The Ultimate Montessori Blog

How do we as Montessorians counteract people who say “The method is artificial in the sense that it is so much dependent on the artificially prepared environment, and the so-called scientific materials, and to top it all the artificial ever-smiling adult”?

In life we meet misunderstanding at many levels. They remain misunderstandings unless the persons who raise the queries themselves try to learn the truth. Considering the enormity of this problem it may be impossible for Montessorians to counteract these people/problems.

In reality trying to ‘counteract’ such people helps us Montessorians consolidate and reaffirm to ourselves the validity and the veracity of the Montessori principles. We may not succeed in convincing them but we should be convince ourselves first.

We need to understand that Montessori Philosophy applies itself to the whole of humanity from birth to the last breath. It talks of assistance to LIFE everywhere. Therefore it is not confined to ‘artificial’ environments. Perhaps the reference was made to Houses of Children for children 2 & half to 6 years of age.

Though all living beings need an environment to live and procreate, Man has a singular place in Life that he needs to create his own environment for himself. As adults we prepare special environments for variety of activities we involve ourselves in. For example, an acoustically prepared hall for music concerts, a well-equipped kitchen for our culinary efforts, an aesthetically created place for our religious pursuits etc. We make them ourselves but do not consider them ‘artificial’.

The child needs a special environment, exclusively prepared for him to work at his development and make a masterly acquisition of all the capacities and capabilities during early childhood. As the child cannot build this environment for himself we, adults, prepare it for him. Can we call this ‘artificial’?

“So-called scientific materials?” Why do we refer to Montessori materials as scientific. To explain this we need to define the word ’scientific’. The Montessori materials help the child work with them, arrive at conclusions, verify them and also make discoveries. Though these discoveries are facts already known to the adults we cannot deny that they are discoveries made by the child for himself. There is the same joy and thrill attached to any discovery. Moreover the activities with materials promote that spirit of enquiry needed for a mind to attain a scientific temper. This can be achieved when the adults ensure freedom for the child to work and not descend to teach which kills the Joy of discovery. That is one of the reasons we call them ’scientific’.

We shall hope that the adult working in a Montessori House of Children would enjoy the work and live in a House of Children as a normal healthy human being. At the training center the trainees are not being taught to put on an artificial smile or even use an artificial speech. A put-on-air of saying ‘very good’, ‘How nice’, ‘good boy’, ‘good girl’ etc, are also found unnecessary. Smiles should be outer expressions of the inner mind. The adult should realize the worth of offering assistance to children. In which case the adults will not descend to the level of having to use artificial smiles.

They are usually simple activities he sees grown-ups doing around
him-which have an intelligent purpose intelligible to him.  They
are generally activities that he can manage to do on his own, if
given suitable material and the necessary guidance.  For
instance, activities like dusting and polishing furniture,
sweeping  and scrubbing the floor, or watering plants, folding
the garments, or  tuning on or off the wireless set, etc. do
fascinate a child of this age.  He needs to be independent with
regards to such intelligent yet simple activities.  He is urged
from  within to make efforts to conquer this independence.  He
actually comes to the adults performing such activities and asks
them or appeals to them to let him help them. Many adults
misinterpret this behavior and assume that he is being difficult,
and that he is troubling them! He is told to go out and play as
if he could work at his development only by playing!

If only the child could find the help, namely, the right
material (similar to the material available at the Montessori
House of Children), guidance and freedom, to do the activities he can
perform  even at home,  he would not come in the way of adults
and  in fact, he could make things easier for the adults.

Parents who sometimes struggle to manage their child can in fact
read the book “Take Montessori Home” to help them out. Take
Montessori Home compiles diverse activities for
different age groups of children in which a parent can engage a
child.The activities will enable the child’s development and, at
the same time, make the parent’s life easier.

Related Links

Click for more info on the book Take Montessori Home

Children do not seem to be interested in just tracing the touch boards repeatedly when presented. They do it just once or twice and then stop. What shall we do?

The tactile material should be presented at the earliest opportunity after the child is admitted to the House of Children. We have to take advantage of the sensitive period for touch which may disappear soon. When presented during that period the children will do it with avid interest.

How is History introduced in the Children’s House?

If children have been welcomed into a rich environment, in the first three years of life they will lay a solid foundation of complicity and solidarity with their world and all its exhilarating phenomena among which, first, foremost and above all, their own kind. The people around them are an inexhaustible source of interest. Initially those present and tangible, and as their sense of time, their capacity for abstraction and their imagination develop, also the doings, the comings and goings, the ventures and adventures of people past will fascinate them.

‘Indeed it is a love of his environment that we may envisage the irresistible urge which, throughout the sensitive periods, unites the child to things. It is not love in the sense that is commonly understood as an emotional feeling but a love of the intelligence which sees and assimilates and builds itself through loving’ - Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood.

Anything offered to the children in the Casa Dei Bambini must take into account the children’s passionate and vital interest in their environment.

History is introduced simply in the form of illustrated legends of human life through the ages rather than presented as a subject. It is interwoven into the fabric of the environment.

History is present in stories, by others, and our own. All true stories are history. Even an account of an event that occurred as short a time as half an hour before is an embryonic bit of history: “This morning when I was coming to school…’, ‘When I was a little girl …’, ‘When my father was a little boy …’, ‘Long, long ago when my grandfather was a young man…’ Family tales reach into the past and they are history.

History is present in music, the language of the spirit of place and time. Without music history is mute and dry.

History is present in art and artefact. Environments should have sets of choice and beautiful art cards, books on art and architecture, reproductions of great paintings on the walls - few and far between, given the place and space that they deserve. Objects used in the environment can and should have historical value.

When books are read, the name of the authors, their country of origin (for history and geography are inseparable), and when they lived should be mentioned. When music is played, again, the name, country and times of the composer are to be given.

As a knowledgeable Montessorian once said, the child in the Casa dei Bambini is fundamentally interested in fact, language, and sensorial exploration. Not to be forgotten is the child’s affective response to fact, language, and sensorial exploration. If a child has touched and been delighted by silken fabrics in the fabric boxes, it will look upon silk stocking of Ingres’ Napolean with delight.

As human beings, we love the history of our kind, and that of other species; the history of our earth, and that of our universe. Children’s pristine humanity is most avidly receptive and will thrive on the story of mankind if it is gently told, with absolute conviction.

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.