Why preschoolers ‘cannot be taught’

What is a baby? From the stillness and security of its prenatal existence — where everything was done for it by another, the mother bearing the fetus such as eating and digesting — it finds itself suddenly plunged naked into a new strange world. Yet from this new and unknown world, through all its senses, which have just begun to function, hundreds of bewildering impressions come pouring in. The newborn child has no ideas of time, space, form, color, cause and effect, or the difference between the Self and Not-Self.

How baby explores

How puzzling to the small infant its own body and bodily organs. When a small infant lying on his back waves his arms and legs he usually gets hold of his foot like it were somebody. No toy can hold his attention as much. Daily he says hello to his new friend and continuously plays with it. The infant’s playground is actually his playpen where he ceaselessly investigates the mattress, the bars, the corners of his pillow, etc. When carried he transfers his attention to the mother’s face, poking her nose, sticking his fingers in her ears, eyes or lifting strands of her hair.

The Silence Game

Dr. Montessori’s insights opened an entirely new world of thrills, soaring experiences. In her first experimental school at the former slum area of San Lorenzo, Rome she showed a quiet, tranquil four-month-old baby to the preschoolers. “Let us learn how baby makes Silence. Let us imitate her — What does she do with her feet (silent movement)? Do so with yours. What about her mouth (no sounds)? … From this originated the fascinating Silence Game for preschoolers.

The Silence Game in preschool is an exercise in disciplining the small child’s movement and learning to inhibit movements. It is done daily after the work period when the children are seated on the floor for news sharing. Usually they are restless because Snack Time follows.

The teacher says, “Silence with your feet.” The wriggly foot movement quiets down. “Silence with you hands!” The pushing and hand movement stop. “Silence with your mouth!” Now complete silence in the room. The children are asked to close their eyes together with the teacher. “Lets now listen to the sounds in the school” ––– (electric fan, restless feet, people talking outside. This is an excellent game that develops a strong sense of obedience.

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

The ‘Secret Teacher,’ the child’s absorbent mind from birth to six

Great stress is laid on how the teachers 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 has mastered the “art of serving the periphery.”

The creative “center” or the intelligence can only be stimulated indirectly through the “periphery.” The latter refers to movement exercises and the sensorial materials 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. Dottoressa Montessori was so ingenious that she developed materials to make preschoolers experience abstract ideas supporting Pythagoras’ dictum “There is nothing in the intellect without passing through the 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 1 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 circles, 3rd tray of quadrilaterals, 4th tray of triangles, 5th tray of polygons and the 5th 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 weights used by jewel smith to weigh gold. These four sets of Knobbed Cylinders graduate 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 and do? The TACTILE materials are the Rough and Smooth sandpaper boards. The pairs of Baric wood tables vary from heavy, moderate or lightest weight. The Thermic Bottles which the child pairs by touch, from the hottest, lukewarm to coldest. Preschoolers learn better working with their hands in care of one’s person (combing, powdering, buttoning, shoe lacing, folding), and care of environment (sweeping, dusting, laundering, carrying furniture, basin with water, mops, gardening, etc.).

What can we hear, taste and smell? 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 them 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 preschool apparatus from the sand-paper Geography Globes to the Puzzle Map of the World; “the small, tall and tailed letters” (a,e,I,o,u, c,m,n,r,s,b,d,h,k,l,t, g,j,p,q,y) 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 “life-long learning.”

Imagine what it means to have as early as childhood, a mind where images and ideas are not confused! Cyrus my grandson easily finished his one year course in pharmacy technology in Los Angeles when he was 18 years old. His promotion at CVS was rapid for he was so organized and work oriented.  “Grandma, my preschool training with various hands on apparata has truly helped me.” Now at 22, shifting to surgical technology, he could easily identify and organize 197 operating instruments, amazing his instructor. 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.