The Role Of The Adult

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

- Haim Ginott. (1972)

Depending upon the country, the culture, and because of cultural expectations and state regulations, I’ve visited Montessori classes with anything from two to nine (London) adults in the room. Schools can’t always control this and even when they can, many opt to please those parents who erroneously believe that more adults results in more education (because for many administrators it’s easier to give in to what’s wrong rather than fight for what’s right) but as I’m focusing on authentic Montessori, I’m going to concentrate on two roles, the role of the assistant (below) and the role of the lead guide, setting aside for now the role of the cleaner / cook / bodyguard (Russia) / etc.

The Role of the Lead Guide

There’s been a lot written about this topic, not all of it tremendously practical:

“To aid life … that is the basic task of the educator.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind.

“A teacher should never forget that she is a teacher and that her mission is one of education.”

- Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, p.153.

“Our goal is not so much the imparting of knowledge as the unveiling and developing of spiritual energy.”

- Maria Montessori, The Child in the Family, p.63.

“The first thing required of a teacher is that she be rightly disposed for her task.”

- Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, p.149.

“You must be filled with wonder and when you have acquired that, then you are prepared.”

- E.M. Standing, quoting Maria Montessori, in Montessori, Her Life and Work, p.309.

“I believe that the work of the educator consists primarily in protecting the powers and directing them without disturbing them in their expansion.”

- Maria Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method: Volume 1., p. 150.

All of these statements are true, but they barely scratch the surface of the role of the adult, which is complex and multi-faceted. I nudge the children towards those materials that are designed to aid their development, I assist them in forming deep loving connections with their classmates, I direct them towards the Peace Table so they can practice resolving conflicts. In essence, I support and nurture and assist them in their physical, emotional, social, linguistic and intellectual development. These are some of my responsibilities to the children (and there are many, many, many more …) but I also have responsibilities to the school, responsibilities to the parents, and responsibilities to the environment.

Role 1 – Prepare the Environment

“The teacher must not content herself with merely providing her school with an attractive environment; she must continuously think about this environment, because a large part of the result depends on it. The teacher, therefore, must keep the didactic developmental material in perfect order. If this is not the case, the children will not take an interest in it and if they do not, the material becomes useless, as the entire Montessori method is based on the spontaneous activity of the child which is aroused precisely by the interest the child takes in the material [and thus the guide must] make sure that every object used by the children has a place of its own that is easily accessible to them.”

- Maria Montessori, Some Words of Advice to Teachers, AMI Communications, p. 4 + 14. 1995.

I’ve written elsewhere about The Prepared Environment, so I’ll briefly touch on the subject here. To summarise: the first responsibility of a Montessori guide is the preparation and maintenance of a safe, clean, well-organized and inviting learning environment, consistent with Montessori pedagogy, in which children will feel respected, safe and able to follow their needs and interests because,

“The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, p.152.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work in well-established schools, with beautifully designed and thoughtfully arranged classrooms, and in others that needed a little adjustment. I was fortunate that my first job was at the Montessori School of Tokyo; the school was well established, the children in the class were (mostly) normalised, the parents were (mostly) tremendously supportive, and the environment had been prepared and refined over the course of many years by experienced Montessori guides. As a result, I was able to focus on teaching and learning all the things I needed to learn and didn’t have to worry or even think too much about the environment.

After I left Japan, I helped to set up new environments in Russia and Thailand, and this was the first time I had to really think deeply about this aspect of the job. In the following years I taught in China, where I worked in an established school in Beijing and set up a new class in Shanghai, after which I set up another new class in Switzerland (Geneva), and then another in Taipei. After Taiwan I returned to Shanghai, and although the school was well-established, after spending a week observing the way the children used the materials and interacted with each other, I reflected upon what worked and what didn’t, then went in on a weekend and moved the shelves and the tables so the class would have a better flow. My two more recent experiences have been in Beijing, where I first taught at an established school and then set up yet another new class.

When preparing a new environment, some of the important tasks include ordering the furniture and planning its layout, establishing and maintaining an effective inventory of school supplies, materials and equipment, printing, laminating and cutting an array of paper materials, selecting and preparing Montessori activities and exercises, and ensuring the materials entice, challenge and serve the developmental needs of the children. Even when the class is established, the environment needs to be continually modifying so the materials are developmentally appropriate and engage the children. It’s a full-time job:

“The teacher becomes the keeper and custodian of the environment. She attends to this instead of being distracted by the children’s restlessness […] All the apparatus is to be kept meticulously in order, beautiful and shining, in perfect condition […] This means that the teacher also must be […] tidy and clean, calm and dignified […] The teacher’s first duty is therefore to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. Its influence is indirect, but unless it be well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, pp. 277-81.

In broader terms, preparation of the environment also refers to the organisation of a daily schedule and routines, as well as the establishment of some simple but effective ground rules, so the group can operate in harmony, establishing parameters within which each child may develop their independence.

Role 2 – Administration

There’s a huge amount of administrative work that happens before the children walk into the class, work that happens behind the scenes, work that parents aren’t aware of, but work that is fundamental to the smooth functioning of all schools, or at least the better ones. What follows is a partial list of some of the various duties and responsibilities I have had in my decade and a half of teaching, with more detail about some of these important responsibilities in the Administration section. More on this topic here.

Faculty-related

No man is an island, and neither is a classroom: developing cooperative professional relationships with colleagues is necessary so that we can work together as an effective, harmonious team, and this requires participating in and organizing an array of activities, including faculty meetings, workshops, seminars and other professional pursuits.

A Montessori environment should be a place of discovery for the adults as much as the children, and this makes each day different, surprising, stimulating and educational.

“We must be taught and we must be willing to accept guidance if we wish to become effective teachers.”

- Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, p.149.

Inter-level coordination

It’s important to build relationships with the other classes, 3-6, 6-9 or 9-12, so I coordinate with colleagues in the Elementary program so I’m aware of their expectations for next level readiness and can keep these in mind when planning how best to guide the children, particularly those in the third year. As an added bonus, if the Elementary teachers are planning something that seems of interest, I’ll ask if my group can join in, like one time when we observed the transit of Venus …

… and another when my colleague demonstrated the quasi-magical properties of dry ice:

The children were also very excited the day the nurse came in to teach us all how to wash our hands properly.

Budgeting

Maintaining an annual budget and submitting a regular accounting of funds provided each week/month/semester is standard practice in many schools.

Admissions

Many schools expect teachers to play a role in the admissions process by meeting new children and prospective families, hosting them in the classroom, assessing the child for readiness, and completing an assessment report to be submitted to the admissions team. I once worked at a school where the admin people met the families but no-one from the academic side did, so I volunteered to meet and assess each of the 54 children who has applied for admission. More on this topic here.

Staff-related

As the lead teacher, I’m expected to supervise and evaluate the performance of teachers, assistants and other members of the classroom team, providing feedback which facilitates professional growth. I’ve also been asked to assist in the hiring of new staff from time to time and have created a questionnaire so I can get to know the applicants. More on this topic here.

Communication

Updating management on the progress of the class or possible issues or areas of concern is an important responsibility, as is communicating with child psychologists or other child-care specialists (when necessary).

Professional Development

It’s useful to keep up to date with Montessori best practices via participation in activities within the school community, as well as attendance at Montessori conferences, workshops, etc., some of which are more useful/practical/interesting than others.

Inter-school Connections

Creating support networks is overlooked but invaluable, as building connections with other Montessori schools or associations -e.g., by facilitating the sharing of resources or scheduling observations, etc.- can be very helpful, particularly for newly qualified teachers.

Attendance

It’s vital to be able to check and confirm how many children are in school each day, but it’s also useful when you’re tallying up the number of absences and tardies to add to a Progress Report. This is the kind of essential but simple and time-consuming task that many teachers ask their assistant to deal with.

Lesson Planner

I can remember it like it was yesterday, the day it dawned on me that I had to create 25 unique lesson plans, for 25 unique children, covering the five areas of the curriculum, with three or four options in each area. In order to do this, the teacher needs to be familiar with the scope and sequence of each area (so they know which presentations need to be given immediately and which can be postponed for a week or a month or a year), they need to know which materials each child has mastered in each area, and then they have to factor in the needs and interests of each individual child before they can decide what to present next. More on this topic here.

Checklist

This is the document containing the curriculum, all of the presentations we’d like to cover in a three-year cycle and can be a hard copy in a binder or online using record-keeping software such as MRX, Montessori Compass or Transparent Classroom. Either way, there is one checklist per child, so I have to record a week of presentations, given by two teachers and perhaps an assistant, to 25 children. It can take a while. Some years ago, I created my own checklist of presentations -subsequently translated into both Mandarin and French- and refine it each year. More on this topic here.

Progress Reports

This is a document that contains a summary of each child’s progress over the course of the previous term. Depending on the school, these can be extremely vague or beautifully precise. Some Montessori schools to make a copy available on the school website, so I’ve been able to accumulate some wonderful examples over the years. If you’re a parent looking to enroll your child in a school, the level of detail in a Progress Report will tell you something about the standards in that school. More on this topic here.

Portfolio

Some schools create individual student portfolios to be sent home at the end of each year, containing examples of the child’s work and also including photos of the child using the materials in the class and/or interacting with their friends. ‘Process not product’ is a mantra of hard-core Montessorians, and I’m in broad agreement with this, but I also feel that it’s great for parents to have a tangible memory of their child’s year. More on this topic here.

Field-trips

Planning for these can be time-consuming but it’s usually worth it when they turn out to be fun or educational or both. Safety is paramount: field-trips are fun for the children, but as a teacher, they’re one of the most nerve-racking events of the year (taking 20+ children to some place I’ve probably never been before poses quite a few logistical issues) so it’s always nice when you manage to get all the children back to school and in one piece.

Role 3 - Parent-Related

Parents are the child’s first teacher and play a key role in education, so it is essential to develop and maintain open and constructive relationships with them, creating a link between the classroom and the home, meeting with them to chat, answer questions, discuss progress or explain the Montessori approach.

Parents trust their children to a school, so teachers have an obligation to deserve and earn that trust, and one of the simplest ways to do this is by making sure that we’re available when they have questions or concerns or comments. Mornings can be hectic -I need to be in the class- so it makes it difficult to have more than the most basic interactions, but at dismissal-time I try to be found outside the school gate, so the parents can come and ask questions, chat, or simply say hello.

Communication is paramount, but different strokes for different folks: some parents like to have a chat every day, some will email me from time to time, and some I might see every morning but mightn’t communicate much beyond the words ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ every morning and afternoon. And that’s fine. Some children need structure, some respond better when they’re given a lot of freedom, and some just need a hug from time to time. I’ve found that parents are similar, so I try and give them what they ask for.

That might necessitate:

Responding to queries in person or via email
Sharing a variety of pedagogic documents, articles, reports, etc.
Creating, editing and disseminating online photo albums
Arranging parent observations and follow-up interviews
Organizing and overseeing school community functions e.g., seminars/workshops on various aspects of the Montessori philosophy, Open Houses, end-of-term/year concerts, Meet the Teacher / Orientation days, etc.,
Preparing and running parent-teacher conferences.

There’s a whole range of different ways a Montessori Guide can communicate with parents, and they all have value, and they all require quite a bit of work. Then, once all of that work has been finished, after the environment has been prepared, modified and maintained, and after all the responsibilities towards the school have been taken care of, and when all of the assorted administrative tasks have been resolved, then there’s the small matter of the education, well-being and social, emotional, physical, linguistic and academic/intellectual development of the children. More on this topic here.

Role 4 - Child-related

In a traditional classroom, the adult is the focus of attention and the person in the room who’s working the hardest. In a Montessori environment, the adult shouldn’t be front and centre, they should be sitting down or standing back, observing the children in order to decide how and when to guide them, while the children are engaged with the materials, moving, touching, talking, thinking, solving problems and learning independently. The focus is on the children learning and not on the teacher teaching.

The adult’s primary role in this environment is to assist the children on their journey towards independence, encouraging them to ask questions, to think for themselves, to develop their curiosity, to explore ideas, to investigate and to discover. Self-correction and self-assessment are fundamental aspects of the Montessori approach, and my role in this process is to act as a facilitator, to assist the children in becoming active learners by experimenting, observing and questioning. The main ways I do this are by directing them towards new experiences and challenges, and by connecting them with both the materials in the environment and with the other children.

“The Montessori teacher is herself the indispensable ingredient which makes the prepared environment possible. All of the […] elements of the prepared environment are created, ordered, modelled, presented, promoted or guided by the creative and obedient work of a sensitive adult, the teacher/guide who becomes the dynamic link between the child and the environment she has prepared.”

- Paula Polk Lillard, Montessori, A Modern Approach, p. 50.

This phrase ‘a dynamic link’ is repeated ad infinitum during the AMI training -during my AMI training, at least- with not a great deal of time spent reflecting on what it actually means in practical terms: how and when and where? How do I serve as a dynamic link? When do I step in and guide a child and when do I leave them alone? Where should a presentation take place? After the training, in the real world, in the classroom, it’s massively challenging, and a great many guides stumble and fall and decide to quit, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

A little guidance on Classroom Management goes a long way.

2008 was my first year in the class, and the dawning awareness that I wasn’t just responsible for giving lessons, but had a whole array of other responsibilities was quite a surprise, and a very unwelcome one. When I studied for my AMI Montessori diploma, our Teacher-Trainers hadn’t spent a single minute discussing how to prepare the environment, how to communicate with a co-teacher or an assistant or a cleaner, how to create a Lesson Plan, how to write a Progress Report, how to plan and present a Back-to-School evening, how to run an effective Parent-Teacher Conference, how to manage a class of 25 children, how to help a child who isn’t motivated, or any of the hundreds of other tasks that form the duties and responsibilities of a Montessori teacher.

90% of the training consisted of learning the presentations -the remaining 10% consisted of lectures on Maria Montessori’s thoughts on ‘Horme’ and ‘The Spiritual Embro’ and similar cutting-edge issues in child-development in the 21st century- and then creating albums of those presentations in the areas of Practical Life, Sensorial, Culture, Language and Mathematics. As a result, when I walked into the class that first morning, I had a reasonable grasp of the assorted materials I was expected to present in each of those areas of the curriculum, but the fact that there was a curriculum and that I had to make a plan for how to implement it and record it and explain it to the parents … well, that was all new.

Because the training is so heavily focused on how to give presentations, I believed -as all newly qualified Montessori Guides believe- that the principal part of the job is giving presentations, and many experienced teachers and school leaders share this misconception, because it was seemingly sanctioned by Montessori:

“I would not like to lead you to believe that this kind of environment works miracles all by itself and that the adult has no part to play in it. The adult does have a role to play. He must show the child how to use the objects correctly.”

- Maria Montessori, Education for Peace, p. 79. (1936)

I’ve observed in somewhere in the region of 100 different classes in Montessori schools in Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia, and the consequences of this erroneous belief are clear in the majority of those schools. In far too many of these environments the children were allowed almost limitless freedom -irrespective of whether they were ready for it- and thus the class in disarray, with little semi-feral packs of children (usually older boys) roaming about, unable or unwilling to choose an activity, the materials being ignored or abused, while those few children who were trying to focus had their concentration destroyed, and all the while the teachers observing it with a beatific smile, ‘silent as the sphinx’ because they simply didn’t know how to guide those children who disturbed their peers, didn’t know when to interrupt them and didn’t know how. Why? My best guesses:

A lack of guidance from management or experienced colleagues.
Fear of negative consequences if they discipline a child.
Apathy
Insufficient knowledge of the philosophy.
Poor training.
All of the above.

On the first day of the AMI teacher-training, we were given a handout with our schedule for the year: dates for submitting Albums, for when we’d observe classrooms, when we’d do our practice teaching, which dates were holidays, and the dates of the final exams. And there, right at the bottom of the page, after the date of the exams, was the date when we’d receive a lecture on Classroom Management. Assuming this was a printing error, I raised my hand and pointed out the mistake, but it wasn’t a mistake: you can take the AMI training, and you can pass your exams and receive your AMI diploma without spending a solitary minute studying Classroom Management.

In traditional schools, children spend the majority of their days sitting immobile at their desks and are spoon-fed knowledge. Nevertheless, when you train to be a traditional teacher, you spend hours and days and weeks learning about this key topic. In a Montessori environment, movement and choice are fundamental to the approach, so you have a room with 25 unique children, with 25 unique sets of interests, needs, motivations and desires, moving from one activity to another, sometimes playing on a mat, other times on a table, sometimes with a friend, other times on their own, with the environment is in a constant state of joyous but semi-chaotic flux. And yet AMI believe that Classroom Management is of so little importance that they’ll certify you as a Montessori Guide without studying this topic for one solitary minute. The inevitable consequence of this is that AMI are producing generations of teachers without the faintest idea how to manage a class of children.

During my observations, I’ve seen over and over again how all effective classes have certain similarities and all chaotic classes are chaotic in similar ways, in a depressing echo of Tolstoy:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. (1878)

In a bad Montessori class, the guide doesn’t offer any guidance because they’re too busy giving endless lessons. The assistant will be left to manage upwards of 24 children -the most difficult part of the job- while the guide has the luxury of sitting with one child, often completely oblivious to the others and to the complete disarray behind their back.

In a good Montessori class, the guides use the ‘One-up, one-down’ system, where one adult gives presentations (‘down’ on the floor or on a chair) while the other manages the group (‘up’ as they’re standing, anticipating problems and aiming to resolve them before they happen).

In a bad Montessori class, the tables all face the class, so that when the teacher is giving a lesson, the child is facing the class, meaning that during the lesson, the child’s attention is inevitably drawn to the other children, or out the window, or to the snack table, or the fish tank, or the child who is hammering away at the bells on the other side of the room.

In a good Montessori class, more than half of the tables will face the wall, so that when the guide is giving a lesson, the focus of the child’s attention is on the Montessori materials that are being presented, and when the children practice with the materials their concentration is similarly protected.

In a bad Montessori class, most of the children are doing nothing. Some are roaming about, disturbing the few who have chosen an activity, others are sitting quietly in some corner, ignored and forgotten, and perhaps 3 or 4 are using the materials as intended.

In a good Montessori class, some children are moving about the room, others are sitting on their own or with classmates (sometimes silently but more often chatting away and yet still completing their task), and some are silently observing a classmate or looking at the shelves, deciding what to do next. The mood in the room is calm, relaxed and peaceful. The guide will occasionally give some minor direction to a child or consult with colleagues, but more often they will be silently observing and making mental notes of each of the children’s needs and tendencies (which they will later transcribe into the class observation journal).

In a bad Montessori class, the teacher believes that they should do nothing other than walk around and smile beatifically, using what a colleague referred to as ‘The Montessori Grin’ – observe the chaos, make an inane smile, move on, repeat.

I’ve worked in classes that typically contained anywhere from 20 to 30 children, aged from 3 to 6. Many of those children were gregarious while quite a few were shy; some were easy-going, calm and mellow, and there was also a couple who … well, they were less so:

“The work of the teacher is to guide the children to normalisation, to concentration. […] The teacher has two tasks: to lead the children to concentration and to help them in their development afterwards. The fundamental help in development, especially with little children of three years of age, is not to interfere. Interference stops activity and stops concentration. But do not apply the rule of non-interference when the children are still the prey of all their different naughtinesses.”

- Maria Montessori, ‘The Child, Society and the World: Unpublished Speeches and Writings’, p.16.

What to do with, how to react to, how to guide those children who are “still the prey of all their different naughtinesses?”

This topic can be hugely challenging for Montessori teachers, and it doesn’t help that Montessori’s writing are a bit like The Bible: with enough digging it’s possible to find a quotation to support any point of view. Unfortunately it’s quotations like the ones that stress the primacy of Presentations that are highlighted by AMI …

“In brief, the teacher’s principle duty in the school may be described as follows: she should explain the use of the material.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of The Child, p.151.

… while others languish in the darkness, unread, unloved and unknown:

“’To let the child do as he likes,’ when he has not yet developed any powers of control, is to betray the idea of freedom. […] If freedom is understood as letting the children do as they like, using or more likely misusing, the things available, it is clear that only their deviations are free to develop.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, pp.205/6. (1949)

Her son was equally clear about the dangers of inaction:

“One time I saw an entire class of disorganized children who were using the materials completely wrongly. The teacher drifted about in the class, silent as the Sphinx…This teacher was committing a grave error: She feared disturbing their disorder, instead of attempting to establish the order.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of The Child, p.151.

These quotations are from her final years, but as early as 1923 Montessori was advising guides on where they needed to focus their attention:

“What is expected of her is the ability to distinguish the child who has chosen the right path from the one who has erred.”

- Maria Montessori, The Child in the Family, P. 33. (1923)

In the most effective Montessori environments, the most authentic ones -those in which the children exhibit joy and concentration and curiosity- I’ve seen how the guides are authoritative and yet also kind and calm and gentle; sensitive to the feelings of the children, they display empathy but they also set clear and consistent limits, they establish some basic rules and when necessary they remind the children of the rules, and when these rules are infringed they implement clear, consistent, and reasonable consequences.

These quotations are from her final years, but as early as 1923 Montessori was advising guides on where they needed to focus their attention:

Giving presentations is also an important part of the job, but it’s been my experience that it’s the least important part of what I do, because my job description is not ‘Montessori Teacher’ or ‘Montessori Lesson Presenter’ but ‘Montessori Guide.’ I guide the children, and giving presentations while the class is in disarray is a waste of time, because children require peace and quiet and a calm, ordered environment so that they can develop their concentration. So I strive to create a peaceful and orderly environment that allows children to focus on their activities, whilst developing an awareness of their place in the group and the importance of respecting the needs of others. fostering collaboration and respect, I work to develop a sense of teamwork and a community of learners.

And in order that the children can co-exist in harmony, those members of the group who have yet to develop self-control need some rules and consequence that will help them to develop inner discipline:

“Let us always remember that inner discipline is something to come and not something always present.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 248.

Sounds simple, and it is, but it’s also extremely difficult. Only by trial and error, learning by doing, do you start to get a handle on it. More than 2400 years ago Aristotle said, “The things we have to learn before we do them, we learn by doing them” and I’ve learnt to be a Montessori guide by being a Montessori guide, by figuring out how to get the children to follow me:

“The teacher must entice the children. The teacher, in this first period, before concentration has shown itself, must be like the flame, which heartens all by its warmth, enlivens and invites. There is no need to fear that she will interrupt some important psychic process, since these have not yet begun. Before concentration occurs, the [adult] may do more or less what she thinks best; she can interfere with the children’s activities as she deems necessary. She can tell stories, have some games and singing, use nursery rhymes and poetry. The teacher who has a gift for charming the children can have them do various exercises, which, even if they have no great value educationally, are useful in calming them. Everyone knows that a lively teacher attracts more than a dull one, and we can all be lively if we try. If at this stage there is some child who persistently annoys the others, the most practical thing to do is interrupt him, to break the flow of disturbing activity. The interruption may take the form of any kind of exclamation, or in showing a special and affectionate interest in the troublesome child.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, pp. 277-81.

When exclamations or displays of affectionate interest don’t work, it can be useful to have a cage on standby.

The Goldilocks Zone

“When we speak of ‘environment’ we include the sum total of objects which a child can freely choose and use as he pleases, that is to say, according to his needs and tendencies. A teacher simply assists him at the beginning to get his bearings among so many different things and teaches him the precise use of each of them, that is to say, she introduces him to the ordered and active life of the environment. But then she leaves him free in the choice and execution of his work.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, p. 65.

The art of being a Montessori guide is in knowing how much help to give, when to offer it and when to hold back, when to allow a child to struggle with a problem long enough to learn from it, but not so long that they become frustrated by it. At this crucial early stage, when the child is just becoming independent, it’s tempting to step in to help, but too much help is actually an obstacle:

“Now the adult himself is part of the child’s environment; the adult must adjust himself to the child’s needs if he is not to be a hindrance to him and if he is not to substitute himself for the child in the activities essential to growth and development.”

- Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, p.106.

But we mustn’t abandon the child either:

“We must become persuaded that the more the environment corresponds to the needs of the child, the more limited becomes the activity of the teacher. But here a very important principle must not be forgotten – giving freedom to the child does not mean to abandon him to his own resources and perhaps to neglect him. The help that we give to the soul of the child must not be passive indifference to all the difficulties of its development. Rather, we must second it with prudence and affectionate care.”

- Maria Montessori, ‘The Child’, from "The Theosophist", December 1941.

It’s a delicate balance to strike:

“It is true that the child develops in his environment through activity itself, but he needs material means, guidance and an indispensable understanding. It is the adult who provides these necessities…. If he does less than is necessary, the child cannot act meaningfully, and if he does more than is necessary, he imposes himself upon the child, extinguishing the child’s creative impulses. “

- Maria Montessori, The Child in the Family, p.154.

So, when I see a child who is experiencing difficulty, I first have to decide whether to intervene and if so, how to intervene. Quite often the children can fix their own problems, but sometimes they very obviously need some guidance – they need just a little direction. A child who is building the Pink Tower can usually figure out which prism goes on top of which, but a 5-year-old child who is using the Puzzle Map of Europe and asks, ‘What is the capital of Italy?’ is not going to pluck the answer out of thin air.

When deciding how to guide a child, there are many options available, but also some common choices:

Do nothing – the go-to option of many Montessori teachers.

Tell the child to put the materials away – the opposite of Option 1, and equally unhelpful, but sometimes necessary.

Ask another child to assist / guide / teach the first child.

Offer the child some minor assistance, a small but crucial tweak that will allow them to continue on their own.

Sit with the child and re-present the materials.

Which of these options to choose depends on the child and the situation in the class and a dozen other factors which change from day to day and often from hour to hour, and quite often there isn’t a clearly right or wrong choice -and the choice today could be completely wrong tomorrow- so as with so many elements of the Montessori Method, I learn by doing, I make a decision and then reflect upon whether it was the right one, and use this knowledge to become a more effective guide tomorrow. The challenge is to somehow provide just the right amount of support required to aid the child’s development, and this requires a leap of faith -particularly at the beginning of the year- and an awareness of the key attribute we’re trying to develop:

“The teacher, when she begins to work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work. She must free herself from all preconceived ideas concerning the levels at which the children may be. The many different types of children […] must not worry her […] The teacher must believe that this child before her will show his true nature when he finds a piece of work that attracts him. So, what must she look out for? That one child or another will begin to concentrate.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p.271.

“Praise, help, or even a look, may be enough to interrupt him, or destroy the activity. It seems a strange thing to say, but this can happen even if the child merely becomes aware of being watched. After all, we too sometimes feel unable to go on working if someone comes to see what we are doing. The great principle which brings success to the teacher is this: as soon as concentration has begun, act as if the child does not exist.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 255.

Easier said than done, sometimes.

Presentations

Despite what I’ve written above about the excessive emphasis on presentations, they are a necessary and key element of the Montessori approach. Perhaps the single greatest difference between the role of a traditional teacher and that of a Montessori guide is the teaching bit: in traditional education all of the children are taught the same thing at the same time. In Montessori education the children are individually presented with a piece of material that is aimed at their precise needs and interests:

“The teacher […] is the main connecting link between the material, that is the objects, and the child. This is a simple, modest duty, and yet it is much more delicate than that found in the older schools, where the material simply helps the children to understand the mind of the teacher, who must pass on her own ideas to a child, who must in turn receive them.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, p.151.

Every fortnight I create an individualised Lesson Plan for each child, based on their needs and interests, and refer to this plan when deciding which lessons to give. Inevitably, the plans are different for different children, and although there might be some overlap within age groups, the presentations that I give to a 5-year-old are generally more advanced than the ones I give to a 4-year-old or a 3-year-old, who are at a quite different stages in their learning journey. Almost all presentations are given to individual children, but occasionally I will present something like a science experiment to the whole group.

Presentations are brief and convey the most basic information necessary for the child to use the materials -the name of the activity, where it can be found in the environment, and how to use it- but sufficient to intrigue the child and serve as a springboard for further investigation and discovery. The precise, beautiful and appealing materials capture the attention of the children, and because freedom of movement and choice are baked into the approach, the child has time and opportunity to repeat and practice, so mastery is achieved through trial and error.

“Pedagogically the work of the school is to organize the work of the child …The organizing of the child’s work and offering this work to the child is a very exact work for us… It is the organization of the work which [leads to]… the establishment of mental order”

- Maria Montessori, The California Lectures of 1915, pp.31–33.

After the child has been introduced to the material and afforded the opportunity to explore, I return and refine and deepen understanding and provide language if necessary:

“In her duty of guiding a child in using the material, a teacher must make a distinction between two different periods. In the first she puts the child in contact with the material and initiates him in its use. In the second she intervenes to enlighten a child who has already succeeded in distinguishing differences through his own spontaneous efforts. It is then that she can determine the ideas acquired by a child, if this is necessary, and provide him with words to describe the differences he has perceived.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, p.153.

But even if the class is calm, there’s still many things that can go wrong. I mentioned that the training largely consists of learning the presentations, but the off things is, my trainers were solely focused on the how of the presentations and had absolutely nothing to say on what I would describe as the practicalities of a presentation: the who, why, the when and the where. In order to fill this gap in the training, I prepared the following guidance, comments, questions and suggestions for my colleagues.

Some Notes on Presentations

Check the materials in advance: if they aren’t ready, don’t give the presentation. For example, if there’s no paper for the Metal Insets, then the child can’t work with them that day. This not only reminds us to be prepared but it also demonstrates to the children that there will be times (in class and in life) they can’t have what they want.

If you aren’t familiar / haven’t practiced with the materials, don’t give the presentation.

Plan where to give the presentation: on a mat or a table? In the middle of the circle or at a table in the corner of the room?

Something to think about for a 3-year-old: are they more controlled sitting in a chair or next to a mat?

Presentations are given sitting next to the children (when on a table) or facing them (i.e. on the opposite side of a mat). They are not given standing above the child or crouched next to the table. Model how you’d like the child to sit and sit yourself.

A lesson begins when we invite the child and isn’t finished until the child has returned the materials to their proper place on the shelf.

Lessons are always more effective when they’re silent. Try not to speak and don’t respond if the child speaks. If the child insists on speaking, mimicking the silent gesture (placing index finger to lips) is a simple but effective response.

Monitor the child before, during and after the presentation:

Before

Do they seem aimless and/or ready for a presentation? Or are they engaged with something, someone, or looking like they’re taking a break?

During

Are they concentrating? If they’re distracted, wait for them to refocus or gently bring their attention back to the lesson. Sometimes they’re just taking a mental break, so try and gauge their mood and adapt your behaviour to suit.

After

Once you’ve invited the child to work with the materials, quietly and unobtrusively leave, but monitor them from a distance. Is the child mistreating the materials or merely exploring them? Did they seem to grasp the essential aim of the lesson? If yes, can you tell if they’ll soon be ready for the next presentation, or will they have to practice some more?

Once you’ve given the lesson, record it on the Lesson Plan immediately.

If you’ve brought a chair for a lesson, return it to its place once the lesson is finished.

Many teachers get into the habit of giving one presentation immediately after another. What are some disadvantages of this?

Some reasons why a presentation might be ineffective:

The child wasn’t ready (at that moment, on that day, during that week/month). This is a mistake on the part of the guide.

The presentation was unclear or imprecise. This is a mistake on the part of the guide.

The conditions in the room prevented the child from concentrating. This is a mistake on the part of the guide.

There’s a lot to consider, but once you know your children, the job becomes much easier, and a facial gesture or a quick question can be all the guidance they need. An example of this was the time when 8 of my children were grading 8 Bells. In this game, the children not only have to be able to distinguish the different notes but -more importantly- they also need to be able to cooperate so they can arrange themselves in a diatonic scale.

I set up this group this group of children, explained how the game worked, then left them to it, only asking that they come get me when they were finished. 10 minutes later they came and rang the bells, but they quite clearly weren’t in sequence, so it was quite jarring. I made a face and they all started laughing. That was the only guidance I offered.

I then asked if they thought it was right and they all shouted ‘no!’ so I once again asked them to come get me when they were finished. A few minutes later they back and, and each child rang their bell. This time it was very obviously perfect, but I didn’t say anything beyond repeating my question and they shouted/laughed in unison, ‘yes!’

As I say, the more time you spend with the children the more you get to know their characters and the smallest tweak can be all that’s required to guide them. And from time to time, you can be pretty sure you’ve gotten something right, because the children will break out in a spontaneous round of applause.

A final thought on presentations

As I’ve written above, one of the odd things about the AMI teacher-training is the massive emphasis that is placed on the presentations. Equally puzzling is the fact that you will fail the final exams unless all students present the materials in in precisely the same way, precisely as our trainers told us to do it. If this sounds less than Montessori in spirit, it’s because it is:

“Just because Montessori wishes the directress to be a dynamic link between the children and the environment, she was always careful to avoid saying anything that would destroy the spontaneity and vivacity of the directress in her work, I give very few lessons on how to give lessons, lest my suggestions -becoming stereotyped and parodied- should turn into obstacles instead of help. The directress is dealing with different personalities; and it therefore becomes more a question of how she should orient herself in what is for her a new world, rather than of any rigid or absolute rules.”

E.M. Standing, Montessori, Her Life and Work, p.285.

I wish this quotation were better known as it contains a great deal of truth, and in fact anticipated perfectly the rigid and absolute rules of the Association Montessori Internationale. I am in perfect agreement with E.M. Standing that adaptability and responding to the moment is key to my job, and in fact it is often the most enjoyable part. If every child is different, isn’t there a case to be made that every presentation should be different? How boring our jobs would be -and how bored our children would be- if we all did the same thing at the same time and in the same way. Fortunately, I don’t. I believe that you can present Colour Tablets 2 to one child while a second child uses me as a sofa.

Role-Model and Mentor

Maria Montessori spent 60 years lecturing in universities and giving training courses to adults throughout the world, but she rarely taught children. When she opened the first Casa dei Bambini, Montessori charged Candida Nuccitelli, the building porter’s daughter -who had no teaching experience or any kind of academic qualification- with giving lessons to the 40 or 50 children who were in the room. Nevertheless, Montessori had very specific ideas about how her guides should carry themselves:

“The teacher also must be attractive, pleasing in appearance, tidy and clean, calm and dignified. These are ideals that each can realize in her own way…The teacher should study her own movements, to make them as gentle and graceful as possible.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 277. (1995)

“A child is an eager observer and is particularly attracted by the actions of the adults and wants to imitate them. In this regard an adult can have a kind of mission. He can be an inspiration for the child’s actions, a kind of open book wherein a child can learn how to direct his own movements. But an adult, if he is to afford proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.”

- Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, p.93

“The teacher moves about slowly and silently. She goes up to one who has called her. Her supervision is such that anyone who needs her is immediately aware of her presence, whereas those who do not are completely oblivious to her.”

- Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, p. 302.

Of course. Remain dignified and gentle and graceful and move slowly and silently at all times. Completely agree, obviously.

Time-frame

The children -hopefully remain with me for three years and this provides an opportunity for me to develop a knowledge of their learning style, interests, strengths and weaknesses, and an awareness of each child’s uniqueness. Over the course of those three years, I forge deep bonds with the children, and they trust me and then they follow me -a colleague referred to this as The Pied Piper Effect– and this ultimately is the key task of the adult: to gain the trust of the children.

It takes a lot of work but once you do, the job becomes a lot of fun. If I were to give a new teacher one bit of advice, it’s this: make it fun and have fun. That’s what I’ve tried to do anyway.

Some Thoughts on Observation

“Before such attention and concentration have been attained, the teacher must learn to control herself so that the child’s spirit shall be free to expand and show its powers; the essence of her duty is not to interrupt the child in his efforts. This is a moment in which the delicacy of the teacher’s moral sensitiveness, acquired during her training, comes into play. She must learn that it is not easy to help, nor even, perhaps, to stand still and watch. Even when helping and serving the children, she must not cease to observe them, because the birth of concentration in a child is as delicate a phenomenon as the bursting of a bud into bloom. But she will not be watching with the aim of making her presence felt, or of helping the weaker ones by her own strength. She observes in order to recognize the child who has attained the power to concentrate and to admire the glorious rebirth of his spirit.”

- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p.248.

“Observation alone is not enough. We have to understand the significance of what we see, hear and touch.”

- John Dewey.

Read pretty much any article on the key qualities of a Montessori Guide and it’ll be clear that one attribute in particular is absolutely paramount:

‘Through careful observation, the Montessori teacher comes to know each student’s interests, learning style, and temperament.’

‘The Montessori teacher is a trained observer of children’s learning and behaviour. These careful observations are recorded and used to infer where each student is.’

‘When he observes that the student has mastered a concept or skill, he introduces new lessons that become increasingly complex and abstract.’

‘to observe, present and guide children through discovery.’

‘unobtrusive, careful observation of both universal and individual needs.’

“Indeed, with my methods, the teacher teaches little and observes much.”

- Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, p. 174. (1912)

I’ve witnessed (observed?) the result of this obsession with observation in many of the schools I’ve visited, where it’s depressingly common to see teachers sitting around, furiously jotting down notes like their lives depended on it:

Tommy took the Pink Tower to a mat.

He carried some of the cubes in one hand and some in the other.

Then he built the tower.

Mary looked at him.

He looked at her.

I told her, “Go find your work.”

At that point, Tommy put away the work.

Tomorrow I will present him with the Brown Stairs and the following day with the Red Rods.

In one school I worked alongside my replacement for the last month of the year. She spent about 75% of the work period observing, 25% giving presentations, and 0% managing the class. When I’d ask if she wanted to share what she’d observed, or how her observation would affect the way she interacted with the children, or what insights she’d gained from this glut of observation, she’d look at me with pity in her eyes and share pearls of wisdom like, “Well, Liam, every child is different” or “It depends on the child” or “I’m following the child” or one from her mental stockpile of other similarly profound statements.

The odd thing was, after weeks of observations, she never added or subtracted anything from the Lesson Planner, never made an effort to connect the children with their classmates, never altered the materials on the shelves, never in fact did anything that had any practical consequence in the class.

So, I guess my question is: what’s with all the careful, scientific, trained, unobtrusive observation? And is there any connection between teachers spending hours on end jotting down notes, and the fact that many of these very same teachers quit the job after a year or two or -even worse- keep teaching and creating classrooms that are Montessori in name only? I wonder.

A Final Thought

“I obtained most surprising results through their application, but I must confess that, while my efforts showed themselves in the intellectual progress of my pupils, a peculiar form of exhaustion prostrated me. It was as if I gave to them some vital force from within me.”

- Maria Montessori, ‘The Montessori Method’, Chapter 2, History of Methods, P. 87. (1912)

This is my favourite quote by Maria Montessori because it captures a truth that I have never seen discussed but which is of paramount importance: our job is tremendously valuable and can be tremendously enjoyable, but it is also tremendously draining. Every day we give some essential part of ourselves to the children, school finishes and we go home, utterly spent and exhausted, and eventually we collapse into sleep.

And the next day we give it all again. In Loco Parentis.

But at least we don’t work for the Green County School Board.