools, which should be physical and psychological safe havens.

“You change the beginning of the story, you change the whole story.”

“An environment-based education movement—at all levels of education—will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.”

“This is education, understood as a help to life; an education from birth, which feeds a peaceful revolution and unites all in a common aim, attracting them to a single centre. Mothers, fathers, politicians: all must combine in their respect and help for this delicate work of formation, which the little child carries on in the depth of a profound mystery, under the tutelage of an inner guide.”

Maria Montessori, Italy’s first female medical doctor, developed a revolutionary approach to education by applying a scientific approach rooted in observation.