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.

Curriculum: Geometry

Students explore practical math work like geometry (as well as fractions, measurement, story problems, time, money, and decimals) through hands-on materials first, then gradually build toward abstraction. Maria Montessori devised such brilliant and attractive materials as the geometric solids (which show spheres, cubes, rectangular prisms, cylinders, cones, etc.) to demonstrate three dimensions of shape. Geometry means measuring the earth, and student explore the classroom and natural environment by assessing their shape and measuring them. 

A fun activity for students is using a camera to capture themselves in the environment with those shapes, even in their sometimes favorite setting -- the playground. This combination of going out, use of technology, review of nomenclature, and identification of geometric form helps solidify the concepts introduced through lessons in a way that keeps their eyes moving and their minds engaged.

Recently, students have been exploring the emergence of botany and zoology through their evolutionary development. The impact of this approach in the elementary 6-9 year old Montessori curriculum is that children notice throughout the course of the school year how slowly animals and plants developed from one form to another. They also notice common aspects of each organism, just as scientists have noticed in the classification and understanding of life on our planet.

Before Leeuwenhoek improved the microscope and founded the study of microbiology, many scientists relied upon living creatures and fossil records in order to group plants and animals. For example, reptiles were originally classified by their facial features, then by their form of reproduction, then eventually by the shape of their skulls. One can see from this example how the grouping began more superficially and gradually attained depth. No area of study exists in isolation. Language is fully integrated with cultural studies in three-part cards, research, and writing.

Math also informs the study of plants and animals, not merely as arithmetic but as a way of exploring the practical applications of mathematics such as fractions, measurement, geometry, and time. Students really enjoy using their hands: to touch animals and plants, to manipulate a microscope and specimen slides, and to create models from common materials. During a recent cultural group, students worked together to make a model of the smallest adult Giant Squid, which is 24 feet in length. Some students drew the mantle, which was six feet long and cylindrical. Other students used the planesphere (geography) stencil to trace foot-long eyeballs for the head, while ten students each measured seventeen-foot-long tentacles. Students have also created a larger than life starfish for our echinoderm study, cutting and gluing or taping parts of the animal onto its pink paper body.

Students are able to document their own imaginative designs of arthropods, mollusks, and echinoderms using pattern blocks. On rugs or tables, students worked independently or with partners to make these animal forms out of colored, geometric, two-dimensional blocks. Their creativity speaks for itself in the photographs they took using a digital camera; yet something much deeper can be gleaned here. Children learn through tactile contact, as Maria Montessori herself knew when she began her observational work over a century ago. Children internalize shapes and functions of animals, because they too are animals and see the world through geometry. Children still have their eyes open to the amazing details of life. We adults can learn so much from them.

Honoring the Spiritual Aspect of the 6-9 Child

Maria Montessori's most revolutionary act as a scientist and educator was her reverence for the child. Unlike other educational models, which consider children as a product of distributed information, Montessori education considers each student as an individual learner whose spirit is unique, whose time has value, and whose skills are informed by experience. Montessori education is special, because it allows the child to determine his/her learning from an abundance of experiences. Montessori described the spiritual aspect of a child as a “psychological attitude to himself and his life, within the environment, with others, how his personality is shaped by experience, and how experience leads to changes within himself.” Montessori schools honor the spiritual lives of children by giving them the world.

Spiritually, the 6-9 child is reflective and imaginative, experiences empathy and compassion, and is gradually becoming aware of the enormous world we live in.  Montessori noted, "All things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge." The Great Lessons begin from the largest concept and zoom in toward humankind, the world's youngest life form. As Montessori said, "work normalizes the child" through purposeful activity, in a calm atmosphere, within a prepared environment, and using hands-on materials. Care for the environment allows a child to make discoveries about the world, share thoughts and feelings with peers, and become a balanced, peaceful person. School is a place for learning not simply about the function of language and math operations, but about social conventions, communication, and caring for others in a community. Students love learning in a Montessori classroom, because it is a place that values their input.

One of the physical components of a Montessori classroom -- the prepared environment -- exists mainly to assist the spiritual life of the child. Montessori observed, "The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often profound tranquility in work is achieved and the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child." Materials are placed in an orderly and sequential manner on shelves within the child's reach so that he/she may freely select and manipulate works in zoology or geometry, word study or geography. The classroom is beautiful and simple, and the child works where he/she desires -- on a rug, at a table, in a rocking chair -- with ultimate control over a preferred mode of learning. The Montessori elementary classroom is rarely silent yet hums like a beehive, students respecting one another's work without disrupting the flow of a concentrating mind. 

The 6-9 child is growing increasingly independent, taking satisfaction in determining choices, and beginning to understand his/her place in the world. The child's soul has awoken to issues of justice, equality, and liberty. Matters of everyday life begin to resemble those of history and society, since the child sees the classroom as it is: a microcosm of the larger world. Learning experiences that encourage belonging and caring for the world reinforce a child's joy at the beauty of life. Montessori noted that, "If a person were to grow up with a healthy soul, enjoying the full development of a strong character and a clear intellect, they could not endure to uphold two kinds of justice—the one protecting life and the other destroying it. Nor would they consent to cultivate in their heart both love and hate." Montessori education seeks to give the child a sense of self-determination so that he/she may find peaceful solutions to conflicts. 

One of the core components of Montessori learning is going out, specifically into nature, to see the world both as a whole and in its parts. Montessori noted about the child that, "The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul." The importance of children connecting their senses to the natural world cannot be overstated, especially when media has become an increasingly large part of family lives. Montessori children learn about the parts of a plant not simply through using wooden puzzles, tracing the segments, and labeling the names, but by going out into the habitat classroom, weeding in a garden, and walking to a nearby forest with his/her classmates. Recent scientific studies by the National Wildlife Federation suggest that going out into nature calms a child's stress level, increases fitness, reduces symptoms of ADHD, increases critical thinking skills, diminishes anxiety and depression due to over-structure and lack of free time, and enhances social interactions. The NWF also asserts that children now spend less than one hour per week in nature, as opposed to thirty hours per week indoors, sedentary, and viewing media. Montessori education allows for freedom of movement and incorporates nature in the daily classroom.

Traditional education pretends to know the capacity of children and constructs a system in which students perform in order to prove their merit. Maria Montessori declared that “education becomes a matter of helping the precious energies that manifest themselves with irrepressible force, for the soul is not a stone for sculpting according to the artist’s talent but is free energy whose expression and unfolding obeys its own inner laws”. Over a century ago, Montessori demanded that "education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities." Montessori education adapts to and honors all aspects of the child. Maria Montessori understood the spiritual life of the child, whom she described as "an enigma. There is in the soul of a child an impenetrable secret that is gradually revealed as it develops." The child is the keeper of the secret, and contact with the natural world gives the child a safe place to share that secret, thereby releasing the power of the child's energy into our collective future.

Intrinsic Motivation & Montessori

Alfie Kohn, a phenomenal educator and author of books such as Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Reward and Punishments to Love and Reason, speaks about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation in the classroom and at home. Montessori philosophy emphasizes respect for the child's self-esteem and self-determination and de-emphasizes praise, adult approval, and performance-based rewards.  It takes a long time to learn how to give feedback that is free of personal attachment yet offers detail and attention.  At times, students say things like:  

"I have to get all my works done, or I can't play video games tonight."

"My mom said if I do ______ this week, she will buy me ________."

"My dad will pay me $____ for every math fact I learn."

A consistent message at home and school is vital to a sense of harmony and logic in your child.  At school, Montessori teachers encourage students to balance their activities and challenge themselves, yet we also remember the four other aspects of the person besides the intellectual: spiritual, emotional, physical, and social.  Teachers look at each child individually and avoid comparison, while also setting realistic goals with (not for) the child so s/he can feel successful.  The idea behind intrinsic motivation is to help build self-esteem, independence, and self-motivation in the child so s/he is motivated by interests, personal goals, and internal desires -- not money, punishment, and material rewards.  

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, theorizes that changes within society are moving toward intrinsic motivation and away from external rewards.  Rewards may encourage improved performance or increased effort, but Pink and many contemporary scientists agree that results are short-sighted and may undermine the innate desires that often foster innovation, creativity, and fulfillment: "Rewards can deliver a short-term boost -- just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours.  But the effect wears off -- and, worse, can reduce a person's longer-term motivation to continue the project." (p. 8)  Pink calls this the carrot and stick effect and identifies seven ways in which external rewards do not work:

They can extinguish intrinsic motivation.

They can diminish performance.

They can crush creativity.

They can crowd out good behavior.

They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.

They can become addictive.

They can foster short-term thinking. (p. 59)

The only case in which a reward or punishment is at all helpful is when the desired action is simply mechanical, requiring little or no cognitive ability or creativity (p. 62)  -- the opposite of learning, in or out of school. This message relates to our mission for the long-term benefit of children. We Montessori teachers guide children with practical life skills, intellectual inspiration, hands-on work (prior to abstraction), peaceful solutions, care for the environment and one another, and that Montessori phrase that echoes in my mind every day: “follow the child.”  Sometimes, teachers notice students rushing through their work, jumping to abstraction, or lacking depth in their studies.  Often this can be traced back to a misguided (and often adult-fostered) belief that quantity trumps quality.  As a Montessorian, I disagree: faster does not mean better.

Parents sometimes ask teachers, “How do I encourage my child without resorting to bribery?”  

• Rather than using a reward to motivate a child's behavior, emphasize the behavior you value and demonstrate how you honor that behavior in your own life.  
• Acknowledge virtues like consistency, concentration, honesty, and helpfulness.  Encourage balance and moderation, as well as following one’s passion and respecting that everyone works differently at his/her own pace.  These are the same actions that we Montessorians strive to model in the classroom. 

Adults are often interested in efficiency, not process, and ... often shift from doing too much for a child to nagging him/her about not being suddenly, completely independent. As Daniel Pink mentions in his book, extrinsic motivators perpetuate either compliance or defiance, because rewards and punishments require an authority making the choices.  Intrinsic motivators, on the other hand, involve either engagement or disengagement (p. 110), which allows the child to remain in charge of his/her own choices.  Adults can help guide, only when necessary, the inspiration at the heart of dignity, hard work, and concentration. Adults who model those virtues make a world of difference to children.

In the long run, sending your child to a Montessori school where s/he is guided in this manner and following through with your child in the same way at home makes an amazing impact on your child's life, without external motivators like money and groundings. Montessori students learn from the environment (which includes culture, problem-solving, and materials) to value their interests as the focus of their auto-education -- above and beyond the adult marketplace values of materialism. Individual pace, inspiration, and the wide arena of study available within the Cosmic Curriculum act as a primary drive in pursuing knowledge through openness to learning.  Using external motivators diminishes the value of education, altruism, and compassion by making it a chore for which a person must be "bought off" in order to perform.  Children learn now what to value for the rest of their lives.  Hopefully, with our help, they will lead with their hearts and minds, not simply follow the carrot. 

Curriculum: Preposition lesson (Language)

Impressionistic lessons are intended, as Maria Montessori said, to “spark the imagination” of the child. These lessons occur across the curriculum — in cultural, math, and language studies — and involve the students in a project of understanding. A great example is this Preposition Lesson in grammar. 

Montessori symbolized the abstract by devising a series of shapes that correspond to the parts of speech. The preposition is represented by a green half-moon or bridge, as many children see it. Guides tell the Latin derivation of the word preposition (pre + ponere = to place before) and demonstrate with the farm or zoo environment where a noun would exist in relation to the “bridge”. Students come up with sentences demonstrating their animal’s use of the preposition, for example: Elephants walk over the bridge. Green nomenclature cards label the preposition over and the noun elephants. Students work independently or with partners to create language within the context of an environment. 

Extensions in the classroom involve the guide asking the child: “Where is the elephant walking?” The student may respond: “The elephant is walking over the bridge. Over is a preposition.” Levels of sophistication include: labeling, reading aloud, using self-correcting card materials in the grammar drawers for reinforcement, writing the words, and using the words in proper context through sentence formation.

Mindfulness & Montessori

Recently, I watched a TED MED talk that sparked my interest, featuring Dr. Daniel Siegel and actress Goldie Hawn -- whose Hawn Foundation has studied the effects of mindfulness practices on students in the United States, the UK, and Canada. At first, I was struck by the intentionality and vast amount of science behind the Hawn Foundation’s research. Later, I realized that its MindUP program aligned closely with Maria Montessori’s philosophy as well as lessons in peace education and practical life in the Montessori lower elementary classroom. Recently, I read and would like to share highlights from Hawn’s book 10 Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children – and Ourselves – the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce Stress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happier Lives. (PLAY their TED MED video below!)

The MindUp program is based on scientific research into mindfulness practices that develop social and emotional intelligence. It accomplishes this through training attention, strengthening the mind, creating empathy and compassion, and engaging the senses to develop the 3 Rs beyond writing, reading, and ‘rithmetic: reflection, relationships, and resilience. Dr. Siegel refers to the term “mindsight” as “the process by which we can learn how to focus our attention on the internal world of the mind in a way that will literally change the wiring and architecture of the brain” (xiv). This kind of “heart-mind education” informs students about the parts and functions of the brain – such as the Wise Old Owl of the prefrontal cortex and the barking dog of the amygdala (p. 59) – as well as demonstrating effects on the brain of practices such as breathing breaks, generosity (what we call in my classroom “helping works”), use of the senses, and positive cognition and communication.

A University of British Columbia scientist found results of mindfulness that include better reading scores, reduced aggression, increased concentration and attention, a higher degree of listening skills, and improved management of stress (xxvi). Peers often rate students engaged in mindfulness practices as kind, trustworthy, and helpful. Scientists also note that higher levels of cortisol (a hormone released during distress) interfere with memory recall. Working memory is also impaired by “mental restlessness” and “relentless stimuli” (p. 21), visual input composing about 80% of what children take in through their senses in the modern world. 10 Mindful Minutes offers many amazing suggestions for teachers and parents to engage children with their senses through mindfulness “games”. Many activities suggested in the book mirror long-standing lessons in the Montessori 6-9 classroom, such as a mystery bag and Who Am I? games (for mindful listening or seeing), the use of scented oils (introduced at the 3-6 level) for mindful smelling, and classification of tastes and flavors very similar to those used in living/non-living biology lessons.

The practice of mindfulness is as central to the Montessori method as are the materials and lessons which materialize the abstract. Those new to Montessori often ask about its regard for the whole child – considering physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs as well as intellectual. Montessori respected the life of the child so much that she flipped conventional thinking around educational practices, classroom power dynamics, a prepared environment honoring beauty and order, appreciation for varied paces of learning, and the need to do for oneself and participate in community with others. The National Academy of Sciences reports that three minutes of mindfulness practice per day (p. 67) produces positive change in focus, observation, and relaxation as well as decreased stress, reactive emotions, and illness. The amount of time is less important than the frequency and repetition of such calming activities, which build new neural pathways (p. 37) and create new social and emotional habits. 

This fall, I introduced to my students during our movement class an exercise called Yin Yoga, which involves deepening certain stretches for three or more minutes. The benefits of such practice are physical, emotional, and spiritual: ligaments learn to stretch through endurance  and breathing, feelings come and go as the mind counts upwards to 180 (the number of seconds in three minutes), and peace and relaxation set in as one lets go of a desire for control. I explained to my students that one meaning of the word yin is “acceptance,” while its counter yang can mean “action”. Yin practices – such as yoga, sensory perception, compassion, and mindfulness – strengthen the body, mind, and spirit. 


I noticed a link between the book’s study of “mindful movement” to the Montessori philosophy, which advocates honoring the child through “purposeful movement” (p. 97). Current brain research shows that dopamine, the hormone released during physical exercise, improves memory, optimism, problem-solving, and cognition. It also reduces discomfort, grows new brain cells, and is present not only in exercise but also (as shown through neuro-imaging in MRIs) through positive thinking (pp. 95, 106). The positive effects of dopamine are doubled when a person reflects on a memory of physical movement, use of one’s senses, or a time s/he felt happy (p. 118). I see this also when we use our outdoor fabric labyrinth, a place where children take their time, become centered, and experience peace.  

The relationship between the scientific findings in 10 Mindful Minutes and curriculum planned by Maria Montessori over a century ago speaks also to the value of altruism. Maria Montessori observed the child, watching his/her behaviors for insights into the best practices for the child’s self-education. Montessori observed that the child learns best with his/her hands touching and manipulating beautiful, natural, ordered materials. Montessori observed that the child learns best in concert with others of a mixed-age range -- by learning from others’ actions, practicing and training the body’s movements and the brain’s comprehension, then modeling skills to others. Montessori observed that the child learns best when all of his/her senses are engaged, when s/he is encouraged to work at a personal rate in an environment that encourages self-sufficiency. A Cornell University study reports that helping others increases energy, self-esteem, and a sense of mastery in one’s life (p. 179). Helping also “activates personal initiative, stimulates curiosity, encourages exploration… and increases happiness” (p.183) – characteristics which are present daily in the life of children in our Montessori 6-9 classrooms.