Patience, Planes & Preparation (Mr. D)

I’d love to take a moment (or several!) to share some of the ideas I’ve been getting to more deeply explore through my class, and through my subsequent reflections. Many of you have asked how it’s going and I hope I can share bits of this journey with you. Because, for me, I think the best way to grow our understanding in anything, is to try and teach it. And so, I'll try...

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For starters, I’ve been thinking about the Montessori philosophies in general. Just like any good philosophy, the ideas within Montessori are relatively "simple" to grasp, but also incredibly nuanced in how we might apply them. We can all quite quickly grasp the ideas and feel an almost instant connection to them (which is why we’re all here!), and yet we can spend our entire careers or parenting journeys finding deeper understanding within those ideas and finding new ways to apply them to greater effect. The core ideas can be “simple,” but the exploration into, and discovery of how to apply them is no doubt an endless pursuit.

As an example, I think one of the main ideas within Montessori is to help children develop independence in all ways, over time, and help them grow that independence in developmentally appropriate stages (planes).

From this, I think of the general philosophy there as being to “not do for the child that which they can do for themselves.” It is our job to help them do it themselves. I think this idea, this philosophy or principle, is fairly simple and straight forward to take in. I think we can all grasp it immediately and even feel a strong connection to it. We can think, “Yes! Definitely.” But, the how is another story. The applications are subtle, nuanced, and often unique (“follow the child” being another “simple” philosophy with lots of nuance)! And, that’s where the challenge comes in for us adults, but it’s also where the fun is too!

And there are two main focuses that are at the front of my mind right now to help us take the philosophies and apply them.

Planes of Development

Continuing on the idea of helping our students develop independence, we might first ask ourselves, what plane of development is this child in? And what kind of independence are they developing or needing?

For the first plane of development (0-6), in my course they used the term “functional independence” as the goal for these children. The child is saying, “help me do it myself.”

One aspect of functional independence is the independence of body or movement. Helping our youngest students develop their ability to control their bodies in big movements and small movements. From walking, climbing, balancing and jumping, to cutting a shape with scissors, gripping a pencil, to threading a needle. By developing this control, think of all the things they can do themselves now!

So, if a child is in this first plane of development, we might put more emphasis on helping them dress themselves, tie their own shoes, carry their belongings, pour a glass of juice, balance on a beam, climb a rope, run and skip, read, write and color, and so on. All to help them be "functionally independent."

This doesn’t mean we’re ignoring other forms of independence, but the goal is to set these children up for the next plane where they are ready to grow and explore their “intellectual indepence.”

The Prepared Adult

The other important focus on my mind is all about us—the adults. It’s about preparing ourselves to be able to truly see the children. To find the space within so that we can give them our focus and attention, and see them for who they are in the deepest sense. And I love how this was presented to us in my class. Preparing ourselves in this way was shared as a gift… to us.  It’s a gift because I think this state of being changes us and this perspective will then undoubtably extend to better seeing each other.

And yet, to do all of this requires something precious and something even more challenging to give and spend—our time.

All of these ideas, and putting them into practice takes time. Time to explore and think about what to do, time to practice and do them. And the biggest challenge is that we live in a very fast-paced world and the goal seems to be to make things faster. Get more done, do it in less time, but still spend the same amount of time in total so we can accomplish more still. Phew! It’s one of the reasons mindfulness is so important. Because to slow down, to assess how we’re spending our time, and what it says about our values and what’s important to us… is important. To prepare ourselves, we must be willing to slow down. Slow down our minds, and maybe even slow down our lives.

Let me share an example of slowness from this week…

Earlier in the week I was with Ms. Jennifer at drop-off and a student was telling us a story. And, like many stories shared from our Primary friends, it was a looong story ; ).

I was conscious to be slow and to allow the story to unfold, and clearly Ms. Jennifer had the same mindset as we both just listened. It requires patience to not interrupt, to not fill the story in for them, to not hurry it along as we can often see where it’s heading. Having the slowness within ourselves to just listen, and to allow the child to form their thoughts, collect them, organize them, is giving the child the space to grow their mind. Our work as the adults in this moment is to give them time to work it out and put their thoughts in order. And in the end we also get to better know and see this child.

And, of course we may not always have the time to do this. But, we can certainly do our best to pause when we can, and perhaps even reflect on how to make more space in our lives for slowness. All so we may be prepared within ourselves to see these kids, and ultimately to better see each other.

The ideas and philosophies may be “simple” to take in, and how we apply them may be nuanced, subtle, deliberate and purposeful, but most importantly… I think they’re worth our time to explore.

Thank you for reading!

Mr. D

P.S. join in for Books & Banter next week so we can explore together!