Spontaneous Activity in Education by Maria Montessori (best historical biographies txt) 📕

In each personality we must recognize two parts: one is the individual, natural, spontaneous activity by means of which elements may be taken from the environment wherewith the personality may be elaborated internally, constructed and augmented, and hence characterized; another part is the external instrument with which all this may be done. For instance, a child who at the age of four can recognize sixty-four colors, shows that he possesses remarkable activity in the perception of colors, and in the arrangement of them in gradation in his mind, etc.; but he also shows that he has had the means to accomplish this achievement; he has had, for instance, sixty-four color-tablets, with which he has been able to practise at his leisure and undisturbed, as long as was necessary for such assimilation.

The psychical factor P is the sum of two factors, one internal, the other external:

of these the unknown, non-directly measurable factor I may be indicated by X:

If we were to compare two children, one of whom has had at his disposal the sixty-four colors in the conditions described above, and another who has been left to himself in poor surroundings, where gray and brown tints prevail, and who seems dull and unobservant, etc., we should find a very remarkable psychical difference. Such a difference is not, however, intrinsic; it might well be that, subjected to the same conditions as the first child, the second would recognize the sixty-four colors. The judgment we should give in such a case would be based upon an external factor, not upon internal potentialities. We should really be appraising two different environments, not two different individuals.

To enable us to judge of individual differences, it would be necessary for the two children to have had the same means of development. In this case, if at the same age they were not equally capable of distinguishing the sixty-four colors, but if, for instance, one of the two could recognize only thirty of these, a true individual psychical difference would be apparent. One of the tests proposed by one of the greatest authorities on experimental psychology in Italy, to determine the intellectual level of sub-normal (backward or deficient) children, was to make a child pick out the largest and the smallest cube in a series. This choice, in common with nearly all the tests proposed for the same purpose, we considered quite independently of the influence of culture and education; and it was appreciated as the expression of an intimate, personal activity of the intelligence itself. But if one of the deficient children I had educated on my method had been subjected to the test, he would, in virtue of a long sensory training, have chosen the largest and the smallest cube very much more easily than the children selected by the psychologist from his special schools; and my deficient child might even have been not only younger, but even more backward intellectually than the other. The test would therefore have measured the different methods of education, whereas the psychical differences between the two children, really existent by reason of age or of intellectual attainment, would have remained absolutely obscure.

Man is a fusion of personality and education, and education includes the series of experiences he undergoes during his life. The two things cannot be separated in the individual: intelligence without acquirement is an abstraction. That which holds good of all living beings: that the individual cannot be divorced from his environment, is more profoundly true in its application to psychical life, because the content of environment, constituting the means of auto-experience which evolves man, is an essential part of him, and, indeed, is the individual himself. Nevertheless, we all know that the psychical individual is not his environment, but a life in himself.

Given the formula

in which X is the internal and intrinsic part peculiar to the individual life, it may be said that every individual has his X. But in order to approach to direct knowledge of X, it is essential to know P and E.

He who carries out an examination, or supposes himself to be performing a "psychical measurement" by dwelling on psychical results, is in reality measuring a mixture of two unknown quantities, one of which, being external to the individual, nullifies the results of research.

Hence, to study individual differences in isolated activities, such as the perception of colors, musical sounds, the letters of the alphabet; or the capacity for observation of surroundings and the detection of errors; or coordination of movements, language, etc., it is essential to have first determined a constant element: the means of development offered by environment.

Here a simple and clearly defined difference between pedagogy and psychology manifests itself: pedagogy determines experimentally the means of development and the method of applying them while respecting the internal or personal liberty of the individual; psychology studies average reactions or individual reactions in the species or the individual. But the two things are two aspects of a single fact, which is the development of man; the individual and the environment are the two factors X and E of the same product: the psychical entity.

Isolated psychical researches of a moral order must also, if they are to be of any real value, be based upon prolonged observation, after the internal activities have become orderly; because it is easy to make errors of judgment in a chaos. In clinical psychiatry or in criminal pathology, when we speak of "keeping a subject under observation" for purposes of diagnosis, we mean placing him in special surroundings, under hygienic and disciplinary conditions, etc., and observing him for some time in such an environment. Such a process has a value still more extensive and profound in the case of normal individuals in process of evolution. In such a case it is necessary not only to offer orderly external surroundings, but to reduce the chaotic internal world of the child to order, and, after this, to observe him for a considerable time.

We may offer as an illustration the following observations made upon two of the most interesting children who attended our schools. They were admitted into the training school for teachers during my last International Course in Rome.

There was a considerable clamor among the students; some were talking, some laughing. In the center of the room stood a pedometer. The behavior of the two children was almost identical. They were sitting apart quietly, working at the lacing frames which they had gone spontaneously to fetch from a neighboring room; they did not look up at the noise, nor join in the laughter. Their attitude was that of persons at work and anxious not to lose any time. When invited by a single gesture to come and be measured, they obeyed in a wonderful manner, leaving off work at once, and moving with smiles, as if fascinated; they evidently felt pleasure in obeying, and an internal delight which came from the consciousness of being able to work, and of being ready to leave something that they liked doing, at a summons to something of a higher order. They arranged themselves very carefully on the pedometer to be measured; when any modification was necessary in the position of the body, it sufficed to murmur a word in their ears and the almost imperceptible movement required was made with the utmost exactitude; they could control their voluntary movements and direct them; they were able to translate the words they heard into actions: this enabled them to obey, and this constituted for them a fascinating internal conquest. When the measuring was over, nothing was said; they waited expectantly for a moment, then gave an intelligent glance and a smile, which was, as it were, their greeting; they had understood, and they returned voluntarily to their corner to take up their frames and resume their work. Presently they were wanted again, and the same actions were repeated.

When we think that children of their age (about four and a half), when left to themselves, will roam about, upsetting objects almost unconsciously, and requiring either some one to submit to their caprices, or to call them roughly to order, we shall recognize the internal perfection achieved in these two little ones, who have arrived at that stage of development in which work has become a habit, and obedience a fascinating acquisition.

The anthropometric measurements had shown that one of the children, O, was normal in measurement (weight, stature, length of torso) and the other, A, below the normal measurements.

Here are some notes made by the teacher on the conduct of these two children when they were in the state of disorder, or undisciplined:

O: violent, turbulent, spiteful to his companions, never applies to anything, but looks on at what the others are doing and then interrupts them; or listens to the individual lessons given by the teacher with a scornful and cynical expression. The father of the child says that at home he is violent, overbearing, and intractable.

A: is quiet. But he has almost a mania for spying on his companions, and pointing out to the teacher every little action that might be considered wrong or incorrect.

Both of the children are very poor. O is almost entirely neglected by his family.

Later judgment the teacher was enabled to form of these two children after they had reduced themselves to order by means of work:

O: all the turbulence shown by O in his home resolved itself into a struggle for bread; the father, who was very poor, but also neglectful, denied the child bread; the child did not resign himself, did not cry, but struggled constantly, with all the means at his disposal, in order to obtain his portion of bread. When the teacher asked the father why he denied the child bread, he replied: "Because, when he has eaten it, he asks for more."

In school, this child ran from group to group, from lesson to lesson, disturbing the others and passing over everything, because he was struggling to win his spiritual food after the same fashion.

He is a child who has an overpowering will to live: self-preservation seems to be his most strongly developed tendency.

When his life was assured, the child became not only gentle, but remarkable for his sweetness and delicacy of feeling. He was the child who, in his joy when he had learned or completed some task, looked round lovingly at his companions, and blew little kisses to them from his fingers. Whereas for the other children who had entered into the phase of order or discipline, the teacher's note is: "work," for O the note is: "work and kindness."

Before the daily hot meal was instituted, the children used to bring their own luncheons, which varied very much; two or three of the children were very generously provided, and had meat, fruit, etc. O was seated next to one of these. The table was set, and O had nothing to put upon his plate but the piece of bread he had so strenuously acquired; he glanced at his neighbor as if to regulate himself by the time the latter would take over his meal, but with no trace of envy; on the contrary, with great dignity he tried to eat his piece of bread very slowly, in order that he might not finish before the other, and thus make it evident that he had nothing more to eat while the other was still busy. He nibbled his bread slowly and seriously.

What a sense of his