No Second Chance Education Of Children

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 16, 29 October 1938, Page 4

No Second Chance Education Of Children

(By Florence James, Montessori teacher, who has .just returned to Australia from Europe.) A N amazing number of parents still persist in thinking of childhood as a relatively unimportant time, chiefly useful for acquiring the rudiments of grown-up manners and information. Nowadays we are very enlightened about rearing healthy children, but how few of us have learnt to value childhood as a period which is important in itself, and education as something which must be adapted to the child’s own nature. It has actually taken our civilisation until the 20th century to open its eyes and realise that children go through certain “sensitive” periods of development which are never repeated. It was Dr. Montessori who discovered this and first used it in the teaching of tiny children. Dr. Montessori found that for the first j five years or so, children go throughdefinite formative periods, during which memory, will, language, touch, colour 1 sense, hearing and other faculties are £

developed, and once these periods have passed, the child never again has the same capacity for development. A very important time begins during the first year, when baby makes his first conscious efforts to copy sounds. This sensitive period for language lasts until about four, and it is important that children should hear words spoken correctly at this time. You must have noticed how a baby who goes to a foreign country can pick up the new language and speak both tongues perfectly, whereas the mother can never disguise her native accent. It was through this discovery that Montessori revolutionised the teaching of deaf and dumb children. Previously, no attempt had been made to train them until they were eight years old, but with the discovery of this much earlier sensitive period, she has has had astonishing results. A little later, at about 18 months, a baby becomes sensitive to order in his surroundings, he develops a passion for

putting things back in their right places and will often cry bitterly if a grown-up persists in changing something familiar. It may seem a small detail to us to hang baby’s coat on a different peg from the usual one when he comes in from his walk, to turn his cot round because we think a rearrangement of his nursery will be a pleasant change. But to the little one at this stage, it is bewildering. He is just beginning to learn' his way about in a very big world, and the familiar landmarks and habits are the foundations on which he builds his quickening faculty of memory. The groping little mind requires orderliness in its familiar surroundings, just as urgently as the little feet taking their first steps need a solid floor to walk on. It is at this time that the first habits of tidiness, both of mind and person, are formed, and in the Montessori schools this is scrupulously observed. Everything in the schoolroom has its place, chair and tables stand just so, in the cupboards all the materials are kept neatly in their own places, the children are shown at first where to put them back when they have finished, and later when they have become familiar with the cupboard and its contents >ey show real distress when they find anything

> out of place and immediately try tc ) put it right. j Colour Period. [ From two to three years, children be- ’ come very interested in bright colours ! and if this sensitive period is rightly [ treated, the child’s colour sense develops : in a marvellous way. In the kinder- ' garten we have a range of 64 graded colour spools, and I have seen babies ' of three pick up a spool and say that ’ they have a dress or carpet or some ' other thing at home the same colour. ! Often we have tested this memory ; matching and found the child right. ' It is the same with sound and touch. We have sound boxes which the children pair and grade in the same way as they work with colours. And for touch we have different textured materials, silk, .velvet, lawn linens, woollen stuffs, for the children to feel and pair blindfolded. The principle on which we work with this material is that when a special sensitive period becomes active, the child will of his own accord be interested in a suitable activity. So we do not set all the children to do sound exercises or colour exercises, but we offer them whatever material we think suitable, and if they are not interested, we simply put it away again until we find something in which the child shows spontaneous interest. When children choose their own work in this way, the old school problem of wandering attention ceases to exist. It is a revelation to watch children performing an exercise that supplies the material to develop the particular sensitive period they are then experiencing. Having chosen their work, they do the exercises over and over again long after they have mastered them perfectly. It is as though there were some inner need that must be satisfied and this sustained interest and activity often lasts man., weeks before the child will turn its attention to anything else.

The same principle that we use in offering' the specially designed apparatus at school can easily be used at home. There are coloured flowers in the garden to match, colours in the carpets and cushions and curtains. Let your child enjoy them and Anger their textures And not always under supervision. If there are too many “donts in the drawing-room, see that you make the nursery an interesting enough place for his needs. You have a piano, a wireless, it would be a cruel discipline that would deny him these when'his .young ears are eager for sound and his body begs for more ordered movements. I urn on the music for him whenever you can if he asks you and watch how he soon starts to move in rhythm with the music. To give your child the material in his own home which he needs for his development, you have only to watch what interests him and see that he is allowed to follow his interest with as little interference as possible—there is no need to force him. And if he does make a mess with his paint box, don’t take it away in punishment, but find him a place to use it where mess won 1 matter. To take it away is like breaking off the tender bud of a plant; it won’t cure the child of making a mess, that doesn’t interest him when his whole being is engaged with the wonderful colours he is using, but it may easily destroy the growth of his colour sense. It is important to remember that once the sensitive periods have passed, you cannot expect that any amount of instruction will ever make up for the lost opportunities. It is as though your little one were to ruin his second set of teeth with bad feeding and you were convinced that by correcting his diet you could give him another chance of grow' ing perfect teeth.