Friends often ask me what exactly is Montessori? Most people have an idea of a Montessori classroom, with the trays and a pink tower and other assorted Montessori materials. And maybe they’ve seen our Montessori-inspired home, with low shelves of tiny water glasses, low hooks for jackets, a floor bed. But, watching Bean’s teachers, I’ve realized that Montessori extends far beyond the materials and physical space, to the very precise way the teachers approach their students. It is amazing to watch (oh, the PATIENCE REQUIRED), and the kids respond to it like they’ve been sprinkled with magic pixie toddler dust. They themselves become patient, kind, methodical, and thoughtful, over the course of weeks.
Last week, I got to see an almost identical situation play out, first in Bean’s Montessori classroom and then again at an art class, and watch how differently her two teachers handled it. It was illuminating.
For months, Bean has been learning how to use scissors. She could make a cut, but she needed two hands to open the scissors back up. Last week at Montessori class, Bean was once again working on using scissors to cut strips of paper. Her Montessori teacher, who knew Bean’s scissor difficulties, walked over and asked if she could show Bean something. Bean handed over the scissors and the Montessori teacher showed her a small white peg that could be pushed up or down to help the scissors open on their own, like a spring. When the peg was up, Bean had to open the scissors by herself. When the peg was down, the peg acted as a spring to pop the scissors back open.
Simple enough.
Of course, once she got this demonstration, all Bean wanted to do was experiment with this peg and opening and closing the scissors. Her teacher and I talked about something while Bean, sitting between us, sat staring into space, just opening and closing the scissors. Push the peg up, open and close open and close. Push the peg down, open and close open and close, for nearly 5 minutes.
Neither of us thought anything of it. We continued on our conversation while Bean toyed with the scissors. Eventually, she stopped and starting cutting paper again.
Two days later, we were at an art class. Bean had already cut out a picture of an animal and pasted it into her journal. As she waited for the next step, she stared off into space opening and closing the scissors. Open and close, open and close.
The teacher noticed her, did a double take, and beelined right over and said, “Oh! Let me put those back for you!” She nicely took them out of Bean’s hands and walked them back to the scissor bin.
So. Different, right?
The thing is, before I came across Montessori, I would have also pulled the scissors out of Bean’s hands. I mean, a toddler playing with scissors is pretty much de facto not good. I could see myself, and most other adults, in the teacher’s quick reaction.
But, in the Montessori classroom, both the Montessori teacher and I knew exactly what Bean was doing — she had just been shown something, and she was practicing it and testing out the resistance of the little peg. It didn’t come across as “playing” to us. And, both of us were talking but closely watching her. Or, “observing” as her Montessori teacher would say. If she did anything approaching dangerous, we were right there to step in. You can tell when a toddler is getting careless and when a toddler is dialed in and methodical. Realizing that difference is a large part of the Montessori classroom experience. Montessori teachers don’t jump in; they hold themselves back and observe.
I talked about this later with the Montessori teacher and her response was, “You know, when I come into consult teachers, that’s the first thing I have to tell them: ‘Don’t assume that what a child doing is bad.'”
Isn’t that brilliant? I feel like that is exactly our first assumption, when a toddler takes all the mail out of a basket or goes for a kitchen cabinet. But, if you stop and observe what’s actually happening before you intervene (seeing whether it really is careless or not), you might realize that your toddler is actually doing something interesting.
Later in the week, Bean grabbed a bag of quarters off a high table and I sucked in my teeth. Before, I would have immediately told her to put them back, but after this week, I stopped myself, to see what she’d actually do with them. She stood at our ottoman, and started “feeding” the quarters into the ottoman tufts, counting the quarters as she put them in. She explained she was at the “laundrymat” and then shook the ottoman. The wash cycle. When she got bored of that game, she counted the quarters as she put them back into the bag, rhythmically shaking it every now and then to hear the cling-cling-cling of the quarters. Imaginary play, fine motor skills, math, music, and cleaning up. In one little game. All I had to do was stop and watch.
When Dave came home, she re-enacted the entire thing, including putting the quarters back into the bag. And then she put them away… on her toy shelf.
