The Open Session Protocols, which are some guiding rules by which we expect our montessori community to adhere to, were not just put together by a group who threw a couple of ideas together when discussing how they wanted our classroom to run. In fact the protocols are the outcome of the body of knowledge that our teachers and committee members have of the Montessori philosophy and how this philosophy is implemented on a daily basis around the world, and more importantly how Maria Montessori herself wanted it implemented. To support this and to encourage our parents to work within these guidelines, tonight we discussed each protocol in detail. Carmelina supported their implementation within our environment with various quotes that she sourced in the selection of library books which are on offer through the MLC. Thanks Carmelina for the time and effort this took, and for chairing the session! Below is the selection of quotes; the text however does not include the additional discussions from our attendees on the night!
Please Note: Carmelina encouraged us when we heard (read) the word ‘teacher’ to replace it with ‘parent’ – because of the way we run our Open Sessions at the Montessori Learning Community, we as parents are our children’s teachers in the sense that these texts discuss.
Introduction:
p.64 “The Montessori Way” Tim Seldin
Helen Keller, inspired by Montessori, wrote:
“I believe that every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quickened and developed if we go about it in the right way, but we shall never properly develop the higher nature of our little ones while we continue to fill their mind with the so-called ‘basics’. Mathematics will never make them loving, nor will accurate knowledge of the size and shape of the world help them to appreciate its beauties. Let us lead them during the first years to find their greatest pleasure in nature. Let them run in the fields, learn about animals, and observe real things. Children will educate themselves under the right conditions. They required guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.”
...Each classroom is a place where children really want to be because it feels a lot like home. Montessori schools give children the sense of belonging to a family and help children learn how to live with other human beings.
Protocol #1: Your child will gain the most benefit from working on the equipment by themselves.
p.19 Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
In an extract form a course lecture, Barcelona 1933, the Rules for the Teacher in the Children’s House were to (Point #11) “make his presence felt to those who are still looking (for a job), and hide it from those who have succeeded.”
p.17 Basic Montessori, Learning Activities for Under 5’s, David Gettman
The adult in the Montessori environment can serve the child in three ways: as the main ‘caretaker’ and guardian of the work space, its furnishings, and the materials; as a ‘facilitator’ of the child’s interaction with the materials; and as an ‘observer’ of the child’s work and development. You can be all three of these things at once, but never the child’s teacher in the traditional sense, since in the Montessori environment the child learns through active discovery, rather than through passive reception. Montessori called the adult who assumes the above three roles the environment’s ‘director’.
Protocol #2: We are creating an ‘environment’ in which the child is free to follow his/her own instincts to learn. It is a child’s learning environment.
p.19 Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
In an extract form a course lecture, Barcelona 1933, the Rules for the Teacher in the Children’s House were to
(Point #7): respect those who are working without ever interrupting.
(Point #9): respect anyone who is resting and anyone who is watching the others work without disturbing him, without calling him or making him return to his own task.
(Point #10): be ‘tireless’ in trying to offer objects to those who have rejected them; and in teaching those who still haven’t learnt and who make mistakes – making the environment as alive as possible and yet keeping a concentrated silence, using soft words and a loving presence.
p.51 The Montessori Way, Tim Seldin (Montessori quote)
“Those of us who have tried to learn the ways of childhood from children (instead of from our own ides) have been amazed at the discoveries we have made. And there is one point on which we all agree – children live in a world of their own interests. The work they do there must be respected, for though many childish activities may seem pointless to grown-ups, nature is using them for her own ends. She is building mind and character as well as bone and muscle. The greatest help you can give your children is freedom to go about their work in their own way, for in this matter your child knows better than you.”
p.53 Normalization + orange box
Normalization describes the process that takes place every year in Montessori classrooms around the world, in which young children, who typically have short attention spans, learn to focus their intelligence, concentrate their energies for long periods, and take tremendous satisfaction from their work.
In his book, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, E.M. Standing described the following characteristics of normalization in the child between the age of three and six:
A love of order
A love of work
Profound spontaneous concentration
Attachment to reality
Love of silence and of working alone
Sublimation of the possessive instinct
Obedience
Independence and initiative
Spontaneous self-discipline
Joy
The power to act from real choice and not just from idle curiosity
Protocol #3: Your main role in this environment is to observe your child.
p.51/52 The Montessori Way, Tim Seldin
“The first step to take in order to become a Montessori teacher is to shed omnipotence and to become a joyous observer. If the teacher can really enter into the joy of seeing things, being born and growing under his own eyes, and clothe himself in the garment of humility, many delights are reserved for him that are denied to those who assume infallibility and authority in front of a class (Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential)
Here lies the essential point: from her scientific preparation, the teacher must bring not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity, and of absolute respect for the phenomena she wishes to observe. The teacher must feel her position of observer; the activity must lie in the phenomenon. (Montessori, The Montessori Method).”
p.18 Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
In an extract form a course lecture, Barcelona 1933, the Rules for the Teacher in the Children’s House were to
“(Point #3): be ‘active’ when putting the child in rapport with the environment, and be ‘passive’ when this rapport is achieved.”
Protocol #4: You, the parent or guardian, are ultimately responsible for ensuring a piece of equipment your child has used is left in a complete state – totally ready to be used by the next child.
p.50 The Montessori Way, Tim Seldin : Beauty
Each learning activity is complete; everything needed is present and in good repair. Objects placed in the classroom are attractive and elegant, designed to attract the child’s interest and attention.
p.18 Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
In an extract form a course lecture, Barcelona 1933, the Rules for the Teacher in the Children’s House were to
(Point #1): look after the environment in the most careful way, so that it looks clean, light and well ordered. Repair things that are worn through use: mending and repainting: or obtaining some attractive ornament. ‘Like a faithful servant who prepares the house for his master’s return’.
Protocol #5: Everyone in this environment has the right to work undisturbed. Do not interrupt, or allow your child to interrupt, a working child or an adult working with a child, under any circumstance.
Montessori Insights, Alined Wolf : Nurturing Concentration
Cultivating a child’s power of concentration actually begins before the child is three. Concentration is a fragile mind-set that can easily be interrupted by adults who do not understand that age 0-3 is the formative stage for this lifelong power. For example, a young child may be floating sticks in a puddle or lining up pots and pans on the kitchen floor when her caretaker decides, “enough of this mess,” and abruptly ends the activity.
To interfere with a child’s concentration in order to change his messy clothes or clean up a cluttered floor is to put appearances ahead of the child’s psychic development. If a child’s cycle of activity is interrupted, the results are a deviation of behaviour, aimlessness and loss of interest...So whatever intelligent activity we witness in a child – even if it seems absurd to us...we must not interfere; for the child must be able to finish the cycle of activity on which his heart is set...”
p.50 The Montessori Way, Tim Seldin
“..the adult must protect each child’s choice by ensuring that the child will be able to work with the chosen learning materials without interruption or interference from other children.”
p.15(2) Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
“The phenomenon of concentration is necessary first. Then the children are calm. They move their hands only when they work. A child who concentrates does not disturb others. The teacher must recognise the first moment of concentration and must not disturb it. The whole future comes from this moment and so the teacher must be ready for non-interference when it occurs. This is very difficult because the teacher has to interfere at every moment before the children are normalized. Generally teachers interfere when a child is working. They go to see what they are doing and praise them. This praise is interference. The teacher goes to correct mistakes; this is an interference, even though it is an interference of goodwill. It is not interference to interfere when the child is naughty...When the child is working seriously they will often go and say “what are you doing? Show me?” Then the concentration is broken; it is finished. So never interfere when a child is working by himself. Don’t be preoccupied about whether he is making mistakes, you must not correct him at this moment. The important thing is not that the child should handle the material well, but that this material has attracted the attention of the child. The child corrects himself though repeating the exercise or through the control of error which is exact for some of the material. If you interfere, a child’s interest finishes, the enchantment of correcting himself is broken. It is as though he says “I was with myself inside. You called me and so it is finished. Now this material has no more importance for me”. A child does not need praise; praise breaks the enchantment. The child is not interested in one material. It is a great inner energy, normality, which comes and you break this if you interfere.”
p.14(2) Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
“...After this, whenever I saw a child concentrate on a piece of work I left him undisturbed. We must not interfere with a concentrating child, because something is happening inside that child. ”
Protocol #6: Keep words to an absolute minimum when you are demonstrating a piece of equipment.
p.18(2) Child, Society & The World, Maria Montessori
“The children know that in this attractive environment they are free to choose their own occupations and that there is this attractive dignified person. An English poet wrote of a teacher that she should be like an angel, protective and sweet and dignified. The children get this sense of security when they are near this superior person. The teacher must be everything that is perfect.”
Protocol #7: Trust your child to find the right job for themselves – refrain from suggesting jobs.
p.14 Montessori Insights, Alined Wolf
When an adult performs a particular action, such as going upstairs, it is usually for a specific purpose... But during a sensitive period a child will climb the stairs because she is guided by an inner impulse to practice that particular movement. Staircases give the greatest joy, Montessori wrote, because children have in themselves an innate tendency to go upwards. To come down the stairs is more difficult, and the parent usually has to help the child with this manoeuvre. The child may then climb the steps again to the chagrin of her caregiver, who may not understand that she is inwardly motivated to master this skill.
Montessori reminds parents that this kind of activity, which serves no external purpose, gives children the practice they need for co-ordinating their movements. The child is fortunate whose parents can perceive the long-range purpose of this kind of repetition and patiently give their time and any necessary assistance.”
p.16 Child, Society & The World (2), Maria Montessori
“...at the moment of real concentration. This is the moment of conquest, the time when the child instructs himself according to the urge of nature.”
Protocol #8: Before presenting a piece of equipment to your child try and familiarise yourself in its use.
p.18 (3,4) Basic Montessori, Learning Activities for Under 5’s, David Gettman
“First, each activity should be presented at precisely the right moment in a particular child’s development, so that it will challenge the child’s intellectual and physical abilities, and tie together certain of the child’s previous experiences, thereby stimulating the child to observe the presentation closely and later to attempt the activity independently. To help create a challenge, the director doing the presentation must conduct the activity as perfectly as humanly possible, with a strong sense of confidence and an appearance of facility and grace. Rather than put the child off, this vision of perfection will be absorbed by the absorbent mind, and will lead the child to repeat the activity many times in pursuit of that perfection. The director must perceive when the initial challenge has been met in the child’s daily attempts, and then introduce the additional exercise that build on the activity and its principles.
Second, after an activity has been presented to a child whose curiosity was sufficiently stimulated by it, the director must have the restraint to allow the child voluntarily to select and independently attempt the activity, and to attempt it many times without interference, comments or assistance. In other words, you must resist your sentimental impulse to help, and the child must be permitted to explore the new material freely and to struggle towards reproducing your presentation. However, if for some reason the child did not fully grasp the whole presentation, or seems hung up by the lack of an important step or technique, then sometime in the near future the director should repeat the presentation.When repeating a presentation, the director chooses a time that the child will not relate to any failed attempt, and simply says, “I would like to show you this material again”, without reference to the child’s previous attempts or to the earlier presentation.”
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