The Anti-Bias curriculum at LMS provides students opportunities to explore differences, value multiple perspectives, identify and reject stereotypes, and work for equity and justice. This work happens in, and out, of our classroom walls.
Cradles to Crayons
Part of our mission at LMS is helping our students learn to view themselves as contributing members of a diverse global community. We respect and value differences, and look with an open mind at all members of the community, seeking to help those less fortunate.
Students in kindergarten through eighth grade work together in partnership with a local Cradles to Crayons organization. Throughout the school year, students hold Cradles to Crayons Drives; collecting clothing, footwear and toys, and a few times a year students in kindergarten through eighth grade complete service learning field trips to Cradles to Crayons and volunteer in the warehouse.
Earth Day
Each spring, LMS celebrates Earth Day. Our youngest students each bring a flower to campus to plant in our gardens, and older students help by picking up litter around our campus and cleaning up the 19 acres. We hold an all-school assembly where we talk about ways to care for the earth. In the same week, we hold an annual “bike to school” day for Elementary and Middle School students.
Facing History and Ourselves
In Middle School, History is taught through lessons and incorporates units from Facing History and Ourselves, putting students in the shoes of real people in historical situations. This challenges them to think about individual decisions opening up broad discussions of ethics and morality, as well as consideration of alternate viewpoints. Since adolescents are at a sensitive period for moral development, tying historical learning to bigger ethical questions brings the issues alive for them.
Hunger Banquet
Every year during the week of Thanksgiving, Upper Elementary students participate in a learning experience called the Hunger Banquet. Students are randomly assigned to a low-, middle-, or high-income group according to global standards. They receive a character card and sit in their group to eat a lunch that is representative of what someone in this income group would eat: rice in a cabbage bowl, rice and beans, or an American-style nacho bar.
LMS Peace Assembly
Each September, students and faculty come together to celebrate the International Day of Peace. We join a group of more than 135,000 children in other Montessori Schools around the world doing the same thing. We prepare for this special day by doing a school-wide art project, gather at an assembly, listen to speakers and sing songs together.
Montessori Model United Nations
Each year, Middle School students may choose to be involved with the Montessori Model United Nations. In 2023, a group of 17 students met on a weekly basis and worked towards representing their assigned country of Bulgaria, Ghana, New Zealand, Liechtenstein, or The Holy See. Throughout the semester, students studied a pressing global topic. They researched what the problem entails, why it qualifies as a problem, past actions taken by individual nations or global organizations, and the results of those actions. Students suggest possible solutions to these problems in heavily-researched position papers, and use them to write short speeches to bring to the February conference in New York City.
Pride Day
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. At LMS, students across all levels celebrate Pride Day at school. Elementary and Middle School students march in a mini-parade around campus as their Toddler and Children’s House peers watch and cheer with excitement.
