From April 15-29, 2008, Lee Havis conducted a personal consultation at the New Way Montessori School (Meridian, Idaho). Since January, 2007, Lee has been conducting these types of occasional consulting visits to study and support the practical application of IMS technology with children at this school. During the April, 2008 visit, Lee focused primarily on resolving issues of disorder and misbehavior during times of group transition, such as lining up after outside recreation, sitting down in a circle after cleaning up the room, eating lunch, and laying down on mats for a rest period.

Lee’s consultation also included video recording of the program director, Wendy Lieberman, while supervising children at various critical transition times in the daily schedule. Both Lee and Wendy agreed that this recording helped identify and resolve several key mistakes, such as fast, excessive movement around children. Viewing the video, they could both clearly see how the children became more calm and orderly as Wendy slowed down, remaining relatively stationary outside their activity area.

During the consultation, Lee and Wendy also identified several useful tactics to better manage order in a group situation. For example, (1) while children are sitting in a circle, stay off the circle to better move around as needed to settle individual children; (2) Lining up outside, return all equipment first, before beginning the line-up procedure; (3) Talk over any group confusion or disorder, focusing on present-moment reality, such as while walking in line, eating lunch or getting coats. Lee believes that these tactics will help many other practitioners resolve their own similar problems with children.