#100happydays Day 3 Not Really A Noticing Something But More Happy That I Think I've Finished Another

Montessori, Vienna, Peace

May 2018

Videos that inspired me are at the bottom of ‘Keep Reading’

I have never been the best at keeping up to speed with writing regular blog posts. Strange seeing as I am certainly a talker when I get going. However, I suppose that given the fact that my topics of conversation often revolve around repetitions such as health and money matters and similar everyday stuff - it is probably just as well that I don't write a blog post every day!

I would though like to write with warm greetings from Vienna. I have been here since the beginning of March and I am here until the end of July - possibly longer. 

I lived in Vienna previously - for five and a bit years. I first came over with the European Voluntary Service to work in a Caritas refugee home. That was back in 2003 so before the current refugee crisis. I then got a job working in an International Montessori Kindergarten near the United Nations in Vienna. I was invited to start work and to train to be a Montessori teacher at the same time. It was my first time working with children in an official capacity (I had done baby-sitting, GCSE Child Development and had worked with children in the refugee home). However, my employer said that the Montessori philosophy seemed to be quite similar in ways to the philosophy that I had worked with previously in L'Arche.

I say it to almost everyone that I meet - that Montessori philosophy has really influenced all of the work that I have done subsequently. I used it when working with adults with learning disabilities, when woking as an learning support assistant in a primary school, when doing private tutoring, when working at the Natural History Museum and in the other heritage work that I do. Following that first time in Vienna, I spent ten years in London and have now just returned! With it becoming increasingly more difficult to make my CV fit into any decent size, it's a relief that at least now returning to my previous employer, I just need to do some alterations with the dates and do not add a completely new workplace!

Something that I really wanted to share in my blog is how inspirational I found the Austrian Montessori Symposium that just took place not too far from Vienna. I hadn't known what to expect from the symposium but was very pleasantly surprised. Something that has been on my mind for a little while and in particular when retuning to the Montessori Kindergarten was the topic of peace education and basically the cliched quest of how to make this world a better place. I was so thrilled to be able to listen to speakers and take part in seminars that enabled me to contemplate and learn a bit more about Montessori peace education. Peace education underlies all of the Montessori education from birth - but it really gets to greater depths when working with children from school age onwards.

Montessori philosophy as I have understood it from the Kindergarten age, is that peace education begins with enabling the child to understand their place in the world. This is developed through offering the child ways of interacting with the world around them, which includes learning about the world through the different senses and through specially devised materials and activities. An activity that has always felt special to me is the land, water, air activity that we did/do in the Kindergarten. Through collecting these elements one by one and through talking about them - beginning with our observations - we realise how lucky we are on this planet - to have all these things that we need and it encourages us to look after this planet.

The first lecture of the Symposium was by Judith Cunningham and she talked about peace education in Montessori. She talked about how this is achieved through Montessori's cosmic education. Some of the other key words I jotted down during the talk are: the great lessons (and great questions), grace and courtesy, the interdependency chart, the fundamental needs of people chart, one nation, my part in the world, the great river chart - need collaboration - as a metaphor for human collaboration.

I was blown away by the project that she set up which is the Montessori Model United Nations. Young people aged 9-15 get to be United Nations ambassadors and take place in a construction of the United Nations processes. It sounds absolutely amazing and works by giving the children the chance to meet children from around the world and to discuss the real issues of this age. The young people must represent a country other than their own and so they get to feel what it is like in another countries shoes as such. It makes the most of the knowledge that Montessori had that young adolescents are agents for change - that they have a huge sense of justice, human rights and civic responsibility. The aim is that young people feel empowered as opposed to the hopeless feeling that is so common in this day and age. The young people work in the way the UN do to come to a consensus on the issues they discuss and create resolutions and vote on them! Anyway watch the video - it says so much more than I can here. I also apologise if I have misquoted anything. They have also set up the Youth Impact Forum as a way of sustaining the goals the set out at the MMUN events.  Anyway I could say more about the conference (there was lots more) and I could probably say more better. However, I guess I now want to be responsible for working out what I can do to contribute more to a peaceful world. I am enjoying working with children again and using the Montessori Method and I also want to find out more about Montessori Peace Education.

Check out my sister blog about Norwood Fun Palace which I curated in October 2014

Excited to be part of the community choir for this! Great to have something so interesting and promoting accessibility and the arts so close to home :)

The Cloisters garden tour....

Psychogeography: The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviours of individuals.

From Internationale Situationniste #1, Knabb, pg 45 in 'Psychogeography' by Merlin Coverley, 2010

Soho Stories - and yes my next task to be more selective in photos!

What a colourful museum in general :) & friendly & strict guards! I'm definitely one for immersive art I've noticed over time & love this 'Swoon: Submerged Motherlands' #activism #swoonstreetart

Dear tumblr friends,

My apologies if you have been waiting for more updates here. I have been largely updating via Facebook and I realise those posts do not come here. Here is a link to the trail so far!

I hope you are well and I will get working on the remaining segments!

tascam tried out outside...

So yesterday I had the help of a friend to try out my new tascam audio recorder! Epping Forest - well a side road was the destination and all seemed to go ok! I just need to be brave and go out and practice myself now. We tried out my lovely rycote windjammer and tried out different recording levels and a couple of microphone positions. I'll maybe upload an excerpt at some point! If anyone wants to know any more technicalities then I can let them know.

I've also been thinking a bit more about interview questions for people contributing. I already have a list, but as I get nearer that point and talk with people, it becomes a bit clearer I think. In the past day or so I have decided that it would be a good idea to concentrate on a first few initial locations for the purpose of my course project. If there are more stories to be told, then I can continue with them in my own time. I feel like it takes the pressure off a bit to have a complete tour and it written about before the end of August! I shall see! I am thinking of concentrating on the top of the park, because the bottom already has the dinosaur audio tour. I'll keep you updated!

Bit of learning.... we’re going on a bear hunt... found the ‘worksheets’ online.... kids colour their own map for the bear hunt then make little figures to move around the map as in the story :) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXbOuAKs6bx/?utm_medium=tumblr