The Role of Montessori Adult

The Montessori Adult

When I started thinking about The Role of a Teacher, I sat back and I was trying to dig into my childhood experiences with my teachers. At some point in our education, we had a teacher that inspired us. I vividly remember that when I was in pre-primary, my class teacher used to treat me very well and that is why I used to love to go to the class. Even after getting into 1st std., I still loved to going to that class. After that I studied under lots of teachers in primary, secondary, and higher secondary mediums, but the memories of my pre-primary teacher were the best because of the love and care she took in those years. The same experience motivates me to be same teacher, which my children would love to carry along in their memories way after passing out of school.

Here again in 10+ yrs of my teaching career I remember few experiences through which I have learnt a lot. These are my real achievements, my treasure of memories with these children. I wonder whether we give them knowledge, help them to become independent or they are helping me to become better day by day.

Here I listed down few experiences……

·??????It happens most of the time in the morning, when I finishes my daily preparation and I simply sit on the chair in one corner and waiting for the children to enter the class. When children starts entering the class, they observe everything in its order as usual. He/she looks at me and starts sitting in the circle for assembly. I wait till all children comes to the class I sit almost for first 10 mins, and I can see all the children they are sitting in the circle for prayer, they sit with legs crossed, with open palm for prayer and small children follows automatically. Here what I understood is that the child follows the order, it is up to the adult, how many time we follow our daily routine.

·??????This is what I experienced in my class. One day I was talking with child’s mother. Mother was informing me that he is writing 9 as mirror image, and when mother corrected him, he told its ok, this is what I write in the school, I can do mamma, if it is wrong my aunty will tell me. This is what I am practicing in class. I never do direct correction to the child’s mistake, or get angry, rather I says ‘oh! You have finished one page good, let me show you one more time.” They never hesitate to come to me if they have done something wrong. Encouragement, tolerance, praise and love, these are four important points I always keeps in mind when I enter in class. As a teacher I think this is my small achievement.

·??????Very early in my career I understood that instructions retains only for a min in child’s mind. I always prefer to show the activity again rather than giving the list of instructions to the child.

·??????One of the child was asking me to show her new work. And I’ve promised to show it today after snacks time. Because of poor health I needed to go early. I spoke to that child and told , that

Me: “I am not feeling well so I am going early. As I promised you for that work, is it ok if I show you tomorrow?”

Child: “ok, aunty”

Me: “do you understand what did I said?”

Child: “Yes aunty”

Me: “tell me what did I say”

Child: “that you are not well and going home and you will show me work tomorrow. I am fine aunty, go home and take rest. I know you will keep your promise.”

I think this is my achievement, that child has faith in my words.

·??????It was a dance practice. One child was not comfortable with dance teacher, though he is very kind and nice one. I went with the child to dance class and I shook hand with the teacher and become his friend in front of the child and I asked child to do the same. Now child is so comfortable with him and started going to class regularly….. I think this is my achievement.

·??????After prayer every day I tell children this is our class and we will work now but we will not talk loudly. We will whisper in the class. One day unconsciously I started talking with my colleague, one child came to me and told me that “aunty we should whisper in the class, other children are working they will get disturb.” I think this is my achievement.

According to me these are the achievements as Montessori teacher, but to give an outline above the role of a teacher I am quoting here teacher’s role in Montessori terms.

When Montessori tapped into the undiscovered potential of the child, she quickly realized that along with this new way of looking at education and child development, a new adult must also arrive, a new educator that could guide the child. This new adult would look at education in a completely different light. Education would support natural human development. Education would believe in the constructive power of the child. Education would support each child in developing her unique potential.

The whole concept of education changes. It becomes a matter of giving help to the child’s life, to the psychological development of man. No longer is it just an enforced task of retaining our words and ideas. This is the new path on which education has been put; to help the mind in its process of development, to aid its energies and strengthen its many powers.” (Montessori, The Absorbent Mind,)

No longer could the old models of teaching work. Children were not vessels to be filled up with the adult’s knowledge. Children did not need to be punished or coerced into obeying or learning. Children were not a “blank slate” needing to be written on by an all – knowing teacher or parent.

Instead, Montessori searched for a “new adult” that would play a very different role in the children’s lives. This adult would have a thorough understanding of natural child development, and prepare and maintain a supportive environment where the child could thrive. She would observe each child carefully to understand the transformations that were happening and offer new opportunities to support further development. This new adult would have a clear vision of each child’s potential, and both the faith and the knowledge to bring that potential to light.

This new perspective requires a shift in thinking for many adults. Once this shift has begun, it is a process of breaking down the old, conventional thinking about children and education, and replacing them with a new vision that supports all aspects of child development - physical, cognitive and emotional.

Montessori saw that the teacher's preparation would also include a transformation of "personality and social importance." The teacher would not be the center of attention; in fact, it would not even be she who did the direct teaching. A 'new educator' with different personal qualities was needed - "Instead of facility in speech, she has to acquire power of silence; instead of teaching, she has to observe; instead of proud dignity of one who claims to be infallible she assumes the vesture of humility." (Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method Vol. 1, "The preparation of the teacher")

Montessori tells us in creative development, "If we wish to become successful teachers in this new educational method, we must reconsider our task, and our personality as teachers. We must take upon ourselves the mission of bettering the condition of education. The main task is not to learn the method, but to open a new and better way of life for the child. Therefore, it is necessary for the teacher to have an inner preparation." (Montessori, Creative Development of the Child, Vol.2, p104.)?

Three Levels of preparation of Adults:

The preparation of adult is an on-going process, with every child you work with will teach you something about yourself, about child development and about education.?

1.?????Physical preparation

2.?????Intellectual preparation

3.?????Spiritual preparation

Physical Preparation:

This is the first level of preparation that an adult must go through is the physical preparation, the outward persona adult carries. A Montessori adult should be distinguished with characteristics in her movements and speech. These are observable characteristics, our movements and speech enhance our work with children.?

Slowing down our typical adult pace shows respect for the child who is still developing control and coordination of movement. Whether it is the way we move across room or thoughtful movements in presentation, how we move is the daily indicator of patience, grace and respect for the child.?

When our speech is clear and accurate, we demonstrate an understanding of how children develop language and intellect. Through our language, we model care and respect for the child, creating foundation of trust and respect for each other that creates a warm, positive atmosphere in which the children grow and develop.

Intellectual Preparation:

The second aspect of teachers preparation is intellectual or technical preparation. As Montessori mentions "The teacher must have a good knowledge of the work she is expected to do and of the function of the materials. She must acquire a precise knowledge of the techniques determined for the presentation of the material and for dealing with the child so that he is effectively guided."?

The teacher must be through with presentation and activities and how they support child development. Teachers must use and practice the materials themselves in order to fully understand their value to the children.?

The key to putting the intellectual preparation to work is developing the skill of "Observation". Montessori calls the capacity of observation as the "fundamental quality" in teacher's preparation. It is not enough to have eyes and knowledge - but the ability to observe is a habit developed through practice.

Spiritual Preparation:

The third level of preparation is our spiritual preparation. This is highly personal and introspective process and requires increasing levels of self-awareness and reflection. Montessori tells "We have to watch ourselves most carefully. The real preparation for education is a study of one's self. The training of the teacher is to help life in something far more than a learning of ideas. It includes training of character; it is a preparation of spirit."?

The children are deserving our very best selves, it is for them we strive to root out any prejudices, hidden agendas, negative motivations we might harbor inside of ourselves. What we offer children should be the very best inside of us. We all possess beauty, light, grace and this is what we want children to find in us.??

Three Responsibilities of the Adult

We have three primary responsibilities that define our role as leaders in our community of children. These responsibilities are:

1) to prepare, maintain, and enrich the environment

2) to connect the child to the prepared environment

3) to withdraw once the connection is made, in order that the child may learn for himself.

Prepare, maintain, and enrich

-?????????The children depend on their environment in order to survive and grow. They literally construct themselves from what they find in their environment. Children learn through interaction with their environment, and the degree to which that environment is prepared, maintained, and enriched determines the extent of the riches the child can take from it.

-?????????We prepare an environment that supports physical and psychological growth so that the children can find what they need to develop, and can do so in an atmosphere of respect, safety, and acceptance. We cultivate friendliness with error, for the children are in development and through their errors will perfect themselves.

-?????????We maintain the environment so that the child can always find what she needs- complete, inviting, and ready to use.

-?????????We continually enrich the environment, so that it calls out to the child with beauty and challenge. We rotate practical life activities, create new vocabulary enrichment cards, rotate books and pictures on the wall, and keep our classrooms as vibrate and alive as possible.

Link the Child to the Environment

-?????????Our second responsibility comes in linking, or connecting the children to the environment. Remember, it is the child who must do the learning, not the adult. Therefore, our role is to connect the child to the activities so that she is interested in working and exploring with them.

-?????????Before a child can learn anything himself, he must be able to concentrate on the materials. “When a child concentrates, his character is changed.” (Montessori, The Child, Society, and the World, “To Teachers,”)

Withdraw

-?????????Once the connection is made, and the child is engaged with the materials, comes the third responsibility of the adult: to withdraw. Once the children are absorbed in their work, we must protect their concentration – very fragile at first, but strengthened by repeated exercise.

-?????????Once the child is concentrating, the very best approach is “to act as if the child does not exist.” We are observing carefully and discretely. We need to see what the child is actually doing with the material.

Characteristics of the New Adult

Montessori advises us to be “calm, patient, and humble.” There are not very many professions that give us the opportunity to develop and change ourselves to this degree. It is part of our work to look for and cultivate within ourselves positive, life-affirming characteristics. Through our desire to help the child, we ourselves become better people.

Patience gives us the ability to understand that development is a process. We hold a vision in our mind of where we are heading, and we can make that journey with compassion and empathy for the little children who have so much to undertake. We approach each day with patience and understanding that there will be mistakes, but we have faith in the child and we honor the process of each individual, as well as our own.

It is patience that enables us to observe like a scientist- to take the time to learn to observe, to train our focus on the details that make the difference between seeing and not seeing. Cultivating patience allows us to take the time to appraise situations properly, to recognize the value in the child’s pace of activity, and to wait without immediate results. (Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method, Vol. 1, “The Preparation of the Teacher,”)

Humility is necessary because part of our journey involves learning from the child. At any moment, we have to be prepared to abdicate what we thought we knew about a child, or ourselves, in the face of new observations. Again, this is the science of our art; like a scientist, we have to be ready to be wrong in order to make a new discovery of truth. (Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method, Vol. 1, “The Preparation of the Teacher,”)

Humility comes from patience. We cannot simultaneously see ourselves as knowing everything, and also give the child the time and opportunity to create himself. Humility allows us to step away and observe, knowing that although we are facilitators, the child’s most important work takes place without us. Our highest ambition is to be able to say, “Look, the children do everything by themselves; it is as though they don’t need me at all.”

It is important to recognize that characteristics of patience and humility do not mean we are weak and the children are in control of the class. Quite the contrary- we must be strong leaders. Montessori is clear on this; we are not all equals with the children- she says, “there are enough children in the class without the teacher becoming a child with the children…If the children have no authority, they have no directive. Children need this support.” (Montessori, The Child, Society, and the World, “To Teachers,”)

As we see their deviations fall away, we move from believing to knowing. The certainty of knowing what the children are capable of gives us the strength to transform ourselves and become the “new educator” that can support the new child. Montessori calls children “the teachers of love,”16 and that is why when a child is born into a family, “his mother becomes a more beautiful woman and his father a better man.”

In a speech to the World Fellowship of Faiths in London, 1939, Montessori said,

“We are convinced that the child can do a great deal more for us, more than we can do for him. We adults are rigid. We remain in one place. But the child is all motion. He moves hither and thither to raise us far above the earth. Once I felt this impression very strongly, more deeply than ever before, and I took almost a vow to become a follower of the child as my teacher. Then I saw before me the figure of the child, as those close to me now see and understand him.

We do not see him as almost everyone else does, as a helpless little creature lying with folded arms and outstretched body, in his weakness. We see the figure of the child who stands before us with his arms held open, beckoning humanity to follow.”

?References

The Advanced Montessori Method. Vol 1

The Secret of Childhood.

Creative Development in the Child, Vol. 2,

The Absorbent Mind.

The Discovery of the Child.

The Child, Society, and the World.?