A  Montessori “quick bite” from The Center for Guided Montessori Studies:

 “A child asked his father once why leaves were green. The father
thought how intelligent his child was, so he gave a long explanation
of chloroplasm and chlorophyll and of the blue rays of the sun, etc.
Presently he heard the child mumbling and listened; the child said:
‘Oh, why did I ask Papa? I want to know why the leaves are green, not
all this about chlorophyll and the sun!’ “…The teacher requires a
special preparation, because it is not our logic that solves problems.
In no point on which we have touched, does our logic help, we have to
know the child’s development and to shed our preconceived ideas.
“Great tact and delicacy is necessary for the care of the mind of a
child from three to six years, and an adult can have very little of
it. Fortunately the child takes more from the environment than from
the teacher. We must know the psychology of the child and serve him
where we can.”– Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

As adults we have built up layers of abstraction into an
understanding that helps us navigate a complex world. What did our
ancestors need to know of chlorophyll or the various spectra of
reflected light? Entering the world anew, our ways of thinking may be
useless, and actually add confusion. At worst, by imposing
abstractions onto a child we may diminish their pleasure in exploring
the world and subvert that natural science that children do best.

Abstractions are wonderful tools of the intellect, and sharing them
with a child receptive to them can be joyful. Much of being a
Montessori guide is learning to observe a child and understand best
where their sensitivities lie. A book on photosynthesis might be
perfect for one child, whereas another child may do best with an
activity on the life cycle of the seed and yet another child might
have her curiosity met by taking care of a classroom plant. In all
cases, the concrete precedes the abstract; hence, a prism is a better
tool for introducing the notion of spectra than a dry discourse.

Part of the challenge of being an educator is to unravel the cloth
of our adult perceptions. We must see the world as a child in order to
understand how to help them knit together their own understanding and
mastery.

And that’s just what teachers at The Montessori House are trained to do, and do so well!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 24th, 2010 at 8:21 am and is filed under Montessori Moments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.