Paula Craig - Three on Montessori+Narrative

 

LET’S LOOK AT THIS FROM A STRICTLY ADULT POINT OF VIEW.

As an adult, how would you feel about learning and taking on new, radically different intellectual challenges, if you were offered 9 months of 3 to 6 hour days (according to your stamina) in a place that is scientifically and artistically designed to help you be personally successful?
AND someone else paid for it all.

You probably wouldn’t believe it at first. You might hang back and check it out. When you did so, you found that this place was just your size ---you were not “too short” or too weak or too inexperienced. There were some games and projects that were familiar to you. Some new projects required ingenuity, but all were accessible. The place was cozy and attractive with good light, good snacks, and room to move around as you wished. In fact, this place proved to be full of possibilities – full of intriguing things to do. There was no, “Hurry up.” or “You have to do this now.” The phone didn’t interrupt. People were told not to bother you when you were working. Your rights were protected. Your ideas were never judged, graded or compared. You weren’t told what to do, but could chose from a big group of things. Colleagues were available but were not necessary for you to function. They were amiable colleagues – diverse in size, shape, age, origins and viewpoints – but with a similar purpose to yours and with a shared community of interests. They were available to talk with, sing with, share with as you wished within the rules of courtesy. There was a person in charge to answer questions; show new things to do; protect the group; mediate disputes; supply the environment with whatever you needed. She/he was available for emotional support, in fact, she/he enjoyed the process; but was strictly charged not to interfere with your ideas, silence, or constructive activity. Even if you were having a hard time handling your negative feelings, (in fact, acting ugly) you found you could depend upon the consistency of the environment – never blaming, very reasonable. You could make lots of mistakes and nobody in authority was concerned or pointed them out. But you were very clear about the emotional expectations and where the limits of behavior were that the group would tolerate.

You didn’t have to do anything; you didn’t have to produce anything – you were welcome in the group just the way you were and respected as an interesting, contributing person. Your growth was appreciated; your help valued; your curiosity fed.
If this were offered to you ---you checked it out and found that it was true ---how would you, as an adult, feel about learning new things in that place?

Welcome to international Montessori.
- Ms. Paula

A Montessori School Community works

A Montessori School Community, as Dr. Maria Montessori envisioned and taught it, is one of the sanest most psychologically astute environments that we can provide for children. Because it’s purpose is to develop the individual human’s understanding and gifts and its insights into how that is done have proven so accurate, we have a living, breathing, growing model of What-To-Do to rear loving, healthy children. The model works whatever the culture, financial condition, social status, religion or age. We know that when our children are freed from models that cramp the mind, so are we. Now this is not to say that adults through their own egotism, blindness or ignorance cannot distort any good thing. But having a well written and developed model is a huge blessing as we try to overcome our limited views and habits and not pass them on to our children. Montessori’s insights are for all ages and circumstances---from choosing which tray to use for a 2 year old’s pasting project to the implementation of universal peace.

Key elements are;
· changing the conventional relationship between adults and children
· accepting the adult’s obligation to prepare the environment and the children’s to develop their gifts
· using guidance and indirection instead of coercion and command in relationships
· devaluing dependency in every area of living
· discarding rewards and punishments as teaching tools
· having respect as the beginning point for all plans, thoughts and gestures
· doing one’s own work – exterior and interior
These may sound fanciful or impossible until you see it operating right before your eyes…..which it is, right now, all over the world.

DEEP IN THE 3 PERIOD LESSON

(the 3 fold process by which we convey knowledge, pass on culture, expand our mind function—“This is… Show me….What is… reflected in: choosing work, working to completion, putting work away; Presentation, repetitions, mastery*; three years in a classroom, etc.)

Let us pray in the name of the Initiator, the Process and the Living Spirit through Christ the Complete.

We are privileged to be in a 3rd Period development---mastery, the internalization of God. The brilliance of the 3 Period Lesson is an overwhelming gift brought about by Dr. Montessori living out the vision given to her by spirit. (Secret of Childhood, p.140) and developed by many people dedicating their lives to serving the archetype of the child. The practice of the Montessori Method itself is a 3 period lesson –the environment of the classroom is internalized by the children, is incarnated, and they become ‘the new child’ she recognized. This incarnation makes possible the next spiritual developmental plane for our species.

Awe-ing—this worldwide body of thought and practice that illustrates in minute detail the Cosmic Christ. Each true Montessori community is more than a map, more than a manual—a living, throbbing, growing model of the shepherd guide, the community grown from an intense spiritual preparation manifesting itself in a physical world-of-its-own, which replicates then grows into an institution that has the grace to always, and only, be held to the standard of individual experiences of transformation. It is apparent to all who know the criteria when the transformation of normalization is happening in a child, when the adults are guiding, when a classroom is living out Dr. Montessori's vision. The Child is our control of error. Mastery is not completing someone’s devised plan but Transformation Itself ---Immanuel.

*Mastery does not imply there is no more to learn but that the concept has been grasped and the material can be presented to others with precision.

pcraig 12-07