Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was the founder of Montessori education.
Maria Montessori. Photo licensed by Maria Linder (Creative Commons).
The ‘Montessori Method’ of developing people is based on two basic principles:
- Children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by means of interaction with their environments.
- Children, especially under the age of six, have an innate path of psychological development.
There are echoes of Babita Kumar’s Business Soul Interview insights, where she spoke about the role that human soul plays in the heart and energy of Agile transformation. Montessori believed that children who are at liberty to choose and act freely within an environment (prepared according to her model) – would act spontaneously for optimal development.
As Montessori developed her theory and practice, she came to believe that education had a role to play in the development of world peace. She felt that children allowed to develop according to their inner laws of development would give rise to a more peaceful and enduring civilization. From the 1930s to the end of her life, she gave lectures and addresses on the subject saying in 1936:
“Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education.”
She received a total of six nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in a three-year period: 1949, 1950, and 1951. (Wikipedia)
I was interested to speak with CEO at Montessori Centre International and COO of the Montessori Group, Maccs Pescatore, about this human-centred approach to inspiring young people to grow and develop and what we could learn from it about developing soul in the workplace.
Essentially Montessori is all about simple concepts. They include self-reflection, standing back and allowing the individual to develop and grow within a prepared environment so they’re protected but allowed to grow organically within that.
So, there’s a lot around observation; observing the child and creating the environment for the child to develop; guiding the child and reflecting on what you’re seeing and doing that from the point of respect. So even though this person is 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 3 years, 6 years old, that you understand that they are individuals with agency and worth.
It’s also about really listening. Listening with a purpose. Really listening, not hearing, but really listening and then reflecting on what you’ve heard, reflecting on what you’ve seen and heard. It doesn’t sound like anything particularly special but when it’s done from a place inside of yourself, it’s a very natural thing and it’s so powerful. You realize that whatever you’ve been doing for the last 20 or 30 years, you’ve got to keep trying harder. You’ve got to look at it differently to get yourself into that headspace.
So, how does the coach/teacher need to work with people?
There is a skill in doing it. A part of our teaching is all about how you use the tools and the materials in the classroom with the child for the benefit of the child, not for yourself. How do you get them to work with these? We talk about “following the child”. There are periods of concentration for them throughout the day. The child decides which material they’ll work with at that time, that day. They’ll go and select the material off its place on the shelf, they’ll bring that material to their spot which is either a tabletop or it can be a space on the floor – there are specifically sized rugs that become their workspace. Then they will be shown how to use those materials. And the way you show the child is also designed to enable the child to be able to apply themselves. They are encouraged to work with those materials. They then decide how much time to spend with those materials. Whether they complete the exercise or not is up to them because they may get to a point and think they’ve had enough or it’s too difficult at this moment or whatever it might be. They’ll make that judgment and then they will say okay I want to stop at this point. They pack everything away and put it back on the shelf in exactly the right spot and because they’re respectful of the fact that somebody else may want to go and engage with those materials at some point and they should be ready for the next person. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s not about teaching – it’s about the child learning from their environment and their own experimentation, guided almost invisibly and without interruption in that learning.
What does the Montessori approach tell us about how coach/teacher can be most effective in leading with soul – in school as well as business?
It needs to be part of who you are, it must be a natural thing so you’re not just going through the motions of doing things in a pre-described way. You relate to everybody in the world in the same way. That’s what was transformational for me because it wasn’t just a day job and then the teachers go home. It’s who that person is – they will relate to all people in the same way. They will allow me to have my voice. They may disagree with what I say, and they may not like what I say but I’m allowed to have my voice and it’s no less valuable than anybody else’s. And to truly mean it. What we’re saying is that soul is the level in the person that you’re interacting with in the sense that you’re addressing the inner moral compass of this person. You’re trying to activate their intellectual, moral, and emotional compass. You’re trying to activate it, not try to brainwash someone: i.e. ‘this is what the school thinks you should do’ and ‘it’s there on the wall’ and ‘follow this instruction in front of this instruction’.
You’re trying to uncover a part of the person, an intricate part of the person and then then draw it out. It’s particularly powerful where you are at points of difference. I’m thinking about my corporate days now – so, imagine I am the highest-ranking officer in the room today and I disagree with you. I’ll hear you out, but I’m only partially listening. Now, I’m learning to properly listen. I will tell you I disagree, and I will do that respectfully and will come to a position. It may be that my position carries more authority in that instance, so I make the decision, but the value of your contributions is not lessened by that. The responsibility of making the call is secondary to recognising that you’re dealing with people on a one-to-one level playing field. I’ve not discounted the quality of the thinking, the quality of the judgment or the quality of your comment at all. I accept that it’s valid and it’s valuable, but on this occasion, we may go down a different thought process. That then enables that person to feel ‘held up’ and it makes you feel whole as well.
How do you know that this approach works?
We did a piece of research in the UK last year about parents’ views of the impact of early years Montessori approach on their child. So, we’ve had feedback directly. It supported what we already know which is that parents report:
- My child is confident
- My child is resilient
- My child is creative: “it’s amazing what he or she can do”; “we didn’t think they could do that at this age.”
The part of the brain which deals with executive function is also far more developed in a child taught the Montessori way than one that isn’t.
We’ve got a beautiful video that was made by a nursery in China in 2015. It features a group of four or five-year-old children in their nursery making, from scratch, Christmas dinner for their parents, literally cooking Christmas dinner. So, there’s meat that’s being cut with a knife, chopping vegetables, squeezing oranges, putting vegetables into pans of hot water, measuring, and operating the scales, plating it up and taking it out!
Here’s a You Tube video of young Chinese children preparing a meal to thank their parents, and some New Zealand children making lunch for their community.
“What we’re saying is that soul is the level in the person that you’re interacting with in the sense that you’re addressing the inner moral compass of this person. You’re trying to activate their intellectual, moral, and emotional compass. You’re trying to activate it, not try to brainwash someone.”
This interview is one of over 55 I’ve completed this year with a mix of past customers and other leading industry figures. Do connect with me on Linked In or get in touch via our website if you’d like to know more about the research findings and/or explore how to drive your business forward…with soul.
You can book me to speak personally at an event or meeting, online or (circumstances allowing) face to face.