Over 100 years ago, Maria Montessori opened the first 'Casa Dei Bambini' in Rome. This translates to 'children's house' and it was revolutionary - child size tables and chairs, actual tools instead of toys, and scientifically designed materials created to cater to each child's developmental needs. It was only after thousands of hours of observation this children's house was created. Some people ask if Montessori is still relevant today, when so many things in society have changed. The answer is a resounding 'YES'! While society has changed, the basic developmental stages of children has not. New technology that allows us to see how the brain works confirms what Dr. Montessori learned from observation so many years ago. Prominent Pediatric Neuropsychologist, Dr. Steve Hughes, said 'It's like education designed by a gifted pediatric neuropsychologist!'.

As an AMI Montessori school our goal is for education to be an aid to life. In order to do this, we must foster our children's Human Tendencies. Human Tendencies are universal characteristics of all people across all cultures. They are characteristic of every child born and allow us to meet our physical needs (food, shelter, clothing, defense) and spiritual needs (love, beauty, intellectual needs, religion).

It is essential to understand that the Human Tendencies are not abilities we are born with, but potentials to be developed. To the degree that we support the unfolding of these human tendencies will determine how that human can make full use of these tendencies for the rest of his life. The more we as adults understand about the Human Tendencies the more we can help our children succeed - not only today, but also in their adult lives. Maria Montessori distilled 10 Human Tendencies which you can read about below.

                                                      

Order - any activity we engage in needs to have a sense of beginning and steps towards accomplishing a goal. If we don't have order to our thought patterns and actions, we cannot accomplish anything. Without order there is chaos and confusion. Although some people believe order is restricting, it frees the mind and is actually liberating. Creativity rests on order - think of an artist trying to work but being unable to find his materials because they are all thrown into a big box. The creative process is slowed by having to look for each brush, each color needed, etc. When things are in order, we are free to pursue our dreams.

Communication is an essential social bond - there are approximately 7,000 languages being spoken in the world today. Without communication we are unable to function in a social group. The child is born without speech but learns through an arduous effort of babbling how to speak. The child learns the language(s) she hears. She learns spoken language as well as body language. Even before the child can speak, she has a tendency for communication.

How can we encourage the tendency of communication? We must speak to the child and offer her the best our language has to offer. We can let her hear beautiful stories, poems, and songs. It is very important to speak the language correctly. A younger child will be interested in watching your mouth move as you speak. When your child does speak - listen! You are her most important teacher - teach her that what she has to say matters.

Work can also be defined as an activity with purpose or constructive activity. The tendency for work must be developed in a child. If the child is always fed, waited on, and carried she will not become independent because she will be accustomed to doing nothing. A Montessori classroom has endless opportunities for constructive activities and children love to do these activities. The tendency for work must be supported or the child will not want or be able to do anything independently.

Exploration - humans start life by exploring and curiosity drives us as adults to continue exploring new ways to understand life including travel, education, and a relationship with a higher being. The tendency for exploration can be seen in the way a baby looks around, a 9 month old crawls away, and a preschooler goes to school. How can we nurture and encourage this drive? If the child is constantly restrained and kept quiet, he will not develop the gift of exploration. It is our task as adults to find productive, satisfying ways for the child to explore.

Orientation is necessary for exploration. To find your way in a new situation you must orient yourself - think of yourself in a foreign city for the first time. Basic orientation is necessary to accomplish anything. In addition to physical orientation to the land, you must orient yourself to the customs of the city - do you shake hands or bow? What do you eat?

The infant first orients herself to the mother, then the family. A child needs consistency, order, and stability for orientation. Orientation is also a way to use the mathematical mind. Through orientation we observe patterns like similarities and differences. This discernment sharpens the intellect and mathematical mind.

The power of abstraction means to conceptualize something that is not concretely present - to grasp the essence of a thing. The power of abstraction gives us the ability to create inventions. This tendency will only develop if the child has very clear, concrete experiences she can put her hands on. the child must have concrete life experiences to lay the foundation for the mind to take off into the world of abstraction.

During the first six years the child is a sensorial learner. She learns from her senses that which feed information to the brain. Sensory experiences of concrete objects are necessary to unfold this potential. That is why the classroom is filled with materials that can manipulated by the hands. The child must grasp things with her hands before her mind can grasp it. This is why TV and computer games for a child under 6 cannot educate the child the way a real experience can. The child must be grounded before the mind can take off, just like an airplane must roll along the runway before it can take off.

Exactness - Every object we use is an achievement of exactness. The great inventors pursued and pursued until they reached a point of exactness - just think of Thomas Edison's over 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb! As Montessori teachers, we can develop this exactness through our exact actions in presentations of lessons. From a precise action develops a precise mind.

In order to achieve exactness there must be repetition. Acquiring a new skill required repetition to reach the point of exactness. Another word for repetition is practice and practice makes perfect. A young child with little experience and poor motor control doesn't have the coordination or movement required for many exact motions such as getting dressed. The adult tends to say 'let me do that for you.' Then the child is used to having everything done for them because they couldn't do it well in the beginning. We must give our children the opportunity to practice so they will become proficient in the daily tasks of life. 

In the Montessori class we don't have a schedule and we let children repeat as often as they want to. When children are used to constantly doing something new they are not encouraged to repeat and work towards success. Giving the child the freedom to repeat builds concentration and leads to exactness.

Perfection - striving towards perfection is a human tendency. That why we repeat, why we strive for exactness. We strive for perfection to transcend ourselves and connect with a perfect creator, but we must remember we can't be perfect, only God is perfect. This tendency of perfection is not always seen in adults and is not part of American culture. We live in a consumer society with the mindset that things are to be replaced with something newer and better.

By helping the child unfold this potential we can change this attitude. Take the example of water pouring - if the child is rushing and spilling water, we may invite the child to pour more slowly and wait for the last drop. We can give hints or help with a particular step. The purpose of giving help is to show the child how. "Help me to do it by myself" is a mantra you have almost certainly heard before if you are a Montessori parent. By showing the child how to do something we are awakening in the child a desire to reach an ever greater degree of perfection.

Self Control is the human tendency that allows us to restrain an impulse. Not buying junk food, driving the speed limit, or continuing to read this long blog post are all examples of self control. When we delay gratification, or practice self-control, we are making a sacrifice for the greater good.

Humans are constantly confronted with choices. We love and believe in freedom, and freedom means being able to make choices. Everything we do in a Montessori classroom leads the child to make choices. But freedom can't exist without structure. We protect freedom through a structure of limits which helps the child make the right choices, thus the child gradually develops self control.

Education must support the Human Tendencies. These inherited treasures are potentialities which each child is born with. The responsibility of the educator lies in the recognition of the Human Tendencies and the support of their development.

Education should be an aid to life. As Montessori educators we concern ourselves with providing for the child the optimal environment where each of these tendencies can flourish and hold the child in good stead and she becomes a young adult and beyond.

"The secret of good teaching and parenting is the selection of the right material for the imagination which will generate confidence and interest for life." ~David Kahn, founder of NAMTA

Dr. Montessori talked about language as "an instrument of collective thought" as it is integrated into everything the child does. The time Dr. Montessori spent observing the development of language offered invaluable insight to the structure of the Language area in the Primary environment.

Before we even jump into the letters in the alphabet, Dr. Montessori emphasized the importance of simple spoken language, offering to the child interesting conversations, opportunities to casually build vocabulary (without the pressure of a looming test or quiz) and to also begin to build phonemic awareness (the awareness of sounds in words). The emotional context of spoken language does not come through a screen, so watching TV or playing an educational computer game is not a substitute for talking with your child. Another important part of spoken language is reading aloud together. Every. Single. Day. It's one of the absolute best things that you can do to help your child in school.

Through the activities in Practical Life--including polishing and table washing, the child is developing the necessary muscles in her hand needed for writing. The Sensorial area also offers activities to strengthen the hand for writing.

In the Montessori environment, we offer writing before reading. It may sound backwards, but the child has been doing many indirect preparations for writing since entering the casa as a young three-year-old.

Sandpaper Letters give the child a three-fold impression of seeing the shape, feeling the shape (gaining muscular memory) and hearing the sound of the letter. The beauty of this environment is that once the older children master the Sandpaper Letters, they are then given the opportunity to share that presentation with a younger child, seen in the photo above. The children LOVE the chance to learn from each other and it's only a matter of time before the sounds start to catch on like wildfire.

Metal insets are another way that the child is prepared for writing. The serpentine lines become closer and the designs more complex as the hand strength of the child improves. Dr. Montessori wrote that by the time the child is presented the Metal Insets, the hand should be fully prepared to hold the pencil.

After the child has mastered the majority of the sounds of the letters in the alphabet with the Sandpaper Letters, she is offered the chance to "write" words using the Moveable Alphabet. This activity aids the child in learning to "break words down" before having to blend them together to read. We work together to learn to hear each of the sounds in the word the child wants to create. Children enjoy the chance to make words as big as they can, or to fill a whole mat (or two!) with words. This is another place where the older children are able to offer help to the younger ones. Once the child has mastered "writing" lists with the Moveable Alphabet, we move to writing short stories on real events in the child's life.

The mechanics involved in reading in the Montessori environment start with Phonetic Reading. We have an object box that the children love and it is the first place where they realize that they can read.

In addition to the Phonetic work, the children are also introduced to the Phonograms, which are two letter combinations that make a new sound, such as "sh" or "ee". With these in their pockets, they are equipped to become practicing readers and soon move into learning Puzzle Words (the words that one must memorize, they cannot be read phonetically).

Once reading becomes more comfortable, after much practice with the Phonetic and Phonogram related activities, we move on to learning about the parts of speech using the farm. We have symbols that represent the Noun, Adjective, Article, Conjunction, Preposition, Verb and Adverb. The focus for the child is on the function of each word and learning to identify it using symbols for each part of speech.

When the child is able to stay in this environment for the full three or four years (through the kindergarten year), we are able to allow the child the chance to experience later language activities that aid the child in building fluency to reach what Dr. Montessori referred to as "total reading". These activities include word study (exploring compound words, homonyms, synonyms, etc.), sentence analysis (which is so much more fun than the sentence diagramming we all did in middle school!) and interpretive reading.