Montessori revolution in the education of the senses

(Part 5 of a series on Montessori Revolution in Education)

Alongside her discovery of Movement Education was Dr. Maria Montessori’s Education of the Senses. She constantly claimed that it was the child who taught her. Taught her how he learns in a spontaneous and easy way as early as infancy. And as a scientist she carefully watched and marveled, constantly analyzed, compared, tabulated these various observations. Then she looked for tools or materials and the accompanying curriculum to match each of his stages of development up to adolescence.

The wonderful gift of the senses

When the “fortune” or “dieffenbachia” ornamental plants are cut and replanted, the remaining stump eventually develops two or three new plants from the remaining nodes. What seems to wound the plant actually gives it more life.

In the same way, when Helen Keller was born and later her parents observed that she was also deaf, the loss of her vision and her hearing made her a better person. But it needed the love and persistence of her governess Ann Sullivan to help her conquer her handicaps.

Helen developed extra senses which helped the people with healthy vision “to see another beautiful world” on earth. Helen’s famous lectures and letters include her correspondences with Dr. Montessori.

The 3 CD-ROMs

Teachers traditionally teach subjects for the mind. Language, Math, History, and Sciences classified as “subjects” are made for mostly intangible abstract ideas which are expected to fill up the students’ minds.

The old philosophy is that upon birth the child’s mind is believed to be tabula rasa or blank. It is compared to an empty jar or a shapeless clay which both parents and teachers must work with since as adults they are the all-knowing authority figure rearing and teaching children conducted by lecturing or dictation. Thus, children are expected to memorize without really sufficient comprehension.

Herein Dr. Montessori observed is the source of conflicts between the child and the adult. Being a doctor, Montessori observed that the developing child by the Laws of Nature is programmed in three different ways.

As in computer language, there is a different CD-ROM for every six years of the child’s “period of construction”: from birth to six; from seven to 12; and from 13 to 18. It is said that true educators have tapped into Dr. Montessori’s discoveries, of these three super computers. Let me concentrate on the first period when the child learns sensorially.

Mother Nature endowed Infancy (birth to six years old) the powerful Absorbent Mind by which a child learns through movement and the senses; while for the six to 12 years old, the enormous reasoning power and the moral judgment develops. This can only be satisfied by a culture-loaded Cosmic Curriculum coupled with an active Scouting program as the grade schoolers are eager to know life beyond the four walls of the classroom. By high school (12-18 years old), the intelligence weakens to give way to the teenagers’ emotional development and creative talent to acquire economic independence.

Why pre-schoolers can’t be ‘taught’?

Dr. Montessori calls the child during the first three years “mira” or “wonderer”. Using his eyes, his touch and ears, he lifts ideas or the qualities of all objects around him. Therefore, the unconscious Absorbent Mind enables the infant to acquire independence in movement and speech.

Great stress is laid on how the teacher should make her lesson plan beforehand with their “preparation, presentation, application, association, etc.” The teacher concerns herself very intimately with what goes on in the mind of the child.

Dr. Montessori agrees that truly there are laws which govern the child’s apprehension of knowledge. Admittedly the mind of the learner is something very wonderful, mysterious and difficult to understand. However, she asserts that it is not only difficult to penetrate into these mysteries, but also as teachers, “We should divest ourselves of the desire to do so. What goes on in this mysterious center of the child’s creative intelligence is his secret, and we must respect that secret.”

Have you ever thought of how adults, even parents, unknowingly allowed infants freedom so that they learn to speak and walk by themselves? What if a solicitous mother insists on giving her firstborn speech lessons, identifying names of people and objects within the home? We know that this is not needed. Even a baby orphaned of both parents can speak and walk within one year.

Thus, the difference between a regular teacher and a Montessori teacher, is that the latter understands the true nature of preschooler. To respect this, a “prepared environment” of work materials is provided. The professional skill of the Montessori trained teacher is called the “mastery of serving the periphery”.

The creative “center” or the intelligence can only be stimulated indirectly through the “periphery”. The latter refers to movement and the senses during the first six years of life. Practical Living exercises develop the child’s independence in work while the Sensorial apparata sharpen and organize his various senses.

What can our eyes see?

The VISUAL materials serve the chromatic sense, sense of shape, and sense of dimension. There are three boxes of Color Tablets: Box I has three pairs of red, yellow and blue tablets. Box II has eight pairs, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and white. Box III has eight shades of the above six colors plus gray, the combination of black and white.

The wooden Geometric Cabinet contains the basic universal shapes in six trays: 1st tray of circle, triangle and square, 2nd tray of circle, 3rd tray of quadrilaterals, 4th tray of triangles, 5th tray of polygons and the 6th tray of irregular shapes (ellipse, ovoid, curved triangle, trefoil, trapezoid, rhombus) and their corresponding Aristotle classified cards.

For dimensions, Dr. Montessori used the design of the laboratory block of weights. These four sets of Knobbed Cylinders and another set of Knobless Cylinders gradate from biggest to smallest, stoutest to thinnest, flattest to widest, to tallest and thinnest and the set of tallest to shortest cylinders.

What can our hands feel? What can we hear, taste and smell?

The TACTILE materials are the Rough and Smooth sandpaper boards. The pairs of Baric wood tablets vary from heavy, moderate or lightest weight. The Thermic Bottles which the child pairs by touch, from the hottest, lukewarm to coldest.

The AUDITORY, GUSTATORY, and OLFACTORY materials are not many. Four pairs of Sound Boxes are mixed up to allow the child to first match them, then gradate from loudest (large pebbles), loud (cow peas), less loud (sand) and softest (flour). The four pairs of Tasting Bottles allow the child to match “sweet, salty, sour and bitter” while the four pairs of Smelling Bottles may contain the aromas of toiletries or the kitchen spices.

Children of promise

All these explorations into the sphere of sensorial attributes, carried on day after day and month after month, collectively form an unusually sure and broad foundation for the child’s subsequent higher mental life. It is a real inward preparation.

Those children who have been through it are different from others: “The imagery in their minds is clear. Each Montessori pre-school apparatus from the sandpaper Geography Globes to the Puzzle Map of the World; the small, tall and tailed letters done in sandpaper to the movable alphabet for word composition and the Golden Decimal Beads for numeration and computation when used properly by a trained teacher automatically stir the child’s joy for lifelong learning.

Imagine what it means to have, even from childhood, a mind with images not confused, and with ideas not confused! Just think what all this signifies as a foundation for future growth! These are “children of promise” for they have taken the first steps in the creation of their own minds.