As I approach the 20th anniversary of graduating from college, I recall with nostalgia my elation as the door to the rest of my life opened. My formal education had concluded and now it was time for “work.”
I embarked on my career at a global management consulting, outsourcing, and technology company. During the orientation on the company’s work culture, I was struck by one statement in particular. A partner in the firm said to my group of new recruits, “If it’s raining, don’t tell me it’s raining. Find me an umbrella.”
I spent the early months of my working life gasping for competence like a fish out of water. My degree, it would appear, had not prepared me for life in the real world and my education had only just begun.
As I took in the culture of my work environment, I found that it was characterized by five main facets: autonomy; the right resources available in the environment; freedom (within limits) to use these resources; a boss who was more of a guide or facilitator rather than a “helicopter parent;” and healthy collaboration amongst team members.
Having absorbed these components, the urge to run to the boss whenever it was raining vanished. Instead, with the benefit of the high level of trust that was placed on me, I used the resources and the congenial working relationship I had with my co-workers, and found an umbrella. In other words, with little or no regard for who or what caused the problem, I simply sought to solve it.
Years later, I remembered the long-forgotten analogy of finding an umbrella. My daughter, Nina, who is three years old and attends a Montessori school, quipped, “Did you know at school someone polished my pink shoes with black shoe polish? I think-ed to myself, is there something I can do about this? I realized, yes, I can. Because there are sponges available.”
Reflecting on this statement I considered the ways Montessori classrooms are microcosms of thriving work environments in a knowledge economy. Nina had just revealed her propensity to take initiative and problem-solve in a way I’d learned only as an adult. An article that asserted that Montessori Schools Offer Big Lessons for Managers came to mind.
Several of these lessons become evident when you break down Nina’s statement into three questions:
- Why are children aged 3-6 polishing shoes at school? In her observations of children, Dr. Maria Montessori found that given the choice, children choose purposeful activity. Children between the ages of 0-6 in particular (which she termed as being in the first “Plane of Development”) have an innate need to self-construct by performing the same tasks they see adults perform. They want to care for their bodies and belongings, as also the materials found in their home or school environment. Hence, “practical life” activities, such as shoe-polishing, scrubbing, and flower-arranging are lessons presented in a Montessori classroom, and available for the children to choose. Ironically, although these activities are referred to as “work,” the children don’t associate work with drudgery.
- How is it that the child’s first response is not to assign blame but to ponder how she can remedy the situation? Montessori classrooms are multi-age, children staying within the same classroom for a period of 3-4 years. They get to experience the benefits and drawbacks of being the youngest, middle, and oldest children. Built into this is a culture of respect and empathy, introduced through lessons in “grace and courtesy.” The first question a Montessori child will often ask themselves when they encounter a problem is not “Who did this?” but “How can I be helpful?”
- Why are there sponges available in the classroom? Dr. Montessori believed that children in the first plane of development are concrete thinkers. Moreover, they absorb their environment sensorially. In designing materials for children she provided every opportunity possible for them to see, feel, touch, smell, investigate. Above all else, Dr. Montessori found that children want to be independent and need help only to the point of being able to help themselves. Montessori classrooms make available materials, in child sizes, for children to self-manage all the tasks that need doing. Sponges, mops, brooms, even matches, needles and knives are all present in a Montessori environment. A classroom for children between the ages of three and six is called a “Children’s House” because the children manage the classroom, with the adult as the preparer of the environment and connector between child and environment.
A day in the life of a child at a Montessori school is remarkably different from a traditional school setting, as evidenced in the video Today by an Association Montessori Internationale accredited school in Texas. Unfortunately, many parents who desire this educational model for their children do not have access to Montessori schools. But the main tenets of the philosophy can be applied in any setting, even family life.
My husband and I have come to view human development in a whole new light by seeing it through Maria Montessori’s lens, and have applied our learning to our family culture.
Our family operates as a team, where the adults are preparers and facilitators rather than micromanagers. We offer our children choices, and these are conveyed with firm yet loving limits. Their autonomy is respected; their voices are heard. We ensure that our children have access to the appropriate resources. For example, a “wavy-chopper” for our three-year-old daughter to cut parsnips to contribute to dinner; a set of World Book Encyclopedias for our nine-year-old daughter’s research library. From their infancy, our children have seen and experienced how collaboration trumps authoritarianism.
There are times that my children come to me with a problem and it is appropriate that they do so. However, more often than not I notice how they pause and ponder, “Is there something I can do about this?”
Some days they find an umbrella, and other days they do not.
However, it is in the pause that I am assured that the Montessori philosophy is preparation for life on a rainy day.
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This article was inspired by and is a tribute to Charlotte Kroger, Montessori facilitator and friend.