Talking with your child in the first three years makes a big difference to your child

Two researchers, Todd Risley and Betty Hart, observed and recorded the physical and verbal interactions between parents and children in their homes for the first two and half years of a child's lives. They found something very interesting.

They found, that, on average, parents speak 1500 words per hour to their infant children. But there is a significant difference between educated and uneducated parents. They discovered that college educated 'talkative' parents speak about 2100 words per hour while parents in 'welfare families' speak about 600 words per hour. What impact does this difference have on the children's cognitive capacity?

They administered a Standard-Binet IQ test to these children at age 3. They found a powerful correlation coefficient of 0.6 between the size of the number of words the child had heard and the size of the vocabulary. But the bigger surprise is this:when they measured the correlation coefficient of parent's 'extra talk' , by eliminating the business talk between parent and child, they discovered that it increased to a staggeringly high figure of 0.78.  High correlation coefficient between x and y means that when x happens y also happens. When correlation coefficient is 1, y will definitely happen if x happens. This means, that increase in word size of parent talk has a 78% chance of increasing the vocabulary of the child. In statistical terms, this correlation is very high.

The researchers continued to measure the vocabulary as the children grew older. At age 9, the correlation coefficient was still at 0.77. In other words, breadth of child's vocabulary and reading comprehension remained high even till the age of 9. This means that children who have been talked more by their parents have an incalculable cognitive advantage compared to other children. When these students confront and succeed at the initial academic challenges they encounter in primary school, their sense of self-confidence can blossom. On the other hand, other students, because of this small cognitive disadvantage may find academic work intimidating and unexciting, robbing them of the self confidence. Do you understand how 'small' advantages ( or disadvantages) at a young age can create a big big difference at an older age?

What is surprising is that level of income, ethnicity and even parent's education does not have as much 'explanatory power' ( high correlation coefficient) in determining the level of cognitive capacity as much as this 'extra talk' has. In other words, even if you are poor,  it will still help your child improve his cognitive capacity, if you manage to talk to your child as much as 2000 words per hour.

What 'extra talk' did the researchers found to be more effective? The talk that matters to building the cognitive capacity of child is not the 'business talk', but the 'extra talk'. Researchers found that business talk such as 'Finish your food' ' Do this' or 'Get in the car' etc does not impact the cognitive capacity as much because they seem to be simple, direct and lack nuances. The talk that a child listens when he is put infront of television also does not help the child.

On the other hand, the 'extra talk' that impacts the cognitive capacity is the talk which happens when parents engage with their infants and speak in a fully adult, sophisticated and chatty language ( not bubbly language). This talk happens when the infants are listening, comprehending and fully responding to the comments. It is the talk that is about 'what if', 'do you remember', 'shouldn't you', and so on. They invite infants to think deeply about what is happening around him. This 'extra talk' happens when the parents think aloud of what they are doing or planning.

Researchers have discovered various 'causes' for the above 'correlation'.One of the important cause seem to be Auditory processing skill, that children must be acquiring in these first three years of listening to 'extra talk' with the parents.                                                                     

What happens when parents use too much of rewards and punishment?

I met Sanjeevani, a mother of four year old daughter Vidya, yesterday. I am describing the event as it happened with me.

When i met Sanjeevani,, Vidya was eating a biscuit. So when Sanjeevani saw me talking to Vidya, she asked Vidya to give me a biscuit. Vidya refused. Sanjeevani continued to insist. " Why don't you give Uncle a biscuit". When Vidya did not budge, she told her that " I will give you one chocolate if you give Uncle a biscuit'. Vidya did not move. So she changed the tactic " Uncle gave you a chocolate yesterday. If you do not give him now, I will not give you anything again?'. Vidya continued to resist. Ultimately, she went inside, kept the box of biscuits inside the house and returned to talk to me. 

Are Sanjeevani's method of teaching behaviour right or wrong? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Rewards and punishments are called as external motivators that are used to modify behaviour of children. They are also referred as Carrot and Stick method of motivating. For instance, Sanjeevani first tried using 'reward' when she told Vidya that 'she will give one chocolate if she gives Uncle the biscuit'. When it did not work, she used a veiled punishment ," I will not give you anything if you do not give him the biscuit". Both carrot and stick motivators did not help Sanjeevani alter Vidya's behaviour. But it could have worked also.

Whether they work or not, there are many disadvantages in using external motivators. One, the more you use them, the more addictive they are. For instance, next time Vidya will ask for chocolate if she has to do something again. Morever, because of addiction, Sanjeevani also has to increase the amount of reward. She may have to offer 'two chocolates' if the expected behaviour is difficult to undertake. But overuse of external motivators leads to one big and disastrous consequence: locus of child's control shifts from 'inside' to 'outside'.

As parents and elders keep on using more and more carrot and stick, the child starts depending more and more on outside control. Due to this dependence, the child's mechanism of internal controlling of behaviour never develops. Child never learns to find  'when to behave how and why' on his own. Because the child has never answered the question of 'why' himself, the child is 'rudderless'. The child's never develops his internal motivation. He never becomes autonomous or self-driven. When he grows old, he is confused when he has to chose the discipline after 10th class. Unable to stand up to his friends, he never chooses his values. He becomes a child who has no internal direction, but waits for others to direct him. He choses to do Engineering not because he wants it, but because most of the friends have chosen it.

The more earlier parents try to teach child to shift to internal motivation, the easier it is for him to understand the whys of making those choices and then sticking to those choices. In Montessori, when a child enters Montessori at the age of 3, he is unable to chose his 'activity' and 'place to work'. But in montessori school, he has to chose both. He is given the practice of developing his 'internal drive' at an early age.

Why do parents use external motivators to influence the child's behaviour more often? I can think of four reasons. One, they are simple to use. Parents use them automatically and unconsciously. Two, they are more acceptable way of influencing behaviour in the family. Everyone, including teachers, agree with this method of influencing behaviour. Three, parents do not know the ill-effects of using external motivators. And four, parents do not know how to shift their child from external motivation to internal motivation.

For instance, if Sanjeevani has to help Vidya to develop her internal motivation what should she do? She should ask Vidya and discover Vidya's reason of why she does not want to share the biscuit with Uncle? Is it because she likes biscuit too much? or is it because she is too hungry? Or is it because she is angry with Uncle for some past event? Or is it because she wants to give the biscuit to her friend who will come later? I always get surprised to hear the child's reasons even after hearing so many children.

Ofcourse, if Sanjeevani asks Vidya, Vidya is not going to 'answer' her immediately. Vidya first has to trust her mother to believe that her mother will listen to her. For this to happen, Sanjeevani has to learn to empathise with Vidya first. That is the first step of developing the trust. We shall later see how parents develop empathy. Without empathy, parents often ignore the way child thinks, because they do not 'consider' that the child's reason has merit. Parents therefore have to first realise that their child has a 'uniqe identity' and has her 'views' ( howosoever childish they may be). Only when parents respect the child's views, the child starts telling their 'thoughts' to parents. And only after their thoughts are understood by parents, parents can slowly influence them and help their child become an 'independent child'.

In other words, the child's shift to developing his internal motivation is a long and difficult process for parents ( not for child). Very few parents have the patience and energy to 'change' themselves to help their child. Instead, they are more comfortable in doing what other parents are doing. But when parents do decide to  go through the difficult process of helping their child, they are rewarded with a biggest prize of their life: of playing a big part in developing an independent child who can control his own destiny. 

Do you really want to help your child? 

Use Technology for Individualised learning

Here is a teacher, Ananth Pai, who is practicing individualised learning in class 3. Instead of all the students being taught the same lesson, each student learns his 'own' matter at his own pace. This is a very good example of Montessori method which is also based on individualised learning.

But what is important to observe in this video, is the use of technology in promoting individualised learning. Technology, when it is used to help teachers, is not known to help teachers. If you visit any private school, you will find these white boards + projectors+ e-learning content that are practically lying unused. Schools feel that it is unused because teachers are not adept at using technology. But the rot is much deeper. Technology has remained unused, because the  vendors have merely tried to 'automate' the current process of teaching. And therefore, you will find that these schools hardly use technology for educating students.

Ananth Pai has used technology differently. Instead of helping teachers teach differently, he has used technology to help student learn differently. This simple shift from teacher-centric method to student-centric method of learning can produce a big difference in learning, as Ananth Pai has demonstrated. He has used technology to 'customise learning' for every student.

He has used technology to let children learn at their own pace and style. For instance he uses Ninetedo's Maths buster game to help the child learn Maths. Or Brain Age game for helping to learn words  One site is being used to help students learn about the rights. Another site is being used to help children listen to spoken English.

If you are a technology sophisticated person, here is a chance for you to use technology to customise learning for your child.If you visit this blog, you will find many examples of brilliant use of technology that can enable child to learn at its own pace. 

Montessori Method of Internal discipline

In a traditional classroom, the child is supposed to be disciplined when he is obedient, compliant, obeys all the instructions, sits at one place without murmur and answers all the questions correctly. This is called external discipline.

In a Montessori classroom, the child is supposed to be disciplined when he chooses his own work, follows his own instincts, understands the intentions of the instructions, sits and finishes his work from start to end and asks intelligent questions to others. This is achieved through internal discipline.

External discipline can be achieved through formal authority, punishments, rewards and prizes. Internal discipline can be achieved only through careful preparation of conditions, observation and patience of the teacher ( called as adult in Montessori method.) and the policy of giving freedom with constraints.

Montessorian child, because he is internally disciplined, can be easily spotted in a group by his behavior. He is more assured of himself, makes choices even when they are difficult, can sit patiently if required, or even explore situations even in a constrained place if needed.

How does this child acquire internal discipline in a Montessori school ( also called as Montessori House of Children or MHOC) ? Here are three critical practices followed in a MHOC:

 a. Help the child to choose his own activity

 A child, attracted equally by different objects and activities, follows everything and passes from one thing to another without stopping. Only with internal discipline, a child can choose and stop at something. With external discipline, the child always requires someone’s instructions or orders. Even when he is told to do something, the child is unable to remain with that activity for a reasonable time. This is one of the most important distinctions between the external and internal discipline. The child who does not yet obey an internal guide is not the free child. He is still the slave of superficial sensations.

Because of this importance of free choice, in a Montessori School, a child is given freedom to choose his activity. He can also do ‘nothing’ and observe. He can remain with one activity as long as he wishes. Or he can work with 3/ 4 activities in a short time. In a Montessori school, this freedom to child is also provided with certain constraints. For instance, a child, if not doing anything, cannot disturb another child. A child, when he finishes one activity, has to keep the activity box back at its respective place. In a Montessori School, there is place to ‘sleep’ also. This freedom with constraints enables a child in Montessori to develop internal discipline, instead of getting used to external orders and instructions.

b Help the child to fine tune his motor movements 

 The small child, clumsy in his movements, also finds it difficult to maintain discipline, as his actions are disorderly. With uncontrolled body movements, the child tends to spill work, inadvertently trips while walking, hurts others unknowingly because of clumsy hands. Montessori philosophy therefore presumes that a ‘physically independent’ child will be able to practice discipline better than a child who is physically clumsy and disorderly.

In a MHOC therefore, the child is first enabled to get control of his movements through various activities. Special emphasis is laid in designing activities that help both gross motor movements ( like walking, getting up with a jug in hand, carrying stools from the original place to the place of work, laying mat for work and walking on a curved line) as well as fine motor movements ( such as pouring water in a cup, threading needle, opening locks).

 c. Help the child avoid fantasy 

By its nature, a child’s mind wanders constantly. Because of this, child’s attention keeps on fleeting from one thought to another. Such a child is unable to focus on anything for any time and therefore displays indisciplined behavior. Morever, if a child is encouraged to go into fantasy, the child finds it even more difficult to discipline his attention. In a fantasy, the child instead of playing with stones, talks with stones. Due to fantasy, a child is unable to stay in the ‘real world’ activities, and constantly seeks refuge in fantasy. Instead of enjoying ice-cream, he is fantasizing eating tons of icecream like a superman. In such a fantasy, there is no control of error, because everything is possible in fantasy. The mind, which divorces itself from reality, is unable to focus on anything real.

Montessorian method, on the one hand, seeks to attract the attention of the child to something real. By focusing the child’s attention on daily activities and doing them again and again, the child learns to focus on real actions. In a MHC class, the children are in direct touch with reality; their occupations have a practical aim, such as dusting a table, removing a stain; going to the cupboard, taking a piece of the material and using  it correctly. On the other hand, a child in Montessori is told stories of real characters and real world. For instance, in a Montessori, the child is not told of the stories where animals talk to each other, or when men fly, or where impossible incidents can happen. This enables the child to restrict his wandering mind to the real-life activities.

Conclusion 

How can you distinguish between External discipline and Internal discipline? It is infact quite easy. Visitors to Montessori schools will observe the silence of the school that has been developed not by order and authority, but through work and concentration of the children who are busy in finishing their work. The entire school of 30 children works in silence and order.

A child in Montessori, with practice, acquires internal discipline and is free to choose his own work. He feels so secure, that he will no longer seek the approval of authority after completing his activity. Due to internal discipline, the child also tends to listen to elders fully and follows the instructions with intent, instead of just following the instructions of others by rote. A child with internal discipline also helps other child. For instance, if something spills in a Montessori school, you will often observe children helping each other to collect the spilled material.

What would you like your child to have ? Internal discipline or External discipline?

What should your child achieve at the end of first year in a Montessori pre-school?

When a child is admitted to a Montessori House of children ( called as pre-school) at the age of 3, a parent has a standard question " What is your syllabus for the first year?". Montessori does not have a year-wise syllabus. As montessori activities are arranged for a age group of 3-6, and not for a single age group of 3, a Montessorian will tell you that 'the child's learning in the first year depends on his interest and effort'. In a Montessori,  child can set her own pace of learning. But parents, instead of feeling satisfied, get even more worried with this answer because they do not know how to evaluate their child's progress.

So here is an attempt to clarify their doubts:

1. Fine tune Gross motor movement ( meant to make child independent): Gross motor movements are the movements of legs, hands and body. This involves helping the child to walk gracefully, balance her body with chowki and material in her hand, and helping the child to take charge of herself.

In a Montessori, every time a child picks the material and mat to work from its scheduled place to the work-place for every activity, it refines his gross motor movement. In a Montessori, there is an activity called 'Walking on the line' that helps the child to get control over her entire body. In a Montessori which has an outer environment, where slide and other gardening activities can be done, this helps the child to further develop his gross motor movement.

In Montessori, expect your child to develop his gross motor movement. But, if the Montessori house does not have external environment, you should help your child in developing Gross motor movements by taking him to park, letting him play different games, do difficult activities like climbing long ladders under close supervision.

2. Refine the pincer movement ( to aid intellectual development ) This is the ability to use fingers with thumb. Human beings is the only species that possesses the pincer grasp of thumb and forefinger. If you want to spot a child who is handicapped ( mentally or physically), watch his pincer movements ! Pincer movement learning is critical because it guides a child's intellectual development as he works with objects to feel their weight and dimensions, gains independence by taking care of himself (like buttoning his shirt), and above all, use it for 'writing' later.

Montessori has numerous activities to aid pincer movement such as initial preparatory activities like threading a bead,  countless EPL activities like pouring water in a glass, sewing a button or sensorial activities like cylinder block and drawing insets. By the end of the first year, expect your child to use his pincer movement in a very very refined manner.

3. Use child's coordinated movement to help him develop his Will: A child is driven by impulses and whims of movement. He therefore requires guidance in choosing a task and focusing on it to complete it without getting distracted. This is development of Will. Traditional school prefers to 'break the Will' to force the child to comply.

Montessori, on the other hand, enables this development of Will in various ways. By giving child the freedom to choose his work, the child learns to decide what to do every moment of the day. He even learns to choose his lunch time. As each activity in a Montessori has a complete cycle (pick the material from the scheduled place, arrange it on his mat, complete the work, and keep it back at the scheduled place), it enables the child to focus on the work for a long time span and 'accomplish' something 'concrete' at the end such as pouring water. As the work designed in Montessori is self-corrective, the child can correct his own mistakes. Be it EPL activities or sensorial activities, by completing the activity every time from start to finish, the child in a Montessori develops his Will bit-by-bit.

By the end of first year, a child can chose his work and 'complete' it by focusing on it for a time as long as 30 minutes. This attention-span is a very important indicator of child's progress, because it is this ability that enables the child to accomplish the long-duration challenging activities of language and arithmetic later.

A child, when he is admitted to Montessori, could either be too submissive or too aggressive/excited. In such situations, Montessori house may need additional support from the parents to develop his Will. Please provide more time to such child to develop her Will, instead of forcing the child to bypass the process.

4. Utilise the child's senses to guide child to develop concepts

A child does not have a reasoning mind to understand concepts like 'small', 'large' or wide' until she is 5. A child therefore understands a concept only by using senses to explore concrete objects.

In Montessori, sensorial activities are a special class of activities that help the child use the senses to understand concepts. For instance, the cylinder block activity helps the child to understand the concept of 'short' and 'long' through seeing short and long cylinders. Colour tablets help the child to understand the concept of primary and tertiary colours, while touch tablets are used to understand the concept of 'rough' and 'smooth'.

By the end of the first year, the child should understand the physical properties of material such as long, short, small and large. He can easily distinguish and name colours of different shades, touch of different types, noise and smell of different intensities.

5. Develop interest in English language by enriching his vocabulary

In Montessori, the child is introduced to different names of words through picture cards. Picture cards are organised in different categories such as wild animals, pet animals, sea animals, kitchen items, living room items, bathroom items and so on. Child is also introduced to shapes in Geometry, types of leaves in Botany and so on. The emphasis is on getting the sounds of the word in exact manner. Spellings of words and alphabets are not introduced at this stage. In the Montessori, the child is also encouraged to speak his experiences in English. He is also introduced to realistic stories and rhymes.

When the child learns to name a object in his environment, he feels he is control of the environment. This naming of objects not only help the child in gaining better understanding of the environment, but  increases his vocabulary of English words which in turn enables him to 'understand the language in the second year'.

At 18 months, the child has a vocabulary of about 50 words. By the time the child enters the Montessori, she may have a vocabulary of about 300-400 words. By the end of the first year, the child would have developed a huge vocabulary of words. It is estimated that a child learns about 100 new words every month in the first year of Montessori. More importantly, because the child learns the words in a context, he can also re-use those words.

In Montessori, as the child is taught English phonetically in the second year, please do not expect your child in Montessori to know the alphabets or the spelling of the words by the end of first year. By the way, best way to learn any other language like English is to learn it phonetically, i.e. by knowing the sounds of the words, rather than by knowing the alphabets. That is how you have learnt your mother tongue by the age of 3/5. 

We never went to Montessori. Why should our children go?

I met Himanshu, a software engineer of 35, in one of the seminars of 'Trends in World Education'. He challenged me by asking one very pertinent question "We never went to Montessori pre-school, why do our children need to go to Montessori'.

One liner answer to this question can be given in our former president APJ  Kalam's words 'It takes a village to develop a child'. And because village today is unavailable to our children like it was for our fathers, we need school to compensate for it. Let me explain.

In earlier days, a school was meant to 'learn' subjects of language, science or mathematics while the social environment of 'the village' was meant to 'develop' us. The social environment provided by the town or the village (we lived) provided us an ideal environment to 'develop', while the schools provided the 'learning' environment to learn. Both learning and development environments complemented each other to develop us into a complete human being. Our needs of development & learning were met by different agencies: society and school. Today the balance between learning and development has become skewed due to the social changes around us.

In earlier days social environment provided us with all the opportunities to develop. If we lived in Joint family, we had alternate adult role models to look upto, cousin brothers and sisters to interact. Even when we had no joint families, the towns in which we lived were not 'sanitised'. We became part of the society through the live experience of engaging in religious festivals, marriages, and multitude of ceremonies that happened every fortnight. We engaged with the real-world shopkeepers, electricians, plumbers and cobblers who 'performed' different work than our fathers. We engaged in charity when our parents cooked for maids and students who depended on the urban relatives to further their education. We engaged in arts when singers sang Bhajans in the temple and dancers entertained us in Ganpati, Durga or Christmas. And , because we had no TV to tie our attention, we had enough time to engage our hands with real materials like mud, water and other artifacts. In other words, our social environment provided us all the opportunities to develop us.

Today schools have improved their learning environment ( at least in many private schools), but the 'social environment' has got worsened. Families have become nuclear; due to which our parents are our only 'role models' to relate with the outside world. As most of the parents restrict to single-child family due to economic reasons, the siblings also do not exist to increase the diversity in our social interactions. The society we live also has become 'walmartised' where human relations have become transactional; we are not even aware that a shopkeeper's son also comes to our school. Reduction in religious festivals and social gatherings have further reduced the interaction with people. TV has further encouraged passive engagement creating an illusion of 'knowing without engaging'. Internet has fuelled this passive engagement by confusing data with information. In short, social  environment has worsened: it has sharply reduced diversity of options available for us to develop ourselves.

Because of these adverse changes in the social environment, we need something extra from the today's schools. Today we need schools to provide development environment to our children that the social environment is unable to offer. It has almost become imperative that we need development centric schools in contrast to learning-centric schools.

Development-centric schools like Montessori cannot substitute the full variety of social environment, but it can, for instance, simulate appropriate 'social atmosphere' to present difficult challenges for a child. A right school can provide ample chances to face conflicts with others, confront diverse views from ours, and show a sample window of social and economic realities around us. This will help our children develop several necessary qualities like patience, appreciate the distinction between effort and results, increased attention-span to concentrate on a desired activity and hone judgement to trust the right friends.

When I told this to Himanshu, he agreed with the basic proposition; but he asked me a very interesting question " If a small village ( near Bangalore) provides a better development environment than Bangalore, why does a village school child finds it difficult to compete with urban school children of Bangalore".

To compete with urban child, village schools must provide better learning environments. Development alone is not enough to make us better human beings; learning is equally important. What are the requisites of a good learning environment? How does one judge that? Old style of learning environment is not helping them; they need to do something different and better. Is it a matter of getting good teachers? or getting computer technology?

We shall discuss about the 'nature of learning environment' in our next blog.

EPL - the innovation of Montessori

EPL -Exercises of Practical life - of a Montessori House of children ( also called as pre-school) is the best example of the benefits of education, when activities in a school are 'embedded' in the daily life of a child. 

EPL are daily activities of a child which include three distinct nature of activities: a> taking care of environment (such as brooming, gardening, washing) b> taking care of one self (such as fastening buttons of a shirt, pouring water in the glass, tying shoe lace, washing one's hands, walking on a straight line, carrying objects of different sizes) and c> social behaviour (like greeting, how to interrupt others, how to yawn, cough or sneeze, how to offer water/tea to others). Because EPL activities are embedded in a culture in which the child lives, EPL activities vary according to the location of the school. EPL activities in Netherland Montessori pre-school will be different than in Indian or a British school.

Many parents ask me 'why EPL is important for a child of 3 year of age'. One line answer to that question is that the direct aim of the EPL exercises is to help the child acquire 'independence' in true sense. Unless a child learns to 'pour water without spilling', how can he be confident of 'giving water to his parents'? Until the child manages to walk on the line, she keeps on 'bumping' against objects in the house. However, despite knowing the importance of these activities to the 'psyche' of a child, no educational method has taken the effort to 'help' the child to 'master' the coordination of his movements.  

Montessori method is the only method where every activity of EPL ( 100-150 activities are roughly available in a Montessori pre-school) has been analysed in details so that every moment of an activity ( such as pouring water) is 'shown' to the child, who can therefore 'repeat' it in the same sequence. When 'coordination of movements' is not helped, the child performs an activity and keeps on repeating it without success. When we see such a child, we wrongly call such a child 'hyperactive'! If the child is unable to 'master his coordination' for a long period of time, it may also lead the child into fantasy or day-dreaming or unreal imagination, a deviation.

Although the direct aim of EPL is to help the child become 'independent', it is the indirect aim that is more important in the development of child. When the child can successfully execute his desire(the Will)of 'pouring water in the glass' by coordinating his movements and intelligence, he is integrating his personality ( Will, movement of muscle, and intelligence) with every 'attempt'. For better understanding of this integration, read this.

EPL exercises are therefore not simple muscular gymnastics like a game. A game is just an adhoc activity, that if designed properly may help the child coordinate his movement and intelligence at the most. But the game for less than 5 year is rarely designed to help the child integrate his  'Will'. You will therefore observe, that a child rarely engages in a game for more than 2/3 days. No sooner she has played it, she loses interest in the game. When Dr Montessori tried to introduce 'toys' to the child in her school, she discovered that the children rarely touched those toys. 

If you observe a child of less than 5 year old in a public place like Airport, Railway train or bus, who eats without spilling anything, or who uses 'tissue paper' to clean his hands, and who seems 'composed and graceful', please ask his parents the name of the school he is in? In 2 out of 3 cases, you will find that the child has been in a Montessori pre-school. You have to remember that in pre-school education ( some even say that in secondary and primary education), development is more important than learning. 

Unique contribution of Montessori

Child development

In his early years, child primarily uses sense of ‘sight’ to develop.  For instance, before a child repeats a movement, he ‘observes’ it closely by his ‘eyes’. Later, the child engages in simple activities like picking a toy, or using a phone that coordinate his hand and senses. This natural desire of coordinating is so powerful in a child, that he performs the activity repeatedly without tiring. At this stage, the child is performing an activity for the sake of performing, not to achieve any end (i.e without any contribution of will).  

Then while practicing to walk, another important activity of a child, child learns to coordinate his legs(body) with his senses. More than anything else, ability to walk gives the child independence to move to where he wants. This enables the child to start using his Will, the ability to choose do something visavis any other thing.

Initially, a child learns to grasp something unintentionally, but as he masters the coordination of his fingers and ‘sight’, he starts grasping objects intentionally. This is the use of his Will. His ‘Will’ now can direct his hands to move objects from one place to another. 


Combined with his independence of walking, the child can now achieve numerous small goals ( that his Will has chosen) by performing more complex activities. For instance, even when the child ‘wills’ to repeat a heard word, she has to coordinate her body with her senses. For instance, learning to say a word ‘cat’ requires active synchronization of ‘hearing’ the word, ‘seeing’ the lips of the person uttering the word (two senses) and using the vocal muscle chord (one of her muscles in the body) to utter the word.

Montessori's approach of child development

Montessori firstly promotes this coordination of body and senses by making the child do every activity meticulously and sequentially. Every activity is 'presented' to a child individually ( not in a group) so that he watches the adult ( who is the teacher) perform the activity closely. The child therefore learns to use his body and senses in a methodical fashion, be it an activity such as putting a cylinder block in the different holes by matching them, or arranging the pink tower vertically, or aligning the long rods. 

More importantly, 'Will' is actively developed in Montessori pre-school by pushing back all the decisions/choices to the child. For instance, the child decides which 'work' is she going to do on the day or 'where' is she going to sit to work. She can repeat a work as many times as she wishes, because no one in the Montessori asks her to stop. She decides the time of going to eat; there is no bell in Montessori.

When a child choses to perform an activity of cylinder block in Montessori, he is actively synchronising his Will ( desire to perform that work) with the coordination of body ( hands) and senses ( sight). When the child, for instance, makes a mistake in matching cylinder blocks with their holes, he 'realises' his mistake. When he uses this 'realisation' to avoid that mistake again, he is using  Intelligence. Montessori facilitates the development of intelligence by ensuring that the child does the work by herself with her own hands individually and by designing the Montessori material in a self-corrective manner. ( Technically it is called as designing the control of error within the material ) Because of this design, the child knows that she has made the mistake in the activity without anyone telling her. Child therefore corrects the mistake herself. The entire event of 'mistake detection and correction' is driven by the child, not by the adult in Montessori. This design enables the child to develop her intelligence with every repetition of activity. 


As a Montessori child learns to repeat the activities day after day by his own Will, the child learns to synchronise his Will with body, senses and intelligence.Because of this synchronisation, the child develops her own ability to decide 'what to do' and then carry out the decision through her own actions.( by using body and senses together). 

It is this active synchronisation of Will with body, senses and intelligence, that develops the child personality, so to say. And because this synchronisation is established at a young age before 6, it creates a solid foundation of personality of the child which stands good for him for the rest of his life. This is what separates Montessori pre-school from any other pre-school !  This is why  Montessori method is called development-centric.