Listing of AMI 'Communications' 

Contents

Message from AMI’s President
Renilde Montessori

Empowerment through Education

The Mathematical Mind
M. Shannon Helfrich

Montessori Junior Schools
Mario M. Montessori

Annual General Meeting of the Association Montessori Internationale
Agenda and Venue

Nominations for the AMI Board

Secretarial Report for 2001

La Maestra
Maria Montessori

The Perennial Question: Which Comes First, Multiplicand or Multiplier
Camillo Grazzini & Baiba Krumins

Strategic Planning Committee

Question and Answer
History in the Children’s House

Announcements

Membership Fees

 Listing of AMI 'Communications' 

Highlights from 'Communications 2002/1'

Message from AMI’s President

6 January 2002

Ninety-five years ago today the Casa dei Bambini opened its doors in San Lorenzo. It would seem an auspicious day to gather one’s stray thoughts into a cogent vision for 2002, the first of the five years that will bring us to the Centenary of the Montessori Movement. In preparation for the second century of our work, it might be propitious to formulate a five-year plan, based on those objectives stated under Article 4 of the AMI Articles of Association that are not explicitly implemented, i.e. a., b., d., e., and f.

Art. 4: The Association aims to accomplish the objectives referred to in Article 3 by all lawful means and in particular by:

1. furthering study, application and propagation of the Montessori ideas and principles for education and human development.
2. the propagation of knowledge and understanding of the conditions necessary for the full development of the human being from conception to maturity both at home and in society.
3. by accrediting centres where people may be trained according to the principles and practices of education as envisaged by Dr. Maria Montessori.
4. helping to create a climate of opinion and opportunities for the full development of the potential of all young people so that humanity may work in harmony for a higher and more peaceful civilisation.
5. promoting general recognition of the child's fundamental rights as envisaged by Dr. Maria Montessori irrespective of racial, religious, political or social environment.
6. co-operating with other bodies and organisations which promote the development of education, human rights and peace.

As at present the only one actively accomplished is objective c., namely, accrediting centres where people may be trained according to the principles and practices of education as envisaged by Dr. Maria Montessori, which among the five remaining should then be considered first?

Last year humanity was shocked into the fierce awareness that unless the many groups that pursue the greater good of our evolving species work in concert, their laudable and diligent efforts will be meaningless. So, perhaps, it would be wise to look at objective f. for the coming year: co-operating with other bodies and organisations which promote the development of education, human rights and peace.

Recently, travelling eastward on a highway, there appeared in silhouette against the sunrise a row of many windmills, set out along a hilltop ridge, their long and elegant blades turning all at the same speed, yet asynchronous. Silent windmills, peaceful in the early morning light, accumulating clean energy from a source unending. Once past the ridge, looking back, there were the windmills, angelic in their pulchritude, tranquil and deliberate, white against the dark sky of the west.

It is in our nature to seek symbols. The windmills, set between the shadows of the night and the gentle clarity of the dawn, appeared as a utopian portrayal of complicity among the diverse bodies and organisations which promote the development of education, human rights and peace, inspirited by the source unending that are the children.

Throughout 2002, may cheer, tenacity and concord prevail as we endeavour to implement objective f.

Renilde Montessori

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Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee

The need to look afresh at the aim and role of AMI was the main theme of the meeting of Directors of Training and Trainers in Ambleside, in August 2000. It was a topic that elicited fruitful contributions from the participants and resulted in the Executive Committee approving the establishment of an ad hoc Strategic Planning Committee. The task of the Committee is to take stock of how the Association's objectives are currently being implemented. It will also provide a platform for the membership to air its views. New initiatives and suggestions that fall within AMI's aims and objectives will be reviewed and submitted for consideration to the relevant AMI bodies. The Committee, however, will not be empowered to make commitments on behalf of AMI since its main role is to explore how best the work of AMI can be realised.

The Committee consists of five members:
Dr. Kay Baker, (Elementary Trainer - USA)
Dr. Silvia Dubovoy, (Primary Trainer - USA)
Ms Shannon Helfrich, (Primary Trainer - USA/Australia)
Mr. Monte Kenison, (Primary Trainer - USA)
Mrs. Lynne Lawrence, (Primary Trainer - UK)

Its mandate is to give thought and form to projects which support the vision and role of AMI:
- by identifying and prioritising the short-term goals
- by deciding how these goals can be achieved
- by outlining the steps to be taken
- by presenting a business plan

The Committee invites input to help it move forward in its task of formulating a strategic plan for the AMI of the future. If you have suggestions that would help to maintain, propagate and further the aims of AMI, please submit them via e-mail to any one of the addresses below:
kbaker1@loyola.edu
scdubov@aol.com
mshelfrich@aol.com
montekenison2@attbi.com
lc.lawrence@virgin.net

For those who wish to comment but do not have access to the Internet, the Committee can also be reached at the following fax number in the USA: (1) (650) 967 2442.

Please note that all responses are valued but cannot be individually acknowledged. The Committee looks forward to hearing from you.

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From ‘The Mathematical Mind’ by AMI Primary Director of Training Shannon Helfrich:

The study of the human mind has consumed psychologists and educators since the late 1800's. In today's world, we can add neuroscientists to this listing. Now we know much more about the apparatus and workings of the human mind than ever before. Often Montessorians are asked to justify the continued study of Dr. Maria Montessori's understandings of human nature. There is a tacit assumption that any theory 100 years old must be limited in scope and possibly invalidated by more recent discoveries and understandings…In actuality, these theories are being validated and our understanding enriched by current neuroscientific studies.

One aspect of Dr. Montessori's theory of child development, that of the mathematical mind, is as important today as ever before. Dr. Montessori found this term ‘the mathematical mind’ in the writings of Blaise Pascal. For her this term gave focus to the phenomena she witnessed in the developing lives of children throughout the world.

Teachers come away from their Montessori training with a strong understanding of the nature and beauty of the mathematical materials. They are in awe of the wonderful knowledge that children can glean from their interactions with these materials. They take from this experience the thinking that it is these materials that cultivate the mathematical mind. This is the first and foremost myth about the nature of the mathematical mind.

…Dr. Montessori gives great insight through her view of the child as a reflection of the essence of human nature… Familiar to many Montessori teachers are the stories regarding the explosion into writing and the explosion into reading. Teachers know them well and may also have experienced these phenomena for themselves through their work with children. The phenomenon that is not heard about or recognised as easily is the explosion into mathematics.

Dr. Montessori discerned that the manifestation of every phenomenon followed a similar progression. It was this pattern that she built upon in offering activities to the child. The progression involves:
1) indirect preparation
2) formation of subconscious knowledge - gathering of experience and impressions
3) awakening of the consciousness with the accompanying powers of application

By definition, the mathematical mind is a power to organise, classify and quantify within the context of our life experiences. This is spontaneous activity of the mind, it is uniquely human and it is a capacity found in all human beings. Adults use mathematical knowledge informally throughout every day of their lives:

Driving to school in the morning...
- assessing speed
- stopping distances
- anticipating turning ratios.

Making breakfast...
- measuring coffee into the filter
- stopping the flow of the coffee directly out of the machine into the cup
- estimating the amount of sugar or milk to be added.

The young child, through the developmental powers of the Absorbent Mind, the Sensitive Periods and the Human Tendencies, also gleans informal mathematical knowledge. The child sees other human beings acting within this mathematical context, and takes in the patterns and relationships. The child utilises the Human Tendencies for orientation and exploration to broaden the perspective from which the world is viewed.

There are three characteristics that reflect the workings of the mathematical mind:
1) the drive toward accurate observation
2) the motivation to create order out of chaos
3) the ability to perceive patterns of relationships leading to the creation of abstractions and the use of the imagination.

Ms Helfrich further explores these characteristics in a lively and clear article.

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Montessori in Junior Schools

In this article, Mario Montessori illustrates how children at the elementary level become ready to take on responsibility for their own education in the widest sense and how the school can help prepare an environment conducive to self-steered research and exploration of many subjects. To explain how the school can stimulate auto-education, he has dipped extensively into the on-the-ground experiences gained at the Scuola Montessori di Bergamo, a school which was founded in 1949. Eleonora Honegger Caprotti (1902-1992) directed this school for the first twenty years of its existence. Together with Mario Montessori she was instrumental in setting up and running the Bergamo Training Centre (Centro Internazionale Studi Montessoriani) from its inception in 1961 until 1972, during which period she was sole director of training.

L'autoeducazione nelle scuole elementari is the only book by Dr. Maria Montessori which deals with the psychology of the children from six to twelve years. Illustrating her first experiences with children of this age and the material she used at the time, the book was originally published in 1916. Several books would be necessary to illustrate her subsequent experience and the material developed since then, but a partial view may be gathered from the following exposition. It has been compounded from parts of a report by Mrs. Eleonora Honegger. Each part is preceded by an explanation that connects it to Dr. Montessori's theories. The great variety of examples and the concrete way in which they are presented make intresting reading.

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La Maestra
Lecture 1

Graduating from an AMI course is just the first step in a very challenging but rewarding process, as is clearly indicated in this lecture given by Maria Montessori on an international course in Rome, in the early thirties of the last century.

By taking a different stance from what is generally common in education, the directress allows the child to develop according to his own inner directives. But it is not only the child who develops. In the words of Maria Montessori ‘this school is both for the teacher and for the child...in which the one contributes to the development of the other’.

And if...the adult comes to the conclusion that he should act for the benefit of the child only once he has understood him, and therefore only after he has identified exactly what his needs are, and that as a result he decides he should study the child in order to lead him according to the inner qualities he has so discovered - even then the educator remains at the same static point, because his actions are still based on the principle that it is education which moulds the child.

We want to express another principle, which is not an idea but one which has been derived from a long and varied experience. Our principle is that one must limit the actions of the adult towards the child, so as to give him the possibility to develop without an ever-present oppressive will stronger than his own.

…and as it is the child who makes the adult, it is easy to realise that a well or poorly developed child will be a strong or weak man. Also easy to realise should be the consequences of giving the child unnecessary help.

This principle of limiting the help of the adult so as not to harm the child, so as not arrest his development, is one of the most fundamental in our method of education which promotes instead the need of devoting very delicate care to the child. We must assume the attitude of becoming observers, to be prudent and humble so as not to overstep the limits we have set for ourselves. We must give what is necessary and sufficient - but nothing more.

…an effort is required. But as the field in which one enters is so fascinating and as the new world revealed by the child under one's care becomes so irresistible...little by little, almost without noticing it, the teacher comes to understand, to enjoy and, therefore, with practice, to perfect herself.

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From Question and Answer

Question: How is History introduced in the Children’s House?

Answer: If children have been welcomed into a rich environment, in the first three years of life they will lay a solid foundation of complicity and solidarity with their world and all its exhilarating phenomena among which, first, foremost and above all, their own kind. The people around them are an inexhaustible source of interest. Initially those present and tangible, and as their sense of time, their capacity for abstraction and their imagination develop, also the doings, the comings and goings, the ventures and adventures of people past will fascinate them.

Question and Answer
AMI invites questions for this section of Communications. Just send an e-mail to info@montessori-ami.org.

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