“It is high time that movement came to be regarded from a new point of view in educational theory.” - Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind
When
you observe the child, what do you see? We look for signs of interest
and concentration — the stillness of their hands as they work or the
hold of their gaze when they bend down to watch the worm slink across
the sidewalk. This is a beautiful sight, the way a child can so
comfortably lose himself in something he enjoys, but have you watched
for the abandon in the way he moves his body, too?
When an infant
slowly begins to scoot across the room, when a toddler races into his
grandmother’s arms, and when the young child voraciously skips through
the grass, this is liberation, an everlasting introduction of child to
the earth, and it proves how significantly physical movement aids
learning.
When our bodies are in motion, we are palpably
connected to the environment around us. Our minds cannot be stagnant,
because our limbs are at play. Our hearts cannot be stagnant, because
movement brings about strength, joy, effort, and an affinity with what’s
possible. When we move, we engage, and Montessori made this intimate
connection in her classroom.
In the 1913 Rome Lectures,
Montessori says, “If humans move from one place to another by means of
walking, if they perform the movement of grasping something, if they
turn their eyes, if they speak, if they write, etc., they always perform
movement and, thus, to educate movement would be to educate all of
life.” Even in the way a child turned the page and insatiably read a
book, Montessori saw movement, physical activity, and a relationship
with something tangible.
On the contrary, she saw much detriment
to the idleness a traditional classroom afforded. To line children in
rows of desks, to insist upon a singular posture for an extended amount
of time, and to expect undivided attention equally from each pupil was
not only a disservice to the learning, but even to the curvature of a
child’s spine. His bones needed indeed room to dance and grow.
But
the same is true for the teacher. In a Montessori classroom, the guide
is not met at the front of a room with an expectation of all eyes on
her. Rather, she moves delicately about the room, quietly among the
students, not to disrupt or dictate the work, but to observe keenly and
to trust she has prepared the environment exactly as the children
deserve. But this guide is not merely an observer using her eyes. Her
body is constantly in motion, too, connecting her own self to the
environment as much as she expects of the children, and this creates in
the space a shared trust and a fluidity among teacher and child that is
strong, understood, and intimate. Just as the crops need to be rotated
on the earth, when the body moves, the mind thrives, and Montessori
deeply wanted this for the child.
“Till now,” she said in The
Absorbent Mind, “almost all educators have thought of movement and the
muscular system as aids to respiration, or to circulation, or as a means
for building up physical strength. But in our new conception, the view
is taken that movement has great importance in mental development
itself, provided that the action which occurs is connected with the
mental activity going on.”
The mind does not stand as one. Just
as the student is not alone in his pursuit of independence, so, too,
does his mind need his body to prepare him and guide him and participate
in the journey.