The “Spiritual Preparation” of the Adult
Maria Montessori saw the role of the adult in educating the child as something fundamentally different to the conventional role of the teacher. She postulated that: “… a prejudice has found its way into the adult—the notion that life can be changed or improved only though teaching. This prejudice impedes the understanding that the child constructs himself, that he has a teacher within himself, and that this inner teacher also follows a program and technique of education, and that we adults by acknowledging the unknown teacher may enjoy the privilege and good fortune of becoming its assistants and faithful servants by helping it with our co-operation.”
She further noted that the world in which the child finds himself works against his natural development, rather than supporting it.
When we consider the nature of the Absorbent Mind and the sensitivity of the young child to adult influence, it is evident that the child will be greatly affected by the attitudes and actions of any adult with whom he or she comes into contact. For this reason, Montessori placed great emphasis on what she called “the spiritual preparation of the adult.” It is not sufficient that the adult has a theoretical knowledge of child development and of appropriate pedagogical principles and methodology; what matters more is that he or she has the right attitude and disposition.
Sometimes, this “spiritual preparation” is represented as something almost esoteric, as a personal spiritual nurturance of the adult. While there is certainly a place for that, Montessori’s meaning as expressed in her own writings is something much more pragmatic. What she means is simply that the adult has to identify and remove any preconceptions, any beliefs and prejudices that will prevent a proper understanding of, and interaction with, the child. Simple to say, but not so simple to do. For Montessori, this is an examination of the consciousness.
The point is made by quite clearly by A.M. Joosten:
“… the adult has always been trying to mold the child, to turn the child into something he is not and is not meant to be.”
If this is true, then there are profound implications for decisions made within classes and schools regarding not only behavioral expectations but also the requirements for academic progress, assessment, and other external criteria imposed on children. It implies that the solution to “problem children” is to be looked for in the adults who interact with them and in the physical environment, rather than in the children themselves.
All this concerns the intellectual aspect of the preparation that we definitely have to give to ourselves. There still remains, even more importantly than this, the spiritual preparation that we have to give to ourselves, the preparation of our spirit with regard to our task in favor of the development of the human being and with regard to our attitude towards both the human being and its development. This is not merely a question of learning something.
It is a question of achieving a revolution within ourselves and of our whole outlook, of our whole attitude, and of everything we are (knowingly or unknowingly). The discovery and exploration of all that we are without having been aware of it is one of the most exhilarating and fascinating experiences, because we precisely discover unknown factors within ourselves. To try and set right the manner in which we conceive our mission, and accordingly, should fashion and shape our attitude and being, that is spiritual preparation.
Using the best of the most significant words at our disposal to express how radically we must change ourselves, and to remind ourselves how far this change should go, we may use the word conversion. It is we who have to be converted in our attitude and with regard to our real task concerning the child.
So how then is this “conversion” achieved? Dr. Montessori gives certain directives:
- “He/she must be free of preconceptions, and must have faith in the innate ability and potentials of the child.”
- “He/she must be humble, and constantly seek out means for personal growth and improvement.”
- “She needs to have an understanding in the ability and natural tendency of the child towards normality, and will regard her role as an assistant, rather than as the cause of this process.”
- “She would have the approach of a scientist—always seeking a greater understanding of the object of her study—the child.”
- “She will suppress her own personality, needs and wants, likes and dislikes, so that the true personality of the child can flourish.”
- “Ultimately it is neither through lectures nor book learning, nor through any act of the intellect that this transformation of the adult comes about; it is through her interest in the child and her ability to learn from the child.”
Roles of the Adult in the Prepared Environment In a very real sense the role of the adult in the environment is defined more by what she does not do than by what she does do.
First, do no harm
First and foremost the adult should apply the principle of non-maleficence: first, do no harm. This may appear, at first glance as obvious: What adult would deliberately set out to harm a child? From Montessori’s perspective, however, it is exactly our good intentions, our drive to help and to teach, that become the greatest obstacle for a child. It is the “resumptions and “vain prejudices” of the adult that make her an obstacle to the development of the child.”
Thus, education is aimed at facilitating individual freedom. The adult helps the child to meet his needs, to become independent. If the adult acts on behalf of the child, development is impeded. The result is what Dr. Montessori calls “psychic illnesses” and “deviations,” what we would today call behavioral or learning difficulties.
Some adult behaviors mentioned by Dr. Montessori which can be an obstacle for children are:
continual surveillance; correction, admonishments; arbitrary commands;and encouragements or rewards.
This principle of non-intervention should not be construed as abandonment. The child is not simply left free to his own devices—to a hit-or-miss approach that leaves the child helpless.16
Prepare and Maintain the Environment
Over and over, in her writings and lectures, Montessori makes it abundantly clear that the first duty of the adult is to prepare the environment for the child and then to keep it in a state that enables the child to develop according to natural laws, guided by the absorbent mind and the sensitive periods.
The teacher’s first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. Its influence is indirect, but unless it is well done, there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind: physical, intellectual or spiritual.
This preparation would include, amongst other things:
Ensuring that the physical environment is properly prepared and maintained. This would entail acquiring or making the necessary materials, choosing suitable furnishings and tools, and attending to the display and condition of this equipment.
Attending to her own inner, spiritual preparation, which will help her to focus on her primary tasks of preparing the environment and of observing the children. In addition, she will need the wisdom and knowledge that will help her know when to refrain from interfering in the work of the children and the self-control to act on that knowledge.
Ensuring that an atmosphere of calm prevails.
Ensuring that the children’s self-initiated and self-directed activity is in no way interrupted or impeded either by other children or other adults. This may include helping other adults in the environment understand the necessity for the requirements of non-interference.
Observe.
In order to choose appropriate activities to meet the children’s needs, the directress must carefully observe and assess each child. Only by meticulous observation can the directress identify sensitive periods to guide the child to the next phase. Observation entails watching, as unobtrusively as possible, without judgment. It is necessary to observe for long periods before forming an opinion. The environment is the teacher; the adult is merely an observer.
Observation is also essential to understand how the environment needs to be adapted or corrected, to understand how the adult needs to adapt his own behavior and attitudes, to know what intervention, if any, is necessary to prevent or limit disturbances, and so on. The importance of observation cannot be overemphasized, nor can the difficulty of proper observation be underestimated.
Montessori stressed the importance of preparation for observation:
- Children must not be disturbed “because the purpose of the observation is to see what the children are doing independent of our presence.”
- The observer is to remain absolutely silent and motionless.
- The observer must not be tempted to show admiration or annoyance.
- Observers should not communicate impressions to one another.
- Observers should not cease from observing ALL the children.
- Observers must know what to observe.
Intervene To Give the Help that Is Necessary.
This is the point at which we come across something in Dr. Montessori’s writings that appears as an extreme contradiction. It is an issue which has contributed to a wide range of approaches to “discipline” in the Montessori environment ranging from an “anything goes” type of license on one extreme to a rigid authoritarianism on the other. Adult authority in all things is sometimes justified by citing that “Dr. Montessori believed in freedom within limits,” the limits being decreed by the adult in the environment.
Neither of these extremes gives justice to what Dr. Montessori was proposing. But just what she was proposing is quite difficult to come to grips with. It relies on a thorough understanding of the complexities both of Montessori’s understanding of the child, and of nuances of the application of the methodology. It is no cookbook approach. There is evidence of real frustration in Dr. Montessori’s work as she attempted to explain the balance between necessary intervention and non-intervention.
One way of looking at this is explained by Susan Feez: “Montessori teachers are trained to remove obstacles, such as distractions or interruptions, when children are absorbed in activity marked by effort.”
Present Materials and Other Lessons.
This is the one role of the Montessori adult, which most closely resembles teaching in the conventional sense of the word. The adult helps the child brings the child into contact with his environment and helps the child to interpret the environment in a number of ways. The main “teaching” method is the presentation of materials. By simple and precise demonstrations, the child is shown how to handle materials in a way that will lead to independent exploration and learning.
It is necessary to know the exact steps involved in each presentation. Considering her observations of the child, the adult will decide which materials to present. The presentation is treated as a call to the child, an invitation to concentration and to work. The adult must not be too eager to present new materials, and should wait until the child has exhausted all the possibilities of those he was using before.
As soon as the child becomes interested in the activity, the adult must withdraw and allow the child to work and develop concentration. It is generally very difficult, especially if the adult has previously worked or trained in a regular school, to know when to intervene and when to keep back. Dr. Montessori considered obtaining a “simple lesson’ from a conventionally trained teacher as a particular challenge.
For this reason, it is essential that the adult clearly understands the purpose of the various materials as well as the needs and intentions of the child. The adult should not intervene to correct errors, but should rather find a time to represent lessons later. Vocabulary lessons, and lessons which convey factual content are to be kept extremely short and to the point.
Advocate for the Child to Society at Large.
Maria Montessori felt that those trained in her approach had a role beyond the prepared environment, but extended to actually “bringing about a new attitude toward children on the part of adults.”
What’s in a name?
Words can define reality—what we call something is what it becomes. Dr. Montessori tried to find a name for the adult in the environment that would be an accurate description of the role played by the adult. Initially, she chose the word direttoressa translated into English by Anne George as directress. For older children, she used the term maestra. Feez highlights the problem of using the word directress:
“The meaning of the Italian word direttore is less about telling people what to do, and more about steering people in the right direction. The word is used for conductors and editors, as well as for managers. When English-speaking Montessori teachers use the term, it still has the valeur of its original Italian use, but to English-speakers outside the movement, the word can seem harsh when referring to someone who works with small children.”
While some Montessori schools favor “guide,” many revert to “teacher.” Montessori professionals may argue that the name of the people working in a Montessori classroom does not matter too much, provided that they follow the role of a “Montessori teacher.” On the other hand, it would seem, that for a large majority of people, at least, the word “teacher” is used to describe one who teaches. If this word is used to describe the adult in the Montessori environment, why are we surprised when parents expect to see a great deal of “teaching” taking place? Even trained Montessori staff may feel they are not doing their jobs (as “teachers”) if they are not “teaching.”
So how about “guide.” Does that adequately describe the role of the adult in a Montessori environment? I would argue not. A guide is a person who tells you which way to go. A guide (either a person or a text) provides a detailed commentary or set of instructions. A guide is a primary source of information. A cursory reading of Montessori’s writings on the role of the adult would indicate that the adult is required to do little talking and much observing.
As the real guide in the Montessori environment is the child’s inner guide, (the sensitivities and tendencies appropriate to each plane, along with the environment are the primary sources of information), it seems that the use of the word “guide” is an appropriation of these functions. Small wonder, then, that very often the adults in Montessori classes tend to talk too much and give too many instructions to children, who could be acting independently. So the adult is neither “teacher” nor “guide.”
As Susan Feez has pointed out, in much of the world today “directress” just does not work either, for many reasons. It would seem to me that until we find more suitable terminology to describe what we are doing in our “prepared environments,” we are going to continue to slip into the roles prescribed by the terminology we are using. For this reason, I prefer to simply refer to the paid adults as “staff,” which carries no added implications.
Training and Preparation
Lakshmi Kripalani, who was trained by Maria Montessori, has commented that some teacher trainers have “misread history and suggest that, from the beginning, Montessori put minimally prepared individuals in charge of her classrooms.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The early “teachers” in the schools in Rome were not direttoressa, but merely “custodians,” whose duty was to observe and record in detail whatever the children did. It was Dr. Montessori, who interpreted these observations and provided material and activities for the children.
Once she began her lecture series, Maria Montessori did not regard the courses as sufficient to prepare someone lead a classroom unsupervised. She granted certificates of attendance, with diploma’s being awarded once the teacher had “demonstrated success with children.”
Many Montessori classrooms today are staffed by well-intentioned people, who have received only a cursory training and “left on their own or under a principal or supervisor, who has only the vaguest idea how to help new Montessori teachers.” Kripalani warns that this tends towards new teachers being pushed “toward mechanical teaching or over dependency on the material” in order to meet the demands of standardized tests.
The Preparation of the Adult for Elementary and Higher
It is sometimes assumed that the directives outlined above only apply in the context of adults working with children under the age of six and that for the “teachers” of elementary and upward, the role becomes more similar to that seen in regular schools (and this may be supported by the use by Dr. Montessori of the word maestra to describe that role). Even Montessori schools, which respect Montessori’s admonitions of non-interference at the earlier levels, may condone increased levels of direction and control at the higher levels. Dr. Montessori, however, insisted that even for children over the age of nine, the main focus should be removing obstacles:
Only thus can they obey the “natural process of psychic development.” It is true that the teacher or lecturer has an ever more important role to play as culture reaches higher levels, but this role consists rather in stimulating interest than in actual teaching.
Dr. Montessori argues for a large degree of freedom even at the elementary level. In Formation of Man Dr. Montessori describes children carrying out numerous activities, which adults would regard as “a waste of time,” but notes that the children, nonetheless, “make exceptional progress in all the branches of culture and also in art.”
She argues that educational reform does not consist of changing what is or is not taught but rather constitutes examining “prejudices relating to the child himself.”
In her work, Maria Montessori assumed that anyone taking “classes of the advanced type” would have completed the earlier course and, thus, be familiar with the psychology, which “plays a bigger part in preparation for the whole method,” and that more than anything else, the adult should “shed omnipotence and to become a joyous observer.”
Lack of preparation leads adults to do what they find the easiest: “repress, command, destroy.”33 Knowledge of the content to be taught is also not sufficient. Besides “loving and understanding the child,” the Montessori teacher for the second plane must “first love and understand the universe. She must, therefore, prepare herself and work at it.”
Clearly, the notion of the “spiritual preparation” of the adult holds true at least through elementary schools. But what of those working with adolescents? From Montessori’s brief guidelines for the “high school,” it is amply clear that very different skills and attitudes would be needed, in contrast to those normally required for conventional teaching.
“The adolescent teacher must have the greatest respect for the young personality, realizing that in the soul of the adolescent, great values are hidden.”
Again, as with the earlier planes, it would appear that to be able to see the adolescent as he truly is, to be able to get past the preconceptions and the contradictions, the demands of society and of the schooling paradigm, a “spiritual preparation” is needed.
REFERENCES
- Montessori, M. (2007/1955). The Formation of Man. Montessori-Pierson Publishing. 46.
- Montessori, M. (1989/1975). The Child in the Family. Clio Press. 41-42.
- Montessori, M. (1966/1936). The Secret of Childhood. Ballantine. 149; Montessori, M. (1965/1918). The Advanced Montessori Method I. Kalakshetra. 107.
- For Montessori’s use of “psychic” and “spirit,” see Feez, S. (2007). “Montessori’s Mediation of Meaning: A Social Semiotic Perspective.” Retrieved Oct 10, 2009, from http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/1859?mode=full
- Joosten, A. M. (1974). The spiritual preparation of the adult. Around The Child. 15 (11).
- Ibid.
- Montessori, M. (1988/1949). The Absorbent Mind. Clio Press. 252.
- Montessori, M. The Secret of Childhood. 153.
- Montessori, M. The Child in the Family. 63.
- Montessori, M. (1912). The Montessori Method. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 7 & 9; Kripalani, L. (2010) Montessori in Practice: Observations from a First-Generation Montessorian. Montessori Services. 86-87.
- Montessori, M. The Absorbent Mind. (1988/1949), pp. 240-251
- Montessori, M. (1965/1918), 131
- Montessori, M. The Child in the Family. 1989/1975), 24
- Montessori, M. (2007/1949). Education and Peace. Montessori-Pierson.
- Montessori, M. The Child in the Family. pp. 26, 27, 33
- Montessori, M. Education and Peace. (2007/1949), 106.
- Montessori, M. The Absorbent Mind. 253.
- Montessori, M. The Child in the Family. (1989/1975), 28.
- Montessori, M. (1921). “Some Suggestions and Some Advice upon the Method of Observing.” Course 1921, Lecture 3.
- Montessori, M. The Child in the Family, 33.
- Feez, S. Montessori’s Mediation of Meaning. 321.
- Montessori, M. The Absorbent Mind. 256.
- Montessori, M. The Montessori Method, 113.
- Montessori, M. Education and Peace, 77.
- Feez, S. Montessori’s Mediation of Meaning 42-43.
- Kripalani, L. More Montessori in Practice: Further Observations from a First-Generation Montessorian. Montessori Services. 169.
- Ibid., 168.
- Ibid., 169-170.
- Montessori, M. The Formation of Man. 40.
- Ibid., 42-43.
- Ibid., 45.
- Montessori, M. (1989/1948). To Educate the Human Potential. Oxford, England: Clio Press. 83.
- Ibid., 84.
- Montessori, M. (1994/1948). From Childhood to Adolescence. Clio Press. 20.
- Ibid., 72.
Montessori Leadership / Summer 2013 / p 4
