Three Before Me and Correctly Interrupting: Serenity in the Montessori Classroom

After I completed my Montessori training, I was filled with wonder and excitement. I was eager to have my own Montessori classroom filled with normalized children who chose their own work, begged for more lessons, worked quietly and respectfully, joyfully cleaned up after themselves, and didn't interrupt. Now I’m not saying that didn't happen, but it probably wasn't to the extent I had hoped for.

One of the most difficult tasks I encountered was children interrupting while I was presenting a lesson. Thinking they were just unaware of how to ask for help, I decided to hold a class meeting on what to do about the constant stream of interruptions of children asking for help. What came out of that meeting surprised me. They did know what to do.

“Miss Michelle, if we have a question and you are in a lesson, we should look for Miss Jen. If Miss Jen is speaking with a student, we should silently touch her on the shoulder so she knows we are waiting.”

I even asked them to demonstrate this by role modeling. It was beautiful! We agreed together that this was the right approach and that we would start this method back up right away.

Naively, I thought I had the situation well under control...
Wrong!!!