(Delivered in Chinese at Sai Kung Montessori on 2 February 2018)
The child’s agenda, from the moment he was born, is to adapt
to his environment. His environment consists of both inanimate and
animate, objects and people. He wishes to navigate himself in the
physical environment, find ways to meet his needs, and to accustom
himself to social expectations and norms. He is gifted with the absorbent mind as
coined by Dr Montessori, which is a subconscious, photographic memory
that allows the child to be slowly transformed into a person of his
culture – the language, diet, mannerisms, and attitudes, all signify
that he has adapted to his environment. The absorbent mind lasts until
age 6. In psychology, this adaptation is fulfilled by a set of
psychological processes known as self-regulation.
Each person is born with working physical
organs at birth, such as lungs, stomach, intestines and liver, that
allows the body to function. The body respires and metabolises. Each
person is also born with psychical organs, which allows the
intellect to function. Examples of psychical organs: brain, hands, feet,
senses especially touch (such as the tongue).
Why
are our hands and feet so important? The hand is the symbol of grasp,
control, manipulation and confidence（把握、掌握、掌控等等都是跟手有關）. The foot is the
symbol of exploration, strength and endurance（路遙知馬力，日久見人心）. This is
studied in movement psychology.
Our limbs are connected to our brain. When
the child stops moving, his brain also stops. Adults too, actually,
although our movements are tapered down to, say, spinning pens, tapping
feet, doodling textbooks. The synchrony is important. In Chinese
philosophy, the noble person is consistent in his thoughts and
action（知行合一）.
Psychical organs are present at birth, but
the psyche only begins developing after birth, because it is built
through interaction with environment.
Psyche = Psychical organs + Interaction with environment
The ego (self) is born with all neurons he
has in life. There is an overproduction of synapses at around 1-2 years
old. Synapses are terminals on the neurons that help connect brain
circuits. The overabundance of synapses mean there are infinite ways our
brains can be wired, as accordance to what is required of us. It is a
‘use it or lose it’ scenario. When faced with a task or stimuli,
‘neurons that fire together wire together’. Circuitry is established and
the brain furthermore wants to insulate these circuits by a process
called myelination. The more often the circuit is used, i.e.
behaviour or exposure is repeated, the stronger the connection.
Myelination increases the speed and stability of mental processes. It
occurs at a genetically programmed time in different regions of the
brain, which in psychology is known as critical periods and in Montessori the sensitive periods.
It is observed as an intense, indulgent but temporary interest in a
particular area of development. “Time is Love” – the greatest love for a
child is to give him time and space to wire his brain.
The goal of Montessori education is to allow a normal
person to be established. ‘Normal’ or ‘normalisation’ may be difficult
to think of as a spectacular goal, but in Chinese, ‘normal’ is made up
of two excellent words – 正、常。正：righteous, correct；常：the eternal way.
‘Normal’ in Chinese essentially means the right, timeless way/order of
the universe. Such a person is positive, resilient, stable, balanced,
and functions optimally.
The normal person is of good character. Character in Montessori is essentially temperament
in psychology, which consists of both nature and nurture parts –
emotional reactivity that we are born with, and the ability to regulate
that emotional reactivity. As self-regulation is a result of our desire
to adapt, our character is a product of our interactions with the
environment, as well as our brain circuitry.
The child is born with his own instincts
to grow, discover and learn. He is programmed with a schedule that is in
his best interests, such as how baby Juan is stomping his feet eagerly
at 4.5 months (and would cry until he is seated on my thigh to stomp).
Only stomping would prepare his lower back muscles for the 6-month
milestone of sitting without support. It is not something an adult would
think of, or could teach, but the adult can facilitate the instincts.
We are farmers who ought to provide the right kind of soil, water and
sunlight to suit the species we are planting. It is not in our interest
to grow wild grass; we need to cultivate our land with the right care so
plants will mature and fruit.
Dr Montessori purports a stage theory of
development, like many others such as Erikson and Piaget. Dr Montessori
divides human growth into the four planes, each of 6 years, with a sudden jump in between. The child at each plane exhibits very different characteristics.
At
0-6, the child’s development begins with himself, indulged in whatever
is in his hands, mostly in the home environment. At 6-12, he is
concerned about logic, reasoning, fairness, and where he stands in the
peer group. The teenager goes further to be concerned about his role in
society. The young adult learns his role in creation, i.e. ‘calling’.
Development has to begin from the ego, and progress outwards step by
step. This is summarised by the Chinese saying, “cultivate self,
organise family, govern country, make peace with the
world”（修身、齊家、治國、平天下）.
One remarkable outcome of the first plane
of development is consciousness. Consciousness continues to grow
throughout 0-6, but it is widely recognised that 3-year-olds
deliberately use declarative/explicit memory.
Dr Montessori considers 3-6 the best time
for education. These young children have enough consciousness and memory
to be approachable, albeit in a special manner. She considers the 0-3
child unapproachable. At the same time, the absorbent mind continues
until age 6; there is neuroplasticity at the lower, more ‘basic’ brain
regions. Therefore, at this age, new circuits can be encouraged and
undesirable ones can be dropped. After age 6, brain development is
concentrated in the prefrontal cortex, i.e. higher thinking. The
subtleties of culture and character are well formed.
To facilitate a child’s development, we
must consider his perspective. Let us begin at birth. Imagine yourself
going down a long, windy waterslide. After bends and dips, you finally
splash into the pool. What would you feel? Perhaps cold, bright,
helpless, and startled. This is what Dr Montessori termed as the birth terror.
The adult should immediately hold the baby. There is no time or need to
dress him. Holding soothes him psychologically, but it is also a
biological necessity, for the baby needs skin-to-skin touch to regulate
his body temperature. Now that he is outside the womb, he has to learn
how to regulate himself to ~37 degrees Celsius. It is only through
adequate contact with the adult that he could learn and eventually be
independent in his temperature regulation.
Temperature regulation is the first
example of self-regulation, beginning with an external source, and
eventually internalising the process. The next example is sleep.
Daylight, nighttime, noise and the caregiver’s schedule are external
cues. With enough exposure to these cues, the child eventually learns to
sleep through the night, a relief that comes much earlier than most
people would expect – 6 weeks, in my experience.
Consistency is a must; it is embedded in
the meaning of regulation. Consistent external cues allow for swift
self-regulation. Consistency is the prerequisite for all kinds of
learning. If this jacket that baby Juan is wearing is called green
today, blue the next, and purple the day after, how would the child ever
learn his colours? Language is such an obvious example, but many people
forget that this consistency is just as important in other aspects of
the environment, in all its details. We call that order in the
environment. Order is especially crucial during 1-3 years old.
1-year-old is when the child toddles. He is so thrilled to be mobilising
himself. He would toddle to all corners and fiddle with every object.
He is so delighted to be proactively interacting with his environment.
Gone are the days when he had to beg for someone to carry him! His
intense interest for interacting with the environment means he is trying
very hard to understand every single rule around him, from mechanics to
fluid dynamics, from physical pain to social acceptance. By 3 years
old, he would have internalised the order of his environment. This
internal order is the framework of his character. This is why in Chinese
we say “3 year-old determines (how you are at) 80” （三歲定八十）. The
structure has been laid.
Consistency can be rigid at times. For
example, me being the consistent caregiver is not enough – baby Juan was
very upset when I wore a pullover that has been stowed away for a year.
He recognises his mother by smell. The pullover betrayed him.
Apart from offering the founding
principles of character, order is also important to a child’s pursuits.
With order, there is predictability; with predictability, the child
feels comfortable to venture, or to work on his own work. If the
environment is at a constant, unpredictable flux, the child, who is so
sensitive to change, will have to make sense of the change every time.
This means he will have little resources left to cater to his own work.
It results in developmental delay.
What is his own work, you may ask? Refer
to the beginning of this article. His work is, always, to adapt to the
environment, which in turn builds his character.
I ask you to consider the child’s
perspective and question, “Do you think the child feels he has a grasp
over this environment?” To understand this feeling, take the example of
cooking in your own kitchen. You have a good flow because you know your
setup, your machines, your inventory and their exact location. It is
very different when using someone else’s kitchen – you have to reorient
yourself, and perhaps take a few days to adapt. You have a good grasp of
your own kitchen, so you can focus on food preparation. Being in
control of the environment is crucial to fulfilling one’s work.
The universe is very orderly. Sun and moon
have their routines, clouds and trees have their places, fluids and
steam obey the laws of physics. The prepared environment that
we offer the child ought to mimic such order, in areas such as daily
routine, physical organisation and behaviour, as well as natural harmony
and the will to flourish.
Order is lived and witnessed; it is the
consistency among change. Scientists derive theories from repeated
experiments, and they do so in a controlled setup. Limits help us focus,
and trials allow us to find order, also to be understood as limits.
Freedom with no limits is ‘wild’. It is
not a feeling of free. Imagine Tsing Ma Bridge with no railings. It will
be too scary to drive to the airport. We need the railings to feel
safe. We need limits to feel safe. We feel psychologically free when we
have principles to abide with. We need order to safeguard freedom.
In Montessori, the two main freedoms are the freedom of movement and the freedom of expression.
I will explain using the infant as an example. The 9-month-old rolls
non-stop. My husband jokes that the baby camera is now our screensaver. I
transitioned my daughters to a king-sized mattress on the floor,
fenced. The infant is free to roll far even in sleep. When he gets to
roll, he is happily fulfilling development and will not cry. If he is in
a crib, he cannot roll without hitting against the sides every minute,
so he will cry. Sleep regressions denote changing developmental needs.
Facilitate them, and the parent of a happy baby gets lots of sleep.
Babies coo and vocalise in attempt to
communiciate, but crying and fussing are just as important. Language is
not merely muscle control, it also counts on the ability to express
appropriately, with exactness. A person who can speak true to his heart
is in harmony with himself, and is empowered to feel responsible for
himself. It is a virtue for thought and speech to be consistent（心口一致）. A
person who is obstructed from expressing when he needs to, e.g. using a
pacifier, is more likely to feel awkward or reluctant with expressing.
Dr Montessori says, “Free choice is the
highest of all mental processes.” A person who is able to make the very
appropriate choices is considered wise and sharp（有慧眼）. It is only
through practice and experience that a person gains this foresight.
Therefore, from the youngest age, we should offer the child
opportunities to practise making choices. Choices have to be safe, and
they start simple, gradually building up through the entire process of
development. Adults should analyse out loud and model making choices,
such that the child learns this self-regulatory process. Make good
choices – the young child under 6 has an absorbent mind. Therefore,
apart from wanting to make choices to take charge of his life, the young
child also learns other people’s choices. Good choices should be in
daily details such as colour coordination, style and taste, diet,
decoration, scent, etc.
The 0-6 child and the 12-18 teenager have
much in parallel. They are both very concerned about self-esteem. It is
very important to give them a sense of control over who they think they
are and how they feel about themselves. The 3-year-old, who we call the
‘threenager’ is so sensitive to failing to do something for himself. He
will cry when he cannot put on his shoes, worrying that he is incapable
and truly scared about life being uncontrollable.
The theme for 0-6 is empowerment. The
adult ought to step down to support the child’s efforts of grasping the
environment. The adult is to facilitate quality interactions so the
child can build his character. In Montessori, we emphasise the
importance of purposeful work, because it embeds a whole cycle
for adaptation. There is first the understanding of social expectations,
then through the child’s natural interest for imitation, he uses his
skills to complete a work, to meet expectations. The environment
provides feedback, partly through control of error and partly
through people’s responses. The child is able to know how well he has
performed and adjust his strategy accordingly. Therefore, purposeful
work is a complete cycle, where pretend play is not. With pretend play,
there is little feedback as no work is actually done and no expectations
are actually met. There is not a cycle of activity that aids adaptation.
We have high expectations for the child,
therefore we give him a quality environment to “help me to help myself”.
For example, we give them child-sized and functional tools, as the
Chinese saying goes, “to do a good job, one must first sharpen one’s
tools” （工欲善其事，必先利其器）. The adult is the child’s steward, his helpful
butler, who manages his house, prepares his food, but never tells him
how to spend his time, or to dictate a letter to a friend. The
Children’s House (3-6) is where the child takes the role of the master,
to live a dignified life. The master is a gifted scientist. He pursues
his curiosity with an intense passion. He needs space and time for his
tireless work, but be prepared to be responsive and supportive when he
asks for you. Discoveries will delight him with joy and brighten his
character.
The adult is the keeper of the
environment, the guardian angel of the child. The Montessori method is
not the only way that supports the child, but if we can follow the child
with precision and accuracy, we have what it takes to be a
Montessorian.
Summary
The child’s work is to build his character
through adaptation, that is interacting with the environment and
self-regulating accordingly. The child can only build internal order
through repeated exposure to a consistent external order. Order is
hardwired into the brain. Intellect is built through physical
interaction, such as with hands, feet, tongue and other sense organs.
The adult’s role is to provide order. Its
consistency and predictability allows the child to acquire principles as
well as to have a safe space to focus on his own character-building.
The adult is to allow freedom within limits, so the child can pursue
safe experimentation. With a confident grasp over the environment, the
child is empowered and would feel good as an independent, capable
entity. Offer plenty of opportunity for practising choice and being
responsible for oneself. Freedom of movement and freedom of expression
are fundamental to mind-body harmony.
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http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/41773 
