'Communications

Editorial

Early Childhood Education — With Focus on the First Three Years of Life

Preparation of the Environment for the Young Child in the Family 21 February 1939, Amsterdam. Public Lecture at Maison Hirsch
Maria Montessori
In the early months of 1939, Maria Montessori spent most of her time in the Netherlands. She had commissioned the manufacture of especially designed child-size furniture, and an Amsterdam store hosted the exhibition of this special furniture for a number of weeks. To help explain the philosophy behind the furniture Maria Montessori gave a talk at the store. Dr Montessori made a strong plea for family and school to truly and effectively collaborate, ensuring that both environments are complementary.

The Foundation of the Human Personality: Movement, Language, Independence, Freedom
Judi Orion
This lecture was given at the 26th International Montessori Congress, held at Chennai, India, in January 2009 where Sadhana—Reflective Practice, Spontaneous Living—was the overall theme. Judi carefully guided the audience step by step through the stages of early child development, to conclude that Sadhana is part of our lives from birth; it is our conquest of independence, our joy of life.

A Comparison of Montessori Assistant to Infancy Practice and Birth-Three Traditions in Bhutan
Susan Mayclin Stephenson
In 2006 and 2008, as a guest of the Bhutanese government and friends, Susan Mayclin Stephenson began to research Bhutanese family life and culture in preparation for Montessori education in Bhutan. This article highlights some of the similarities and differences between traditional practices in Bhutan and the Montessori Assistants to Infancy (A to I), birth to three.

Cosmic Education

Cosmic Education, Sixth Lecture
Maria Montessori (1936)
In this Cosmic Lecture, Montessori continues her previous lecture on supra-nature, and how that connects to human growth. In a way this lecture also reverberates the specific theme of this issue, when Montessori writes that in the first year of the child's life he has already seen everything, and has started to order all sorts of things in his mind, through an inner, directed effort. This is not happening haphazardly. Montessori points out that 'in the second year of his life the child is observing the tiniest possible things; almost invisible things are seen by him. Just as if he had already seen enough of the larger things of life, and they no longer held any interest for him.'

Art: An Essential Component of Cosmic Education
Phyllis Pottish-Lewis
The author argues convincingly that to help comprehend our world, our minds benefit also from a visual, perceptual language, such as the pictorial arts. The verbal and the visual, working together, can enhance the way we interpret and appreciate our world. Therefore, both are deserving of our keen attention; if not, we allow a deficit or an imbalance between the two realms. And whether a Pablo Picasso in the making, or not at all, we all benefit from sharpening our observation skills, so necessary in practising and appreciating art, and our knowledge of the world.

Montessori Theory and Practice

Montessori: Education for the 21st Century
Dr Steve Hughes, Assistant Professor of Paediatrics and Neurology
Steven Hughes shares his dismay that for most children, education still looks more or less the way it did around the beginning of the 1900s. Technology has fostered false hope; but this is not the key to solving the problems of education. Traditional education is content- centred, involving direct instruction from the teacher—an authority figure. Dr Hughes shares his enthusiasm for the Montessori's accurate observations on human learning, and argues that possibly for the first time the wider world is ready for Montessori.

The Special Needs Child from the Montessori Perspective
Nimal Vaz
Ms Vaz, AMI trainer and member of the AMI Special Needs ad hoc committee, talks about the challenges and opportunities of receiving children with special needs, whatever they be into the Montessori classroom. She recognizes that there are many special programmes with fancy names that are put together to help special children. Ms Vaz argues that it is, however, the Montessori school by definition which is best equipped to assist special needs children in their development.

Question and Answer, Pacifiers
Silvana Quattrochhi Montanaro
Dr Montanaro expounds on the possible averse effects of giving children pacifiers. She makes a strong plea for withholding pacifiers from the child, as they are impediments "in disguise", hindering a healthy development, also of language.

History: A hundred years of Il Metodo

A hundred years of Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica
Paola Trabalzini
Paola Trabalzini is Professor of Aspects of Education at Rome's La Sapienza University, and a wellrespected scholar on placing Montessori's writings in a historical and sociological context. Ms Trabalzini has written this article especially to mark the hundredth anniversary of Montessori's first account of the history and development of her ideas on education. The Montessori Method, as this title became known, was the book that would accompany Montessori throughout her life. In forty years five different editions were published, and Montessori revised, edited, deleted and added to each and every one edition. Trabalzini provides many interesting details to help explain the underlying motives.

Accounts from Academia

Announcement: Maria Montessori's Collected Works in German
The first volume in the academic series is to be launched in the Spring of 2010. For over ten years, the teaching and research centre for Montessori Pedagogy of the University of Muenster has been working on this academic edition of Maria Montessori's collected works in German under the guidance of Prof. Dr Harald Ludwig in cooperation with the publishing house Herder and the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). In twenty-three volumes, the German reader will have access to virtually the whole of Montessori's published work, as well as portions of her extensive previously unpublished writings.

Photographs in this issue courtesy of Gunilla Kolmodin, The Evenflo Company, Susan Mayclin Stephenson, Phyllis Pottish-Lewis, AMI archives.

Editorial

Two years on from the centenary celebration of the first Casa dei Bambini, in 2007, we are marking another milestone in the Montessori history. In 1909 Montessori responded to many requests, urging her to record her method. The result was an impressive volume, with a title that wished to stress the science behind the ideas: Il metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica applicata all'educazione infantile nelle Case dei Bambini. Known by its considerably shorter English title The Montessori Method, this book would travel with Montessori a life-time, seeing translations into many languages. In forty years five different editions of the original Italian were published, and Montessori revised, edited, deleted and added with each new edition. The fifth and final edition is better known as The Discovery of the Child. Paola Trabalzini, an Italian Montessori scholar, provides many fascinating details to help explain the underlying motives for the editorial choices Montessori made. We expect that both history buffs and "contemporary" minds will be gripped equally by the various historical backdrops outlined.

The theme of this issue is Early Childhood Education, with particular focus on the first three years of life. Maria Montessori was devoted to life, and intensely interested in all of its aspects: whether they were biological, anthropological, medical, cultural, historical or philosophical. And she was an ardent defender of life. Perhaps, initially as a medical doctor, but more and more a passionate student of life, the human mind and all its achievements. She grew into a champion of the child, who she saw as the permanent promise. She looked at all of life's manifestations: life's environment and life's mission, whether mineral or animal. She placed human development within the greater scheme of things, and soon realized that for a human being to develop his full potential all conditions need to be most favourable, from the very start. Beginning at inception, conception, gestation, and pregnancy, a child's start in life perhaps starts with the education of her mother and father.

Most of Maria Montessori's writings that have been published appear to focus on the years three to twelve. And even though she was late in developing a special curriculum for 0-3 training, throughout her life she stressed the importance of the very early years. She knew she shared that feeling with other reformist pedagogues, but she was also very sensitive to all the factors that play a part before birth. She was absolutely convinced that the first three years of life are the truly formative years. Every seed that is planted in that period will grow into a determining factor, pre-signalling development hindrances or successes. In Montessori's words, 'infancy presents a period of creation, which begins in the tiny body which the mother has given to the world. Such a thought gives us some idea of what is really meant by myths that say man was created from a handful of mud. Like the embryologist dealing with the cell, so it is now with us.' Montessori observed that we could not yet see in the child the potential of the future adult he is to become, but stressed the importance of the force within the child that must develop. This force ensures that 'the child becomes the creator who creates himself.'

The first in our theme stories is "Preparation of the Environment for the Young Child in the Family", a lecture that Maria Montessori gave on 21 February 1939, Amsterdam. Montessori grabbed the opportunity of addressing a general public, to deliver a "parent education talk" possibly disguised as a talk to explain the design of her child-size furniture, but with a very clear message that the family and school should collaborate, ensuring that both environments are complementary

In "The Foundation of the Human Personality: Movement, Language, Independence, Freedom" Judi Orion guides the reader step by step through the stages of early child development. We join the child in his physical and psychical development, and marvel at the speed with which so much progress is made. At each stage Ms Orion stops to emphasize that it is the effort of the child that makes all the difference in the development of independence, and points out its early emergence and necessity. It needs to be supported throughout the remaining stages.

The next article by Susan Mayclin Stephenson shows us what the 0-3 development truly can mean in a very concrete situation. Her report and observations on the development and family situation of a young child in Bhutan reveal the similarities between the philosophy of Montessori's approach with the natural way a society, still largely unspoilt by modern economic driving forces, receives and nurtures its children. "A Comparison of Montessori Assistant to Infancy Practice and Birth-Three Traditions in Bhutan" will fascinate you.

Cosmic Education has been a recurrent subtheme in Communications in the past few years. This issue sees the concluding Cosmic Education lecture that Maria Montessori gave in London in 1936. She continues discussing the earlier aspects of supra natura and sweeps her audience along the wonderful achievements of the human mind, while scolding man for his occasional fickleness and lack of humility.

Phyllis Pottish-Lewis makes a strong plea for art—not only as something to give aesthetical pleasure or train us to become astounding artists. As the most important quality of art, she views the creation of awareness, the training of perception, of seeing, and observing. When those skills are trained, they, working together with our verbal skills, can enhance our understanding of the world. This article is based on art workshops, and therefore also offers a number of practical aspects and tips concerning art education.

Nimal Vaz in her lecture Montessori "The Special Needs Child from the Montessori Perspective" explains why we speak of special needs. Special can refer to so many areas in which a child can be challenged, or even under-challenged. Whatever the situation, special children need special understanding and care. Ms Vaz argues passionately that we must never lose sight of the fact that we are working with children whose development we are trying to guide. She adds that the handicapped child needs to be seen as a child foremost, and puts forth that Montessori has much to offer because education is an aid to life.

In our traditional Question and Answer section we reconnect with the 0-3, or Assistants to Infancy theme, and put the use of the pacifier in our "black" books. Dr Silvana Quattrochhi Montanaro expounds on the possible averse effects of giving children pacifiers. She makes a strong plea for withholding them from the child, as they are impediments "in disguise". The use of pacifiers can thwart language development, and is likely to create problems with the sinking in of the teeth. Whereas we started with Montessori's education for the twentieth century, a hundred years on, Dr Steve Hughes in his contribution "Montessori: Education for the 21st Century" postulates that perhaps only now society at large is ready for the Montessori revolution. Only now with the dramatic changes in the constancy of where we live and how we make a living, can we fully appreciate that Montessori offered the perfect tools for human development—for a human being who is creative, collaborative

Kay Baker PhD., director of training at the elementary (6-12) level, the Washington Montessori Institute

Professor Dr Harald Ludwig, co-chair, professor emeritus of the Montessori Centre at the University of Münster, Germany and editor-in-chief of the German magazine Montessori

Renilde Montessori, director of training at the primary level (3-6) (retired), president emerita of AMI

Rita Schaefer Zener PhD., co-chair, trainer at the primary level (3-6), AMI examiner and consultant

Highlights from 'Communications 2009/2'