Montessori Consulting

I am always thrilled to watch children become engrossed in their work. Today a little boy of four spent 20 minutes attaching paper with large paper clips today. I had given him a presentation of just how to look for the small loop of the paper clip and press ever so slightly to “open” the clip. He was delighted that there were clips of different colors to match the different colors of paper. He noticed that the purple clips were slightly different in color than the purple paper. Young children have such a heightened sense of order!

This particular young man tends to be very active and very vocal in the classroom, but while he was engrossed with the paper clips his whole attention was focused and he worked quietly and joyfully. Over and over he removed the clips from the paper and started over. I wish I had counted the number of times he repeated the activity.

Such a simple thing. Paper clips. How much closer that simple activity moved him toward becoming normalized.

We adults often treat children as though they are not capable individuals. This has serious effects on self-esteem. Instead we should be finding ways of allowing children to become more responsible.

Letting children assume age-appropriate responsibility is also an aide to critical thinking. There is no better instruction than natural consequences for children to learn about cause and effect. On the flip side, adults can easily undermine that educational process by “bailing out” their children so they will not suffer any disappointments.

I’ll share more on this later.

Montessori teachers tend to call the activities that children do in the classroom “work.” Many adults hear this as a negative term because they are not completely happy in their own work. Children, on the other hand, are active because they want to be. To them the process of their activity is what it is all about. Adults work to finish a task. Children work in order to be “doing.”

In a Montessori environment, one might see a child polish a tray, and polish it again and again. The purpose is not to have a polished tray, but to experience the polishing. The tray might not need polishing, but the child needs to polish. This kind of work does not cause fatigue. Instead it gives a deep sense of satisfaction. How fortunate we would be if we all reaped the same satisfaction as does the child who works for the joy of the work.

Montessori used the term “normalization” to indicate a state of normal development in children. She observed that oftentimes children deviated from normal development because of conditions in their environment. In order for children to return to normal development or become normalized, the environment must be carefully designed to aid their growth.

Providing that environment sometimes means that the Montessori classroom is somewhat less welcoming to adults. As an illustration, it is very important that adults in the classroom recognize that it is important to limit conversations among themselves. For teachers this carries importance for several reasons. On the one hand, when conversing with other teachers one’s attention is diverted from the classroom. Furthermore, adult voices tend to be louder than the voices of children, so those conversations may have the effect of raising the overall noise level of the classroom. Added to this, adult conversations that could be sensitive or inappropriate for children’s ears might be overheard.

Visiting adults must also be willing to recognize that the environment is specially designed for children. We want observers and visitors to feel welcome, but we also must ensure that they do not undermine the prepared environment. When visitors talk among themselves or with teachers while in the classroom, we must act with diplomacy, but we must still intervene to maintain the integrity of the classroom.

If we let these details go, we are interfering with the process of normalization. Montessorians must keep their eyes on the overall plan. The prepared environment is just one small aspect of that plan.

I looked around the early classroom today and took note of all the respect the students were showing for one another. We tend to take that for granted in Montessori, but we shouldn't.

Just the other day a parent was commenting to me that at birthday parties it is easy to recognize the Montessori students. Part of that is the sense of respect that the Montessori students have learned. That respect has three components: self-respect, respect for others and respect for the environment.

It takes time and consistency to help children internalize respect. We have both in Montessori. We have the benefit of working with children over a number of years. That gives us the time and we provide the consistency.

I love to look around the classroom and see these young people learning how to be respectful individuals.

I have found over the years that many people have misconceptions about what Montessori is all about. I hear that Montessori is too structured and that it is not structured enough.

I think that folks hear that "children are allowed to do whatever they want" and get the idea that the classroom is a chaotic free-for-all. that comes from the misconception that children are allowed to do whatever. The truth is that children do choose their activities, but only within the limits of what they have been invited to choose. In other words, the adults in the classroom approach children as individuals to present new learning activities to them, activities that are appropariate for that child. Then the child may choose from among those activities.

That is where the structure comes into play. And some people think that allowing children to choose only those things that they have learned how to use is too structured.

There are other misconceptions, but I will address those at another time.