Happy Labor-Work Day!

Play is the Child's Work!
The Work of the Child is Play!
Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul.
(Montessori/Froebel)

A better way to say conceive of this is that
what appears to be play to the adult is work
for the child. He is concetrating, repeating,
imagining, solving problems, creating and
enjoying the process of learning.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0718830687?tag=froebelweb&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0718830687&adid=0Z7KH6BW87F0H75C207X&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.froebelweb.org%2F

"What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher transformed?" Maria Montessori wrote, "It is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist."

http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/Montessori_Practical_Life.html
Check out this page at Montessori Print Shop ...scroll down the page

for Practical Life ideas.

THE UNINTERRUPTED WORK CYCLE • This is a period of time, usually in the morning, when children work unencumbered. After a typical morning opening circle, children are encouraged to work independently, collaborating with classmates as their work and exploration dictate. *

 

 

Play activities are essential to healthy development for children and adolescents. Research shows that 75% of brain development occurs after birth. The activities engaged in by children both stimulate and influence the pattern of the connections made between the nerve cells. This process influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialization, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.

The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. They should have experience with a wide variety of content (art, music, language, science, math, social relations) because each is important for the development of a complex and integrated brain. Play that links sensori-motor, cognitive, and social-emotional experiences provides an ideal setting from brain development.

 

According to Montessori, the essential dimensions of play are:

• Voluntary, enjoyable, purposeful and spontaneous
• Creativity expanded using problem solving skills, social skills, language skills and physical skills
• Helps expand on new ideas
• Helps the child to adapt socially
• Helps to thwart emotional problems

If play is the work of the child, toys are the tools. Through toys, children learn about their world, themselves, and others. Toys teach children to:

• Figure out how things work
• Pick up new ideas
• Build muscle control and strength
• Use their imagination
• Solve problems
• Learn to cooperate with others

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/play-work-of-children.shtml
*Montessori 101: Some Basic Information that Every Montessori Parent Should Know, Tim Seldin, President, The Montessori Foundation.

The Awesome Tree

Hi all,
 Back from the Seminar in Rochester Michigan.
It all went well...turned in papers and albums, took some of my
oral exams, organized my math pictures (finally, thank you Brian!)
and presented my philosophy tree! A huge thanks to Jeff at
Young Minds at Play for this custom work and help, including the charts,
interpreting my not so great computer chicken scratch drawings.  Everyone loved the
manipulative "Tree" based on the Montessori Pythagorean plates.
And...the best part is that it will be useful equipment for my
Montessori elementary classroom.  For more of Jeff's gorgeous materials
check him out on www.youngmindsatplay.com

The tree with the outline chart

The finished tree built out

The tree before staining with Miss Kathleen

Interesting! Mutliple Intellegences and Montessori

Montessori and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences

Vardin, Patricia A

The revolutionary work of Howard Gardner has been given much attention in the past decade. Opposing the notion of a unitary IQ and proposing that intelligence be thought of as a wide range of human capabilities, Gardner challenged the status quo in the field of

psychology. Many years before his time, however, Maria Montessori also challenged the status quo regarding human abilities and potential, demonstrating that children who were "slow," deprived, and poor could thrive and grow under the right set of conditions. This

article attempts to review Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, show how Montessori and Gardner drew similar conclusions regarding human capacity and potential, and examine how Gardner's eight intelligences and underlying core operations lie at the heart of the Montessori exercises and activities.

In Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, written in 1983, Howard Gardner defined intelligence as "the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings" ( 1999, p. 33). Revising his definition in 1999, he

defined intelligence as "a biophsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture" (p. 34). Gardner sees intelligences as potentials, possibly neural ones, that may or may not be activated depending upon the values of a culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, teachers, and other members of the society.

Gardner (1999) applied the following eight criteria derived from disciplines such as biology,anthropology, psychology, and psychometrics to determine if a mental faculty could be

classified as a human intelligence:

* the potential isolation by brain damage;

* an evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility;

* an identifiable core operation or set of core operations;

* susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system;

* a distinct developmental history, along with a definable set of expert "end-state"performances;

* the existence of idiot savants, prodigies, and other exceptional individuals;

* support from experimental psychological tasks;

* support from psychometric findings.

Gardner identified eight human intelligences (see Table 1), each one having certain core operations-capacities that seem central to an intelligence, for example, as phonemic discriminations would be to linguistic intelligence or mental calculations of numbers would

be to logical-mathematical intelligences. He believes these capacities are likely to be mediated by specific neural mechanisms and triggered by relevant internal or external types of information.

Gardner originally described seven intelligences and then several years ago added an eighth. He believes that all human beings possess the eight different intelligences, that each

person has a unique blend of intelligences, and that no two people have exactly the same profile of strengths and weaknesses with respect to intelligences. He also points out that strength in one area of intelligence does not predict strength or weakness in other areas.

Gardner also believes that any intelligence can be enhanced by concerted effort.

Table 2 presents Gardner's description of the eight intelligences and examples of end-state performances. Gardner is still considering other possible candidates as intelligences,including existential intelligence, observed in individuals concerned with questions regarding life's meaning and issues of human existence.

Shared Conclusions

Although working in different cultures and different times, Montessori and Gardner came to many of the same conclusions regarding human development. First, both Montessori and Gardner derived their theories based upon daily, firsthand observation and experience

working with people, both normal and with exceptionalities. Montessori worked first with retarded, then urban, deprived children. Gardner focused his attention upon adults with various forms of brain damage, as well as normal and gifted children. These experiences

enabled them both to understand and appreciate the wide range of abilities and capacities found in human nature and to challenge rigid and narrow beliefs about human potential.

Second, as a result of their shared understanding and appreciation of human nature, both Montessori and Gardner noted the uniqueness of each individual. They observed that individual differences begin to be revealed in the earliest years of life, and that individual

strengths in one area of ability do not necessarily ensure or predict strengths in other areas.

Montessori writes, "little children soon reveal profound individual differences which call for very different kinds of help from the teacher" (1964, p. 23 1). Gardner ( 1997, 1999) states that in the area of intelligence, no two people have exactly the same intelligences, nor in the same combination, and that understanding and valuing these uniquenesses and differences and utilizing them for the benefit of society is of utmost importance. He states, in fact, that

taking human differences seriously lies at the heart of Multiple Intelligence Theory.

Third, for both Montessori and Gardner, the interaction of nature and nurture plays a significant role in the development of human capabilities. With respect to genetic heritability, Montessori observes that the origins of development lie within the individual and

that children seem to possess what she calls natural tendencies.

In a similar vein, Gardner posits that human abilities, like human differences, have a genetic base. Both Montessori and Gardner, however, see human development as the result of an ongoing and dynamic interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Montessori(1995) strongly believed that the child's mind absorbs the environment, leaving lasting impressions upon it, forming it, and providing nourishment for it. She warned that the quality of the environment can greatly enhance a child's life or seriously diminish it.

Gardner, too, emphasizes the importance of the environment on the development of human capabilities. Gardner believes that the "smarter" the environment and the more powerful the

interventions and resources, the more competent individuals will become and the less important will be their particular genetic inheritance. He asserts that even individuals who seem gifted in a specific intelligence will accomplish little if they are not exposed to resources and materials that support that intelligence.

Differences In Focus

Despite similarities in their viewpoints, Montessori and Gardner differ to some degree in the focus of their work.

First, from the beginning of her career, Montessori was concerned with the education and welfare of children, especially poor children. Her concern and passion for the needs of children translated directly into the establishment of a school, the development of a

teaching method, a curriculum, didactic materials, parent education, teacher training, and social action in the community. Montessori based her philosophy and methodology on her work with children and teachers and, in turn, her developing philosophy and methodology

influenced her practice.

In contrast, Gardner's work from its inception was theoretical, based upon observation and research, not practice. His work led him to the redefining of human intelligence and the construction of a new theory of human intelligence. Gardner did not develop a specific educational approach or specific application of multiple intelligence theory to practice, nor view his theory as an educational prescriptive. He believes that educators should determine how multiple intelligence theory should guide their practice and warns against superficial or

self-serving applications of the theory in educational settings.

Second, Montessori's philosophy, theory, and method encompass all aspects of human potential, including character, moral development, and spiritual growth. She writes, "Our educational aim with very young children must be to aid the spontaneous development of the mental, spiritual and physical personality" (1964, p. 230).

Gardner's focus, however, remains specifically on those areas of human potential he has defined as intelligences, in their various forms and combinations. Although he has considered character, moral, and spiritual issues in his work, they are not considered a part

of Multiple Intelligence theory because they do not meet his criterion for an intelligence.

Long before the introduction of Piaget's cognitive-developmental theory of children's intelligence, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Maria Montessori (1912) wrote about a method and curriculum for the

teaching and development of young children. In the description of her method and techniques, she reveals her deep regard for all aspects of the child's development and profound respect for the innate, unique potential she sees within each individual child,

needing only the right environment to encourage what is within to evolve. Montessori realized the significance of each area of human potential or intelligence in the experiences and materials she created for the children in her school. She seems to have created her exercises to touch upon many of the core operations of the eight intelligences described by Gardner and created multisensory experiences which activate combinations of intelligences. For example, a Montessori mathematics lesson on the geometric solids uses bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in feeling the forms, visual/spatial in observing and internalizing images of the forms, logical-mathematical intelligence in establishing relations between them, naturalistic intelligence in observing and classifying them, and linguistic in labeling them. If the child did this activity with other children, he or she could also exchange ideas about the forms and share them, thus utilizing interpersonal intelligence.

Table 3 is an analysis of Montessori's curriculum as it relates to Gardner's eight intelligences. A brief overview of the Montessori curriculum areas indicates how each of the

materials encompasses at least one intelligence and several core operations. For example, the Practical Life area exercises combine the use of Bodily-kinesthetic and Spatial intelligences. The Sensorial exercises include many of the intelligences, such as Bodilykinesthetic,

Spatial, Logical-mathematical, Naturalist, Linguistic, and Interpersonal, if children are working together. Language exercises utilize Bodily-- kinesthetic, Spatial,Linguistic, and Interpersonal intelligences, and mathematics. Nature and Social Studies

engage Naturalist, Bodily-kinesthetic, Logical-mathematical, Spatial, Interpersonal, and

Linguistic intelligences. Art, Gymnastics, and Music involve Bodily-kinesthetic, Logicalmathematical, Spatial, and Musical intelligences.

Montessori addressed the personal and social life of the child, as well. For example, she wrote extensively about the importance of self-knowledge and self-regulation, (Gardner's Intrapersonal intelligence). She writes: "We call an individual disciplined when he is master

of himself and can, therefore, regulate his own conduct when it shall be necessary to follow some rule of life ....Each one of [the children] perfects himself through his own powers, and goes forward guided by that inner force which distinguishes him as an individual" (1964, p.

86).

Many Montessori activities and exercises support the development of independence, decision-making, self-control, mastery, and discovery. She also recognized that children need to function in a social world and in community with others. By developing self-care

skills, self-control, manners, good habits, and polite conversation, Montessori prepared her children to enter into human society. But more important was that her children learned to

respect each other, help and teach one another, and share and enjoy games, activities, and music. These practices and activities of the Montessori classroom encompass aspects of what Gardner calls Interpersonal intelligence.

In Summary
This article has provided an updated overview of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences and pointed out ways in which Maria Montessori and Howard Gardner, although differing in the focus of their work, came to very similar conclusions about human abilities

and potentials. The exercises and activities in Montessori's curriculum engage many of the core operations in the eight intelligences described by Gardner. Both Maria Montessori and Howard Gardner were revolutionary figures in their fields. By challenging the status quo, they have brought us to a greater understanding of the potential

of human beings through their gift of penetrating observation and analysis of little children and adults with exceptionalities.

References

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic.

Gardner, H. (1997). Extraordinary minds. New York: Basic.

Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence refrained: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, New York: Basic.

Montessori, M. (1964). The Montessori method. New York: Schocken.

Montessori, M. (1995). The absorbent mind. New York: Holt.

DR. PATRICIA A. VARDIN, educational consultant and parent educator, is associate professor and chair of the Early Childhood Department at Manhattanville College, Purchase,NY.

Copyright American Montessori Society Winter 2003

Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

Quote for the Day

I've been reading Montessori's book for the Elementary level
and finding it surprisingly detailed as to the application of her method.
However, at the end of the 200 pages of her language discussion
I found this amazing quote:

Our teachers, rather, should be cultivators of the fine arts.
For in our method art is considered
a means to life. It is beauty in all its forms which
helps the inner man to grow.
We have repeatedly emphasized
that both in the environment at school and in
the materials used, everything should be carefully considered
in its artistic bearings, to provide ample room for
development for all the phenomena of attention and persistence
in work which are the secret keys of self-education.
The Montessori teacher should be a cultivator of music,
drawing and elocution, responsive to the harmony of
things ; she must, that is, have sufficient good taste to be able
to lay out the school plant and keep it in condition;
and sufficient delicacy of manner - - the product of a sensitive nature - -

to be alive to all the manifestations of the child  spirit.

Merry Montessori

 “We must take into consideration that from birth the child has a power in him.We must not just see the child, but God in him. We must respect the laws of creation in him.”
Maria Montessori, 1935


The Child as Spiritual Embryo



Montessori often compared the process of psychological and spiritual development to the physical unfolding of the human organism. Just as the material body first takes shape as a self-forming embryo, requiring during its formation the protection and nurturance of the womb that envelopes it, the human soul first appears in the newborn child in an embryonic form that requires nourishment from a psychic womb—the protective environment of loving, caring parents and a spiritually responsive education. Montessori’s distinctive notion of the child as a “spiritual embryo” emphasized her key principle that the growing human being is not simply a biological or psychological entity, but a spiritual energy seeking expression in the form of a human body within the physical and cultural world. She compared the mysterious emergence of spiritual life in the child to the Incarnation of God in Christ described in the New Testament, “when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (Montessori, 1972b, p. 29). For Montessori, the Word is made flesh in every child born in the world; each human being has his or her path of incarnation to follow, his or her destiny. Montessori, like Emerson, referred to the “secret” within the soul of every child—the personal spiritual imperative that transcends whatever social prejudices, ideologies, and mundane educational curricula that adults seek to overlay onto the child’s personality.

Reflecting on the unusually lengthy period of physical dependence that human infants (compared to other species) experience, Montessori was convinced that early childhood is designed to be a time of intense psychic receptivity. The young child takes in the world through an ”absorbent mind,” literally incarnating (taking into its bodymind) the sensations, impressions, and feelings it receives from the surrounding environment. One of the guiding principles of Montessori pedagogy, the concept of “sensitive periods,” expresses her observation that young children move through periods of development during which they are especially attuned to particular characteristics in the environment. When they are ready to acquire language they hungrily, effortlessly absorb it by hearing it spoken around them; when they are ready to develop fine motor skills they begin to act on their surroundings accordingly. It is the task of parents and educators to provide the stimulation and resources the developing child needs at these critical times. Keep in mind that for Montessori this is not simply a biological or pedagogical responsibility, but a profound spiritual task, because the child is being directed by its embryonic spiritual energies to reach out to the world to fashion a personality. Careless parenting or education, by stifling optimum development, frustrates the child’s spiritual formation.


Montessori frequently commented that the child creates the adult—not, as our modern common sense has it, the other way around. The spiritual energy seeking expression through the child’s encounters with the world is engaged in building a person in a way that no adult education or conscious effort can achieve. By adulthood an individual’s psychological identity is deeply engrained, and learning no longer takes place through “incarnation” or absorption. Therefore it is crucial for parents and educators to allow the child’s own inherent nature to emerge and act within the world. As Montessori put it in 1915, Montessori called the spiritual embryo humanity’s “most precious treasure” because it was only this divine formative power that could transform the world: “The child promises the redemption of humanity, and we might say that this truth is represented by the mystical symbol of the Nativity” (1972a, pp. 36, 104). By failing to appreciate the value of this treasure, and educating young people only to participate dutifully in a materialistic, mechanistic system of economic production, modern societies are diminishing the visionary creativity, the moral insight, and above all the loving compassion that divine energies promise to bring to bear on the problems of human life. Montessori was convinced that through the child, these energies could be released into the world as a powerful source of good. It is evident throughout her work that the heart of Montessori’s educational mission was not to introduce special techniques or materials into pedagogical practice but to make a fervent plea to the modern world to become “sensitive to the wonder of life revealing itself” through the life of each child. That was the appeal she made for fifty years to audiences and readers throughout the world.


 From: Nourishing the Spiritual Embryo:The Educational Vision of Maria Montessori
Published in Nurturing Our Wholeness: Perspectives on Spirituality in Education, Edited by John P. Miller and Yoshiharu Nakagawa (Brandon, VT: Foundation for Educational Renewal, 2002)

Basic Montessori Concepts

Montessori Concepts (From Wikipedia)


Inner guidance of nature. All children have inherent inner directives from nature that guide their true normal development.[28]

Freedom for self-directed learning. The Montessori method respects individual liberty of children to choose their own activities. This freedom allows children to follow their inner guidance for self-directed learning.[29]

Planes of development. The natural development of children proceeds through several distinct planes of development, each one having its own unique conditions and sensitive periods for acquiring basic faculties in the developmental process. The first plane (ages 0–6) involves basic personality formation and learning through physical senses. During this plane, children experience sensitive periods for acquiring language and developing basic mental order.[30] The second plane of development (6–12) involves learning through abstract reasoning, developing through a sensitivity for imagination and social interaction with others. The third plane (12–18) is the period of adolescent growth, involving the significant biological changes of puberty, moving towards learning a valuation of the human personality, especially as related to experiences in the surrounding community. The fourth plane (18+), involves a completion of all remaining development in the process of maturing in adult society.[31]

Prepared environment. The right precise conditions around children allow for and support their true natural development. For young children, the environment must be prepared in this way by providing a range of physical objects that are organized and made available for free, independent use, to stimulate their natural instincts and interests for self-directed learning.[32]

Observation and indirect teaching. The teacher's role is to observe children engaged in activities that follow their own natural interests. This indirect teaching to control the environment, not the child, contrasts sharply with the ordinary teacher's role of implementing a pre-determined curriculum. For example, a Montessori method class has the teacher resolving misbehavior by refocusing the child to some positive activity, rather than engaging in the ordinary system of rewards and punishments.[33]

Normalization. During the 0–6 plane of development, children have the ability to shift their fundamental being from the ordinary condition of disorder, inattention, and attachment to fantasy to a state of perfect normal being, showing such external behavior as spontaneous self-discipline, independence, love of order, and complete harmony and peace with others in the social situation. This psychological shift to normal being occurs through deep concentration on some physical activity of the child's own free choice.[34]

Absorbent mind. The young child (0–6) has an absorbent mind which naturally incorporates experiences in the environment directly into its whole basic character and personality for life. This mental faculty, which is unique to young children, allows them to learn many concepts in an effortless, spontaneous manner. It also allows them to undergo the key phenomenon of normalization to return to their true natural development. After the age of about six, this absorbent mental faculty disappears.[35]

Work, not play. Children have an instinctive tendency to develop through spontaneous experiences on the environment, which Dr. Montessori referred to as 'work'.[36] In this sense, the children's normal activity is attached to reality in the present moment, rather than idle play through such means as toys and fantasy. [37][38]

Multi-age grouping. Children learn from each other in a spontaneous manner that supports their independent self-directed activity. The ordinary Montessori classroom therefore consists of a mixed-aged group, such as 2–6 (primary level) or 6–12 (elementary level).[39]