Educational Program

David Rotberg
So I’m like, I don’t want people. I don’t want people having to feel like they’re reading it. But at the same time, I’m like, there’s a lot to get through. How have all the other teacher forums been going? 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Well, the one last month was great, but we didn’t realize that we record these things. Right. Then we put it on our dashboard. And then the lady didn’t realize that she had like, something on her photos that she was not allowed to use. So were not able to send it to anyone. And so many people asked for it because it was about AI. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
You know, there was. It was about AI. So a lot of people asked. And then the one, I don’t know, you were in, the one before, it was from someone that was doing Toddler Isabella. And that was also really good. People were super happy with it. They were very impressed. So, yeah, I think they’re going well. I think I need more people to start coming. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
But I’m hoping that little by little, you know, like, people start seeing it and they’re like, okay. And I. The first one that we did, I sent an email to several schools and told them, hey, I thought this would be very beneficial for your teachers. And I was going to do that today, but I just didn’t have time. And when I saw it was like, already, like 4:30. I was like, yeah, I’m not gonna send an email to. But it’s gonna be like, yeah, cool. What, Whatever. Doing that. 

David Rotberg
Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. Well, good. I’m glad they’ve been going well. And the plan is to keep doing them next year, right? 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Yep, Yep. The plan is to continue them and then if they take off at some point, we can do more than once a month. You know, this was just to start. 

David Rotberg
So. Yeah. Yeah. And then next month I. Or next year, I know I’m going to do that. Wasn’t in my training. You want me to do that one? 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Yeah, I want you to do that one, please. Because it’s just like, I hear that so much the whole time. 

David Rotberg
Well, that’s the whole thing. And to be honest, like training centers or whatever we want to call them nowadays. And I’ve talked to Kitty about this and. And Anya Bartlett and yes, Bridget. But like, in general, they lack on a lot of things like classroom management, like, planning, like, it’s just we do really good at teaching the philosophy and the manuals. But then everything else, they’re like, I don’t know what to like there’s so much that we really need to even what I’m going to talk about tonight. I’m like we don’t get into a lot of stuff in training and I know there’s only so much you can. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Do, but no, there’s so much that needs to be done regarding just teaching teachers how to talk to parents and how to talk to their co teacher, you know, or their assistant teacher, whatever. They have all these things, you know, so it’s just absolutely. Yeah, I totally get it. Okay, so we have one person on there. It’s 7pm so I’m gonna let her in. 

David Rotberg
Okay. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Okay. And then we’ll see if we have more people coming. 

David Rotberg
I hope so. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Hello everyone. We have here. We’re gonna give it two more minutes to see if someone else comes. 

David Rotberg
Well, hey, Miss Catherine. 

Catherine Hall
Unmute myself. Hello, David. 

David Rotberg
Hello. How are you? 

Catherine Hall
I am well. How is the evening going? 

David Rotberg
Good, how are you? Good. 

Catherine Hall
Got a lot of things. Had my MMU and travel meeting. I’ve already been on Zoom tonight. This is my second zoom of the evening. 

David Rotberg
Great. Well, thanks for coming. 

Catherine Hall
Yes, well said it. It’s important for me to know where my students are coming from. 

David Rotberg
So what? 

Catherine Hall
So I can temper either set expectations more to align with curriculum and either higher or lower or just to be knowledgeable about it. So I’m here to listen and learn. 

David Rotberg
Oh, awesome. So Catherine, Molly. Catherine is one of our middle school guides. Well, our founding middle school guide at Pines and Sheila knows her, so. Yeah. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Lovely. 

Sheila L
How are you? 

Catherine Hall
I am doing well and I’m doing this in April, so I always. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Yeah, I was going to say, are you doing this in April? 

Sheila L
I am. 

Catherine Hall
And I’m sorry I won’t get to meet you. I won’t get to meet you this week or this weekend, but I will be in New York with students at the Model Montessori United Nations Conference. So we go in February. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
So you go to February. Fantastic. Yes, fantastic. That’s fun. That’s very fun. I, I what? I didn’t go to the as a student. I didn’t get to the Model United and the Montessori model. I went to the Model United Nations New York and it was absolutely fantastic. Like it was a fabulous experience. 

Catherine Hall
It is an impactful experience. Our students have lobbied. We used to just go every other year and they’ve lobbied enough the last four years that we’ve attended every year. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Oh, good. Good for them. 

Sheila L
Yes. 

Catherine Hall
So we let them drive that bus. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Fantastic. 

Catherine Hall
Enough about that. David, this is your go. 

David Rotberg
Well, this is all of our show. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Yeah. Okay, so friends, we are going to start because I don’t want us to extend too long. So we’re very happy here to have David. David Radberg is, has been an elementary teacher for a long time. He’s also the father of four and he is in Texas at Pines Montessori School. And today our topic is talking about cosmic education and how do we feed it all. So I’m gonna let you take on David if you want to yourself. 

David Rotberg
Sounds good. Yeah. So my name is David and Molly and Catherine and Sheila. You guys know me and I know you guys. I don’t know Fireflies. So. Hello. So, yeah, so this is, we’re going to talk a little bit tonight about what how we integrate cosmic education. And Molly and I were talking just briefly before this started and for those of you that will watch this later, the recording we’re really talking about. You know, it’s something that’s really ingrained in our philosophy and it’s something that’s discussed a lot in training. But as far as practical application to it, there’s very little follow through. And there’s the beautiful book by the Duffys, but. And some things here and there, but outside of that, it’s pretty mysterious to most people and it shouldn’t be. 

David Rotberg
But it’s also one of those things that I think we get a little bombarded with, well, are they doing their math and language? Are they doing their math and language? Are we doing our math and language? So it very easily becomes not the focus that it should be. So I would argue, and maybe I would boldly declare that cosmic education is everything we do in elementary and that the curriculum, the actual materials, lessons, those should be the heartbeat of the entire classroom. And I would say if I don’t walk into an elementary environment and see the cultural work and the great lessons, I would wonder where the focus of that elementary environment is. That’s for lower and upper. So tonight we’re really going to talk about. I presented this at a local Texas conference and the feedback was really very informative. 

David Rotberg
A lot of light bulbs, a lot of, you know, we’ve never talked about cosmic education this way. So I really want to honor the Duffy’s and the work that they’ve done in the Montessori community. And I want us to really just champion the cause for this and the necessity for this in elementary. So we’re going to go for it and we’re going to get into the slideshow. It’s very text heavy. But we do not, by all means, don’t feel obligated to, like, read every single note. This is just going to be an overview, and we’ll get into it. So. But because we are a smaller live group, if there’s any questions, by all means, let’s, like, make it a dialogue. I don’t want this in general. Part of this is not supposed to be super lecture. It’s supposed to be a lot of dialogue. 

David Rotberg
This specific topic does have enough in it to make it a substantial lecture, but I’ll try not to be too talky. All right, so let’s get into this. Everybody can see this. Okay, cool. So I guess before I start, I would love to hear from everybody or whoever was willing to share what you consider cosmic education. What’s your understanding of cosmic education, either in general or specifically in elementary? If anyone’s willing to be brave enough to share. 

Sheila L
Sure. 

Catherine Hall
I mean, in general for me, because we had to read, because obviously I’m middle school trained and I’m not trained in the elementary levels. We just. We did the overviews, and so we had. We read the Duffy book with all the levels of cosmetic education, and it. I mean, it seemed really cool. And I was like, wow, do elementary programs do that? 

David Rotberg
And. 

Catherine Hall
I guess I. I never, like, investigated that answer any further because then we started our middle school, and I was just super focused on making that functional and making that work. And maybe to my regrets a little bit, I just made the assumption, which is a bad thing to do, that’s what elementary was doing. And so it’s like, I kind of had these loose, like, hey, I know that this is supposed to be this, and this should be happening like this. 

Sheila L
And. 

Catherine Hall
And it’s kind of. I mean, to me, cosmic education kind of just. It’s like education of life, like, for life. And it’s just. 

David Rotberg
It’s. 

Catherine Hall
It is. It is everything. Yeah, it is. In middle school, like, it’s like building the hotel that Dr. Mossroy wanted the middle schoolers to run. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Catherine Hall
But, like, you cover every aspect of it. And so I’m just interested in learning more about it and kind of, like I said, seeing. Maybe expectation is probably the wrong word. But what should I think that my students have experienced, which I think that is equally important? Knowing where they come, knowing where they’ve come from, and knowing what we’re trying to guide them to in the future. 

David Rotberg
So cool. Thank you. Yeah. Very awesome. 

Sheila L
Hey, David. How are you? 

David Rotberg
Hey, good. How are you? Good to see you. 

Sheila L
It’s so great to see You. I’m so glad you’re having this conversation tonight because I’m early childhood trained and lower elementary trained. I taught lower elementary for a really long time, and I love the cosmic curriculum, and that’s where everything comes from. And I’ve taught CGMs. Like, I’ve done all these wonderful things with this lower elementary group, David. But what I’m finding is I have two teachers I’m working with right now, one in Florida and one in Kansas City. And this is their. They’re in their training or they’re coming out of their training, and they don’t know how to implement this. 

David Rotberg
Yeah, yeah. 

Sheila L
And because I’m not in their classroom with them, I can’t show them. Like, if you’re in a classroom, you could set up shelves. And so I’m really looking for a resource to share with these two really nice, good teachers, but they really don’t know how to do this, know how to pull it all in. 

David Rotberg
Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, so let’s get into that. So we’re super quick overview. Cosmic education. This is giving the children the universe, right? And it sounds very token, very cliche. You know, we give the children the universe, but this truly is what Dr. Montessori was talking about, an understanding of where they are uniquely positioned, what their purposes are, what their tasks are. You know, Dr. Montessori called it their cosmic task. Like, what is their role? What is their role in the classroom? What is their role at home? What is their role as they continue to grow in life? Like, what are things that interest them and they need to kind of begin to understand the how and the why. So in lower L, we talk a lot about the how and the why. 

David Rotberg
And the upper L, we begin to see a lot of those seeds kind of starting to blossom, really grow and then blossom, right? And then middle school, it shifts. Things change, right? And then we begin to see. But we begin to see the formation of man in middle school, right? We begin to really see who the we. That’s when we start to see the adults they’re going to become. And it’s a really beautiful thing to witness. So cosmic education really works on. The goal is to inspire children to explore, ask questions, and really see learning as just a natural part of life. And this is not. This is holistic this. Like what Sheila was saying, everything comes from this. Everything is integrated, everything is rooted in cosmic education in the elementary environment. 

David Rotberg
And many of you have probably seen this, but this is the integration of the curriculum. What spirals from each of the great lessons which we’ll talk a little bit about. But tonight we’re really going to focus on just how does this practically work? How do you actually do this? So these are not from any particular one place. These are from Dr. Montessori’s writings. These are from conversations I’ve had with other elementary guides, you know, books here and there, other webinars. But this is just what I’ve collected, this is what I have gathered. And what I’m really going to talk about tonight is really just one way to eat this elephant, one way that we can do this. So I would say if we’re going to honor cosmic education, we must do these things. 

David Rotberg
We must identify who we are and what we stand for as a school and as a classroom. Peace and character education should be happening. And much more than just a peace rose, right? We’re really legitimately talking about what is peace education? What does this really mean? What does it, what does character education mean? We can’t just talk about children being good and nice children. We have to teach those things. We have to teach these skills. How are we affirming children and how are we giving them time to reflect? You know, one of the first writings of Dr. Montessori, from the first great lesson was to, after following the lesson, she essentially let the children just go and just ponder these things, right? So are we giving time for children to wonder and are we giving time for children to reflect? 

David Rotberg
Are we engaging in these dialogues? Because children won’t naturally just want to sit and reflect? Some might, some might, and some might not want to at all. And some might be like, what are you talking about? So these things have to be in, especially in first and second grade, these things have to be spoon fed and these things have to continually build. This is scaffolding, right? Scaffolding needs to happen. So how are we also, how are we preparing ourselves? Again, this is all integrated. So if we are not preparing ourselves, if we’re not modeling the sense of wonderment, if we’re not to an extent allowing children to know our own journey of what our cosmic task is. And grace and courtesy. This is again deeper than just saying please and thank you and tucking in our chair. 

David Rotberg
We’re talking about grace is who we are within us and courtesy is how we are extending who we are to others. So what are our gifts and how are we giving them out to others? Rights and responsibilities. This is again much more than just rules in the classroom. This is what are your rights as a human being and what are your responsibilities as a human being? And how are we teaching that in our schools? A sense of greatness, gratitude, wonder. We’re asking these hows and whys. How are we engaging children in this constant, not necessarily critical thinking, but how are we engaging them in deeper thinking? How do things work? Why do things work? How are we all interconnected? You know, we talk so much about interconnectedness within our curriculum, but how are we connecting the dots for the children? 

David Rotberg
How are we doing it for ourselves? And strike the imagination, storytelling, like, hello, this is elementary land. Like elementary land, we are telling stories. We are showing impressionistic charts to an extent, we’re doing videos or PowerPoints. Children are making PowerPoints, especially in Upper elementary. So how are we striking the imagination? Are we dressing up? Are we being theatrical? Are we, what kind of stories are we telling? Or our lessons just, here’s a volcano, here’s parts of volcano. Now make the booklet. Also, are we stressing the greater importance of what we’re doing or are we the classrooms that say, do your math and language first. Do five pieces of math, five pieces of language before you can even touch your research, before you can even reflect for the morning. 

David Rotberg
Are we stressing that this is the priority of our classroom as far as a curriculum and as far as the main goal of the social, emotional learning that we’re working on with our children? And let’s also look at cosmic education is not okay, I presented the great lessons. I’m done, I’m done. No, no, no. There’s continual work that we can go and we can go deeper and deeper into all these subjects. So at your schools, what is your lower elementary, what are, what is the, what is your lower elementary programs doing? How are they integrating these and what are your upper elementary programs doing? So how is this being scaffolded? How are you going deeper and deeper each year into the great lessons and into the integration of cosmic education? Also purposeful and meaningful follow up work. 

David Rotberg
We’re going to talk a lot about that tonight. How do we engage children in this work? Because if we’re engaging them in the ways that I would propose, we would see much more work coming out of this curriculum. Going outs or stewardship and philanthropy. This is. What do going outs look like for elementary? How are we caring for the earth and how are we serving others? This almost could be a totally separate subject. We’re going to gloss over that quickly. But it is still very important for cosmic education because that is part of how children are learning about themselves. They’re going to learn about themselves through the process of going out. 

David Rotberg
What does care for the earth look like more than just drawing a cute picture on Earth Day, which I’m not minimizing, but there’s a lot more regarding our stewardship and how are the children serving. How are we having children legitimately serving others, not only in their school community, but in their greater community? In equal emphasis and integration of all curriculum areas, we need to have balanced work cycles and work weeks. We cannot be the classroom that is just doing geometry and spelling and math facts and spelling. Like, there is so much more. And we need to honor all the curriculum areas, events and experiences. What are. What’s being done in the classroom? Are we having plays? Are we having presentations? Are we doing something special one morning to honor one of the great lessons? Are we playing a game? 

David Rotberg
What types of events and experiences are you offering the children? Are we going on a walk and simply talking about what it means to be outside and what our role is in this giant thing we call the Earth? Understanding how to lesson plan. This is where a lot of us get caught up in how do we lesson plan? How do I scaffold this over throughout lower L. Sheila is definitely like, making expressions like, I know, I’ve been there. And what does that look like for all three years? And lower and all three years in upper classroom layout, how are we laying out our classroom? When we walk into the classrooms in elementary, what are we seeing? What should we be seen? What has priority in the classroom? So your physical layout is very telling right away in your understanding of cosmic education. 

David Rotberg
So really consider the physical layout of the classroom and where shelves are placed and what’s put where. Parent education. Huge, right? We’re. This is a partnership, and parent education is all about. It’s not about us being like, we know everything and you don’t. This is about how are we partnering with parents, how are we having extensions of this work being done at home and what’s developmentally appropriate for the children in regards to them understanding and knowing their cosmic task. And again, everything we do in elementary is cosmic, you know, and so I call. I consider everything cosmic education. And as far as subjects, we have our cultural studies, our mathematics and our language studies. All right, so the prepared adult. We are these adults that come into a classroom and serve children, and it can be a draining job. 

David Rotberg
And if we don’t prepare ourselves, we can be burnt out, which unfortunately happens. So how are we taking care of ourselves and how are we being. You know, we talk a lot about what is Montessori, what’s not Montessori. I would say that one of the biggest things that is not Montessori is an inability to be humble and to not be a joyful observer. That doesn’t mean yay. I love the fact that he is spitting on that other child. I’m happily observing that a joyful observer is just being in awe of the growth and development of the children in front of us. And how are we doing that and how are we humbly serving them and what are we doing to take care of ourselves? And when Dr. Montessori talked about the prepared adult, she was very clear that there’s three preparations. 

David Rotberg
The spiritual preparation which we talk a lot about but we don’t talk enough about the scientific and technical preparation. The spiritual preparations like our care of self, our practices, our scientific preparation is what are we doing to observe, how are we taking this practice and applying it, how are we looking at the classroom as if it’s a laboratory. And the technical preparation is an understanding of the lessons and understanding the scope and sequence and understanding the materials. When we talk about the prepared adult, please remember there’s three main contributing factors. Spiritual, scientific and technical. So how are we continually preparing ourselves in all three ways? And of course in elementary you got to have a sense of humor. The first month of school you’re a stone face, right? We’re setting the tone but we have to have a sense of humor. 

David Rotberg
And remember, she never asked for perfection. She asked for potential. We are dealing with human potential and human development. So the stressors sometimes when we leave training we’re all like okay, we have to do this perfect. My manual says this. The classroom has to be perfect. We over exhaust ourselves on perfection that no one’s placing on us but ourselves. So move past that perfection. Quotes. We got to have quotes from Dr. Montessori on the prepared adult and the prepared environment. So here we are, we’re going to get into the logistics, we’re going to get into nitty gritty. So I would argue that the we should have a shelf specifically or shelves specifically dedicated to the great lessons. It’s very typical to see a shelf that has history and that’s where the great lessons sit. 

David Rotberg
And it has time and it has concepts of time and it might have human history. I would argue that there needs to be a shelf specific to just the great lesson with follow up works on the great lesson in addition and everything stems from that just like it does in the classroom. Your classroom, left to right sequencing. We should have the great lessons in my classroom. It’s Specifically in the center, I’ll show pictures of other classrooms that do some similar things. And then it goes left to right from the first great lesson to the second great lesson to the third, to the fourth and the fifth. So the last shelves I would propose we should see in the elementary environment are mathematics. And the first that we should see is the great lesson. 

David Rotberg
And then it goes from cosmology into science, geography and biomes, biology from the second great lesson and the third great lesson and then the fourth and fifth language and mathematics. So here’s our classroom. We’re about to move into a brand new building which we’re thrilled with. That’s double the size of this room. So. And this holds. We hold 30 to 36 children. There’s my amazing colleague, Ms. Amber. And then Ms. Lisa, who you can’t see, is right here presenting art lessons. But when you first walk in, we see the great lesson. This is our great lesson shelf. This rotates to an extent and to an extent, some of it is pretty static or stagnant throughout the year. It’s there. Behind it is the art shelf. And then you. 

David Rotberg
What you can’t see along here is our cultural shelves into our language shelves and then mathematics. This is a beautiful classroom. Jenny Caskey, who was at the Newgate School in Sarasota, Florida, her and I spoke and we came up with this and she did it all over a weekend. But. But we talked about this classroom is. You can’t really see it, but it’s like an. It’s like a decagon shape. I think it’s even like 12 or 14 sides. It’s a very kind of interesting shape. And so we talked about like having everything in the center and everything circle around it. And that’s literally what she did. So she has the first and second and third grade lesson all right here. And everything literally revolves around that as far as the curriculum areas. And it’s. So here’s another angle of that and it’s just beautiful. 

David Rotberg
This entire room was the great lessons in all her cultural shelves. Her other room, there’s a connecting piece though, which you can’t see. Her other room had the math and language materials, but this is the room you walk in. So when the children walk in. She had always had like a declaration of peace thing here. And it was rotating different things. This was like a gratitude baskets for those days. But I found this to be a stunning upper elementary layout that worked beautifully. And sorry, I could go on about this room. It was just gorgeous. And I got to see it in person a year later. It was just stunning. But she had her third great lesson work here. So this is first and second, third great lesson, and then fourth and fifth. We’re in the next room. 

David Rotberg
So we’re going to talk tonight about yearly plans, monthly plans, weekly plans. Again, please do not, I do not want to ever come across as that Montessori and that. Like, this is the only way to do it. There’s a million ways to do it. This is just. In my 15 years, this is just the way that has been most manageable to me in a way that can sustain, that I feel is sustainable. So if there’s other ways of doing it, by all means, go for it. And I think there is, because we’re Montessorians and we’re incredibly pragmatic. Go for it again, this is simply a proposal. Yeah, go ahead. 

Catherine Hall
Just because I don’t know any better. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Catherine Hall
Can you give me a time frame from the first? Like just. I know you’re about to go to planning. I’m just like, how? Well, I’ve seen the God with no Hands lesson because I didn’t spend a year in. And I just can’t remember. It was a while ago and it was a crazy year. On lower. Many, many a year ago, like 2008. So what is the expectation of lesson presentation from. From the first, the second, all the way through the fifth? Because obviously I understand the order of it. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Catherine Hall
But at some point you, I. And then my second follow up question is because you talked about, obviously we’re partners with parents and we are. How do you explain this in not so cosmic language? 

David Rotberg
Yep, absolutely. Okay, so two great questions. The first one is much more. Well, they’re both kind of great questions, but somewhat controversial too. Right. So in the Montessori elementary land and Sheila’s, definitely pipe in if you feel different or think different or have different perspectives. There’s about a million different opinions of when the great lessons are supposed to be presented. I know schools that might present the first two great lessons the first year. The second year they might present the last three great lessons. I know schools that will present all five great lessons the first week of school and refer back to them. I know schools that will do it once a month, no matter what we’re doing it once a month. I do it kind of organically throughout the school year. 

David Rotberg
So I will start the first lesson that’s ever given, the first two days of school or three days or one day of school, whatever you need for orientation. That’s the thing but the very first formal lesson the children receive in elementary, in my opinion should be the first grade lesson. So that’s like first day of school, first lesson they receive is that because that’s what introduces everything. And it’s also, I mean it’s just such a fun lesson to teach. So in regards to that I end up, I’ve ended up almost doing it every about six to eight weeks. There’s a lesson every six to eight weeks only because the rest of what we’re going to talk about tonight is all the extension work that we do from all the lessons. So I guess the short answer of that is be present. 

David Rotberg
I don’t think there’s a formal answer or a right answer, but I think that you should be able to present a lesson and almost exhaust the greatness of the great lesson as far as follow up work and continual work and books and stories and all the experiences that you do. And once that’s done or you see the children are starting like, okay, I’m kind of done talking about stars, then we can start moving on to the next subject. And that’s also part of just lesson planning. So to me it ends up being about every six to eight weeks. Ish. If that answers the second one. As far as parent education, it’s really, you know, we talk about Cosmic Ed and what all this means, but we really don’t get into. 

David Rotberg
At least I haven’t gotten super deep into the philosophy, but much more this is what the philosophy says and this is for me it’s much more the practical application. Like this is what we can do at home, this is what the children could be doing. And this is why that’s mainly it. Because really. And then I have referred them to the book Cosmic Ed by the Duffy’s. If they truly want to read something then like that’s, I feel like that’s more on them. Like if you really want to learn about all this and you, because you have to, you’re like cosmic Ed. What’s that? Parents are like, what’s that? So you have to really like before you even get them to the place of like thinking that you just explain. I’ve, I just explained in a much more practical term. 

David Rotberg
And, and then I say, and this by the way is called cosmic education because I found that reversing it and starting with Cosmic Ed. The whole time they’re kind of like, so is this about stars or are we like, is this like a cult that we’re part of? Like, what is this? Yeah, exactly. So I find to make it just practical and then go to the big picture first. Good questions. Ms. Catherine though. Those are great questions, Catherine. Great. So here we go into how do we do this? All right, so let’s just take one subject. This is just botany for lower elementary. I didn’t want to put upper Ls on there too because then this will just be a massive slideshow or slide. But let’s look at our manuals. 

David Rotberg
So the first thing I want to propose is when you look at all the cultural study areas. So we’re talking cosmology, sciences, geography, geology, biomes, botany, zoology, history, concepts of time. I’m probably missing something. All those subjects, your manuals are like this big, right? And if you’ve done CGMs, your manuals are like this big. So you. There’s so many. And some schools use Montessori compass and they have like 150 lessons. You cannot. This, this curriculum is endless. So what you need to do is you need to practically look at all your lessons and say, okay, there’s 55 botany lessons. There’s no way I can get to 55 botany lessons. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to chunk them. This is what I’m going to present in first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade and sixth grade. 

David Rotberg
And a lot of the times you can simply just combine lessons, right? You don’t necessarily need one lesson on living and non living. You can easily talk about the five kingdoms and living and non living within the same lesson. So really this is where lesson planning comes in. Look at your lessons within the cultural studies and say what can be taught throughout the course of one year. I know I have eight months, nine months to get through this. I present my botany lessons once every week, once every two weeks, whatever. So that’s 25 lessons throughout the year. That’s it. That’s really not a lot. So how are we going to do this? And this is just, you know, this isn’t one specific training program. This is just the lessons that I’ve taken and I’ve adapted. So this is what I introduced. 

David Rotberg
Year one, year two, year three, and so on. So now here’s an example of just a month, right? First day of school. I put September. Catherine and I start school in August, but other schools start in September. September. So I just put a general one. So here we are, first day of school. We’re doing ground rules, all that jazz, rights and responsibilities, community building. First day of school. As far as lessons and instructions. Here we are. The first grade lesson. I’m not teaching anything else that day except first grade lesson. So we’re going to do art and research science experiments. Wednesday we can do math and language assessments. Thursday we’re going to do cosmology lesson because hello, the first great lessons opens up cosmology and science and geography. 

David Rotberg
We’re going to do some songs because spoiler alert, we’re going to talk a little bit later about how our lessons need to be dynamic and our lessons need to honor all styles of learner. So am I honoring visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners? Am I giving them opportunities to do different follow up work based on their specific gifts and talents and how am I explaining that to them? So here’s just an overview, but if you look at the month of September, I have seven days dedicated specifically to just the first great lesson and work from the first great lesson. And I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 days dedicated to all the other subjects. 

David Rotberg
And then our Fridays are community building, peace education, literature study, and then other additional like Spanish and art and those things which I’m not minimizing Spanish, art or cooking at all. It’s just Friday’s the day that I put it on here. And then also don’t get too stuck into rigidity. This is what I used to do. Now it’s, I’m much more like, okay, Monday we’ll do baking and Wednesday we’ll do geometry. So don’t. But give yourself a structure is my point and really plot this out. So I have this plotted out for the entire three years. I have a monthly plan for the for three years. But also knowing that the children can change the plans very quickly. So you just pivot and you just say, okay, we’re going to put this here and this year. 

David Rotberg
So how do we start to motivate and encourage the children to do this work? So we need to talk about what motivation looks like, what encouragement looks like, and how are we integrating all of this and how are we interconnecting everything? So we’re motivating the children by guiding, teaching, showing and modeling them. We’re creating a space where wonder, inquiry and inspiration is available, open and allowed. We’re encouraging, we’re valorizing the students. Now in middle school, valorization means something a little bit different than it does in elementary land. But really, valorization for elementary land is, hey, you are important, you are valued, you’re respected, you are loved in this classroom and your work is honored. Understanding, safe place to Fail. But hey, we’re teaching them grit. Like work is work. We’re working. Let’s, let’s get through this. 

David Rotberg
We, we have all these ways to help you and really presenting the big picture and weaving the subjects together. And how are we explaining to the children? Hey, when we’re studying nouns, we’re talking about coal from the Paleozoic era, right? Like there’s, we’re integrating so much and we have to tell that to them. They won’t naturally know that this is all integrated. So again, we’re planting the seeds and lower. And we begin to see the seeds growing upper. So now we need to talk about, okay, this is all great, but how does this really pan out? So what we tell the children is we need to have a balanced plate of work. We have work that you want to do, work that you get to do, which is a really nice way of saying you have to do it. 

David Rotberg
We just like to say get to because it’s an opportunity. You get to do this math work. Isn’t that amazing? Do I have to do this? Yes, yes, you have to do it and you have to do it now. So work that you want to do, work that you get to do. But don’t worry, it’s going to be fun and work that you’re invited to do. So I’m going to give you two options then. The children need to very clearly understand what are the non negotiables and how do we lead children to this understanding? How do we have them understand? These are required, these are tasks of interest. And how do we allow for reflection? Are we having a meeting? Are we giving an open invitation to. Whenever you have questions, come and ask me. We’re observing, right? So we’re observing all the time. 

David Rotberg
So we’re seeing that, this child needs to, I need to speak with him or her a little bit because clearly he or she is not really fully seeing all this or understanding all this. And again and again, be explicit about this stuff. We tell the children this stuff. Be explicit in how you’re communicating this to the children and to the people that your colleagues. There needs to be a little bit of everything because again, remember, we’re talking big picture. We’re talking about human potential. We’re talking about them understanding who they are as human beings and how they’re contributing. Right? In 3 to 6 and in 0 to 6 they’re forming themselves. You’re my mom, you’re my dad, these are my shoes. They’re naming everything. But in 6 to 12, in the second plane. We are understanding, whoa. We’re an individual in this huge cosmos. 

David Rotberg
We have. I’m not, I’m not mirror playing anymore or parallel playing. I’m like legitimately playing with my friend. I legitimately have feelings and cares and concerns about things. So there’s this huge developmental shift for the 6 to 12 year old child. And everything that we do in elementary needs to honor their developmental needs. So how are they caring for themselves and others? How are they caring for the environment? How are they reflecting? How are they setting goals? How are we continually asking just a bit more of them academically, socially and emotionally? How are we spiritually? How are we helping them understand who they are as humans? So character education and during work cycle, we’re doing all that. We’re doing all that throughout the day, throughout the week. But on top of all that, we have the work, right? 

David Rotberg
So we have cultural studies, language, math, art, cooking, gardening or stewardship. We should see a balanced approach in our classrooms for all of this. We should not just see math task cards every single morning. We need to see their elementary experience, should be rich with all of these things. And so here’s where we’re talking about going outs and philanthropy and character education and peace education and of course the academics. Right? Because we’re at school too. There’s the reality of this is school. This isn’t a playground, right? We’re here to work. So. But are we balanced in our approach? So here are just some photos of our school. I. This is what happens throughout the day, right? They’re washing dishes, they’re doing laundry, they’re gardening and of course they’re getting to work cycle and other things. 

David Rotberg
And we’re having conversations about service projects we might be doing. But we really need to see this balanced approach in the classroom. And with all this, right. We talk about freedom within limits, rights and responsibilities. Those are interchangeable words. But how are we. We need to still remember the limits, right? So are we. Do the children clearly understand these non negotiables in the classroom? Do they clearly understand rights and responsibilities? Do they clearly understand their works that need to be completed? Are we giving due dates? Are we giving assignments? Are we clearly communicating? Does the child fully understand? Where is your accountability in the classroom? What does accountability look like? How do children know what to do collaboratively with partners or independently? Again, elementary children need to be taught these things. We can’t just say go and do group work. Right? 

David Rotberg
Catherine, you and I talked about this. Group work is a big thing. You have to teach lessons. Yeah. You have to teach lessons. So it’s okay when you guys work as a group. Here’s what we do. You have a job. You have a job. You have a job. This is your job. This is your job. This is your job. It should take about 10 minutes to do this thing. These need to just be so explicit. And are they understanding what the natural and logical consequences are to their behaviors? And sometimes it’s okay just to say, listen, I’m the teacher. This is what we’re doing. There’s. We sometimes get too caught up in, oh, I’m not honoring the child if I’m sometimes there. There’s a natural hierarchy in life, right? 

David Rotberg
And as equal as we are and as we respect and love and care for the children, we also, we’re accountable to these children. We have the safety of children every day. And sometimes we need to pull the I’m the adult card. And that’s okay. So within reflection, how are the children setting goals for themselves? How are they self reflecting and, you know, other stuff that we talked a little bit about. And also allow time for children to rest. Sometimes they need to go look out the window. Sometimes they need to go outside for a break. Sometimes they need to just think about a question that you might have asked. How are you checking work and how are you keeping up with those systems? So here we have a lot of outdoor spaces in our classroom. This just happens to be called the Zen Garden. 

David Rotberg
And we’re going to. We’re about to have a different whole different one soon in our new building. But we’re. Are we giving them opportunities to reflect and are we giving them promptings of maybe we should go think about that and maybe help guide them through their reflections and because they don’t sometimes don’t know. Well, what do you mean think about that? What am I supposed to think about that? We need to help them. So purposeful work, we want to really get them involved. How are they going to do all this? So what is purposeful? So that’s a question I think all of us should ask ourselves. What is purposeful work in the elementary community? How do I give purposeful work? This is based on your observations of the students in conversations with them. This is based on feedback. 

David Rotberg
I would say that purposeful work should engage the imagination, the mind and the senses. I would say that it needs to engage relationship because they want to work collectively, they want to work with partners, but sometimes they work individually or want to work individually. Huge work, right? Children want to do big things. This is the timeline of the US Presidents from a few years ago. Actually, Catherine, you definitely recognize some of these guys. These are all, Most of them are middle school alumni of Pines. So now they’re all in high school? Yeah, they’re all sophomores. They’re all sophomores in high school right now, so. And also, just gut check, are we really considering, are we really thinking about purposeful work and are we making sure that we’re doing that? So this is what I talked about earlier. Types of learners. 

David Rotberg
We start to assign follow ups. In first grade, we start to show them, this is what you can do. This is what you can do. We, we give them a menu of options. So in our classroom we have a menu of options of you can do this, this. Over first grade we teach them all of the menu. And then second grade a little bit. And then by end of second grade and into third grade, you get to choose all of these things. And you also can come up with a million other. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
David, I think you froze for a second. 

David Rotberg
You might want to write a play about parts of the bird. You might want to write a story about parts of the bird. You might want to act out parts of the bird. There’s a million ways to do this. So how can we do that? So following the lesson, we really need to consider how are we asking the children, are we imposing or are we asking, so what can we be done with this work? Give them options, show materials and help them decide. Again, you need to teach this for a lot of lower L and for sure by end of second grade and again depending on the child. But on average, by the end of second grade and all third grade and definitely in top or elementary, it’s a conversation. Oh, you know what? 

David Rotberg
You know, Miss Molly, I would really, I, I would really like to research more about the Sumerians. Great. Okay. You know, Ms. Molly, I would really like to. I think I’m more interested in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Is there something I can do with hieroglyphics? Great. You know, those are not things that we need to worry about. Like, well, it has to be done this way. It’s, it’s. We’re not being tested, we’re not being quizzed. So allow them to do work that is purposeful and meaningful to them. Sorry, my slides. So, follow up options. Consider these types of learners. Visual learners need charts, pictures, models and books. Auditory learners need lectures, music read aloud and songs. Mathematical learners need logic, reasoning and systems. So this is maybe charts or graphs, even story problems or word Problems Kinesthetic we need hands on and movement. 

David Rotberg
Verbal we need writing and presenting. Social we need collaboration teams and solitary children are independent or individual. So follow up work needs to honor all of these styles. So all of, for half of their lower elementary career you were teaching them how they can do all these different kinds of follow up work. How and how are your lessons honoring all these children and all their follow up their style of learning? So are we doing games based on the great lessons? You betcha. Are we doing games based on volcanoes? You betcha. Are we doing books read aloud based on the great lessons? Absolutely. Are we finding songs? Are we teaching them how to write and present regarding the cultural work. So here’s just a really simple version of what we have in our classroom. But following the lesson, the children and of course there’s accountability. 

David Rotberg
So I expect you to do something. You get to pick. So you can read about this lesson, you can listen to it or watch it depending on what it is. You can research about it, you can organize it and lists, classifications, diagrams, venn diagrams. You can write a play poem, story, report or lists about it. You can create lists or you can build it, create it, draw it, dioramas, models, timelines, charts and posters. Now again you have to teach all the children all these things so that they know what all this looks like and how to do all of it and give children the opportunity to rest and reflect. This is following the fourth great lesson and following this. This was about a 30 minute conversation that the children just had after the lesson. 

David Rotberg
And I said whenever you’re finished, you’re welcome to go 30 minutes. They were just talking, talking about all of their. Because that’s work, that’s them discovering things. So this is them understanding. So that’s very important as well, giving them an opportunity to rest and talk about it. Of course, you know there was parameters, right? We’re not going crazy, we’re not yelling or screaming, but we are talking with our friends. So here I’m going to go quickly through this because I know we’re already at 45 but great lesson integrations, here’s art, here’s research. Language, mathematics, fine and gross motor. So are our great lesson and cultural study works going into language, math and fine and gross motor skills. They should because again we are integrating. So our research reports, creative writing, sentences. Molly, you have a question. Go ahead. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
No, I wanted, I just wanted to tell you, our little audience and whoever is watching this that we’re having precisely some another presenter that’s going to be Talking about this. She presented at our conference some time ago. Her name is Ola and she does this beautiful work where she puts geometry, art, Islamic art, with geometry and language and mathematics. So she’s gonna be. Stay tuned for that one because she’s going to be talking precisely about exactly what you’re talking about, David. 

David Rotberg
So, yeah, and that’s what we need to be doing. We need to be integrating. So are we having. So we have sentences that children can analyze based on the third great lesson, right? Early humans foraged for their food. Early humans hunted fiercely during the ice Age. There’s no reason that everything needs to be a grammar box or every story problem, worksheet or task card, whatever you use needs to be about something that was made by some company or whatever. But there can be a story problem about early humans or 5 billion years ago the Earth was formed, or 4.5, wherever you want to land on those things. The Earth was formed and humans came. At this point, what’s the difference in years? What art projects are we giving? What practical life, health and fitness are we doing? 

David Rotberg
So here again we have research, we have drawing charts, a lot of visuals. Here was a child who, she was in third grade at this point. This was during our Covid days, hence the mask was off. I was six feet away. Don’t worry everybody when I took the photo. But she. We gave a lesson on Pangea and the continental shift from the beginning of the Earth when the crust reformed today. And this was completely her design. She said, I think I can do it like this. Got construction paper and made an entire timeline. What you don’t see on this picture, she made a whole roll and she made a giant timeline from beginning to now. And that was just her. So here we have research galore. The children came and decided, I’m going to do this. 

David Rotberg
So they made this huge Egyptian kind of display. So this was just a sarcophagus that they came up with and then a pyramid. And this was all their research on early humans and they went into ancient Egyptians. This is us playing health and fitness games just based on the great lessons. There’s a beautiful curriculum by Nicholas Lupine. It’s Montessori movement, Montessori pe. And he has games all based on the great lessons. So it’s just phenomenal. And he really was an inspiration to create other games. We had our game based on volcanoes. It was simple, but it was based on ideas he came up with. So just beautiful ways. So children learn from this. This is important. So here we have art. This was animal. This was a plant cell made from clay. It was about this big. Just gorgeous. And again, just inspiration. 

David Rotberg
This is a division equation. And this child just. He kept stapling paper and paper and kept going down and down and just other ways to integrate mathematics and geometry. So I’m going to go really quickly through this because we’re running short on time. But think about how you can cycle works. Think about. Not everything needs to be done in one year. So one year we’ll make a timeline of life mural. Another year we’ll make a timeline of writing mural. Another year we’ll make a timeline of numbers mural. This year we made a timeline of life mural. We could. We had construction, so we had all that. Those blue tarps around the fences, they. They drew the timeline of life from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic to the Cenozoic. It was maybe 30ft long. 

David Rotberg
They just did it with chalk outside with one of our colleagues, and it was just beautiful. And. And again, peacemaker studies. How are we Again, cosmic task. Hello. We’re talking about peacemakers. We’re talking about stories of goodness, bravery, virtues. These things need to continually be taught. So cycle those again. Not everything can be done in one year. So we’re going to focus on the value of goodness. This year we’re going to have lessons about that, we’re going to have conversations, we’re going to have art projects, we’re going to have writing prompts. Next year we’re going to talk about bravery, whatever that looks like. This. I’m going to breeze really quickly through this. This is just ways to integrate geometry, language. Going outs. Here we go. 

David Rotberg
So going outs, we’re really talking about, not field trips, but child initiated, where children are getting going out into the community with a specific task. Real world, they plan and prepare, real world application and the skills that are developed. Social skills, independence and cognitive skills. And then once they come back from their going out, they’re going to report back to the classroom. So there’s a whole. We could give a whole presentation on just this one slide. But going outs are very important. If your school doesn’t go out, then what can we do to honor the spirit of going outs? Because there is a lot of logistics involved. And how are we honoring the earth? And again, much more than tokenism, we’re really, truly talking about being stewards of the earth. How are we caring for the earth and how are we loving others? 

David Rotberg
So this is philanthropy, right? So in elementary, we do a lot of Etymology. Well, so does middle school, actually. So philanthropy literally means loving humankind. How are we doing that? What kind of projects are we doing? Are we leading by example? Are we giving? Are we volunteering? Are we fundraising? What types of involvements are they doing at home and at school? And again, just a balanced approach. What does our classroom look like? What does our culture look like? And are we preparing ourselves, the environment? Are we organizing ourselves in lessons? Are we guiding the children? Do they have a balanced approach every day, every week? And are we communicating this to parents? And again, of course, education is prepared for life. This is our goal, right? We are preparing the next generation. So in conclusion, we’re constantly at work. 

David Rotberg
We need to remember our foundation where we are rooted, observe and reflect and grow. We’re talking about perfection. So we’re not talking about perfection. We’re talking about potential. So give yourself a pat on the back and remember the big picture, because this truly is a big picture. And that’s just that. And okay, I’m going to stop because I said that we’d have way more time for dialogue and I’ve just talked this whole time. So done. Okay, go ahead, Molly, take over. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
No, that was amazing. I mean, we could probably break this into two presentations because there was so much, I think, very useful information from everyone. Like you said, I think going out could. Deserves a whole new webinar on its. On its own. I was wondering, and this is just out of curiosity because I wonder, do your elementary, is it divided or do you have from 6 to 12 more or less in your classroom? 

David Rotberg
We have what we’re about to have. We have two lower, so 6 to 9 and then two 9 to 12. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
And how do you work? Because you were talking about all these things where you’re preparing things on lower L for them to develop on upper. So do you, how do you do that with the T with the other teachers? 

David Rotberg
That is phenomenal. We are in the process of doing that right now. We are getting ready to start diving into a lot of very needed subjects and this is one of them. So we kind of have a relatively. We have a, we have a pretty seasoned teacher that’s been in upper L for the past. We just had one of our most seasoned upper L teachers retire last year. So we’re kind of in a shift, in a paradigm shift right now of establishing a new upper elementary. So we have a. Currently we have two new basically to our school in upper elementary this year and then one relatively new the last three Years and then one who’s been in leading upper elementary for the past like 12 years. So we have a lot of different places. 

David Rotberg
So what we’re doing is we meet weekly and we’re talking about a bunch of these big topics and a bunch of how we scaffold from first grade into sixth grade. And our teams, our whole elementary team is super gun ho at wanting to do this. And this is so I guess that’s a really short answer. We’re, we’re weekly meeting to plan and prepare for these and implement and slowly build up to this. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
I love that. 

Catherine Hall
Catherine, a quick record keeping question. David so all this is great and there’s a lot of information that you’ve dumped out for us, but you’ve got what, 30 students in your class and all your 30 students aren’t working on the same level. So with like seven first years and they get the first extension from the great lesson at the first year level, how are, what have you found is the best way? Because obviously you might have one or two students who are like, they get through that follow up work because they love it, they’re passionate about it in two or three days just. And you’ve got five other students that two weeks later you’re just like, yep, guys. So like when, I’m just curious in the elementary curriculum, Wendy, when, like when’s the push? 

Catherine Hall
Like when do you say you’ve got to get through this and how do you like as a big team? Because that’s, because that’s happening at every level. And so you, you’ve got multiple, I mean I know I end up with multiple math groups in middle school and in some. And just trying to keep it all together. 

David Rotberg
Yeah. 

Catherine Hall
And not looking back and going well we’ve been observing and we all look around and go, oh gosh, John over there. Has John done any work in a, in three weeks? I’m not sure. He’s a good quiet kid who just seems to sit quietly and will get us things. We need them. I love John, but I don’t have anything that John’s done. 

David Rotberg
Yep, absolutely. So what we do is so of course, right. Like you’re always observing. Right. And obviously like our, you know, the classroom is set up so you can visibly see all the children at all times. So what we do is they’re the basic gist is every middle of the week we meet with all of them. Not like a formal, like sit down and we’re having tea and I’m talking Through everything. But it’s like, it’s just, we’re checking on your work, we’re checking on your progress. And then again Thursday, at the end of the. Thursday before lunch on Thursday. So we do two regular checks with the ones like, hey, what’s going on? And then in regards to like, extension work, because a lot of this work is pretty endless. Like, they could be doing research for weeks and weeks. 

David Rotberg
So for most of it, for those students that you know preemptively, you’re going to probably spend like three weeks on this, we’re going to talk about due dates. So certain X, Y and Z needs to be accomplished by blah, blah. For the children that avoid all this stuff altogether, for the most part, they don’t because you’re honoring their learning style. So they’re doing something that they legitimately like to do, but they might not want. They might not get into the meat of it as much as you’re like, don’t you want to know more about the ancient Sumerians? They’re like, no, like, okay, fair. Like, I’m not going to push certain things. Certain things I’m not going to push too much. Right. So basically what happens is for, for these kinds of things, especially big picture things, they’re due dates and then for. 

David Rotberg
And then as far as the cultural studies, those I do by levels. So I will do. First graders, here’s your botany. Second graders, here’s your botanY. Third graders, here’s your botany. And then following the lesson, they’ll say, okay, I’m going to do this. Or depending on the child, they’ll say, and we’re going to do this and this. And it’s going to be finished by Friday. So preemptively, you pretty much already know within the first month of school which children are going to need to have these conversations with. So it’s really basically like this. If to that extent it’s going to be a due date. Yeah. So it’s pretty much. And for the most part, I don’t really give most of the students any more than two weeks. If it’s past two weeks, they’re pretty much. 

David Rotberg
Or like, if they have like we have a basket of all the big unfinished works, pretty much every, when the basket starts to get full, it’s like, okay. Which is usually about two weeks, it’s like, okay, who’s this? Oh, this is mine. Okay. Or, or whatever their name is on it. I’m like, okay, this is what we’re gonna do. And the children know this. They know that when I, when Mr. David or Ms. Amber or Ms. Lisa get out the basket, we. We know that. Okay. Okay. It’s. It’s right after read aloud. This is your map. You’ve had it in here for two weeks. Here you go. You’re gonna go finish it right now. Like, it’s just. It’s kind of like that. 

Catherine Hall
Okay, so do you teach that expectation, like in, like those first. Like, like it’s part of your orientation. I mean, that’s what I would imagine because we try to do that in the middle to set the expectation for the student. 

David Rotberg
Like those little six year olds. Yeah. Like the first month of school. Okay. But obviously it builds. And you’re continually having conversations. Yeah, yeah. 

Catherine Hall
So is there any paper record keeping for this or is this something that y’, all, the teachers that you do, y’. All, could you do as the team, as the guides, do y’ all collectively meet to say, hey, have you noticed, I think I’ll use John again, that Johnny doesn’t like culture, but gosh, math. I think I could teach him long division. And he’s a second grader. 

David Rotberg
Yep. Formally and informally. Like sometimes in the morning and then sometimes just throughout work cycle, I go over or someone comes over to me and we’re like, hey, they’re. They’re just skyrocketing through their stamp game. Let’s move them on to racks and tubes. Great. Like, let’s. Things like that. Yeah. And of course, obviously, like their work plans or work journals or work records, whatever schools use. Those are just like. That’s our record keeping right there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sheila, you were going to say something. 

Sheila L
No, I thought it was fantastic. David, I think that all teachers that finish first through third grade should have to come back and really enjoy this conversation with you because it all needs to be explicitly taught. 

David Rotberg
Yes. 

Sheila L
How do you collaborate? How do you get things done? And you. I think you laid it out beautifully. So thank you so much. 

David Rotberg
Great. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I want to. My next piece of work is going to be to build this for upper elementary. And so that’s. That’s really the next piece of work. And with upper elementary is fun because there’s so much that they can do. Yeah. 

Sheila L
Yeah. 

David Rotberg
So. Yeah. 

Sheila L
Well, yeah. 

David Rotberg
Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Molly. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
No, I had another quick question on your lesson planning because it looked rather impressive on that one. Do you recycle it? 

David Rotberg
Do I recycle? What do you mean? By that, like, do I reuse it? 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Reuse it. 

David Rotberg
Like, I have a basic one. Oh, hi, Peyton. I have a basic one. So Ms. Peyton is Ms. Catherine’s daughter and she also works in our lower elementary program. So, yeah. And she’s gonna become a trained Montessori teacher. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
Oh, good. 

David Rotberg
That’s why I keep pushing. So anyways. But no, she. It is recycled. I have one for three years. I actually have one for six years. I have one for lower and upper. And we go through all that. But again, as you know, working in a Montessori classroom, things change. It’s like, okay, we’re not going to be able to do the geometry lesson on Thursday. We’re going to do it on Friday, and then I’m gonna have a meeting with those kids on Thursday afternoons. Say, hey, we’re having our next GI geometry lesson. We’re going to sit down and do this together. And now we’re going to move on to our next lesson. So, yeah, it’s very. It’s very fluid. It’s very fluid. But once you kind of build that, I would say. I would kind of. 

David Rotberg
I would very safely say that within about five years, a teacher should be pretty solid within about five years that they could almost do lesson planning if they did it right. And, well, for them, whatever that looks like, within the first five years, a lot of it becomes pretty rote. A lot of it becomes. You should be able to be in a good flow, like, okay, I did math on Monday, I’m going to do my geography Tuesday. It gets pretty. And if, again, because if you’re doing all the systems in place, observing the children, conversations and children, engaging the children, follow up, work, accountability, due dates, for the most part, the children do get through what they need to get through. And then plus, you know, we all work in Montessori classrooms, right? 

David Rotberg
So we see the children do the bare minimum, and then we see some children, like, go above and beyond, which is just beautiful. 

Maly Pena, IMC COO
So, yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s already 9:02 or 8:02 for some of us. I want to thank you, David, and the people that are here. Thank you so much for being here tonight. And yeah, remember, we’re going to have this recording for whoever you want to share with. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a good night. Thank you, Davey. 

David Rotberg
All right, thank you. Bye, guys. Have a good night.