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CHAPTER IV of Dr. Montessori's own handbook by Maria Montessori.
This Libravox recording is in the public domain, recording by Phil Schenevere.
CHAPTER IV, Motor Education.
The education of the movements is very complex, as it must correspond to all the co-ordinated
movements which the child has to establish in his physiological organism.
The child, if left without guidance, is disorderly in his movements and these disorderly movements
are the special characteristic of the little child.
In fact, he never keeps still and touches everything.
This is what forms the child's so-called unruliness and notiness.
The adult would deal with him by checking these movements with the monotonous and useless
repetition keeps still.
As a matter of fact, in these movements the little one is seeking the very exercise which
will organize and coordinate the movements useful to man.
We must therefore desist from the useless attempt to reduce the child to a state of immobility.
We should rather give order to his movements, leading them to those actions toward which
his efforts are actually tending.
This is the aim of muscular education at this age.
Once a direction is given to them the child's movements are made towards a definite end so
that he himself grows quiet and contented and becomes an active worker, a being calm
and full of joy.
This education of the movements is one of the principal factors in producing that outward
appearance of discipline to be found in the children's houses.
I have already spoken at length on this subject in my other books.
Muscular education has reference to the primary movements of everyday life, walking, rising,
sitting, handling objects, the care of the person, management of the household, gardening,
manual work, gymnastic exercises, rhythmic movements.
In the care of the person, the first step is that of dressing and undressing.
For this end, there is in my didactic material a collection of frames to which are attached
pieces of stuff, leather, etc.
These can be buttoned, hooked, tied together, in fact, joined in all the different ways
which our civilization has invented, professing our clothes, shoes, etc.
The teacher, sitting by the child's side, performs the necessary movements of the fingers
very slowly and deliberately, separating the movements themselves into their different
parts and letting them be seen clearly and minutely.
For example, one of the first actions will be the adjustment of the two pieces of stuff
in such a way that the edges to be fastened together touch one another from top to bottom.
Then, if it is a buttoning frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages of
the action.
She will take hold of the button, set it opposite the buttonhole, make it enter the buttonhole
completely, and adjust it carefully in its place above.
In the same way, to teach a child to tie a bow, she will separate the stages in which
he ties the ribbons together from that in which he makes the bows.
In the cinematograph film, there is a picture which shows an entire lesson in the tying
of the bows with the ribbons.
These lessons are not necessary for all the children, as they learn from one another,
and of their own accord come with great patience to analyze the movements, performing them
separately very slowly and carefully.
The child can sit in a comfortable position and hold his frame on the table, as he fastens
and unfassons the same frame many times over with great interest.
He acquires an unusual deafness of hand and becomes possessed with a desire to fasten
real clothes whenever he has the opportunity.
We see the smallest children wanting to dress themselves and their companions.
They go in search of amusement of this kind and defend themselves with all their might
against the adult who would try to help them.
In the same way for the teaching of the other and larger movements, such as washing, setting
the table, etc., the director must, at the beginning, intervene, teaching the child
with few or no words at all, but with very precise actions.
She teaches all the movements, how to sit, to rise from one seat, to take up and lay down
objects and to offer them gracefully to others.
In the same way, she teaches the children to set the plates one upon the other and lay
them on the table without making any noise.
The children learn easily and show an interest in surprising care in the performance of these
actions.
In classes where there are many children, it is necessary to arrange for the children
to take turns in the various household duties such as housework, serving a table and washing
dishes.
The children readily respect such a system of turns.
There is no need to ask them to do this work, for they come spontaneously, even little
ones of two and a half years old, to offer to do their share, and it is frequently most
touching to watch their efforts to imitate, to remember, and finally to conquer their
difficulty.
Professor Jacobi of New York was once much moved as he watched a child who was little more
than two years old, and not at all intelligence and appearance, standing perplexed, because
he could not remember whether the fork should be set at the right hand or the left.
He remained a long while meditating and evidently using all the powers of his mind.
The other children, older than he, watched him with admiration, marveling like ourselves,
at the life developing under our eyes.
The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch, enough to give
a start to the child.
The rest develops of itself.
The children learn from one another and throw themselves into the work with enthusiasm
and the light.
This atmosphere of quiet activity develops a fellow feeling, an attitude of mutual aid
and, most wonderful of all, an intelligent interest on the part of the older children
and the progress of their little companions.
It is enough just to set a child in these peaceful surroundings for him to feel perfectly
at home.
In the cinematic-graph pictures the actual work in a children's house may be seen.
The children are moving about each one fulfilling his own task while the teacher is in a corner
watching.
Pictures were taken also of the children engaged in the care of the house, that is, in the
care both of their persons and of their surroundings.
They could be seen washing their faces, polishing their shoes, washing the furniture, polishing
the metal indicators of the pedometer, brushing the cabinets, etc.
In the work of laying the table, the children are seen quite by themselves, dividing the
work among themselves, carrying the plates, spoons, knives, at forks, etc. and finally
sitting down to the tables where the little waitresses serve the hot soup.
Again, gardening and manual work are a great pleasure to our children.
Gardening is already well known as a feature of infant education, and it is recognized
by all that plants and animals attract the children's care and attention.
The ideal of the children's houses in this respect is to imitate the best in the present
usage of those schools which owe their inspiration more or less to Mrs. Ladder.
For manual instruction we have chosen clay work consisting of the construction of little
tiles, faces and bricks.
These may be made with the help of simple instruments such as moles.
The completion of the work should be the aim always kept in view and, finally, all the
little objects made by the children should be glazed and baked in the furnace.
The children themselves learn to line a wall with shiny white dark-colored tiles wrought
in various designs or with the help of martyr and a trowel to cover the floors with little
bricks.
They also dig out foundations and then use their bricks to build division walls or entire
little houses for the chickens.
Among the gymnastic exercises which must be considered the most important is that of
the line.
A line is described in chalk or paint upon a large space of floor.
Instead of one line there may also be two concentric lines elliptical in form.
The children are taught to walk upon these lines like tight rope walkers, placing their
feet one in front of the other.
To keep their balance they make efforts exactly similar to those of real tight rope walkers
except that they have no danger with which to reckon as the lines are only drawn upon
the floor.
The teacher herself performs the exercise showing clearly how she sets her feet and the
children imitate her without any necessity for her to speak.
At first it is only certain children who follow her and when she has shown them how to
do it she withdraws, leaving the phenomenon to develop of itself.
The children for the most part continue to walk, adapting their feet with great care
to the movement they have seen and making efforts to keep their balance so as not to fall.
Gradually the other children draw near and watch and also make an attempt.
Very little time elapses before the whole of the two ellipses or the one line is covered
with children balancing themselves and continuing to walk round, watching their feet with an
expression of deep attention on their faces.
Music may then be used.
It should be a very simple march, the rhythm of which is not obvious at first but which
accompanies and enlivens the spontaneous efforts of the children.
When they have learned in this way to master their balance the children have brought the
act of walking to a remarkable standard of perfection and have acquired in addition
to security and composure in their natural gate and unusually graceful carriage of the
body.
The exercise on the line can afterwards be made more complicated in various ways.
The first application is that of calling forth rhythmic exercise by the sound of a march
upon the piano.
When the same march is repeated during several days the children in by feeling the rhythm
and by following it with movements of their arms and feet they also accompany the exercises
on the line with songs.
Little by little the music is understood by the children.
They finish as in Miss Georgia School at Washington by singing over their daily work with the
didactic material.
The children's house then resembles a hive of bees humming as they work.
This to the little gymnasium of which I speak in my book on the method.
One piece of apparatus is particularly practical.
This is the fence from which the children hang by their arms, freeing their legs from
the heavy weight of the body and strengthening the arms.
This fence has also the advantage of being useful in a garden for the purpose of dividing
one part from another, as for example the flower beds from the garden walks and it does
not detract in any way from the appearance of the garden.
