Live United by Ann Austin

Before I began at the United Way, I worked as a guide at the local Montessori school. Montessori is an approach to early childhood education, developed by Maria Montessori to address the needs of children who were left alone while their parents went to work in local factories.

She opened her first school in Italy in 1907 and focused on what came to be called “Practical Life” exercises — helping children learn to care for themselves, their environment — and each other. She gave instruction on how to blow one’s nose, sweep and clean floors, tie shoes, and wash hands and faces. Later on, more instruction came with reading, writing, arithmetic, science, art, etc.

It’s a fully comprehensive, wonderfully engaging practice — which focuses on the individual needs of children and creating a sense of community with each other.

I attended training in the cities at the Montessori Training Center of Minnesota — which is an Association Montessori Internationale-accredited school. It was a wonderful experience — especially meeting lifelong friends from different backgrounds and perspectives, who provided an equally enriching learning experience—along with my Montessori studies.

Montessori focused on providing the best she could for all of the children in her community — because every child and every life was of value to her. I know this philosophy and understanding rings true with Montessori guides today.

Yet, these days in every community, including our own community, there are children who are still facing extreme neglect because they don’t have a safe and quality environment to develop and grow. In Freeborn County, 20 percent of children are living in poverty.

Our community and our United Way invest in programs to help address this need. The Children’s Center is a wonderful facility that serves our youngest children and creates a sense of community that children thrive in. Healthy Families reaches children at birth and follows them through their early development, to ensure both children and caregivers are fully supported. The Parenting Resource Center provides help and encouragement to families so they can manage crisis situations and engage in good parenting techniques.

There are so many other programs that provide additional support and connection to services, when needed. They are vital for our children’s, and our community’s, long-term success.

During our year of study at the MTCM, my class had the honor of meeting the new AMI president, Andre Roberfroid. He formerly served as UNICEF deputy executive director for program and strategic planning and worked in many war-torn and poverty stricken countries across the world.

Andre was a kind, gentle and thoughtful man — and he told us a story.

One of the assignments he had in an area he served was to create a community center for children — so they would have a safe, healthy place to be during the day — away from the chaos they faced.

Children from both sides of the political divide were brought together. They literally lived on opposite sides of the street from each other—and their parents perpetuated what I will call a “philosophy of fear,” telling children they were enemies and how they should hate each other, but not able to give a good reason why.

The children tentatively started to attend the community center — they ate together, played together and formed friendships. This took some time — because fear, once placed in the heart, grows deep roots. However, Andre noted that children began to return home after the day was done and told their parents they could no longer hate each other — or live in fear of each other.

“These are my brothers and my sisters,” they would say.

The children were able to bring about peace, for a time. Their parents couldn’t break up friendships that had grown so strong — and after they saw the love that emerged, they didn’t want to.

I presented during the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Day last week about the war on poverty. It’s a terrible name. Poverty isn’t something we should be at war over, or with. With an issue as deep and pervasive as poverty, we all must be on the same side. For our children, we must find a way to work together.

War is never the answer — Andre knew this through his work; the children he spoke of knew this.

So where do we go from here? How do we address the poverty that exists in our community — and how do we create a better world for our children?

I realized during my presentation that it’s not my style to finish with a clean ending. My grandma used to tell my mom “A clean break is better than a jagged edge.” When my mom would tell me this — I would respond with “I’m all about the jagged edges!”

The reality is our world is full of jagged edges. There is a lot of pain, loneliness, anger and fear.

I don’t have all the answers — none of us do. A wise man told me recently, “Only the ignorant are ever truly sure.”

What I do know is that we must look to each other and recognize the wisdom our children have to share with us. They are the future. We must work to create a better world together.

I will end with words from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.” They were put into a song we used to listen to often during our Montessori training. They always bring fond memories back to me, and a dream of a better tomorrow for our children:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and the daughters of life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

Ann Austin is the executive director of the United Way of Freeborn County.