The Ultimate Montessori Blog

If the children in a Montessori school work individually rather than collectively, how will they be able to prepare themselves for social life?

Social life does not consist of a group of individuals remaining close together, side by side, nor in their advancing en masse under the command of a captain like a regiment on the march, nor like an ordinary class of school children.

The social life of man is founded upon work, harmoniously organized and upon social virtues - and these are the attitudes which develop to an exception degree amongst our children. Constancy in their work, patience when having to wait, the power of adapting themselves to the innumerable circumstances which present themselves in their daily contact with each other, reciprocal helpfulness and so on, are all exercises which represent a real and practical social life and which we see, for the first time, being organized amongst the children in a school. In fact, whereas schools used to be equipped only so as to accomodate children, seated passively side by side, who were expected to receive from the teacher (we might almost say in a parasitic manner), our schools, on the contrary, have an equipment which is adapted to all those forms of work which are necessary in an active and independent little community.

The individual work in which the child is able to isolate himself and to concentrate, serves to perfect his individuality and the nearer man gets to perfection, the better is he able to associate harmoniously with others. A strong social movement cannot exist without prepared individuals, just as the members of an orchestra cannot play together harmoniously unless each individual has been thoroughly trained by repeated exercise when alone.

Some numbers are odd and some are even. Is it very necessary for the child who is starting on arithmetic to know about these? (A question asked by a working Montessorian during a refresher course.)

The child needs to know how to count and also learn about the decimal system of numeration. The decimal system of numeration is based on numbers one to ten. Therefore the child must be introduced to them. Once the child is familiar with the knowledge and application of the laws of the decimal system he needs to be introduced to the four arithmetical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) — their nature and their ‘tables’. This being the foundation to be laid it is not necessary to introduce the nature of ‘even’ and ‘odd’ to the child. These terms can be introduced to children after they have laid their basis for number work. They need not be burdened with them when they start around three-and-a-half years of age.