A part of Practical Life in every Children’s house are the lessons of grace and courtesy. These impart to the child various skills of physical and social grace, and are, in a sense, the “social lubricant” of a classroom. If you’ve come to a parent education night, undoubtedly, you’ve heard Fatima and I discuss grace and courtesy; these lessons are some of the most important that we can offer, and truly help set Montessori apart from traditional education. Given to the children in small groups, Grace and Courtesy includes things like: How to pass by, how to greet a guest, how to answer a phone, how to blow one’s nose, etc.

I have always considered myself at least (relatively) courteous. I know how and when to say excuse me. I know how to introduce myself. I am polite to my waitstaff, I push in my chair when I leave the table, I enjoy hosting parties. When I was becoming a guide, I felt confident in my ability to share courtesy with the children in my environment. But grace? Grace is something I felt much less familiar with.

As a little girl, My Momma called me “Grace” for my utter lack of it. I am doubtful that any child fell, tripped, tumbled, bumped, bruised as much as I did. And every time, without chiding, my Mom would patch me up and lovingly call me her Grace. Dance classes as I got older certainly helped, and getting to dance in our high school production of “The Secret Garden” was a surprise and joy. It’s been a few years now since I’ve fallen and scraped myself up. But being in an environment with a million materials that are out of scale to me has sometimes made me feel bumbling. Holding the spoon is hard. How can I sit in this chair? The bowl is too small for me to grasp. Ow, my knee! Darn table. Knocked the pencil off of the table again! Slow down, I must remind myself. Slow yourself down.

When I was taking my Montessori training, my classmates, trainer and I defined grace together: fluidity. precision. purpose. exactness. organic. natural. internal calm. internal peace. lightness. a beauty that is owned. the essence of movement taken to a level of elegance. The finest of movements, where precision becomes natural.

So I ask myself: do I move and live with fluidity? With precision? Is there purpose? Am I exact? Am I thoughtful in my word and in my action? How do I incarnate something which I’ve never…embodied before? It is the Adults job, whether parent or guide, not just to model grace and courtesy, but to own it, to make it incarnate, a part of ourselves, whenever possible.

When I consider these questions, I find it easiest to pinpoint situations in my everyday life where I should be dealing with others with grace and courtesy. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of them with you all; perhaps you will find them helpful in your own negotiations with grace and courtesy.

-When one of the children picks up a pencil I’ve dropped on the floor without me ever even having the chance to ask, am I thanking them? What about when they are holding the door for me? Or when they step out of the way so that I may pass by? It isn’t necessary that I thank them for doing those things which are expected of them—but when they are doing things for me, it is only polite that I let them know how much I appreciate it.

-When I am speaking with the children (or other adults, for that matter), is my tone even? Even when I’m frustrated, am I keeping myself collected? In our conversations, what does my face say? My body language? Before I can correct the children, I must consider: when I see in them inappropriate body language, or hear inappropriate tone or language; is that a reflection of me? Note here that the children are always absorbing; and so those phone conversations and chats between parents and partners matter, too.

-Where do I put my things when I come in? Are they away where they belong, or do they wind up scattered? I cannot tell the children that I expect them to be orderly and on task if I am not orderly and on task myself. If my laundry is on the floor, I cannot expect for theirs to make it into the hamper; if I can never locate my shoes, I cannot expect them to, either.

-How do I move when I am around them? Am I carrying multiple things, juggling carelessly? Do I catch my hip on the counter because I’m moving through the kitchen too quickly, or flop down on the couch rather than sitting? Precise movement requires thought and time; it is difficult to be precise at high speed.

I continue to work, everyday, towards being able to embody grace. I am working to own it, so that I can offer it to the child. Remind me, if you see me, to slow down; you will be assisting me in my goal. I’ll do my best to remind you, too.

 “Whatever effort you as teachers have expended to make the children they once were into men better than they would’ve been without your help, this benefits not only the child himself, but many others you do not know.”

 Maria Montessori (p. 13, Human Tendencies and Education)

“It is a commonplace that the child must be free. But what kind of freedom has he been given? The only true freedom for an individual is to have the opportunity to act independently. That is the condition sine qua non of individuality. There is no such thing as anindividual until a person can act by himself. The instinct guiding the child to seek his independence thus leads us to realize what the whole of nature demonstrates – that any sort of association is composed of separate individuals. Otherwise there would be no such thing as societies, but only colonies. Education must foster both the development of individuality and that of society. Society cannot develop unless the individual develops, as we learn from observing the child, who immediately uses his newly won independence to act on a social environment.” — Dr. Maria Montessori Education and Peace, page 55

(A Montessori quick bite from The Center for Guided Montessori Studies)

Adults enjoy more freedoms than children. We can eat ice cream when we want. We can stay up as late as we wish. We can watch TV until our eyes fall out. We may choose to quit an unsatisfying job, or to move to a better house. We may choose to do more of the things that we enjoy, some of which may not be good for us.

The freedom to do what we want carries with it the burden of making good choices. How do we prepare children for this freedom?

Let’s consider this example.

The girl will tell you she’s four and a half, and that’s a very important distinction to her. Her brow is creased in concentration as sheleans over a rug on the floor. Spread out below her are eight cards, four pairs of opposites which she is trying to organize and label. She’s having trouble. She sounds out the labels again – Up, Down, Big, Little, Dark, Light, Hot, Cold. She knows these words. But something isn’t right.

At home, she’s learned to expect her helicoptering father every time she hits some difficulty. Her challenges are his anxiety – he worries that she’ll become too frustrated and turned off from harder tasks.

Just yesterday she was doing a puzzle and he pointed out where a missing piece went. “I can do it, Daddy!” she tells him time and again. But he distrusts the look of concentration on her face, and finds it very difficult not to offer unsolicited hints.

She is not quitting.

“Up” and “Down” were easy peasy. There’s a picture of a funny little man running up or down the stairs on each card, she can tell which way he is going because of the way he faces.

The picture of the ice cube, she knows that has to be “cold.” And the opposite of that has to be the “hot” grill. She knows grills are hot, she’s been told that many times when her parents are cooking out back. She must have cold and hot right. She turns the cards over, and sure enough they have the same color dot on the back.

But something is wrong with the other opposite cards.

She doesn’t know it, but in a traditional classroom there probably wouldn’t have been that dot on the back of the card.

Such a little thing. Such a world of difference. In a traditional “preschool” or daycare setting the girl would be expected to raise her hand and wait for an adult – hopefully wise, hopefully friendly, but always busy – to find the time to come over and give her a hand. How can a child learn unless she is taught?

Both the lighthouse and the boat are big, but the lighthouse is bigger. Both pictures had sand, but look, there’s a picture of a toy boat too. It makes more sense for the boats to be “big” and “little”.

Her eyes widen and she relaxes. She sees her mistake; the picture for “dark” must be the lighthouse at night. She wasn’t sure because it was a silhouette, and there’s more water in that picture. But if she does it this way then the boats can go together and the lighthouses can go together.

She arranges the cards and puts their labels underneath. She’s almost sure she has it right now. It all makes sense. She flips all the cards and sees that, yes, the color coding all matches.

Satisfied, she completes the work. She randomizes the cards to make the work fun for the next child, and returns it to its shelf.

Children are people, and people make mistakes. Unlike mainstream pedagogy, in Montessori we cherish children’s freedom to make – and correct – their own mistakes. We call this process “control of error”, and it is built into every Montessori work. When a Montessori teacher introduces a child to a new activity, the lesson includes the tools the child needs to perform a self evaluation.

But why is this so important? This is the question we ask today.

Dr. Montessori discovered a secret. This is the secret that the authoritarians of the world desperately hope will never become common knowledge. The secret is that we are all ready for freedom. We always have been. We are not individuals without it. To rob a person’s freedom is to reduce their humanity, to treat them as puppets. If we cherish our society’s freedoms, we must respect the individual.

Dr. Montessori realized that respecting the child meant acknowledging their person-hood. For this reason she designed classrooms that afford children freedom of choice and freedom of movement. How can you be free without the ability to make meaningful choices? How can a school help prepare children for the freedom of adulthood without granting them the experience of freedom?

Of course freedom also means the capacity to act in error. Authoritarians shudder, imagining that left to their own devices children will do nothing productive and cause no end of trouble. Of course, this is not what we see. Dr. Montessori said that the work of children was to create the people they will become, and we find that they pursue this task with marvelous diligence.

But children do make mistakes – errors in movement, academic errors, and errors in judgment. It is the goal of the Montessori method to assist children to recognize and to resolve their errors on their own. For children are not malfunctioning machines for us to “correct” – they are people and deserve the dignity of discovery and self-correction. Humans learn from their mistakes, so we must permit children to make them.

The Montessori materials are designed at their core to incorporate this concept. Every work a child performs includes a tool for control of error. The idea is that a child’s engagement with the material should be sufficient for self-learning, rather than requiring the adult in the classroom to pass judgment.

Not all of the learning in the Montessori classroom is academic. In the social environment, too, we celebrate freedom. Interpersonal conflict is a challenge for children and adults alike, and the Montessori classroom offers both the freedom for these conflicts to arise, and an environment uniquely well suited to solving problems harmoniously. Activities such as a peace table or grace and courtesy lessons are all designed to give children the tools they need to understand themselves, each other and to learn to resolve these conflicts when they arise.

Outsiders often remark that Montessori children seem so mature “for their age”, and this may be one reason why. Science shows us that emotional intelligence (EQ) is a better predictor for success than any academic measure. The Montessori classroom is designed to give children a special environment in which to strengthen these emotional skills.

Dr. Montessori’s secret is that freedom, independence and dignity are all interrelated. Aging adults often resent the loss of independence represented by moving into an assisted living facility. Both the aged and infirm say they hate “being treated like children.”

Children hate being treated like children, too, because the way children are traditionally treated interferes with their need for freedom and independence. The safe prepared environment of the Montessori classroom affords children the freedom to correct their own errors, develop their individuality, and mature into the adults our society needs.

Thoughts for the day:

• Can you think of examples of control-of-error in your own work place or home? Are there places where more tools for control-of-error might help?
• Do you ever have the temptation to offer a child unsolicited help?
• Where did that temptation come from?
• Are there times when it is appropriate?
• Is there a way to address a child’s frustration without curtailing their independence?
• Are there ways in which your freedom and independence are limited?
• What are the trade-offs we accept given the greater risks we face as adults?