Children tell stories to make meaning of their lives; to clarify information; and to experiment with language. Adults tell stories too and as I write, we have, as a nation, been engaged in a flurry of remembrances and sharing of stories about Sir Edmund Hillary. The celebration of his life called each one of us to make a connection through the stories we had heard or could tell of both his personal and collective impact upon us all. Oral stories, printed stories, interviews, documentaries, photographic essays, sculpture, painting…we reflected on the life story of our Kiwi hero in a rich variety of ways.

Dr Montessori is often berated for the stance she took on fictional stories but she was primarily concerned about the danger of fantasy as a possible causal factor in the delusions of the psychiatric patients she cared for. She was also aware of the harsh cautionary tales and fantastic but often grim fairy tales told to children in her day and felt the need to shield younger children from these until they were old enough to distinguish reality from fantasy. We have a similar responsibility today in terms of the impact of television and other media on children. Thankfully, today we also have a much greater choice and variety of stories available to young children. For the first plane of development (0-6 years), Montessori teachers usually recommend reality-based stories but as parents you will no doubt exercise your judgment with the many gentle but comforting fantasy stories that are now to be had; introducing these alongside books with a repetitive and predictable theme or stories with a slight twist that help to introduce the unfamiliar within a familiar setting.

Reading, however, is not the only way of sharing stories. The stories we tell are a vital part of children’s learning and researchers are now beginning to realise that an over-emphasis on the printed word may skew children’s literacy learning. Children need to see family photos and hear stories from your family history, to hear the little moral tales that reinforce your family’s values, to have times when you re-run the day and other times when they hear and share in plans and dreams for the future. All these family rituals contribute to a rich language environment and form the basis of experiences that will feed literacy development.

Understanding the stories children themselves tell is another aspect of story and Montessori’s books are full of stories about children. She was particularly good at listening and divining the meaning of very young children’s stories: for example, you may have heard your teacher re-tell Dr Montessori’s story of the infant who was trying to tell his mother that her coat was in the wrong place.

Interpreting the child’s ‘story in action’ is an important work for adults who are close to children: parents, teachers, grandparents and other family members. In New Zealand early childhood centres we use ‘learning stories’ as one way of recording and re-telling the experiences of children. When appropriate, the teacher will engage with the child to check and re-check the developing dynamic of understanding that deepens via continued experience and revisiting of the activity. Most Montessori centres use this approach and also take photographs and sometimes video footage to illustrate the stories of children’s learning. Learning stories give children a tool to aid in recall and when shared with family and whanau, offer opportunities to reflect on experience. When parents link these stories to events taking place at home and share with teachers or add to the story in the child’s portfolio, the story deepens in complexity and so too does our understanding of the child.

Today’s child has found new ways of engaging with story – through television, DVD and computer. The challenge for adults is to ensure they do not abandon the child but, instead, stay involved in their storytelling experiences and add to their experience with stories of our own, from books and from other media that can be used to connect the child to their past, present and future reality.

Further info: Try http://www.talaris.org/index.htm [helpful tips and one-minute videos that support literacy and other learning plus research papers for those who want to find out even more].

Nicola Chisnall Montessori Voices April 2008

'I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better...that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquillity will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realise them!'' – Anne Frank (Montessori student), July 15, 1944, age 15

Lili (Peller) Roubiczek became inspired by the ideas and promise of the Montessori approach when she took the second International Montessori course, held in London in 1921. She had originally studied psychology in Vienna and resolved to travel back there to begin a house for children who would be much like those in the first Montessori casa in San Lorenzo, Italy. Lili gained the support of Dr Montessori and raised funds to enable the project to begin. She gathered a group of likeminded young women around her – some as young as sixteen – and also had the support of a fellow student from the Montessori course; a young Australian architect by the name of Lawrence Benjamin.

The group set up in one of the poorest areas of the city, and worked tirelessly to prepare the children’s house. They lived on site for the first year; sleeping at night on the children’s beds and surviving on rations of cabbage and potatoes. When the Haus der Kinder opened in the summer of 1922, they worked from 6am to 6pm to care for 25 children from two to four years of age. The same miracle that occurred in San Lorenzo with Dr Montessori’s first children’s house was repeated as the unkempt and malnourished children responded to the environment and to the assistance provided by Lili’s community. The women did not draw any salary that year but worked in the hope that they would be able to prepare themselves for further Montessori training.

The following year, Dr Montessori was persuaded to come and visit and she was delighted with what she saw. She delivered a series of talks for both the teachers and the parents of the children.

As I was re-reading the little book that arose from these lectures in Vienna: The child in the family, my eye fell upon an intriguing reference to ‘tranquillity lessons’ (p. 137). Reading on, I saw that Montessori was explaining the three steps that occur in the development of a child’s concentrated learning. The first comes in the preparation of the environment and the creation of a calm atmosphere for learning. The second involves work with some physical material….which will be shown to the child through a ‘tranquillity lesson’. The third step is the unique processing work for which ‘the child needs rest and a peaceful sameness in order to construct his inner life…’ (p.127). Montessori goes on to explain that her tranquillity lessons are the wordless instructions which ‘may appear strange because they are carried out in almost complete silence – the teacher never encourages this tranquillity with words, but with her own quiet sureness’ (p. 137) and – ‘thus we can say that our own ‘‘tranquillity lessons’’ are symbolic of our method’ (p.138).

Many people enter a Montessori children’s house and find the quiet concentration of such small children strange and even a little eerie. Perhaps it is because we, ourselves, have lost touch with our own still centre in a world that demands so much of us.

Aline Wolf explains that we must understand that a central part of Montessori education involves paying attention to the spiritual needs of the child which will include an ‘experience of silence and reflection, a reverence for nature, an appreciation of the interconnectedness of all things, and the cultivation of peacefulness, compassion, generosity and love’ (p.166).

Today, just as in Lili Peller-Roubiczek’s day, we need parents and teachers to become inspired with the promise of the child and, like Anne Frank, to hold fast to that dream of tranquillity and peace as we work to extend Montessori education in areas both rich and poor. We have a great gift to share which we owe to the children of the world.

Further Reading Kramer, R. (1988). Maria Montessori: A biography. New York: Addison Wesley. Montessori, M. (1936/1970) The child in the family. New York: Avon Press. Wolf, A. (2000). Nurturing the spirit. Altoona, PN: Parent Child Press. Montessori - a help to life

Nicola Chisnall Montessori Voices June 2008

The New Zealand Ministry of Education terms the kindergartens, schools, and philosophically-based groups, like Montessori, that operate within the various education sectors (early childhood, primary and secondary) as services. In these days of high economic expectation it is easy to forget that the principal meaning of service is ‘the act of helping or doing work for another or for a community’ (Oxford Dictionary).
 
Montessori and service
Montessori described her approach to education as being ‘a help to life’ and situated this idea within an ecological framework. Creatures like the corals give unconscious service in drawing calcium carbonate from the sea and thus purifying the water to a level that enables life; and she once gently reminded an impatient child, of the long chain of service that had gone into producing the paper he sought to buy. Speaking of the role of human society, she says: All we have and all we use comes to us through the effort and fatigue of many hundreds of people whom we do not know…We must raise our consciousness and recognise that we live because other human beings allow us to live. This idea must also be made clear to the child. This is a phenomenon of unity among men. (Ramachandran, 1998, p.294)

Service and community
Etienne Wenger is a social learning theorist who, with his colleague Jean Lave, has developed the idea of ‘communities of practice’. In recent correspondence he explained that although he is not presently connected with the Montessori movement, his initial interest in learning theory was inspired by reading Dr Montessori’s books. According to Wenger, a Community of Practice is….… a group of people, who • share challenges, passion or interest • interact regularly • learn from and with each other • improve their ability to do what they care about Wenger points out that when a person joins a new group, they learn about its practices at the edge or periphery of the community. Once they gain more knowledge they are able to move to a more central position. Many parents are drawn to Montessori because of the educational advantage it seems to offer, and I was no different. I was keen to find out more but firstly I sought out other parents who were doing things for the centre (Wellington Community Montessori Preschool). With no government funding available in the 1980s, there was plenty to do in the way of fundraising, material making, maintenance and eventually help with expansion. I learnt about Montessori slowly, sharing ideas with other parents, trying things out at home and sometimes taking in extra information from the teachers before deciding to study to become a teacher myself.

The school within the home
Like Lave and Wenger, Montessori realised that it takes time to take on the knowledge of a community. When she inaugurated the first Casa dei Bambini she called it ‘the school within the home’. Physically, the Casa was indeed, ‘within the home’ as the rooms set aside were part of the apartment block where the children lived and parents could look down on the courtyard where the children played and were encouraged to come inside to watch them work on a regular basis. Montessori paints a picture of her ideal community in The Montessori Method. In addition to the homelike setting she provided for children, she wanted facilities to support parents such as a library; a kitchen to provide meals for working parents; and an infirmary to care for sick children. She also spent time communicating with parents -face to face, by letter, on the radio, on film, in magazines and through books. She knew that building relationships is an essential part of community.

Wenger explains on his home page that ‘a community of practice is not merely a community of interest - people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.’

The Montessori community has both a knowledge base and set of practices that distinguish it from other organisations. Recognising the simple but central philosophy of ‘help to life’ provides the basis for a lifelong project that goes well beyond the classroom walls and when we offer that help to each other in a conscious manner, we can give an added dimension to the notion of ‘service’ in education.

To find out more:
Montessori, M. (2002) The Montessori Method. New York: Dover.
Ramachandran, R. (Ed.) (1998). Creative development in the child: The Montessori approach. Volumes I and II. Madras: Kalakshetra Press.
(see: info@montessoribooks.com.au )
Etienne Wenger: http://www.ewenger.com/

Nicola Chisnall Montessori Voices September 2008
 

In New Zealand, the age of five is highly significant as it generally marks a child’s transition to school. Challenging this thinking in a recent broadcast, Steve Biddulph suggested that we should delay the school starting age for boys until the age of six. Both ideas lock us into a type of thinking about human development that is dominated by considerations of age. Recognising this, Montessori once said, ‘to segregate by age is one of the cruellest and most inhuman things one can do…it breaks the bonds of social life…it is an artificial isolation and impedes the development of the social sense’.

Why did Montessori feel so strongly?
The original Casa dei Bambini took children from the age of three to six or seven. In New Zealand, this is still the most common Montessori class. As in Montessori’s time, children are often accepted a little before three and, ideally, stay in this class to complete the cycle at around the age of six. Eventually, Montessori was able to see whole schools develop and she made sure that classes were defined by the easy access between them. This had the advantage that children could ‘go for an intellectual walk’ at any time. Children who were ready to take in more advanced knowledge could thus manage their own learning and those who were not were able to satisfy their curiosity and return to their own social community.
 
Montessori worked from the basis of observation and she notes that it was this system that fed curriculum development. For example, she began to see that eight year olds were interested and able to do algebra and problems of square root. Similarly, some of the geography and golden bead work (work with the decimal system) that she had originally pitched at an older age group found a happier home in the 3-6 class.

It is not the class to which one belongs that is important…but the fact that they learn from one another and thereby grow and develop…

Competition, Montessori suggests, is the result of same-age classes – those with greater ability either answer all the questions, creating envy, or else become bored as they wait for their peers to catch up. In a Montessori class, older children have the opportunity to demonstrate what they know to a willing and interested audience - an experience that in the past will have inspired them to further learning. Lest parents worry that this will hold back the older child, she points out that this is not a constant activity; the freedom of the child is respected, and when such sharing eventuates, there are benefits that accrue to the older child in analysing what they know so that they can pass it on.

It was, however, more than catering to differing intellectual ability that convinced Dr Montessori of this approach. She began to see that mixing up ages led to enhanced social development. In The Absorbent Mind she explains that just as mothers of twins find managing two children of the same age much more difficult than having six children of differing ages, so do teachers. When you have a mixed-age class, older children patiently support the younger ones and the younger ones look up to the older ones and learn from them. There are many things, she says, that a five year old can more easily impart to a three year old than can a teacher.

Montessori also noted that the older children did not always rush to help the younger children but seemed to understand that struggle was a necessary part of learning. In another situation, when a younger child became upset at breaking an object, the older ones did not chide but expressed sympathy and reassurance. The New Zealand Ministry of Education has recently incorporated the study of virtues into the curriculum system but in the Montessori school this has been a given for more than one hundred years!

Postscript: As I write this, modern technology intervenes with a phone call and followup text message confirming that two young women – one older and one younger – have just found each other as planned at Heathrow airport. It is a bond originally formed at a Montessori school that has endured for more than 20 years…

References
Montessori, M. (1949/1988). The Absorbent Mind. Oxford: Clio Press, p. 205.
Montessori, M. (1989). Child, society and the world. Oxford: Clio Press, p. 68.

Nicola Chisnall Montessori Voices December 2008