Ep. 39 "Teaching the Whole Child: A Look at the Montessori Method" - Guest Debe Terhar (Part 1 of 2)

Today, Melvin’s guest on The State of Education, Debe Terhar, shares about the holistic nature of education—and each child’s need to be taught that every facet of their life matters. As a mother, the former Ohio State School Board President, and a former Montessori educator, Debe has some wise input for parents seeking to help their young ones achieve wholeness and fulfillment in life.

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Transcript

[00:00-02:02]

ADAMS: Our guest today is Debe Terhar. Debe graduated Suma Cume Laude from Xavier University with a B.S./B.A, in Montessori Early Childhood Education. She is a former Montessori Early Education Childhood teacher at the Summit Country Day school in Cincinnati. 

Debe owns her own business, Hope Chest Heirlooms, where she [00:30] specializes in heirloom-quality children’s special occasion clothing. She is also vice president of the administration for Strategic Planning Advisors, LLC; a consulting firm founded by her husband, Luke. 

In 2010, Debe was elected to the State Board of Education of Ohio, representing Hamilton and Lauren counties; she served as president of the state board for all four years of her term [01:00] until her retirement in December of 2014. Her primary focus was the expansion of early childhood education opportunities for Ohio’s youngest residents. 

Debe also served as a member of The Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, the Xavier University President’s Advisory Council, The Xavier University’s Women of Excellence Council, and the Parents Advisory [01:30] Council of the Kelly O’Leary Center for Autism.  

She and her husband of 49 years live in Cincinnati, Ohio. They have four children and six grandchildren. So Debe, welcome! We’re so glad to have you join us for this conversation today. 

TERHAR: Thank you so much for having me! I’m looking forward to our conversation. This is just an absolutely wonderful opportunity to be with you today! 

ADAMS: Well we are also delighted. [02:00] 

ADAMS: Let’s start by talking about Montessori and Early Childhood Education. 

TERHAR: Wonderful. 

ADMAS: That’s what you went to school for, you taught in that field—this has been a little while ago… So, let’s just start with this: there are many different concepts of learning. What are some distinctions of the Montessori method, what attracted you to it, and are you still a fan? [00:30] If so, why? 

TERHAR: I will always be a fan of Montessori Education. I think it’s a fantastic beginning for an education journey for a child. Our oldest child began Montessori Preschool in 1980. I didn’t know why I wanted her to be in a Montessori school, because I had not done any real research on it, but it spoke to me when I went and visited the classroom. [01:00]

I loved the idea of the repaired environment for the children. I loved the idea of a 3 to 6 classroom, children are learning from each other, freewill is encouraged, independence is encouraged, and the connection between the hand and the mind was just fascinating to me.
 
I think it’s an excellent start for a child for their education journey and I was thrilled that I was able to do it. Now there are some elements to it that are fabulous [01:30]—the practical life, which is learning to pour things...and that’s all connection with the hand. And it’s sorting, cleaning, dusting—all those things. Our youngest son didn’t spend much time in practical life and I know that because I visit his condo every now and then. So I know that...a little more practical life experience maybe… 

ADAMS: Maybe he’s just so busy doing other things [02:00] that the home is...it’ll be there when he gets home, right? 

TERHAR: Well it’s always there. He’s our connection to the Kelly O’Leary Center for Autism—our youngest son has Asperger's Syndrome. We’re very fortunate that his education allowed him to graduate from college and he’s employed and living on his own. Montessori started him really well. 

Another point on early childhood education, I think it’s incredibly important—as I testified [02:30] before the senate committee—it really is essential to provide the benefit of early childhood education early on. And when you make that kind of commitment as a state, you enter out the “drop-out-to-prison” pipeline. It’s a big investment. It’s 500 million dollars plus to do it, and there aren’t many legislatures that are willing to make that commitment yet and I regret that. 

ADAMS: For those who may not be terribly familiar with Montessori, as was already mentioned, it’s very much hands-on, it’s experimental, it’s a lot of touching and doing, and talking about things and processes—interaction and engagement around real things. In a well-structured and healthy [00:30] environment at home, those things should be happening where there’s that interaction with parents and siblings; there’s time spent together, there’s learning. 

Parents are those first teachers and everything from helping a child learn how to eat to learning how to walk… just all of those things that parents are so central to. But then as the child continues to grow, [01:00] it’s counting and numbers and colors and what are things called, and all of that normal learning in those early childhood years that just continued on. 

And really, I see that the Montessori is a continuation of that and maybe (to some extent) trying to fill a gap where working parents are maybe not able to be [01:30] engaged with their children as they’d like to be. And so, what is the optimum environment for young children to be engaged in learning? Is it the family? Is it the school? Is it a combination? Obviously any parent has their idea, any educators are going to be proponents of certain things—but I think at the end of the day, what’s the best thing we can do for our kids? [02:00]

TERHAR: Our children are the stakeholders in this. They’re the ones whose future is affected. So we need to provide an environment for them to be able to learn appropriately. I believe the Montessori Method brings order to—quite often—a chaotic existence for a number of children. And it helps them with their social construct in working together [02:30] with their own community. 

We have about 25 children in a classroom and they’re able to work together and work as a unit. You help others. I just think it’s a fabulous environment for children to be in. Not every child is a candidate for a Montessori education, but I would say that the vast majority of children can thrive in a Montessori environment. [03:00]

It’s a well-prepared environment where you have a teacher as a facilitator, an observer—you watch where a child is and in the continuum of learning, you help them to get to the next level.

ADAMS: That’s a good transition to talk about your experience serving on the Ohio State School Board. So let’s launch into that. How did you get on the Ohio State School Board and why did you decide to do it? 

TERHAR: Well, I decided to do it because I felt that I could possibly make a difference in the lives of children—with education. [00:30] And in 2005, my husband asked me if I could join him in his business—I’d stop teaching and join him with his business. Which I did. Our youngest son had just graduated from high school and I said, “Ok, we’ll do that.” 

So I stayed involved with substitute teaching, then in 2010, I saw that our county chairman had put out that the gentleman who had served the past 8 years [01:00] on the state board of education (who represented Hamilton and Lauren Counties) was term-limited, and would someone like to step up and run for  the position? It was an elected position… 

So I spoke to my husband and I was like, “I would like to do this. It’s only 2 days a month. This could be really cool.” I’d never run for office or anything. So he said, “Ok, that sounds great and let’s do that!” So I pulled the petitions, [01:30] got my signatures, got on the ballot—I had four opponents who were on my side of the aisle, and one who was not—you can’t have an R or a D next to your name, you are “non-partisan.” 

So it ended up on election night that I won by 4,000 votes out of 1.2 million people in the district, so it was rather close, [02:00] but I won the seat, and it was fascinating. Normally when you go on to the state board of education, you go in and take your seat and you listen to all the people who’ve been there before, and you make decisions, and that’s great. 

Well, 10 days before I took the oath of office, I got a call from the governor’s office. “The governor wants you to run for President of the State Board of Education.” And I was just shocked! [02:30]

So I just got elected, and who in their right mind goes onto a 19-member board and on the first day, walks in and says, “Oh by the way, I’m running for president”? And he said, “You do!” I said, “Well, I want to talk to my husband about this.” So we discussed it and he said, “Look, you wanted to go to Columbus to make a difference in the lives of kids, here’s your chance. Either do it or not.” [03:00] I said, “Ok!” 

So I did. First day, I walked in and said, “I’m running for president!” And we had a vote. I did not win that, my vice president did, but it ended up that by March, I was elected president of the board. What happened was, there was a secret ballot in January, and that’s against the Sunshine Laws, [03:30] so we had to defer all our February meetings and then it went into March. 

So in March, I was elected president of the board. The board is a 19 member board; there are 11 elected members and 8 appointed members—and they’re appointed by the governor. We’re not a part of the executive branch, we’re not a part of the legislature, we have a constitutional mandate that tells us that we are in charge of education policy, [04:00] and our other mandiate is that we hire the Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

So that’s it. So I spent 4 years on the State Board of Education, and in 2013, I was unanimously reelected as president of the board—so we ended up being able to work together.

ADAMS: Generally speaking, what is the role and responsibility of a state school board and its members? You mentioned a couple of things, you may want to mention those again, but then anything else you want to add to that. 

TERHAR: Well, as I said, we take care of the education policy. The legislature has gotten more and more involved in education policy. [00:30] My responsibility was not only to my constituents, from the fourth district, but I was answerable to 1.8 million children. And I took that very seriously. It was a 24/7 job for me. My personal cell phone number was listed on the state’s website and people from all over the state called me with all different kinds of issues. It was a [01:00] fabulous thing. 

So I went from a two-day-a-month idea, to a 4-5 days a week commitment to the state—and it was great. I had one lady—it was absolutely hilarious—it was a February night, and I was just getting off of an airplane coming home from Florida, and my phone rang. So I answered it and said, [01:30] “Hello” and the woman on the other line said, “Is it really you? I can’t believe that it’s Mrs. Terhar!” “Well yes it is, what can I do for you?” and she says, “Well my daughter brought home a blizzard bag” … 

And she’s very upset about the contents of this blizzard bag and I had to let her know that I am the state board of education and I don’t have anything to do with blizzard bags, that’s your local board president [02:00] who would be working with that. And she was very grateful in the conversation—but that’s the type of thing, you have to be responsive to the people that you represent. 

ADAMS: Yeah, for sure. 

TERHAR: It’s critical. 

ADAMS: So here’s another question for you. How do you define education and what role do you think government oversight should have in it? 

TERHAR: So I look at education as a cultivation of—not only the cognitive—but the social, moral, and emotional aspects of a child. To be able to become a healthy, successful, mature [00:30] individual who is then able to contribute to his family, community, and society in general. 

That’s what I think the goal of education is. And the state level piece of this is the accountability piece. We spend billions upon billions of dollars, in Ohio, on education. [01:00] It’s the largest part of our budget. 

ADAMS: Yep. 

TERHAR: And you need to know that the taxpayer dollars, that are very hard-earned dollars sent to the state, are being spent wisely. And it’s that accountability piece that is the real trick here. 

ADAMS: Wow. You gave us some significant things to think about here, and one of them is the statement that [01:30] education is the largest part of the state budget. I think that’s probably true for all of our states, I may be wrong, but certainly if it isn’t the top, it’s at the top in every state. And I don’t have a problem with that because it is so critical in nature [02:00]—it’s developing our people, it’s developing our workforce, it’s holding our society together. 

The other thing that you mentioned is that education is the cognitive—or another words, knowledge-based ability to think and work and understand and create and those kinds of things—as well as the social side of interaction [02:30] and relationship, values, all those kinds of things. I agree with you. 

In today’s world it seems that many states are—in a very broad sense—that there is a big movement away from (particularly) accountability in the cognitive side [03:00] of education. And there are elements of influencers that are really promoting the social side of things, but not so much around best practices or evidence-based theories and concepts, but really almost an experimental thing in the socials. Talk to us a little bit about that.

TERHAR: I agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s a little like the flavor of the month. What are we going to do [03:30] this month? For me, there is too much emphasis on the social aspect of this. I really think we need to move back towards the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Call me old fashioned, but I think that’s the model that provides a terrific foundation for education. 

The social stuff—although, we’re social beings and children need [04:00] to learn about the social things, but I don’t believe that that needs to be the focus of education. That, to me, is peripheral. 

ADAMS: And would you say… I’m going to say it and then you tell me if you agree with me: schools are not there to promote a social agenda. Now there are schools—private schools, [04:30] faith-based schools, and so forth—that are very clear and open and say, “”Hey, here’s a focus of education we would like to provide to your children” and then parents choose whether or not they want that, and then they follow through on that. 

But, by and large, public education (particularly) has at least 80% of America’s students in it. That should not be its focus. [05:00] There are plenty of other areas out here in our society. There are churches, community groups, civic organizations, and all kinds of things that families are engaged in—and certainly the family core/nucleus has social values. 

And that’s where children should learn [05:30] these values and schools should not be teaching things that are in conflict with what children are learning at home and in those places where their families choose to engage them. 

TERHAR: I couldn’t agree with you more, Melvin, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think it’s not a good thing to turn our children [06:00] into activists.

ADAMS: Yeah

TERHAR: And that’s what I fear is occurring. It’s more of a propaganda, activism idea that’s being thrown out there now and we have to fight it.