Montessori school and traditional school

The psychotherapist Giselle Ferretti in an article of “La Stampa”, talking about a Montessori model, mentions our school and our headmaster Luciano Mazzetti.

I became passionate about the Montessori’s method for two orders of reasons: professional and personal.

The first is that I have been working as a psychologist in various schools for many years now and I could detect different structural issues related to the system.
The second is that for long I have been a student in the traditional system, and for a long time there was something that did not “add up”.
While being carried by the wave of reflections, I stumbled on the knowledge of Maria Montessori and her innovative academic method, finding important analogies with the psychotherapy method in which I have specialised: Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Lacanian psychoanalysis is the clinical practice of one for one, it is characterised to be “without standards, but not without principles”, it orientates the cure following a precise logic which is declined differently from person to person.

Long story short, each person which comes into office is treated differently according to their particularity and it aims at bringing out what makes them different and unique compared to others, giving that value. It is found out how to be oneself, different from others, unique, how to conjugate one’s own uniqueness while standing comfortably among others, in society (family, school, work) without useless senses of guilt.

Maria Montessori, internationally famous physician and pedagogist, has studied and applied an academic method that allows to make appear everyone’s particularities since the earliest age. Montessori believes that every child, that is every human being, is unique and must have the possibility to express their singularity from the very beginning. Montessori’s method values and strengthens what makes every child different from the other.

Lacanian psychoanalysis operates where there is a problem a symptom, something that creates suffering. One can live perfectly well without psychoanalysis, whereas one cannot do without attending school, which accompanies the individual in the life path: it is an institution which has the objective to educate, that is educĕre, which means << to bring out, or “to bring out what is inside” and to instruct, that is in-struere, to build, compose, fabricate, furnish.

The school is made of two elements: the institution, with its rules and its system, the same for everybody, and teachers, the single people, all different, each with their own mind, ideas, way of being and teaching.

In my professional and clinical practice in first grade primary and secondary schools (elementary and middle school) I have been struck by some observations I find myself making every year.

• Primary school children continuously ask confirmation to their teacher on every small movement or activity they have to do, even for small matters.
• Secondary school students often complain not to understand “what purpose” will have what they are studying.
• When I ask students who are attending third class of secondary school, which are the subjects they love most, I get two types of answer: they do not know, or they say the subject they have the highest score in. when I ask the same students if there are subjects they are interested in, besides markings, they rarely know how to answer.
• Parents of students who have to choose high school, ask me which is the school that is most likely to secure their kids with a job in the future.
• The conflict between teachers and parents has got sharpener in a concerning way and the only one to lose is the student, who is apparently attacked or excessively defended, without being given the possibility to learn how to get by on their own, which should be the fundamental objective of education in general.

Going to school, whether it is nursery or high school, is the main activity of a young human being, the one that occupies the majority of time. School is the place where one experiences themselves with others, where they put themselves to the test and they learn – or not – to believe in themselves, it is the space to stumble and to experiment how to go back on your feet. It is the springboard for adult life and the world of work.

To my advise, school has a fundamental job: to transmit the love for knowledge and to teach how to think with one’s own head. If this is achieved, school has done its job. If it produces angry, disappointed, sad, abulic people or good individuals but with no impulses, perfect but with no desires, obedient but unhappy, then something must be revised.

Traditional school

• Education is identified with a national curricular programme applied to a group of children who have to uniform with the same standard, they must learn according to uniform modalities and rhythms.
• The teacher conducts the work, provides the contents, the rules and the meanings.
• The kids take part into classes of homogeneous age: the work, organised in the ways and managed in the timings by the teacher, does not allow the kids with the freedom to experiment solutions and individual creative processes. Work groups are guided. Students are sit on their desks with fixed places and they learn by looking at the blackboard, working exclusively with pre-printed sheets or exercises books.
• The kid’s work is constantly put under evaluation from the teacher who signals errors, establishes what to do and how.
• The subject is tied to the teacher’s control.

The traditional school system often produces two types of aberrations: the “nerds” and the “dunces”. The system decides what the norm is: if you adhere to a certain kind of knowledge, in the way that is believed to be correct, you are good, if you do not conform you must be corrected. In the traditional school system programmes, teaching methods, there is a scarce or null flexibility, very linked to the teachers’ passion in doing their job.

But the worst message traditional school conveys is this: if you are a good student you will surely be happy and you will have a good place (social, job-related) guaranteed in the world, if you are not a good student, you will have no access to life.

This is not true

The evaluation system promotes the development of the external motivation, that is which comes from outside. This makes sure that kids often feel discouraged, slowed down by the fear of making mistakes. Intrinsic motivation is penalised, the one that comes from inside, which is the only one that really makes a driving force for the student to commit and give their best. The evaluation system encourages kids to compete against each other to get the best grade. This way kids learn less and often struggling, they have less chances to experiment personalised operative tools.

A former art education professor, Ken Robinson, believes today’s school is an old school, conceived “in the cultural and intellectual climate of Illuminism and in the economical circumstances of the first industrial revolution”.
In fact, schools are organised on the model of the production line, like a factory: the bell, separated structures, students specialised in different subjects, classes divided by age. Traditional school appears like a preparation to an assembly line. The winning card to find a place in the world is, instead, the one of “lateral thinking” an expression created by the psychologist Edward De Bono, which indicates a capacity to resolve problems in a creative way and from different perspectives.

Silvano Agosti, director, writer and poet shares the same opinion, and through one of his most successful books, “Letters from Kirghisia” describes an extraordinary country, where everyone seems to be able to manage their own destiny and serenity, and where school is organised in a way so as to value creativity, freedom, self-respect and therefore of the other. A school that resembles incredibly the one wanted and realised by Maria Montessori.

«You went to school and they told you “sit in your place”, and right there you stopped believing that your place could be anywhere»

How does Montessori school work, in short?

The education is founded on the deep respect for children intended as unique beings.

The principle that guides the Montessori’s method is the respect for the natural physical, psychological and social development of the child. The prerequisite of the method is that of putting the child in the condition of choosing what is best for themselves in a certain moment of their growth, not the adult, who only has to guide them and remove the obstacles for their natural development. The educational approach is therefore founded on independence and on the freedom of choice of one’s own educational path inside the codified limits chosen after accurate research.

• The environment is made to measure for child: tables, chairs, door handles, are attractive, easily usable, to encourage their use by the children who are stimulated, not forced, to do everything by themselves. This way the environment is naturally fitted for the child to develop the autonomy and independence.
• The child learns by working with their hands: physical activity and experience first, and abstraction and development of conceptual intelligence after. In the classes there are sensorimotor materials that the child can choose freely: the object, the activity to do and how much time to dedicate them. The materials favour learning through discovery and through “building” knowledge. The choice is made inside a range of options prepared by the teacher.
• The educational activities we prepare, workshops, environments and didactic materials available, allow a development that respects the singularity of each (in Montessori’s classes it is possible to find 36 children doing 36 different activities composed and quietly) and at the same time inclines to respecting the other and being together.
• There is no external evaluation. The materials provide the self-correction of the error. If the game does not work, the child will insist into solving the issue. There is no method of external reinforcing through prizes and punishments. The child will be “awarded” with the satisfaction of having correctly done the assignment. The internal satisfaction will nourish the intrinsic motivation and the natural curiosity of children.
• Classes are mixed age, divided in groups based on the developmental characteristics (0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18): this way natural tendency to socialise, cooperate and learn among peers is favoured. Activities are not dictated by the bell at fixed times, but by long hour blocks of didactic work without interruptions (ideally of three hours).
• Teachers renounces their omnipotence: they “give a light” and goes over, they are the guardian angels who observe and intervene only to show and explain the sensorimotor materials and to remove obstacles; they do not say what is right or wrong, they do not repress. They provide brief, simple and clear explanations without repeating themselves.
• Order and discipline are naturally developed thanks to value given to the environment and pushed by personal motivation and the use of personalised operative tools.

Ultimately, the great value of the method stands, according to me, in the fact that it allows children to trust their own sensations, without forcing them to continuously seek for external approval. This means gifting them with one of the most powerful tools to live in the world in a full and conscious way: internal freedom.

The child who comes to the world needs to know, to understand, to create and to find their own place in the world: they need to develop their own identity, to understand who they are and what they are to do in this life. They have to understand the laws that regulate the world, feeling they are part of it and that they are called to do their job and give their contribution. They have to learn to build a sense to everything that does not have it. They have to be put in the condition to be free, respecting others’ freedom.

The adults, parents, teachers’ job is to encourage all of this, respecting the singularity and uniqueness of each of them. Adults must provide inputs, plant the seeds, and see what takes root and what does not, and therefore, help them to value what makes them different from the others.
Adults have always had desires and expectations on children, which are essential and indisputable, however must not divert their natural inclinations.

What is the role of parents and teachers?

The dictat of the Montessori Method is “Help me do it by myself”.

I would like to propose a serious and in-depth reflection to parents who intend to instruct and educate their children with this method. Inform yourself seriously and in depth about the method by attending conferences and seminars, personally reading Montessori’s books and, above all, carrying out a deep personal reflection: are you ready to accept the lack of pre-established and different goals for everyone? Do you know how to really encourage the autonomy and independence of your children? In my study, I observe the difficulty of adults in giving up their own power and a tendency to see the child as a God to be venerated, loved and protected at all costs, and to whom they are lovable. I observe the tendency of parents and teachers to measure their own value based on what they manage to obtain from their children or their students. Similarly, failure to achieve objectives established from above are experienced as a personal failure, while children have their own times and ways, and have much more to teach us than we can give them.

The child, the human puppy, is characterized by premature birth, that is, of all animal species, it is the one that needs to be guided by adults for the longest time: this fact, from a biological point of view, is a disadvantage, perhaps not it is from the evolutionary side. Children are in the world to remind us of the value of creativity, imagination and simplicity. A happy child is able to freely express all of this. On the contrary, an unhappy child who has a problem tells us something about himself, but also something about the world of adults.

Whatever school you decide to have your child attend, the only valid guiding principle to follow in education is to follow love:

“There are different types of love. There is a selfish, petty, greedy thing that uses love to give itself importance. This is the ugliest and weakest kind of love. The other, on the other hand, is a profusion of all the good things you have inside you – of consideration and respect – not only respect for good manners, but the greatest respect, which is the recognition of the other person in their uniqueness and value .” Op. Cit. Letters, John Steinbeck – writer (1902 – 1968) Nobel Prize winner for literature.
Today in society, in the world of work, flexibility and creativity are needed and our school and educational model does not respond to this need.

IN RESPONSE TO A USER, DOCTOR FERRETTI WRITES:

I have described the Montessori method, inevitably, in a concise way. I assure you that children learn to read, write and arithmetic.

In Italy there are many Montessori nursery schools, some primary schools and very few secondary schools.

In Perugia the entire school cycle is active, including high schools.

If it happens, go and listen to some conferences by Prof Luciano Mazzetti who directs the International Montessori Center in Perugia. He will be enchanted and will understand much better what I meant to say in this article.