Over the years, I’ve read my share of books about homeschooling, looking forward to the day when I’d be doing history timelines with my elementary students, science experiments with my middle schoolers, and higher maths with my high schoolers. But, then… what do you know? I don’t have any of those. I have a baby. And before she’ll be a high schooler or a middle schooler or even an elementary schooler – she’ll be a preschooler.
Which is why I resolved to pick up something on early childhood education on one of my recent library trips.
And who better than Maria Montessori, right? She’s a universally recognized early childhood educator.
I started with The Child in the Family because we’ll be training our children in our family (not in a school setting) – and because I guessed that this would be about very early childhood, even infancy. And… I was right!
The Child in the Family is highly theoretical.
Montessori begins by stating that children are the last repressed class of humans – practically slaves to their parents, who exercise god-like power over them. She argues that while adults tend to think of children as blank slates, ready to be made after their parents’ image, children are in fact living spirits ready to begin to make their physical selves in their own likeness.
Montessori’s method, then, is all about giving children the freedom to raise themselves, to learn as they desire, to mold themselves as they like.
Montessori’s child is some sort of idealized angel, innately aware of both morality and of his own dignity. When the child sees injustice, he bristles. When his dignity is wounded, his spirit is crushed. As such, adults should tread lightly, recognizing their great potential for injuring this otherwise perfect being.
Does this sound melodramatic? I thought so too.
Montessori seems fully aware of one half of the human condition: Imago Dei. But imago Dei is only one half of the equation. Original sin means the child is not only a spiritual being made in God’s image, but also spiritually dead, bent toward evil.
Montessori’s only-half-right-theory means that her practice is only-partially-helpful. In this volume, Montessori mentions a few practical ways by which a parent or other adult can avoid offending the child. The first is to be patient with a child’s curiosity (a child isn’t being dirty or naughty when he picks up a fallen leaf from the sidewalk). The second is to, for lack of a better phrase, allow the child to be a grown-up. Montessori encourages the use of real miniature glasses and plates and silverware, rather than having unbreakable “child-friendly” dishes. She encourages the use of child-sized furniture that the child can move around (and discourages the use of rubber caps to keep the movement of said furniture from making noise.) She encourages the use of child-sized cleaning equipment so a child can sweep her own floor and dust her own furniture.
In general, I’m okay with those practices. I don’t think I’m anywhere near as dogmatic on the child-sized-but-real stuff – but certainly Tirzah Mae has no interest in using a plastic baby spoon, eschewing it in favor of real flatware (child-sized flatware for her is on it’s way, since she can’t exactly fit the real flatware in her mouth!)
The second to last chapter speaks of the Montessori teacher and how she uses “various stimuli to awaken a sense of security in the child.” She is all about making her educational material attractive to the child so that the child will initiate learning activity. Once the child has initiated the activity, she is careful not to interrupt either with praise or correction (I really appreciate this idea – I often see moms completely disrupt their child’s purposeful play by inserting themselves into the play.) Unfortunately, that is the extent of the discussion of Montessori’s pedagogical methods in this book. I certainly hope she elaborates more in other books – since this proposed role for the teacher seems much more interesting to me than the silly theories about a child’s innate goodness promoted by this particular book.
Rating: 2 stars
Category: Early Childhood Education
Synopsis: Montessori propounds her theory that children are innately good and should be allowed freedom to mold themselves as they like.
Recommendation: Lots of ridiculous theory, very little of practical use. Skip it.
You know? I don’t think I’ve ever read a single book about home schooling. Maybe one. Perhaps two. If I have, I’ve completely forgotten them.
And I have learned enough in life to “never say never” but I’m pretty tempted on a subject like this.
Jonathan and I have very definite ideas of how we want things to look and we’re content kicking about a bit until we find what works for us practically. I’m more interested in books which encourage me in my parenting and making sure I’m presenting the Gospel accurately to my children. Then they get all of this melodramatic stuff without the melodrama (I hope). :D
Not to say that reading books like this isn’t helpful or practical. I can totally see why your information-sponge-self would absolutely love it and want to think through any variety of arguments. We need people like you to think through the various arguments. When it comes to schooling methods, I very much just want to DO and get on with it.
Yes – our personalities are a little different there, aren’t they? Then again, the newspaper article on me when I was a senior in high school said something to the effect of “Rebekah Menter never does anything without having read about it first.” I bristled at the line, thinking it implied that I had no original thoughts (or actions) – but I think (now) that it may well be accurate. I do enjoy reading everything I can about whatever I’m going through (or about to go through.)
Interesting! Our tried-and-true math curriculum is RightStart, which is Montessori-based. I never really knew much about WHAT that means, but (maybe?) now I do a little more. To me it means manipulative-based and conceptual, which is how we like it. (Oh!–And lots of games, which probably has little to nothing to do with Montessori.)
I enjoyed reading your and Carrie’s discussion. I wonder if it’s different for you two because you WERE homeschooled yourselves? I feel like I’m making it up (mostly) as I go along, despite the fact that I taught public school for a number of years.