According to Dr. Maria Montessori, "A child's work is to create the person she/he will become." Children are born with special mental powers which aid in the work of their own construction. But they cannot accomplish the task of self-construction without purposeful movement, exploration, and discovery of their environment - both the things and people within it. They must be given the freedom to use their inborn powers to develop physically, intellectually, and spiritually. A Montessori classroom provides this freedom within the limits of an environment which develops a sense of order and self-discipline.

Also basic to Montessori's philosophy is her discovery of Sensitive Periods in children's development. During these periods children seek certain stimuli with immense intensity, to the exclusion of all others. So it is during this time that a child can most easily master a particular learning skill. Dr. Montessori devised special materials to aid children in each

Sensitive Period.

The focus of Montessori education continually changes to adapt to the child's natural stages of development. Montessori described these stages as Planes of Development, which occur in approximately six year intervals, each of which is further subdivided into three year segments. These Planes of Development are the basis for the three-year age groupings found in Montessori school classes:

Based upon her observations Montessori came to understand the inner nature of the child:

The child is a dynamic, curious person.

The child comes to know the world through the senses; he or she is auto-educated.

The child learns that which is of personal interest.

The child repeats activities until they are fully mastered.

The child is orderly and focused.

Based upon the inner nature of the child the role of the teacher is defined:

The teacher observes the child, and prepares the environment.

AGE 1-3 YEARS, FAMILY LIFE - CARE OF SELF, OTHERS, THE ENVIRONMENT

All the activities connected with looking after yourself and your surroundings, such as getting dressed, preparing food,

laying the table, wiping the floor, clearing dishes, doing the dusting, etc., are activities belonging to what Dr. Montessori called ‘Practical Life,’ and are precisely the tasks that adults like least. But between the ages of one and four years, children love these jobs and are delighted to be called on to participate in them.

—Dr. Silvana Montanaro, MD, and Montessori Teacher Trainer

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Participating in Family Life

Human beings of all ages want to be able to communicate with others, to challenge themselves, to do important work, and to contribute to society. This is human nature at its best. A child learns self-control, and develops a healthy self-image if the work is real—washing fruits and vegetables, setting or clearing a table, washing dishes, watering plants, watering the garden, sorting, folding, and putting away laundry, sweeping, dusting, helping in the garden, any of the daily work of her family.

Family work, known as Practical Life in Montessori schools, is the single most important area of a Montessori education at any age. Allowing the child to participate in the life he sees going on around him is an act of great respect for, and confidence in, the child. It helps him to feel important to himself and to those around him. He is needed. We can empathize if we think of the difference in our feelings for a dinner guest in our home who is completely served and waited on, or for one who is welcomed in our kitchen to talk and to laugh while we prepare the meal together. In the first instance the guest is separate, the relationship formal. In the second we share our life and the relationship is intimate—a true friendship.

Three Areas of Family Life

The main areas of practical life activities are:

1. The care of the self: dressing, brushing teeth, cooking, and so on.

2. Grace and courtesy and concern for others: moving gracefully, using good manners, offering food, saying "please" and "thank you," etc.

3. Care of the environment: dusting, sweeping, washing clothes, gardening.

Children have always shown us their interest in practical life by pretending to cook and clean, taking care of a doll, carrying out adult conversations, etc. But when given the chance, they would much rather be doing the real work of the family and community, instead of pretending. A child would prefer to remove real dust from a dusty shelf with a real child-sized duster, to help collect the dirty laundry, or to fold it, to take part in preparing real meals, rather than to pretend to do these things with toys.

The Work Environment and Concentration

One of the most calming activities for a child is concentration. This does not include passive, non-participatory concentration such as watching television or videos. The action must be something which is controlled by the child so she can repeat it as often as necessary, and it must challenge her body as well as her mind.

The choice of activities is not as important as the level of concentration brought forth. Deep concentration can occur while digging in the sand, washing carrots, stringing beads, coloring, doing a puzzle. The Montessori Assistant to Infancy gives lessons which are well thought out, logical and clear; she creates an environment which fosters work, and she is always on the lookout for a child beginning to concentrate. When this happens she protects the child from interruption because she understands the place of this experience in creating balance and happiness in the child.

The availability of a special little table kept cleared off and ready for work can help the child focus on her work and stick to it until she is finished. It is a natural consequence that, if the work is not put away, the space will not be available for the next activity.

Materials

Whenever it is possible and safe, we give beautiful, breakable materials to the child, respectfully sharing with him what the rest of the family uses—pottery, glass, metal, real tools. There is a great increase in the self-respect of the child when she is allowed to use our things, instead of being given plastic substitutes. There is also a corresponding respect for, and caring for, the materials when they are beautiful and breakable.

Often in the home we need to think carefully about how to arrange the children's practical life supplies. If the parent is a woodworker, or a gardener, a few good-quality but child-size tools can be kept in a special place near the parent's tools, easily within reach. He can be shown how to use them along with the parent, and how to clean them and put them away when the work is finished.

We can do the same with tools for cleaning, preparing food, cooking, setting the table, any activity. We can either adapt our tools, cutting off the handles of good brooms and mops, or make or buy suitable ones—a small apron, smaller metal buckets, watering cans, kitchen tools, and so forth. For a child, just a few minutes a day working with parents on important "adult" activities can have a great benefit and begin a new way of communicating and living together.

A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place

Ideally, whenever a toy or tool is brought into a home the family decides exactly where it will be kept. Any great artist, or car mechanic, knows the value of being able to find his tools ready for use exactly when he needs them. Children are the same, and their sense of order is far more intense at this age because they are constructing themselves through work.

The Child's Purpose

The child's reasons for, and methods of, working are different from ours. We adults will usually choose to carry out a task in the most efficient and quickest way. A child, on the other hand, is working to master the activity and to practice and perfect her abilities. She may scrub a table for hours, but only when she feels the urge. She may sweep the floor every morning for two weeks and not again for a month—because she will be occupied with mastering something else. If we expected her to keep carrying out every new activity every day, there would be no time for sleep.

There are many physical, emotional and mental values in work. Through these activities the child learns to be independent. There can be no intelligent choice or responsibility at any age without independence in thought and action. She learns to concentrate, to control muscles, to focus, to analyze logical steps and complete a cycle of activity.

It is precisely because of the valuable work in practical life that children in Montessori homes and schools are able to concentrate, make intelligent decisions and master the beginnings of other areas of study such as math, language, the arts and the sciences. But the purpose of this work is the inner satisfaction, and the support of the optimum development of the child. Following a successful, complete cycle of family work, a child becomes calm and satisfied and, because of this inner peace, full of love for the environment and for others.

Undressing, Dressing

Undressing is easier than dressing and is learned first—sometimes much to the consternation of the parents. Clothing that is easy to remove and to put on one self enables the child to practice these skills. These are things to consider when picking out any clothing, from shoes to pajamas, to coats, for young children.

A child's efforts at picking out her own clothes and dressing herself are satisfied if the parents hang up, within the child's reach, just two outfits, letting the child decide between them when she dresses in the morning. This is enough of a decision in the beginning. Eventually she will be able to select everything from drawers, hangers, and shelves.

From: The Joyful Child, Essential Montessori for Birth to Three

ISBN: 1-879264-12-9