Honoring the Emotional Aspect of the 6-9 Child

Montessori education addresses the whole child, giving equal respect to a child's intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual needs. Many educational models focus mainly on the intellectual with lesser regard for the feelings, interactions, movements, and insights of students. One of the greatest gifts Montessori parents bestow on their children is honoring the emotional life of their child, letting him/her grow at an individual pace according to his/her strengths and areas of development. Parents and teachers may benefit from remembering Maria Montessori's belief that "it is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was." It is our responsibility as adults to provide structures of routine and consistency, and it is imperative that we also step out of the child's way to allow for his/her own experiences.

Emotionally, the 6-9 child is becoming more independent than s/he was just last year, perhaps demonstrating rebellion against or resentment for what seems like default authority and assumed fact.  As Montessori said, "if an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks." This might fall under the category of a parent or teacher replying, "because I said so," a statement that children find (understandably) illogical. While the 6-9 child is socially very concerned with justice, emotionally s/he is simultaneously pushing at imposed limits and at times acting "out of character", though what s/he is really doing is developing character by striving toward individualism. 

While the 6-9 child is often concerned socially with belonging, emotionally s/he is chiefly concerned with personal happiness. In the Montessori classroom, social responsibility and emotional peace are balanced by daily, spontaneous problem-solving. The adult serves the child best by helping when needed and asking the child to "find a peaceful solution" or to accept that which s/he cannot change. This is a life skill that many adults still find challenging, yet children are frequently willing to discover a way of their own to make a situation feel better. This demonstrates the familiar declaration of the Montessori child: "I can do it myself," a kind reminder to adults not to intervene unless necessary.

An orderly environment has an emotional impact of great significance on the 6-9 child, who is branching out into a world that can feel scary and chaotic. The Montessori classroom is tailored to the height and viewpoint of a child, not to that of the adult. Work is arranged on low shelves sequentially, with care for beauty and space, so that a child can freely choose materials and use them (after a lesson with a teacher) without further need of an adult. S/he may also repeatedly use the work to encode learning and extend enjoyment, which has a direct impact on his/her happiness. The child feels empowered, free, and successful in the classroom, at times one of the few places in his/her world where s/he is truly trusted. Materials are self-correcting teachers of the child, who uses his/her hands to create understanding within the prepared Montessori environment. As Montessori said, "The children must be able to express themselves and thus reveal those needs and attitudes which would otherwise remain hidden or repressed in an environment that did not permit them to act spontaneously." The Montessori classroom is the child's work space, at all times accessible. 

The 6-9 child is pushing away from family a bit by meeting new people who have different skin colors, beliefs, and behaviors rather than more familiar characteristics. Montessori education values differences as well as similarities, as every child has his/her own personality, learning style, and confidence level. Children learn to look for comparisons between themselves, and Montessori guides encourage positive self-talk, a sense of striving for one's personal best, acceptance of emotions, and helpfulness within the classroom community. It can be a painful time for parents to pull back and allow your child to let go of your hand in order to strengthen his/her own sense of self. At school and at home, consistency and routine are vital to a child’s sense of stability. 

Solid partnerships in the two most important locations of your child’s life make him/her feel secure.  Montessori suggests that "an adult, if he is to provide proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars." Children absorb so much that we do not, having become with age and experience accustomed to our own posture, tone of voice, and volume. Teachers and parents model the behavior they wish to encourage in the child. When adults see a child suffering, we feel an inherent desire to either comfort or control the situation, perhaps recalling the way the child as a baby screamed in the supermarket. We were embarrassed or inconvenienced, but that child is no longer a baby. Truly respecting the 6-9 child involves asking what s/he needs at the time, rather than assuming or jumping instinctually to conclusions. 

Montessori understood that this requires mindfulness and restraint, since for adults "even to help can be a source of pride." We adults feel important when we help children, but children need to feel important by having a voice and a choice in their emotional lives. Often, when given a chance to reflect on his/her emotions, the 6-9 child will find a way to handle a situation that feels appropriate to him/her: taking some time to calm down, eating a snack (to balance blood sugar levels) or drinking water, practicing yoga in the peace corner, or journaling about a problem. Often children verbalize or demonstrate solutions that prove best to themselves, since each person knows best him/herself.

Maria Montessori implored guides trained in her method to avoid making demands of children and to instead use positive language -- telling what one wants rather than telling what one doesn't -- to model problem-solving and encourage emotional strength through words and non-violence. It is interesting, nonetheless, that Montessori admonished adults in two of her most famous sayings regarding students' emotional development: "Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed," and "Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life." Montessori students are impressionable people who are learning -- from us, the adults in their lives -- how to balance emotions and express their feelings. Children need to see that adults are not perfect, that we make mistakes, that we feel regret, that we practice courage by apologizing, that we help other people, and that we strive for our own personal best.

Honoring the Social Aspect of the 6-9 Child

Maria Montessori defined planes of development that distinguished the kindergartner from the elementary school-aged child. A main difference was social. Beginning in first grade, a child gradually pulls away from family and toward peers. This shift makes consistency at home and school crucial, since the child is experimenting with cause and effect, rules and consequences, and fairness and justice (which may not always be synonymous) in the two major arenas of his/her life. In the Montessori classroom, the child experiences respect, freedom, and responsibility both to self and to the learning environment comprised of materials, lessons, and classmates of various ages and abilities. 

Socially, the 6-9 child is passionate about justice. At this age, children create mini-societies, microcosms where they can role-play power, status, and competition and feel effects immediately. Our school year begins with a rules assembly, where the societal framework of the Constitution is placed alongside the faculty’s commitment to a mission statement honoring the whole child. School rules are a child’s version of the same expectations for behavior upheld in the larger society, explained with examples and reason. These rules are: respect the rights and needs of others, act in a safe and healthy way, treat all property with respect, and take responsibility for learning. 

Students often discuss at group the logic of these rules, imagine hypothetical (“what if…?”) situations, and work with partners to illustrate them using their hands, hearts, and minds. It is very important that the child understands for him/herself the values of the community, which mainly concern respect, responsibility, and safety. Friendships and belonging are significant at any age, and at the 6-9 level friends can quickly become foes when carefully crafted rules are bent or leaders assert themselves without being chosen. Montessori classrooms are proactive in their approach to social dynamics. Teachers follow the child and respond to needs as they arise. 

We use positive language, exercises in grace and courtesy, peace education, class meetings, and mediation. Conflict resolution is a daily endeavor in all classrooms. Teachers are available to students as guides and models for peace-making, yet the Montessori teacher is not a judge in matters of dispute. We hear concerns and remind children of their own abilities: to tell others how they feel and what they want, to understand the meaning of actions, to ask others about their intentions, and sometimes to apologize and make reparations for the future. Listening skills, the ability to take turns, and a sense of perspective in a consistent three-year cycle bring amazing insights to the 9-year-olds who leave our classes mature and caring individuals.

The 6-9 child enjoys such democratic processes while also exploring morality to understand for him/herself what seems good and what seems evil, and why. The Cosmic Curriculum, the center of study at this age, describes physical and chemical processes that occur without consideration to feeling – such as extinctions, eruptions, and tectonic shifts. Children relate to these events on a very personal level, often mimicking the sounds of a volcano just as, on a stormy day, their moods often create weather within which is similar to that outside. The child also notices in the actions of his/her peers that everyone – even a teacher, even a parent – makes mistakes and is vulnerable to emotions, stress, and fatigue. Honesty about one’s feelings, a sense of humor, and humility go a long way in the Montessori 6-9 classroom, and students benefit from sharing groups where they can compliment others on their perseverance, personality, and progress.

Finally, Montessori classrooms honor the child by allowing him/her to select the preferred social context for activities – solo, partner, or group work.  Each dynamic’s success depends in large part on the individual’s learning needs.  The mixed-age classroom aids a child’s social development by allowing for opportunities to learn from others’ actions, to model social responsibility, and to respond to others’ needs. It creates an atmosphere where children learn to help and be helped by others. Children gain an appreciation for their own work as well as others’ accomplishments, which challenge them without involving a sense of competition. Older children learn patience and tolerance by serving as role models and reinforcing previously learned concepts. Younger students learn courtesy, manners, and conflict resolution from older peers. By staying in a classroom for a three-year period, children develop a strong sense of community and stability, with one-half to two-thirds of a class returning every year. 

As Maria Montessori said, "When we think about mixed ages... we should not have a supermarket, but just what is essential." Because social dynamics are new each year, depth of study occurs when revisiting familiar lessons at a more sophisticated level of comprehension with a new role as an experienced learner. Familiarity and belonging also allows a teacher to better understand each child’s learning style, set holistic learning goals, build on strengths and weaknesses, and foster meaningful relationships with students and their families. It’s amazing to watch students who started as 3-year-olds move through the elementary years with a web of relationships that cross ages, cultures, and learning styles.  

Hands-on Materials (and Food!) Inspire Learning

In Montessori lower elementary classrooms for ages 6-9, the central point of interest is the Cosmic Curriculum -- a series of Great Lessons that begin with the biggest possible questions that humans can ask. When was the Universe born? How did the planets form, and why do they remain in orbit? Of what substance is our planet made? Why does water exist on Earth? What happens during an earthquake or volcano? The first two Great Lessons -- the Coming of the Universe and the Coming of the Earth -- capture and captivate the child's imagination due in part to their size, scope, and level of intensity. We are so fortunate to live in a time when technology and science can show us things only previously imagined by early civilizations through the stories told in each culture.

An important aspect of Montessori classrooms is the mixed-age format, which allows children to work at their own pace with a variety of student peers and mentors. As a child moves through this three-year cycle, s/he becomes emotionally and socially more confident and eventually enjoys giving lessons to others. The child develops depth, since the first exposure to a concept may be very impactful yet shallow. The next year, when revisiting a concept such as Earth history and geology, a student's interest and ability may become increasingly fascinated with the subject. In his/her third year, a child often researches a topic, makes a model, and presents information and ideas to the class. For this reason, I try to vary presentations each year so children see studies from different perspectives and with various materials.

These photographs demonstrate a lesson I gave recently on Plate Tectonics, following study of the layers of Inner Earth -- the crust, mantle, and core. In past years, I have demonstrated Plate Tectonics using an orange peel, an onion's layers, and (last year, memorably) with marshmallow fluff and graham crackers. This year, I used maple syrup (representing viscous magma), crackers (symbolizing continental plates), and fruit leather (for oceanic plates, which are much thinner than continental plates). The work remained on our sink counter for two days so that students could repeatedly encounter the tasty materials and be reminded of the lesson by using their senses of smell and sight.

We finished our week together with "family-style lunch", pulling all of the desks together into a long communal table and waiting to begin eating until everyone was seated. We started by discussing how each student has dinner with his/her family and what makes this time special: setting the table, an absence of distracting media (no television, computers, or cell phones), soft voices, polite manners ("Please pass the pepper."), caring questions and observations from the day, and the intimacy that comes from sitting closely with those about whom we care. Students asked one another about the contents of their lunch and conversation turned to personal questions about pets, siblings, and the impending holidays. (I was inspired to try this approach to our sometimes chaotic lunch time by recalling a 9-12 Montessori classroom where I worked many years ago in Portland with lights off, lit candles, and classical music in the background.) Children deserve to experience this spiritually-grounding and peaceful setting throughout the year!

The Prepared Environment

At the end of every summer when I return to work as a Montessori teacher for ages 6-9 (grades 1-3), I like to recharge the setting and make changes that follow the child. Maria Montessori considered "the prepared environment" of the classroom to be a place of order and beauty meant to attract the child to meaningful work, settle him/herself spiritually and emotionally, and allow him/her independent access to motivate auto-education. In anticipation of the start of the school year, I have taken some recent photos of some aspects of the Montessori classroom that live Maria's mission beautifully.

Montessori elementary focuses on the 5 Great Lessons (the Coming of the Universe, Earth, Humans, Language, and Numbers), which is called the "Cosmic Curriculum". We will be starting with the Big Bang (as one of the explanations of the start of the Universe, as well as cultural stories from around the world), so the work on the middle shelf left is called "Stellarnucleosynthesis" which is the birth (or death) of a star -- in our case, the Sun. The work is a series of concentric circles (made of felt), each representing one of the elements that was created when the Universe banged into existence. That leads into study of the Periodic Table, atoms, planets, and eventually Earth. That thing on the top shelf middle is a light box, for tracing various things -- pictures of animals in books, outlines of leaves from card material, flags, etc. 

Life Science: That big thing on the right is the Bead Cabinet. It's also in age 3-6 classes, as well as age 6-9 classes like mine. It helps with linear counting, multiples, cubing, etc. Those are called Golden Beads, where each number is assigned a certain color, for beauty and orderly isolation of numerals. (That's actually near the math area, but I thought I should explain it.) The life science shelf contains botany, as well as protists like fungi and bacteria, and I like to have a child-size microscope on the shelf where students can use it to look at pre-made slides (like of a butterfly wing or flower pollen) or slides they make (with seaweed or laundry fuzz). I also have a magnifying glass and two binoculars, as well as a tree identifying book and the leaf cabinet, so we will start the year by trying to find leaves with different margins and figuring out from what trees they fell. 

Room 1: This is a view of the room from the front door. Parent volunteers give weekly spelling tests to students at a computer table. I made the reading/writing corner in the back of the room larger and kind of isolated, so it might actually be quiet for kids reading or writing book reports. When I took everything off the wall in June, my intention was to move everything down the wall closer to student eye level. It is important to see the world from the perspective of a child, so sometimes lying on my back helps me get closer to his/her point of view. This is the students' room, not just mine.

Measurement: My favorite shelf this year! I bought a new lamp for the math area, so that sometimes we can lower the lights and work in dim calmness rather than under the glaring fluorescents. On the top shelf are glass containers with lentils, beans, chickpeas, and popcorn kernels in them -- fun for students to feel and use for measuring with real food! I made the "Today's Menu" for the vegetables, fruits, or herbs I will try to bring in every week. On the bottom shelf there are teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups as well as other kitchen items like a sieve, apple corer, peeler, etc. and some command cards for measuring. (Example: "Peel 1/3 cup of carrots.") Students can then put them out on the sink counter for a class snack. On the middle shelf, there are cook books, wide ruled index cards for writing recipes, and a scale for measuring weight -- we'll do that later this fall, after they grasp fractions. 

Zoology: I like to put animal work out in order of "evolutionary emergence", and since at the beginning of the year we're talking about the Coming of the Universe, we won't really get to animals per se until later this fall. However, on the top shelf, I put a coral (a present from my mom!) and animal families cards (Example: male/female/baby = stallion/mare/colt) with little animal objects to match. The middle shelf has card material for animal homes (and real examples of empty wasps nests the children can touch!) and animal sounds. (I may ask students to do that work on the back patio, so they can bray or moo all they like!) The bottom shelf has a lesson and card material about prokaryote and eukaryote cells, which is more appropriate for 3rd graders. 

Peace Table: Maria Montessori was very interested in peace education, maybe because she lived in Italy under a dictator who forced her into exile. Nearly every Montessori classroom has a peace table -- a quiet place for students to go when they feel the need for calm, and where disagreements between kids are settled. I have a deck of yoga cards for children, and there is a narrow rug for yoga next to the table. I also have a photo of me as a kid and my Grandpa Henry, so that the students see that I was once a kid (gasp!) and so I remember, too. The wooden bell is a sound cue to line up (for recess or specialist classes), and the Tibetan singing bowl is a sound cue for circle time. The candle is used at birthday celebrations, placed in the middle of circle to represent the sun, and the birthday child walks around it with a small globe (representing Earth) for each year of his/her life. 

Writers Corner: I like having a rocking chair, especially for children who feel soothed by moving. Parent volunteers sit here when reading with students once per week. The writing table has a lamp, journal prompt cards, and antique photos to help inspire writing, or partners can sit here to work on a book report or activity (like readers theater or a recommendation/review poster). A nearby shelf (the writers studio) contains all the art-related supplies they might need to do that work independently. I found a curtain rod and some drapes for readers theater, so I can't wait for students to have a chance to act out their favorite books! 

Practical Life: Starting in classrooms for ages 3-6, Practical Life work develops fine and gross motor skills like balance and coordination, as well as spiritual, emotional, and social skills like patience, helpfulness, and responsibility. There are command cards on the top shelf and little basket works (rock sorting by color, size, or weight; plant watering; hole-punching, table setting; beadwork; sewing; use of camera). On a nearby sink counter is a cute little elephant-shaped tea kettle and cups, as well as a hot water brewer and two kinds of tea. When parents or visitors come into the classroom for at least twenty minutes, students may ask them if they would like a cup of tea and serve them. The adults are happily surprised by such courteous children, and students know it counts as a work!  The basket on the sink counter is where the vegetables, fruits, and herbs for measurement go.

For parents and students new to Montessori (or new to the 6-9 classroom), this may explain and give depth to the meaning to the care and thought that goes into a child's education. Every Montessori teacher and his/her classroom is different and specific to his/her personality, yet all Montessori classrooms contain materials that Maria designed over a century ago (thinking ahead of her time!), as well as materials inspired by her pioneering, scientific spirit of free and open inquiry. I look forward to sharing this learning environment with my students this year!

Parent Involvement in Montessori Classrooms

Sometimes, parents wonder how they can be involved when their child attends a Montessori school, or any school for that matter. The truth is, any teacher loves to have parent support in the classroom, especially when the parent asks the teacher questions about how to do so. I have been fortunate to have parents whose schedules often allow them to participate as field trip drivers and chaperones, to volunteer to give weekly spelling tests or listen to students read, or to come into class to share an experience or special interest. 

One of the most important yearly events that students share with their classmates is their birthday celebration. A candle at the center of group represents the sun, and a globe represent the Earth. In the Montessori 3-6 classroom, many students sang a song as the birthday child carried the globe around the candle: "The Earth goes around the sun/ The sun/ The Earth goes around the sun/ It takes 12 months/ One year/ 365 days." In Montessori 6-9 classrooms, there are many variations. In my class, the child and his/her parents share photos and stories from each year of a child's life, and at the end of the group, the other students ask questions and sing "Happy Birthday". The birthday boy or girl often chooses to donate a new or used book to the classroom library, as his/her gift to the community.

Another opportunity for parents is to join their child for a healthy lunch and talk with his/her classmates.

At other times, parents offer to share about their profession (such as a mom who is a nurse) or a hobby, such as a dad sharing about a family's recent beehive operation. When their child participates as a "co-presenter", s/he feels a great deal of pride and leadership.

Parent volunteers in the classroom are so important, especially those who give spelling tests to students or listen to them read one-on-one. Parents learn how to listen for decoding and ask questions that aid reading comprehension. They also provide an extra set of eyes for observation of student assessment in reading, which is very valuable.

Honoring the Intellectual Aspect of the 6-9 Child

Maria Montessori believed that human development is not upward, steady, and linear but “a sequence of births”, a series of formative stages.  She defined four planes of development for the child burgeoning into an adult: birth to age six, six to twelve, twelve to eighteen, and eighteen to twenty-four. As adults, we can look back upon our lifelong learning similarly, as an ocean of continuing knowledge nudged forward in ebbs and flows of discovery, reflection, and tangents of new interest. One of the many gifts you have given to your child with a Montessori education is a respect for the whole child, which includes not simply academic progress. 

When visiting a Montessori classroom, visitors often notice respect for others, value for peace and concentration, attention to spatial awareness, and love for the environment. In Lower Elementary, we focus on the beginning of the second sequence of a child’s rebirth, what Montessori referred to as a “state of security and tranquility”, through the intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual life of the child.  As Montessori said, “The elementary child has reached a new level of development. Before he was interested in things: working with his hands, learning their names. Now he is interested mainly in the how and why…the problem of cause and effect.”  

Intellectually, the 6-9 child is curious, imaginative, interested in sharing ideas, and as Montessori put it, “hungry for culture”.  Montessori acknowledged the “importance of feeding the hungry intelligence and opening vast fields of knowledge to eager exploration”.  The center of the 6-9 curriculum, Cosmic Education, emerges in story form and through experiments, arriving at a time when the child craves reasons for things. The Great Lessons at the 6-9 level – the Coming of the Universe, the Earth, and Humankind – spark the imagination by giving a brief glimpse of the whole universe and its contents, thereby whetting the child’s intellectual appetite.  

Montessori believed that “the child’s mental powers are now such that they not only expand but soar, rising to new heights”.  The Cosmic Curriculum, which begins with grand concepts such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and geography and gradually zooms in on botany, zoology, and the human experience.  These areas of the curriculum are studied by all ages in varying levels of sophistication. Science experiments are integrated, as we discuss the Scientific Method. Students work with hands-on materials such as beakers and microscopes to investigate for themselves gravity, magnetism, volcanism, and states of matter. 

Maria Montessori wrote, in her book To Educate the Human Potential: “Since it has been … necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality, and an answer to all questions…. All things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. The idea helps the mind of the child to become focused, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied having found the universal centre of himself with all things.” 

The Montessori classroom is organized both beautifully and sequentially, so that to the naked eye of child and parent, everything a child encounters seems do-able. Information is simplified and studies are approached in small steps, so that students can delve into material year after year and always learn something new. Montessori explained that the environment is prepared this meticulously so the child may be “left in peace to bring an activity to its logical and natural conclusion (and experience) a great sense of achievement”.  

Montessori education is sometimes accused of being either too structured, or not structured enough.  Though this may be a matter of opinion, the intention of the prepared environment and the responsible freedom encouraged of Montessori students is for the child to interact with materials in a hands-on fashion to the ultimate satisfaction of his/her passions. This is when true learning happens.  Students are most productive and engaged when a work is self-chosen, founded on individual interest with the teacher sowing a maximum number of seeds so that a few may find permanent root in your child’s heart and mind.  

Freedom of movement and freedom of choice are inherent to the child’s ownership of his/her learning process, and your child has the luxury of continuing with a work at his/her own pace, for as long as he/she benefits from the pleasure of repeating and encoding the purpose of that activity. That said, Montessori teachers are notorious observers and record-keepers, who follow a scope and sequence that spans nearly twenty subcategories within math, language, reading, and cultural studies. We track the learning of each child individually, present lessons to small or whole groups, and address the variety of learning styles present in the classroom, committed as we are to the Montessori mantra "follow the child".  

All Montessori materials, in addition to providing concrete experiences of abstract concepts, are sequential, developmentally-appropriate, self-correcting, and often made of wood, glass or metal.  The purpose of self-correcting material -- such as language cards which match images or objects with words and/or definitions -- is to encourage a child's self-esteem and self-reliance.  The materials are the teachers, as much as are the guides in each room.  Lessons introduce materials and activities, yet most of the time children work alone or in partner groupings (of their own choosing) so that work appears to be a game, as Montessori believed "work normalizes the child".

Maria Montessori said, “Education is a natural process carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences in the environment.”  This belief is demonstrated well with the use of math materials such as the Golden Beads, the Stamp Game, the Bead Frames, the Checkerboard, and Rack and Tubes (also called the Test Tubes).  These materials help reinforce place value, so that the child learns in increments about concepts such as "exchanging" by first trading individual units for the next greatest place value, tens, and so on. Many of us who attended traditional schools marvel at what seems now an obvious visual and kinesthetic experience, since we often learned an abstraction or formula prior to (or in some cases, completely without) sorting, counting, or even touching quantities of things. 

Montessori teachers at the 6-9 level would implore parents to allow the teaching to happen at school with the materials rather than confuse the process by demonstrating "tricks" at home, since a child may resist using the myriad of hands-on materials if shown something deemed "easier", which is in fact much more complicated and introduced at the culmination of the learning cycle. Three years within the breadth and depth of the 6-9 classroom allows a child a never-ending supply of interests and exploration and demonstrates how a lifetime could be spent learning more about these endless questions. 

More Free Play, Less Pressure, and Fewer Screens

Cosmologist Brian Swimme's latest book Journey of the Universe explains about young people, that “what often occupies their consciousness is play. They leap and twist; they explore the world with their eyes; they taste the world with their mouths; they enter into many kinds of relationships out of sheer curiosity. With their play, they are discovering the exuberance of being alive.” (p. 85) This observation resounded with me during parent-teacher conferences, when several parents said that their children experienced a positive change when their lives were less managed and they were allowed more free time to play.

Parents often express concern over such issues as their child's academic progress, time management, motivation, and social behavior. There is a fine line between adult guidance of a child and imposition of will upon him/her. Maria Montessori identified a teacher’s purpose: "to aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself." Some parents ask what they should do at home to reinforce expectations at school, whether they should withhold extracurricular activities such as swimming or at-home play until their child performs the desired behavior. My consistent suggestion is to support the child wherever s/he is in his/her development and to avoid adding any pressure in the manner of rewards and punishments. It is relieving to hear so many parents validate how this approach of loving support benefits children's confidence, independence, and internal motivation. (PLAY Brown's TED talk on the subject below!)

In my daily interactions with students over the past decade, I have observed that children respond to respect, guidance, honesty, and flexibility. Montessori famously said, "The prize and punishments are incentives toward unnatural or forced effort, and therefore we certainly cannot speak of the natural development of the child in connection with them." Parents experiment with approaches, and some try to externally motivate their child with points, purchases, even food – soon discovering that their child no longer cares as much about what they are learning as with the carrot at the end of the parental stick. External motivation nearly always backfires, engendering resentment in the heart of the child, who understands very quickly that s/he isn’t trusted with his/her own education.

The crucial impact of play on the emotional, social, and cognitive development of children is described in the 2009 book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown. A medical doctor, psychiatrist, and clinical researcher, Brown discusses how experts “from every point of the scientific compass now know that play is a profound biological process… It shapes the brain and makes animals smarter and more adaptable… it fosters empathy and makes possible complex social groups. For us, play lies at the core of creativity and innovation.” (p. 4-5) Despite this fact, children in many families learn -- from example -- that play is valued less than work and that work life blurs into private time without consideration for our emotional and spiritual needs.

Brown explains, “At some point, as we get older… we are made to feel guilty for playing. We are told that it is unproductive, a waste of time… The play that remains is, like league sports, mostly very organized, rigid, and competitive… The beneficial effects of… true play can spread through our lives, actually making us more productive and happier in everything we do.” (p. 6-7) Brown identifies seven properties of play: 

• “apparently purposeless (done for its own sake),
• voluntary,
• inherent attraction,
• freedom from time, 
• diminished consciousness of self, 
• improvisational potential, 
• and continuation desire… 

We are fully in the moment, in the zone. We are experiencing what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly calls ‘flow’.” (p. 17) It is this flow that parents hope their children will experience when they send them to Montessori school, yet this same priority must also be consistently maintained at home. (PLAY Csikszentmihaly's TED talk below!)

Brown cites renowned Washington State University play researcher Jaak Panksepp, who has found that “active play selectively stimulates brain-derived neurotrophic factor (which stimulates nerve growth) in the amygdala (where emotions get processed) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (where executive decisions are processed).” (p. 33) Just as author Richard Louv coined the phrase “nature deficit” in children lacking contract with the outdoors, Brown notes a “ play deficit much like the well-documented sleep deficit”. (p. 43) He warns that "the threat to play is even greater than it was a generation or more ago… Kids today are spending too much of their time on video games… and the parentally organized, high expectation trip to the soccer field at age six… Schools have evolved into assembly lines for high test scores, where skills are drilled… Something is lost – perhaps unfettered imagination and freedom.” (p. 79) Free play is nearly extinct, except in half-hour allotments of recess.

Brown asserts that “movement structures our knowledge of the world, space, time, and our relationship to others… Movement play lights up the brain and fosters learning, innovation, flexibility, adaptability, and resilience... which are required for the emergence of fluent human language.” Especially relevant to Montessori classrooms, Brown describes how “object play with the hands creates a brain that is better suited for understanding and solving problems of all sorts.” Imaginative play “remains the key to emotional resilience and creativity… developing empathy, understanding, and trust of others, as well as personal coping skills.” (p. 84-87) For many students, their school day begins at seven in the morning and ends at six in the evening with after-school care. Many have multiple evening and weekend "enrichment" activities, with very little free play time for themselves. As I have seen on many occasions that children seem afraid of nature and don't know how to enter it nor enjoy its wonder.

“We may think we are helping to prepare our kids for the future when we organize all their time, when we continually ferry them from one adult-organized, adult-regulated activity to another," Brown suggests. "In fact, we may be taking from them the time they need to discover for themselves their most vital talents and knowledge… access to an inner motivation for an activity that will later blossom into a motive force of life.” Not long ago, Brown reminds us, “self-organized play was all kids did” and warns that if children are deprived of free play, “they will find their own new ways of asserting their own community, socialization patterns, and individuality… creating their own private play zone where they … socialize freely.” (p. 105-108). Brown points to the advent of texting, juvenile cell phone use, and online communities as examples of the new locations of children's privacy, in the absence of a back wood. Children are often left to their own devices, literally: an iPad, Wii, or YouTube. 

Screen play concerns Brown because it can “isolate people from real-world, human interactions that are an essential part of psychological health… The storyline is set by the box, and the kids are now merely along for the ride, motionless and mute… In the real world, the kind of emotional arousal that these screens and games produce is discharged through physical activity” without which “kids can become antsy and unfocused”. Screen play neglects “a deep human need to interact with the material world: to feel the tug of gravity, to physically move through the dimensions of space and time, to feel the physical resistance of solid objects.” Applicable to Montessori classrooms, Brown notes that “the use of the hands to manipulate three-dimensional objects is an essential part of brain development.” (p. 183-185) From a century ago, Montessori echoes Brown: "Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire abstract ideas."

Montessori's observation -- that “work normalizes the child” – is also Brown’s advice: “The quality that work and play have in common is creativity. In both we are building our world, creating new relationships… Play is called recreation because it makes us new again.” It is “nature’s greatest tool for creating new neural networks and for reconciling cognitive difficulties.” (p. 127-128) So many Montessori materials appear to children as learning games: the stamp game, the checkerboard, the test tubes. Montessori students view education as play, because materials are ordered, thoughtful, beautiful, tactile, and fun!

Still, parents worry that their child may somehow fall behind others. Many parents show interest in test scores and would like to know where their child places amongst his/her peers. Quantitative, competitive measures are incompatible with the Montessori philosophy that each child grows at his/her own rate, learns by using  concrete materials, and values emotional and spiritual development as much as intellectual or social behavior. The latter two are easily determined, while the former involve understanding of and compassion for a child's uniqueness. Montessori believed that "when dealing with children, there is greater need for observing than of probing." 

No child will be left behind when each child is respected. Brown reminds us that “people reach the highest levels of a discipline because they are driven by love, by fun, by play.” (p. 143) Chore charts and stars have no place in a respectful relationship between child and adult. Brown adds, “The acquisition of good grades or a big bonus, if not connected to the heart of life, is dispiriting, even if accolades accrue.” (p. 145) Seeking parental approval is on par with fear of parent disappointment. I am so proud to work at a school that provides open, proactive communication with parents, as well as vivid, qualitative narratives to describe a child better than any number or letter. 

Brown's advice to parents is succinct: more free play, less pressure, fewer screens. “Nature, with all its novelties and the play emotions stirred by its wonders, gets through to kids if the immersion can be tailored to fit their temperament and natural curiosity.” (p. 204) Parents are amazed to see their child's temperament, interests, self-esteem, and joy after an hour of free time in an open field. Children have the rest of their lives to live like adults; they only have one childhood. Let them go outside!

Nourishing the Intellect in Nature

On a recent field trip to Full Circle Farm in Carnation, Washington, my class of 6-9-year-olds had a special experience in nature. Throughout the month of September, we had been studying the changing seasons, sketching farm animals, reading books about food, and had even taken our families to a local farmer's market to see the produce up-close. On our field trip -- which was free -- we wore mud boots so we could get dirty and explored the farm with a volunteer guide. We examined various seeds that are stored in the barn and smelled various geraniums with amazing perfumes (lemon balm, pepper, tomato) in the greenhouse where seeds flourish into plants. We also visited the manure-to-compost heap, saw the vintage farm equipment this local farm buys used as a form of recycling, and snacked on carrots from the field and blueberries off the vine. Although this farm is within thirty minutes of our school, this event was many students' first foray onto a farm where organic food is grown in a sustainable way.

I was reminded of Richard Louv's term "nature-deficit disorder". Children at first felt inhibited to splash in puddles, wary of dirtying their clothes, and they learned that some bacteria (among the oldest and earliest forms of life on the planet) are actually good for you, that they fight sickness created by "bad" bacteria. A parent mentioned that her child is reading voraciously this year, since television viewing was decreased. So many things that impact all of our lives end up seeming very simple. The more in-touch we are with hands-on materials, the more focus, concentration, and enjoyment we experience. Technology has much to offer us, yet we benefit from maintaining equal time with low-mechanized or even manual processes: peeling a potato, holding a door for another person, or turning a page.

In Richard Louv's two books on the subject of nature-deficit disorder, Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle, the author does not oppose technology yet reminds readers that the more technology we introduce and use in our lives, the more nature we need to bring about balance. Even a small amount of time outdoors positively affects children whose connection to the environment has been negatively impacted by increasingly sedentary or (conversely) over-structured lifestyles.

Fundamental aspects of Montessori education parallel recent scientific studies on the optimal ways we learn: 

• through hands-on contact with natural materials
• by going out into the world to freely experience (not simply research)
• in communion with others
• through noticing inter-connections between all life forms
• in honoring our whole selves -- intellect, emotions, body, sense of wonder, need for company
• and by finding peace at our own pace. 

Here are some suggestions for restoring a child's connection to nature:

• Walking, journaling, and engaging in imaginative play outdoors -- with or without others -- may bring a child inner peace and joy or provide centering instead of over-stimulation.
• Those who are naturally creative and imaginative may enjoy sketching or watercolor, which also strengthen fine motor skills.
• Climbing trees, building forts, or relays may allow a child to develop unknown sources of physical strength.
• Those who grapple with hypersensitivity or defensiveness may benefit from spending more time outside in order to release frustrations and find peace when compromise is necessary.
• Time spent with friends and loved ones in nature settings may help a child feel more secure, allow him/her to take risks and try new things, and develop courage and confidence.
• Many active children find that running or jumping rope helps them corral their energy and focus better indoors, as well as provides them with a break between periods of deep concentration.
• Shy or reticent children may benefit from oral storytelling which inspires the senses and stimulates conversation.
• Gardening may help children connect to others and the natural world, refine their auditory and visual senses, and enhance observance of their surroundings.
• Collective excursions  -- especially hiking, camping, or adventuring -- allow children to express themselves more openly to others, build self-esteem, and hone gross motor coordination.

Quality time spent with one another, rather than distracted by convenience and electronics, brings us closer and helps us feel that we belong. In PE activities, we sometimes use a colorful parachute to encourage community-building. Other times, we walk a fabric labyrinth to experience focus, patience, and mindfulness while also practicing gross motor balance. We should always go out into nature, not only during "good weather". We learn so much from returning to the same places throughout the year, noticing seasonal changes, and appreciating the cycle of life.

Geometric Construction & Montessori

Children love to build, and the book Block Play by Sharon MacDonald and Katheryn Davis explains both why they do, and what such a love of construction means for their holistic development. By using building blocks, students learn how to: 

• use oral language in a variety of situations
• explore cause and effect
• represent a thought or idea
• develop problem-solving techniques
• enhance creative and critical thinking skills
• match objects in one-to-one correspondence
• express quantities
• demonstrate an understanding of part and whole
• use vocabulary to compare same and different objects
• form groups by sorting and matching objects according to attributes
• acquire non-locomotor movement skills
• create, repeat, and extend patterns
• develop hand-eye coordination
• order items using specific criteria
• understand mapping skills
• use physical representations of addition and subtraction
• develop classification skills
• differentiate between sizes and shapes
• understand gravity, stability, weight, and balance
• think creatively to make and implement plans
• discover names and functions of buildings. (p. 12)

The use of concrete work is core to the Montessori philosophy. This seemingly simple "work" feels to a child like "play" and was one of Maria Montessori's gifts in preparing her classrooms over a century ago. By using their hands with meaningful materials as many times as needed or desired, children reinforce by themselves understanding of the curriculum and the world outside the classroom.

In geometry, students use the geometric solids to comprehend two- and three-dimensional shapes. The geometric cabinet contains wooden insets and frames of circles (small to large), quadrilaterals, and polygons. In lessons on the Seven Triangles of Reality, students measure with rulers and protractors three-sided polygons with varying side lengths and angles to find the one triangle which fits into both categories. Another hands-on material is the stick box, a container filled with color-coded wooden rods which aid in lessons involving lines. The 6-9 Montessori child can free his/her love of construction by using colored geometric blocks and natural wood building blocks.

In my classroom, students use these blocks as a "break" activity after they complete their daily responsibilities in language, math, and cultural studies. Boys and girls enjoy working with partners or individually to construct, discuss and/or describe, draw their creations on paper with colored pencils, and take photographs before triumphantly destroying their architecture. Children have a preternatural gift for creating their imaginative worlds in three-dimensional form. All these photos were taken by children, whose perspective takes in many viewpoints, gets down low or inside work, or zooms in for optimal effect.  In the coming months, our class will be studying architecture and construction in more depth -- through books, projects, and special visitors with experience in the adult world of building.