The Ultimate Montessori Blog

(This article is written by Mr. A.M. Joosten.  Joosten, is a familiar name in the Montessori Circles around the world.  After Dr. Maria Montessori lit the lamp for the Montessori movement in India in 1939. Mr. Joosten continued the work of Dr. Montessori for a very long time. She appointed Mr. Joosten as her personal representative in India, and he served as the Director of the Indian Montessori Training Course until 1980. Mr. Joosten was an acknowledged authority on the Montessori Method of Education.)

There cannot be many educated people today who have not read the famous book “Man the Unknown” by Alexis Carrel. In it one might look for a chapter with the title used above, but in vain. Yet, more than a chapter, one should expect it to head a preface or introduction. It might even be an explanation of the stirring title of Carrel’s book. It is almost self-evident that we can hardly hope to unveil the mysteries of “man the unknown” unless we know the “child” all men have been. The key to the present lies in its past. The very fact that man is still largely unknown to himself is the result of man’s ignorance of the child. Is it not the child who constructs man the adult? This unquestionable truth is, however, hardly taken into consideration. Even where a certain amount of lip-service is rendered to it, its practical implications and full significance are hardly realized. This becomes evident when we recognize that, among all the attempts at human and social reconstruction, education, i.e., help given to the development of man from birth to adulthood, still occupies a very minor place, especially education at life’s beginning where the help it can and should offer is most needed. It is clear, too, when we consider that education however carried our, according to whatever method, is still largely confined to instruction and an instrument of adult enterprise and ambition rather than selfless service rendered to the child himself.

The actual meaning given to the term “reconstruction” reveals itself in the efforts made to achieve it. These efforts are mainly directed towards a more efficient exploitation of the natural resources of our environment, towards their extended accessibility to mankind as an undivided whole, towards a better and fairer distribution of the wealth they yield. They also consider an evolution of social forms etc., but they as yet hardly envisage man himself and, if reconstruction does not aim at man and his personal development, how can it claim the qualification “human”? If man himself is not placed at its centre and recognized as its starting point, all peripheric attempts cannot achieve their aims. Does not ultimately and primarily anything done in the field of man’s activity, social life and organization, depend on man who wields them and expresses himself through them? Even if we renew the whole world and leave man untouched, our miseries can only increase, our problems remain unsolved and greater problems present themselves. It is an old saying that new wine can only be put in new skins and that a new patch on an old garment will cause further tears. A “new man” is needed to inhabit and rule the new world which is taking shape and has already far surpassed the preparation of the men who live in it.

Human reconstruction must be based upon the child, man in the becoming, as on its corner stone. If man is indeed largely unknown, we must turn our attention first of all toward the child, the unknown. We must discover the child and then approach him according to the knowledge thus gained.

At this point it is interesting to recognize that “the unknown” itself is unknown. It is not enough to realize that there are things we do not know and to resolve that we shall try to know them. There are, in fact, two kinds of unknown entities: those that are as yet unknown or insufficiently known, because not yet or insufficiently studied by the human intellect; and those which can never be known by merely applying our intellect to their discovery. There is an unknown which passively awaits our study and scientific exploration. There is another kind of unknown which can never form an object of study, unless it presents itself to our consciousness as such, unless, in other words, it reveals itself to us actively. There are things which we discover, there are those which have to discover themselves to us. We cannot study something which “does not exist” as far as we are concerned. Nor can we resolve to discover it, exactly because it is not yet an “it” to us. At the origin of any genuine discovery there always lies a “revelation”:- unexpected, unsought. Something seems to “come into existence” at the moment of discovery. But there, too, we must make a distinction between two kinds of discoveries. There too, there are those where the object of our discovery waits for us to move towards it and those where it is like a subject moving towards us. In the first case this “coming into existence” of the object of our discovery is only an impression, as for instance at the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. He did not know its existence. He did not for years endure the most unbearable frustrations of his ambition to sail westwards to the Indies, which he did know existed, and when finally he left Spain with his three tiny ships, he did brave storms and calms, hunger and thirst, untold dangers and the mutiny of his men in order to discover America. America “put itself” in his path. It blocked his progress beyond, to the Indies he wanted to reach. In fact, on putting feet on its virgin soil, it was virgin only to him and his men. Even then he did not realize it, called it India and to-day its original inhabitants are still called Indians. Yet, America had always existed as a distinct continent, different from the Indian sub-continent. It was not new in itself, it only acquired newness in the minds of the European People. It was “re-created” by their consciousness. So was the case when electricity was discovered and so many other unknown energies and mysteries of nature. In all these cases, the object of discovery was passive. There is another kind of unknown too. Here we may think of the greatest and profoundest and essentially most inaccessible.  “Unknown”, God Himself. The human mind and the human heart can “discover” the existence of God. His existence can even be proved by the human intellect, although our hearts do not need such proof. This is so, because God, in His infinite mercy and love, wants to be discovered. Nature and its laws compel us to discover Him, Who created them? God has created the human being, his soul, his mind, so that he could discover his Creator, so that he would do so. That confers upon man, the creature, not only the privilege but the duty to discover his Creator. This, in fact, is the very purpose of his being: to know, to love and to serve God. To ignore or neglect this duty is to make one’s life purposeless. It then becomes like salt not used to flavour, thereby losing its purpose and becoming worthy only of being trampled underfoot and cast away.

We meet here an unknown, reaching our actively to be discovered, but this is not all. Although our minds and hearts can discover this greatest of all incognita, they can, at the same time (and that too because of His dispositions), know only that He exists. At this point our created and finite resources of knowing reach their utmost limit. We are utterly incapable of knowing His Nature and His will. Philosophies have tried, but were doomed to all shot of their aspirations in this respect as long as they depend only on human strength of mind. By its very created nature it is unable to achieve knowledge going beyond the discovery of God’s existence. It can say that He is, it can also try to define how he is not, but it cannot with any degrees of precision say who He is and how He is. This does not, however, mean that we cannot know something about His Nature. What we know about this ineffable mystery God has and had to reveal to us, His personal activity is thus the indispensable condition for any such discovery made by man and of the development of the knowledge gained thanks to this inestimable gift.

Returning to the child “the unknown”, we can see something similar with regard to his discovery, as to that of any living creature. There are discoveries with regard to them which our intellect can make by actively applying itself to them. There are also discoveries of even deeper and more important realities which we are utterly incapable of making unless these living beings themselves reach our and discover hidden depths of their being to us.

In order that they may do so, conditions have to exist which enable or attract them to this active unveiling of their secrets. Even the child, who, as a human being, has a will of his own, cannot “will” this. It cannot deliberately create the necessary conditions, even less at an early age when both will and consciousness are still in course of formation. We, on the other hand, however intelligent and strong-willed we may be, however well-trained in science and research, are at least initially, equally helpless. How could we create conditions and opportunities for the emergence of something the very existence of which we ignore? Something, therefore, which as far as we are concerned, “does not exist.” If we were conscious of its existence, nature and requirements, we would already have discovered it and merely follow up our initial discovery. With respect to living beings we face, therefore, a problem only accident, or Providence, can solve. Such discoveries are, on the one hand, no merit of ours. Our only merit, (but that too is a great one), lies in having an open and receptive mind, eyes that can see and are not blind; humility which enables us to admit into our consciousness what we did not know; love which with its warmth makes us go forwards to value and cherish this gift. They are, on the other hand, the sudden and unforeseen actualizations of latent potentialities within those living beings, a development of their nature.

The greatness of Dr.Maria Montessori’ s work and life belongs to these two kinds of discoveries. She has drawn attention to unknown values of childhood which lie passively in waiting to be discovered. They have been waiting for thousands of years in spite of the great progress made by scientific exploration. Man in his efforts to explore the unknown had turned his back on himself, concentrating instead on the forces and treasures of matter, towards abnormality rather than normality: towards man the adult rather than the child. And, when at last the adult did turn his mind to the child, he did so in order to know rather than the child: to the child as a supposed product of adult reproduction and moulding rather than towards the child, creature of God and constructor of man.

In this field of discovery there lie Dr.Montessori’s empathic and ardent efforts to show the child as the real source of man’s royal prerogatives.

Man is indeed a king in creation, but is he so on account of his physical strength, fully visible only in the adult? Certainly not! Physically unarmed, weak and defenceless, he is inferior to almost all the animals that surround him. Then by size? No, even there he cuts only a modest figure. On account of his numerical predominance perhaps? But who are the millions of men against the myriads of insects alone? No, if is man really king, he is so because of his spirit, his soul, his will and his memory. Yet, who bestows these great gifts on him? Does he inherit them? Do royal parents invest their children, (all parents, all children) with these powers? Not that either – we neither inherit them nor do we receive them as a gift.

We meet here a kingship conquered afresh by each member of this royal race. Man neither inherits his royalty nor can he leave it in legacy or bestow it as a dowry on any other man. He can and does leave the conquests made during his reign, but not ever the power and the instruments with which he makes them. These have to be built up and conquered by every man coming into this world. The only inheritance man does receive is the capacity to achieve this unique construction and innate discipline the obediential urge to do so according to universal, immutable laws which guide its progress step by step, phase by phase, from conquest to conquest. Yet, this inheritance he does not receive from his parents, but only through his parents from his Maker.

The real king, therefore, is the child rather than the adult who inherits (and here it is a real concrete inheritance) from the child he once was. The adult is in reality a kind of Viceroy only who wield the sovereign privileges an executive powers he receives from the child. Already, therefore, we discover the child is a quite and unknown and ignored aspect of his being the child neither weak, nor helpless, but strong and autonomous, under God: wealthy beyond measure in constructive energy and capacity. In truth, the child as father to the man. The child not indeed as the builder of merely material monuments and works, but as the builder of a spiritual monument, the greatest work in creation; man himself.

All the manifestations of human greatness all the expressions of man’s unique position have their basis in the efforts made by the child. Man is great and unique on account of the civilization he builds and never ceases to build. But it is the child’s efforts to construct his intelligence and will, as well as the basic motor co-ordinations which enable him to do so. Man is great and unparalleled as the conqueror of space, as an invader of the who surface of the earth. Man’s living space is a longer bi-dimensional, but extends to the third dimension as well. Not because of any motor endowment like the animals with wings or the fish in the oceans, but because of his spiritual faculties which render him capable of overcoming his natural physical limitation. Yet, those spiritual organs exist and can be utilized, because the child built them for us. Man can and does live in all climates, at all altitudes in marshy land as well as in the desert, under the tropical and as well as in the icy regions within the arctic and Antarctic circles. No adult can ever adapt himself to conditions profoundly different from those of his native country. It is the child which has this power and ensured the stability in their new surroundings of any migrating people.

The Hungarians who live in the heart of Eastern Europe, far from their original homeland in Central Asia: the Fins at Europe’s Northern fringe: the Burmese in Burma and the Aryans in India: they all became natives in a country not native to theirs race by virtue of their children born in these new surroundings and adapting themselves not superficially and painfully, but essentially and joyfully without and lingering nostalgia.

If man does indeed synthetize within his person all the functions and possibilities which in animals are distributed over different species, each characterized by one or a few of them, this is entirely due to the human child who, born without any fixed behaviour pattern and behaviour limitations builds upon a basic fund capable of almost unlimited diversification and specialization and the power and the urges to achieve them. Man’s almost infinite variations rest upon the child’s basically uniform, informed and undetermined endowment of potentiality and on his powers of actualization.

And what do we offer to this royal child to assist him in his efforts? Consciously practically nothing! The environment in which he lives almost as an outcast of society, at best as one is told to wait in a shabby waiting shed before he will be granted admission in a splendid audience – chamber on becoming of age (and losing the very powers that would enable him to absorb and utilize these splendours), this environment is the most accidental and circumstantial imaginable. Yet, it is from his environment that the child draws the material which will realize his potentialities and give shape to his personality. He will be rich according to its riches, cultured according to its cultural contents. He will make his own the manners not merely displayed around him but to him. All this long before we start “educating” him deliberately. By that time he is already who he will be and the additions, or subtractions, consequent upon education are like varnish applied to an object fixed in shape: decorations of an object which may hide or deform its real structure, but cannot obliterate it: mutilations and polish touching only the surface. They will cract and blister and finally fall away under any stress and strain (and who can any longer deny that stress and strain have become almost normal features of human life today? And then leave us naked in its original shapelessness.

The few, but very important points we have only touched upon here (which are capable or immerse development and elaboration) reveal indeed an “unknown” child. These revelations, however, can be obtained by an active, unprejudiced applications of our mind to the reality of human life. All of them belong to that wealth hidden values which lay passively in waiting for our mind and heart to discover them. Dr. Maria Montessori was the pioneer explorer in this field and we owe her a great debt of gratitude for having done so and helped us to follow her into this unknown world without and within ourselves. A great debt also for having shown us long ignored responsibilities which it may soon be too late to discharge.

Her greatest contribution to the cause of human reconstruction and rescue does not, however, lie here.

There is yet another “child the unknown”. One that the human intellect cannot discover by itself. Not the child revealed to us by one or more of us, but the child actively revealed by himself. The child who is not like a member of a species of which we discover new aspects, new functions and new attributes, but the child who seems almost to belong to a “new species” living in a new environment. We might, indeed, attempt a comparison (imperfect like the comparisons) with the history of evolution (without entering in or committing ourselves to the merits of any evolutionary a theory). The origin of a new species may or may not be due to potential variability of previously existing species, but if it does, we been concomitant changes in their environment to enable these potentialities to actualize and reveal themselves. The close synchronic links between the appearance of successive species and the revolutionary geological transformations of the earth are striking and cannot be dismissed as entirely fortuitous. Yet, even if the environment acts as a kind of “conductory” of evolutionary charges. It does not “cause” them necessarily. The energy which brings them about resides within the living being and its Creator.

When, in 1907, Dr. Maria Montessori started a psychological experiment aiming at determining by scientific tests how abnormal children of a certain age compared with normal children of much younger age, she never achieved the purpose of her experiment. These children, instead, revealed natural characteristic believed impossible. These are by now well-known for the descriptions given by Dr.Montessori in her books. They include, amongst others an amazing degree of concentration: spontaneous repetition of formative activities long after their outer aim seems to have been achieved; a spontaneous and very superior form of discipline and an impressive orderliness and need for order; a capacity to choose freely those activities which correspond to their inner development needs: an almost spiritual appreciation of silence and a strong sense of personal dignity. Also, an explosive capacity to conquer the art of writing and reading (in this succession) at what may be considered an apparently precocious age, and a general thirst for intellectual in all fields of human culture. These phenomena occurred not separately, nor were they differently distributed in individual children. They formed an organic whole and manifested themselves all together, thereby presenting us with what seemed in reality a “new” type child, uniform in its fundamental characteristic, yet at the same time rich in individual variety in the forms they take.

Not only this. The appearance of these unknown and unsuspected features which made visitors speak of “new children” and of a “discovery of the human soul”, is accompanied by another series of surprising phenomena. Many forms and features of behaviour which have always been considered natural to the child disappeared. Quite independently of any social or moral appreciation by the adult, these children “changed”. They were no longer destructive rowdy, jealous, dependent upon and exaggerated attached to the adult. They lost their fearfulness and shyness. They showed great interest in anything that helped them establish contact with the reality of their surroundings and became almost indifferent to its fanciful distortion in fantastic stories. They preferred what they called work (even where to us it may seem play) and neglected and ignored toys (made by the adult for the child) in favour of the scientifically constructed so-called Montessori Apparatus (which is not a didactic apparatus, but a series of means of development). Certain typically “defective” tendencies in child behaviour and orientation, like fugues, barriers, a craving for power, possessiveness, even lying and certain physical weakness (digestive, respiratory, disturbed sleep etc) vanished. This transformation of character which some have compared to a conversion (conversio morum). But which has nothing to do with a moral phenomenon, was indeed a spontaneous and sudden, total phenomenon. We cannot speak of a cure, far less of a treatment or the result of teaching. It revels a process which takes place spontaneously within the child as if their environment and in the attitude of the adult opened the doors for a revelation of their real personality. This “new child” seemed to have reached a “super-normal” level and, naturally, it was at first believed that Dr.Montessori had stumbled on a number of “extraordinary” children. When the conditions prevailing in their environment in that first “Casa dei Bambini” had been analysed and defined and were then reproduced all over the world, among people of every race, creed, social and cultural background, and when always these same phenomenon occured, it became, however, evident that they represented a more real and true form of child-nature and behaviour. These children were neither “supernormal” not “extraordinary”, but showed a “return to normality” or an unknown level of normality. On the basis of this experience, vested in spatial and temporal extension than any other educational experience, Dr.Montessori then started to use the term “normalization” for this process and could establish a very precise and well defined distinction between normal characteristics and deviations of child nature. This transcends and underlies individual differences and refers to an essential, uniform substratum of these. Just as this sudden revelation of the “unknown” child refers to a single whole of unsuspected characteristics, so also is there a single “lever” which sets this transformation in motion. In Dr.Montessori’s words : “It would not be possible to quote a single example of conversion that did not involve the concentration of activity on an interesting task.

Here, then, we have an instance of the active “self-revelation” which unveils an unknown that we ourselves can never discover on our own. We can only accept it, recognize it and then, in a second phase, study and analyze it. Thereafter we can try to give it stability and to prevent it from ever falling back into oblivion, from disappearing. These are the efforts we can make and are morally obligated to make. The greatness of Dr.Montessori’s work and its unique contribution to both education and child psychology, the basis also of the increasing penetration of her work into that of “human science”, lies exactly and primarily in these efforts. She had the open mind and the true humility to dramatic moment which claimed all her strength of mind and heart, this active shedding of even scientific prejudice, is movingly described in “The Secret of Childhood” (Part II, Chapter II, “Who are you?”). During the rest of her life, in spite of disappointment and misunderstanding, she held on to this great vision of unsuspected reality. But scientifically the nature of these phenomenon, the conditions they required.

The elaboration of this Part of her wok led to what is now called the “Montessori Method” extending from birth to adulthood and influencing even adult life and society. To the basis of the child’s revelation of himself she has responded with the movement that bears her name and which aims at delivering mankind in course of development for the obstacles which held its true nature captive and made the child “unknown”.

Against these efforts of contradiction and misunderstanding which draw their strength form individual and collectively organized prejudice, a kind of unconscious, psychological “vested interest”. Their action and nature have been analyzed in “The Formation of Man”.

If we understand and realize the value of what this child the unknown has revealed if we are conscious of the nature an import of these revelations which belong to the “second type” of incognita mentioned earlier, we must free ourselves from these prejudices as ancient as humanity itself. It is we who have then to convert ourselves. Side by side with a reform of education, there will then needs be achieved a reform of the adult and of adult society based upon man himself. Such a reform which affects at the same time the present and the future will be much more profound and effective than any on the external manifestations of environment whilst leaving man himself untouched.

This reform may fill us with hope, because in placing the child and the laws of his development at its center, we displace man the adult, already fixed and deviated, from this center which he tries to occupy and hold with ever increasing egocentricity and blindness. If we make place for the child at the center of our existence and every effort, (not as someone we have to mould, but as someone we have to help mould himself according to the eternal laws of growth), not man, but God the Creator will be restored to the place, He alone has a right to occupy. We then become his conscious servants and co-operators in His most glorious work; the creation of man. We shall open ourselves to Him exactly where we have always kept Him away; in the education of the child. Then instead of pride and presumption love will be the driving force of our evolving existence. We shall then really heed the warning pronounced 2000 years ago. Let the children be, do not keep them back to Me: the kingdom of heaven belongs to such a these.”

This then, will also be a first step on the road leading to peace. Peace within ourself who have always been fighting our better side in our relations with those who are dearest to us; our children. Peace between child and adult consequently a future humanity who, having grown up in peace and by means of peace, will be peaceful in its relations with environment and with society

This article is the transcript  of  the first part of Dr.Montessori\’s lecture delivered in Rome. She speaks about the essential part of Montessori courses and the attitude of the adult towards children. The second part  of this lecture will appear on this blog shortly.

Education is a very vast field which includes many varied sciences. However, I believe that although in the intentions of educators they are meant to be beneficial for the ones who receive them – today’s theories and practice are all built on a false base, in as much they are all founded on the erroneous principle, both unique and simple, that it is always the adult who educates the child, who helps him and forms him. Following different theories he may do so with severity, and even with violence or by urging him with sweetness and prizes; but no matter how he does it, he incurs in the same error: that it must be the adult to do everything for the child.

And if – as in modern times – the adult comes to the conclusion that he should act for the child only when he has understood him, and therefore, only after he has come to know exactly which are his needs – and that in consequence he should study the child in order to lead him according to the inner qualities he has so discovered – even then the educator is at the same point because his action is still based on the principle that it is education which moulds the child.

We want to express another principle which is not an idea but has derived from a long and multiform experience. Our principle is that one must limit the action of the adult upon the child so as to give him the possibility to develop without having always on top an oppressive will which is stronger than his own.

Certainly – expressed in this way – this is nothing new. But we want to consider it not as an idea but as a positive experience which has been realized. Also we want to consider the question from an angle different from the general. We want to consider apart the child and the adult so as to illustrate their differences. These are more clearly shown if one realizes the different tasks they fulfil. The adult is a strong being full of will power that transforms the environment and concentrates most of his activity on the external world. The child is a being who also accomplishes a great task but whose work is profoundly different and opposed to that of the adult. His work is to form man. The child who builds man is that personality which we must always have in front of us; we must always feel the child’s mission which sometimes is obscure to us. In fact, while it is true that the mother brings the child from the unicellular stage to that of the new – born baby, it is also undisputedly true that from infancy to adulthood it is the child who does the work. It is the child who builds man.

It is evident that he does not do so at random but following the dictates and the impulse of nature. Of course it is also evident that he could not build man without the aid of the environment and of the assistance of the adult, but the fact remains that it is not the adult who creates and moulds the child.

All he can do is to help the child in his task: whereas generally the adult alludes himself – especially in the psychic field – of almost being able to create the child’ that he can form the child’s intelligence and sentiments. Consequently he oppresses him with aids which the child does not need. These excessive aids represent an obstacle because – as our experience has shown us – every unnecessary help of the adult, every substitution of the adult’s activity for that of the child, arrests the latter’s development. We have expressed this in one of our principles: “every unnecessary help is an obstacle to the child’s development”.

Today it is generally recognised that in its qualities and strength our organism must always be considered from its roots; and as it is the child who makes the adult, it is easy to realize that a well or poorly developed child will be a strong or a weak man. Also easy to realise should be how great is the responsibility of giving the child unnecessary help. It is in this that the conclusions of out study differ from those of the great majority of educators whose opinion is instead that all sorts of help must be given to the child during the period of his growth.

This principle of limiting the help of the adult so as to harm the child, so as not to arrest his development, is one of the most fundamental in our method of education which promotes instead the need of devoting very delicate care to the child. We must assume the attitude of becoming observers, to be prudent and humble so as not to overstep the limits we have set for ourselves. In practice this means having a positive respect to the growth manifestations of the child. On the other hand we must also say that, if we did not give the aids that these manifestations show to be necessary, we would be failing in our duty as educators. We must give what is necessary and sufficient but nothing more. The responsibility to give these necessary aids becomes something powerful and imposing to our feelings.

Put upon this plane, the concept of education – education itself – represents more than anything else a help to the life of the child, because by doing so we help the child to grow following the spontaneous activity dictated by the laws of development.

However, to be able to follow the spontaneous activity of the child involves the necessary of a preparation. This can be either cultural or acquired through experience, but it must be based upon a most fundamental self transformational which without doubt is of moral type in the sense that it implies the need that the adult understands that his mission lies in a sphere opposite to that which has been thus far understood. That is that the adult must pass from the role of a commanding creator to be obeyed to the role of a scientist who studies how best he can help the process of developing life.

On this plane the teacher becomes the helper and no longer the moulder of the child. That is why we say that in our school the teacher must first of all learn to moderate her own intervention. She must become humble and conceive herself that she is neither the maker nor the moulder of that mind which she sees developing under her own eyes. That is why we have been the first to preach as a fundamental requirement that it is necessary that the teacher become passive as little by little the child becomes active. It is easily understood that if the teacher is always active, if she is the one who always teaches, preaches, says and moves, then the child must necessarily be the one to absorb, to follow, to repeat and be passive. This depicts the situation in orthodox schools and describes the relation between these two personalities: the teacher who gives and the child who receives.

When instead we enter into the concept that the child develops through his own activity with the help of the teacher, yes, but only with the help which enables the child to choose spontaneously his various activities, then even theoretically one can easily concieve a school in which the teacher is in the beginning fairly active, giving some initiations, offering the several means of development etc. but who retires more and more as the child, working by himself, gradually enters a path of spontaneous and orderly activity. It is also easy to realise that to conform to the increasing activity of the child, the greater this becomes the more the teacher withdraws, thus bringing about a sort of transmission of powers; the teacher who retires and the child who does always more. Just because she can retire the teacher feels the satisfaction of one who has succeeded in her task for now the active child is really advancing securely on the road of development which will produce the man.

One can recognize a good Montessori teacher when one finally sees her in a corner of the room, sitting with an air of satisfaction on her face and doing nothing except observing her whole class which is engaged in good, animated and vivacious activity, by means of which all the individual children are busy developing and instructing themselves.

And seeing her thus, one is reminded of the words of St. John the Baptist who answered the people who told him that the person he had baptised was taking his place: ”It is convenient that He grow and that I diminish”. Because St. John was the Precursor and had come only to fulfil this mission.

For the teacher this should be a very clear fact. But to realize this situation in Practice, not only a different preparation of the teacher is necessary but also a different school, different even from the many which today are included in the terminology “ New Education”.Many confuse them with our schools. For example: hearing of open air school, people say: “They are Montessori Schools”. No, because children can be slaves of education and oppressed by the adult in the open air as well as in the room.

In our conception, to be educated the individuals must have the possibility of living in conditions that permit spontaneous activity. The school we advocate must be different in respect to freedom of the spirit and not in respect to freedom of the respiration. The school which provides for the spontaneous activity of the child must necessarily contain means for the development of the intelligence and therefore be adapted to this activity. The school must be organised and constructed not upon a new concept of the adult.

Whatever this may be but upon the guide which the child himself has given. The environment of such a school must be built for him. I might almost say by him the sense that although the child materially cannot make his own environment, we as servants of the child, as his helpers, can construct around him an environment which gradually with experience of new conditions in his life - the child has shown to be the one suitable to him. In other words, we must create an environment suitable to the child; an environment adapted to the psychic life of the child.

All our innovations can be resumed in these two principles: the preparation of the environment and the limitation of the intervention of the teacher.

These two very simple ideas should not be limited to schools; they should be applied throughout the whole life of the child, also in the family: for the parents and the home environment form the other portion of infantile life: the home life. And if one interprets as help to life, the same principles must prevail there.

Also the parents therefore must learn to treat their children in a different way, to seek not to overwhelm them with their strong personalities. On the contrary they should allow freedom to the activities of the child.

This concept of more indirect and more delicate treatment towards infancy does away somewhat with what we have been accustomed to conceive and to actuate towards children. In fact, to the old concept where the adult intervenes too much with material help and psychically wants to mould the child, is inherent the fact that the adult things he must continue to correct the child until the latter is able to correct himself and thus conform to the example suggest by the parents; whereas the delicate action of the adult should be to encourage the expressions, the initiative, the activity, and all that is on the road of good development.

In this new conception the adult should be the person who always encourages, the person who appreciates everything positive that the child does; who does not pretend not to see what the child does if he wishes it to be seen; the person who listens patiently and joins when he is asked; the person who is always present as a vivifying force. Because one should realize that the child is uncertain in the formation of what he has not yet formed, that he finds himself in a world which he does not know and which is new for him, and who therefore needs and asks the adult’s approval and encourage.

If this is done, the child gives manifestations and takes initiatives which are surprising and which must be seconded. From this we see that the adult should be there not, only to observe in order to give what is necessary but also to gather what the child has to offer so that nothing which comes out of his mind should be lost, so that nothing should go astray because the child did not feel sure whether he should or not have continued on the path he had undertaken.

This is all the more true for the teacher who – as I said – must be patient, respectful and always encouraging. But how much more difficult she will find this second part: that is, of encouraging the spontaneous expressions! Because whoever corrects something which does not go, receives a clear sign for he finds himself confronted with a strong, clear and something even violent reaction of the child.

But when there is a delicate manifestation of the mind that unfolds itself, the signs are not so clear and very often, if the adult has not a fineness of heart, if he is not imbued with a special sense of charity, of love, of interest in this mind which is awakening, he may not notice these delicate manifestations.

(To be continued …)

(This post is the third and final post,  in a series of posts which tries to explain Dr. Maria Montessori’s interpretations of certain leading concepts. The previous post dealt with her interpretation  of the concept of Adaptation and  Development. The present post provides her interpretations of the concepts of “Heredity” and “the Unconscious”. мебели стара загораcar hire bulgaria)

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By heredity we mean the transmission from parents to their offspring of physical and psychic characteristics. Some children resemble their father, others their mother, but usually the child’s resemblance to one or both of the parents is striking. This applies not only to the colour of the hair of the formation of the bones, but also in many cases to the behaviour.

At the same time, heredity works differently with man and other animals. While a European dog would find himself perfectly at home with other dogs in America, this is not true of human beings, and there is no probablity that the son of a doctor or an engineer.

And if an Italian is brought up by Indians in India, he will not be able to speak Italian. A Florentine dog, on the other hand, will speak the same language as a dog in Manhatten.

The Unconscious

The term unconscious has been used with shades of meaning. In Dr. Montessori’s thoughts it has nothing to do with personal psychology, when we speak of the unconscious we mean that universal intelleigence which directs the whole of creation, the universe and all that is in it from stars to atoms, from the single cells of plants and animals to the complete structure made by the cells. The unconscious directs both the formation and the behaviour of everything that is and through the interplay of all the individual components, animate and inanimate alike, maintains harmony in the universe and makes possible the future.

Since neither plants, animals nor human beings feel his directing intelligence at work, with their unconscious instincts, guiding their behaviour.

There were also ducks living with the chickens. The mother hen used to make enthusiastic noises when food was brought, pretending that she was going to eat it all; the mother duck made similar noises for her brood. One day when it rained, the mother duck made noises of delight, similar to the food noises. So both chickens and ducklings went out. But the chickens did not relish the rain, nor could the hen induce the ducklings to enjoy a dust bath. The unconscious guides the ducklings to water and the chickens to their dust-bath and the subconscious could not interfere with this pattern. They did not, and could not, change their natural behaviour; but they were able to add to it something which would adapt them to their particular conditions. The chickens might have boasted of their versatility: “Look, I can adapt myself to living either in domesticity or in the jungle.”

With other types of animals, however, it turns our differently. Though I have partly tamed lizards, I failed completely with frogs. Nor would any amount of patience and ingenuity influence shellfish or coral insects. The behaviour is guided solely by the unconscious. And when conditions become too adverse they die; a fish could not be taught to live on dry land.

(This post is the second in a series of posts which tries to explain Dr. Maria Montessori’s interpretations of certain leading concepts. The previous post dealt with her interpretation  of the concept of education. The present post provides her interpretations of the concepts of “Adaptation” and “Development”. )

Adaptation

The child adopts himself to society and the world by building a psychosomatic structure which will enable him to enjoy a maximum of happiness in the conditions to which he has become adapted.

Adaptation normally implies a negative element. Western missionaries in India, for example, may announce that they have adapted themselves to Eastern conditions, but have found the process painful. This is equivalent to saying that, in spite of tremendous efforts to appreciate the food, climate, customs and people they encounter, their adaptation has remained partial or negative. Positive adaptation is to find your happiness; spiritually and physically; in the conditions which have become yours.

Development

Development means the process of becoming; the process one goes through after birth in order to reach maturity. It is too psychosomatic, for both body and spirit are involved. This development is directed by an energy which has been called the horme: that is the iresistable drive which is inherent in all organisms (non-living organisms are also impelled by it), which urges them to assume their specific bodies and the appropriate behaviour. For instance, a fertile hen’s egg contains the germinative cell which divides and multiplies, building the structure which eventually becomes a chicken. The various cells have received their own commands as to what they should build - beak, eye, feathers, internal organs - and an inner compulsion obliges them to complete their task. Once this process has begun, nothing except destruction can interfere with it. You can maim a child but - except by killing him, you cannot prevent him from growing.

Why does the egg become a chicken, or the acorn an oak, each reproducing detail by detail the pattern of its species? In the germinative cell there appears to be present some kind of unconscious memory, to which psychologists have given the name mneme. This must be present also in inanimate matter. Solutions of certain chemicals, for instance, will always produce the same type of crystals; the molecules invariably rearrange themselves in their characteristic shape.

(The next post in this series will deal with Dr. Montessori’s interpretation of Heredity and The Unconscious)

Dr. Maria Montessori was and is often misunderstood, all the more so because she and other experts often used the same terms with different meaning. It is in this sense that the statements of Maria Montessori must be evaluated. But even when the meaning is the same, her conclusions are often in conflict with that of experts. Some of the leading concepts  like (1)Education (2) Adaptation (3) Development (4) Heredity (5) The Unconscious were interpreted by Mr. Mario Montessori Sr. and these interpretations will be serialized in this blog. In this current posting we are presenting Mario Montessori Sr.’ s interpretation of Education.

Education

The Montessori approach to education follows the lines of developmental psychology. Ours might be called: Development Education. It differs sharply from education as normally understood, when the emphasis is on the ends pursued and what is felt to be important is the career or occupation for which the student will be equipped by the time his studies are over.

Previously all education was based on this kind of preparation for the future. To pass from primary to secondary school, or from grammar school to university, the pupil must acquire certain knowledge so that he may finally qualify for a job and parents and educators combine to urge him towards his goal. The child himself has not been greatly considered. At an early age he does not grasp the importance of the future or the equipment he will need for it and his inclination may not be attuned to what his mentors propose. So he has to be enticed to follow his curriculam and the question whether the way he is expected to study is suitable to his age and capacity is of quite secondary importance.

The Montessori ideal is not Utilitarian in this sense. Developmental education is concentrated on the phases of the individual’s growth from birth to maturity. It tries to respond to his needs as he develops to help the process of his adaptation, without laying too much stress on the programme officially imposed. Our Montessori schools cover the same programme. In fact our programme is generally wider, but this is because the children themselves, as their minds expand, pursue their interests in all directions. We regard their studies as food on which the child’s psyche can feed in order that it may become adapted to society and the world to the best that civilization has to offer. It is the child and his optimum development, not his stock of knowledge, which is the main objective of developmental education.

(The next article in this series, ‘Certain Leading Concepts Explained-Part II’, will provide Mario Montessori Sr.’s interpretation of the concept of ‘Adaptation’.)

A single fertilized egg cell, smaller than the head of a pin, only in nine months time in the womb of the mother, grows to a lovely bundle of energy that looks like a human being. In hardly 15 months this bundle of energy grows into a naughty toddler who is curious about everything. The infant learns to walk and talk, think and reason. Emotional responses, intellectual abilities and styles of social interaction evolve.

Children born in every culture share the same human biological inheritance and the same fundamental need for care. Thus adults in every culture face the same major tasks in rearing children. They must provide infants with basic nurturance needed for development and prepare children to function as adults in their particular social worlds. The rules and values of the culture are passed on to children. This process is called socialization.

Children change physically and intellectually as they mature. The transformations in physical and cognitive capacities have a dramatic influence on how children interact with their environment. Play serves important functions for children. It is a means by which they can be active explorers of their environment, active creators of new experiences and active participants in their own development. Children play untiringly till they are hungry or sleepy. No one need teach children to play’ they do so naturally. Children need no reward for playing; play is its own reward. Play is a ‘laboratory’ in which children learn new skills and concepts, play is a child’s ’social workshop’ where he/she tries out rules alone and with other children. The child expands his/her ’self’.

For preschoolers play can be an outlet for their emotions. It is often concerned with important themes and feelings from everyday life. They express their anxieties and fears. Play often centres on the most frightening of topics, such as being lost or having to fight off ‘monsters’.

A common game preschoolers initiate with parents is “you be the baby and I will be the mummy or daddy”. The child might say “now you go right to bed!” The power roles are reversed in play and the parent is charmed and not angry. In play child can pretend to be destructive, disobedient or un-cooperative without being scolded by the parent. This satisfies the conscience of the child.

It is interesting to observe the sequence of social development in children between two and five years. It begins with non-social activity which child psychologists name as ‘solitary play‘ they child plays all alone unaware of children and people around. Then it shifts to ‘parallel play‘ in which the child plays near other children with similar materials but does not try to influence their behavior. A little later children engage in ‘associative play‘ where they interact by exchanging toys and commenting on one another’s behaviour. Finally they change over to ‘cooperative play‘ in which children orient towards a common goal such as acting out a make-believe theme or working on the same product like making sand castle or painting a wall or a picture.

After the children get into formal schooling they start playing rule-oriented games. In middle childhood they play ‘rough-and tumble’-they wrestle, roll, hit and run after one another while smiling and laughing. During mid-adolescence more time is spent with novel play activities and finding partners of common interests. As adolescence draws to a close, most young people show many complex social behaviours and are proficient in their interactions with peers.

A note from the author: I would like to add that the inspiration to put down these few thoughts and concepts about the role of play in the early childhood came from my first visit to a Montessori House of Children, where I happened to have a glimpse of the Montessori method and the philosophy being practised. The children in the Montessori environment are provided with equipment which are are highly impressive, scientific and educative.

(The author of this article is a Professor of Psychology, The National College, Bangalore)

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

The Indian Montessori Centre and the Hindu Seva Pratishtaana established a Montessori House of Children called Maadhurya in a weavers colony called Nele on Banerghatta Road, Bangalore in 2006. Maadhurya was set up with the intention of making available the Montessori Method of education available to the economically backward sections of the society of this area. The Indian Montessori Centre strongly believes that the Montessori Method of Education is not the domain of the affluent only. In fact, in the long term the Montessori Method of education is just as expensive as conventional education and generally more effective and humane.

Maadhurya has been well received by the people of this area. The Indian Montessori Centre and the Hindu Seva Pratishtaana is thankful to the Montessori Community which helped in the setting up of this House of Children by making generous contributions.

Developments at the Maadhurya House of Children

If the child enjoys so much freedom of movement and freedom of choice in a Montessori House of Children, don’t you think this would make him difficult to manage at home as he would like to do things on his own even at home and thereby come in the way of adults?

It is true that it will not be possible to create conditions at home to provide as much freedom of movement and choice for the child as it is done in a Montessori House of Children. This is one of the reasons why the child should get the opportunity of living in the House of Children for a part of the day.

At the same time, let us also not forget that the freedom he enjoys here is not unlimited. It will necessarily and naturally be limited by the needs of the other 30-35 children who are also living here and who also have the same rights to freedom as he has. The other children help him realize soon enough that he cannot enjoy his freedom without at the same time respecting the rights of others to enjoy similar freedom.

Besides, various interesting developmental activities related to social behaviour are presented to him. These also help him to show due consideration towards the rights of others living with him.

Even the freedom with regard to the choice of activities, as we saw, has certain limits. Because he is free to choose to perform an activity only from among those activities that have been presented to him and on condition that the material for that activity be found in its place-which means that he cannot just take away something from somebody who has chosen it earlier but must wait till it is kept back in its place before taking for his activity.

So, we need not be afraid that as a result of enjoying freedom in the House of Children, he will assert his freedom unreasonably at home. This has been amply proved in homes understanding the child and familiar with the Montessori Method which is indeed applicable in the home as well. We must however admit that he does need more opportunities and help that is usually available to “do things on his own” even at home and first of all at home. If he gets these opportunities and help, his “doing things on his own” need not come in the way of adults at all.