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A Delicate Task: Teaching and Learning on a Montessori Path
There are, despite the loneliness of our classrooms and the heartache of having been called to teach, others on the path with us. Teaching is hard. Teaching in a Montessori path is even more so. Montessorians are asked to give up so much of ourselves, to make ourselves humble and lowly before the child, to be servants, to be scientists, to be saints. We often let ourselves down. There it is, then. We will let ourselves down. But there are others on the path with us. We can lean on each other. We can walk in each other's footsteps. Sometimes we're at the front of the path. Sometimes we're following another traveler. Sometimes we're resting. Sometimes the laughter of our group is so cacophonous that we forget how tired our feet are. Sometimes we're so far ahead or behind that we can't even see each other anymore. But we're not alone. We are each other's navigational stars. Montessori's words, across generations, guide us. Our own words, whispered in each other's ears or passed in notes or published in books, they give us guidance, too. They remind us on the hardest days that we're not alone. We are not alone. We share certain tendencies, certain traits, common among humanity, common across decades. We are working in common toward a perfection we may never individually see. But we're on the path. And we're not alone
- GenresEducation
194 pages, Paperback
First published July 24, 2012
14 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Catherine McTamaney
6 books4 followersCatherine McTamaney is an award-winning Montessori teacher, former school director, and school consultant. Her writing appears in Montessori publications around the globe. McTamaney lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 6, 2020
My favorite parts:
Driven by an internal mandate to understand, the child is incessant in his questioning, in his doubt, and his curiosity. “Why?” the child asks, and when we answer, he asks again, “Why?” Over and over and over again. “Why?”
The child challenges our patience. He challenges our ability to speak clearly, to communicate effectively, to teach masterfully, when he asks, “Why?” Over and over and over again. “Why?”
This is the child who demands our humility.
Communication is not the same thing as noise. Communication isn’t chaotic. Communication isn’t unbounded. True communication involves multiple people, sharing, imparting, joining in fellowship with each other.
True communication is subtle. It’s nuanced, and it’s often quiet.
...we each speak only one native language- that unique combination of context, experience, and meaning that defines our individual lives.
Activity is, indeed, that first yelling out, “Here I AM!” What anxious mother doesn’t hold her hand pressed to her belly, waiting waiting waiting for the first signs of activity within? What joy and unexpected laughter and exuberance we share when we feel that baby’s kick. Before our children can speak, before we hold them or touch them or look into their eyes, before we hear their cries or kiss their faces, we know them because they are active.
Being actively engaged will not, for example, take out the recycling any less often, but it may allow us to do so without abdicating our liveliness in the meantime.
Whatever the task, lofty or banal, we can fulfill with our presence and attention.
When we choose to change ourselves instead of directing our focus on what’s outside of us, we are no less manipulative. But our influence is far more profound.
When we choose to change ourselves, we satisfy that internal drive to change the world, to exert our control, to be in charge.
We prepare them by protecting in them the one skill they most assuredly will need: the ability to learn.
And we protect that ability by offering them environments that connect their learning to their work, that ask of them endurance and reflection and experimentation.
We care for our children when we give them the tools to design their own lives,...
“It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities, but that he refine his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgment.”
- Maria Montessori
We are best defined not by the ways we wish we were, but by the habits that we barely recognize. The things we do by rote, the routines and rituals that are so deeply engrained that, although we never think of them, we would immediately notice if they were broken.
Exactness. From the Latin exactus, to drive out. Precision. From the Latin praecīsiōn, a cutting off.
When we work toward exactness, we drive out what is not necessary. We cut off what is extraneous. We edit. We refine. We sharpen.
When we start with the essential, we allow for the profound.
We must prepare ourselves, as an essential part of the environment, in a thousand small ways. We must exist as though the child is always watching, because the child is always watching. The most important lessons we teach are sometimes the ones we didn’t know we were teaching.
We orient ourselves to know from where our work begins. We seek order to make sense of the work to be done. We explore to find models toward which we are compelled or from which we flee. We communicate to share the experience beyond our singular lives. We are active to put into action those intentions. We manipulate our environments to test the limits of our crafting. We work to develop our usefulness, to contribute to a larger humanity. We repeat to be sure of the work. We seek precision to know what to keep and what to discard. We abstract to articulate, beyond the concrete limits of our lives, the lessons we have learned.
In each tool, we propel ourselves, within our lives, among our lives, beyond our lives, toward a better future we may never see.
The tendency toward Perfection is the tendency of hope, of courage, of the suspension of disbelief.
Naming the goal does not, in itself, give us the capacity to reach it. But it gives structure to the possibility. It points us in a direction, even if we know we are unlikely to reach the end of the voyage. And in naming the goal, we mark the distance between where we are and where we hope to be. We identify our need for change, for growth and evolution.
In that sense, believing ourselves capable of perfection is not arrogance, but humility.
We are humble when we acknowledge our imperfections. We are humble when we measure the distance between who we are and who we want to become. In naming perfection as the goal, we claim every fault, every failure, every flaw.
...human development is not made purposeful by the attainment of perfection. Once we are perfect, we are no longer human. Our human existence is made purposeful by the efforts we undertake to make it so.
We demonstrate our humanity when we name perfection as our goal. We demonstrate our humanity when we acknowledge that within ourselves which we seek to emend. We demonstrate our humanity to when stop pretending that life is little more than endurance, when we say out loud, “I can do better. I can be better. We can be better.” That’s when we rise above our animal nature. That’s when we move toward the divine. That’s when we give some purpose to our endurance, when we begin to forgive ourselves for the endless ways in which we’ve let ourselves down and begin to become the people we may be capable of becoming.
May your path be peaceful
May your feet find always firm ground
May your burdens be less than your strength
Your strength, greater than your fears
May your eyes and your heart be fixed on the horizon May you have stillness
And laughter
In equal measure
May you have solace in silent reflection
And comfort in the company of friends
Driven by an internal mandate to understand, the child is incessant in his questioning, in his doubt, and his curiosity. “Why?” the child asks, and when we answer, he asks again, “Why?” Over and over and over again. “Why?”
The child challenges our patience. He challenges our ability to speak clearly, to communicate effectively, to teach masterfully, when he asks, “Why?” Over and over and over again. “Why?”
This is the child who demands our humility.
Communication is not the same thing as noise. Communication isn’t chaotic. Communication isn’t unbounded. True communication involves multiple people, sharing, imparting, joining in fellowship with each other.
True communication is subtle. It’s nuanced, and it’s often quiet.
...we each speak only one native language- that unique combination of context, experience, and meaning that defines our individual lives.
Activity is, indeed, that first yelling out, “Here I AM!” What anxious mother doesn’t hold her hand pressed to her belly, waiting waiting waiting for the first signs of activity within? What joy and unexpected laughter and exuberance we share when we feel that baby’s kick. Before our children can speak, before we hold them or touch them or look into their eyes, before we hear their cries or kiss their faces, we know them because they are active.
Being actively engaged will not, for example, take out the recycling any less often, but it may allow us to do so without abdicating our liveliness in the meantime.
Whatever the task, lofty or banal, we can fulfill with our presence and attention.
When we choose to change ourselves instead of directing our focus on what’s outside of us, we are no less manipulative. But our influence is far more profound.
When we choose to change ourselves, we satisfy that internal drive to change the world, to exert our control, to be in charge.
We prepare them by protecting in them the one skill they most assuredly will need: the ability to learn.
And we protect that ability by offering them environments that connect their learning to their work, that ask of them endurance and reflection and experimentation.
We care for our children when we give them the tools to design their own lives,...
“It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities, but that he refine his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgment.”
- Maria Montessori
We are best defined not by the ways we wish we were, but by the habits that we barely recognize. The things we do by rote, the routines and rituals that are so deeply engrained that, although we never think of them, we would immediately notice if they were broken.
Exactness. From the Latin exactus, to drive out. Precision. From the Latin praecīsiōn, a cutting off.
When we work toward exactness, we drive out what is not necessary. We cut off what is extraneous. We edit. We refine. We sharpen.
When we start with the essential, we allow for the profound.
We must prepare ourselves, as an essential part of the environment, in a thousand small ways. We must exist as though the child is always watching, because the child is always watching. The most important lessons we teach are sometimes the ones we didn’t know we were teaching.
We orient ourselves to know from where our work begins. We seek order to make sense of the work to be done. We explore to find models toward which we are compelled or from which we flee. We communicate to share the experience beyond our singular lives. We are active to put into action those intentions. We manipulate our environments to test the limits of our crafting. We work to develop our usefulness, to contribute to a larger humanity. We repeat to be sure of the work. We seek precision to know what to keep and what to discard. We abstract to articulate, beyond the concrete limits of our lives, the lessons we have learned.
In each tool, we propel ourselves, within our lives, among our lives, beyond our lives, toward a better future we may never see.
The tendency toward Perfection is the tendency of hope, of courage, of the suspension of disbelief.
Naming the goal does not, in itself, give us the capacity to reach it. But it gives structure to the possibility. It points us in a direction, even if we know we are unlikely to reach the end of the voyage. And in naming the goal, we mark the distance between where we are and where we hope to be. We identify our need for change, for growth and evolution.
In that sense, believing ourselves capable of perfection is not arrogance, but humility.
We are humble when we acknowledge our imperfections. We are humble when we measure the distance between who we are and who we want to become. In naming perfection as the goal, we claim every fault, every failure, every flaw.
...human development is not made purposeful by the attainment of perfection. Once we are perfect, we are no longer human. Our human existence is made purposeful by the efforts we undertake to make it so.
We demonstrate our humanity when we name perfection as our goal. We demonstrate our humanity when we acknowledge that within ourselves which we seek to emend. We demonstrate our humanity to when stop pretending that life is little more than endurance, when we say out loud, “I can do better. I can be better. We can be better.” That’s when we rise above our animal nature. That’s when we move toward the divine. That’s when we give some purpose to our endurance, when we begin to forgive ourselves for the endless ways in which we’ve let ourselves down and begin to become the people we may be capable of becoming.
May your path be peaceful
May your feet find always firm ground
May your burdens be less than your strength
Your strength, greater than your fears
May your eyes and your heart be fixed on the horizon May you have stillness
And laughter
In equal measure
May you have solace in silent reflection
And comfort in the company of friends
July 21, 2015
Great for all teachers, not just Montessori teachers.
November 23, 2024
I don't know the audience for this book, it wasn't me. It irked me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews