THE CHILD
by Maria Montessori
Part 2
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It is evident that it is not the attainment of an external aim which spurs them to activity, but rather the possibility of being able to valorize and to exercise their latent energies. It is this valorization which decides the duration of the activity and asks for continuous repetition. The repetition of an action,while making the child happy, makes him also accomplish real feats. We see, for instance, children of a very young age dressing, and undressing alone, hooking buttons, making bows, laying a table to perfection, cleaning the dishes. But this is not enough; the superabundance of its energy is revealed in the fact that the child uses what he has just learned to the advantage of those who as yet have not acquired an equal degree of perfection. So we see a child buttoning the clothes of his younger fellow, tying his shoestrings or quickly cleaning the ground if someone happens to upset the soup. If he washes the dishes he cleans those which others have soiled, and when he lays the table he works for the benefit of many others who have not partaken the work with him. And in spite of this he does not consider this work done in service of others as a supplementary effort deserving praise. No, it is the effort itself which is for him the most sought after prize. I have seen once a little girl sit very sad before a steaming dish of soup without even tasting it. Why? Because they had promised to let her lay the table and then had forgotten about it. And the disillusion was so great that even the clamour of the body's needs had been silenced. Her little heart cried louder than her stomach.
In this way that part of the exterior activity of the child which is aimed towards social purposes is developed. The child has an aim which he understands very well and which he can accept with ease. His intelligence seeks for this aim, and we in placing it within the frame of its environment give to the child the freedom of attaining it. Certainly his real nature,his real interest, has much deeper roots, and the child acts as he does, not merely to finish a duty which he has chosen, but to satisfy this desire for activity and to slacken a thirst which obeys the laws of development. And exterior aim, simple and clear, is necessary in order to bring about the satisfaction of this desire. We shall see him wash his hands God knows how many times,not because they are dirty but because he is compelled by a need which requires of him the progressive development of the necessary secondary actions, such as to bring and to pour water, to make use of the soap and of the towel, etc.. The continued and accurate use of all these things, how much work does it all entail? To sweep the room, to change water for the flowers, to place the furniture in the room, to roll the carpets, to lay the table. All these are reasonable activities which are joined to physical exercise. Whoever is in life forced to do this manual work and whoever experiences the fatigue which it causes, he knows how much movement is necessary to accomplish this series of tasks.
Lately much has been spoken of the need of physical exercise. Well, here is an exercise and not of the useless and mechanical kind, but of the type that can be accomplished with clarity of mind and with a purpose behind it. In spite of this, the exercises of practical life that the small ones carry out with so much joy, and that surprise so pleasantly all the visitors of the House of Children, do not as yet represent the essential part. They are but a beginning, an initiation, and form the least important side of the child's activity. It is a well-known fact that scientists give the impression of deep concentration which makes them indifferent to worldly things. All know the anecdote of Newton who forgets to take his food, of Archimedes who does not even notice the furious sounds of the battle for the conquest of Syracuse, and allows himself to be surprised by the enemy intently immersed in geometrical calculations. Well,it is just this sort of anecdote which shows the opposite side,the other phase of this deep concentration. The great discoveries that bring progress for all humanity are not due so much to the culture of the scientists, or to their knowledge, as to this capacity of complete concentration, to the power on the part of their intellect to bury itself in the task that fascinates them, that makes them no longer feel the need of society which they shun, retiring into their house or into some solitary spot.
When the child finds a field of accomplishment which corresponds to the intimate needs of its soul, he will reveal also what else he needs for the development of his existence. He is seeking, for the moment, his relations with the rest of humanity that surrounds him, and he is finding them. There are, however, inner exigencies which, while leading him into his mysterious task, require complete solitude, the separation from all and from every one. No one can help us to reach the intimate isolation which makes accessible to us our most hidden world, our deepest nature, so very mysterious, so very rich and full. If anyone comes to us in such a moment and interferes, he interrupts and destroys this intimate work of the soul. This concentration which is obtained by freeing oneself from the external world must arise in our very soul, and what surrounds us cannot procure its growth,its order and its peace. The state of complete concentration can be found only in great men, and even in them it is exceptional. It is the origin of an inner force, of an inner strength which makes them stand out from among the others. From this concentration springs forth the faculty that the great have of influencing the masses with medidated tranquillity and infinite benevolence. They are men who, after a prolonged separation from the world, feel themselves capable of solving the great problems of humanity while with infinite patience they bear the weaknesses and imperfections of their fellows, even if these rise to the extremity of hate and persecution.
Studying the phenomenon we see that there is a close link between the manual work which is accomplished in common life and the profound concentration of the spirit. Although at first it seems that these two things are opposed, in reality they are deeply united, because the one is but the source of the other. The life of the spirit prepares in solitude the strength which is necessary for ordinary life, and, in its turn, daily life fixes the concentration through orderly work. The wastage of energy is continually replaced from the sources of the concentration of the spirit. The man who sees clearly in himself feels the need of an inner life, just as the body feels the needs of the material life such as hunger and sleep. The soul which no longer feels its spiritual needs is in the same dangerous position as the body which is no longer capable of feeling the pangs of hunger or the need of rest.
But if we find this concentration and this burying of the soul within itself in the child, it becomes evident that the phenomenon does not represent an exceptional state of persons who are especially endowed with spiritual gifts; but it is a universal quality of the human soul which, on account of circumstances, survives in only a few people who have reached adult age. Now if we consider in the children these single glimmers of concentration, a picture is unfolded which is completely different from the one when we spoke of utilitarian tasks that the children performed. An object from which no possible usefulness can be derived suddenly attracts the attention of the child, who begins to fuss around it and move it in all directions. Often they are but small movements, uniform and almost mechanical. Often the hand destroys that which it had constructed but a moment before, in order to start building again. These movements will be repeated so many times that one is forced to think that here is an activity which is not carried out with the special enthusiasm we saw to be the characteristic of the Exercises of Practical Life. It opens a shutter that allows us to glimpse a special phenomenon.
When for the first time I discovered the existence of this aspect of the character of the children, I was surprised and I asked myself if I was not in front of an extraordinary happening; if I was not witnessing a new and marvellous mystery; because I saw being destroyed before my eyes many of the theories that the most renowned psychologists had made us believe. I also had believed that the children were incapable of fixing their attention for a long time upon any task. And here in front of me was a little girl of three years who, with the evident signs of the most intense attention, was placing certain wooden cylinders differing in size within cavities which exactly corresponded to them. She was introducing them with the utmost care, and when they had all been placed she took them out again, to put them back immediately. She did it again and again, taking them out, putting them back, always with the same deep concentration, so that one could not foresee when this would finish. I began to count. When she had repeated this more than forty times I went to the piano and started playing, while I asked the other children to sing. But she, the little one, continued in her useless task without budging from their table, without lifting her eyes, as if she were completely abstracted from what surrounded her. Then she suddenly ceased, and smiling and glad she lifted her limpid eyes. She appeared as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, as if she had undergone a period of rest: she smiled as children do when they wake from a beneficial sleep. Since then I have observed this same manifestation hundreds of times.
After any task done with this type of concentration,they appear always rested and intimately strengthened. It seems almost that in their soul a path has been opened for the radiant forces revealing in this fashion the best side of their character. They become then kind to everybody. They give themselves to do in order to be useful to other people and they are full of the desire to be good.
It has happened sometimes that one of the children has come near to the teacher, to whisper in her ear as if revealing a secret: "Teacher, I am good." These observations have been valorized by others, but they have been specially made use of by me. I saw a law in what was taking place in those souls, and I understood it; and this law gave me the vision of the possibility of solving completely the problem of education. I understood that which the child had revealed. Clear before me arose the idea that order,mental development, intellectual and sentimental life must have their origin from this mysterious and hidden fount; and since then I have done all I could in order to find experimentally objects that would make this concentration possible. And I studied with great care how to produce that environment which would include the most favourable external conditions to arouse this concentration, and it was in this fashion that I began to create my method.
Certainly here is the key to all pedagogy: to know how to recognize the precious instinct of concentration in order to make use of it in the teaching of reading, writing and counting and, later on, of grammar, arithmetic, foreign languages, science, etc. After all, every psychologist is of the opinion that there is only way of teaching, that of arousing in the student the deepest interest and at the same time a constant and vivacious attention. So the whole thing resolves itself in this , to make use of those intimate and hidden forces of the child for his education.
Is this possible? Not only is it possible but necessary. Attention, in order to be able to concentrate itself, needs graded stimuli. In the beginning these will be objects which are easily recognized by the senses and these will interest the smaller child- cylinders of different sizes, colours to place in gradation of intensity, different sounds to be distinguished one from the other, surfaces differing in degrees of roughness to be recognized only by touch; but later we shall have the alphabet, the numbers, writing, reading, grammar, drawing, more difficult arithmetical sums, natural science; and thus at different ages by different stimuli the culture of the child will be built.
Consequently the task of the new teacher has become much more delicate than that of the old one, and much more serious. Upon her rests the responsibility, upon her depends whether the child will find its way towards culture and towards perfection, or whether everything will be destroyed. The most difficult thing is to make the teacher understand that if the child is to progress she must eliminate herself and give up those prerogatives that hitherto were considered to be the sacred rights of the teacher. She must clearly understand that she cannot have any immediate influence either upon the formation or upon the inner discipline of the students, and that her confidence must be placed and must rest in their hidden and latent energies. Certainly there is something that compels the teacher to continually advise the small children, to correct them or encourage them, showing them that she is superior on account of her experience and her culture. But until she is able to resign herself, to silence the voice of all vanity, she will not be able to attain any result. However, if she on one side must refrain from interfering directly,her indirect action must be assiduous, and she must prepare the environment with full knowledge of every detail, and she must know how and where to dispose the didactic material and introduce very carefully the children to exercise.
It is she who must be able to distinguish the activity of the child who is seeking the correct way, from that of him who is on the wrong path. She must be always calm, always ready to run when she is called to show her love and her sympathy. To be always ready, this is all that is required. The teacher must consecrate herself to the formation of a better humanity. As were the vestals to whom it had been given to keep pure and clean from ashes the sacred fire that others had lit, so must be the teacher to whose care has been consigned the flame of inner life in all its purity. If this flame is neglected it will be extinguished, and no one will be able to light it again.
Next article ( New Krishnaji - by E. A. Woodehouse)
Other pages
- Introduction
- Some words by JK
- Nature of Intelligence
- Renewal and creation- JK thoughts
- K Study Circle, contact info.
- New_krishnaji - An Article by E. A. Woodhouse
- About the Badlapur Retreat
Contents About Study Circle
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