Ask a Montessorian

[Pen]

...

I can't really think of a better way to put the perfect part, particularly when those are Montessori's own words.

 

In English?

 

 

The other part of Montessori besides the individual development is that it was to be a social revolution, the creation of perfect humans that would meet the potential naturally inherent in them, thus creating a better society than the one that caused the two world wars she lived through. Instead of trying to "teach" children ideas of brotherhood and peace, she saw the potential for children to naturally develop these qualities themselves if their needs are met from birth and any deviations caused by trauma or obstacles early in life normalized by 6 or so. Maybe optimal would be a better term, but it's saying the same thing.

 

Maybe this will provide a bit of context to her usage of the word: "Let us picture to ourselves a clever and proficient workman, capable, not only of producing much and perfect work, but of giving advice in his workshop, because of his ability to control and direct the general activity of the environment in which he works. The man who is thus master of his environment will be able to smile before the anger of others, showing that great mastery of himself which comes from consciousness of his ability to do things. We should not, however, be in the least surprised to know that in his home this capable workman scolded his wife if the soup was not to his taste, or not ready at the appointed time. In his home, he is no longer the capable workman; the skilled workman here is the wife, who serves him and prepares his food for him. He is a serene and pleasant man where he is powerful through being efficient, but is domineering where he is served. 

 

This is interesting food for thought.

 

Perhaps if he should learn how to prepare his soup he might become a perfect man! The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual. We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free."

 

This passage is not at all the sort of image I get from the term "perfect child." 

 

"The child, unlike the adult, is not on his way to death. He is on his way to life. His work is to fashion a man in the fullness of his strength. By the time the adult exists, the child has vanished. So the whole life of the child is an advance toward perfection, toward a greater completeness. From this we may infer that the child will enjoy doing the work needed to complete himself. The child’s life is one in which work–the doing of one’s duty–begets joy and happiness. For adults, the daily round is more often depressing."

 

 

So...adulthood, when the daily round is often depressing, is the "perfection" that the child is advancing toward?

 

That is depressing.

[bullseye]

My son will be starting a Montessori Primary program in the fall, shortly before his fourth birthday. We have a great school in our area that I'm hopeful will be a good fit for him, as he really needs the social interaction and focus on executive function.  I think the emphasis on free choice and real materials to work with will appeal to his personality, and the flexibility to work at his own pace is a big plus since he's a bright kid. The tentative plan, since we live in a rural area without many good schooling options, is to send him there for the next two years, then bring him home after Primary.  

 

My question: Once a child becomes "normalized," does that need to be maintained somehow, or would you expect the child to permanently retain the ability to concentrate deeply even when removed from the Montessori environment? Assuming we do indeed bring him home around age six, what specific Montessori principles could we incorporate into the home environment to continue supporting the development of executive function? As one example, I've heard of older Montessori kids scheduling their own tasks for a week or so at a time, only checking in with the teacher periodically to make sure they've completed their work. Setting aside the inevitable debate over whether such a hands-off style is desirable in the first place, would you say this is a realistic expectation, and if so, at what age? 

 

Are there any books you'd recommend to parents wanting to know more? 

[HumbleThinker]

So...adulthood, when the daily round is often depressing, is the "perfection" that the child is advancing toward?

 

That is depressing.

 

She's juxtaposing the idea in her time of improving humanity by improving adults with her profound idea of improving humanity by improving children who are the creators of adults. The "powers" that children have for perfecting themselves, as she sometimes put it, aren't present in adults. She also likes to be hyperbolic to arouse people to the gravity of the situation that children are the only true salvation for human society.

[HumbleThinker]

My son will be starting a Montessori Primary program in the fall, shortly before his fourth birthday. We have a great school in our area that I'm hopeful will be a good fit for him, as he really needs the social interaction and focus on executive function.  I think the emphasis on free choice and real materials to work with will appeal to his personality, and the flexibility to work at his own pace is a big plus since he's a bright kid. The tentative plan, since we live in a rural area without many good schooling options, is to send him there for the next two years, then bring him home after Primary.  

 

Glad to hear he will be starting a Montessori experience soon. If possible, the third year is a great culminating experience for a child and is a great benefit to the community as a whole. But I know that is not always an option for everyone.

 

My question: Once a child becomes "normalized," does that need to be maintained somehow, or would you expect the child to permanently retain the ability to concentrate deeply even when removed from the Montessori environment? Assuming we do indeed bring him home around age six, what specific Montessori principles could we incorporate into the home environment to continue supporting the development of executive function? As one example, I've heard of older Montessori kids scheduling their own tasks for a week or so at a time, only checking in with the teacher periodically to make sure they've completed their work. Setting aside the inevitable debate over whether such a hands-off style is desirable in the first place, would you say this is a realistic expectation, and if so, at what age? 

 

Are there any books you'd recommend to parents wanting to know more? 

 

This is a great question that is a bit complicated. In general, a lot of a child's mental growth is completed after the first six years of life, so the experiences and development he has in these first six years will affect the rest of his life greater than any other. So in this sense, yes he will retain whatever advances he makes he makes in the Montessori environment. That said, he still has three phrases of life to go that each have their own needs and challenges. And if these needs aren't met, there MAY be some regression, but for the most part he'll retain what he has internalized for his first six years. He just may not reap the maximum benefit of that particular phase of his life, ages 6-12. But rest assured, studies have shown that Montessori children do indeed adapt quite well to traditionally school to perform as well or better than their peers on average. I'm sure this generalizes to a homeschooling environment as well.

 

I'm trained in primary (3-6), so I know much more about that age range than elementary and up, but the same general principles that will go on in your child's primary class would also be going on in his elementary class and so can be incorporated at home. The most important thing is to observe your child's choices and interests, then try to adapt the environment to meet them. 6-12 is where they are really ready to learn about more traditional academic pursuits. Give them anything and everything about the universe and some way to learn more on their own (books, museums, Internet, library, etc.). 

 

The planning things sounds like it could work as long as it really is the child planning and there's no punishment or reward for not meeting or meeting these plans. If you are going to do that, it's definitely something that will need to be modeled and definitely something you're going to have to expect him to fail at at least a few times before getting it right. Gauging your abilities, making long term plans, and then sticking with those long term plans requires a lot of maturity. I really don't know what the right age for such a thing would be, so my only advice would be to observe your child and ask around a few Montessori elementary classes in your area if there are any. Alternatively, you could probably email some Montessori schools and ask them. 

 

As far as books, The Absorbent Mind is usually the best place to start because it is the best summary of her work and one of if not the last book she wrote. If you are looking for something a bit shorter, though, the Child in the Family is a good choice as well as Education for a New World. Though I haven't read it yet, What You Should Know About Your Child is supposed to be a good summary of Montessori's ideas for parents in a bit more easily understandable way. The Absorbent Mind, along with Discovery of the Child and Secret of Childhood, are probably the only ones you are going to find in a bookstore, while the others you will likely have to order from AMI/USA's or NAMTA's website. Hope this helps.

[HumbleThinker]

I have a question for you all this time. If you were a parent looking into a Montessori class for your child, how would bringing up that the ultimate goal of Montessori is creating a more peaceful society by raising more peaceful, capable children make you feel? Do you feel excited to be a part of a movement like this, turned off by it's lofty ideals that aren't just focused on academics, or something else? Thanks again for any input. :)

[Pen]

I have a question for you all this time. If you were a parent looking into a Montessori class for your child, how would bringing up that the ultimate goal of Montessori is creating a more peaceful society by raising more peaceful, capable children make you feel? Do you feel excited to be a part of a movement like this, turned off by it's lofty ideals that aren't just focused on academics, or something else? Thanks again for any input. :)

 

 

I would likely find that positive, but would want to know how it seeks to go about that and whether there is evidence that it works.

 

With regard to the play idea, for example, it seems to be the case that Montessori children are supposed to be less involved in rough and tumble play at around 5 years old than other children. But I would want to know if this is compatible with long term peacefulness or not. There is some evidence according to the interview on play I mentioned earlier, that children learn to be gentle and peaceful through rough and tumble play in those early years, much as puppies learn bite inhibition when they play fight. So are the Montessori children actually peaceful, or are they inhibited and/or controlled?

 

I'd also want to know things like, if the children are being taught to wipe mats left to right, is there any actual evidence that this helps with either learning effective cleaning skills (compared to, say, if they are right handed wiping toward their left where the left can pick up the crumbs more effectively), or that it actually translates into better reading, as I understand that to be one of the goals. I know a lot of children with reading trouble, but not being able to get the idea of working from left to right is not a problem for any of the ones I happen to know. I think it is possible that a lot of time and energy is spent on "straw men"--working on skills to prevent problems that are not common anyway, and in the course of that, learning to do another task in a way that is not exactly the most "normal" to the other task in and of itself, such as cleaning right to left and so on.

 

I'd also want to know how the idea of concentrating and doing things in an exact way as shown by the guide works for being able to think creatively, and whether the following of exact prescribed ways of doing things might not lead to following the orders of a dictator more than learning a more creative approach to mindfulness.

 

For a very young child, 3 years old, I would not so much be wondering about lofty goals not focussed on academics, but would rather want to know about ...   well, the other parts of early childhood, play and beauty and art and so on.  If I were looking at a private school, I would probably be comparing to Waldorf, and in that comparison, Montessori definitely wins on the academics...but, I'd be wondering if academics are what is important at age 3. It seems too bad that the best of each system could not be taken and put together somehow, but I guess in many ways they are diametrically opposed.

[HumbleThinker]

I would likely find that positive, but would want to know how it seeks to go about that and whether there is evidence that it works.

This is where she gets more into philosophy than science, but I think her position is justified. She saw that a lot of the traditional ideas about children at her time were wrong, that for all of adults' preaching about peace and a brotherhood of men they had gotten themselves into two world wars in a short span of time, and that children were infinitely more able to better themselves than adults. She was one of the the first ones to point out that the most important years of human development are the first 6. She later narrowed this down to the first three, which is perfectly consistent with neurological research today. So given what she observed, she came to the conclusion that the only way for humans to truly be a part at peace and be a brotherhood of men was to elevate the role of the child to the creator of these peaceful men. Unfortunately, the biggest evidence of her ideas that children are the key to reconstructing society is when they were stolen and corrupted by Hitler and Mussolini, while she was exiled. She redoubled her efforts to get the point across that people of better caliber than these two needed to guide children through their natural development, leading to more peaceful adults who would be the future runners of society. If you ever have the time, Montessori's "Education and Peace" is entirely about this topic.

 

With regard to the play idea, for example, it seems to be the case that Montessori children are supposed to be less involved in rough and tumble play at around 5 years old than other children. But I would want to know if this is compatible with long term peacefulness or not. There is some evidence according to the interview on play I mentioned earlier, that children learn to be gentle and peaceful through rough and tumble play in those early years, much as puppies learn bite inhibition when they play fight. So are the Montessori children actually peaceful, or are they inhibited and/or controlled?

 

It is indeed not encouraged in a Montessori environment. I would have to do a bit more research to see what the typical response to rough-and-tumble play is, but I would imagine that, like any school, it's redirected while the children are inside and then carefully observed outside to ensure that both parties are willing participants. If it gets "too rough" or one party clearly wants to stop but is not asserting himself or the other party isn't listening, then the guide would step in. On the other hand, Montessori has it's own activities for developing inhibition and peacefulness, so rough-and-tumble play may be seen as beneficial but only in the lack of a prepared environment. In a prepared environment, it may be seen as an impediment to optimal development of inhibition and peacefulness. I have read one study that found that Montessori children engaged in less rough-and-tumble play but were engaged in more "shared peer play," were more positively assertive in conflict situation, and displayed more perspective taking than the control group. But like I said, I'd have to research more.

 

I'd also want to know things like, if the children are being taught to wipe mats left to right, is there any actual evidence that this helps with either learning effective cleaning skills (compared to, say, if they are right handed wiping toward their left where the left can pick up the crumbs more effectively), or that it actually translates into better reading, as I understand that to be one of the goals. I know a lot of children with reading trouble, but not being able to get the idea of working from left to right is not a problem for any of the ones I happen to know. I think it is possible that a lot of time and energy is spent on "straw men"--working on skills to prevent problems that are not common anyway, and in the course of that, learning to do another task in a way that is not exactly the most "normal" to the other task in and of itself, such as cleaning right to left and so on.

 

 

The left-to-right, top-to-bottom thing is purely as an indirect preparation for writing and like you said reading to a much lesser extent. The child's hand and mind are absorbing that orientation so that it will come naturally to him when he reaches his "explosion into writing." In cultures with writing that goes right-to-left, mats and tables are cleaned right to left. These and other indirect preparations make a world of difference in the child's writing when he begins to write. Montessori does have supplementary writing materials for after the child explodes into writing if it needs some work, but ideally these materials will never be used because all the indirect preparations are hopefully in place. It's a wonder to behold when a child begins to use amazing handwriting out of the blue when you've literally taught him nothing about writing. I couldn't tell you from my observations yet how the lack of these indirect preparations affects reading, but I'd imagine it would have a similar negative affect as with writing.

 

And whichever hand we use to clean a mat for instance should always be consistent, be our dominant hand, and affect which side of the child we stand on when giving presentations. For instance, I'm right handed so I would stand or sit on the right side of the child so that my arm does not block his view of the presentation. But all materials, particularly those with handles, are placed in an orientation that does not presume a hand-dominance on part of the child. So if I'm polishing metal, the handle of a brush would be perpendicular to the top of the work mat so that the child could just as easily grab it with his left or right hand. I can't remember off the top of my head when dominance occurs in the child's brain.

 

I'd also want to know how the idea of concentrating and doing things in an exact way as shown by the guide works for being able to think creatively, and whether the following of exact prescribed ways of doing things might not lead to following the orders of a dictator more than learning a more creative approach to mindfulness.

 

For a very young child, 3 years old, I would not so much be wondering about lofty goals not focussed on academics, but would rather want to know about ...   well, the other parts of early childhood, play and beauty and art and so on.  If I were looking at a private school, I would probably be comparing to Waldorf, and in that comparison, Montessori definitely wins on the academics...but, I'd be wondering if academics are what is important at age 3. It seems too bad that the best of each system could not be taken and put together somehow, but I guess in many ways they are diametrically opposed.

 

To think creatively, one needs a foundation from which to begin. Outwardly, there is a fine line between being creative and, for lack of a better phrase, messing around. Let's take music for example. I could just let a child play the bells however he wants and I'm sure he would get something out of it. Or I could being by showing him how to handle a bell, how to distinguish the sound of each bell from the others, how to order the bells, how create music on a staff, and then how to read music. In my opinion, and from my experience generally, the second child would be much more prepared to creatively make music than the former child. Creativity is all about making choices, but for a choice to be meaningful, it must be based on real knowledge. It's why a lot of the best musicians, but not all, have some sort of training in classical music even though they are, say, a rock artist. The child also needs to have the physical abilities and the control of his will to carry out these creative choices.

 

Children will naturally explore with any material. My job as a guide is to distinguish between mindless "exploration" (which isn't exploration at all) and mindful exploration. If the exploration is mindful, constructive, then it doesn't matter if they are not using the material the exact way I showed them. There's lots of other angles I can go with this idea, but I'll leave it at that for right now. If there is something wrong with the way they are using a material while they are mindfully exploring with it, there are plenty of "controls of error" to inform them that they should change what they are doing. Controls of error are simply natural consequences inherent in the materials themselves in one manner or another. Lots of great questions and comments  :)

[Laura Corin]

 

 

"The child, unlike the adult, is not on his way to death. He is on his way to life. His work is to fashion a man in the fullness of his strength. By the time the adult exists, the child has vanished. So the whole life of the child is an advance toward perfection, toward a greater completeness. From this we may infer that the child will enjoy doing the work needed to complete himself. The child’s life is one in which work–the doing of one’s duty–begets joy and happiness. For adults, the daily round is more often depressing."

 

I wonder if this is a translation problem.  I don't speak Italian, but in French, the meaning of 'perfectionner' is much more like 'improve' than it is 'perfect' (verb).  Perhaps for 'perfect' (noun) we should be reading 'as good as they can be'.  Any Italian speakers who could help with this?

 

L

[HumbleThinker]

I wonder if this is a translation problem.  I don't speak Italian, but in French, the meaning of 'perfectionner' is much more like 'improve' than it is 'perfect' (verb).  Perhaps for 'perfect' (noun) we should be reading 'as good as they can be'.  Any Italian speakers who could help with this?

 

L

 

I'm not sure, but that is a good idea.

[Pen]

This is where she gets more into philosophy than science, but I think her position is justified. She saw that a lot of the traditional ideas about children at her time were wrong, that for all of adults' preaching about peace and a brotherhood of men they had gotten themselves into two world wars in a short span of time, and that children were infinitely more able to better themselves than adults. She was one of the the first ones to point out that the most important years of human development are the first 6. She later narrowed this down to the first three, which is perfectly consistent with neurological research today. So given what she observed, she came to the conclusion that the only way for humans to truly be a part at peace and be a brotherhood of men was to elevate the role of the child to the creator of these peaceful men. Unfortunately, the biggest evidence of her ideas that children are the key to reconstructing society is when they were stolen and corrupted by Hitler and Mussolini, while she was exiled. She redoubled her efforts to get the point across that people of better caliber than these two needed to guide children through their natural development, leading to more peaceful adults who would be the future runners of society. If you ever have the time, Montessori's "Education and Peace" is entirely about this topic.

 

With regard to the play idea, for example, it seems to be the case that Montessori children are supposed to be less involved in rough and tumble play at around 5 years old than other children. But I would want to know if this is compatible with long term peacefulness or not. There is some evidence according to the interview on play I mentioned earlier, that children learn to be gentle and peaceful through rough and tumble play in those early years, much as puppies learn bite inhibition when they play fight. So are the Montessori children actually peaceful, or are they inhibited and/or controlled?

 

It is indeed not encouraged in a Montessori environment. I would have to do a bit more research to see what the typical response to rough-and-tumble play is, but I would imagine that, like any school, it's redirected while the children are inside and then carefully observed outside to ensure that both parties are willing participants. If it gets "too rough" or one party clearly wants to stop but is not asserting himself or the other party isn't listening, then the guide would step in. On the other hand, Montessori has it's own activities for developing inhibition and peacefulness, so rough-and-tumble play may be seen as beneficial but only in the lack of a prepared environment. In a prepared environment, it may be seen as an impediment to optimal development of inhibition and peacefulness. I have read one study that found that Montessori children engaged in less rough-and-tumble play but were engaged in more "shared peer play," were more positively assertive in conflict situation, and displayed more perspective taking than the control group. But like I said, I'd have to research more.

 

I'd also want to know things like, if the children are being taught to wipe mats left to right, is there any actual evidence that this helps with either learning effective cleaning skills (compared to, say, if they are right handed wiping toward their left where the left can pick up the crumbs more effectively), or that it actually translates into better reading, as I understand that to be one of the goals. I know a lot of children with reading trouble, but not being able to get the idea of working from left to right is not a problem for any of the ones I happen to know. I think it is possible that a lot of time and energy is spent on "straw men"--working on skills to prevent problems that are not common anyway, and in the course of that, learning to do another task in a way that is not exactly the most "normal" to the other task in and of itself, such as cleaning right to left and so on.

 

 

The left-to-right, top-to-bottom thing is purely as an indirect preparation for writing and like you said reading to a much lesser extent. The child's hand and mind are absorbing that orientation so that it will come naturally to him when he reaches his "explosion into writing." In cultures with writing that goes right-to-left, mats and tables are cleaned right to left. These and other indirect preparations make a world of difference in the child's writing when he begins to write. Montessori does have supplementary writing materials for after the child explodes into writing if it needs some work, but ideally these materials will never be used because all the indirect preparations are hopefully in place. It's a wonder to behold when a child begins to use amazing handwriting out of the blue when you've literally taught him nothing about writing.

 

Maybe someone else taught him something about writing.

 

I couldn't tell you from my observations yet how the lack of these indirect preparations affects reading, but I'd imagine it would have a similar negative affect  do you mean effect? as with writing.

 

I  can't say. I did not go to Montessori and yet I found reading and writing quite easy. My son has had difficulties despite Waldorf's somewhat similar ideas that knitting with its left to right tracking for both eye and hand skills would be helpful. Maybe he would have had an even harder time if he had not had the knitting, but certainly it did not make it easy for him....He is very dextrous and was the best knitter in his class, but it did not translate into specific language areas.  Maybe if he had been at a Montessori school from age 0 or 3 he would not have had these difficulties, but I have not thus far seen anything that indicates that Montessori education prevents or cures dyslexia.

 

And whichever hand we use to clean a mat for instance should always be consistent, be our dominant hand, and affect which side of the child we stand on when giving presentations. For instance, I'm right handed so I would stand or sit on the right side of the child so that my arm does not block his view of the presentation. But all materials, particularly those with handles, are placed in an orientation that does not presume a hand-dominance on part of the child. So if I'm polishing metal, the handle of a brush would be perpendicular to the top of the work mat so that the child could just as easily grab it with his left or right hand. I can't remember off the top of my head when dominance occurs in the child's brain.

 

I'd also want to know how the idea of concentrating and doing things in an exact way as shown by the guide works for being able to think creatively, and whether the following of exact prescribed ways of doing things might not lead to following the orders of a dictator more than learning a more creative approach to mindfulness.

 

For a very young child, 3 years old, I would not so much be wondering about lofty goals not focussed on academics, but would rather want to know about ...   well, the other parts of early childhood, play and beauty and art and so on.  If I were looking at a private school, I would probably be comparing to Waldorf, and in that comparison, Montessori definitely wins on the academics...but, I'd be wondering if academics are what is important at age 3. It seems too bad that the best of each system could not be taken and put together somehow, but I guess in many ways they are diametrically opposed.

 

To think creatively, one needs a foundation from which to begin. Outwardly, there is a fine line between being creative and, for lack of a better phrase, messing around. Let's take music for example. I could just let a child play the bells however he wants and I'm sure he would get something out of it. Or I could being by showing him how to handle a bell, how to distinguish the sound of each bell from the others, how to order the bells, how create music on a staff, and then how to read music. In my opinion, and from my experience generally, the second child would be much more prepared to creatively make music than the former child. Creativity is all about making choices, but for a choice to be meaningful, it must be based on real knowledge. It's why a lot of the best musicians, but not all, have some sort of training in classical music even though they are, say, a rock artist. The child also needs to have the physical abilities and the control of his will to carry out these creative choices.

 

Children will naturally explore with any material. My job as a guide is to distinguish between mindless "exploration" (which isn't exploration at all) and mindful exploration. If the exploration is mindful, constructive, then it doesn't matter if they are not using the material the exact way I showed them. There's lots of other angles I can go with this idea, but I'll leave it at that for right now. If there is something wrong with the way they are using a material while they are mindfully exploring with it, there are plenty of "controls of error" to inform them that they should change what they are doing. Controls of error are simply natural consequences inherent in the materials themselves in one manner or another. Lots of great questions and comments  :)

 

 

The idea that a Montessori education might help lead to a more peaceful society would be very intriguing to me--but I would be choosing and comparing it to homeschooling, Waldorf, and perhaps a small handful of other options, maybe including a Friends school if looking for something that is trying to aim toward peace. I would not be comparing it to Mussolini and Hitler. To say that Montessori is better than Mussolini and Hitler does not advance your case.

 

Montessori education has been around for quite awhile now. Perhaps there are statistics and longitudinal studies that would actually demonstrate how it has helped to achieve peace at this point.

[HumbleThinker]

The idea that a Montessori education might help lead to a more peaceful society would be very intriguing to me--but I would be choosing and comparing it to homeschooling, Waldorf, and perhaps a small handful of other options, maybe including a Friends school if looking for something that is trying to aim toward peace. I would not be comparing it to Mussolini and Hitler. To say that Montessori is better than Mussolini and Hitler does not advance your case.

 

Montessori education has been around for quite awhile now. Perhaps there are statistics and longitudinal studies that would actually demonstrate how it has helped to achieve peace at this point.

 

I wasn't saying it is better (which of course it is but isn't saying much), but simply saying that the idea of society being shaped by children has been proven to be a powerful tool. Unfortunately, only terrible people have taken full advantage of it on a national level. The comparisons between the two stop at this vague notion. Mussolini closed all of her schools before exiling her when she refused to use her schools in the way he wanted. Also unfortunately, scientific research into Montessori has really only picked up in the last decade or two as far as I know. Though I'm not sure what kind of results you would be looking for that could point to Montessori helping to bring peace. Did you have something in mind?

 

 

 

"Maybe someone else taught him something about writing."  

 

Surprisingly not. This phenomenon has been observed in a myriad of children across cultures, even with parents who are illiterate. Just as none teaches a child about language before he spontaneously speaks it as perfectly as he has heard it for his whole life, just as none teaches a child to walk before his time, none need teach a child to write. To do so would only hinder his writing because no child that I've ever encountered nor that Montessori encountered is interested in sitting down and being taught how to write. 

 

I  can't say. I did not go to Montessori and yet I found reading and writing quite easy. My son has had difficulties despite Waldorf's somewhat similar ideas that knitting with its left to right tracking for both eye and hand skills would be helpful. Maybe he would have had an even harder time if he had not had the knitting, but certainly it did not make it easy for him....He is very dextrous and was the best knitter in his class, but it did not translate into specific language areas.  Maybe if he had been at a Montessori school from age 0 or 3 he would not have had these difficulties, but I have not thus far seen anything that indicates that Montessori education prevents or cures dyslexia.

 

 

I'd have to actually observe your son to make any specific comments here. Just based on your words, though, it sounds like Waldorf has the right idea, but is not systematic enough about it. Almost every material the child touches either has a left-to-right orientation, top-to-bottom orientation, or clockwise orientation starting from the bottom left then going to the bottom right or back to the bottom left. Various materials also indirectly prepare for writing by utilizing grips that mirror holding a pencil, lightness of touch, and circular motions. There are also materials that are direct preparations for writing, which are the first indications for the guide if there has been enough indirect preparation. These are the metal insets (which is essentially tracing the frame and inset of various shapes, then drawing parallel serpentine lines within them) and the sandpaper letters (which are exactly like they sound).

 

Also, does Waldorf introduce penmanship formally before the child is writing? If so, this could be a problem. Does it introduce reading before writing? If so, this could also be a problem. Does it emphasize writing with cursive or print? If print, cursive is more appropriate for children. It is also easier for dyslexics. I don't know about Waldorf, but Montessori doesn't claim to cure or prevent dyslexia. Did you maybe mean assist those with dyslexia or something like that? If so, research independent of Montessori has shown that cursive can be easier to read and write for those with dyslexia.

 

Nido (infant) abd toddler environments are cool and can lead to some early advances in the primary casa, but on the whole aren't necessary. The best place for them is with their parents (and probably their mother specifically), but if that isn't an option, these classrooms are a nice alternative. They do have a lot of good ideas that can be implemented at home though.

[Runningmom80]

Speaking to the art concern, My twins are in a children's house. They start year 2 in the fall. There is a lot of art and music in their school, my dd paints daily, she brought home a gigantic stack of artwork. They also do little projects with an art teacher a few times a month.

 

About pretend play, I observed an instance where a child was setting up animals on a map, and started to play, make sounds, etc. he was being rather loud, and the teacher came over and helped him to do the work the "correct" way. This did give me great pause, so much so that I considered removing my older son, which I eventually did, but for other reasons. I don't even remember what the guide told me when I asked! My twins were newborns, so I'll blame that. :) Can you speak to that? Why does the Montessori approach consider a child pretending not productive? I know the philosophy is that they are grounded in the real world, and the imaginary stuff comes later, but if it clearly doesn't come later, how do you reconcile that? Is it about respecting the materials? Thanks for answering all of our questions.

My kids are actually doing really well in Montessori, they are both reading, and not yet 4, and I attribute it to their school. I love Montessori principles in general, but the one thing that bothers me is the pretend/imagination piece.

[Mrs. A]

ISurprisingly not. This phenomenon has been observed in a myriad of children across cultures, even with parents who are illiterate. Just as none teaches a child about language before he spontaneously speaks it as perfectly as he has heard it for his whole life, just as none teaches a child to walk before his time, none need teach a child to write. To do so would only hinder his writing because no child that I've ever encountered nor that Montessori encountered is interested in sitting down and being taught how to write. 

 

 

 

I've been following along with this thread, though haven't commented yet. But I have to say I can't agree with this statement. Parents teach their children to speak right from day one. They start by talking to a baby and teaching him his name and then later by identifying objects for him and repeating the words back to him when they see him make an effort to say the word. No baby says his first words perfectly. 

And as far as writing goes, my two girls have both been very interested in sitting down and being taught to write. They watch me carefully and do their best to imitate. They have delighted in being taught.  

[HumbleThinker]

Speaking to the art concern, My twins are in a children's house. They start year 2 in the fall. There is a lot of art and music in their school, my dd paints daily, she brought home a gigantic stack of artwork. They also do little projects with an art teacher a few times a month.

 

About pretend play, I observed an instance where a child was setting up animals on a map, and started to play, make sounds, etc. he was being rather loud, and the teacher came over and helped him to do the work the "correct" way. This did give me great pause, so much so that I considered removing my older son, which I eventually did, but for other reasons. I don't even remember what the guide told me when I asked! My twins were newborns, so I'll blame that. :) Can you speak to that? Why does the Montessori approach consider a child pretending not productive? I know the philosophy is that they are grounded in the real world, and the imaginary stuff comes later, but if it clearly doesn't come later, how do you reconcile that? Is it about respecting the materials? Thanks for answering all of our questions.

My kids are actually doing really well in Montessori, they are both reading, and not yet 4, and I attribute it to their school. I love Montessori principles in general, but the one thing that bothers me is the pretend/imagination piece.

 

This is a common sticky point for many about Montessori and it's rather nuanced. So yeah, I typed up all the information I thought would be helpful and found it to be too long, so you can skip to the bottom for the TL;DR version.

 

Without knowing all the details of the situation, I'll just speak in generalities. A basic principle of Montessori is non-interference. But there are limits on that principle. The children are free, but they are free to work constructively. To let them be free without limits is simply, in the words of Montessori, allowing them freedom to develop deviations, or in layman's terms unconstructive or even destructive behavior. It was likely not so much about respecting the materials (it could have been), but about keeping the child grounded by redirecting ungrounded behavior to something constructive.

 

The other angle to see this from is that young children, particularly the age I'm presuming your son was, have a strong desire for order. Knowing that these materials are for this purpose and are used that way to reach a desired conclusion gives them great pleasure and is a necessary foundation for development. Thus to Montessorians, disorder is not something that is natural to the child, so disorderly behavior stems from their impulses as opposed to their "inner guide," their natural processes. Impulses in this sense are those desires stemming from a trauma or unmet need from the environment, so are unnatural. And like you said, the child from 0-6 has a concrete mind, so he naturally wants grounded experiences with the environment. Experiences that are detached from reality tells us as adults that he has a need that is not being met by the environment. From 6-12, their mind is abstract, which is the perfect time for fairy tales and all that imaginative stuff. Children who are given imaginative stories or who are left to their imaginations have been shown to be less able to distinguish between reality and fantasy later in life.

 

I'll try to give an example that will hopefully help. Let's take shoe polishing. In my classroom, there will be a certain way the materials are set up on the table and a certain procedure for polishing shoes. If a child is pretending that the shoe she is polishing is a car, she is not getting anything from the usage of the material. Additionally, she is doing damage to her own sense of order, which will inhibit her development in the present and the future. So my most likely choice would be to kindly invite her to try polishing another day; I would make a note to myself to either re-present shoe polishing or, more likely, find some way to connect her to real knowledge/usage of cars such as a Classified Cards set on transportation. This is because her usage of the shoe as a car may represent an unmet interest in cars. I would also note that she chose shoe polishing, so perhaps I could also bring in a small part from a car that she could polish such as a hood ornament. Getting her to polish a shoe isn't the real point; the point here is to ground her in reality.

 

Imaginative play isn't something that is dismissed outright in Montessori, but effects of different incarnations of play are. At the extreme end of the spectrum, you have children who are completely disconnected from reality, trapped in their own mind. But even for a child who just has the occasional day dream, the effects of that behavior vs. them being grounded in reality (which isn't the opposite of having an imagination) can be observed. Both in the moment and afterwards, the child who lets say slips into a day dream once a day is less engaged with his environment, less coordinated, takes less risks, and has less overall physical, emotional, and spiritual gains than the child who works his imagination while still completely grounded in reality.

 

TL;DR version: In Montessori, there are tremendous opportunities for imagination and play while still being grounded in reality. For pretty much anything that an adult could classify as imaginative play that a Montessorian would classify as unconstructive, there's a material in the casa that can meet that need. Forgiving the pun, "there's a mat for that." I can go over some examples if you'd like. Hopefully this didn't ramble on too long (or you just skipped to the TL;DR version). Let me know if anything needs clarifying. Hopefully my example helped a bit.

[HumbleThinker]

I've been following along with this thread, though haven't commented yet. But I have to say I can't agree with this statement. Parents teach their children to speak right from day one. They start by talking to a baby and teaching him his name and then later by identifying objects for him and repeating the words back to him when they see him make an effort to say the word. No baby says his first words perfectly. 

And as far as writing goes, my two girls have both been very interested in sitting down and being taught to write. They watch me carefully and do their best to imitate. They have delighted in being taught.  

 

I'm so glad you decided to comment, especially with these words. They actually get to the heart of Montessori's great discovery, the "secret of childhood." The child is actually the one that does all the work in learning to walk and talk. Yes you absolutely need to talk to your child. Side story, Montessori figured out the 8 million word gap phenomenon ages before Chomsky did. But it is the child's mind that is absorbing every single word you say, the way you say it, the grammar in what you say, your accent, and then reproduces it in stages, eventually exploding into speaking the language as perfectly or imperfectly as he absorbed it. We as adults didn't teach children grammar, we didn't teach them how to vibrate their vocal chords or position their tongue, we didn't teach them vocabulary, we didn't do anything we wouldn't normally do with any other human being. All we do is supply the raw material for his brain to categorize. This is why the first few years of life are the best time for a child to absorb a foreign language. 

 

Expanding this to walking, we didn't do anything to teach a child to walk; we simply walked like we would normally and had interesting things in the environment that would entice him to want to walk so that he could reach it or do it. We don't make the nerves in his legs myalinate any faster, we don't make his brain process the concept of walking faster, and we don't develop his will to walk beyond preparing an environment that encourages him to explore. 

 

These same powers that allow the child to walk and talk with no education, are the same powers that allow him to absorb our entire way of doing things and every quality of the environment around him. It's also the same powers that allow him to absorb the movements that go into writing and then, at one day, unconsciously replicate them as perfectly or imperfectly as he has absorbed them repeatedly. It's all very exciting. The only difference between what your saying and what I'm saying is that you are calling it teaching whereas I am not. I compare it to a flower. Watering it doesn't make it grow; the plant accomplishes this by taking what it needs from the water. We can certainly starve the plant by not giving it water just as we can starve a child's mind by not feeding it, but we don't make either of them grow simply by feeding them. What Montessori's ideas are really in contrast to are the ideas that children need to be molded, that they are blank slates, that they need to be sat down and force fed everything, and that this process can't start until around 5 or 6 years old. Education begins at birth and it only requires an environment that meets the needs of the child. 

[Mrs. A]

I'm so glad you decided to comment, especially with these words. They actually get to the heart of Montessori's great discovery, the "secret of childhood." The child is actually the one that does all the work in learning to walk and talk. Yes you absolutely need to talk to your child. Side story, Montessori figured out the 8 million word gap phenomenon ages before Chomsky did. But it is the child's mind that is absorbing every single word you say, the way you say it, the grammar in what you say, your accent, and then reproduces it in stages, eventually exploding into speaking the language as perfectly or imperfectly as he absorbed it. We as adults didn't teach children grammar, we didn't teach them how to vibrate their vocal chords or position their tongue, we didn't teach them vocabulary, we didn't do anything we wouldn't normally do with any other human being. All we do is supply the raw material for his brain to categorize. This is why the first few years of life are the best time for a child to absorb a foreign language.

 

Expanding this to walking, we didn't do anything to teach a child to walk; we simply walked like we would normally and had interesting things in the environment that would entice him to want to walk so that he could reach it or do it. We don't make the nerves in his legs myalinate any faster, we don't make his brain process the concept of walking faster, and we don't develop his will to walk beyond preparing an environment that encourages him to explore.

 

These same powers that allow the child to walk and talk with no education, are the same powers that allow him to absorb our entire way of doing things and every quality of the environment around him. It's also the same powers that allow him to absorb the movements that go into writing and then, at one day, unconsciously replicate them as perfectly or imperfectly as he has absorbed them repeatedly. It's all very exciting. The only difference between what your saying and what I'm saying is that you are calling it teaching whereas I am not. I compare it to a flower. Watering it doesn't make it grow; the plant accomplishes this by taking what it needs from the water. We can certainly starve the plant by not giving it water just as we can starve a child's mind by not feeding it, but we don't make either of them grow simply by feeding them. What Montessori's ideas are really in contrast to are the ideas that children need to be molded, that they are blank slates, that they need to be sat down and force fed everything, and that this process can't start until around 5 or 6 years old. Education begins at birth and it only requires an environment that meets the needs of the child.

 

Thank you for this explanation. So what you're saying is that every child is born with the inherent capability to do... just about everything, and the determining factor in whether he learns a skill or not, as well as how well he learns to do it, are entirely (?) dependent upon the environment provided for him, whether said environment is purposefully provided by parents, teachers, or is just a result of plain old circumstances. Is that accurate?

 

Re imaginative play before age 6: so when my dd dresses up as a princess and pretends all day to be Snow White, Motessori's theory is that this is a symptom of some unmet need in her life? The theory may be true, I don't know, but "unmet needs" is a hard term for an involved and invested parent to swallow!

[Mrs. A]

Also, (not trying to be provocative here, but am truly interested in a response from a Montessori viewpoint), how would you respond to this criticism of Montessori's method made by Charlotte Mason?  I have a dear friend who is a Montessori guide, but I myself am a great admirer of CM, and so I'm fascinated by the two methods and their similarities and differences! 

[HumbleThinker]

Thank you for this explanation. So what you're saying is that every child is born with the inherent capability to do... just about everything, and the determining factor in whether he learns a skill or not, as well as how well he learns to do it, are entirely (?) dependent upon the environment provided for him, whether said environment is purposefully provided by parents, teachers, or is just a result of plain old circumstances. Is that accurate?

 

 

In very general terms, that's pretty much it. I can go into more detail if you want, or I can just leave it at that. The only major caveat that I'll mention now is that the "powers" as Montessori called it that the child is gifted with at birth go away around 6 years of age. So for instance, I CAN learn a foreign language at 16, but it's going to be infinitely harder than if I was immersed in it at, say, 3.

 

Re imaginative play before age 6: so when my dd dresses up as a princess and pretends all day to be Snow White, Motessori's theory is that this is a symptom of some unmet need in her life? The theory may be true, I don't know, but "unmet needs" is a hard term for an involved and invested parent to swallow!

 

 

Thank you for pointing that out. How I word things is one of the tricks I'm working on in this thread, so I can be much better at discussing Montessori in person. I'll use an example I've been involved in before. Girl loooooooves Frozen; won't stop talking about it or singing that one song everyone keeps singing all the time. Among the many ideas we came up for her was talking about things people do or wear in the winter with cultural folder pictures, have her and her friend that also loves frozen write all the lyrics to that song with the moveable alphabet cards, introduce her to some literature involving winter, as well as a few other ideas I can't think of at the moment.

 

It's not the movie itself that interested her, but some aspect about the movie that she wasn't finding in her environment. For her, it was the singing. For another girl in the classroom, it was clothes. And for others it was just that it was a story, so we read them lots of quality children's literature about real topics. And as a side note, the reason anything on a screen really grabs children is the visual and auditory stimulation. It is so powerful, that it creates effects in their brain that then overpower their inner guide, their natural processes, causing them to attach onto and seek out other such stimulation that the real world cannot possibly provide. It's the same with fantasy; our society is so accustomed to giving children fantasy at a very young age that we've come to think that it's something their naturally drawn to. But it's only because we keep giving it to them and because it is very mentally enticing that children keep appearing as if they want it naturally. But when the more they are connected to their environment, the less they show that they desire such things. Fantasy is much more appropriate for children 6-12 than it is for 0-6.

 

I probably didn't make it that clear, so here is a quote from Montessori that probably puts it much better than I did: â€œYet, when all are agreed that the child loves to imagine, why do we give him only fairy tales and toys on which to practice this gift? If a child can imagine a fairy and fairyland, it will not be difficult for him to imagine America. Instead of hearing it referred to vaguely in conversation, he can help to clarify his own ideas of it by looking at the globe on which it is shown. We often forget that the imagination is a force for the discovery of truthâ€

[Pen]

I wasn't saying it is better (which of course it is but isn't saying much), but simply saying that the idea of society being shaped by children has been proven to be a powerful tool. Unfortunately, only terrible people have taken full advantage of it on a national level. The comparisons between the two stop at this vague notion. Mussolini closed all of her schools before exiling her when she refused to use her schools in the way he wanted. Also unfortunately, scientific research into Montessori has really only picked up in the last decade or two as far as I know. Though I'm not sure what kind of results you would be looking for that could point to Montessori helping to bring peace. Did you have something in mind?

 

 

Surprisingly not. This phenomenon has been observed in a myriad of children across cultures, even with parents who are illiterate. Just as none teaches a child about language before he spontaneously speaks

 

Children who are not exposed to language--for example ones who have been raised by wolves-- do not speak. Parents, or other adults, do teach their children to speak. It isn't spontaneous in a vacuum, and I rather doubt that the writing is spontaneous out of a vacuum either. The children have presumably seen writing at the very least even if their parents do not write. They don't suddenly "burst into writing" in a foreign language they have had no exposure to, do they?

 

it as perfectly as he has heard it for his whole life, just as none teaches a child to walk before his time, none need teach a child to write. To do so would only hinder his writing because no child that I've ever encountered nor that Montessori encountered is interested in sitting down and being taught how to write. 

 

 

I'd have to actually observe your son to make any specific comments here. Just based on your words, though, it sounds like Waldorf has the right idea, but is not systematic enough about it. Almost every material the child touches either has a left-to-right orientation, top-to-bottom orientation, or clockwise orientation starting from the bottom left then going to the bottom right or back to the bottom left. Various materials also indirectly prepare for writing by utilizing grips that mirror holding a pencil, lightness of touch, and circular motions. There are also materials that are direct preparations for writing, which are the first indications for the guide if there has been enough indirect preparation. These are the metal insets (which is essentially tracing the frame and inset of various shapes, then drawing parallel serpentine lines within them) and the sandpaper letters (which are exactly like they sound).

 

Also, does Waldorf introduce penmanship formally before the child is writing? no If so, this could be a problem. Does it introduce reading before writing? together If so, this could also be a problem. Does it emphasize writing with cursive or print? If print, cursive is more appropriate for children. It is also easier for dyslexics. not always  I don't know about Waldorf, but Montessori doesn't claim to cure or prevent dyslexia. Did you maybe mean assist those with dyslexia or something like that? Please see bottom area comments. If so, research independent of Montessori has shown that cursive can be easier to read and write for those with dyslexia. perhaps for some--my ds still struggles with cursive at age 12.

 

 

The point I am trying to make is that with children who do not have trouble with reading and writing, many systems will work well. Montessori's no doubt is one that works well, but so does Waldorf, so does our local public school, so does the nearest Catholic school. For children who do have dyslexia type trouble all this cleaning left to right, knitting left to right etc. does not seem to help.

 

For children who do not have trouble with this area, we could have them play jacks in nursery school and then claim that we have a brilliant pedagogy that will help writing and reading based on our special jacks program.  And then for the ones who have trouble you just say, oh, well, the jacks program does not address dyslexia. But most of our children learn to read and write amazingly with the special jacks program.

 

Nido (infant) abd toddler environments are cool and can lead to some early advances in the primary casa, but on the whole aren't necessary. The best place for them is with their parents (and probably their mother specifically), but if that isn't an option, these classrooms are a nice alternative. They do have a lot of good ideas that can be implemented at home though.

 

 

The main issue that I am having is that you are asking how you would present Montessori to a parent considering it, but you are comparing it to things that are "straw men." To say it does better at peace than Mussolini or Hitler is meaningless. If I were looking now, I would want to know as compared to actual options in my area, which for me could include homeschool, Waldorf, Friends Academy, any number of parochial schools, public school, a several other private schools. If I were somewhere like New York City or the Los Angeles there would be a lot more options.

 

Similarly the idea of cleaning mats so as to help later directionality for writing also seems like a straw man argument. You say that the left to right actions in cleaning and so on help the child burst into writing--but with no evidence that Montessori is actually superior in this regard to other schooling that does not use left to right actions, or for that matter other schooling that does. In my experience, learning to move eyes and hands from left to right whether for reading or writing is rarely a problem in any case, so it seems like a lot of effort is being spent on something that isn't a problem. At the same time, to me the left to right action for the cleaning itself sounds like it is less than optimal for cleaning itself where one wants more creativity (because creativity does not only apply to things like music and art) to approach the task with the direction being suited to the task, rather than dictated by a goal that there is no showing it either is needed for, or helps with. 

 

When I was actually looking into schools after taking my son out of the public school in K, Montessori was my second choice after Waldorf. After then learning first hand of Waldorf flaws, such that we now homeschool, I sometimes wondered if Montessori might not have been the better choice.

 

But on the whole, from this thread, I am now very glad that I did not put him into Montessori, and that he had his K experience in Waldorf which was very nice for him. Montessori, the way you are describing it, comes out sounding cold and rigid, with actions being practiced in the name of future goals for which they may or may not help, and in the meantime: the children's imagination squelched....

that may not be true in reality, but you are looking for practice in explaining Montessori to people, and that is the impression I am left with.

[HumbleThinker]

Also, (not trying to be provocative here, but am truly interested in a response from a Montessori viewpoint), how would you respond to this criticism of Montessori's method made by Charlotte Mason?  I have a dear friend who is a Montessori guide, but I myself am a great admirer of CM, and so I'm fascinated by the two methods and their similarities and differences! 

 

I thought I remembered the name from somewhere. Looked her name up on Wikipedia before I started. I love reading these early criticisms of Montessori because they often contain many of the same critiques that are present today. Another historically interesting critique (that I of course disagree with :p) you may want to look up is "The Montessori System Examined" by William Kilpatrick, the premiere American educator near the turn of the 20th century when Montessori was first gaining traction in the US. From what I hear, Montessori was being considered as the model kindergarten method along with Kilpatrick's method, but his critique soured most of the country to Montessori. Now onto the real matter at hand.

 

So I had way too much typed up in the beginning, so I scrapped that and am typing a much more concise reflection on this letter. Keep in mind that I know next to nothing Charlotte Mason's method, so I'm almost entirely going off this letter. It brings up many of the same critiques I have read in other historical and modern critiques of Montessori.

 

One of the biggest concepts Montessori would bring up that many deny is that skills generalize. So where Mason sees a very narrow value in such things as the building the Pink Tower or any of the sterognostic activities (feeling objects blindfolded), Montessori would point out that these activities refine the child's visual sense and his ability to abstract respectively. Taking the visual sense as an example, the child will of course absorb colors, shapes, etc. in his environment, but it has been observed time and again that he will draw these qualities out of the environment infinitely more when his senses have been refined. A child who hasn't had the raw materials to refine his sense of shade for instance will not be able to distinguish fine shades in the environment as a child or as an adult without a whole lot of work, which can be seen in his inability to grade all seven shades of all eleven colors efficiently or at all. Additionally, any usage of the senses promotes dendrite growth in the brain, so sensorial education in  general is supported by neuroscience.

 

She also seems to think that Montessori is only academically oriented with special focus on educating the senses. But this is far from the truth. Montessori promotes physical, social, and spiritual growth by allowing the child's natural processes to build such things up through the raw material of the environment. I can give you many examples of this if you wish.

 

Which comes to probably the largest point of contention between Montessori and most every other educational model. Montessori explicitly and emphatically believes, based on her observations of children in a free environement, that there is a natural child who will exhibit a consistent set of behaviors when no obstacles are put in his way. So where Mason claims "But if he was a lazy boy who learned in spite of his natural tendencies, then everything he learned will only help him in that particular craft. Handicrafts enrich our joy in life, and might help us get a job, but they don't do anything to influence a person's character," Montessori would counter that there is no such thing as a lazy child in the sense that laziness is not the natural state of a child. The child has developed laziness through mental starvation, a lack of proper connection with the environment, just as a plant would wilt without proper water and soil. And the cure for laziness, and any other deviation in natural behavior, is work in the highest sense of the word. Not busy work, but true, constructive work that is meaningful to the child. And she worked out what was meaningful to the child, as all Monessorians do, through rigorous observation.

 

One quick note that is partially related to the last point. Mason seems to be very focused on character, which she thinks needs to be molded by an adult. While Montessori may agree that character should be molded depending on how you define character, she says this about the timing of such molding: "The development of character comes after the children have begun to concentrate—because there is no character without personality. We cannot develop a character in a capricious, disorderly, inattentive, personâ€

 

Thank you for the link, and I hope you find Montessori's response to it (which I've hopefully channeled correctly) as inspiring as you find the letter itself. 

[HumbleThinker]

 

 

Children who are not exposed to language--for example ones who have been raised by wolves-- do not speak. Parents, or other adults, do teach their children to speak. It isn't spontaneous in a vacuum, and I rather doubt that the writing is spontaneous out of a vacuum either. The children have presumably seen writing at the very least even if their parents do not write. They don't suddenly "burst into writing" in a foreign language they have had no exposure to, do they?

 

They indeed need raw material, speech or writing, from the environment, but there is no actual teaching of speaking or writing or reading. Just preparations such as those I've described.Even within their own school, the younger children will see the older children speaking, reading and writing.

 

 

The point I am trying to make is that with children who do not have trouble with reading and writing, many systems will work well. Montessori's no doubt is one that works well, but so does Waldorf, so does our local public school, so does the nearest Catholic school. For children who do have dyslexia type trouble all this cleaning left to right, knitting left to right etc. does not seem to help.

 

For children who do not have trouble with this area, we could have them play jacks in nursery school and then claim that we have a brilliant pedagogy that will help writing and reading based on our special jacks program.  And then for the ones who have trouble you just say, oh, well, the jacks program does not address dyslexia. But most of our children learn to read and write amazingly with the special jacks program.

 

There are very good public schools, private schools, home schools, progressive schools, etc. that can produce some good results. But as far as educating from birth goes and being an aid to life, I personally haven't found anything that is better than Montessori. Some friends of mine and some children I have observed with dyslexia who were Montessori children have said that it helped immensely or I've observed that it helped immensely. And I can only repeat that research independent of Montessori states that learning cursive is better for dyslexics, is much more appropriate for young children, and makes learning print later much easier than if cursive is attempted to be learned after print. I'm sorry if this has not worked this way for your child.

 

 

Similarly the idea of cleaning mats so as to help later directionality for writing also seems like a straw man argument. You say that the left to right actions in cleaning and so on help the child burst into writing--but with no evidence that Montessori is actually superior in this regard to other schooling that does not use left to right actions, or for that matter other schooling that does. In my experience, learning to move eyes and hands from left to right whether for reading or writing is rarely a problem in any case, so it seems like a lot of effort is being spent on something that isn't a problem. At the same time, to me the left to right action for the cleaning itself sounds like it is less than optimal for cleaning itself where one wants more creativity (because creativity does not only apply to things like music and art) to approach the task with the direction being suited to the task, rather than dictated by a goal that there is no showing it either is needed for, or helps with. 

 

I can only say that my experience and the experience of other Montessorians has been different than yours. I've found that tracking problems, following the direction of text or any object for that matter, is a noticeable problem that is assisted by Montessori methods. Also, children at the age that they would be introduced to washing a table, etc. want the order of knowing how something is done in the environment they are in. After absorbing how it is done, they then want to push themselves to copy those motions. 

 

When I was actually looking into schools after taking my son out of the public school in K, Montessori was my second choice after Waldorf. After then learning first hand of Waldorf flaws, such that we now homeschool, I sometimes wondered if Montessori might not have been the better choice.

 

But on the whole, from this thread, I am now very glad that I did not put him into Montessori, and that he had his K experience in Waldorf which was very nice for him. Montessori, the way you are describing it, comes out sounding cold and rigid, with actions being practiced in the name of future goals for which they may or may not help, and in the meantime: the children's imagination squelched....

that may not be true in reality, but you are looking for practice in explaining Montessori to people, and that is the impression I am left with.

 

If this is how it is coming across, then I am not explaining it properly. Montessori is scientific, very scientific. I'd venture more scientific than any other method precisely because the beginning, middle, and end of it is all about scientifically rigorous observation. This means objectively observing and recording the child's behavior without judgment but equipped with the knowledge of how he develops, just like a botanist is equipped with the knowledge of how flowers develop. Yet even this leads to the requirement that the guide is loving and engaging; anything less will take away from concentration. The guide must have faith in that glimpse of the natural child observed during concentration instead of only seeing the child who may be fearful, violent, or completely uncoordinated. She compares this to the faith of the devout Christian, herself being a devout Catholic. Yet love for the child also manifests in not abandoning him to his base urges, while not interfering in work resulting from his natural processes. Montessori expressed the great care she took in walking this typerope. The guide literally guides the child through all of the ups and downs in this process, all the while fostering confidence, social unity, and a plethora of other positive character traits. There are plenty of opportunities for creativity, choice, free expression, etc., just not in the traditional ways most people think children should be expressing these characteristics.

 

If Montessori still sounds too rigid, then I am not explaining it properly, or your beliefs for what is best for the child and what a Montessorian believes is best for the child do not align. Or both. And thanks again for such great practice and discussion. This has been a great help and very enjoyable.

[Pen]

...

She also seems to think that Montessori is only academically oriented with special focus on educating the senses. But this is far from the truth. Montessori promotes physical, social, and spiritual growth by allowing the child's natural processes to build such things up through the raw material of the environment. I can give you many examples of this if you wish.

 

...

 

Yes. Please give examples of this.

[Pen]

They indeed need raw material, speech or writing, from the environment, but there is no actual teaching of speaking or writing or reading. Just preparations such as those I've described.Even within their own school, the younger children will see the older children speaking, reading and writing.

 

 

There are very good public schools, private schools, home schools, progressive schools, etc. that can produce some good results. But as far as educating from birth goes and being an aid to life, I personally haven't found anything that is better than Montessori. Some friends of mine and some children I have observed with dyslexia who were Montessori children have said that it helped immensely or I've observed that it helped immensely. And I can only repeat that research independent of Montessori states that learning cursive is better for dyslexics, is much more appropriate for young children, and makes learning print later much easier than if cursive is attempted to be learned after print. I'm sorry if this has not worked this way for your child.

 

 

 

I can only say that my experience and the experience of other Montessorians has been different than yours. I've found that tracking problems, following the direction of text or any object for that matter, is a noticeable problem that is assisted by Montessori methods. Also, children at the age that they would be introduced to washing a table, etc. want the order of knowing how something is done in the environment they are in. After absorbing how it is done, they then want to push themselves to copy those motions. 

 

When I was actually looking into schools after taking my son out of the public school in K, Montessori was my second choice after Waldorf. After then learning first hand of Waldorf flaws, such that we now homeschool, I sometimes wondered if Montessori might not have been the better choice.

 

But on the whole, from this thread, I am now very glad that I did not put him into Montessori, and that he had his K experience in Waldorf which was very nice for him. Montessori, the way you are describing it, comes out sounding cold and rigid, with actions being practiced in the name of future goals for which they may or may not help, and in the meantime: the children's imagination squelched....

that may not be true in reality, but you are looking for practice in explaining Montessori to people, and that is the impression I am left with.

 

If this is how it is coming across, then I am not explaining it properly. Montessori is scientific, very scientific. I'd venture more scientific than any other method precisely because the beginning, middle, and end of it is all about scientifically rigorous observation. This means objectively observing and recording the child's behavior without judgment but equipped with the knowledge of how he develops, just like a botanist is equipped with the knowledge of how flowers develop. Yet even this leads to the requirement that the guide is loving and engaging; anything less will take away from concentration. The guide must have faith in that glimpse of the natural child observed during concentration instead of only seeing the child who may be fearful, violent, or completely uncoordinated. She compares this to the faith of the devout Christian, herself being a devout Catholic. Yet love for the child also manifests in not abandoning him to his base urges, while not interfering in work resulting from his natural processes. Montessori expressed the great care she took in walking this typerope. The guide literally guides the child through all of the ups and downs in this process, all the while fostering confidence, social unity, and a plethora of other positive character traits. There are plenty of opportunities for creativity, choice, free expression, etc., just not in the traditional ways most people think children should be expressing these characteristics.

 

If Montessori still sounds too rigid, then I am not explaining it properly, or your beliefs for what is best for the child and what a Montessorian believes is best for the child do not align. Or both. And thanks again for such great practice and discussion. This has been a great help and very enjoyable.

 

 

The peaceful society idea would be appealing, but you need to be able to better articulate how that comes to be, I think. 

 

The idea that M. improves concentration and executive function would be, I think, extremely positive to a lot of parents. Unlike the ability to track left to right which in my experience--different than yours--isn't a huge problem to be remedied, I do see that problems with focus, concentration, and, basically, aspects of executive function, are the problem behind numerous posts on these forums of things that people are having trouble with.

 

Possibly you could get around what is coming across as a sense of undue rigidity and squelched creativity and imagination problem by stressing that the children are still free to engage in that during recess (if that is true) or after school, but that during school and when using school materials, they are learning to use the materials as prescribed...and perhaps linking that up to being a way to work on the concentration and executive function.

 

You might also find research by Ellen Langer, a Harvard professor, of interest, regarding ways to present material so as to maintain greater creative thinking. Or maybe someone else reading this thread would be.

[HumbleThinker]

Yes. Please give examples of this.

 

The practical life area is all about movement. Every single material from pouring water, to knitting, to watering plants, to hauling mulch invites the child to refine his movements. Through these activities, he gains strength, fine and gross motor control, exactness, and confidence in all his movements. Walking on the Line and the Silence Game are the two most explicit movement activities that more than the other materials invite the child to INHIBIT his movements both as a means of satisfying his own interest and for the collective good (though the latter is rather much less intentional).

 

The two movement activities are also indirect preparations for meditation. This is hard to put into words, but the children who really engage in these two activities truly reach a state of meditation that leads to a very deep sense of calm. And since the children are encouraged to do these as a whole class, they become much closer as a community. Trained consultants can tell the classes who walk on the line regularly play the silence game regularly by the depth of the concentration and the social cohesion in the casa.

 

Another part of practical life is grace and courtesy, which is what Montessori called the "social lubricant." These lessons equip children to handle a myriad of social situations, which helps him orient to the environment, feel confident, have smooth social interactions, and to practice prosocial behaviors. Examples of grace and courtesy include how to pass by another person, serve a guest, blow their nose, and observing someone's work. That practical life provides all of this is why Montessori considered it the most important area of the casa and why it is the first area the child experiences instead of any of the academic areas. It is the key to everything else the child will do. Would you like examples from other areas of the casa?

[HumbleThinker]

The peaceful society idea would be appealing, but you need to be able to better articulate how that comes to be, I think. 

 

The idea that M. improves concentration and executive function would be, I think, extremely positive to a lot of parents. Unlike the ability to track left to right which in my experience--different than yours--isn't a huge problem to be remedied, I do see that problems with focus, concentration, and, basically, aspects of executive function, are the problem behind numerous posts on these forums of things that people are having trouble with.

 

Possibly you could get around what is coming across as a sense of undue rigidity and squelched creativity and imagination problem by stressing that the children are still free to engage in that during recess (if that is true) or after school, but that during school and when using school materials, they are learning to use the materials as prescribed...and perhaps linking that up to being a way to work on the concentration and executive function.

 

You might also find research by Ellen Langer, a Harvard professor, of interest, regarding ways to present material so as to maintain greater creative thinking. Or maybe someone else reading this thread would be.

 

Thank you for the tips; I will take them to heart. 

 

As for the creativity and imagination, it's catered to throughout the casa just not in the typical ways people think of. And the children are free to go outside when they wish in the optimal school setup.

 

Executive function is definitely a great plus, but I would be concerned that this would overshadow the broader sense of Montessori as an aid to life. And just as the behavior observed during concentration is a glimpse of behavior to come with further development, the society in the casa is a glimpse of what society could be when these children are grown up. Personally, I think that that glimpse justifies sticking with a Montessori environment as long a parent can afford to keep their child in it. But I suppose this might not be as important as executive function to a parent who is looking specifically for an environment that fosters that.

 

The blog mariamontessori.com has a lot of good articles written by Montessorians much more experienced and articulate than I (thankfully haha). A two-part post entitled "Keeping it Real" is a notable entry that is relevant to the topic of creativity and imagination. The post also has some reference to scientific research, which you seem to be passionate about http://mariamontessori.com/mm/?p=1396

[Pen]

The practical life area is all about movement. Every single material from pouring water, to knitting, to watering plants, to hauling mulch invites the child to refine his movements. Through these activities, he gains strength, fine and gross motor control, exactness, and confidence in all his movements. Walking on the Line and the Silence Game are the two most explicit movement activities that more than the other materials invite the child to INHIBIT his movements both as a means of satisfying his own interest and for the collective good (though the latter is rather much less intentional).

 

The two movement activities are also indirect preparations for meditation. This is hard to put into words, but the children who really engage in these two activities truly reach a state of meditation that leads to a very deep sense of calm. And since the children are encouraged to do these as a whole class, they become much closer as a community. Trained consultants can tell the classes who walk on the line regularly play the silence game regularly by the depth of the concentration and the social cohesion in the casa.

 

Another part of practical life is grace and courtesy, which is what Montessori called the "social lubricant." These lessons equip children to handle a myriad of social situations, which helps him orient to the environment, feel confident, have smooth social interactions, and to practice prosocial behaviors. Examples of grace and courtesy include how to pass by another person, serve a guest, blow their nose, and observing someone's work. That practical life provides all of this is why Montessori considered it the most important area of the casa and why it is the first area the child experiences instead of any of the academic areas. It is the key to everything else the child will do. Would you like examples from other areas of the casa?

 

Yes.

 

And what is the Silence Game?

 

How are they taught to pass by another person and to blow their nose?

[Pen]

Thank you for the tips; I will take them to heart. 

 

As for the creativity and imagination, it's catered to throughout the casa just not in the typical ways people think of. And the children are free to go outside when they wish in the optimal school setup.

 

Executive function is definitely a great plus, but I would be concerned that this would overshadow the broader sense of Montessori as an aid to life. And just as the behavior observed during concentration is a glimpse of behavior to come with further development, the society in the casa is a glimpse of what society could be when these children are grown up. Personally, I think that that glimpse justifies sticking with a Montessori environment as long a parent can afford to keep their child in it. But I suppose this might not be as important as executive function to a parent who is looking specifically for an environment that fosters that.

 

The blog mariamontessori.com has a lot of good articles written by Montessorians much more experienced and articulate than I (thankfully haha). A two-part post entitled "Keeping it Real" is a notable entry that is relevant to the topic of creativity and imagination. The post also has some reference to scientific research, which you seem to be passionate about http://mariamontessori.com/mm/?p=1396

 

 

When one visits schools on behalf of a prospective student, especially private schools, one finds that each claims that it is the best. But there never seems to be all that much to substantiate the claim, other than teachers' belief that what one has devoted oneself to teaching must be the best, and each tends to see the positive side (and often perhaps to miss the negative, I think).

 

Also parents who are with kids there and are happy, are happy. When they find that they are no longer happy with it, and can't change things, they leave. Or at least, so it is in my experience, with other private schools. 

 

Do say more about Montessori in the broader sense as an aid to life. That sounds fruitful.

 

How, by the way, does Montessori school deal with multicultural issues, race, religion, ethnicity and so on, if they come up in any way in the course of what is done there? Learning about other people, places, countries, history?  All that is likely to affect peace.

[Mrs. A]

I probably didn't make it that clear, so here is a quote from Montessori that probably puts it much better than I did: â€œYet, when all are agreed that the child loves to imagine, why do we give him only fairy tales and toys on which to practice this gift? If a child can imagine a fairy and fairyland, it will not be difficult for him to imagine America. Instead of hearing it referred to vaguely in conversation, he can help to clarify his own ideas of it by looking at the globe on which it is shown. We often forget that the imagination is a force for the discovery of truthâ€

 

 

Charlotte Mason would agree wholeheartedly that the imagination is a force for the discovery of truth.  That's why she was so big on feeding the mind its proper food - ideas. Would you agree that Ideas can be found in both fairy tales and in stories based in reality or would you disagree? I would think that a balance of both types of stories would be beneficial, even to the under 6 crowd. 

 

 

 

 

She also seems to think that Montessori is only academically oriented with special focus on educating the senses. But this is far from the truth. Montessori promotes physical, social, and spiritual growth by allowing the child's natural processes to build such things up through the raw material of the environment. I can give you many examples of this if you wish.

 

I'd be especially interested in examples of spiritual growth. 

 

 

 

 

 

There are very good public schools, private schools, home schools, progressive schools, etc. that can produce some good results. But as far as educating from birth goes and being an aid to life, I personally haven't found anything that is better than Montessori. 

 

I think that this is perhaps my biggest stumbling block with all this. Maybe I just don't like to think that my way is not "the best way" (and that could very well be the entire problem!), but it seems that it's just not realistic to insist that Montessori's method is the only way, or the best way in which a child can achieve perfection. Coming from a spiritual standpoint, no one can achieve perfection in this life and even with the most perfectly prepared environment, you will have children who come from imperfect families and who are in imperfect situations outside of school. And even if one acknowledges that perhaps perfection is not possible and that we all must strive to help our children to move along the path to perfection as far as is possible, that still doesn't take into account the idea that not all children will achieve the same level of perfection. Some will be left behind and some will excel, as is the case everywhere. 

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that by implying that there is a "best" way, one also implies that all other ways are inferior, and to be honest I'm not entirely convinced that Montessori did discover the superior way to help children develop. I'm tired and my thoughts are not coherent right now, but I hope I'll be able to come back later and elaborate a bit more.... 

[Ausmumof3]

What all this makes me think of for some reason is the plant example. Perfect hothouse flowers grown in the perfect environment often lack scent. They lack resilience for the outside world too. Perfect supermarket fruit doesn't have the unique flavour of that heirloom variety grown on great grandpas farm. I kind of think children and plants are unique and they each do best in their ideal environment but the ideal environment varies from plant to plant. If all children are daisies it would be fine. But some are desert plants and others are tropical rainforest plants. Put them in the same environment and one will flourish and another will die. My ds would love a work and nonfiction environment but if dd was discouraged from imaginary games she would just wither away!!!

[IsabelC]

I was really turned off Montessori very early on when I read a book of suggested activities (I don't recall its title, or whether it was an officially endorsed book). The activities seemed to be very, well, nitpicky and straightjacketed, for want of a better description. It was all "put items a, b and c on a tray thus-ly and show the child how to pick up a with her right hand in a particular grip and do precisely this activity". It said (or maybe implied - this was a while ago, so I can't quote exactly) that the child should be forbidden from using those items for any other purpose, or from putting them in the "wrong" place, or using more than one prepared activity at a time. Now, my kids are the kind of kids who will take three different toys or games, mix up the parts and invent a totally new game out of it. I felt that Montessori would entail a massive amount of restrictions on their energy, freedom and creativity. I wonder whether I totally misunderstood it, or whether perhaps it's a method that suits only some children particularly well.

 

ETA - I hope that the above doesn't come across as hostile to your methodology and work. I am just asking out of pure curiosity. 

[HumbleThinker]

Yes.

 

And what is the Silence Game?

 

How are they taught to pass by another person and to blow their nose?

 

What is the silence game? Amazing, that's what it is. Seriously though, the whole class is invited, and can freely decline, to come to a spot of the guide's choosing to sit comfortably, close their eyes, and be as still as they possibly can. There's a lot of activities that will have prepared for this, including walking on the line. The guide will then go to a different spot across the room, whispers each child's name one at a time, then the children move as quietly as they can to the new spot. The silence is then held for as long as the children are interested to, then a calm poem or song can be recited. After the first time, the only thing the guide (or a child!) does to begin the silence game is hold up a serene picture with the word silence written on the back.

 

Grace and courtesy lessons are taught in small groups (3-4) before the skill being presented is needed. So I wouldn't be showing children how to blow their nose when they have stuffy noses or be showing children how to pass by right after they walked through someone. Almost all these skills involve at least two people (blowing one's nose being a notable exception), so I would first role play the skill with a child or two, then invite each child to present the skill and be presented the skill. So for passing by for instance, I would invite two children to talk to each other, I would say excuse me, one would step to the side, and I would walk behind them. I can then do this with other children and even be one of the people talking that a child asks to pass by. These presentations are short, a few minutes. Then I invite the children to keep practicing with each other or to show other children.

 

Quickly, sensorial not only focuses on refining the senses, but also involve a lot of control of movement. For instance, when building the pink tower, it takes a lot of gross motor control as well as hand eye coordination to place the cubes just perfectly, especially the last 1cm cube. The sensorial materials also invite an inhibition of movement. It takes a lot of inhibition for instance to just strike the bell you want to listen to once and with the correct amount of force. It even takes a lot of inhibition not to touch the very shiny silver cap of each bell.

 

Many activities in the language area overtly invite creative movement. For example, there is an oral activity that prepares for learning about adverbs. The children are given a verb, such as sing, and act it out, but the guide politely tells them that they did want the child to do the action that way. The child then does the action another way and the process repeats until the child figures out that he needs to know HOW the guide wants him to perform the action. This activity is reintroduced in reading when children more formally learn about adverbs without calling them adverbs. They'll either make adverbial phrases with labels or write them and then act them out. A number of language activities are done in groups, which encourage constructive socialization. When we get to sentences, even though they are individual activities, sometimes the sentences the children are invited to act out require many people to perform, so they will need to invite others and explain what they need to act out. And with things like cultural stories and sandpaper letters, each child is only given some of the information but will then absorb the rest from observing children who have been shown letters they haven't or by another child directly showing them letters they haven't been presented by the guide yet.

 

The math area again, like every other area, involves movement. Lots of going back and forth with golden beads for instance. Lots of moving around small pieces. And lots of needing a good foundation of order so that the activity is set up in a way that will not cause the child undue hardship; the math itself is challenging enough, so this is one reason why order is so highly encouraged way back in practical life and sensorial where you may believe we are being too rigid. There's also group activities for the four operations since each involves multiple quantities being combined or a single quantity being broken up. Children love to take turns being the one in charge.

 

Is that a good number of examples?

[HumbleThinker]

When one visits schools on behalf of a prospective student, especially private schools, one finds that each claims that it is the best. But there never seems to be all that much to substantiate the claim, other than teachers' belief that what one has devoted oneself to teaching must be the best, and each tends to see the positive side (and often perhaps to miss the negative, I think).

 

Also parents who are with kids there and are happy, are happy. When they find that they are no longer happy with it, and can't change things, they leave. Or at least, so it is in my experience, with other private schools. 

 

Do say more about Montessori in the broader sense as an aid to life. That sounds fruitful.

 

How, by the way, does Montessori school deal with multicultural issues, race, religion, ethnicity and so on, if they come up in any way in the course of what is done there? Learning about other people, places, countries, history?  All that is likely to affect peace.

 

Oh wow, you're full of great questions. Hopefully that didn't sound patronizing. Education as an aid to life means that the whole child is educated, which requires him to independently act within his environment. True education is not a set of skills and knowledge that adults decide the child should know and that children have to be directly given by the adult. As an aid to life, education caters to the the natural processes of human life that, when catered to, construct a man or woman that far exceeds any arbitrary expectations we can have of them. Only through observation can we determine when we properly catering to these processes of self- construction and when we are putting obstacles in the way, including by not setting limits within the environment. The idea can be summed up in one of the famous maxims of Montessori said by a child: "help me to help myself."

 

In Montessori classrooms, there is singing and dancing and games, which can and do include such things from other cultures. There are also materials called "Cultural Folders" that have pictures of cultures from every continent that humans are native to (so everyone but Antarctica). There is a general folder for each continent and a folder for a number of subcategories in each continent, such as food, people, and clothing. I'm blanking on the exact number right now. The point is for the children to see how alike humans are instead of just focusing on their differences. History is more so left to the elementary level where the children there pretty much want the entire universe. 

[HumbleThinker]

Charlotte Mason would agree wholeheartedly that the imagination is a force for the discovery of truth.  That's why she was so big on feeding the mind its proper food - ideas. Would you agree that Ideas can be found in both fairy tales and in stories based in reality or would you disagree? I would think that a balance of both types of stories would be beneficial, even to the under 6 crowd. 

 

I would agree that ideas can be found in fairy tales, but I would disagree that these ideas are appropriate for children in the first plane of development 0-6. They are really looking for more concrete ideas at this age. This is why at this age you will generally find children wanting to know the name of evvvvvvvvverything.

 

 

 

I'd be especially interested in examples of spiritual growth. 

 

Walking on the line and the silence game are two huge examples of materials promoting spiritual growth. Not only are the children inhibiting their motions, they are calming their mind, focusing on a singular movement or lack of movement. It's essentially meditation. In general, though, spiritual growth is also very closely tied with social growth. With the three year mixed age grouping, the older children find a great love for the younger ones in comforting them when they make the same mistakes that the older ones made when they first started in the casa. And when the teacher has truly "disappeared" in the casa, children will admire each other's work faster and with more sincerity than adults. When children recognize what everything in the environment can offer, they will also develop a care and love for plant and animal life that children are often accused of not having. Activities such as gardening, learning parts of a flower, the botany cabinet (leaf shapes), and maintaining the bird feeder will all encourage the natural development of spiritual growth.

 

I think that this is perhaps my biggest stumbling block with all this. Maybe I just don't like to think that my way is not "the best way" (and that could very well be the entire problem!), but it seems that it's just not realistic to insist that Montessori's method is the only way, or the best way in which a child can achieve perfection. Coming from a spiritual standpoint, no one can achieve perfection in this life and even with the most perfectly prepared environment, you will have children who come from imperfect families and who are in imperfect situations outside of school. And even if one acknowledges that perhaps perfection is not possible and that we all must strive to help our children to move along the path to perfection as far as is possible, that still doesn't take into account the idea that not all children will achieve the same level of perfection. Some will be left behind and some will excel, as is the case everywhere. 

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that by implying that there is a "best" way, one also implies that all other ways are inferior, and to be honest I'm not entirely convinced that Montessori did discover the superior way to help children develop. I'm tired and my thoughts are not coherent right now, but I hope I'll be able to come back later and elaborate a bit more.... 

 

 

I perfectly understand where you are coming from. I have a Master's degree in early childhood development with a license to teach, to I know very well the perfectly valid position that there isn't a one size fits all approach to education. Each child is different, so insisting that one way is the "best way" or whatever is ridiculous. But I think this is only the case because every other method devised is based solely or at best predominantly on the philosophies and prejudices of adults who have not observed children in a prepared environment for them.

 

Thus, if they are basing their ideas on observations at all, they are basing them on behaviors caused by continual living in a suboptimal environment. This is why Montessori calls the classroom a laboratory; it's a setting for each and every adult to continually learn what children need in general and what each child individually needs. That she rightly calls her method the "Child's Method" instead of the "Montessori Method" I believe exemplifies how it can be all things to all children. It's so methodical yet so flexible that it can adapt to the needs of children in real time. I can't think of another method that can truly say that yet be as methodical as Montessori education is.

 

This is why the method has worked for completely destitute families and ridiculously rich ones. Her first casa was for destitute children of illiterate slum families in Rome. Her second casa was for orphans of the greatest earthquake in European history. There's been casa in the slums of India, refugee camps in Africa, extremely rough communities in America, island villages in New Zealand, and wealthy suburbs in Europe. And the one's who "follow the child" all yield the same positive results and lead to the singular that "work is the cure." I'll freely admit that I may have been pushing the perfection angle too hard. But even as I see some public and private schools incrementally making progress because of implementing this or that behavioral management technique or this or that reading curriculum, I don't see the same unlimited potential for the child's development as I see in Montessori. Their methods aren't as methodical, aren't as flexible, and aren't responding to scientifically rigorous observations of the child.

 

Yes there will be exceptions, but they will be the absolute most extreme situations that simply cannot be sustained until the child connects with the environment. And if we accept that children have different potentials, which is likely true, they still have the same natural processes that, when met, will lead them to develop according to their potential. This is why Montessori guides are encouraged not to make promises to parents such as their child will be writing by 4 and reading by 4.5 or 5. Statements like these distract from the fact that the child will do all of those things when he is ready; we simply need to trust that it will happen and constantly observe to ensure that we are providing the proper environment for it to happen.

 

Hopefully that wasn't too long of a ramble. I don't want to make it sound like I'm discounting what you are saying. I just want to give the full picture of someone who used to think that way until gaining a deep understanding of Montessori. 

[HumbleThinker]

What all this makes me think of for some reason is the plant example. Perfect hothouse flowers grown in the perfect environment often lack scent. They lack resilience for the outside world too. Perfect supermarket fruit doesn't have the unique flavour of that heirloom variety grown on great grandpas farm. I kind of think children and plants are unique and they each do best in their ideal environment but the ideal environment varies from plant to plant. If all children are daisies it would be fine. But some are desert plants and others are tropical rainforest plants. Put them in the same environment and one will flourish and another will die. My ds would love a work and nonfiction environment but if dd was discouraged from imaginary games she would just wither away!!!

 

Very interesting insight and a very good point. This is precisely why independence is so essential to the Montessori environment. Particularly in the first plane of development (0-6), the natural processes of children function largely the same, so in this sense they are the same variety of flower. But there will of course be individual differences, especially as the child approaches 4 and later 5 and 6, so in this sense they are different varieties of flowers. This is why the Montessori guide must have the knowledge of child development to know what all children need, while also being able to observe what each child as an individual needs. With the knowledge of theory and observation, the guide will know how he or she needs to adjust himself or the environment to meet each child's needs.

[IsabelC]

I would agree that ideas can be found in fairy tales, but I would disagree that these ideas are appropriate for children in the first plane of development 0-6. They are really looking for more concrete ideas at this age. This is why at this age you will generally find children wanting to know the name of evvvvvvvvverything.

 

 

That seems to be opposite to how the Waldorf approach works, where younger children are considered to be in a "dreamlike" stage and given a diet of faeries and gnomes and pastels rather than information and realism. Or maybe I have cherry-picked oversimplified versions of both methodologies? I guess what I have trouble with in both cases is the notion that all children go through a series of standardized, Piaget-esque stages in which specific learning goals and styles should be emphasized. There seems to be little room for outliers of any kind. This could be a positive or negative thing. Would an extremely hyperactive child tend to calm down in the presence of other children working purposefully in a thoughtfully prepared environment?

[HumbleThinker]

I was really turned off Montessori very early on when I read a book of suggested activities (I don't recall its title, or whether it was an officially endorsed book). The activities seemed to be very, well, nitpicky and straightjacketed, for want of a better description. It was all "put items a, b and c on a tray thus-ly and show the child how to pick up a with her right hand in a particular grip and do precisely this activity". It said (or maybe implied - this was a while ago, so I can't quote exactly) that the child should be forbidden from using those items for any other purpose, or from putting them in the "wrong" place, or using more than one prepared activity at a time. Now, my kids are the kind of kids who will take three different toys or games, mix up the parts and invent a totally new game out of it. I felt that Montessori would entail a massive amount of restrictions on their energy, freedom and creativity. I wonder whether I totally misunderstood it, or whether perhaps it's a method that suits only some children particularly well.

 

ETA - I hope that the above doesn't come across as hostile to your methodology and work. I am just asking out of pure curiosity. 

 

Not at all. Any response is welcome and your perception is always valid because it's how you feel. I may agree or disagree with your reasonings for feeling that way, but you shouldn't feel that feeling negative about Montessori is hostile.

 

This sounds like these activities were written in the style of an "album," which is what we have to write for each area of the casa during training. The practical life activities in particular are written in, let's say, excruciating detail, but for a very good purpose. The overarching idea is that the child is extremely interested by his very nature in order. They want to know that this is how something is used in this environment so that they have a very clear goal to meet in perfecting their usage of all things in the environment.

 

So in more detail, first, each practical life activity has "points of interest," movements that will catch a child's eye, enticing him to move in a way he might not be used to. These movements are exaggerated by the adult to increase the likelihood that they are brought to the child's immediate attention. For instance, when washing a table, the small circular movements near the edge of the table followed by large circular movements in the middle of the table entice the child to copy these actions perfectly by repeated practice. Second, the idea that each material is used for a specific task creates order in the child's mind. So if you think it would be appropriate for your children to make their own games, the most orderly way to accomplish that would be to have materials set out specifically for that purpose, while the other materials are left for their specific purposes. Third, when each material has a specific place it goes back to, this helps the child orient to the environment, gaining confidence that he can act upon the environment independently. If everything just goes back wherever, then he will constantly be wondering where things are and probably have to come to you for help on a regular basis. This also creates inefficiencies in the child's mind that can distract them from the concentrated work that leads to optimal development. 

 

So it may seem like it is restricting energy, but it is really channeling energy in a controlled way that the child not only needs but naturally desires. When children have the competence and the confidence to will themselves to do precise tasks with a precise set of materials on their own, then they are much more equipped to do activities that are traditionally considered to be outlets for his creativity. Let me know if that was helpful or not.

[HumbleThinker]

That seems to be opposite to how the Waldorf approach works, where younger children are considered to be in a "dreamlike" stage and given a diet of faeries and gnomes and pastels rather than information and realism. Or maybe I have cherry-picked oversimplified versions of both methodologies? I guess what I have trouble with in both cases is the notion that all children go through a series of standardized, Piaget-esque stages in which specific learning goals and styles should be emphasized. There seems to be little room for outliers of any kind. This could be a positive or negative thing. Would an extremely hyperactive child tend to calm down in the presence of other children working purposefully in a thoughtfully prepared environment?

 

I couldn't tell you about Waldorf on this point, but Motnessori does consider fairy tales more appropriate for the second plane child (6-12). In one of her observations, she noticed that the younger ones would remain sitting for a fairy tale just to be polite while the older children were actually enamored with it. Given a choice, the younger ones would rather work on something else.

 

Here is one of Montessori's many comments on fairy tales, keeping in mind that this is said in context of the first plane child (0-6): “A fairy tale is pleasant, like the theatre or cinema. Both are exciting and pleasurable, but do not lead to real progress. Playing with toys is similar. Nothing develops from it; there is no progress. Pleasure does not expand our energies and our powers, but individual effort does†

 

The planes or stages are better seen as guidelines that assist out observations than strict demarcations. Montessori compared her observations of the stages of children to that of a butterfly. There is the larvae, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, each having their own specific needs and processes despite being the same organism. So while there could be minor variations in each organism, every butterfly goes through these four stages. 

 

One of the maxims of Montessori is that "work is the cure." And honestly, hyperactivity can be much easier to channel than inactivity because the hyperactive child at least has the energy to focus towards the environment. The inactive child usually has some sort of defense up that must first be let down before their energies can be focused on the environment. Society traditionally complicates this issue by labeling the hyperactive child as "bad" and the inactive child as "good."

[IsabelC]

Thank you for your kindness and patience with answering questions :)

 

So, with cleaning the table, I actually teach it the other way around. I ask the child to wipe off the table. I watch what she does, and make suggestions if she isn't doing it effectively or appears frustrated. That way, if she can't accomplish the task at a reasonable level of competence, I can help. But if she happily and successfully completes the task, I am not going to worry overmuch about whether she used circular movements or some other kind of movements.

 

I really do see the attraction in a certain amount of orderliness. Doubtless if I were a bit more orderly, I would not experience mini disasters such as one child storing scissors in her bed and another using her toothbrush to clean the basin! On the other hand, though, I am not understanding what is so wrong with, say, using MAB blocks to build a tower, zoo or racing track instead of for math.

 

When children have the competence and the confidence to will themselves to do precise tasks with a precise set of materials on their own, then they are much more equipped to do activities that are traditionally considered to be outlets for his creativity.

 

Do you see a similarity between this idea and SWB's theme of the grammar stage as creating building blocks with which children can later branch out (eg emphasizing copywork and dictation rather than creative writing)? 

[HumbleThinker]

Thank you for your kindness and patience with answering questions :)

 

So, with cleaning the table, I actually teach it the other way around. I ask the child to wipe off the table. I watch what she does, and make suggestions if she isn't doing it effectively or appears frustrated. That way, if she can't accomplish the task at a reasonable level of competence, I can help. But if she happily and successfully completes the task, I am not going to worry overmuch about whether she used circular movements or some other kind of movements.

 

The reason we present how to do something before we invite the child to do it is because it leads to less corrections by us in the future, which leaves the child more independent and confident. This is also a necessity because we largely don't interrupt the child to correct him or praise him in the midst of his activity as this can be quite frustrating for a child and lead him to depend on us. But the biggest reason for presenting first is because, in the Montessori classroom, having a clean table is the furthest possible purpose for cleaning a table. The process itself is the main focus for this age, which is why you can see a child who is deep in concentration on an activity like cleaning a table repeat it a dozen or more times long after the table is coimpletely clean. And it's not that one way of cleaning a table is any better or worse than another, but because the child is absorbing every single thing we do, we might as well create the biggest impact with our motions. So we strive to have the most graceful, most efficient movements possible so that the child will eventually develop the most graceful, most efficient movements. This "analysis of movement" guide's do in training is why you will find activities written up the way you did if they are written in the style of an album.

 

I really do see the attraction in a certain amount of orderliness. Doubtless if I were a bit more orderly, I would not experience mini disasters such as one child storing scissors in her bed and another using her toothbrush to clean the basin! On the other hand, though, I am not understanding what is so wrong with, say, using MAB blocks to build a tower, zoo or racing track instead of for math.

 

It just goes back to orientation again. The psychology underpinning the whole Montessori approach in the first plane is that the child has what is called an "absorbent mind." Like a camera, it takes in everything in the environment indiscriminately, but instead of putting everything it has absorbed on photo paper, it imprints it on the child's mind. Thus everything he absorbs, good and bad and neutral, becomes a part of his personality. It's why you will often see children who are in a generally disorderly environment have disorderly movements and disorderly thoughts. So the more orderly you can have an environment, including saying this material is for this purpose, the more orderly their development will be.

 

They will believe anything you say because they crave that orientation on an unconscious level, so if you tell them that these blocks are only for this math activity, they will accept that without question. The other side of that, though, is that you have to meet all their other interests as well. If another interest of theirs isn't being met, they may very well go against the orientation they previously accepted, for they have neither the power nor the willingness to go against their nature. So if they are building towers with blocks that are supposed to be used for math, they probably have an unmet need for something dealing with shape, construction, etc. This would be up to you to figure out with observation.

 

 

Do you see a similarity between this idea and SWB's theme of the grammar stage as creating building blocks with which children can later branch out (eg emphasizing copywork and dictation rather than creative writing)? 

 

I'm not sure what SWB is, but it sounds like I would disagree with this if only because Montessori doesn't do copywork or what I'm assuming you mean by dictation. One principle in Montessori is isolation of difficulty. So for instance, before I would present arranging flowers I would make sure the child knows how to pour water, use scissors, and do all of the smaller actions involved in arranging flowers so that the only new thing he is doing is the actual arranging of the flowers. Grammar follows this same idea in a group of activities called function of words. The first is the article, then adjective, conjunction, and preposition. Starting with the adjective, each stage includes every part of speech that came before and only adds one new one. So the preposition phrases will have articles, adjectives, conjunctions, and prepositions. Each stage has labels that the child uses to do the activity independently, but when he is ready he is more than welcome to write his own phrases for use in the activity. Writing his own phrases wouldn't have had any foundation if he hadn't first been presented the activities and practice with the labels. I'm not really sure if this answered your question or not.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

The reason we present how to do something before we invite the child to do it is because it leads to less corrections by us in the future, which leaves the child more independent and confident. This is also a necessity because we largely don't interrupt the child to correct him or praise him in the midst of his activity as this can be quite frustrating for a child and lead him to depend on us. But the biggest reason for presenting first is because, in the Montessori classroom, having a clean table is the furthest possible purpose for cleaning a table. The process itself is the main focus for this age, which is why you can see a child who is deep in concentration on an activity like cleaning a table repeat it a dozen or more times long after the table is coimpletely clean. And it's not that one way of cleaning a table is any better or worse than another, but because the child is absorbing every single thing we do, we might as well create the biggest impact with our motions. So we strive to have the most graceful, most efficient movements possible so that the child will eventually develop the most graceful, most efficient movements. This "analysis of movement" guide's do in training is why you will find activities written up the way you did if they are written in the style of an album.

 

 

It just goes back to orientation again. The psychology underpinning the whole Montessori approach in the first plane is that the child has what is called an "absorbent mind." Like a camera, it takes in everything in the environment indiscriminately, but instead of putting everything it has absorbed on photo paper, it imprints it on the child's mind. Thus everything he absorbs, good and bad and neutral, becomes a part of his personality. It's why you will often see children who are in a generally disorderly environment have disorderly movements and disorderly thoughts. So the more orderly you can have an environment, including saying this material is for this purpose, the more orderly their development will be.

 

They will believe anything you say because they crave that orientation on an unconscious level, so if you tell them that these blocks are only for this math activity, they will accept that without question. The other side of that, though, is that you have to meet all their other interests as well. If another interest of theirs isn't being met, they may very well go against the orientation they previously accepted, for they have neither the power nor the willingness to go against their nature. So if they are building towers with blocks that are supposed to be used for math, they probably have an unmet need for something dealing with shape, construction, etc. This would be up to you to figure out with observation.

 

 

I'm not sure what SWB is, but it sounds like I would disagree with this if only because Montessori doesn't do copywork or what I'm assuming you mean by dictation. One principle in Montessori is isolation of difficulty. So for instance, before I would present arranging flowers I would make sure the child knows how to pour water, use scissors, and do all of the smaller actions involved in arranging flowers so that the only new thing he is doing is the actual arranging of the flowers. Grammar follows this same idea in a group of activities called function of words. The first is the article, then adjective, conjunction, and preposition. Starting with the adjective, each stage includes every part of speech that came before and only adds one new one. So the preposition phrases will have articles, adjectives, conjunctions, and prepositions. Each stage has labels that the child uses to do the activity independently, but when he is ready he is more than welcome to write his own phrases for use in the activity. Writing his own phrases wouldn't have had any foundation if he hadn't first been presented the activities and practice with the labels. I'm not really sure if this answered your question or not.

 

"SWB" is Susan Wise Bauer, the author of The Well-Trained Mind and the owner and host of this discussion, forum, and website. You are in her living room. :)

[La Texican]

Ughh. ? Wish I could have given my kid a nice montessori or waldorf education, and they're exact opposites!! My three yr. old is constantly pretending scenes. She doesn't care if it's two dolls having a conversation, two fridge magnets talking to each other, or even just her toes in the air having a conversation with each other. The conversations are each unique and the charachters pretty believable. I thought she was being creative and using her imagination, not a sign she's missing out on something. Although I wish I could give my kids everything in the world, there's only so much to go around. My friend's mom died when she was a young adult, and had worked hard enough to leave her a trust fund. She has said she wished she had more time with her mother instead of her always working. Humble Thinker, this crowd is a little tougher, probably, than your intended audience of potential customers.

 

As a tough customer I wouldn't be sold by your claim only Montessori is scientifically based, what, do all the teachers have science degrees? Even the public schools do research and development. Even their methods are designed by people with degrees and are in effect "a lab", or a running experiment. They are trying to make the world a more peaceful place by making everybody literate and trying to give disadvantaged kids more skills and more options in life. The advantages you're offering are truly more on an individual level, benefits to the family using your services. But maybe your customers would like to hear that their choice of school might contribute to world peace.

 

I think, as a customer, familes who choose your school are comparing between local private schools, not so many will be deciding between public school, montessori, or homeschool. Every type of school advocate tells homeschoolers a lot of the same selling points I've seen you mention. Socialization, (or kids influencing other kids), structure, or doing tasks how they're told, walking in line (although walking the line is a more intense, mindful, and focused version). Actually, everything you've mentioned sounds like a more engaging, more focused, better structured version of what every other school is offering, with a more select, better trained peer group. This forum does have parents who are interested involved in their childrens education, so in a sense it almost represents market research for what your potential customers want and think, but the major difference is these are mostly homeschoolers. They spend their free time reading, comparing, and mining educational beliefs and practices. Your customers spend their time providing for their family. They want to provide a school where their children will thrive. Some of them might actually want to hear about the world peace thing. Most people want to find a place that's a "goodfit" for their kid. I would want to hear about what my kids day would usually be like. I would want to hear specifics aboutyour goals (not broad and vague like normalization), for example "this year we'll teach them concentration, following steps sequentially in order, manners, number sense, pre-reading, and pre-writing skills. These are the activities and we use these materials this way." In other words I would want to hear about what you plan to teach my kid and see what my kid would be doing with his time. If I were you I would spend 90% of the conversation talking about that and 10% talking about montessori theories, childhood theories, and world peace. You'll get some parents who perk up when you bring up the theories, and that will be your green light to talk in depth and at length about the theories because you'll see they're interested.

[HumbleThinker]

Ughh. ? Wish I could have given my kid a nice montessori or waldorf education, and they're exact opposites!! My three yr. old is constantly pretending scenes. She doesn't care if it's two dolls having a conversation, two fridge magnets talking to each other, or even just her toes in the air having a conversation with each other. The conversations are each unique and the charachters pretty believable. I thought she was being creative and using her imagination, not a sign she's missing out on something. Although I wish I could give my kids everything in the world, there's only so much to go around. My friend's mom died when she was a young adult, and had worked hard enough to leave her a trust fund. She has said she wished she had more time with her mother instead of her always working. Humble Thinker, this crowd is a little tougher, probably, than your intended audience of potential customers.

 

 

Tougher just means more to gain. I'm sorry that there is not an affordable option in your area for Montessori. American Montessorians in particular are working to get more affordable options into more areas. I know that doesn't help you right now, but there are many Montessori advocates/supporters who are parents who wish they could have sent their children to Montessori or could have gone to Montessori themselves. And just going off the information you gave, your daughter probably hungry for spoken language. Just talk with her about anything and everything that is real (ie. stuff in the house or outdoors), try to giver her lots of vocabulary, and give her many opportunities to perform work inside and outside the house (thus giving her even more to talk about). Then just observe her and see how this affects her fantasy behavior one way or another if at all. 

 

As a tough customer I wouldn't be sold by your claim only Montessori is scientifically based, what, do all the teachers have science degrees? Even the public schools do research and development. Even their methods are designed by people with degrees and are in effect "a lab", or a running experiment. They are trying to make the world a more peaceful place by making everybody literate and trying to give disadvantaged kids more skills and more options in life. The advantages you're offering are truly more on an individual level, benefits to the family using your services. But maybe your customers would like to hear that their choice of school might contribute to world peace.

 

I think, as a customer, familes who choose your school are comparing between local private schools, not so many will be deciding between public school, montessori, or homeschool. Every type of school advocate tells homeschoolers a lot of the same selling points I've seen you mention. Socialization, (or kids influencing other kids), structure, or doing tasks how they're told, walking in line (although walking the line is a more intense, mindful, and focused version). Actually, everything you've mentioned sounds like a more engaging, more focused, better structured version of what every other school is offering, with a more select, better trained peer group. This forum does have parents who are interested involved in their childrens education, so in a sense it almost represents market research for what your potential customers want and think, but the major difference is these are mostly homeschoolers. They spend their free time reading, comparing, and mining educational beliefs and practices. Your customers spend their time providing for their family. They want to provide a school where their children will thrive. Some of them might actually want to hear about the world peace thing. Most people want to find a place that's a "goodfit" for their kid. I would want to hear about what my kids day would usually be like. I would want to hear specifics aboutyour goals (not broad and vague like normalization), for example "this year we'll teach them concentration, following steps sequentially in order, manners, number sense, pre-reading, and pre-writing skills. These are the activities and we use these materials this way." In other words I would want to hear about what you plan to teach my kid and see what my kid would be doing with his time. If I were you I would spend 90% of the conversation talking about that and 10% talking about montessori theories, childhood theories, and world peace. You'll get some parents who perk up when you bring up the theories, and that will be your green light to talk in depth and at length about the theories because you'll see they're interested.

 

If from what I've said Montessori sounds like "a more engaging, more focused, better structured version of what every other school is offering," then I've done a bad job explaining it. That isn't to say that Montessori is 100% divorced from any other approach. Part of this is because many schools, based on research confirming many of Montessori's observations, are implementing principles or small changes that Montessori figured out 100 years ago. But I digress haha.

 

When it is said that Montessori is scientific, it is based largely on two points. First, the centerpiece of it is the "secret of childhood" Montessori discovered, which is that children from birth are constructing themselves to adapt to their environment via natural processes. Second, the beginning, middle, and end of it is scientifically rigorous observation of the unfolding of this secret of childhood in a free, prepared environment and then responding to what is observed with the aim of aiding these vital processes. This is why Montessori claims that there is no "method," much less one barring her name, because that would imply that it is forcing something on the child that is whole the work of her ideas and prejudices. And while the education field in general tries to implement this or that based on research, it is research that is comparing one adult-conceived idea about how to educate children with another and speaks about children as groups and averages. This has it's place and is really important, but with Montessori, the classroom itself is a laboratory for the guide and assistant to observe each child as individuals, respond to each's presentation of their natural processes, and has a REAL measure of where the child is at each moment instead of pure statistics or test scores. And most importantly, real discoveries are made about each child individually and "the universal child," those aspects that are common to all children. I would love to go into so much more detail about this, but I'm sure you're bored by this point in the post :p

 

I was actually going to start a new post on this in an attempt to reframe the discussion because I have focused the discussion largely on academics to Montessori's detriment, but you've given a good opportunity in your post. I'd encourage you and everyone to read the foreward to "The Secret of Childhood" if you ever get the chance, for it does an infinitely better job than I have done summing up just what makes Montessori so powerful and so unique. I'll just cite a small excerpt below:

 

"The first thing to do is to realize that Dr. Montessori was working for life, not merely for the educational process of life; and only if we understand this, can we begin to understand what we her real contribution to mankind. If we are studying life, not a child in a class, we are faced with something different from a person who has to be taught, someone who has to work at certain things for certain periods of time, someone who has to reproduce what has been assimilated, someone who will reach a certain standard of educational achievement, someone who will be granted a certain mark for work done, someone who will work and play well with others. This is not a child to be reported on, marked, graded, classified, labelled, but a living organism following a pattern of development. Life does not begin a t three or whenever the child enters pre-school, nursery class, kindergarten or first grade. Life begins at the moment of conception, and at that moment we were faced with a cell  so microscopic that it cannot be seen with the naked eye but which holds within itself all the potentialities of the human being it is to be...

 

The secret of childhood is the secret of life itself--the creative force guiding the human organism from the moment of conception. In order to initiate ourselves into this "secret," we have to be able to look at the child as someone who holds within himself the mystery that is the potential of every human being. To release this potential, to understand this mystery, to penetrate to the center of the wonder of life, we have to detach ourselves from the role as all-knowing adults and put on, Dr. Montessori says, 'the vesture of humility.' Only then shall we begin to understand that in order to penetrate the 'secret of childhood,' we have to be prepared for the mystery of life, the mystery of creation--that we are faced with an idea that is not our idea, a power that is not our power, a vision that is greater than anything we could conceive. Looking at the child with eyes unclouded by adult prejudices, with a mind free from preconceived notions, we shall be able more and more fully to help the child to help himself."

 

I know this is probably not fitting your advice to go 90/10, but I'm beginning to think that perhaps speaking on the foundation before moving on to the other details may be helpful. While we could discuss Montessori in the context of just  another model of education with research that shows that it leads to better gains in executive function than this or that method or doesn't focus on imagination as much as this or that method, I think that ignores what's really going on with it. But I'm a bit of a romantic, so that could simply be a fault of mine for wanting to steer the discussion in that direction. I'll take your advice to heart, and feel free to come back with more practical questions, and I'll do my best to just stick to answering those :)

[La Texican]

The 90 /10 suggestion was in reply to when you asked about telling parents about Maria's idea that properly raised children are our only true hope for world peace. I just think most parents, when looking at your school, would do better to hear how you plan to help their child thrive in their development, with just a few main points of the bigger philosophies thrown in. Some parents will be interested in talking at length about the deeper truths, but, and this is not a bad thing, most parents will just want to make the best choice for their family. So I was saying when you meet the potential families youyou might want to talk more about what going to your school will be like for that individual child. Here, it's different. Here it's fine to keep talking about philosophies.

 

I'm still not sure about the emphasis on the scientific approach. When I decided to homeschool my son the local principal said that age group is more about socializing than academics. She said that because of scientific research. I'm saying every school uses scientific research. Now the goals are different. The public school's goal is equality. Your goal is perfecting the child. I think both schools want to work toward world peace. That's why the public school tries to teach tolerance and multiculturalism and social studies and tries to give poor kids the same education and opportunities as the the rich kids. Maybe Montessori uses different scientific research. Maybe you can explain the difference. What sounds lovely to me about Montessori is that it is child led learning, at their own pace, and that it teaches them respect for work, that the child's learning is respected as real work, and that the children are taught that their work is respectful . I've still read reviews that for some families Montessori is a great fit, and it didn't work out for others. It seems to depend on boththe child and the teacher.

[IsabelC]

I think you're doing a pretty good job of explaining.  I also think that if you were talking to prospective parents in real life, you'd get a lot of cues (that you don't get online) to indicate how much theory people want to hear. A forum like this makes it quite challenging because you don't have the real-time feedback that you would be getting from the other person's facial expressions and body language if they were sitting in front of you. So basically, if you can explain Montessori to a group of parents here, you should have no problems with parents irl.

 

 

[idnib]

. 

 

[IsabelC]

Why is she not getting anything?  It may be true she is not getting what you want her to get, but it seems a strong statement to say she is not getting anything at all.

 

I think what's bothering me is that there is a lot of emphasis on the benefits of doing something the Montessori way and seemingly no acknowledgement of the trade-off. For example, I agree it could be beneficial for children to have a sense of order about which items are used for which tasks, but I think there should be an acknowledgement that the trade off is that the child will not figure out a creative or different way to use that item or to do that task. Is there not a price to be paid anytime we choose one way of educating a child and not a different way which may have other benefits?

 

 

 

Yes, that's my view. If my child polishes her shoe and imagines it's a car, I actually feel that is great: not only is she showing creativity while getting the job done, but she's also discovered a strategy for making less liked tasks more fun, which is a skill that will serve her well in later life. 

   

I guess I'm just not a Montessori parent. I can see a lot of positives, it's true, but overall I just don't feel it's an approach I am attracted to for my particular kids. 

[Ausmumof3]

I was thinking more about the concept of children being attracted to real work more. And I realised that what I observe with kids around me is they are less attracted to work and more attracted to copying what they see adults do.

 

My piano teachers dd siezed the moment the other day to try to give my baby a piano lesson. My kids have never tried to give anyone a piano lesson. She copied what she sees. A child in Montessori time copied a table being wiped. She wasn't attracted to wiping tables particularly she copied what she saw adults do. My baby pretends to talk on the phone. Again.. He is copying adult activity.

 

I think homeschooling actually allows kids more opportunity to observe and copy adult activity than even a well run children's house.

 

Personally I find some aspects of Montessori attractive like kids learning through work, and the non focus on grading etc. it does seem from what you are describing a little bit too rigid to me, but I am not a hugely orderly person.

 

I guess just some feedback for you in advocating I would suggest a couple of things... Take it or leave it... First know your target audience. This is a homeschool forum, so at best you might convince some of us to use some Montessori ideas. We're probably not all going to run and enrol in a Montessori school.

 

I'd try to keep your info a little shorter or more simple.

 

I'd try to have some statistics on outcomes. Although Montessori is supposed to be scientific from my quick web research it seems that outcomes are actually similar to traditional education.

 

Maybe also a bit of familiarity with other educational theories for people trying to compare.

 

Thanks for taking the time to explain so much and best of luck with it.

[HumbleThinker]

I'm still not sure about the emphasis on the scientific approach. When I decided to homeschool my son the local principal said that age group is more about socializing than academics. She said that because of scientific research. I'm saying every school uses scientific research. Now the goals are different. The public school's goal is equality. Your goal is perfecting the child. I think both schools want to work toward world peace. That's why the public school tries to teach tolerance and multiculturalism and social studies and tries to give poor kids the same education and opportunities as the the rich kids. Maybe Montessori uses different scientific research. Maybe you can explain the difference. What sounds lovely to me about Montessori is that it is child led learning, at their own pace, and that it teaches them respect for work, that the child's learning is respected as real work, and that the children are taught that their work is respectful . I've still read reviews that for some families Montessori is a great fit, and it didn't work out for others. It seems to depend on boththe child and the teacher.

 

The difference isn't so much the research, but the way that the environment itself is a scientific environment. Yes Montessori has research that directly backs it up and supports Montessori's observations from 100 years ago, but that's not the reason I would call it scientific. That said, from my experience, most schools use research to figure out what to impose on the child next to fix the problems created by what they imposed them before. An example from Montessori's time was that having students hunched over desks all day increased the incidence of tuberculosis and IIRC scoliosis, so schools added more physical activity and periodic breaks. The implementation of physical activity was solely to combat the tuberculosis and scoliosis that only emerged from their previous poor choices that were imposed on children. Of course the incidence of tuberculosis and scoliosis dropped, but what did it really prove? When Montessori left the children free in an environment made for them, they did not tire from work, they met their own needs for physical activity, and they did not have high incidence of tuberculosis. In this way, the child himself showed what he needed

 

The main reason it is a scientific approach, though, is that the classroom itself is a laboratory. The whole point of the environment being optimized for the child, other than being optimal for the child's development, is so further discoveries can be made about him in real time, leading to further optimization of the environment for specific children or "the universal child" I mentioned earlier. She gave us certain principles as a blueprint for setting up a psychological experiment. The first priority is that the child is free to choose his work, for you can't make accurate observations if you are the one controlling the child as in traditional education. The other side of the coin is setting limits on this freedom so that physical or mental distractions do not overpower the child's natural guide. Yet of equal importance is a loving adult that can connect the child with the environment.

 

In her words, â€œThe possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomenon and experimental reactions transforms the school itself in action into a kind of scientific laboratory for the psycho-genetic study of man. It will become—perhaps in the near future—the experimental field par excellence of the psychologist†

 

For instance, she discovered a universal interest children have around a certain age in the almost imperceptibly small. What other environment could this not only be discovered but by the environment's very nature intend for such discoveries to be made and encourage every adult in this environment to make such discoveries?

[HumbleThinker]

Why is she not getting anything?  It may be true she is not getting what you want her to get, but it seems a strong statement to say she is not getting anything at all.

 

I think what's bothering me is that there is a lot of emphasis on the benefits of doing something the Montessori way and seemingly no acknowledgement of the trade-off. For example, I agree it could be beneficial for children to have a sense of order about which items are used for which tasks, but I think there should be an acknowledgement that the trade off is that the child will not figure out a creative or different way to use that item or to do that task. Is there not a price to be paid anytime we choose one way of educating a child and not a different way which may have other benefits?

 

I can understand the concern and it's a fair question. There's a few angles we can come at this from, but I'll try to stick to just one for now, so my post doesn't explode. So we're both guides in a classroom, and we observe that this child is using a shoe that is intended for polishing as a shoe. The first thing we are likely to notice is that her movements are sloppy. We may also notice that she is exhibiting poor posture as children tend to do when they are not engaged in a work (ie. she's resting her head on her non-dominant arm). We may also observe that she is being loud and running the shoe into the other materials, perhaps knocking them onto the floor. This means she either is not cognizant of the materials on her table or does not care about them. If we observe for a longer time, we may also notice that her focus on this activity is fleeting and that she does not persist in it as long as she has for activities she has concentrated on. If we were to make what Montessori terms a "work curve" on her, which just tracks her level of order and disorder over a period of two weeks, we would likely notice that these behaviors are not isolated to simply the time frame she is using the shoe as a car. Overall, we notice that she is simply entertaining herself, not concentrating, which we know from training and previous observations is not the natural state of any child nor is it conducive to her optimal development.

 

But we don't stop there. Instead of presuming our conclusions, we put this idea that this behavior is unnatural to the test. Over an extended period of time, we entice her with automobile and transportation related activities, such as classified cards about modes of transportation, cards with pictures of planes, trains, automobiles, etc. that we give her the name of. If this doesn't work, we may bring in a hood ornament from a car, talk about its history, usage, and significance, then invite her to polish it. If that doesn't work, then we may invite her to transport mulch in a wheel borrow, sing songs about automobiles, and so on. Notice that I am intentionally using the word "invite" over and over again, because I cannot force her to concentrate or use the materials correctly. Furthermore, if I did force her, it would destroy the objectivity of our experiment.

 

I can tell you this from observation myself and the observation of Montessorians for the past 100 years, but eventually she will connect with the environment, she will independently choose to use the shoe polishing material for shoe polishing, and her behaviors and movements will be more refined, more closely mirroring the general behaviors that are natural to all children, all the while retaining her individuality. We may never know exactly why she was using the shoe as a car, but we can feel secure in our initial hypothesis that her doing this stemmed from an unnatural impulse instead of from her inner guide. If it were natural, and thus be beneficial, she wouldn't stop doing it. Maybe she simply hadn't developed the will to concentrate for longer than she had been yet. Or maybe she had an unmet interest in cars that, once met, stopped creating interference with her inner guide. Hopefully that gives you a bit more insight into one way this situation could be approached and understood in a Montessori environment. Just as we have to be careful not to assume that any one behavior needs to be redirected, we have to be careful not to assume that any one behavior needs to be left alone as well.

 

I can only agree with the first item on this list, although I don't find it to be a bad thing. (link) As for the rest of the list, I would be unwilling to buy those without some sort of proof. Those are strong assertions if you really consider what they say about the lives of children and the adults they turn into.

 

Thank you for all the information. At this time I like the idea of walking the line and explaining tasks clearly (but not as strictly as described)  to children before they begin so I interrupt their concentration less. The rest I'm not too sure about.

 

 

Thanks for the link. It is actually a good example of how the Montessori environment equips us to figure this out for ourselves. I could very well be wrong about the this day dreaming child, coming to a hasty conclusion. Since he is in a free environment prepared for him, we will be able to observe for ourselves how his day dreaming may or may not be affecting him. Maybe he is in a state of rest, which Montessori observed was very important. Even the fact that I'm calling this hypothetical behavior day dreaming could be shown to be a hasty conclusion, so in a sense I gave a bad example of how behavior is evaluated in a Montessori environment. We would be recording his objective behavior and how long it persists, then only coming to temporary conclusions and responses after much observation.

 

At the risk of making this already long post even longer, I'll give you this great example. In a class, there was a child who would tear up every time a certain assistant came near him. He wasn't wailing or anything, but just quietly tearing him with a some sort of change in his face when the assistant approached him. For the longest time, the guide could not figure out what was up, why this child, according to her, was crying every time this assistant approached him. Long story short, they finally figured out that the child was not crying at all, he wasn't sad in the slightest. He was simply having a reaction to the assistant's subdued perfume. This child simply had a sensitive sense of smell, even more so than children normally do at that age. That power to dispel prejudices and hasty conclusions is the power of real observation in a Montessori environment that I have been woefully deficient in representing.

[Runningmom80]

That seems to be opposite to how the Waldorf approach works, where younger children are considered to be in a "dreamlike" stage and given a diet of faeries and gnomes and pastels rather than information and realism. Or maybe I have cherry-picked oversimplified versions of both methodologies? I guess what I have trouble with in both cases is the notion that all children go through a series of standardized, Piaget-esque stages in which specific learning goals and styles should be emphasized. There seems to be little room for outliers of any kind. This could be a positive or negative thing. Would an extremely hyperactive child tend to calm down in the presence of other children working purposefully in a thoughtfully prepared environment?

 

I will tell you Montessori was a disaster for my outlier.  They wouldn't move him through the material fast enough, and he became frustrated and withdrawn.  This is the same school that my twins are thriving at, but they are not as "quirky" as older DS is.  This is just our particular school, I know Montessori can look very different from school to school.