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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Aug 08 2008 at 9:27pm | IP Logged
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Well, I think this has been an extremely productive thread! We have worked through some tough subjects, some misconceptions and some confusing issues and have, I think, all come out of it understanding each other much better.And all done in a spirit of genuine curiosity and conducted with kindness and love!
What a great forum and a great bunch of women we have here!I feel privileged to be a part of it!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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missionfamily
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| Posted: Aug 09 2008 at 8:20am | IP Logged
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Okay, I read the rest with my morning coffe and I must concur with Theresa. This has been a very productive and enlightening discussion. I must admit I have shied away from reading most of the montessori discussion that takes place because I just didn't get it. I'm so glad you all took the time to talk this out in a mindful, inteliigent way.
 I spelled "intelligent" wrong--that always makes me laugh.
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Colleen
dh Greg
mom to Quinn,Gabriel, Brendan,Evan, Kolbe, and sweet St. Bryce
Footprints on the Fridge
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Milehimama
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| Posted: Aug 09 2008 at 11:25am | IP Logged
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cactus mouse wrote:
If this is in response to what I said, please, please know I did not mean to offend in any way.
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Oh I'm not offended! 
I was just trying to clarify!
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Willa
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| Posted: Aug 20 2008 at 9:23pm | IP Logged
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missionfamily wrote:
| Okay, I read the rest with my morning coffe and I must concur with Theresa. This has been a very productive and enlightening discussion. I must admit I have shied away from reading most of the montessori discussion that takes place because I just didn't get it. I'm so glad you all took the time to talk this out in a mindful, inteliigent way. |
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You know, I have been thinking about this conversation for the past few days and I agree with Colleen. I feel like I learned more about the soul of the method during this discussion than I did all the years I have been reading about it previously. Well, that is a bit exaggerated; but not much!
Thank you all for taking the time and trouble, and I really hope there were no lasting hurt feelings -- I think it is wonderful that we are able to have some of these honest, thoughtful discussions that move across the different methods.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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Eleanor
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| Posted: Feb 04 2010 at 12:05pm | IP Logged
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missionfamily wrote:
| Why is a tray of rice with really expensive pouring tools and a certain way of using it better than a rubbermaid tub full of rice, a bunch of pouring and sifting tools, squirt bottles full of colored water, and a vinyl tablecloth to catch the spills? I just don't get it. |
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Okay, I know this thread is 18 months old (uh-oh, the dreaded flinging and dumping stage... we'd better move the trays up higher!  ), but I *finally* found a clear, straightforward, and very Catholic answer to Colleen's question. It's in one of the essays in The Child and the Church.
Children want, and need, to learn the truth -- the external realities of the natural world, and the supernatural realities of our faith. Older systems of education do this primarily through lectures, readings, and rational arguments. With these methods, young child (before the "age of reason") can't learn much. Children are thereby seen as handicapped and deficient.
By contrast, in the Montessori method, these external realities are successfully taught to very young children, not primarily through words and reason, but through direct personal experiences. The challenge for the adult is to order the environment, materials, and presentation in such a way as to enable this process to take place -- i.e., for the concept to become internalized. The interaction that permits this connection to be made is called the "point of contact."
This is very different from the child taking similar materials and just playing with them. If a little girl decides to build a castle with the blocks, the whole initiative is coming from inside herself. She isn't experiencing the "point of contact," where she learns the true nature and purpose of the materials, and discovers their inner secret. So it's not just that she isn't learning the sensory or mathematical lesson that the blocks were designed to teach. More importantly, her experience isn't conducive to developing the qualities -- such as inner discipline, humility, contemplation, even transcendent joy and awe, that are produced by interacting purposefully with the materials in a well-designed Montessori environment.
This is what "normalization" is all about, and it's why Montessori is not at all the same as "do your own thing day" (a strange concept that my husband recalls from his public school experiences in the 70's ).
P.S. The above is paraphrased... so if it's neither clear nor straightforward, that's my fault, not the book's.
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Eleanor
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| Posted: Feb 05 2010 at 12:38am | IP Logged
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Here's something else that might be of interest. It's a speech that Maria Montessori gave during a teacher training session in London in 1933. She uses the word "converted" instead of "normalized" here, but the underlying concept is the same.
(It's probably just as well that "normalization" became the standard term. "Conversion" is even more confusing!)
The Two Natures of the Child
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: What is Normalization?
