All parenting adults will eventually witness their children trying out sarcasm for the first time, attempting to tease as a way to engage socially, and expressing a strong desire to belong by behaving in exclusionary ways. In the process, you might hear comments like these: “Oh dude, I figured this out — no thanks to you!” “Why do you write like that?” “Oh no, is HE going to sit here?”

Responsive Classroom calls these gateway behaviors, or microaggressions. You may have read Bliss Tobin’s article a couple of weeks ago mentioning the need to address these behaviors as a whole community. So when you see your child exhibiting these behaviors, or feeling subjected to them, should you be worried? Should you respond? And how does The Berkeley School think about and address these typical — but troubling — behaviors?

When I was growing up, my family ate dinner together every night. I set the table and helped to clear the dishes after the meal was finished. My father repeatedly reminded us not to talk with our mouths full, to put our napkins on our laps, and not to interrupt. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my mother and father were teaching me what Maria Montessori called grace and courtesy.

Rooted in Montessori’s observation that children need order in their environment, the Grace and Courtesy curriculum is an integral element of Montessori pedagogy, with the goal of creating respectful, constructive relationships among children and teachers — relationships that sustain effective learning environments. Responsive Classroom refers to this goal as “respect and inclusion”, and faculty members work to achieve this by creating shared classroom agreements with students, asking students to make eye contact and shake hands with teachers as they enter classrooms each morning, and implementing many other daily practices.

Respect and inclusion need to be explicitly taught and reinforced both at school and at home. All of us value inclusion and respect, and want to think of ourselves as being inclusive and respectful. However, despite our best intentions, we end up excluding others and falling short of respectful behaviors — even though we’ve had a lot of life experience, much more than our children. If we have a hard time mastering those behaviors, imagine how challenging it can be for children!

I recently read an article by Catherine McTameney (author of “The Tao of Montessori: Reflections on Compassionate Teaching”) titled “Parents as Participants.” The author concludes that family involvement is essential for a school community to fulfill its mission. Every school is strengthened by family partnership: it’s the foundation from which we grow.  And we know that all good partners share tools.

To support our community in working towards inclusion, respect, grace, and courtesy, this year’s student council members have developed tools: five schoolwide agreements, drawn from the classroom agreements that students developed together. 

1. Be respectful to ourselves, others, and our surroundings.
2. Be safe and responsible.
3. Try our best.
4. Have fun.
5. Raise school spirit.

We ask you, as parents, to look for, learn, and practice using these agreements at home — even when doing so is challenging. For example, if you hear your child speaking to another child or an adult in a way that feels disrespectful, point it out and ask for a re-do: “I notice you are not being respectful to others right now. Please rewind and try that again.” When children hear the same language about respectful behavior from adults around them — without judgement but with consistency, kindness, and firmness —  it serves as a reinforcement of our shared desire to create and maintain a respectful and inclusive community.

In the spirit of that shared desire, and in service of building our community’s foundation, we encourage all parenting adults to take action. When you notice “gateway behaviors” in your child that don’t promote grace, courtesy, respect, and inclusion — whether at home or at school — please use the schoolwide agreements as reference points to help your child regain equilibrium and reconnect to the inherent desire to belong to a community.  

In taking that action, you’ll make your child feel seen, even though the experience may not be comfortable or easy for either of you. As Mitch says, being seen doesn’t always feel comfortable in the moment — but feeling those moments of discomfort while simultaneously feeling supported leads to powerfully transformative learning and growth. Your actions and commitment will benefit your child, and ultimately, every member of our community.

Kate Klaire
Student Life Coordinator