Beauty is found everywhere, and children, as they grow up, can learn to recognize it and cultivate it in everyday life
“I can’t wait to return to the summer center and to tell everyone that today it was a beautiful trip!” During the return journey, Diego continued to speak excited, with his eyes full of that special light that lets him, and seen, something unique.
When I think back to that moment I try again the joy and satisfaction of having found a way to use beauty as an educational tool. I accompanied him and the others to the church of San Gaetano in Padua, asking each to bring with them a binoculars and a beach towel. It was a torrid summer day, and the children lying on the fresh floor of the church. So restaurants, they had the opportunity to calmly and calm the paintings of the dome calmly, using binoculars. Everyone, in rotation, could ask a question about something that interested him. And beauty aroused their curiosity, which found answers in history.
As soon as they returned to the summer center, among the children who had joined the initiative, enthusiasm exploded: they wanted to tell everything to their friends, and since the words did not seem sufficient they tried to mimic the experience. Above all Diego. Later I asked him what had electrified him so much. “Everything: the binoculars, the fact that we lying down, and that I could ask you the questions … that we ran in the squares, and that I then thought of telling it!”. And I put on: “But the paintings, the book, the buildings … What has hit you more?”. “Everything was all beautiful! Not boring as usual … it was beautiful! ».
The beauty of what he saw, therefore, would probably not have been caught outside the frame in which it was proposed: sharing with friends and a series of activities designed with the specific purpose of triggering curiosity. We could say that Diego noticed beauty because he felt emotions that made him feel good.
A suggestive panorama, the Cathedral of Milan, the colonnade of San Pietro, Venice, a work of art: they are all elements that adults see the disruptive beauty. But a child in front of the Milan Cathedral does not see the Cathedral, sees a large square made to run and play, imagining that he is in distant worlds and to face unknown enemies. And in Piazza San Marco, in Venice? He will see the doves to chase, he will see a crowd of different people, he will see the sea on the horizon.
The real challenge is not to recognize beauty in its great manifestations, be they natural or human, but to find it in the simplicity of the newspaper. This search is the first brick of a beauty education.
Beauty in the environment
The Montessori method supports the educational importance of beauty, starting with the environment.
Giulio has a few months and his mother noticed that, when they stop with the stroller under the large plane of the park, he observes the movement of the leaves. He is discovering nature, admires it. The mother lets him look until he shows interest, then he brings him a leaf closer so that the touch is also involved in the experience. And finally he puts the leaf in the storage leaf, under the stroller. The mother already imagines that that evening will tell Giulio the story of the great leaf that wanted to follow him home to look at him sleep.
When Maria Montessori speaks of the environment, however, it does not refer only to nature; “Environment” also means home: a clean, orderly, child -friendly, harmonious and well -kept space in detail. Marta is a girl of almost 3 years. Every day, when one of the two parents go to the grandparents, he is happy and manifests him. But despite being always good humor, going home sometimes leaves shoes and jacket on the floor, instead of fixing them, as usually does, in their place. When the parents ask her for the reason for that behavior, Marta does not answer. One evening the mother insists, and Marta observes: “Today the house is ugly”. In fact, the house was not well ordered. Later, after Marta went to bed, the parents reflect on her response and come to the conclusion that, for the girl, the order is equivalent to “beautiful” and “ugly” disorder.
The beauty of listening
The “Atelier where the hundred languages”, of the “Reggio Emilia Approach” act, is beauty that produces knowledge and vice versa. In the atelier beauty arises from the ability to listen to the natural prodigy which is the child respecting the multiplicity of his languages. That’s what Marta’s parents did: they were able to listen to their little girl; First of all they observed his gestures, then they asked her for the reasons for a behavior that they could not understand and that, without dialogue, would have been addressed in a non -constructive way. They were able to grasp Marta’s “hundred languages”. They found that his actions depended on their way of managing the house, more or less ordered according to the work commitments. For the construction of family serenity they have changed their behavior and created an alliance with her daughter, sharing with her two very important conclusions: that an orderly house is more beautiful, and that the house is ordered (and therefore beautiful) if each member of the family puts their own things in place.
The beauty of words
Words can generate beauty and do it in various ways. The kind words, for example, create beauty in relationships between people.
Francesca wakes up her children every morning with the same sentence: “Good morning, puppies, the sun is already high and today I decided to be happy!”. They rise, after some inevitable mugugno, and on the sleeping face slowly begins to open a smile.
“Please”, “thank you”, “pray”, “of nothing”, “good morning”, “good evening”, “goodnight” are all kind words that generate further kindness, especially if we pronounce them smiling.
Words are important to listen to, to say, but also to read: In books they become a vehicle of stories and adventures. Reading is a moment of intimate sharing between parents and children, and the story read together turns into research, emotion, travel and knowledge.
Little Marta loves the moment when her mom or dad read the story of the goodnight. He loves to listen to their voice and look at the figures that flow fast on the pages. He knows his favorite book by heart, but he knows that his father, every time he reads it, will add something new to surprise her, to give her a bright thought. And when the mother is reading, the book will come to life to accompany the vicissitudes of the characters.
There are many different books, each full of stories. The beauty of reading and stories brings with it food for thought, wealth of images, fantasy games, unusual curiosities and teaching opportunities, but also and above all words, that is, tools with which children will be able to express all the beauty that surrounds them.
The beauty of things well done
Children, especially the little ones, love to do what the parents do: they would like to pass the vacuum cleaner, redo the beds, cut, sew, knead. There is an ancient satisfaction in recognizing the beauty of work. When a child does something, he has the aim of doing it well, but his inevitably gives its inevitably different results from those hoped.
Giulio grows up, supports his parents and Marta while preparing dinner. Its task is to cut the strawberries for Macedonia. The first few times are a little detenst and all crossed, but then, fruit after fruit and dinner after dinner, the movements are refined and the result improves. And, in the end, the satisfaction of having managed to achieve a well done thing is manifested on the face of the child.
The opportunities to educate to beauty are infinite. Why education is beauty to show, to underline, to understand, to interpret, to be indicated. Beauty lies in everything, in every person, in every emotion. It is important not to hide it, but reveal it; Don’t suppress it, but cultivate it. Beauty, despite being powerful energy, is delicate. A step is enough to trample a flower. But if that step is careful, the flower will grow and spread its seeds.
