The Montessori Guide

The Montessori guide (often called a directress or director…or even teacher) is the most essential part of the environment, being the dynamic link between the child and the environment. She has a two-fold task: that is, responsibility to the children and to the environment. 

Montessori believes that the adult is present to love, guide and serve children. She talks about her method as being an ‘aid to life’. The role of the teacher in this process is both passive and dynamic. It is active when you put the child in touch with the environment, for example, through a presentation, but as soon as interest is established you should fade into the background and assume a more passive role. The child does not ‘need’ you! Children also learn from each other so it is not necessary to be teaching directly all the time. It is essential to allow children to work on their own and not to interfere if they are concentrating. The moment concentration is broken it is likely that work will go back on to the shelf. 

The Montessori teacher bears the ultimate responsibility for the environment – not the teaching assistant or the children. The environment must be made clean and ready each evening. This is of vital importance – we never know when we may be delayed – especially in this city – the child in the period of the absorbent mind will soon pick up if we do not care and will react in similar vein. Make sure that you maintain it as a ‘children’s house’ – adult belongings should be tucked away – placed on a high shelf or in the staff room. Don’t clutter with adult things…Ensure that the children feel they may have access to everything – because it belongs to them. 

The Prepared Environment is set up so as to meet the overall developmental needs of the children and as such the directress must be aware of  what is necessary for the particular children in her care. It doesn’t have to be and indeed should not be the same as the Montessori centre down the road. Fit it to the particular children in that specific community.

You have responsibility for order in the environment. If anything is in disrepair, fix it or remove it from the shelf until such time as it can be replaced. If  books or materials are dirty, torn, disorderly, the children will lose their sensitivity for order and see no reason to maintain them. If the Sensitive Periods and tendencies are kept in mind the children will experience success and will go on to higher levels of independent functioning. (Recall…order, language, movement, small detail, sensorial refinement – tendencies to exploration, adaptation, orientation, creativity, self perfection, ….)

The Directress is responsible for discipline and freedom in the room. It is the interaction of freedom and discipline which allows children to develop their own self control and self discipline. We often talk about freedom within limits – the child gradually assumes control of their own will – to become fully self disciplined. Montessori sees the young child as bouncing back and forth like a ball – not yet in control – but if we can connect them to some activity that is of interest to them – then the capacity for free choice is strengthened and they become grounded/centred…but it is through repetition ..not by offering a vast supermarket of choices. At the beginning less is better. The child who is able to choose independently and is able to follow through and concentrate on an activity is beginning to set their own limits and will need less and less external direction. Let children fully explore all the options within the materials you have provided – don’t keep adding more options – only when they appear to have exhausted their exploration and you can see that they need a fresh point of interest …then introduce new material or experiences. 

Children need to be allowed to choose their own work (even if at first you provide the choices). Once they get to work they should have the freedom to do so as long as they wish.  

It is the directress who puts knowledge and opportunities into the room. Knowledge is a prime motivator for the will as an intellectual faculty to strengthen and develop through free choice and activity. A further result of choice: as the child builds up the will she needs less and less external direction. The child will be able to set her own limits within the Prepared Environment. 

A control of error is a particular element built in to some of the apparatus that allows a child to get feedback as to whether they have made a correct judgement or not. It is between the child and her piece of work. The child thus builds up her own self discipline and her own Self control. 

Note: In most Montessori classes there is a tradition of  having a senior directress and a junior or assistant teacher. Co-directing is more difficult – but it can be done – especially in current times where the demands on observation and assessment are greater. Responsibility can be divided – but this needs to be sensitively worked out. The adults working in the class need to be in tune with each other and not let their own egos get in the way! Careful recording systems will be required. At the beginning, however, it is of great benefit to work with an experienced teacher. 

The Directress must remain as an enthusiastic learner – If she has a lack in a certain area – eg maths or botany – she must find out sufficient to provide the child with a key to further knowledge.  (Think about this for a  moment – what are the areas that you would like to focus on…what have you uncovered in this course, for example, that you need to look into more?) It is one of the joys of the Montessori class that there is always new information to learn. With the older children – we enter into project work and it is fun to extend your knowledge in anticipation of, or as, or after, the children raise questions. 

The emotional climate in the room is also important. There should be a policy of non-intervention so long as no-one is being hurt or disturbed. Children should be free to do nothing and to relax. However, the directress needs to be intuitive enough to know which children should be allowed to do nothing. If the freedom of other children is disturbed you must intervene quickly and sometimes it may be necessary to recall the class to collective order. (Refer to pp 278-279 of the AM)…all sorts of means may be used at the beginning to interest the children and to involve them in positive activity. In fact Montessori, took great pains to point out that we mustn’t be afraid to intervene – she recalls walking into classrooms that were totally disrupted because the directress was afraid to take control ….but then Montessori talks about the fragility of the first steps to concentration – like a soap bubble – “so fragile, so delicate that a touch can make it vanish again” (p.279)..it is at this point that we must be so careful to give the child space. 

Montessori felt that for the teacher, spiritual preparation must go hand in hand with academic preparation – the latter can be learned but an attitude towards the former must be within you. Montessori training is not just theory, it must be preceded by understanding and reverence for the child; and there must be a willingness to engage in reflection and to revisit one’s own philosophy of education from time to time – “Through reflection we can assess our conclusions, actions and work process itself to further our personal and professional development.”

Montessori said that she was looking for a new kind of teacher, “She must fashion herself, she must learn how to observe, how to be calm, patient and humble, how to restrain her own impulses, and how to carry out her eminently practical tasks with the required delicacy” (Discovery, p.151).

Observation comes with practice which should never stop. We need to learn to observe for signs of sickness and for the physical, sexual and emotional signs of stress. The Directress should never handle children roughly because of the deep reverence you have for the child as a human being. If a child must be removed from a situation do so gently, but firmly. Your tone of voice must never be sarcastic or domineering. 

Montessori says that the directress must act with humility, self-abnegation and patience. If you understand that the subject of your study and work is the emerging human being then all falls into the correct perspective. Take care to continually evaluate yourself – do not dominate. (However, if you make a mistake – and we all have bad days – work out what was the trigger – and try and put in place the means to prevent you making the same mistake again – it may be setting up a sign with your co-teacher that you need some help….or …Don’t beat yourself up about mistakes – just do something about them!). Children will trust you and you must try not to destroy their faith but maintain a positive attitude at all times. There will be children you do not like, especially those with problems (what Montessori called deviations). These are the children who need your love most. They will not respond to your presentations and group lessons until they feel your positive regard and love for them. When you get a response then you may begin to work together. (Note however that once trust is established you need to be detached to a certain extent so that children do not depend on your approval as a motivator.)

The vision of the directress must be both as “precise as a scientist and as spiritual as a mystic”. There must be preparation for both. We must put ourselves in relationship to the truth through observation. The object of our concern is the child who is a spiritual being. We must always return to Montessori’s insights into the child as having both spiritual and physical elements. 

Note that children of our time are different from our own experience of childhood. They need a lot more loving and may need to be held more. They are often over-stimulated and lack auditory discrimination and other sensorial development because of the influence of television. It may therefore be argued that we should introduce children to the environment at a younger age. 

Finally, we should remember that sensitive periods should be our guide to the needs of the child. The environment that we prepare needs to contain the stimuli from which the child will construct him or herself. That brings us back to the original point with regard to the role of the adult as a guide or help to life. One of my lecturers once said that the study of Montessori is the study of all human development…it is open ended because of the dynamic nature of the human being – because there are no known limits to human potentialities – not a static learning system – it is limitless!  Our particular role as teachers is pivotal because the child is the one who inherits the culture that surrounds them – they will form our future society – 

Think about the responsibility that places on us.