Roles & Goals: The Montessori Guide

Our society knows teachers. Teachers give information. Teachers provide an education. Teachers instruct. 

In a Montessori classroom, however, the role of the adult is rather nuanced. The adult is there to facilitate, suggest, model, and observe. The materials teach. The adults advise.

Those of us accustomed to traditional models of education may find this odd or even worrisome. How can we expect our children to learn if the teachers don’t teach?  

Traditional vs. Montessori

Because the Montessori model is quite different from traditional education, the adults responsible for providing a Montessori experience have very different responsibilities, skills, and abilities than those of teachers in a traditional method. 

Historically children have been seen as blank slates or empty vessels that just need to be filled with information or knowledge. The teacher’s role has been to fill the vessel, to teach. Because the teacher passes information, correction, and validation to the student, the teacher is the material for learning. 

Rather than seeing children as empty vessels, Montessori teachers see a bundle of potential just waiting to be realized. As such, the focus is on discovering these hidden potentials in children and supporting their development. This happens most effectively when children are actively engaged in their learning process. 

In the traditional model, a teacher needs a number of tricks, including a system of rewards and punishments, to keep children focused on learning. But this framework of grades and evaluations isn’t actually necessary for children to learn.

In Montessori, we see the deep intellectual, social, and emotional engagement that happens when children get to learn through their own activities. Children get to use a variety of hands-on materials to explore, discover, and internalize key concepts and skills. Montessori teachers introduce how to learn from the materials in the classroom. As a bonus, because children are active participants in their own learning, they don’t have to sit passively while remaining focused on the teacher’s activity.

Roles & Goals

So, if a traditional model demands that the teacher’s presence is active and the student’s presence is passive, what does it look like in a Montessori classroom? When you look in a Montessori classroom, at first it may be hard to find the adults because the role of the Montessori teacher should be (or appear to be) a passive one. You may see an adult observing the room or particular children, inviting a child to a small group or one-on-one lesson, or sitting with children who are using the learning materials. 

Sometimes it can be clear that the adult is presenting a lesson. In these moments, the adults do look a lot like teachers, just working with a small group rather than the whole class. Yet during these brief presentations, the goal is rarely to dispense information. Montessori teachers don’t want to teach the trick for compound multiplication, the names of all the countries in South America, the characteristics of mammals, or the function of a verb in a sentence. Rather, the goal is to give the children just enough of the lesson to pique their interest or capture their imagination. We want them to return to the learning materials again and again so that they discover the mathematical proof, scientific concept, geographical boundary, historical connection, or grammatical rule on their own.

Teachers vs. Guides

Because this goal and the role of the adult are so different, we often refer to our teachers as guides. This change in terminology shifts our thinking. Montessori teachers don’t lead a class from the front of the room. Our guides provide paths for children to learn that the quantity of 10 feels bigger than the quantity of two, that nouns name things, that equivalent fractions really fit into the equal space, or that 82 actually forms a square! 

Montessori guides are acutely aware of how to support children on these varied and delightful paths of progress. Like the rudder of a ship, our guides allow children to embark on a journey of discovery while offering adjustments and changes to the course as needed. The result? Children flourish as active, creative, curious thinkers.

We’d love to have you come to visit our classrooms to experience how we guide children in this remarkable world, encourage active engagement, and support a life-long love of learning.

Time for Togetherness

During the holiday season, we can unintentionally become a bit edgy or stressed. Routines change. We might travel or have out-of-town guests. While our children may feel excited about the holidays, they also can feel the changes in family routines or shifts in family dynamics. 

If we are getting together with extended family or friends—no matter how loving, patient, and well-meaning—having additional people mixed into the scene, especially during the holiday season, can add additional layers of stress. Often our children absorb this unspoken stress and their behavior may shift as a result.

Perhaps we see more meltdowns, an uptick in neediness, an increase in whining, more resistance, or a surge in sibling conflict. If our children start to show attention-getting behavior, we can remember that they are sending an important message about unmet needs. It’s like they are waving a red flag to indicate we should shift our focus!

Step 1: Connection

The first step is connection. Children want to feel a sense of significance and belonging. So even a few minutes of loving attention can refuel children who are feeling disconnected. Depending upon their age, this could mean snuggling together on the couch, collaborating on coloring a picture, taking the dog for a walk together, or shooting hoops. The most important thing is that the focus is on being together without distractions. 

Step 2: Preparation

Once we’ve established that connection and our children feel secure and satisfied, we can discuss changes that occur during the holidays. Will bedtimes be different? What will shift about meals together? What kinds of activities will likely happen?

In preparing ourselves and our children for time with extended family and friends or changes to expect during the holidays, we can consciously reflect together about what routines will shift, what traditions we want to honor, and what joys and challenges the time may bring. 

Our children like to be prepared and have a sense of what to expect. Involving them in the discussion, planning, and preparation can alleviate not only their anxiety but also our own angst. 

Mapping out the days on a family calendar provides a visual guide for the changes in routine. A whiteboard works well, easily allowing for modifications if the plans become overwhelming. Take time to have conversations about what activities are most enjoyable for everyone. Then cut back on those that are not essential. 

Step 3: Mindful Involvement

When we are in the midst of being amongst friends and extended family, the experience of collecting snippets and stories of favorite holiday experiences can be a bonding experience for everyone. Part of the ritual of coming back together around the holidays can include sharing, and even documenting, different memories of past times together. This kind of sharing offers everyone a way to reorient and reunite. The recollections can even be collected in a kind of family memory book that can be pulled out when everyone gets back together again. 

Children and relatives also want to help. Intentionally enlisting extended family to support children’s involvement can create a win-win for everyone. Some possible collaborative activities include food preparation (scrubbing potatoes, mixing dough, tearing lettuce for a salad), making simple decorations, setting the table, folding the laundry, and even dusting and tidying. We all feel more settled when we feel useful and engaged.

This holiday season we have an opportunity to consciously create new rituals and opportunities for our children, our friends, and our extended families. Rather than rely upon old patterns perhaps learned from previous generations, let’s plan our time of togetherness and mindfully prepare ourselves and our children.

Power & Potential: The Sensitive Periods

Have you ever noticed how sensitive young children can be to changes in routine? Even the slightest schedule adjustment can throw things off. On the positive side, young children also have an incredible ability to internalize the order of their daily activities. They intuitively know when something is supposed to happen during a regular day.

It’s also pretty amazing how quickly young children absorb the intricacies of language, how they progress so seamlessly from sitting to crawling to walking to running, or how they can be so focused on tiny details and objects. 

During these times in their lives, children seem to be compelled by an irresistible force. Think of the little one who wants to climb up the steps again and again. We can try to stop them, but they are undeterred! And despite the great effort involved, the activity almost seems effortless to them. 

In Montessori, we pay close attention to these periods of time when children show intense focus on mastering a new skill, creating deep understanding, or refining their abilities. We call these times “sensitive periods.”  

What are Sensitive Periods?

To paint the picture of sensitive periods, Dr. Maria Montessori used the example of newly hatched caterpillars. These young caterpillars hatch from eggs in protected nooks but are drawn toward the light where they can eat soft, young leaves at the ends of branches. The young caterpillars aren’t aware of the fact that going toward light will provide them with a food source. Rather, they are responding to a biological impetus. Once that need is satisfied, the caterpillars no longer have the desire to move toward bright light. That sensitive period is over and they shift into the next stage of their development.

Like the young caterpillars, young children in a sensitive period become incredibly absorbed with acquiring or mastering a new skill and hone in on the activity that aids their development. Neurologically, this is the time when groups of neurons become more active than others and establish key neural networks in children’s developing brains. These windows of opportunity are transitory and marked by children’s passionate focus on mastering a skill or characteristic.  

In Montessori we focus on four main sensitive periods:

• Order

• Language

• Refinement of the Senses

• Movement

Sensitive Period for Order

The sensitive period for order is most intense from birth to three years of age, although it does continue through age six. When children are under the influence of the sensitive period for order, we see their intense interest in the order of things, both in routines (time, order of events in day, etc.) and in their environment. Young children can show great distress if this order changes. 

As adults, we can appreciate that order makes our lives easier; planning our meals and picking out clothes ahead of time makes our week flow more smoothly. Organization and order are a convenience and make us more efficient. But young children need orderly environments in a different way. The order in their surroundings or routines becomes the basis for their relationship with the world. If that foundation of order is changing all the time, it’s like trying to build a house on a shifting foundation. Lots of changes in the environment or schedule cause children to have to constantly adapt, which diverts their energy away from other necessary forms of their development. When children have a predictable and ordered environment, they feel secure, trust their environment, and establish an internal order.

Sensitive Period for Language

Children are effortlessly absorbing language from birth. The first three years of life are focused on the development of spoken language and the last three years are focused on the expansion and refinement of language, including writing and reading. During this sensitive period, children are learning the intricacies of the language spoken around them. They hear sounds and begin to try to imitate them. They hear the rhythm of phrases and sentences. They begin to internalize the nuances of grammar. 

Because children are absorbing all aspects of language, they need rich language experiences. Thus, we want to provide lots and lots of vocabulary by naming real things in the environment and engaging in meaningful conversation, even with our infants!

Sensitive Period for Refinement of the Senses

Young children are learning about their world through sensory experiences. The sensitive period for refinement of sensory perceptions starts at birth and begins to fade around four and a half.

This sensitive period does not make children’s eyes see better, ears hear better, or tongue taste better, but it does help children distinguish between finer and finer differences. Children who have access to sensorially rich environments can begin to refine their senses, have clearer perceptions, and be able to organize and classify their impressions. Neurologically, this sensitive period is when children are creating neural networks that help them interpret their environment through visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile perceptions. An enriched experience gives children the opportunity to develop powers of sensory discrimination, like perfect pitch, that will last throughout a lifetime.

Sensitive Period for Movement

Movement is how children come into contact with their environment, express their developing personality, and develop their independence. So much movement development happens from birth, and then, from about ages two and a half to four, children focus on refining their movements.

Children in this sensitive period benefit from having their movements directed toward some purposeful aim. For example, children want to imitate and participate in daily life, like cooking and preparing food. As parents, we often give our children play kitchens. With no other options, children will play with the pretend kitchen for a while, but this doesn’t satisfy them for long. They are much happier preparing real food for themselves and those around them. Meaningful activity, like food preparation, helps children refine their movement, adapt to their culture, and contribute to their community in a purposeful way. 

Power & Potential

Although “sensitive periods” refer to the particular times when children are most open to developing a particular skill or trait, the name is a profound reminder. We need to be sensitive–treading mindfully and with great care–to the power and potential of these periods of development. 

During the sensitive periods, children develop the skills and characteristics of order, language, refinement of the senses, and development and refinement of movement without apparent effort. Once the sensitive periods have faded, children can still achieve and develop certain characteristics, but they have to do so using work and effort. Plus, the skill or characteristic isn’t as fully integrated and absorbed. Think about how hard it is to learn a second language as an adult! 

Most delightfully, when children are in a sensitive period and their needs are met, they experience deep inner joy and a sense of satisfaction. We invite you to schedule a tour so you can see this joy and satisfaction in action! 

Shifting from “Stuff” to the Spirit of the Season

All too often the holiday season becomes about “stuff”–presents, decorations, more presents. How do we wean our children away from their focus on getting gifts and instead shift attention to the spirit of togetherness, generosity, peace, and goodwill?

It can be helpful to hold a family meeting and talk about everyone’s feelings about the holidays. We can ask our children about what, besides the gifts, they really like about the holidays. Often memories start to emerge: making gingerbread cookies with Grandma, taking a walk together as a family, ordering take-out Chinese and days-worth of leftovers.

From those memories, you can start brainstorming about what to establish as part of your family holiday tradition, perhaps even exploring new ways to enliven the winter season. Could a family hike followed by hot cocoa be a regular ritual? Coloring and cutting holiday-themed place settings? Decorating cookies to distribute as gifts?

In discussing the holiday, you can also introduce activities that involve giving and service to others. All sorts of studies detail the mental and physical health benefits of selfless service. The term “helper’s high” refers to the chemicals released in our brains when we engage in giving behaviors. Children can be very intrigued by learning about different charities, especially those that are local or important to their families. Part of the process of gift-giving can include choosing a charity and giving a gift in your child’s name or even having your child play a part in delivering the gift. 

Another approach is to focus on giving gifts that are really experiences: a trip to a museum, a weekend family adventure, certificates for favorite excursions, cash and a coupon for an outing to the arcade, a day trip with a friend to the trampoline park. Whatever the experience, the focus is giving the gift of doing something, and ideally doing something together, rather than owning an object. 

Brainstorming about the types of gifts or experiences we share with friends and family during the holiday season helps open our children up to the idea that gifts don’t have to be an item purchased at a store or online. As you explore this idea with your children, you can offer options such as:

• DYI/Handmade Gifts

• Care Packages

• Video Gifts/Electronic Messages

• Experiential Gifts

• Gifts of Quality Time

• Skill Sharing Gifts

• Donation & Support Gifts

• Food Gifts

Children can be involved in creating care packages or gift baskets, video collages or audio greetings that can be sent to grandparents, favorite dry goods recipes in mason jars, and coupons for activities or quality time.

We have enough things in our lives. Even if our youngest children aren’t quite ready to give up the idea of getting material presents, we can model both how gifts can take on many different forms and how we can bring more of ourselves to the holiday gift-giving experience.

Likely our children won’t remember a particular toy they unwrapped in 2022, but they will remember what they did with those they love and how they felt while doing it. Perhaps just planning a different kind of giving this year can bring less stress and more joy. What better gift than that?

Music the Montessori Way

Music. It helps us express ourselves. It expands our consciousness. It draws us together. Since ancient times, humans have relied upon music as a fundamental form of communication. Even today, we can see how children, from an early age, are drawn to music.

Always the scientist and observer, Dr. Maria Montessori recognized the essential place of music in children’s development. She collaborated with a number of musicians to develop a comprehensive music program to support children’s music appreciation and expression. The Montessori music program begins with sensorial experiences that build to children developing an acute awareness of pitch and rhythm. These experiences and activities then evolve into children learning the construction of musical scales and even perfecting how to write, read, and compose music. These components ultimately support children and adolescents’ abilities to use music as a form of self-expression. 

Early Experiences

From our earliest moments of life, we absorb the sounds of our environment. A fetus hears the rhythm of the mother’s heartbeat, breathing, and body systems. Expecting parents may sing or tell a story and their unborn child takes in the patterning and intonations of their voices. Newborns use these sounds as a way to have points of reference while orienting to life outside of the womb.

When working with infants and toddlers, we slow down so as to observe and listen to sounds and movements in nature. Hearing and relating to the natural music around us helps us be better attuned to the music in everything. As adults, we model this reflective pace, especially in our fast-paced society.

In the process of learning through imitation, our youngest children try to mimic sounds, first by copying movements with their mouths and later with their bodies. Thus, we model connection to music and openness to learning and experiencing musical expression, both in the traditional sense and through experiences in nature. Because music moves us emotionally and calls forth varied feelings, we also show how to express these emotions by moving our bodies, dancing, and singing. Young children need to experience music so they can make it part of their human experience.

Musical instruments in our infant and toddler communities are often related to nature and the sounds of nature. We provide multiples of each instrument so that when singing songs together, everyone can have a rhythm stick, or other appropriate musical instruments, and keep the beat together. We offer different kinds of high-quality instruments because the sounds affect individuals in different ways. Like with any other material in a Montessori classroom, the adults present the appropriate use of each kind of instrument to the children.

When children get a little older and move into the Primary or Children’s House level, we offer four strands of music education: singing, rhythm, music appreciation, and music literacy.

Children’s House: Singing

Singing begins right away in the Children’s House! We are helping young children realize that their voice is an amazing instrument. We share and teach easy-to-learn songs, as well as model how to express a range of emotions through the musical experience of singing. Folk songs offer high-quality melodies and expressive lyrics, as well as topics that reflect real-world qualities and real-life experiences–from celebrations and holidays to the weather, geography, and just everyday life.

When we introduce songs in the Children’s House, we first sing without any accompaniment so that the children learn how to find the right pitch. Once the children know a song very well, we may complement the singing with a piano, guitar, dulcimer, or the classroom bells.

Children’s House: Rhythm

Young children are so adept at rhythm. From the very beginning, life inside the womb was a rhythmic wonderland, with the symphony of the mother’s heartbeat, digestion, and respiration. Continuing throughout their lives, children experience rhythm all around them. We support the development and refinement of rhythm through activities that involve walking, running, marching, and skipping on an ellipse on the classroom floor, as well as through percussive instruments and music with distinctive rhythmic patterns. We may introduce hand and foot movements during songs, as well as the use of rhythm instruments. Some children also begin rhythm notation while in the Children’s House.

Children’s House: Music Appreciation

Through recorded music selections, we offer the history and culture of different kinds of musical expression in the human experience. When introducing a new piece, we give its name, the name of the composer, and the type of music it represents. These lessons are correlated to what the child knows in history, geography, art, and current events. When musicians visit to play an instrument for the children, we expand the experience with related vocabulary, stories, and listening opportunities.

Children’s House: Music Literacy

Although most settings don’t introduce music literacy to young children, we offer it as we do writing–as a means for sounds to be saved and held. While improvised work is lost into the air, writing down notes saves the idea and allows the possibility of communicating without face-to-face contact.

In the Children’s House, the bells become the children’s second instrument. We begin music literacy as soon as children can pair the bells of the diatonic scale and when they show an interest in the names of the pitches.

To introduce music literacy skills, we isolate two difficulties: notation for melody and notation for pitch. These two pathways start separately in the Children’s House but are joined in the Montessori elementary program.

In addition to working with the tone bars to dive deeply into music notation, scales, and composition, children at the elementary level continue experiences with listening, music history and literature, playing instruments, singing, movement, and rhythm.

Elementary: Rhythm

In elementary, children start with a sensorial experience of four-beat measure patterns, and we soon introduce the notation for these four-beat patterns. Children begin to be able to read rhythmic patterns for familiar names (of people and items), which also prepares them for an understanding of syllabification. Through this work, they begin to be able to notate patterns that they hear and to find notation patterns in printed music. They also get to experience finding words that will fit different rhythmic patterns and can practice notating the rhythm of spoken words.

Elementary: Playing Instruments

We first use games to introduce elementary children to various instruments and then support them in using instruments to accompany class songs. As their expertise grows and they are able to maintain a steady beat, students may form a small band and can even learn how to have a conductor!  

Whenever possible, we support children in seeing and hearing real orchestral instruments, including the music and instruments of other cultures. As children listen to individual instruments and combinations of instruments, they learn to differentiate between different qualities of sound that instruments create.

Elementary: Listening

We approach the art and skill of listening very deliberately. The adults set an example by listening to children and by speaking quietly and in clear sentences with precise pronunciation. Even in the elementary, we play listening games–from investigating how our bodies make noise, to taking listening walks, to enjoying mystery sound games, to exploring the absence of sound–all of which provide opportunities to focus on listening skills. The children also relish opportunities to listen to recorded music, both independently and as a group, and to be able to discuss what they heard.

Elementary: Tone Bars

The tone bars are elementary students’ primary musical instrument. Children in the elementary can often be found composing and playing on the tone bars and as they experiment with sounds and the relationships of the tone bars, they are essentially in the babbling stage of language development. With extended exposure and practice, this “babbling” can evolve into children being able to pick up tunes by ear.

Eventually, elementary students use the tone bars for learning major and minor scales, whole steps and half steps, transposition, the musical staff, music notation, composition, pitch dictation, degrees of the scale, intervals, sharps and flats, and key signatures.

Montessori Music Program

Montessori music begins sensorially, isolates difficulty, and engages children in spontaneous activity and meaningful self-expression. The Montessori music program is constructed so that the keys to music can be presented as a language of communication. We consider music to be an element of total literacy and thus give music as much emphasis as we give to mathematics and language as essential tools of communication. As a result, as children move toward adulthood, they are able to use musical expression as a way to better understand themselves and the world around them.

We invite you to come to visit our school to see (and hear) how music comes alive in our classrooms!

Mutual Respect & Making Deposits

Montessori classrooms depend upon a web of mutual respect. This culture of respect is established from the very beginning: from how the classroom is arranged and sized for the children, to how we greet each other at the start of the day, to how the adults refrain from interrupting children’s concentration. Dr. Maria Montessori emphasized that, as adults, we must have the utmost respect for children, because they are in the process of constructing themselves and are the hope for the future of humankind. 

Mutual respect does require maintenance, though. As Montessorians, we are always tending to the emotional environment of the community. One way we do this is by continual practice of different ways we can show grace and courtesy toward each other and our surroundings. We do know, however, that situations arise when tensions start to run high, misunderstandings proliferate, and irritation takes over. We are all human, after all.

Because it’s helpful to have some support when things start to fray, we thought we’d share a strategy that can be helpful when frustrations, fallings-out, or rifts are on the rise.

First, imagine a scenario in which there is a small slight. A look from across the room. A forgotten request. Not listening to what is being said.

Usually, this isn’t such a big deal. However, if we are feeling particularly annoyed or frustrated by something that happened previously, we might mutter about how we can’t believe so and so did that again, how could they look at us like that, how they never pay attention, and on and on.

Our response tells a lot about how we are feeling about the other person involved.

If we find ourselves in a situation where a progression of misunderstandings and misinterpretations is causing a rupture, it can be a good time to pause and consider the concept of an emotional or relationship bank account. 

Dr. Stephen R. Covey explores the idea of an emotional bank account in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, and Sean Covey introduces the relationship bank account in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. The essence of this “bank account” is that we have different connections with the people in our lives, and between each of us we have an unseen measure of how we are connecting. We can visualize that measure as a bank account. Just like with a bank account, we can make deposits or withdrawals.

When we greet a co-worker in the morning with a smile and a compliment, we are making a deposit. Over time, with lots of deposits, a large cushion of goodwill is created in our relationship bank account. When a large cushion is there, our co-worker is likely to be understanding when one morning we scowl and barely mumble, “morning.” They might wonder if we are okay and want to do something to help us feel better.

But let’s imagine that instead of making regular deposits into our relationship bank account, we have either not taken the time for a kind greeting, or perhaps have been complaining about something they’ve done. These little acts end up draining our relationship bank account, like multiple small withdrawals, until there is little to no cushion of goodwill between us. If that’s the case, when we scowl and mumble, “morning,” the other person might react with anger and frustration, fed up with our attitude and ready to retaliate.

In simple terms, our relationship or emotional bank account is like a cup that gets filled or emptied. 

When exploring this idea with young children, it can be helpful to draw or get a real cup, fill it up while imagining different acts of goodwill, then empty it while exploring little thoughtless or unkind acts. Children love to brainstorm different ways to fill the cup, perhaps even creating a poster or drawing together to have a visual reminder.

Older children are often intrigued by the connection to a financial bank account. Even the logical exploration of deposits and withdraws can help older children shift out of the emotional centers of their brains, which then allows them to approach a potentially tense situation with more calm and clarity.

If your children would benefit from a graphic image of making deposits or filling a cup, or what it looks like when lots of withdraws mean we don’t have a buffer of goodwill, feel free to download this image of a graduated cylinder to use to show filling or emptying our emotional bank account. Sometimes having a visual really helps solidify the concept for children.

Really, though, we can use this strategy in all of our relationships. When we can think about the little acts of kindness, honesty, patience, and unconditional love and acceptance as being ways to build up our relationship bank accounts, we can more easily shift gears in how we relate.

Ultimately, this practice can allow us to become more mindful of the actions between us. We can look across the room with warmth. We can acknowledge a mistake and work to make amends. We can listen with acceptance.

When we make deposits, we connect and cultivate goodwill. These deposits happen on a regular basis in Montessori classrooms. We invite you to come to visit our school to experience this mutual respect for yourself!