Montessori - ch 21 (final chapter)

Maria Montessori Her Life and Work by E. Mortimer Standing
Chapter 21 - Montessori, Froebel and the Junior School

Around age 9 or 10, the enclosed Montessori school environment is no longer enough for the child. He wants more; he's entered his next phase of development and longs to explore again, but this time he wants to explore the wide world. Traditionally, this is the age when boys escape, run away, play hookey from school, form gangs. This is the optimum time to prepare students to go out into the world. Boy scouts, which teaches survival skills, is one workable solution. But what about school? Ideally, scout-type activities should be part of school. Froebel's students learned about nature (in a way that sounds like CM's section on 'Red Indian lore' in volume 1). Froebel's students explored terrain and then made their own maps from their explorations. But preparation for the real world involves more than survival skills and map-making. It means moral training to choose between right and wrong.

The herd instinct becomes strong at this phase, and can be harnessed so that students form groups that have moral goals and standards. Froebel liked organized sports for this purpose. Montessori liked scouts, but preferred to have something attached to the school. Schools in each culture would find their own solutions.

Children at this stage begin to Reason. So Montessori's junior schools switch from isolated skill lessons with color boards and graduated cylinders to a more wholistic approach, teaching about related interests with a unified center that were similar to but not quite like unit studies that squander too much time on unimportant subjects. 'Seeds of interest' are sown about lots of different subjects (sounds like CM's varied curriculum in all different fields of knowledge). But the whole class isn't dragged through lessons in the same subject - learning is still individual and child-led yet still guided by the teacher. Before, the young child child was taught skills so that, if he chose an activity, he was free and capable to do it - he had the skills to do what he wanted to do. It's the same at this age. The teacher has to be able to help the student pursue information within his interest, which means she has to know a LOT! (I imagine this aspect of Montessori would be a lot easier in our computer age!) It sounds like this phase of education was never fully worked out and still had some problems to be worked through - the expectations of the teacher's file of knowledge, for one!

Montessori felt that the child's imagination should be inspired from the wonders of the universe, not fantasy, because fact is more fascinating than fiction.

The book closes with more hyperbole about how recognizing the inner light of the child would create a Christ-like-ness in children and lead to world peace.

To start at the beginning of this series, click here.