Sneak Peek

Back in the days of my Montessori training course, my trainer (an amazing psychologist who had trained under humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers) recommended a book called Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce.  I jotted down her recommendation and promptly forgot about it.  Flash-forward to a few weeks ago, when I saw it advertised on someone’s blog and checked it out of the library.

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  If you read one book about children this year, let it be this one.  (I’m trying to cut down on my book-buying addiction, but this one was a must-have.)

Some delightful tidbits in anticipation of a book review…

“The mind-brain is designed for astonishing capacities, but its development is based on the infant and child constructing a knowledge of the world as it actually is.  Children are unable to construct this foundation because we unknowingly inflict on them an anxiety-conditioned view of the world (as it was unknowingly inflicted on us).  Childhood is a battleground between the biological plan’s intent, which drives the child from within, and our anxious intentions, pressing the child from without.”

“The brain achieves its clarity of operations only through interacting with or moving into physical touch with the living earth itself… To the extent the newborn is allowed interaction with the earth, to that extent the brain clarifies its own portion of the picture.”

“In our anxieties, we fail to allow the child a continual interaction with the phenomena of this earth on a full-dimensional level (which means with all five of his/her body senses); and at the same time, we rush the child into contact with phenomena not appropriate to his/her stage of biological development.”

“Just as baby teeth come before giant twelve-year molars, so all the ramifications of concrete thought and experience must mature before abstract thought and experience can unfold.  We can force certain forms of abstraction prematurely on the child in his/her concrete stage of development, but the effects are specifically damaging (even though the damage will not be detectable for several years).”

All of these ideas (and many others in the book) were stated by Maria Montessori in her work at the beginning of the 20th century.  Pearce’s book, written in 1977, echoes Montessori’s viewpoints without once mentioning her.  She would be pleased, however, since she always said: “I keep pointing at the child; they keep looking at my finger”.  Pearce’s book does just what she wanted, it looks at the “modern child” (who in many respects hasn’t changed at all) and gives us a road map to guide his potential.

Powerful reading,  worthy of  your time and essential for your child’s healthy development… I hope you agree (and stay tuned for the book review)!

A Royal Flush

A mom whose daughter is in another classroom struck up a conversation with me recently.  “I’m worried,” she confessed.  “When my daughter was four and I used to ask her what she wanted to be when she grows up, she would say ‘doctor’ or ‘pilot’ or ‘astronaut’.  Now that she’s almost six, I’ve been asking her again and all she ever says is ‘princess’.  It’s really disconcerting… What should I do?”

I’ve found that parents are often more receptive to stories than to in-your-face advice, so I shared the following story with her…

Four year-old Haley discovered the joy of writing with the moveable alphabet at the beginning of this year.  Sure, she had written the requisite phonetic words such as “cat”, “flag”, and “rug”, and had taught herself how to read.  This, however, was different.  This was writing for the joy of self-expression.

“I can write about anything I want?” she asked in disbelief.

“Anything,” I replied.

Her eyes widened.  “Even… princesses?”

I restrained a groan, silently cursing Disney and its putrid pink-and-purple princess campaign.  However, I wanted Haley to write and I needed to follow her interests, so I consented.  “Yes, even princesses.”

“Wow, my sister’s teacher never let her write about princesses,” she confessed.  (Her sister had graduated from our school a year earlier.)

I wondered if I had done the right thing by allowing her to write about the “characters” we so strongly discourage in school.  The way I saw it, if this child was being bombarded and indoctrinated by Disney princesses during the 80 waking hours she spent outside of school each week, then it was only natural that she would be obsessed with them.  And the more I forbade the topic, the more all-consuming it would become for her.

She started writing immediately, covering the rug with names of fictitious female characters, from Ariel to Snow White.  I hoped this would be a passing trend, but after a couple of weeks of princess-mania, I knew I had to do something.  I thought back to my own childhood.

My mother and grandmother are Spanish, and as a young child in Mexico I was fascinated by the lives of the Spanish royals.  My grandmother always had the most current edition of Hola! (the Spanish version of Hello! magazine) lying around, and I would spend hours looking at the glossy pictures of European princesses in their wedding gowns, evening wear, and sparkling tiaras.  As I got a little older, I realized that these real-life princesses had real lives that revolved around the support of charities and the championing of various social causes.

Mind you, I dislike monarchies as much as any informed person living in a democratic society: their arcane traditions, insulting wealth, and blatant social oppression are infuriating.  But I’m sure I dislike Disney even more (if you haven’t yet noticed) for its destruction of children’s imaginations and self-worth in its quest for profits and market dominance.

While I would’ve preferred that Haley be obsessed with a more inspirational set of female role models – perhaps Florence Nightingale, Helen Keller, or Marie Curie – I had to start where her interests lay.  I therefore made princess cards (Click to download the PDF!).  Haley drooled expectantly for an entire week as my assistant pasted, laminated and cut the cards under her very nose.  When the material was ready, she got the privilege of getting the first presentation.

I’m delighted to say that these humble cards had their intended effect… I happily escorted the Disney princesses out of our classroom and welcomed in a group of educated and well-bred women.

Haley’s new interest in real-life princesses has allowed us to learn about geography as we explore where each princess lives.  We’ve talked about altruism and philanthropy, etiquette and cultural traditions, blood relatives and in-laws, and even about mining (as in: Where do all those diamonds come from?).  The main characters of her stories – now several sentences long and written on paper with carefully crafted handwriting – are Diana, Grace, Victoria, and Letizia.  This summer, she’s traveling to Paris with her family.  Her one request is to go to the Louvre to see Marie Antoinette’s bed.

Bye-bye, unwitting pawn of Disney.  Hello future historian!  🙂

News Flash: Pre-Schoolers Can Understand Math Concepts (no duh)

Yesterday, the most popular article on the New York Times website discussed a recent finding in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

Brace yourselves Montessorians!!!  Contrary to long-held beliefs in the highest echelons of scientific research, the cognitive neuroscience community has discovered that children as young as four can grasp fundamental math concepts.

*pause for effect*

Uh, we could’ve told them that.

So, maybe we should!

Dear cognitive neuroscientists,

Congratulations on your ground-breaking discoveries in the field of pedagogy.  You must have been quite pleased when you found out that young children can understand basic math concepts before the age of six.  I’m so glad you finally put your expensive Harvard Ph.Ds to good use!

I hate to burst your bubble (actually, I quite enjoy it), but I thought you might want to know that a woman named Maria Montessori figured this out 100 years ago.  Talk about arriving late to the party!

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the Primary Montessori classroom, where pre-schoolers have been actively working with math concepts – from numbers and quantities to long division and fractions – for over a century.

Maria Montessori believed that children have a natural curiosity for mathematical concepts, and look for order and patterns in the world around them.  She called it the “mathematical mind”.  However, because the concepts of math (the value of numbers, arithmetical operations, geometry, etc.) are not instantly recognizable to the untrained eye, Dr. Montessori deemed it necessary to create a curriculum where children could use concrete representations to discover these mathematical abstractions.

In other words, for children to understand what a number represents, what addition is about, or why we need to borrow during subtraction, they need to involve their senses, and we need to isolate the concept being introduced.  These are two of the (many) reasons why traditional math education has never worked, and why so-called experts thought that young children were incapable of learning math.

Traditional approaches to teaching math have been truly uninspired and frankly insulting to a child’s intelligence.  Using a pizza slice to illustrate the concept of a triangle is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read about, and yet according to the NYT article, this technique is used in many children’s books (among many other equally idiotic tactics).   And speaking of dumb techniques, why should pre-schoolers be using books to learn math, in the first place???

In Montessori, children start working with mathematical concepts around the age of three, when they are exposed to fractions, geometry, algebra, equivalences, and base-ten from a sensorial perspective (this means they’re using their senses to explore mathematically-precise materials without knowing they’re learning about math).  By the time they’re 3 1/2, if they’ve been in the Montessori environment for at least six months, many are ready to begin their formal math education.

Yes, 3 1/2.  I’ll give you a moment to pick yourself off the floor and climb back into your ergonomically-correct office chair.  Ready?  Let’s continue.

Associating symbols and quantities through the use of the number rods.

Montessori students move at their own pace through the math curriculum, first exploring quantities through the use of the number rods, then learning to identify symbols (aka, numbers 0-9), and then associating the symbol with the quantity.

Guide a child through this process, and voila!  She can clearly understand that “5” is not just a hard-to-write squiggle named “five”, but is an actual quantity she has carried, counted, and compared to other quantities.  Deny a child the right to understand this concept clearly, and you’re setting her up for a lifetime of struggle and confusion.

Within a few weeks of commencing their formal math education, Montessori children will have learned about quantities, odds & evens, and the concept of zero as an empty space.  Then it’s on to the decimal system, where – hold on to your lab coats! – children who just turned four learn how to work with four-digit numbers.

I bet you’ve never witnessed a four-year old who sees the number 8,657, says “eight thousand, six hundred, and fifty-seven”, AND represents the quantity accurately using golden beads.  I know you’ve never seen this because, in the article, you were excited about children who could touch their nose seven times.  You guys sure do have low standards for what children are capable of.

Using the golden beads to represent four-digit numbers.

At the same time our students are discovering the joys of arithmetic, they’re also developing a clear understanding of what the numbers 11-99 represent, through the use of several beautiful, precise, and engaging materials. Skip-counting is also introduced, and the concepts of carrying and borrowing are practiced extensively.

As before, we follow a specific method of presenting the information to the children: first the quantity, then the symbol, and finally the association of the quantity and the symbol.

Yes, you mention this ground-breaking process in your article… Guess it’s not so ground-breaking after all.

Throughout this entire time, the children are free to move at their own pace, revisiting concepts as they see fit and staying with a particular material as long as necessary.  If we, as guides, see that a particular concept has not been clearly understood by a child, we have the ability to bring him back to the appropriate material.  We’ll gladly spend quality time re-presenting the concept and encouraging repetition through one-on-one games and small group activities.

Only when the above-mentioned concepts are clearly established in the child’s mind, will we guide her towards the memorization of tables.  After all, what good is it to regurgitate 3+4=7, 3+5=8, etc. if there’s no understanding of what the concept means, and thus no way of applying it to daily life?

Oh, wait, I forgot.  Traditional schools educate children to succeed on tests, so regurgitation is not only sufficient, it is required.

Well, here’s the thing: we, as Montessorians, would rather prepare children to succeed in life.

And speaking about preparing a child for life… If a child is fortunate enough to remain in the Montessori environment for her Kindergarten year, she will continue learning the arithmetic tables (always through the use of materials she can manipulate).  Little by little, she will wean herself off the materials, as her brain matures and she learns to apply the knowledge she acquired in the first two years in the classroom.  Upon solving an arithmetic problem without the use of the materials, it is not unusual for a five-year old Montessori child to remark: “I don’t know why I know, but I know.”  If that doesn’t build self-esteem, I don’t know what does!

After reading the NYT article, it sounds to me like you guys are just re-inventing the wheel.  Fortunately, you are starting to discover that you under-estimated children’s abilities (and over-estimated your own).   Stop wasting time pretending your theories are ground-breaking, do some real research, and use your soapbox to give children the type of education they really deserve and are desperate for.

Welcome to Montessori.  It matters more than you think.

I Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself, So I Won’t

If you are a parent of a young child, are thinking of becoming a parent, or know someone who is currently a parent or is thinking of becoming one, then for the child’s sake hop on over to this lovely blog and read this very thorough post on how to set up an environment that is child-friendly and conducive to a child’s development:

http://alisaterry.blogspot.com/2009/11/prepared-environment-montessori-step.html

100 Billion

That’s how many neurons are in a baby’s brain when she’s born. The support of a baby’s cognitive development should start at birth, as witnessed in this video…