Maria Montessori warns on the artifact environment: closer children to nature is a necessary step for their growth
In the article Between school and nature: Maria Montessori’s advice We talked about how much Montessori considers nature one of the most important elements to be used in school reality. Maria Montessori was absolutely brilliant in her pedagogical vision, so much so that rereading her today, after more than a hundred years, her texts are absolutely current.
In the chapter Nature in educationof the text The discovery of the childsays: «In our time and in the civil environment of our society, The children, however, live very far from nature and they have few opportunities to enter into intimate contact with it or to have a direct experience (…). Nature is gradually restricted, in our conception, to the flowers that vegetate and the pets useful for our nutrition, for our works or for our defense (…). Nature, in truth, is scary for most people. Air and the sun are feared as mortal enemies. The night frost is feared like a snake hidden between the vegetation, the rain is feared almost as much as the fire ».
Take care of other living beings, this is the Council of Montessori
Maria Montessori warns us about the prisons of the artifact environment and warns that the feeling of nature cannot be transmitted simply through “description or exhortation made pedantically in front of an inert child and bored closed within walls, and accustomed to seeing or feeling that cruelty to animals is a necessity of life. These are the experiences that strike him “(The discovery of the child).
What satisfies the child’s soul in a deeper way are the caring care towards living beingsTherefore we should think of moments, in the life of children, dedicated to the care of plants and especially animals. Because when the child knows “that those animals need him, that those seedlings dry out if they do not water them, his love goes by connecting with a new thread the moment that passes with the rebirth of the following day”.
Maria Montessori, therefore, urges to feed and increase the “feeling of nature” in the child, understood as attention, respect and curiosity towards what lives in the world around him. Through this feeling, the child begins the path of understanding according to which “everything is closely connected on this planet and every detail becomes interesting for the fact of being connected to others. We can compare the together with a canvas: every detail is a embroidery, the whole forms a magnificent fabric »(From childhood to adolescence).
The introduction to the world of biology
Within the Montessorian kindergarten, called “children’s homes”, we can find the material of the animal interlocking, usually composed of five classic joints to represent each of the five classes of vertebrate animals (fish, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds):
- horse
- fish
- frog
- the turtle
- the bird
Like any Montessorian interlocking, even those of animals allow activities aimed at developing sensory learning Through the training of visual and tactile discrimination, indirectly preparing for the writing and development of language through multiple activities that can be presented at different times following the natural development of the child.
In fact, they not only allow a sensory approach of the child to animal morphology and therefore introduce the child to the world of biology, but at the same time support the development of writing and language Since they introduce the child to the names of the parts of the body of animals (allowing the knowledge of new words and definitions and comparing the morphology of animals with that of humans).
Through the support of the teacher, You can gradually add more and more accurate and specific information on the different parts of the body from time to time considered by children. Today it is also possible to find on the market other different types of joints to represent the different categories of vertebrates such as: the elephant, the crocodile and the giraffe.
