What is Montessori? Part 1

Rabbi Gershom Tave

Education is a cornerstone of a child's development, shaping their future and influencing their opportunities. As a parent or guardian, you play a crucial role in your child's educational journey. Supporting your child's education success involves more than just helping with homework; it requires a holistic approach that nurtures their academic, emotional, and social growth. In this blog post, we will explore effective strategies to support your child's education, ensuring they thrive in their learning environment.

Follow the Child 

The most significant aspect of the educational approach that we call “Montessori” is that of “Follow the Child.” In truth, it was not an idea at all unique to Maria Montessori. It was stated by Shlomo Hamelech, חנוך לנער על פי דרכו, and expounded upon by the Chovas ha-Talmidim (Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczno Rav, Warsaw 1932), which stated that an educator must not simply command a collection of students to do such-and-such. He must delve into the nature of each child to discover and reveal his hidden strengths and abilities.  

When first discovering this approach,  one will likely have many questions. Let us first address the misconception held by many who think, “Does this mean that we should let the child do as he pleases?” This question was most famously answered by one of Maria Montessori’s own students who replied, “I won’t say that we do what we like, but I will say that we  like what  we  do.”  We  will  also  delve ater into the idea of “Choice that is limited,” one finds in the Montessori classroom. 

Firstly, we need to understand that the child is not an empty vessel waiting for us to fill. Afterall, don't children learn how to walk and talk without anyone teaching them? We couldn't teach them to talk if we tried! In just a few years, they go from mute to mastering a vast vocabulary and pretty sophisticated grammatical rules. Then, we adults come along and say, "Look, here, kiddo. Let me tell you how it's done." We bore them and squash their natural curiosity and creativity. 

The child, wanting to help us to understand and support his effort to learn, gives us messages. As infants, when they are wet, hungry or lonely or experiencing any of a myriad of other needs, they cry. This is not misbehaving. This is behaving in the only way they are able to communicate their needs. 

Similarly, observes Dr. William Glasser (Choice Theory in the Classroom, 1986). When a student is bored and starts acting out, this is not misbehavior. It is the student behaving in the only way he can think of to communicate a need to be mentally stimulated. He simply has not yet learned to express this need in a more sophisticated and acceptable way. 

Elementary school-aged children have very complex social and emotional needs. They might be afraid to risk giving a wrong answer and embarrass themselves. They might feel incapable of completing a task or they might feel a task is beneath their ability. What we need to understand is that if they don’t want to do what we ask them to do, there is a reason and an unmet need behind their behavior. One child might be capable of 50 tasks. Another child might barely be up to completing even one. I have often encouraged students by explaining that 1 is infinitely more than zero. We can start at one, then two and work our way up. A teacher of 20 students may quickly find himself needing to direct 20 different curricula in order to meet the needs of each of his students. We can, for the moment, disregard the question of how one can sustain 20 different curricula in a single classroom, but we cannot disregard the realization that children's choices are reflections of legitimate needs. That is the meaning of “follow the child.” 

Choice that is limited

When I first started working for a Montessori school, I instantly recognized that Montessori was a better way to educate children and I was prepared when, new in the community, I was asked by people I would meet, “Oh, is that the school where kids do whatever they want?" I would quickly respond, “No, it’s the school where children learn to make choices.” 

The leading indicators of a child’s future success include executive function skills such as making choices. Information retained is not an indicator for much at all. Unfortunately, most children don’t have to make decisions about anything until they go to college where they often find themselves wholly unprepared to make any decisions at all. For all the years of their education, they have been told where to go when, what to do while they’re there, how long they have to spend on the activity, with whom they should work (if with anyone at all), etc. In a Montessori school, these questions are largely left to the students to decide. Let’s be clear about this, when one walks into a dairy restaurant, there are lots of choices on the menu. Those choices, however, do not include meat. You can beg and plead all you want; that choice is not available. 

In Montessori, this is called “choice that is limited”.  You  can  choose anything on the menu. I liken it to a path bordered by solid stone walls. Sometimes the path is very wide, allowing one to swerve this way and that. Other times, the path is very narrow and one must very carefully stay within the firm boundaries set by the walls. 

For example, lunch is at a set time. Everyone is expected to eat at that time. 

You can’t choose when to eat lunch. Snack, however, can be whenever you’re hungry starting from right after morning meeting until lunch time. You can choose to eat alone or arrange with a classmate to eat together. Snack is typically limited to five minutes, so you can’t choose to take a ten minute snack break. The boundaries are firmly established by the teacher for the sake of a successful learning environment. Within those boundaries, the students are free to choose. 

Sometimes, a decision must be made, for example, should read-aloud be during

lunch or after recess? If the teacher has no particular reason to prefer one option over the other, the children may be allowed to make the choice collectively during a community meeting, an excellent opportunity to learn to cooperate and resolve conflicts peacefully. 

Students are given expectations as to what they should accomplish over the course of the day and/or week, with the freedom to choose how they plan to achieve those expectations. They plan their own schedules in an age-appropriate way and, in the event that they are not on track to achieve those expectations, the teacher may raise the concern and offer to help the child to plan accordingly. It is also important that help is offered rather than imposed. The child may feel capable of making the necessary adjustments himself. My usual response when asked by a student for permission to engage in an optional, alternative activity is to review together with the student his accomplishments thus far and ask him if he thinks those accomplishments warrant taking the break or if it would be a better decision to focus on priority works. In this way, the student is guided and instructed on how to make good choices.