Both supported an innovative teaching where music and an environment rich in stimuli are central to child education
The theories of the pedagogist Maria Montessori (in this article an in -depth analysis of his educational method) and the teaching of the violin Shinichi Suzuki They are known all over the world and their value today in Italy is widely recognized after many decades of indifference and disinterest. These two great personalities lived in the same historical era and, although there are no testimonies of their direct knowledge, certainly they breathed in Europe the same climate of great fervor regarding the renewal of educational methods.
Montessori and Suzuki both support The centrality of musical learning in children And above all, that It cannot be distinguished between children with or not: each at birth has some talents that can be developed if the environment in which they grow allows. Both describe the existence of a sort of instinct-guiding since birth, a vital push that leads to act: thehormé (of Greek origin) and the kan (Japanese term). For Maria Montessori thehormé It is a vital force “divine that works for evolution” and “in the child who normally grows up with enthusiasm, happiness, the joy of living”. For Suzuki the kan It is a sort of intuition or sixth sense present at birth, which guides the child in his development, giving him confidence in himself and leading him to act: “The human being is governed by vital forces. The soul and its desire for eternity generate great energy to adapt to one’s environment ».
Early learning in an environment full of stimuli
Montessori defines absorbent A particular form of intelligence that, through the prodigious ability to absorb in an unconscious way what is around you, allows the small child to build memory and the faculty to understand and reason. According to Suzuki Three -year -old children learn effortlessly And their acquisitions develop in their new forces. He states that “observing and feeling what surrounds it, the vital force manifests itself and develops the skills”.
The environment, according to Maria Montessori, is characterized by a widespread educational power capable of proposing multiple and differentiated situations to allow the child to experience, confront and learn. According to Suzuki, in line with Montessori, “favorable environmental conditions and careful education do not only constitute a precious basis, but they provide children a true well -being and are a promise of light and hope for the future of humanity”. Suzuki writes: «The word education It implies two concepts: first of all the action to form a child or a boy by developing and guiding his physical, moral and intellectual faculties, and then the action of instructing. But in schools it is taken into account only of the second (…) ». With Maria Montessori the figure of the teacher changes radically: Do not instruct, but educate is the new goal to be achieved.
Music behind the child’s psycho-physical training
According to Maria Montessori, the attitude to work is a vital instinct for the child, necessary for the organization of his own personality. It is an unaware job, carried out by a spiritual energy that is developing, a creator work. The child therefore has an important task: to work to produce the man he will become. Repetition He plays a fundamental role both in Montessori and the Suzuki teaching. Repeat an action incessantly, with energy and patience allows you to achieve a goalstrengthens commitment and constancy and allows you to increase the ability to reach a destination.
Imitation is a privileged learning channel for the child aged between 3 and 6 years. The neurosciences, today, confirm this thesis describing the existence of a class of neurons (mirror) that are activated when an individual observes an action made by another subject. Performant and observer are therefore in symbiosis from a neuronal point of view. Not surprisingly, all the work of Maria Montessori is dotted with references to the importance of the practice and knowledge of music for the psycho-physical training of the child. On more than one occasion he insists onneed to offer all children a musical training, because failure to educate musical taste generates individuals without sensitivitynot only towards music, but towards all that is an expression and communication.
In the case of Suzuki teaching, the musical material consists of a repertoire of songs, collected in ten volumes, which propose a gradual and attractive path that responds to the same criteria used by Maria Montessori. On the basis of these convergences between the two methods, an innovative proposal has been developed: to introduce new musical materials as part of the “House of children”, including nomenclature folders dedicated to the subject music, in -depth booklets, digital applications (usable on tablet) for the recognition of the different stamps. It is also proposed The approach to the study of a musical instrumentpractice that contributes to increasing brain skills, social, communicative and linguistic skills, to improve memory, to stimulate the resolution of problems, to enhance motor skills, self -discipline and self -esteem and promoting creativity and freedom of expression.
Without silence there are no sounds
To make the conscious perception of sounds and to refine their analysis and recognition skills possible in the ear of the child, Montessori has understood that a preliminary operation is necessary, aimed at enhancing the ability of attention and concentration, which can be made thanks to the creation of the absolute silence. The so -called “lesson of silence” that arose has arose in the time great resonance and media clamor, so much so that it is still considered one of the distinctive features of the method today. The “silence” is concretely absence of sound and therefore of movement. “Absolute silence is equivalent to absolute immobility,” writes Montessori in his book Educate to freedom.
The psychomusics
Maria Montessori believed musical education integral part of its ideal of cosmic education But, since they were not particularly expert, due to the ideation and construction of the specific material, he entrusted himself to the precious advice of the pupil and assistant Anna Maria Maccheroni, who dedicated himself with passion to musical experimentation with the children and was able to concretize his intuitions and developed the part of the method dedicated to psychomusics.
Within the sensory development material, the musical one has the aim of refining the perception of hearing. It consists of Cylinder of noiseaimed at recognizing the intensity, and from bells for the recognition of the height of the sounds, to which the Three pentagrams With the related disks of the notes for subsequent positioning exercises of the notes on the musical line. The technologies in use at the beginning of the twentieth century did not allow the development of a specific material for the recognition of the stamp.
THE Cylinder of noisecontained in two rectangular boxes marked with two colors, produce identical noises two by two, therefore they can be appeared. Each series presents cylinders in gradation with intensity variable from the floor to the fort. The bells They are divided into two series of thirteen bells each, which reproduce all the semitones included in an eighth. The upper part of the bells is built with a particular value metal alloy capable of not changing the intonation with wear; He is resounding gently hitting it with a swing on the side. The two series, recognizable by the colors, are arranged in front of the other on a laying table that reproduces the white and black spaces of the piano keyboard. This material aims to educate the ear to the perception of the height of the sound. The peculiarity of this material lies in the ability to respond to the primary need of the musical ear of Being able to choose and listen to one note at a time.
The isolation of the single sound Indeed It is a very rare phenomenon in the daily environment. During the use of the bells it is observed how spontaneously the child begins to imitate with his voice the note produced by the metal by educating his emission to the different heights of the sound, as well as the spoken language adapts to the pronunciation. The period of maximum interest in listening and imitation of isolated sound is between three and five years. The pentagrams They are two wooden tablets on which a pentagram is designed.
In the first, the pentagram presents circular grooves in correspondence with the notes, in which the disks depicting the notes with their own written name can be fitted on the upper side; In the second, the pentagram provides for the use of a similar line but without grooves, therefore without numbers for control, to test the child’s memory on the correct placement of the notes. The use of this material arrested at the time of its ideation, and in some cases still, Resistances and oppositions justified by the commonplace, inconsistent as widespread, that only musicians can occupy music.
Listening education and movements
One of the salient points of the Montessori teaching is the intuition of the essential bond that exists between learning and movement and the extreme importance conferred on him. From the preparation of an environment adequate to the free choice of the exercises to be carried out, from the practical life activities to the use of sensory material, all in the Montessori method is based on the movement, but it must be ordered and controlled independently by children. The exercises on the wire allow the acquisition of safety in the balance and the conquest of full control over the movements of one’s body.
Anna Maria Maccheroni began to accompany the execution of these exercises on the piano and noticed that, repeating several times the same selection of jokes as a musical song, in children a certain pace was spontaneously generated that changed to changing the song itself. The children were more sensitive to the rhythms very characterized and different from each other, as it happened for the contrasts used in all sensory material and, up to four years, showed that they preferred, between the gaits presented, the slow step and the race. The important thing was to leave them free to “feel” and interpret the rhythm of the music proposals without giving indications.
Anna Maria Maccheroni was also able to observe how, after several listening to the same musical selections, the children were able to understand and re -propose the division of the joke Without this concept having ever been explained and, after this conquest, it was much easier to present the values of the notes. One of the elements of greatest modernity in the musical proposal of the Montessori method lies in the importance conferred on the education of conscious and analytical listening. Anna Maria Maccheroni, starting from some didactic experiences, had the intuition of proposing to the children real concerts with various music and instruments united to the use of the voice, involving, where the conditions allowed it, of professional musicians. As Montessori writes in his book Self -education: “This new” scientific “application of art would be a real benefactor of humanity”.
