It is a very strong inner motivation that guides children in growth and development, and it is important that they find a suitable, safe and interesting environment, and adults who offer them the time needed to practice
Let’s start by telling a short story. Once upon a time there were a small turtle and a hare who had decided to walk together, next to each other on the road of life. The walk, however, turned out to be difficult soon: “Do you want to move?!” Said the hare.
“Wait! Have you seen what a beautiful flower? But why is it pink? What are the petals for? »Replied the turtle.
Every five steps the turtle stopped to admire the nature that recalled his attention. The hare boiled because he could not maintain that slow rhythm: “If only I tried to run a little … you don’t know how wonderful the wind on the muzzle is”.
The turtle, loving the hare, tried to run with its inexperienced legs, but stumbled on every root and rushed. By pushing the hare, he advanced, while the turtle, a few steps back, proceeded by climbing, chopping, tasting, lifting, moving, fitting, slipping twigs, flowers, stones, leaves …
The lepre, exhausted, one day decided to slow down, letting the turtle dictated the rhythm. The hare began to find out what the turtle liked, what frightened her, where she was good and where inexperienced.
One day the turtle step changed: his legs were faster and more safe, he had become more skilled and his need to train was decreasing, he wanted to run like the hare and together with her. That race was surprising: the hare showed the turtle everything he knew; Roads, breathtaking views, perfect hiding place, nice friends, acrobatics, goats … they shared the way for a long time, happy and complicit, before starting a new phase of life in which they would have walked far away, bringing with them, forever, one part of the other.
A healthy selfishness
What pushes a child to action is a profound motivation of personal growth and development: he wants the time he needs, he is not satisfied with what he has available. His selfishness is healthy because he does not know how to give up on others, until the moment of development in which he will understand, accept and equate his needs to those of others.
In the first three years of life (approximately) the child lives an active construction period: conquers continuous skills, training with constancy and stubbornness in various skills (manuals, motor, linguistic, relational) to develop them at best. All this by acting spontaneously and directly on the environment that surrounds it.
From 3 to 6 years he perfects the skills conquered: he wants to speak better, jump on one foot, understand the emotions of his own and others and use his hands precisely; And between 6 and 9 years of age it is now competent and addresses its interest to others, to the world that surrounds it, nature and culture: it is the time to get rich and deepen the reason for everything.
The time to practice
The child knows how to conduct himself on this path in perfect autonomy, led by what Montessori called the “inner teacher”, that is, a profound guide who leads him to constructive, intelligent and educational experiences. The adult can facilitate this advancement By preparing a suitable, safe and interesting environment, proving humble and patient and offering the child all the time necessary to manifest himself, understand and practice. “Parents are always in a hurry, children never,” I wrote in Here a child livesand there is no real thing. In fact, the child acts calmly and care for himself, the adult, however, seeks the best result in the shortest possible time. The big ones put the jacket to go out, the children to learn to wear it, so much so that, if they could, they would take it off to repeat the operation once again.
What captures interest
Maria Montessori discovered that, in the first years of life, every child does and repeats things many times to consolidate a procedure and refine a competence. The repetition of the exercise is a constant and is applied in every area: personal care, fine motor skills (putting, parading, opening, closing …), environmental care, practical life (cleaning, sifting, squeezing, cutting). When Maria Montessori built the frame frames (a tool to practice in this activity), chose five: each movement is repeated five times, consecutively, before advanced to the next step. When a child of a couple of years washes his hands, he often wants to redo it: he doesn’t care that his hands are clean, he is interested in the exercise and satisfaction tried in washing.
What do children work with so much dedication, concentration, care and passion? To what attracts and captures their interest in the environment. This is the founding principle of the concept of the sensory period.
The sensory period
The sensory period is a special and passenger sensitivity that pushes the child to unconsciously direct attention to certain aspects of his development in the environment. They are vocations, describable as a beam of light, lit to illuminate a precise area of interest. Like Piccolo del Bruco, he sees nothing but the shoots on the top of the plant as better nourishment (as the Dutch scientist Hugo de Vries discovered), the child searches and is attracted to what in the environment can offer him an important nourishment for his development. When you feel satisfied with the psychic food obtained, it becomes indifferent to you. Here then is a 6 -month -old boy, enchanted, semi -open mouth, in front of an adult who speaks: he is in the sensory period of language and the mother tongue fascinates him like no other sound. So a 2 -year -old boy who lives the sensory period of the order will want everything in his place, including routines and procedures; Between 3 and 5 he will show the natural desire for symbols and sounds and that point, writing and reading will magically become a source of interest.
Grasping and nourishing psychic hunger within the sensory period means allowing the child a natural and spontaneous conquest, not tiring or forced. That same competence, acquired outside the sensory period, will not be introjected with the same lightness, joy and spontaneity. “But when one of these psychic passions went out, other flames light up and so childhood passes on conquest in conquest, in a continuous vibration vibration, which we all recognized by calling her joy and childhood happiness,” Maria Montessori tells us.
