“History should not be taught as a collection of dates and places. But rather be approached to arouse gratitude and appreciation. This gratitude should be aroused first to the law and order of the universe and the preparation of the environment into which human beings came.” Maria Montessori
Approaching an American holiday with troubled roots while living in a country fraught with its own history of conquest has me reflective, if not troubled, about how colonization has wheedled its way into the nooks and crannies of our cultures. This piece won’t solve my mental anguish, but I hope it will begin a conversation in your world, around the dinner table or conference table.
In search of traditional, off-the-beaten-path locales and culture, we’ve been rewarded with open-air restaurants using wood-stoked fire to heat the cooking platters and heavy pottery cooking pots, freshly pressed tortillas turned into memellas and Tlayuda filled with flor de calabaza and quesilla and the simplicity of daily trips to the mercado to buy what is available for immediate preparation in the winter season.
We’ve been greeted with foreign, sometimes mildly putrid, fragrances in the meat stalls with their unrefrigerated hanging offerings and the piles of calabazas, tomatoes, plantains, chayote and nopales along with the festive décor that seems to be everywhere since Die De Muertos. And of course, mole and chocolate of so many varieties. You guessed it: we’re travelling in Mexico.
We’ve also begun to learn the Mexican story of conquest and, like our own US history, it’s not as simple as colonization by Europeans.
We visited Mitla, one of the earliest Zapoteca cities with remnants of the temples and sacred grounds that date back to 500 years BCE. Our guide shared the history of the Zapoteca being overtaken by the Mexica , those who would later be called the Aztecs. The remnants of the temple at Mitla, such as it was, left us with deep respect for their craftsmanship and, like the pyramids at Giza, their ingenuity to move large pillars of stone to great heights.
To have survived for more than 2500 years was astonishing, especially as our guide shared the good fortune that allowed even a small part of the temple to remain.
With his story, I’ve begun to scratch the surface of history that includes the struggles between indigenous groups, the Mexica and the Spaniards, especially Hernan de Cortez. It’s a complex and complicated story with so little “righteousness” on which to hang an intellectual or emotional response.
How do we come to terms with the realities of the conquered, the colonized and the disenfranchised? How do we seek truth and reconciliation? How shall we share the complex realities, often gruesome and horrifying, with our children so they can grow respect for each group that sought to survive and thrive?
Considering the fairy-tale story I leaned into all the way through the early days of my teaching career, I wonder about the culture that wanted me to see the greatness of the explorers and colonists who risked so much to find a new way of life among the people who first inhabited the lands. I ask myself how the culture of domination and colonization, much of it begun long before the arrival of the Europeans, is still influencing our world view. Most importantly, I wonder how to present a story that helps the culture of domination change for future generations.
While the remnants of fear and domination persist, I also see glimmers of desire for a new way of creating a world of conscious respect and admiration among the people. I believe we may be on the cusp of finding new ways to view our similarities and differences with an eye toward admiration; with a firm consciousness that we are better together.
I haven’t been able to find where Montessori wrote the quote that opened my musings today, but I’d like to consider how we Montessori adults might find new ways of sharing the stories of history with the purpose of building a deep respect and consciousness of the people who lived that history, so that within our students’ hearts and minds there is compassion and reverence for all that have gone before.
I’ve just finished up a short course on Cosmic Education with a group of adults unfamiliar with the Montessori elementary program. Before the course, these adults had little experience with the concept that is so significant in the development of elementary-aged children: Cosmic Education. Their newfound appreciation for the impact Cosmic Education could have on their role as guides was re-inspiring! It’s totally true that I learn so much more from my students, regardless of their age, than I impart to them. For that I’m eternally grateful!
An Herb Garden and Cosmic Task
The “cosmic” inspiration triggered reflection on something I saw happening outside my window: a Swallowtail butterfly had found the herbs I keep between the kitchen and the avocado pool. That garden has grown the last few months as I planted from the mental list I made when discussing herb use with my son, the chef. Being more of a “just get something on the table” sort of cook, I’ve planted herbs more for the experience of them in the garden than the gastronomic opportunities they provide, but I’m learning. The culinary gene skipped a generation, so he is the one carrying on my mother’s talents in the kitchen while doing his best to enlighten me. (SIDEBAR: You can watch his developing work on Instagram.)
What’s Your Motivation for the Tasks You Choose?
Most years I add something new to the herbal space: Marjoram, Yarrow, even odd things like Gotu Kola and Self Heal, which I have no idea how to use. No matter what, though, EVERY year I make sure there is fresh dill, not so much for the herb itself, but for the butterflies.
I learned several years ago that Swallowtails are especially attracted to dill, fennel, and cilantro. Cilantros are planted throughout all our garden beds for the mass amounts of Pico de Gallo and guacamole we love, but dill…that’s mostly for the swallowtails. Rewarded with a caterpillar and chrysalis the first year of my dill planting, I’ve not missed a year since.
https://youtu.be/V51HvbqqHYc
Watching that butterfly flit through the herbs, dipping onto the surface of the pool, then back to the herbs again and again, I thought about motivation and Cosmic Task. How does this herb garden, and my gardening in general, fit into my Cosmic Task? How do we know when we’ve found our Cosmic Task…or are we like the butterfly who performs its Cosmic Task with no awareness other than to do what it does as part of its effort to live? Does it matter?
Montessori Thoughts on the Human side of Cosmic Task
Montessori didn’t leave us without at least some guidance to sort out the human perspective on cosmic task, although our free will, choice and independence impact individual awareness of personal tendencies, desires and an urge toward certain tasks.
Man’s arrival has created a psychosphere on Earth. What is his task in it? For we must understand that mankind, too, has a task with regard to the Earth on which it lives. The coming of mankind meant a new force, whose function it is to further the progress of evolution. We notice that man possesses certain capacities which may stimulate progress on Earth. His scientific work gradually discloses the secrets of Nature and, moreover, makes use of them, thus creating new possibilities. His technical skill has harnessed the forces of nature in order to build the most complicated machinery. Man’s toil has developed agricultural products which were unknown in primitive nature. Obviously, man too has an active task on Earth.2
Can One Settle on Their Personal Cosmic Task?
When it gets right down to it, I believe that flow can help us be in touch with our Cosmic Task. I flow toward appreciation of natural things: rocks, shells, flowers, birds, and butterflies, of course! Seeing any one of those can stop me in my tracks for a moment of pleasure. Encouraging those moments to be close to home, at least some of my time is spent creating beautiful opportunities for daily discoveries: a rock formation, a bird bath, a Rose Garden, flowering cactus. I plant the flowers, herbs, veggies and fruits to draw the birds, bees, and butterflies, creating a harmony among the elements, food for our bodies…and joy for my heart and soul. That’s Cosmic!
1. As quoted in “Maria Montessori’s Cosmic Vision, Cosmic Plan, and Cosmic Education” by Camillo Grazzini. The NAMTA Journal, Vol.38, No. 1, Winter, 2013
In the northern hemisphere, it’s nearly summertime. The “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” feel like sweet respite after this year of coming back to “life” after the long winter of changing school schedules, sudden closures, social distancing, and the challenges of learning to get along with each other after a year of keeping to ourselves.
That year of keeping to ourselves meant many things, among them a concern for the loss of learning that can occur when children don’t have their usual sources of motivation and encouragement. Instead of the “summer slide,” many teachers talk about the “covid slide” with students falling behind the expectations for a specific age or grade. Yet the testing goes on. (“BIG SIGH!” A different subject for another day.)
Humans are Learners
Dr. Montessori recognized something in humans that many of us adults seem to forget: that it’s a natural human instinct to learn. I was one of those lucky kids who got to grow up playing unsupervised for hours: climbing trees, making forts under old grape vines, damming up the creek to create a swimming hole on the hottest days, while laughing, arguing, solving the problems of 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds for hours on end.
“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.”
The Montessori Method
Frolicking in the overgrown remnants of the farm at the end of our short streets, we collected all kinds of objects. Fresh summer leaves were pressed between wax paper and put into a notebook or box to share when returning to school in the fall. Seed pods weren’t my favorite natural collectible, (I think I liked the order of the wax-paper-pressing and saving), but there were plenty to be found. And there were rocks…so many rocks!
As we got older, we collected books: Nancy Drew was read and passed around so much that I started a little library in our storage room. Yep…more order!
The point being, that my friends and I were always collecting something. We’d talk about our treasures, share them with each other, covet the cool ones owned by our friends, and yearn for the next time our moms let us buy a new Nancy Drew, coordinating the picks so we’d have access to more of them.
Collecting, Keeping, and Honing Skills
Collecting is one of the most natural and instinctive behaviors for inspired learning; an equal-opportunity habit that is available to all. With a little encouragement, you can turn this into learning that may even last a lifetime.
As a Montessorian with a passion for Cosmic Education, collecting found objects leads to all sorts of easily accessible learning about the Earth and the Universe. The curiosity raised inspires listening, reading, and even simple writing for record-keeping.
As a parent, I learned so much about my children when observing their excitement for objects that caught their attention. I’d wonder out loud about them, encouraging conversation or curiosity.
We’d make time for a library visit to see if there was info to be found…these were the early days of computers and google had not found its way into my vocabulary or my resources for inquiry. And that also meant a stop at the neighborhood Dairy Queen where we’d pour over the books, trying to keep them free of drips, of course, making summer memories of curiosity, wonder, relationships and learning.
A Gift for You
Are you ready to start on a collecting journey with your child? I have a free start-up guide available here. It’s a gift to be found on my private Facebook group, Demystifying Cosmic Education.
The Demystifying Cosmic Education Facebook group is focused on creating a classroom or homeschool that vibrates with the joy of Cosmic Education. This summer, I’ll be offering videos, tips, live broadcasts and online chats to help you prepare your Cosmic-focused learning environment for the coming year and throughout the months that follow. If you’re not already a member, you’ll be asked to answer a few questions and then you’re in!
For now, this little guide to Collecting will get you started. Enjoy!
“It is a psychic necessity that the child explores the environment; it satisfies his spirit.”
Maria Montessori, The 1946 London Lectures p. 134
When I faced a group of engaged Montessori students for the first time, I was flabbergasted! I’d never witnessed such enthusiasm, curiosity, and all-out abandon. They embraced the musical experience my quintet offered them with their entire being. Years later, I learned that it was likely the adult guides’ trust in the students that encouraged self-confidence and allowed the students to freely explore the concert environment we were providing.
The Power of Trust
Montessori teaches adults to trust the child; to trust in the student’s deep, natural, internal drive to explore, to learn and to master whatever their heart desires. She instructs us adults to inspire, to provide a stimulating environment, and to observe. We observe so we may know the students’ interests, what sparks their sense of wonder, and lights a fire in their soul.
Why then, do researchers and educators of different traditions, feel the need to compartmentalize literacy of all types into siloed lessons that force-feed, often at a firehose-fountain, information that fails to relate to ANYTHING that really matters to the student?
Put Yourself in a Child’s Place
When was the last time YOU tried to learn a skill that was totally unlike any skill you’d ever mastered? For adult learners, changing one’s mind about something may be the ultimate learning test. One must bring an attitude of openness, a true desire to unlearn current thoughts, beliefs, understanding or feelings, along with a willingness to face the emotions that come up as the learning unfolds.
“The absorption of the environment is an intellectual activity. It is a psychic necessity that the child explores the environment; it satisfies his spirit. After he has had the satisfaction of observing one.”
Maria Montessori, The 1946 London Lectures p. 134
Now imagine the experience for a child who says they want to learn to read. The teacher begins with lessons on phonics, a guide to reading a book, a nomenclature list of terms the student has never heard, and a litany of probing questions to see if the ideas are sinking in. YUCK!
Walking for Miles with a Child
What if, instead, you took a walk and talked with the students. You noticed the things that drew their attention and the level of interest they showed. What if you then brought a book to share. You talked about the pictures and how they related to the topic of interest. You talked about the vocabulary that applied to the subject and investigated the words themselves. You might look at the etymology or the spelling or both. You might play with the phonics to help the student recognize patterns of letters. You could help the child write the words in the air, in a box of sand or on a piece of paper. You could pair them up with a friend to explore the book together, seeing what more they could learn from the story or about the people involved.
Most of the teachers I know would love to follow this way of guiding students. They want to see the spark in their students’ eyes and feel the fire in their bellies to grab hold of some intriguing corner of the universe. Let’s remember and practice what Dr. Montessori understood: that humans are learners by nature; it’s what we do. Then, in that remembering, we can provide the environment that truly trusts the child to be a homo sapien: the “wise man” they were destined to be.
There is not just a need for happier schools, schools where the children are free to do as they like or schools where they use certain materials: education today needs reform. If education is to prepare man for the present, and the immediate future, he will need a new orientation towards the environment.
Did you ever hear the one about the little girl and the starfish? As the story goes, the beach was covered one day with what seemed to be millions of starfish. It appeared that they’d been washed up in a sudden wave, deposited and left with no means to get back to the deep water. One lone little girl was grabbing one starfish at a time and tossing it back to the sea…over and over as fast as she could. An adult walking by saw her efforts and asked her why she would pursue such futile work. She didn’t stop her “futile work” as she replied, “It matters to that one.”
Sometimes, when my days were spent in the classroom, I wondered if the things I chose to do were making any difference at all. Even though I could see that most of the time the students were happy and much of the time most of them were engaged in whatever they were working on, even when just learning how to be social, I ruminated for hours or weeks…maybe even years, about the meaning of the “learning tasks” I was offering my students. (SIDEBAR: If you happen to know me well enough, you’re probably laughing right now! This is SO me!) I suppose my wondering was more about what difference this Montessori education would make in the lives of these children…in their immediate futures.
A few years ago, I had become facebook friends with a former student. As a little boy, he’d been smiley but quiet, tending to sit in one, regular spot; often choosing to keep himself wrapped in his coat throughout the entire day. At least that was the picture I’d carried in my memory for nearly 30 years when we became friends again. Here he was, taking artful photographs of “suicidegirls.” I wasn’t surprised at the artistry, his parents were well-known, even nationally, for their art, but the subject matter just didn’t seem to fit. I reached out to him with a single question: “Did your Montessori education influence you and your life choices?” He responded within hours and not only said, “Yes!” but also agreed to talk with me about it. I learned he had graduated with a degree in graphic design just as the bottom fell out of the market, so he needed to put that passion on hold for a bit. He attributed his Montessori education with his “can do” attitude that allowed him to pursue his interests, no matter how far out. These days he’s switched coasts and traded his photography for a different type of model: the kind of replicas people build for fun and hobby. He’s still pursuing his passions, even into unlikely places.
Then, just a few months ago, I got a text from the parent of a couple of former students: “(My daughter) and I were just sitting here talking and she said how she misses the Big Bang lesson that you and Doug used to give. She gave me a whole recap of it, I thought you would like to hear that. Also, ….she wants to major in Chemistry with a geology focus. I would say you and Doug rubbed off on her!” We had to know more.
“I have always known that I would pursue a science degree, but it was not until junior year of high school, when I took a chemistry class, that I knew I would have to do something with chemistry. I love chemistry because it is the language of our universe. ….As for geology, I am an avid crystal and mineral collector and I attribute this to yours and Claudia’s fossil and mineral case in the Montessori school. I love collecting all types of minerals and crystals and learning about their chemical makeup. My personal favorite type of crystal to collect is quartz, specifically inclusion quartz. I love that because of the abundance of quartz, it often forms with other minerals or chemical impurities that change its appearance. I love to use chemistry to try to figure out the potential pressure, heat, or other conditions that would have to be present to allow for the formation of a certain stone.”
I remember this young girl’s passion for science, but if anyone had asked me, I’d have guessed she be headed to medical or veterinary school; her enthusiasm for the animal kingdom wasn’t even thwarted by gooey, smelly dissections. She cherished them!
Her jewelry creations with native minerals have crossed my social media platforms over the last few years, but I had no idea the extent of her passion. I’ll bet you can guess the line in her reply that grabbed hold of my heart: I love chemistry because it is the language of our universe. That she would be using chemistry to discover the origins of minerals makes me beam. I’ll have to let her know that her email inspired my new Rainbow Rocks materials…all quartz but one…and with a curriculum designed to give any youngster an opportunity to begin investigations and experiences that could lead to a life time love.
So while these have been trying times for teachers, I encourage you all to take heart…along with a few moments every day to remind yourself that even though you may not see it today, what you are doing matters to that one…and to that one, and that one, and all the little ones whose lives you touch.
“An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live.”
Maria Montessori didn’t leave secondary guides a lot to go on. Limited to just three short essays included at the end of From Childhood to Adolescence, Dr. Montessori shared a vision of a school structure for children ages 12 to 18 that is vastly different from traditional programs, especially in the USA. She recommended a boarding school located in a remote area where students could interact with the natural world through farming, running a hostel, developing genuine entrepreneurial endeavors, and creating a museum of sorts to demonstrate their learning. It’s a tall order. But as she says, it is “no small undertaking.”
Of all the reasons I appreciate the Montessori method, it is the lofty goal of “saving humanity” that I revere most. I’ve witnessed countless examples of a child who has grown and flourished within the Montessori classroom at all the ages.
I’ve watched the 9-month-old infant carefully raise a tiny, tiny glass to their lips, skipping the bottle or sippy-cup steps considered a necessity for the weaning process of the past. Then, as soon as they can stand securely, they also learn to deposit their cup and dishes into the bin, clear the table and use a sponge to wipe their space clean.
Toddlers, walking independently now, learn to rely on their body’s messages to help them use the toilet successfully. They handle the “wet events” by going to the changing area, finding their bin, gathering clean clothes, changing out of the wet ones, and depositing them into a plastic bag to go home at the end of the day. Diapers, a hindrance to feeling their wet event, are absent from many authentic Montessori classrooms and homes as an aid to the learning that allows for independence of this critical “grown-up” skill.
With each passage to a new stage of development, children are given the opportunity to reach their full potential as the adult guides remove the hindrances to natural growth. Through curiosity and encouragement, with freedom to explore, experiment, and perfect the objects of their desires, their accomplishments lead to confidence and creativity. In the elementary class, guides use the Great Lessons to open the entire scope of the universe, inspiring students through story, but piquing their curiosity by sharing the interdependent worlds of all the traditional disciplines connected through the vision of Cosmic Education.
When the students arrive in the secondary class, a completely new world of possibilities lies before them. Here, their awkward entry into young adulthood with gangly bodies beginning to blossom into puberty is met with the work of real activity: farming when possible, but certainly gardening, small animal care, cooking, sewing, handwork of all types, auto mechanics, machinery repair, woodworking…anything goes as long as the student is drawn to it. The “work that never sleeps” is a business or farm that needs constant tending, developing a sense of accountability and responsibility for something other than themselves. They learn that the mathematics they learned in elementary can have real-world applications that must be used with care and accuracy. Yes, there are academic connections, but most often these connections relate to some aspect of their real-world work.
Guides for these young people know that the goal is valorization: finding one’s place in the world and knowing that you are making contributions that matter. Their increasing confidence is based on the competencies they’ve gained through years of carefully guided transformations. Through it all, they’ve gained knowledge of the changing world and learned they can manage their minds, their bodies, their emotions, and their hearts to make it a better place.
The saviors of humanity are alive and well and growing up in a Montessori program near you!
Cosmic Education: Maria Montessori’s signature contribution to elementary-age education. Cosmic Education is a vision intended to serve humanity in harmony. In Cosmic Education, Montessori saw the possibility of creating not only a new human being, but also a new world. We need that vision reborn in our lives, and we need it now.
Cosmic Education hands the entire Universe to the children at precisely the moment in their development when they are most ready and able to be inspired by its wonders; at a moment when their imaginations can be fired to create new possibilities for the future; at a time when their individual relationship with the entirety of it all can lead them to a lifetime of unique, personal success. At this moment in history, when we are collectively striving to solve the problems of a world-wide pandemic that has thrown our lives into chaos, Cosmic Education opens the doors to finding the connections we all so desperately need.
Cosmic Education hands the entire Universe to the children.
At the heart of Cosmic Education is interdependence. It is the understanding that biologically, socially, and even spiritually everything is intricately intertwined. Cosmic Education urges awareness of this reality. Philosophers and scientists, mystics and pragmatists, economists and political activists have each, in their own way, used their understanding of interdependence to influence us in making sense of the world or to manipulate us away from awareness to suit their own purposes.
As fearsome as it is, this coronavirus we’re dealing with is a gift needed by the entire world. It’s the nasty medicine to cure our world-wide ills, for it is forcing us to look beyond our separate realities and accept that we are all connected in our vulnerability to its power to destroy us.
As schools seek solutions to return to a system that most educators recognize has been in much need of reformation, my appeal is to return to Montessori’s Cosmic Education. Cosmic Education offers curiosity-inspired learning that will lead our children to new solutions to modern problems. It raises understanding of what it means to live on a planet with limited resources; it develops awareness of the impact of actions taken.
Imposed restrictions give us time to re-evaluate our relationship with patience. At the same time, there are issues coming to the fore that need our immediate attention.
In countless ways, at this moment in time, we’re being forced to deal with the fragility of life. How we’ve lost connection to this reality is in our face. This moment extends an opportunity on a silver platter: to take a new vow, to make a renewed commitment to learning how to connect with our inner selves, with our neighbors, and with our living-breathing planet Earth. It’s time to clean up our house and make it a peaceful home.
Our current abilities to connect through the internet don’t meet our needs to connect physically, but they do give us a window into the experiences of places and people on the other side of town or the other side of the world who are all facing problems of survival. It lets us communicate and work together in ways rarely imagined. Whether we merely survive or choose to survive in a world filled with people who recognize and respect the value of life itself is the opportunity before us. I believe that Montessori’s Cosmic Education is the tool for changing the world; to reinventing it with a new vision of collaboration, harmony, and peace extended to all.
Want to do more? Take a look at Keys to Cosmic Education, a webinar to help you plan your Cosmic Education journey!
“We can make the human race better by assisting the child in building his character and acquiring his moral freedom.
One of the means to this end is a cosmic education, which gives the child an orientation and a guidance in life. For this education wants to prepare the growing child for the task awaiting him in adult life, so that he will feel at ease in his own environment, in which he will later have to live as an independent being.”
Montessori wrote often and ardently about the need for an education that would be an aid to life. Her entire life’s work focused on developing an approach to working with children that was less about “educating” than to learning from them so well-meaning adults wouldn’t get in the way of their natural growth into adulthood.
By the later years of her life, especially during the period of exile in India, Montessori referred to this approach as cosmic education.
Dr. Montessori in Amsterdam, April 1950 Courtesy: Sid Mohandas & Jana Morgan Herman of Montistory
What really IS Cosmic Education?
Perhaps it is because Dr. Montessori used the term in widely different contexts that the definition of cosmic education can be a little tough to pin down. Ask any Montessorian; likely all will know “cosmic education”, acknowledge it as a concept unique to Montessori pedagogy, and speak about it with conviction. Yet, surprisingly, you’ll get a variety of responses:
‘Cosmic Education is the study of the Universe.
‘It’s part of the elementary Montessori curriculum.’
‘It’s the cultural subjects.’
‘Cosmic Education is interdependence and interrelationship.’
In this quote from the unpublished proceedings of the International Montessori Congress held in Amsterdam, April, 1950, we get one of Montessori’s descriptions:
“Thus the way leads from the whole via the parts back to the whole. In this way the child learns to appreciate the unity and regularity of cosmic events. When this vision is opened up he will be fascinated to such an extent that he will value the cosmic laws and their correlation more than any simple fact. Thus the child will develop a kind of philosophy, which teaches him the unity of the universe. This the very thing to organize his intelligence and to give him a better insight into his own place and task in the world, at the same time presenting a chance for the development of his creative energy.”
Montessori, M. (1950) International Montessori Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 1950, unpublished proceedings.
On Cosmic Curriculum and Materials
In David Kahn’s interviews with Ms. Lena Wikramaratne and Mario Montessori, Sr. there is much discussion about this big cosmic vision and how to impart it to the children. Both Mario and Ms. Lena talk about how they spent days in nature, discovering the plants and animals, building models and terrariums for closer study, all before the creation of actual materials. Mr. Kahn reflects with Mario on the current practice of providing materials before experience:
KAHN: “Another part of Cosmic Education is the charts and the timelines. Doesn’t your original work in Kodaikanal run the risk of banalization of Cosmic Education in the packaging of these charts and timelines? What do you think?
MONTESSORI: We tried then to work with the child in nature, to show the erosion of land, the sedimentary formation—we would try to help the imagination of the child with real experiences. If you take all the charts and timelines and call it Cosmic Education, that is ridiculous. It goes much further than that.
Dr. Montessori shares the sentiment this way:
“We must study the correlation between life and its environment. In nature everything correlates. This is the method of nature. Nature is not concerned with the conservation of individual life: it is a harmony, a plan of construction. Everything fits into the plan: winds, rocks, earth, water, plants, man, etc.”
Maria Montessori, Citizen of the World, pg. 22
This sounds like an endless curriculum to follow; a bottomless pit of topics to cover or information to provide. So wouldn’t a set curriculum be helpful, especially to those of us who aren’t steeped in the natural sciences? Mario gives further instruction on this point:
MONTESSORI: Well, they do get an illustration of the facts (referring to teachers in Montessori training), and if they don’t have this kind of sentiment, they should develop them with the children and through the children, using real natural materials. People always say that nature education is too expensive or that it would frighten the children. But when we worked with the children, we simply showed them what’s there. You could always demonstrate and give proof to the children as to what’s happening. For instance, I would build a sandbox. If you wet sand, it stands up. If it is contained by a cylinder, it pushes together. When you take the sides of the cylinder off, it pushes together. Then you sprinkle the sand with water, and the sand crumbles. All that took place on the earth, in the oceans. There are certain things that stay up for a long time—those are the mountains. Their material is hardened. Even then some mountains were washed away. I used to build extensive models outdoors, using natural materials.
Must You Follow a Set Curriculum and Have Shelves of Materials?
When Mario says “they should develop them with the children”, the them are all the lessons that may have been given to you in your training or that exist in your albums. I think he’s saying that you don’t need to know everything (in fact, you can’t) and you don’t need to have a strictly planned progression to follow. You just need to be curious and learn right along with the children.
So what about all those albums filled with lessons and the recommended progressions? Let’s think about it in big picture terms. In To Educate the Human Potential (pg. 2), Dr. Montessori says this: “…the Cosmic Plan can be presented to the child, as a thrilling tale of the earth we live in…”
I ask you, “What’s so thrilling about a series of carefully executed lessons that are delivered day after day according to a plan that doesn’t take into account the interests, wonderment, curiosities, and passions of the children?”
Yes, when I was teaching, I had general plans for each year and those albums were my library of ideas. But they were not generally my lockstep through the curriculum. How’d I manage then?
I’d start by thinking about the children who were going to join me and what I already knew about their interests. Then, based on those interests, I’d think about the hooks I’d use to inspire wonder and engage their curiosity. Next, I’d look for the connections that exist in nature to help tie it all together into a Cosmic vision…a mindset that would plant the seeds of belonging to the whole and feeling a potential purpose.
Finally, I’d begin to pull together the first lessons. It could be one of the Great Lessons or Key Lessons. Then I’d consider the academic skills the children would need to embrace their studies. That’s when I’d make decisions about what materials would enhance the students’ independence and encourage ongoing motivation.
A Brief Overview of Responsive Materials Management
My shelves would consist of a few “start-up” materials that I’d use to observe how the children would approach their learning. There’d be a few language-centered activities to support not only learning the associated vocabulary, but also to help with word-level reading skills, focused grammar box material for sentence level reading, and a couple sets of three- or four-part cards for paragraph reading experience and research.
I’d have a row of books with guidance/command cards that students would use to connect to the reading, with encouragement to do this work with a partner. This acknowledged their social nature, encouraged collaborative learning, and gave added support to develop independent learning. I’d include “maker spaces” where materials for experiments could be had and children could design projects.
Yes, I had areas of the classroom with traditional Montessori, skill-focused materials: math and geometry shelves, language shelves for grammar, and the supply shelves with learning tools. I might have a few specialized materials that could be pulled out any time by any child, like this learning tower of the timeline of life based on the booklets my husband and I have written and filled with activities to spark the imagination and guide deeper investigation.
But I found that I didn’t need every possible material. In fact, I think that all the materials, while enticing, actually work against the vision of cosmic education that Dr. Montessori believed was possible. This little interchange with David Kahn and Ms. Lena not only promotes making materials on an “as needed” basis but insists that is preferable to teaching already-made materials:
WIKRAMARATNE: So I went to Dr. Montessori: What do we do with these older children? I won’t have books to teach them. She said, “You have the best book, the book of the world, which is the book of nature. Don’t worry, take them. You can find English material. English is fine for doing reading, writing and all kinds of literature.
And a little further on in the interview (which you really should look up and read in its entirely) Ms. Lena says this:
KAHN: So you were making real materials and creating real experiences in nature. This is somewhat of a contrast to the approach to Cosmic Education in our present training. We were not trained in this manner.
WIKRAMARATNE: Yes, it is wrong the way the natural sciences are given in training now. I have to say it: Because of what trainees are getting in how to present classified terms to the child. But they themselves do not know that much about nature. They must go out into the natural world or else they won’t be able to show anything to the child. And that’s where it begins.
KAHN: Then they really don’t have enough experience. So the children learn the classifications before they learn the lore and the common names.
WIKRAMARATNE: This is unfortunate. The orientation of the world must come first before you begin to classify. So what is going to happen, unfortunately, will be that the elementary classes will be limited to the knowledge that they have gained in the junior course and that knowledge will be like textbooks.
No you don’t have to make everything on the spot. I’d keep previously made materials organized and labeled in my storage area so I could make note of a child’s interest or question and be able to respond with, “I have something special just for you…” Then off I’d go to pull out that material, give a quick lesson on its use, discuss what might be learned from it and help the student make a plan for how they’d let me know what they discovered.
But if I found that a student would benefit from a new material or something I didn’t have, my series of templates allowed me to quickly create and print a “Goldilocks material”* almost on the spot.
Putting It All Together
With these descriptions, you can see that I didn’t treat the contents of my albums like a scope and sequence or series of not-to-be-missed lessons. I chose based on the students’ interests and desires. Materials were pulled from storage or made as needed for giving an impressionistic introduction. Often the follow-up was materials made by the children so they could share their learning with others.
My focus was primarily on three goals: first, keeping the curiosity alive while secondly connecting their many interests to developing skills in reading, math and writing. My third goal, the most important, was for the children to be alive with their sense awe and wonder for the amazing world in which we live, so that the seeds that were planted would spout, take root, rise up a blossom into whatever place their cosmic adventure takes them.
*Goldilocks material: a material that is “just right” for the student’s need in the moment
The secret of success is found to lie in the right use of imagination in awakening interest, and the stimulation of seeds of interest already sown by attractive literary and pictorial material, but all correlated to a central idea, of greatly ennobling inspiration – the Cosmic Plan in which all, consciously or unconsciously, serve the great Purpose of Life.”
Maria Montessori’s great gift to humanity is, for me, Cosmic Education. Her big vision of interdependence, how the natural world fits together in service to all, is both a mindset worth developing and a commitment to bringing disparate groups and ideologies together in peace. I believe it can also guide us Montessorians in managing our work, our approach to learning and guiding, and to finding joy in every aspect of our personal and professional lives.
Montessori guides, both fresh out of training and those with years of experience, often find the curriculum contained in our massive albums too daunting to tackle. How many times have I responded to questions about how to get all the lessons covered or how to spend our precious dollars when choosing materials? Too many to count!
In short, I don’t believe you have to follow a specific curriculum OR have shelves full of every material that’s ever been created by the many brilliant Montessori devotees who’ve shared their work through entrepreneurial means…including myself.
What you do need to do is adopt a mindset that makes the huge amount of potential curriculum responsive to the children who arrive in your classroom or homeschool each year. Remember that famous quote about the scientist and the saint? It just about sums it up for me:
“The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint.”
The Advanced Montessori Method – I, Clio Press Ltd, 107)
Maria and Mario Montessori’s Kodaikanal Experiment
It helps me to think about and remember that Cosmic Education and the concept of interdependence really became public in Maria Montessori’s writings during the years she was exiled in India. Education for a New World (1946), From Childhood to Adolescence (1948) and To Educate the Human Potential (1948) all emphasize her perspective on the importance of introducing children to the interdependence and interconnectedness of the natural world.
During the years with Mario in India (1939-1949), the elementary curriculum began to come together. Mario describes those years in an interview with David Kahn (Kahn, 1979, Fall). It’s worth a read.
Mario described their days, building terrariums to study the animals and plants, discussing the challenges with his mother in the evening, and the discoveries they made, often by chance, like what happened after days of desperately trying to keep lizards alive by feeding them dead insects. The children discovered their lizards would only eat live and moving bugs! The cosmic dance in action!
In this passage, Mario describes how this discovery led to the vision of Cosmic Education:
MONTESSORI:….This was a great cosmic mechanism, because their eating would consume the living surplus. Eating only that which moved meant that the consumers would eliminate the living over-population.
That began to give us an idea. Dr. Montessori and I would talk. For everything that exists, there must be some force to calibrate the surplus. This seems to be the underlying characteristic: to render service without being conscious of doing so. The carnivores which feed on other animals help to keep fit the kind of animals upon which they feed. They eliminate the weak and the unhealthy and keep the rest alert, so that the ones which survive are the best of the race. The service they render is shown by what happens when they, as eliminating agents, have limited the species. Dr. Montessori used to say—God knows if the fish eggs all hatched and survived, the sea would become crowded. It is very simple. If every fish survived, there would be no water and we would all drink the fishes.
KAHN: So the realization of the Cosmic Education ideal worked something like this. You and Miss Lena would work in nature and with the children. And then you would come back each day and talk to your mother and she would make comment.
MONTESSORI: Yes, the idea would grow. Animals and plants were attached to nature in all sorts of ways. The animals depend on water, on plants and also nowadays, they depend on man, who creates possibilities for certain types of animals to develop and evolve. Plants depend on sunshine, water, earth, men, and animals. This is a real aspect of the world’s functioning. We saw purpose in everything that existed; nature’s equilibrium would be maintained. The mountains, the rain, why didn’t it rain here, and why did it rain there—the atmosphere, the sun—each had its role to play.
Cosmic Education: Cosmic Task
Sharing ideas, experimenting along with the children, making observations (like that scientist, remember?) and wondering, always wondering, while trying new things and making discoveries: THIS is the essence of Cosmic Education.
Where do we humans fit into this scheme? Dr. Montessori’s thoughts about how humans take their place in the natural order of the planet are illustrated in the Chart of Interdependency. Each of us, drawn to our own unique calling, gets to follow that voice and make our contribution.
For the Montessori guide, our version of cosmic task is creating our classrooms to be places where our students can wonder, experiment, and make discoveries. She may not have been speaking specifically about humans, but there’s advice in these words for us, too:
Every creature has a task; a task not just for its own benefit, but for the benefit of the environment as well. Each species’ adaptation to the environment shows us what the purpose and useful work of each is, the work which each contributes towards universal harmony. Because each animal is adapted to the environment, the environment is kept beautiful.
Maria Montessori, The 1946 London Lectures, pg. 9
As you strive to embrace this mindset, two questions arise: Must I Follow a Set Curriculum and Have Shelves of Materials in order to provide an authentic Cosmic Education?
I’ll tackle those questions in Part 2, next week. In the meantime, get hold of that interview with Mario as well as the Chapter I interview with Ms. Lena Wikramaratne. You’ll find them both online through ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) EJ1078110 and EJ1078126 as reprinted from The NAMTA Quarterly 5,1 (1979, Fall): 44-54 and 56-59
All teachers want their students to be engaged in learning, inspired to go deep into a subject, and, when everything works well, filled with WONDER! Even for Montessori teachers, in today’s world of high-stakes testing, much of the focus is on drilling academic skills using beads and cards, leaving the wonder behind.
Teaching to the test was never a thing for me. That could be because I spent the bulk of my teaching career long before the introduction of No Child Left Behind (or No Child Left Untested, as I liked to quip!) Or it could have been because I often taught in schools whose funding was not directly tied to the achievement of some level of academic standard.
But let’s be realistic…if my students weren’t achieving well within the standards of learning their parents expected, funding would be lost through lost enrollments. So, I never really bought into the notion that it was only public schools that were burdened with the academic achievement/funding connection.
Throughout my career, tying high-level interest to achieving academic skills came naturally. I used the conceptual basis of the Montessori materials as my guide, but, as often as not, I designed materials that were directly tied to the topics or subjects my particular class of students were interested in learning while addressing those skills that particular group needed to develop.
As a result, I regularly created unique subject-based sentences for analysis, history-based math problems, or little cards for grammar-box-like activities to go along with student-created dioramas…which I saw as miniature environments that kids really cared about.
In this process, my students were simultaneously learning about a particular subject, while using Montessori-style learning tools like grammar box cards, sentence analysis, or math manipulatives. Their language and math skills were being developed at the exact level for which the students were ready, while being driven forward by a desire to learn about something they wondered about.
And that’s ALWAYS what it is about: wonder, curiosity, and a desire to know. Elementary children are naturally driven in this way, and secondary students, armed with this sort of early learning as a foundation, take that knowledge and use it to construct their particular place in the world through the valorization work that happens in their Montessori classrooms.
“The child will develop a kind of philosophy which teaches this unity of the universe; this is the very thing to motivate his interest and to give him a better insight into his own place and task in the world and at the same time presenting a chance for the development of his creative energy.”
-Maria Montessori
Now that my work lies in coaching teachers, I strive to share examples that will spark the teachers’ thoughts. Just a week ago, I shared the diorama/grammar process I used in my classroom with a teacher who saw a way to use the same process as she and her students embark on the study of different biomes. Perfect!
There are countless ways to connect the brilliance of the Montessori materials to subjects that matter to the children. For me, this is the essence of Cosmic Education: keeping wonder, awe, and curiosity alive, while maintaining connections to skill-development. In the process, skills are taught, practiced, applied and embedded into the students thinking far more deeply than by simply moving beads or cards on a rug or teaching to succeed on a test.
