Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook Part 2

In the care of the person the first step is that of dressing and undressing. For this end there is in my didactic material a collection of frames to which are attached pieces of stuff, leather, etc. These can be b.u.t.toned, hooked, tied together--in fact, joined in all the different ways which our civilization has invented for fastening our clothing, shoes, etc. (Fig. 3.) The teacher, sitting by the child's side, performs the necessary movements of the fingers very slowly and deliberately, separating the movements themselves into their different parts, and letting them be seen clearly and minutely.

For example, one of the first actions will be the adjustment of the two pieces of stuff in such a way that the edges to be fastened together touch one another from top to bottom. Then, if it is a b.u.t.toning-frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages of the action. She will take hold of the b.u.t.ton, set it opposite the b.u.t.tonhole, make it enter the b.u.t.tonhole completely, and adjust it carefully in its place above. In the same way, to teach a child to tie a bow, she will separate the stage in which he ties the ribbons together from that in which he makes the bows.

In the cinematograph film there is a picture which shows an entire lesson in the tying of the bows with the ribbons. These lessons are not necessary for all the children, as they learn from one another, and of their own accord come with great patience to a.n.a.lyze the movements, performing them separately very slowly and carefully. The child can sit in a comfortable position and hold his frame on the table. (Fig. 4.) As he fastens and unfastens the same frame many times over with great interest, he acquires an unusual deftness of hand, and becomes possessed with the desire to fasten real clothes whenever he has the opportunity. We see the smallest children _wanting_ to dress themselves and their companions. They go in search of amus.e.m.e.nt of this kind, and defend themselves with all their might against the adult who would try to help them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4.--CHILD b.u.t.tONING ON FRAME. (PHOTO TAKEN AT MR.

HAWKER'S SCHOOL AT RUNTON.)]

In the same way for the teaching of the other and larger movements, such as washing, setting the table, etc., the directress must at the beginning intervene, teaching the child with few or no words at all, but with very precise actions. She teaches all the movements: how to sit, to rise from one's seat, to take up and lay down objects, and to offer them gracefully to others. In the same way she teaches the children to set the plates one upon the other and lay them on the table without making any noise.

The children learn easily and show an interest and surprising care in the performance of these actions. In cla.s.ses where there are many children it is necessary to arrange for the children to take turns in the various household duties, such as housework, serving at table, and washing dishes. The children readily respect such a system of turns.

There is no need to ask them to do this work, for they come spontaneously--even little ones of two and a half years old--to offer to do their share, and it is frequently most touching to watch their efforts to imitate, to remember, and, finally, to conquer their difficulty. Professor Jacoby, of New York, was once much moved as he watched a child, who was little more than two years old and not at all intelligent in appearance, standing perplexed, because he could not remember whether the fork should be set at the right hand or the left.

He remained a long while meditating and evidently using all the powers of his mind. The other children older than he watched him with admiration, marveling, like ourselves, at the life developing under our eyes.

The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch--enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of itself. The children learn from one another and throw themselves into the work with enthusiasm and delight. This atmosphere of quiet activity develops a fellow-feeling, an att.i.tude of mutual aid, and, most wonderful of all, an intelligent interest on the part of the older children in the progress of their little companions. It is enough just to set a child in these peaceful surroundings for him to feel perfectly at home. In the cinematograph pictures the actual work in a "Children's House" may be seen. The children are moving about, each one fulfilling his own task, whilst the teacher is in a corner watching. Pictures were taken also of the children engaged in the care of the house, that is, in the care both of their persons and of their surroundings. They can be seen washing their faces, polishing their shoes, washing the furniture, polishing the metal indicators of the pedometer, brushing the carpets, etc. In the work of laying the table the children are seen quite by themselves, dividing the work among themselves, carrying the plates, spoons, knives and forks, etc., and, finally, sitting down at the tables where the little waitresses serve the hot soup.

Again, gardening and manual work are a great pleasure to our children.

Gardening is already well known as a feature of infant education, and it is recognized by all that plants and animals attract the children's care and attention. The ideal of the "Children's Houses" in this respect is to imitate the best in the present usage of those schools which owe their inspiration more or less to Mrs. Latter.

For manual instruction we have chosen clay work, consisting of the construction of little tiles, vases and bricks. These may be made with the help of simple instruments, such as molds. The completion of the work should be the aim always kept in view, and, finally, all the little objects made by the children should be glazed and baked in the furnace. The children themselves learn to line a wall with shining white or colored tiles wrought in various designs, or, with the help of mortar and a trowel, to cover the floor with little bricks. They also dig out foundations and then use their bricks to build division walls, or entire little houses for the chickens.

Among the gymnastic exercises that which must be considered the most important is that of the "line." A line is described in chalk or paint upon a large s.p.a.ce of floor. Instead of one line, there may also be two concentric lines, elliptical in form. The children are taught to walk upon these lines like tight-rope walkers, placing their feet one in front of the other. To keep their balance they make efforts exactly similar to those of real tight-rope walkers, except that they have no danger with which to reckon, as the lines are only _drawn_ upon the floor. The teacher herself performs the exercise, showing clearly how she sets her feet, and the children imitate her without any necessity for her to speak. At first it is only certain children who follow her, and when she has shown them how to do it, she withdraws, leaving the phenomenon to develop of itself.

The children for the most part continue to walk, adapting their feet with great care to the movement they have seen, and making efforts to keep their balance so as not to fall. Gradually the other children draw near and watch and also make an attempt. Very little time elapses before the whole of the two ellipses or the one line is covered with children balancing themselves, and continuing to walk round, watching their feet with an expression of deep attention on their faces.

Music may then be used. It should be a very simple march, the rhythm of which is not obvious at first, but which accompanies and enlivens the spontaneous efforts of the children.

When they have learned in this way to master their balance the children have brought the act of walking to a remarkable standard of perfection, and have acquired, in addition to security and composure in their natural gait, an unusually graceful carriage of the body. The exercise on the line can afterwards be made more complicated in various ways. The first application is that of calling forth rhythmic exercise by the sound of a march upon the piano. When the same march is repeated during several days, the children end by feeling the rhythm and by following it with movements of their arms and feet. They also accompany the exercises on the line with songs.

Little by little the music is _understood_ by the children. They finish, as in Miss George's school at Washington, by singing over their daily work with the didactic material. The "Children's House,"

then, resembles a hive of bees humming as they work.

As to the little gymnasium, of which I speak in my book on the "Method," one piece of apparatus is particularly practical. This is the "fence," from which the children hang by their arms, freeing their legs from the heavy weight of the body and strengthening the arms.

This fence has also the advantage of being useful in a garden for the purpose of dividing one part from another, as, for example, the flower-beds from the garden walks, and it does not detract in any way from the appearance of the garden.

SENSORY EDUCATION

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER ONLY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER AND HEIGHT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN HEIGHT ONLY.]

My didactic material offers to the child the _means_ for what may be called "sensory education."

In the box of material the first three objects which are likely to attract the attention of a little child from two and a half to three years old are three solid pieces of wood, in each of which is inserted a row of ten small cylinders, or sometimes discs, all furnished with a b.u.t.ton for a handle. In the first case there is a row of cylinders of the same height, but with a diameter which decreases from thick to thin. (Fig. 5.) In the second there are cylinders which decrease in all dimensions, and so are either larger or smaller, but always of the same shape. (Fig. 6.)

Lastly, in the third case, the cylinders have the same diameter but vary in height, so that, as the size decreases, the cylinder gradually becomes a little disc in form. (Fig. 7.)

The first cylinders vary in two dimensions (the section); the second in all three dimensions; the third in one dimension (height). The order which I have given refers to the degree of _ease_ with which the child performs the exercises.

The exercise consists in taking out the cylinders, mixing them and putting them back in the right place. It is performed by the child as he sits in a comfortable position at a little table. He exercises his hands in the delicate act of taking hold of the b.u.t.ton with the tips of one or two fingers, and in the little movements of the hand and arm as he mixes the cylinders, _without letting them fall_ and _without making too much noise_ and puts them back again each in its own place.

In these exercises the teacher may, in the first instance, intervene, merely taking out the cylinders, mixing them carefully on the table and then showing the child that he is to put them back, but without performing the action herself. Such intervention, however, is almost always found to be unnecessary, for the children _see_ their companions at work, and thus are encouraged to imitate them.

They like to do it _alone_; in fact, sometimes almost in private for fear of inopportune help. (Fig. 8.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8.--CHILD USING CASE OF CYLINDERS.]

But how is the child to find the right place for each of the little cylinders which lie mixed upon the table? He first makes trials; it often happens that he places a cylinder which is too large for the empty hole over which he puts it. Then, changing its place, he tries others until the cylinder goes in. Again, the contrary may happen; that is to say, the cylinder may slip too easily into a hole too big for it. In that case it has taken a place which does not belong to it at all, but to a larger cylinder. In this way one cylinder at the end will be left out without a place, and it will not be possible to find one that fits. Here the child cannot help seeing his mistake in concrete form. He is perplexed, his little mind is faced with a problem which interests him intensely. Before, all the cylinders fitted, now there is one that will not fit. The little one stops, frowning, deep in thought. He begins to feel the little b.u.t.tons and finds that some cylinders have too much room. He thinks that perhaps they are out of their right place and tries to place them correctly.

He repeats the process again and again, and finally he succeeds. Then it is that he breaks into a smile of triumph. The exercise arouses the intelligence of the child; he wants to repeat it right from the beginning and, having learned by experience, he makes another attempt.

Little children from three to three and a half years old have repeated the exercise up to _forty_ times without losing their interest in it.

If the second set of cylinders and then the third are presented, the _change_ of shape strikes the child and reawakens his interest.

The material which I have described serves to _educate the eye_ to distinguish _difference in dimension_, for the child ends by being able to recognize at a glance the larger or the smaller hole which exactly fits the cylinder which he holds in his hand. The educative process is based on this: that the control of the error lies in _the material itself_, and the child has concrete evidence of it.

The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to correct himself. It is not a teacher who makes him notice his mistake and shows him how to correct it, but it is a complex work of the child's own intelligence which leads to such a result.

Hence at this point there begins the process of auto-education.

The aim is not an external one, that is to say, it is _not_ the object that the child should learn how to place the cylinders, and _that he should know how to perform an exercise_.

The aim is an inner one, namely, that the child train himself to observe; that he be led to make comparisons between objects, to form judgments, to reason and to decide; and it is in the indefinite repet.i.tion of this exercise of attention and of intelligence that a real development ensues.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9.--THE TOWER.]

The series of objects to follow after the cylinders consists of three sets of geometrical solid forms:

(1) Ten wooden cubes colored pink. The sides of the cubes diminish from ten centimeters to one centimeter. (Fig. 9.)

With these cubes the child builds a tower, first laying on the ground (upon a carpet) the largest cube, and then placing on the top of it all the others in their order of size to the very smallest. (Fig. 10.) As soon as he has built the tower, the child, with a blow of his hand, knocks it down, so that the cubes are scattered on the carpet, and then he builds it up again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.--CHILD PLAYING WITH TOWER. (PHOTO TAKEN AT MR.

HAWKER'S SCHOOL AT RUNTON.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 11.--THE BROAD STAIR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--THE LONG STAIR.]

(2) Ten wooden prisms, colored brown. The length of the prisms is twenty centimeters, and the square section diminishes from ten centimeters a side to the smallest, one centimeter a side. (Fig. 11.)