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July 7 - July 7, 2021
They are in the process of forming themselves into new beings through a series of predictable planes of development. For me, being a mother was transformed from largely custodial, albeit loving, care into a stimulating, productive discovery of a new being in formation and how I might aid that process. I was engaged in an intellectual and scientific task of the most immense proportions and significance.
Parents now know that their role is not just important; it is the decisive factor for their child’s future.
Montessori’s insights concerning the child’s development will give much-needed guidance to parents as they seek to balance freedom with responsibility and help their child achieve the discipline necessary for a life of fulfillment and happiness. In
She asserted that the human infant is born an incomplete being whose unique task is to finish its own formation. The
Education must help children to construct their own brains and to keep on constructing them until maturity was reached at twenty-four years of age.
we develop our intelligence by learning through our five senses, and particularly through the relationship between the hand and the brain. In recognition of the building of the intelligence through this feedback loop of information from the hand to brain and back again, Montessori stated that nothing should be given to the brain that is not first given to the hand.
By this she meant that abstract ideas and information of every possible kind should be given to the young child first in concrete form to be held, discovered, and explored.
She noted other characteristics of children under the age of six. They go through very specific and well-defined periods of interest in certain areas of their development. For example, there is a period of intense absorption with order, another for language, and another for learning to walk. During each of these time frames, varying in duration from months to years, the child is so focused on the particular development that he will ignore other phenomena previously of great interest to him.
Montessori called these intervals Sensitive Periods.
Rather than being focused primarily on a sensorial exploration of the factual world about them, they now want to devote the main thrust of their energies to getting along with others and doing things together.
Because her primary concern was the human spirit within each child, it is worth noting that Montessori included music and art materials as integral parts of the classroom environment. They are freely available to the children at all times, and never relegated to a separate room and a “specialist” teacher down the hall from the regular classroom. The message to the children is that these expressions of the human spirit are not esoteric activities for the talented few but activities to be understood and engaged in by all.
As in the years from birth to age three, they are undergoing intensive physical growth and changes in mental capacities. They are prone to physical illness and have heightened needs for special nutrition, more sleep, and a balanced day with plenty of time for reflection and self-expression.
Montessori understood the importance of elementary school children realizing that the quality of their present lives is directly dependent upon the gifts of past generations. In
The crucial first plane of development is, then, the focus of this book, and specifically its sub-plane, the first three years of life.
From such independent accomplishments come the child’s sense of self-mastery and resulting self-confidence. (Cautionary
It is not to help adults, then, that we help children to become independent in daily acts; it is to help children.
On the perfecting of these two areas of movement, the body and the hand, rest the great accomplishments of human beings in response to their environment.
The word “infant” comes from the Latin word infans, which in translation means “incapable of speech.” Although
they are indeed incapable of speech at birth, human babies are programmed for language in their genetic structure. They have a brain that recognizes the basic sound units, or phonemes, for all human languages from the moment they are born. Such consistency is strong evidence of the deeply biological basis of the human infants potential for language.
language is the key to the child’s intelligence. Intelligent thought depends upon language. We think in words and symbolic representations. Language allows us to have something in our minds, to manipulate it, and to create something new with it. We are able to hold a thought, enabling even the young child, through her developing language, to follow a simple command: “Bring me the red ball” or “Go get three spoons.” One of the reasons we care so much about giving language to the young child is that this is a tool that the child is going to use to think and to build a mind. In a sense, then, our
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In Montessori education, we focus instead on the development of the will as the positive force that enables us to learn from our environment and society and to make a contribution to them. How then do children develop this vital ability?
The purpose of the child’s early birth is now clear. It allows for the development of independence, coordinated movement, language, and will, in relationship to an environment set in historical time.
The adults’ role is to prepare an environment for the child, to guide her interaction with that environment and to give her freedom with responsibility. If they do so with knowledge, as well as love, the child is helped to grow to adulthood at twenty-four years as a lifelong learner who is ready to assume responsibility for others, to serve them, and, eventually, to become a parent herself.
The room is thus carefully, if minimally, furnished to address the four areas of necessity for the infant: an area for sleeping, for changing, for nursing, and for activity.
Children in Montessori environments, whatever their age, concentrate deeply and are intensely focused because each material offers progressive levels of difficulty, thus ensuring that the child always has just the right level of challenge.
The awe that many visitors feel when they see children so entranced with their environment gives Montessori classrooms a spiritual quality.
When the child becomes deeply and constructively absorbed in a task, it is important to avoid drawing his attention to what the adults around him are thinking of what he is doing.
They must become observers of their child’s subjective experience as opposed to his objective experience. In other words, they need to observe how their child is feeling about what he is doing. A child might do something very well and at the same time be bored by it. An older child who takes a test and does well but dislikes the whole process is an example. Outer actions do not always tell us what a child’s subjective experience is; it is necessary to pay attention and be intuitive.
What we are hoping to encourage at this age is a focused attention on some aspect of reality so that learning occurs.
Montessori described children after periods of this type of work as peaceful, happy, even rested and refreshed, showing a marked generosity of spirit that was not apparent before.
The goal is to create a home life that is not overly serious and is filled with joyfulness and spontaneity. Parents
