Finding Alignment, Not Balance with Katie Keller Wood

00:00:02:22 – 00:00:11:17
Nicole
Welcome to Educating the Human Potential. The podcast about optimizing education for a better society through a montessori lens. My name is Nicole Coman

00:00:11:17 – 00:00:41:08
Biff
And I’m Biff Maier and today we are thrilled to have Katie Keller Wood with us. Katie is a USA today bestselling author. She’s a TEDx and keynote speaker. She’s an instructor in the School of Human Development at the University of Virginia, and she is the Executive director of CM Step, which is an American Montessori Society affiliated and Mahdi accredited Montessori teacher education program.

00:00:41:10 – 00:00:44:12
Biff
So we’re delighted to have you here, Katie.

00:00:44:13 – 00:00:46:00
Katie Keller Wood
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

00:00:46:01 – 00:00:58:13
Nicole
Let’s get started. I I’ve been reading about you as we’re preparing for this, but I want to I want to know a little bit about your journey and how it got you here, and what got you interested in Montessori and secondary education and whatnot.

00:00:58:14 – 00:01:18:23
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I’ve always been in secondary. I’ve always been a teacher of middle and high school students, started my career in conventional education for five years. And then a friend of mine said, you know, the Montessori school down the road is looking for a middle school lead and you might really like it. And I said, I don’t know anything about Montessori.

00:01:19:00 – 00:01:38:14
Katie Keller Wood
And I went home and I did some research, and I went and I observed at the school and I found, as many of us have. Oh my goodness, this is not only what I believe about education, but also like the world. And I was astounded by what I saw the young children doing. My mother is an early childhood educator, so I know a little bit about the early childhood realm.

00:01:38:14 – 00:01:59:13
Katie Keller Wood
And, you know, just seeing these students so engaged, so passionate about their work, seeing the high level work that they were doing at these very young ages. And so I applied and straight away off to training in Cincinnati, which is that now the training program that I run. But I’ve always lived in Virginia, so that confuses people who know me in the Montessori world that I don’t live in Ohio.

00:01:59:13 – 00:02:19:20
Katie Keller Wood
I live in Richmond, Virginia. And so, yeah, from there did my training, worked as a middle school Montessori teacher, kept coming back to training. I was the first instructor in the training program, not to be local to Cincinnati. And, you know, my husband and my friends, they were like, why do you keep going back to Cincinnati? You you finished your training?

00:02:19:22 – 00:02:24:08
Katie Keller Wood
Aren’t you done? Like, don’t you want to not spend your July in Cincinnati, Ohio?

00:02:24:09 – 00:02:27:17
Biff
And you said, well, it’s Montessori Mecca. That’s why.

00:02:27:19 – 00:02:29:04
Nicole
The monastery Mecca.

00:02:29:05 – 00:02:29:16
Biff
Monastery.

00:02:29:17 – 00:02:30:10
Nicole
Mecca it.

00:02:30:10 – 00:02:50:19
Katie Keller Wood
Is it is quite a Mecca of Montessori. But I said I have to go back. These are people who do the work that I do. And in secondary, we don’t have as big of a community sometimes of Montessori. And so I knew great middle and high school teachers and I knew great Montessori, but I didn’t have a big network of other people who were secondary Montessori.

00:02:51:01 – 00:02:52:17
Katie Keller Wood
And I just had to keep coming back.

00:02:52:18 – 00:03:12:02
Nicole
I think that’s fantastic. And, you know, for for our listeners that aren’t so familiar with Montessori, because this is an educational podcast. So I wonder when you hear Montessori, I think I think most people that don’t know about Montessori, they think, oh, young children. So what do you think that they don’t understand about Montessori role in adolescence?

00:03:12:03 – 00:03:30:03
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I mean, I think the wonderful thing that I try to tell people when they don’t know what Montessori is, I said Montessori to me is two things. So one, it’s a pedagogy, right? It’s a way of educating children. And that’s kind of as far as most people go with it. And they think of early childhood, which is the bulk of Montessori schools.

00:03:30:08 – 00:03:51:04
Katie Keller Wood
But it’s also a philosophy. And that’s the piece that, you know, is so relevant to the work that I’ve done and how I’ve, you know, how it has transformed my life as a person and as an adult. I wasn’t a montessori student myself. I didn’t go to a montessori school. I had no exposure to Montessori prior to going to my training.

00:03:51:05 – 00:04:11:03
Katie Keller Wood
And I’ve seen it, you know, be life changing. So that philosophy piece. But she wrote about the human, the human lifespan. Right. She wrote about human development. And so, you know, she didn’t fully develop and test all of her ideas about adolescence. So it’s not, you know, you don’t see nearly as many a middle and high school Montessori programs.

00:04:11:03 – 00:04:16:14
Katie Keller Wood
But we’re out there and it’s a holistic approach. It’s for the whole human. It’s for the whole lifespan.

00:04:16:15 – 00:04:23:13
Nicole
And what do you think with that? What do you think Montessori gets right about this age range and that maybe some other models might miss?

00:04:23:14 – 00:04:48:04
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I think one of the beautiful things about Montessori, the word that she used is valorization. And that that is the point of what we’re trying to offer to our adolescence. And so valorization is Montessori word of feeling strong, feeling worthy, feeling capable, feeling ready to take on your unique role in adult society. And so everything that we’re doing is to prepare students, you know, and to help them to feel that valorization.

00:04:48:04 – 00:05:09:18
Katie Keller Wood
So preparation for life, preparation for, you know, who they’re meant to be. And I think about at the young levels of Montessori, were often really helping them develop that independence. Right? At the secondary level, we still have that focus on independence. You know, that you need to be able to contribute, but there’s also a focus on interdependence. And where is your unique role in this adult society?

00:05:09:18 – 00:05:32:22
Katie Keller Wood
Because that’s how society works, right? I need I need you, you need me. I can’t do everything right. I don’t know how to fix my electricity and my house. Right. So society works when everybody contributes. And so adolescence, you know, the with that valorization, they leave and they enter into that adult society feeling ready to contribute, feeling like they have something worthy to offer.

00:05:33:00 – 00:06:00:08
Biff
I think it’s interesting to compare what goes on in a teacher education program for adolescents with what goes on in a teacher education program for toddlers, you know, because at the early childhood level and at the elementary level, you know, a lot of it is is kind of almost scripted. There are so many materials and there are specific ways of using those materials.

00:06:00:08 – 00:06:25:09
Biff
And a lot of I mean, there’s certainly there’s philosophy and pedagogy involved too. But there is, you know, I think there’s a tension between paint by number. Yeah. Right. And and you know, and really being a monastery teacher. But the reason I that I ask about toddlers and, and middle schools because I think it’s less well defined at either of those levels.

00:06:25:09 – 00:06:41:07
Biff
And so in a way that has forced people like you to be much clearer about what the pedagogy and what the psychology of both levels is, and they’re such critical times in a person’s life.

00:06:41:08 – 00:06:58:15
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah, I agree, I agree, you know, so not having that materials focus, you know, really forces you into that philosophy, really focuses you into who is this child at this age. And so what are the hallmarks of Montessori for all humans? And then how does that apply to this specific age group here?

00:06:58:15 – 00:07:04:12
Biff
And who do I have to be in right to be service to the. Yes. Yeah. So are they.

00:07:04:13 – 00:07:18:09
Nicole
Can I ask a question really quick before we move on with that? I’m just curious that and this is something I was thinking about. So with the absence of not as many materials in a middle school or high school setting, how do you balance freedom and structure within that age range?

00:07:18:10 – 00:07:39:20
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I mean, I think it’s still it actually looks very similar sometimes to an elementary work cycle. It’s just not materials based. That doesn’t mean that there might not be hands on work. The presentation I was working on here was actually shelf work at the secondary level. And what does it look like to design high quality, relevant, enticing hands on materials for adolescents?

00:07:40:00 – 00:07:56:15
Katie Keller Wood
You know that it doesn’t feel babyish and it doesn’t feel right, but it’s targeted practice. And and to that point. But they’re going to have a longer work cycle. They’re going to be very clear on what are the things they need to work on. You know, maybe there’s a checklist or a work plan that that is involved in that.

00:07:56:17 – 00:08:14:16
Katie Keller Wood
And it’s interesting. Sometimes parents would be nervous if there wasn’t a montessori high school, but just a montessori middle school. Well, how are they going to transition to the high school? How is this going to go? And, you know, it was so funny to me because the transition always went fine. They knew who they were. They were bright, they knew how to ask for help.

00:08:14:16 – 00:08:34:19
Katie Keller Wood
The teachers were seen as resources, not someone to be afraid of. But then they would go off to college and they said, oh, it’s Montessori again. You’re in charge of your time. You study the things that you’re interested in. Nobody’s like hanging over you and telling you to do this worksheet right now, right? And so, you know, all of a sudden they they were blossoming and they were using all the same skills that they had developed in their Montessori classrooms.

00:08:34:19 – 00:08:42:02
Katie Keller Wood
And the same is true in the workplace. You know, that that you need to manage your time. You need to know what your responsibilities are. You have these things to take care of.

00:08:42:07 – 00:08:52:02
Biff
These are exactly the things that alums say when they come back to the school. Right? And we ask them, how are they? How are things? After you left Monday’s article, they say exactly those things.

00:08:52:08 – 00:09:10:11
Nicole
Exactly that, in fact. Exactly. We had an episode and we invited to alumni from from Lexington to come on just to talk to us about how the transition went, because I think that a lot of parents, when they invest in the philosophy and have their children come to Montessori, they want to make sure that they’re going to be able to transition.

00:09:10:13 – 00:09:12:03
Nicole
It’s not a school in their community.

00:09:12:04 – 00:09:27:07
Katie Keller Wood
It’s an absolutely relevant question. It’s a necessary question. And it’s just so interesting that the alums, you know, they say, oh, it’s fine. High school, I mean, high school was fine. It was kind of weird that you had to ask permission to go to the bathroom and stuff, but like, you know, okay, like we knew what to do.

00:09:27:08 – 00:09:42:10
Katie Keller Wood
We could we could manage that. The other thing that I always think about, I was so struck by at a student come back, you know, and she had gone to the very prestigious high school, you know, the, the one that people were very anxious about getting into. And, you know, everybody wanted to know how was the work, were you prepared?

00:09:42:10 – 00:10:00:15
Katie Keller Wood
Was it hard, you know, and all these things? She said yes. No, everything was great. Like that was fine. And then they said, okay, what about socially? Because, you know, this was a smaller Montessori school and it’s a much larger school. And she said, no, that was that was fine too. But I went in and, you know, I joined this group because I had this passion.

00:10:00:17 – 00:10:17:03
Katie Keller Wood
And then in working together that fall, I realized that some of the people you know, in this group who shared this interest of mine, they didn’t share my values in the same way. And so she said that was fine. We could still work together and be good teammates and, you know, take care of each other. But I knew that I wanted to make, you know, another set of friends.

00:10:17:04 – 00:10:32:06
Katie Keller Wood
You know, that the people that I could hang out with and and I was just so floored that here was a 14 year old with enough sense of self that she was able to say, I didn’t want to go hang out with the party group. But she also didn’t have to denigrate their life choices. She could just say, you know, that’s not for me.

00:10:32:08 – 00:10:49:04
Katie Keller Wood
I’m going to I’m going to find people who are, you know, my people and feel the same values that I feel. But, you know, I don’t have to dismiss these other people or it’s not like I can’t work together with them, you know? And so I just loved that, that at 14 she had that sense of self, but also that presence of like live and let live.

00:10:49:05 – 00:10:51:23
Katie Keller Wood
You know that my choices don’t have to be your choices.

00:10:51:23 – 00:11:11:19
Biff
So we had a guy that came back and talk to parents once and he was working for I may have told this story before he was working for Google, and when I asked him, what do you carry with you from your Montessori experience? He said, well, when I’m starting a really big project in my mind, I roll out a rug.

00:11:11:21 – 00:11:16:14
Katie Keller Wood
Oh my gosh, I love that. Yeah, almost like ceremonious, right?

00:11:16:15 – 00:11:22:12
Biff
Like it’s like I take all, you know, I take all the loose pieces. And in my mind I spread them out on the rug. And then I.

00:11:22:14 – 00:11:25:14
Katie Keller Wood
See what I’m doing. Now I love that.

00:11:25:15 – 00:11:38:08
Biff
So would you say that that adolescent Montessori teacher education is somewhat consistent amongst the different places that are doing it now?

00:11:38:10 – 00:12:00:10
Katie Keller Wood
I think so I don’t I don’t have deep expertise in all of the places that are doing adolescent education. But I do think that especially AMS programs have worked very hard. You know, there’s a fundamental tenants document that exists for what is secondary, and these are the things that we hold near and dear. And so I would say that any AMS secondary teacher education program is going to have those commonalities.

00:12:00:10 – 00:12:22:00
Katie Keller Wood
And for that reason, Betsy, may her memory be a blessing. And I used to present together most, most years at the annual conference because we wanted to show everyone that, you know, we have two different secondary teacher education programs, but we’re on the same page with the things that are really important. And we want more high quality secondary options for adolescents.

00:12:22:01 – 00:12:23:20
Katie Keller Wood
Right? We want more Montessori for big kids.

00:12:23:22 – 00:12:28:03
Biff
So it’s been the frontier for a long time. It still is frontier, I guess.

00:12:28:04 – 00:12:52:06
Nicole
I think, well, some of the educators struggle with gaining the motivation for adolescence, right. So in general. What do you think? What do you think about the programs that you train teachers to develop and the ones that you’ve talked to yourself? What do you think Montessori does right about that in getting motivation, getting getting kids that are adolescents motivated about working and focused and whatnot?

00:12:52:07 – 00:13:12:07
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I think I mean, I think it’s at the heart the same as at any other level. Right? We’re focusing on Montessori idea that human beings love to learn if we can just nurture that for them. And so I’ll just use in my own teaching as an example, you know, reading workshop. And I said, you know, human beings love to read.

00:13:12:08 – 00:13:30:22
Katie Keller Wood
My job is to help you find the books that are going to spark that for you, because your taste in reading is a little bit like your taste in your mouth. And we don’t all have the same taste in books. So, you know, my job is to help you find that and connect to that. And I think that at the adolescent level, you know, society certainly pegs adolescents.

00:13:30:23 – 00:13:39:12
Katie Keller Wood
I mean, as the worst, right? You know, society is like, oh, I’m so sorry. You know, you say I’m a middle school teacher and they’re like, oh, God bless you, right.

00:13:39:13 – 00:13:42:10
Nicole
Like, I think that’s a universal thought, right?

00:13:42:11 – 00:13:56:22
Katie Keller Wood
You know, like I have teenagers at home. Oh, you’ll make it through the years. I’m so sorry. You know, I mean, it just everybody, you know, you see a group of teenagers and you go the other way because you don’t want to. You don’t really want to engage with them. But. And it is an awkward, you know, part of the human life cycle.

00:13:56:22 – 00:14:21:05
Katie Keller Wood
And there is a lot of ups and downs, fits and starts. There’s two steps forward, one step back, but there’s so much identity work that’s happening, and they’re figuring out who they are and what matters to them. So there is some separation from the family unit as they figure out who they’re going to be. But when you can see that this is all part of this is their work, this is their you know, Martin said that the cosmic task of the child is to become the adult.

00:14:21:05 – 00:14:45:23
Katie Keller Wood
So what is this adolescent trying to do? And when you can sort of see it through that lens, which isn’t every day, because sometimes you want to tear your hair out, but you know when you can see them with that, that lens and realize that, you know, this is this is part of who they’re meant to become. And so with that, I think when you can tap into those identity pieces, help them see the things that they’re really interested in, and they’re not going to be interested in everything, you know.

00:14:46:00 – 00:15:01:06
Katie Keller Wood
And so but I always would welcome the question, you know, why do we have to do this? Well, let’s talk about why we want to do this. You know, let’s talk about what are the real life applications to these things. And maybe you don’t see yourself having this career, but you also never know, like you’re 14 and, you know, life is long.

00:15:01:06 – 00:15:22:01
Katie Keller Wood
So yeah, I think there’s really a lot of ways. And the idea that teenagers are jaded and they never care. Absolutely not. They are some of the most passionate people. When you connect to their sense of justice, when you connect to what really matters to them and how, help them see how they can make a difference. The the intrinsic motivation is absolutely there.

00:15:22:02 – 00:15:22:16
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah.

00:15:22:18 – 00:15:50:09
Biff
I think the thing that I notice, you know, because I work for years I’ve worked with the the last year of upper elementary, the doing senior projects with sixth graders. And so I know them pretty well by the time they leave the Braille program and moved to a middle school. And every year I’m astounded that when they are at the even at the end of sixth grade, they still transition slowly.

00:15:50:10 – 00:16:23:07
Biff
Yeah. Takes them forever to go. Not everybody, but it takes a lot of them forever to move from one thing to another and to, you know, wrap their minds around projects. And even in the fall, I go to the middle school and I watch the middle school teachers, you know, give an instruction and they’re on it. Yeah. You know, and I just, I think, God, if you could, if you could, you know, they, they can give them very short deadlines and within this time have this conversation with these people and they’re all over.

00:16:23:08 – 00:16:23:19
Katie Keller Wood
Off they go.

00:16:23:20 – 00:16:28:19
Biff
Yeah. And I think, how does that happen in such a short period of time?

00:16:28:21 – 00:16:51:01
Katie Keller Wood
I mean, I think, you know, so many things happen. I think, you know, there’s development. I think there’s teacher expectations. I think there’s community. Right. And so, you know, yes, you’re seeing the sixth graders, but they don’t have those older ones. Right. So then when they go into the seventh and you have those eighth or ninth graders or whoever, the are the elders and saying, no, this is how we do it, boy, they want to rise to the occasion because they don’t want to be babies.

00:16:51:02 – 00:17:06:20
Katie Keller Wood
You know, Montessori said, don’t treat the adolescent like a child. That’s a stage that they have surpassed. So how do we help them, you know, feel like, yes, you are, you know, that capable person. You treat them like they’re here, even if they’re still getting there. Yeah.

00:17:06:22 – 00:17:32:18
Biff
So let’s let’s shift a little bit to your, your other project. Sure. You’ve just you’ve, you’ve published a book called alignment and to, to great reviews and very enthusiastic reception. And I’m curious, first of all, about what you mean when you say that the work life, you know that seeking a work life balance is a lie?

00:17:32:19 – 00:17:35:01
Katie Keller Wood
Yes. Sure.

00:17:35:03 – 00:17:39:06
Nicole
You ready? Yeah, I am. I love to know. Please let me know.

00:17:39:07 – 00:18:04:22
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. So I have come to believe that work life balance is a lie. And I and I came to this after over a decade of trying desperately to find work life balance. You know, when you care about your work, as I think most of us in education do, then I think the work life balance tension is even more fraught because we are not trading life hours for a paycheck, although our paychecks absolutely matter, right?

00:18:04:23 – 00:18:29:13
Katie Keller Wood
But that’s not why we chose our professions primarily. Right. So we are here. We’re not punching a time clock. We we’re here because we care. And when you care, you don’t just turn it off when you go home, right? You stay engaged and you’re always thinking about it, and you’re always. And so I was, you know, I would have these talks with my husband and he would say, babe, I’m worried, you know, you’re keeping crazy hours and you’re so stressed and something’s got to change.

00:18:29:13 – 00:18:49:04
Katie Keller Wood
And I would find myself, you know, like, every time, like, okay, I just need a better work life balance. And so I’m going to find it and I’ll try all the tricks and tips and, you know, rules about when I’ll answer emails and what time I’m going to go home or, you know, all those different things. And I got to the point where I realized that work life balance is a lie.

00:18:49:04 – 00:19:15:04
Katie Keller Wood
And the reason I say that is I have two problems with balance. The first one is that it sets up that there is, you know, a right amount of something called life that could counteract whatever amount of work we have going on in our lives. And so it actually separates work from the rest of our lives. And what I saw with my Montessori training and all these other things is that this is a holistic approach where whole humans are work as part of our lives.

00:19:15:04 – 00:19:38:02
Katie Keller Wood
It’s not something separate, it’s not something, you know, over there. And then the other, if we’re trying to balance, it’s like there’s no right ratio. You know, you can’t say, oh, if I have too much work, I just need a little more life to like, you know, add, add to that side of the scale, you know. Or we could if we could just find the right ratio, then we’ll magically feel the delight of this thing called balance.

00:19:38:02 – 00:20:02:21
Katie Keller Wood
And it doesn’t work that way. You know what is the right amount of work pieces for someone at one stage in their life could be very different than another stage of life. And so I needed a new metaphor. And so instead of thinking about life as a scale with work and life as opposites and pushing against one another and always competing with one another, I said, what if we could think about them in a more holistic way and think of your life as a mosaic?

00:20:02:21 – 00:20:26:22
Katie Keller Wood
And so you have work pieces and you have non-work pieces, but instead of competing and pulling against and pulling you apart, they actually support each other. And the whole mosaic holds together because all of those pieces are there. So all of the matter, you know, and alignment to me is about making sure that all those pieces are in the correct or appropriate relative position for who you are and what you’re meant to bring to the world right now.

00:20:27:00 – 00:20:44:10
Katie Keller Wood
And so it ties into this Montessori idea of cosmic task. You know that each one of us has a unique role to fulfill, and our Montessori students learn this from the earliest stages. You know that the job of an adjective is to describe a noun, and the job of the wind is to purify the air. And so they start asking, well, what’s my job?

00:20:44:10 – 00:21:09:08
Katie Keller Wood
And they mean what’s my contribution? What’s my work? Montessori students don’t use work to mean, you know, capitalistic paid employment, right? They mean work, as in like my contribution. The thing that I’m doing, work in a montessori classroom is it’s evidence of your human life force. We respect each other’s work. And so thinking about work in this new Montessori way, I was like, well, I can’t contrast that with life.

00:21:09:08 – 00:21:26:03
Katie Keller Wood
That is life. But yet at the same time, it’s not the only thing that matters in my life. Right? I have these other parts of my life that are also important, and so learning how to pay attention to all of my mosaic pieces and really just attuning to when I needed to make changes was the shift for me.

00:21:26:03 – 00:21:28:15
Katie Keller Wood
And so that’s when I started writing a book.

00:21:28:18 – 00:21:39:10
Biff
So how do you how do you use that new metaphor so that you’re not tempted to say, I need more of these tiles?

00:21:39:11 – 00:21:40:04
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah.

00:21:40:05 – 00:21:41:18
Biff
For fewer of these times.

00:21:41:20 – 00:22:02:01
Katie Keller Wood
But I do actually say more of this and less of this sometimes. So to me, you know, alignment is about and it’s all about seasons, right? So I do run a teacher training program. My July is not the same alignment as my December. Right. You know, and so I have to learn to embrace those seasons that in this.

00:22:02:02 – 00:22:21:00
Katie Keller Wood
Am I where I’m supposed to be doing the things that I’m supposed to be doing and still taking care of myself and my most important people in this more holistic way, right. So my family pieces of my mosaic in the month of July, well, I’m not usually in Virginia, so I’m not seeing them as often, but they’re not gone.

00:22:21:00 – 00:22:48:19
Katie Keller Wood
They’re not absent from my mosaic. But they might be, you know, getting a smaller percentage of my time, you know, and I’m checking in with them in a different way. So, you know, the mosaic metaphor, it’s always evolving and it is, you know, sometimes saying like, okay. But for me. So I, I come back to Montessori idea of cosmic task and Montessori idea of work being different from what most of society says when they talk about work.

00:22:48:19 – 00:23:11:05
Katie Keller Wood
So I needed some language. And so I said, okay, what I do to earn a living is my paycheck work and my cosmic task is my purpose work. And so my whole mosaic can be organized around my purpose work. Now my paycheck work has to fit into that. I feel very fortunate that I have a lot of overlap, in that what I do for a living is part of my purpose.

00:23:11:05 – 00:23:27:14
Katie Keller Wood
Work. That might not be true for everyone, and I have no judgment if that’s not the case for someone. But my whole mosaic, my paycheck work pieces need to be there, but it can be organized around the purpose. And so not everything that I do for a living is a part of my purpose work. It’s also about family.

00:23:27:14 – 00:23:51:19
Katie Keller Wood
It’s also about advocacy. It’s also about service. It’s also about, you know, even voting. Right? All these things can be a part of your purpose, work in your cosmic task. But for me, getting clear on those two types of work gave me a filter so that if I could discern if something was not a part of my paycheck work and it was also not a part of my purpose work, then it didn’t belong in my life.

00:23:51:19 – 00:24:12:16
Katie Keller Wood
Mosaic. And that was something. It wasn’t saying that that wasn’t a worthwhile thing or it wasn’t good work, but it wasn’t my work to do. And that really freed me to say no to some of the things that I needed to say no to, because if I was going to say yes to everything, my mosaic would have been too crowded and other important pieces would have fallen out.

00:24:12:21 – 00:24:13:08
Nicole
Or not.

00:24:13:08 – 00:24:31:16
Katie Keller Wood
Fit or not fit. Right. And and I think the other thing that I really like to think about, the distinction between paycheck work and purpose work is again, life has seasons. And so I’ve had a number of people, you know, come to my book who are actually retirees and they say, you know, when I saw the title, I didn’t really think it would be a book for me.

00:24:31:16 – 00:24:51:16
Katie Keller Wood
It says work life balance, but I’m retired, like, I don’t I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Like, life is great, you know? But with this paycheck work and purpose work, you might retire from your paycheck work, but you never retire from your purpose work. And so they have actually reported they found it really valuable as they move into this new season of, you know, what still matters for them.

00:24:51:16 – 00:25:01:11
Katie Keller Wood
They still have a life mosaic. They still have things that matter to them, and they still are going to prioritize how prioritize how the the time is spent and what gets their attention and energy.

00:25:01:12 – 00:25:29:17
Nicole
I love this metaphor because I would only I’m visualizing it and thinking about a mosaic, and some pieces are larger than others. Right, right. And I would also imagine in this metaphor that your mosaic changes across time. So it evolves, changes it looks differently. Some pieces get larger, some pieces get smaller, some pieces get. I think this is brilliant metaphor because again, the balance I was thinking as you were explaining, that doesn’t work right at all.

00:25:29:17 – 00:25:30:12
Katie Keller Wood
It’s a lie.

00:25:30:16 – 00:25:42:03
Nicole
It is. It is a complete lie. Because I can’t even imagine how you would make this, you know, and make this work across both sides. And it just it is fantastic. I love that.

00:25:42:04 – 00:26:06:10
Katie Keller Wood
Thank you very much. Yeah. No I think and so like kind of I mean honestly, it was sort of it was ten years of like trying to find work life balance. And what I also have come to believe is that searching for balance actually fuels our burnout, because one of the clinical drivers of burnout, right, is when you feel like you should be able to do something, but the resources that you have don’t match the demands of that thing.

00:26:06:10 – 00:26:15:00
Katie Keller Wood
So you feel like you should be able to do it, but you can’t do it. That drives burnout. So if you feel like you should be able to find work life balance and you can’t find.

00:26:15:00 – 00:26:16:02
Nicole
It because it’s impossible.

00:26:16:03 – 00:26:22:21
Katie Keller Wood
Because it’s actually impossible, right? And so I found when I speak to audiences, they’re like, what a relief. Okay.

00:26:22:23 – 00:26:26:09
Nicole
I actually feel so relieved right now. I’m just I’m floored by this.

00:26:26:10 – 00:26:56:17
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah. Like what a relief that like, it’s actually impossible. So I can let it go and I can instead focus on the pieces that matter to me. And, you know, I think an aligned life at different stages and for different people are going to look very different. Maybe a perfectly aligned life is like 80% paycheck work pieces right now because you love it and your life can do that, but maybe it’s not going to be that for and it’s not going to be that for in all seasons, you know, but the aligned life of a parent, you know, they can’t prioritize their children before they have them.

00:26:56:18 – 00:27:12:02
Katie Keller Wood
Right. And so and then when you have children, that’s a new realignment of your life. And I and so I’ve started to see seasons of my life when I know that I’m facing a change, I’m like, okay, this is going to bring a new alignment. And I have that conversation with my husband, with my family. Right. What is what is alignment?

00:27:12:03 – 00:27:23:11
Katie Keller Wood
Because our mosaics are actually connected. That’s the other level, right? My life mosaic is connected to my most important people. So when they make a realignment, how does that impact me? And vice versa? Yeah, yeah.

00:27:23:11 – 00:27:53:08
Biff
I think what I notice is that the that the balance idea leaves no strategy for removing things, whereas the mosaic idea or metaphor if, if the tile doesn’t fit. Yeah, you get rid of it. Yeah. And I that’s powerful. You know, to think you know it’s not my purpose and it’s and I can’t justify it. Right. Because I think one of the reasons that people burn out to is because they don’t know how to say no.

00:27:53:08 – 00:27:57:23
Biff
They have no justification. They’re all good ideas, right? Everything is.

00:27:58:01 – 00:28:06:13
Katie Keller Wood
It’s a worthwhile endeavor. You know, I support that this thing is happening. But if it’s not my work to do right, I need to say no to that thing. Yeah, yeah.

00:28:06:14 – 00:28:16:02
Biff
So giving it giving a a format for saying no is a really nice. So I wonder if if there’s a classroom version of this.

00:28:16:02 – 00:28:17:08
Nicole
I was just going to ask that.

00:28:17:09 – 00:28:21:10
Biff
I mean how do you because I mean this is an issue for adolescents.

00:28:21:11 – 00:28:21:22
Katie Keller Wood
Sure.

00:28:21:23 – 00:28:24:00
Biff
Do you do you have this conversation with kids?

00:28:24:01 – 00:28:46:09
Katie Keller Wood
So I have not I have had a number of adult learners and or step faculty that have reported like, oh, we watched your Ted talk with my adolescents, and now we’re talking about these ideas or, you know, different things. The book is just out, so we’ll we’ll see where that goes. But I do think that it’s a really powerful idea.

00:28:46:11 – 00:29:02:19
Katie Keller Wood
I’ve had a number of parents offer it to their adolescents. My undergraduate students at the University of Virginia, several of them have read it. You know, they knew that I was working on it while while we were together. And, you know, one student wrote and she said, I read it and my mom read it. And, you know, I’m not working yet.

00:29:02:19 – 00:29:29:18
Katie Keller Wood
But like, this was really valuable to think through because I still have a lot of competing priorities as a college student, too, you know, and figuring out how to prioritize my time and the service I want to do and the academics I want to do, and being with my friends and all those things. So, yeah, it’s really been interesting to see, you know, how that’s taken off again, from retirees to undergraduate students have have written to me to tell me that it’s been valuable for them.

00:29:29:18 – 00:29:35:12
Katie Keller Wood
So I’m excited to see where it could go with adolescence. But I can’t say that I’ve tested that out or I have any stories there yet.

00:29:35:13 – 00:29:37:13
Biff
Well, we’ll have to stay in touch with that.

00:29:37:14 – 00:30:02:16
Nicole
I think that’s a great idea, though, because to to introduce this perspective early on, because I think we’ve all been kind of chasing that forever. And so to introduce that to a younger person, obviously, you know, an adolescent or a young adult could change the course of their life and reduce stress, reduce burnout of all things. I mean, I maybe that’s the second book is how to introduce this to younger children, but.

00:30:02:17 – 00:30:20:06
Katie Keller Wood
Yes, alignment for young adults. Yeah, I love that. No, I think I think that there is that and I want to be respectful to that. The adolescent years are so identity forming, right. So if you say, well, you know, if it’s not part of your purpose work, they’re not clear on that yet, right. Because Montessori says the cosmic task of the child is to become the adult.

00:30:20:07 – 00:30:40:15
Katie Keller Wood
So I do think there’s a little bit of nuance, but I still think you’re right that it’s a thought exercise of, you know, when you’re thinking about all the great things that you can do, learning to think and step back, what’s the most important thing? And I think an adolescent is absolutely capable of saying. Am I where I need to be right now, doing what I need to be doing right now and building that muscle, building that habit?

00:30:40:16 – 00:30:41:14
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah.

00:30:41:16 – 00:31:09:09
Biff
It seems like every time we have these conversations, I think of my son. I don’t know what, but, you know, I mean, he he graduated from law school. And one of the things you have to think about is what’s next? And, you know, the a lot of people finish something like law school and they, they go head first into paycheck world, you know, and, and they, they burn, they leave law.

00:31:09:10 – 00:31:31:13
Biff
Right? You know, they, they really change their entire, you know, the whole investment is gone. Yes. And he was wise enough to know that, you know, my lifestyle is more important than that, you know, so I have to find a way to practice law and to continue to grow and also do the other things that I love in life.

00:31:31:14 – 00:31:35:21
Biff
Yeah. And I, you know, and I, I was impressed by him.

00:31:35:22 – 00:31:36:16
Katie Keller Wood
Absolutely.

00:31:36:17 – 00:31:43:00
Biff
But this also gives me a way that if he hadn’t known how to do that, I might have been. It sounds.

00:31:43:00 – 00:32:02:14
Katie Keller Wood
Like he was very clear on his own alignment. Right. He was very clear on the pieces of his life that mattered and that he wanted to prioritize. And so, yes, he needed to pursue some paycheck work, but he wanted to do that in a way that wasn’t all consuming. And he was clear about that. I’ve known others, you know, I have known a number of lawyers who exactly what you say go in and burn out and all those things.

00:32:02:14 – 00:32:07:21
Katie Keller Wood
I also know a few who were like, I’m going to go and I’m going to work at the high powered firm and earn the big bucks to pay off my.

00:32:07:21 – 00:32:08:20
Biff
Loans, my lungs.

00:32:08:20 – 00:32:27:14
Katie Keller Wood
Right. And then I’m going to rearrange. And I think that that’s a valid strategy, too. But the point is to know and to consciously make choices, because what I, what I have found about thinking about alignment is it removed for me a victim mentality. Life wasn’t happening to me. It helped me again feel agency. Am I where I need to be doing?

00:32:27:15 – 00:32:43:13
Katie Keller Wood
Am I where I’m supposed to be doing what I’m supposed to be doing? Whether I love every single piece or not? You know you’re not going to love every single part of your paycheck work, right? Might not be negotiable. It’s part of your paycheck work. Right? And sometimes there are pieces of our life mosaic that we didn’t choose, but that we’re we’re going to need to deal with.

00:32:43:13 – 00:33:01:19
Katie Keller Wood
We’re going to need to absorb whether that’s a diagnosis or a loss or, you know, other things that happen. You know, people might need to fit in their chemo regimen to their life. Mosaic. Right? They didn’t choose that. But at the same time, you know, being able to make choices about how that fits and where that fits and all the other pieces, I think is really empowering.

00:33:01:20 – 00:33:15:14
Biff
Yeah, that’s that when something like that comes up and it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as chemo. No it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s it’s your child is an athlete. Right? And you had no idea that you had to find that they.

00:33:15:14 – 00:33:17:21
Katie Keller Wood
Were going to be travel teams. And.

00:33:18:01 – 00:33:19:16
Nicole
You know.

00:33:19:18 – 00:33:36:09
Katie Keller Wood
But that’s a great point because one of the things as a thought exercise, when I’m asking people to start thinking about, you know, important pieces of their life mosaic, I wouldn’t say like go list every single one of them. And because it might be impossible, we all have so many pieces. But I do encourage people to think more granular.

00:33:36:14 – 00:33:55:16
Katie Keller Wood
So not just, oh, my children are a piece. No, if you have a child who’s an athlete and it’s important to you to get to as many basketball games as possible in season, then basketball games is a piece of your life mosaic in this season, right? You know, and so then how does that fit? But it only needs to fit for this period.

00:33:55:16 – 00:34:03:19
Katie Keller Wood
It doesn’t have to you know, you don’t have to make that same space in your life mosaic all year long or for your whole life. It’s this season.

00:34:03:21 – 00:34:29:18
Nicole
I wonder, I’m thinking about purposeful work, and I’m thinking about that concept. And again, for the adolescence. Right. And I’m thinking about it, I guess. I guess it’s kind of hard for a kiddo that age to think what’s purposeful for me, but what’s meaningful for me? That’s right. What’s meaningful work for me? So why do you think, at this age, it’s so important to promote meaningful work for these kiddos?

00:34:29:23 – 00:34:39:02
Nicole
But beyond academics, just like something that they’re, you know, something that really means something to them, and finding that eventually to find that purposeful work. Right, right.

00:34:39:03 – 00:35:06:23
Katie Keller Wood
No. And that’s a huge part of, you know, so in the Montessori adolescent classroom, meaningful work. Yes, with academics, but also trying on different forms of adult work. Right. So working with land, perhaps working in a production and exchange, sometimes called a micro economy or a micro business, you know, those kinds of activities because they do need to try on these adult roles, you know, and they need to take on more responsibility and sometimes learn that they messed up.

00:35:06:23 – 00:35:30:15
Katie Keller Wood
And what happens when you mess up and what are the logical consequences of that? And then how do you fix it? Right. You know, because they’re not going to do everything perfectly, but they crave these these meaningful experiences and these adult like experiences. And that’s how they’re going to figure out where do they fit. That’s how they’re going to develop that valorization, that confidence that, you know, in who they are and that they have something of worth to offer the world.

00:35:30:20 – 00:35:33:16
Nicole
And their identity, which is ever evolving at that age.

00:35:33:17 – 00:35:34:22
Katie Keller Wood
Exactly, exactly.

00:35:34:23 – 00:35:54:16
Biff
Challenging for people that are working with adolescents, because I think authenticity is so critical and so that that work, you know, whether, you know, the, the, the business or, you know, can’t be performative, right? I mean, it has to be authentic work.

00:35:54:17 – 00:36:10:02
Katie Keller Wood
It does. Yeah, it has to be actual work that needs and even, you know, when you look at like adolescent and this is true of elementary as well. But if you’re going to do, you know, science projects, let’s say, or something like that, they want to see an authentic need. They want to see a need in fill a need.

00:36:10:03 – 00:36:32:10
Katie Keller Wood
They want to do something that matters, something they’re actually curious about, and something that might have application to help the world, help people, help animals help climb it. Right. They want to, you know, they’re connected to those things. And so again, back to, you know, if people think teenagers are just apathetic, I say, absolutely not. You know, they’re so connected to a sense of justice and wanting to make a difference in the world.

00:36:32:12 – 00:36:33:02
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah.

00:36:33:06 – 00:36:38:00
Biff
If anybody that doesn’t understand that you just go to monetary model, you watch.

00:36:38:01 – 00:36:41:01
Katie Keller Wood
Absolutely. Yeah. The Montessori model UN is fantastic.

00:36:41:02 – 00:37:03:18
Nicole
Can I can I kind of shift back to being an educator and, and in a montessori classroom for this age groups of middle school, high school. How do you think Montessori. The Montessori approach deals with discipline and challenging behaviors at this age range. So how do you think that benefits? You know, because I, I work in a lot of schools.

00:37:03:18 – 00:37:11:15
Nicole
I consult with a lot of schools and they’re always asking, how do I redirect this behavior, but also keeping up with the integrity of Montessori. So I wonder what has been your experience.

00:37:11:15 – 00:37:24:23
Katie Keller Wood
With that? I mean, and it’s hard because there’s such a range of behaviors, right? So I think about, you know, there is an adolescent tendency to push limits, not unlike the toddlers that you were just talking about.

00:37:25:04 – 00:37:26:06
Nicole
There’s so many similarities.

00:37:26:06 – 00:37:42:18
Katie Keller Wood
So many similarities. Right. And I’ll tell people like, you know, we talk about freedom within limits, but they do need those limits. And the clear you can be about those limits. And the more consistent you can be about those limits is actually really helpful because just like a toddler, they need them to feel safe and they will push until they find it.

00:37:42:18 – 00:38:04:06
Katie Keller Wood
So if you can just tell them where it is, that helps them know. Like I pushed and I found it and there it is. Right. You know, so there’s that aspect of it I think about, you know, we do a lot with restorative approaches in our training program in terms of like, you know, adolescence is the place where you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to hurt feelings, you’re going to do silly things.

00:38:04:06 – 00:38:23:01
Katie Keller Wood
You’re going to, you know, mess up sometimes. And so what is the harm that was caused? And how do we do that in a way that is respectful of the dignity of everybody? Right. So, you know, you’re not a bad person and we’re not trying to shame you. But at the same time, like this is not okay. And we’re going to name it very clearly that this is not okay.

00:38:23:01 – 00:38:40:18
Katie Keller Wood
And we’re going to talk about, you know, if the person who was harm, if it was another person, they might need to be able to share. This is how this affected me. And you know what? I need you to hear about this. And we’re going to work to try to restore that. We’re not always going to, you know, it’s not going to go from this restorative conversation to immediately we’re holding hands and singing Kumbaya.

00:38:40:18 – 00:39:02:00
Katie Keller Wood
Of course not. Right. This is real, real adolescence, real kids, real harm sometimes. But we’re trying to show that way of practicing of, you know, how do we own a mistake? How do we stand up for what we need and speak for when you know harm has been caused, but also come back and try to restore relationships and community?

00:39:02:00 – 00:39:13:08
Katie Keller Wood
And even if you and I aren’t going to be best friends anymore. Can we work together for the good of the group? Can we make sure that this incident doesn’t detract from the good of everybody? Is a big focus.

00:39:13:09 – 00:39:14:16
Nicole
And disrupt the community?

00:39:14:17 – 00:39:15:07
Katie Keller Wood
Correct?

00:39:15:08 – 00:39:41:14
Biff
Right. I think that is in some ways why it’s so important for middle schools in particular, to be communities that are reasonably sized. So you can do that work because that work is so big and so challenging and so perfect for that age group. And but, you know, there are people who feel like, well, you know, my child is now, you know, they’re out of elementary school.

00:39:41:14 – 00:39:54:02
Biff
It’s time for them to get into the big, you know, and, and I and these school districts that have massive middle schools I feel sorry for.

00:39:54:03 – 00:40:15:01
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah, I mean, I think so. I do think your, your community size makes a difference. I think about also some of the public Montessori settings that I’m working with, working with, and they have communities of seventh and eighth graders. And sometimes those are larger communities, you know, 50 or 60 students, but it is still a community feel, and there’s still community meetings and there’s still that same approach.

00:40:15:03 – 00:40:40:03
Katie Keller Wood
And I just think that so I want to be careful about there’s size that certainly factors in where I’m not one of 120 students that that teacher is seeing in a day, right. You know, and everybody is all over the place. But I do think that there are ways to to do it in a community of 15 or 20 middle school students, as well as in a community of 50 or 60 middle school.

00:40:40:03 – 00:40:43:09
Biff
Students, you can still have advisor groups and you can break it down.

00:40:43:10 – 00:40:43:21
Katie Keller Wood
Exactly.

00:40:43:21 – 00:40:44:15
Biff
Yeah, yeah.

00:40:44:16 – 00:41:03:14
Nicole
What are in your opinion, if you could give some advice to educators, middle school educators, Montessori or not, what’s 2 or 3 strategies that you would suggest to any educator working with middle school students to better support them in the classroom.

00:41:03:14 – 00:41:05:03
Katie Keller Wood
To better support the middle school students?

00:41:05:04 – 00:41:06:08
Nicole
Yeah, and to understand them.

00:41:06:09 – 00:41:34:19
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah, yeah. So I think one thing is a lot of middle school teachers, I mean, you do we really do need to understand the human development, the brain development that’s happening because their bodies are changing and sometimes they have very grown up bodies and not very grown up brains. But that’s confusing to us as adults. If we’re not really conscious about like, that brain is not fully developed, even if they look like they’re grown up and so.

00:41:34:22 – 00:41:54:13
Katie Keller Wood
Right. Just understanding, you know, where is how is the brain changing? We love to attribute things to hormones. That’s certainly part of what’s happening. But it’s not the only thing that’s happening. Right. There’s really so much that’s going on in the brain. And then that identity development piece, that social development piece, you know, this is the place where friendships are changing.

00:41:54:15 – 00:42:18:09
Katie Keller Wood
This is the place where you’re figuring out how to be a good friend. And sometimes you figure that out by like not being a very good friend sometimes. And then again, that repair that might need to happen and learning how to do those things. So I think my first piece of advice to any middle school teacher is just really making sure that you’re remembering who is this adolescent in front of you, because how they present they might look like a little kid, or they might look like an adult.

00:42:18:09 – 00:42:38:06
Katie Keller Wood
And neither of those things is accurate, right? I think the other thing that I would say, and we we emphasize this across Montessori, but the prepared adult. But it really is about centering yourself. You know, I had one student, her mother reported to me, and I took it as a great compliment, but it was pretty funny. Her mom reported to me in a conference.

00:42:38:06 – 00:43:02:22
Katie Keller Wood
She said, my teacher has one perfect mood. And I said, that’s hilarious. Like, of course I have bad days. Like, of course I get frustrated, but I love that this student knew what she was going to get from me when she walked into my classroom, right? That that she could trust that I knew how to regulate myself. Even if I am having a bad day and very often with my students, I would say, you know, I don’t feel that well.

00:43:02:22 – 00:43:17:11
Katie Keller Wood
Or, you know, I mean, like, I could be honest with them. I’m not a robot. But at the same time, adolescence is such a stormy period. There’s so much that they’re figuring out. And it’s two step forward, one step back. The adults need to be the calm in the storm. We need to be centered. We need to be grounded.

00:43:17:11 – 00:43:43:04
Katie Keller Wood
We need to, you know, be okay. And so, you know, one of my Montessori mentors was very clear. She said, I think anyone who has a leadership role, which would include all teachers, which touches lives, needs to have some kind of supervision. And she didn’t care if that was a rabbi or a priest or a therapist or a social worker, but just somebody that would help be that mirror for you, so that you could be the grounded person that you needed to be.

00:43:43:04 – 00:44:04:02
Katie Keller Wood
And we talk about in Montessori training, the preparation of the adult and how do we be peaceful people ourselves. But I think any middle or high school teacher can, you know, check in with themselves. And am I grounded? Am I okay? Because what’s not okay is to take your stuff out on other people, right? There’s a power dynamic and they are looking to us of models of how to be adults.

00:44:04:02 – 00:44:23:11
Katie Keller Wood
I want to model a good adult. I want I want them to see that, you know, I can have a bad day and that doesn’t mean I’m going to lose it. And I can disagree with a colleague and do that in a respectful way. They need to see these things. That’s how they learn what adults do. So those would be my two pieces of advice is understand who the child is and then pay attention with who you are.

00:44:23:17 – 00:44:27:04
Biff
Yeah, I think it’s terrifying when you’re when the adult is inconsistent.

00:44:27:05 – 00:44:27:19
Katie Keller Wood
Absolutely.

00:44:27:19 – 00:44:28:12
Biff
No. I mean.

00:44:28:13 – 00:44:29:16
Nicole
Unpredictability.

00:44:29:17 – 00:44:36:14
Biff
Unpredictable moodiness or, you know, when you don’t know who’s going to show up that day as the adult. It’s really scary.

00:44:36:15 – 00:44:40:00
Katie Keller Wood
It’s really scary. Yeah. And so they need to know what they’re going to get from us.

00:44:40:01 – 00:44:52:16
Nicole
But as a follow up question, how do you achieve that one perfect mood kind of person? We all want to know. Tell us your secret, please. Because I know no one has ever said that about me, and I feel very confident about that.

00:44:52:16 – 00:44:54:12
Biff
I think the answer is it’s the mosaic.

00:44:54:15 – 00:44:57:08
Nicole
It’s amazing. There it is. You see, it’s all coming.

00:44:57:11 – 00:45:16:09
Katie Keller Wood
It’s all a mosaic. But I mean, really I mean, I think it’s about remembering that like, my mood has an impact on my students and we can choose our moods, you know, not that, you know, you’re always going to be in a good one, but you can say, okay, this was hard and you can you can say, I don’t feel well, or I’ve had a tough day and you don’t have to get into your personal business with students.

00:45:16:09 – 00:45:25:12
Katie Keller Wood
That’s not appropriate either, right? But you can be a human and then still say, but I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad to be here, you know, and choose to look at the positive things too.

00:45:25:13 – 00:45:38:05
Biff
Well, maybe it would be good for you to describe a little bit for for our audience, how interdependence gets created in a community of middle school students. Yeah.

00:45:38:07 – 00:46:04:12
Katie Keller Wood
That’s a great question. So part of it is, you know, the multi age that you would see in any Montessori classroom. And I think what’s really lovely about that, especially if you have the good fortune of students who have had Montessori experiences prior to this adolescent classroom, if they’ve been able to come up through then some of the things are very normal and that everybody gives help sometimes and everybody gets help sometimes.

00:46:04:12 – 00:46:24:19
Katie Keller Wood
And that’s a function both of the multi age environment, but also just the way that Montessori classrooms naturally differentiate, you know, who’s ready for which lesson. And now you’ve done it. So you can teach a peer and you can help somebody else. And so it becomes very normal I think about my very conventional education. You were kind of either smart or not smart, right.

00:46:24:20 – 00:46:44:19
Katie Keller Wood
There were winners and losers, and you kind of had to be like, if you were smart, you were supposed to be smart at all the things. And if you were like, not smart, like, well, too bad, right? And I think a monastery classroom takes each individual. And so I might really be exceptional in this area. And I’m going to give a lot of help, but it’s okay if in a different area I need to get a little help.

00:46:44:20 – 00:47:07:06
Katie Keller Wood
Right? You know, maybe I don’t feel as confident about that. I also think engaging in meaningful work and all the different kinds of activities are academics are absolutely prioritized. And I think it’s a big misunderstanding sometimes, and that Montessori classrooms don’t prioritize the intellectual development of our students. Of course we do. It’s just that’s not the only thing that we do.

00:47:07:07 – 00:47:37:21
Katie Keller Wood
We also prioritize their their other aspects of their their fullest humanity. But because of that, sometimes students who are very academically inclined can shine in one area. And then a student who maybe is less academically inclined in this exact moment of their lives, right? Because this is not a forever thing. Brains develop at all different ages and stages, but they might be able to shine in figuring out a new idea for the business, or they might be able to shine in helping everybody to set up all the tents when we go camping.

00:47:37:21 – 00:47:54:01
Katie Keller Wood
Or they might be able to shine and just, you know, taking care of the community and all of those things are valuable to and they can be recognized for all of those things, too. They can feel valorization for all of those things, too. So, you know, all of those pieces can come together, I think, in a really lovely way.

00:47:54:01 – 00:48:10:17
Katie Keller Wood
And so, you know, we talk about it a lot, but, you know, we’re not just about being the best in the world, but the best for the world. And our keynote speaker used that line earlier today. I’ve heard it from DeWitt Jones is is who I know it from the first. But that that they all we all contribute and we can all make a difference together.

00:48:10:17 – 00:48:29:07
Nicole
I love that. And so, so before we let you go, we started this conversation talking about your work with this group of, of kids. So this this very scary to most people. Middle school, high school students. What gives you hope about this generation of young people since you know them so well?

00:48:29:08 – 00:48:44:22
Katie Keller Wood
Yeah, I mean, absolutely every every day without a lesson gives me great hope for our future. And I think, you know, it’s a lot of what Montessori talked about as well that like in the child and I would say and in the adolescence is a promise and hope for the future. But they are so passionate about making our world a better place.

00:48:44:22 – 00:49:02:02
Katie Keller Wood
I also think as adults we have a responsibility not to be like, okay, good luck. Thanks. Thanks for being amazing. You’re going to fix all these things, right? We need to be looking at ourselves and we need to be, you know, thinking about what are we leaving to our adolescence and be real about that? Because I think that that’s really important to.

00:49:02:03 – 00:49:23:20
Katie Keller Wood
But I think, you know, adolescence is an incredibly hopeful life stage in my work with adults, though, I also think that, like, no human being is a lost cause. And I am really excited. Part of what my hope is for this book is that it will bring Montessori to adults. Because I didn’t go to a montessori school, I wasn’t a montessori kid myself, and it’s changed my life.

00:49:23:20 – 00:49:41:08
Katie Keller Wood
And I don’t think you have to have been a montessori student or go to Montessori teacher training, which are very tiny percentages of the human population, to benefit from these ideas. So I hope that other adults will be able to take these Montessori ideas and find their lives impacted as well.

00:49:41:11 – 00:49:42:15
Nicole
That’s fantastic.

00:49:42:20 – 00:49:43:14
Biff
Thank you.

00:49:43:15 – 00:49:52:00
Nicole
Yes, I’m just so excited for you and congratulations on your book. Thank you so much. Sounds I’m certainly going to be ordering it later. You so much.

00:49:52:01 – 00:49:52:23
Katie Keller Wood
Yes.

00:49:53:01 – 00:49:55:20
Nicole
You sold it to me. Thank you.

00:49:55:22 – 00:50:02:03
Biff
Yeah. Congratulations on the book. Congratulations on your work. And congratulations on your optimism.

00:50:02:04 – 00:50:02:21
Katie Keller Wood
Thank you.

00:50:02:22 – 00:50:03:01
Nicole
I.

00:50:03:01 – 00:50:04:00
Katie Keller Wood
Appreciate that.

00:50:04:00 – 00:50:07:03
Nicole
Thank you. Meaning more of it in this world. Yeah. Thank you.

00:50:07:06 – 00:50:09:04
Katie Keller Wood
I appreciate it.

00:50:09:06 – 00:50:14:10
Biff
Well, I’m loving these conversations. And I’m hoping that you all are enjoying these as much as we are.

00:50:14:11 – 00:50:20:23
Nicole
And if so, please reach out to us. Follow the show on whatever streaming service you use and leave us a comment.

00:50:20:23 – 00:50:21:10
Biff
We want to.

00:50:21:11 – 00:50:23:02
Nicole
Hear from you. Yeah, we love the feedback.

00:50:23:02 – 00:50:26:02
Biff
And I’m looking forward to the next conversation together.

00:50:26:03 – 00:50:35:03
Nicole
As am I.

00:50:35:05 – 00:50:47:12
Biff
This podcast is produced by AMS, the American Montessori Society. However, the views that are expressed belong to us and to those of our guests. They do not represent those of the American society.