by Phyllis Wallbank, MBE
[the following text was a draft of notes used for a series of workshops that Phyllis delivered in 1999. The workshops provided educators with a number of tips about education rooted in Phyllis’ long work and reflection upon education. There are a number of golden nuggets in this piece.]
How does one establish a real university today? Dr. Maria Montessori reflected about the university and then Cardinal Newman’s Idea of a University, although written in the 19th Century, is a work which no one can afford to ignore. For many years, I have found myself alone in my realization that our present whole educational system does great harm to people. In examining this issue thoroughly, very many questions need to be talked about.
In thinking about the idea of a university, we now know that there are, at least, seven different types of intelligence and presumably we should provide for every type. It is interesting to note that Einstein failed to get into the university of his day and had to go to a technical college!
Montessori always said that anyone who wanted to should be able to sit at the feet of anyone to learn and then, if he or she wished to sit for a high academic examination, he or she should be free to do so. She did not equate wishing to know more with taking examinations. In this day and age, we can all be wandering scholars to the most wonderful philosophers and any discipline via the Internet.
Similarly, I believe that age is no barrier. There should be no age discrimination when it comes to learning. Many children are capable of following thought, when they are interested, as are many elderly people. There is no need for any educational institute to know a person’s age except AFTER an examination.
The whole emphasis should be on thought and thought exchange.
The most serious issue that I should like to see addressed is everything to do with time in education. I should like to see it removed entirely!
In every person is born the quest to know. Within all tiny children, young people, and adults is the eternal question ‘Why?’. Everyone, regardless of nationality, culture, geographical position, social class, economic strata, strives from the earliest movement is to know, to understand.
This drive exists in every person’s very being or soul, and it fuels our development and an ongoing creative partnership with the Creator. All learning, for everyone, follows a structure of development that is the same within us all. Just as all children in all cultures speak at about the same time and walk at roughly the same time, this developmental time is predestined for human beings, although, learning itself in answer to ‘Why” is individual and occurs at the rate of the development of the self. Learning occurs within the Creator’s time and not according to any imposed time coming from without, externally, from teachers and administrators.
Anything that we learn occurs at our own rate. Our own learning has really only to do with us and is only truly grasped by ourselves. In The Gatehouse Learning Center years ago, I had all IQ’s learning individually so that everyone could be there, working within a prepared subject environment. There was a boy, John Rickard, who later scored tops in the Maths Olympiad out of 145 nations. He was able to work with his friend, a Down’s syndrome boy, and when I asked him one day when he was about ten, what he thought of examinations, he said that it was interesting to know what other people thought you should know.
I would take out all time from education so that eight or eighty could learn at their own speed within structured centers of learning. Time would be removed. It would cease to measure the period of any learning lengths. Bells would no longer interrupt or dictate our interest or learning time.
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Examinations would have the age time taken away so that examinations could be taken in any subject at any time within permanent examination halls, preferably called Achievement Centers. The tests themselves would be without any time limit so that examinees could reveal all their knowledge without being subject to any time pressures.
If we removed time from learning in these ways, the joy of achievement would come back and our prisons would not perhaps be so full, and young people would gain a sense of self worth. Anxiety has no place within learning. What is crucial is the ongoing development of the self. Years ago, Buckminster Fuller, the great scientist and architect, had such a wonderful time seeing children working without time being imposed on them that he later wrote about it afterwards in the following terms:
So thoroughly conceived and created that it allows the children to do their own learning while avoiding: 1) their being shorn of their innate sensitivities, 2) being deprived of their innate genius, 3) not having their spontaneous trust betrayed.
Such an approach presents a wholly different view of education from what we have inherited. Yet on paper, it can only be presented as one describes a beautiful sunset to someone. However the picture is painted, it will be always differ from grasping the reality.
It is very, very serious for mankind that education be viewed as a real part of life: to avoid mounting aggression within people and within the world, to prevent so many young people committing suicide, to stop countless thousands feeling that they ‘don’t fit in’, and to stop people feeling the need for ‘a quick fix’ with drugs or alcohol abuse. We must get our education in tune with real life and give people the right key to the door that will open for them so that they will see the wonder, the excitement, and the beauty within our universe.
On time and intelligibility
To answer your question may I begin with an anecdote?
I had within a group of normal and some very highly intelligent a brain damaged girl called Suzie. One day we were all talking about a television program based on Henry the eighth. Suzie had watched it with her highly intelligent sister, her mother, her father, and her grandmother and grandfather who were staying with them. If they were learning, we would put them into separate rooms with a television each! They all watched the program and all enjoyed it immensely. Each took in at their own level. Afterwards Susie chatted away about the program and I found as she talked about it, that she had gained a lot from it. She knew the costumes and the main people and had absorbed something of their characters. Her grandfather who is very interested in politics will have absorbed the political situation of that time. Each although so different in age and ability will have absorbed much and when talking about it would take very different length of time to talk about it. Lonergan would point out the periods of reflectiveness. Susie would reflect consciously about the dresses and then later subconscious reflection would play its part and she would in weeks or even years to come, recognize a dress of similar date although different in many ways. Each would absorb in their own way in their own time.
People learn in spite of us! Learning should not be encased by enforced sitting in a desk and chair for so many hours and being made to learn so much data by a certain date.. We know that there are at least seven different types of intelligence and we limit our teaching usually to two!
There is a way of learning that nature intends that is built in to every human being. When you say that you need to go at a different pace with two different ages…of course they will learn at different speeds but YOU will not know what speed. It isn’t you who do the learning.
Subj: Learning time continued.
If you ,together with a small child and I went to China and were there for six months. If The child went and played with the local children, You and I both began serious lessons in Chinese with the same tutor at the same time. What would be likely to happen? I should probably give up as you outstrip me but the child would know more Chines than either of us at the end of the time having absorbed the totality of the language for accent, tone, rhythm, and a great deal of vocabulary. He would be using the grammar whilst we were still trying to learn it by being given data and learning it by heart.
The fact that we have remedial classes and repeat classes shows that we are imposing an external learning time and trying to fit students into dates for inner understanding. There is only true way of learning and understanding, and that is at our own rate.
Every year in this country evening classes start with big numbers of people. By the end of one month the numbers are very depleted because for some it is ‘too slow” and for others ‘too fast’.
Each age has a sensitivity to certain types of learning. This is within the actual development of all of us. We are able to absorb certain types of learning better at these times.
Early learning is very much through sensorial experience and understanding comes with reflection and classification. This is followed by language being connected with the sensorial experience and more reflection and classification. Subconscious reflection and connecting synapses light up the understanding and expand the consciousness.
Lonergan talks about these periods of reflection and illumination in his book ‘Insight”. He also talks about using a method of stages of reflection to become aware of how much we are influenced by our own childhood and the accepted way of things, and to use this method to be able to recognize these accepted traditions and get instead to true values and then to be able to make true judgements followed by action. We need to do this to understand true education.
I do hope that what I am doing is acceptable. I think that it would be very valuable if you would reiterate what has been said each time, in more academic terminology. My own explanations will always be more in the practical field although I will of course refer to Lonergan always as we go along. I shall need to explain each stage of development as the final university description as Newman and Montessori and Lonergan depict, relies on a continual valuable period of learning for each stage.
This will be a long correspondence! I hope that I live long enough!
Please pull me up in your answers where I haven’t been clear enough. Let us have a real correspon¬dence where we each give. I think that your comments as well as questions are needed.
Subj: Bibliography
I shall leave you in peace for a day or two until you are ready for more…..unless you ask me to stop.
I suggest as essential reading:
Lonergan’s Insight.
Maria Montessori’s The Absorbent Mind
Maria Montessori..The Erdkinder and The Functions of the University in
addition to Newman and his Dutch lecture on The university.
E Mortimer Standing: Maria Montessori, Her life and Her Work
Subj: Fwd: Time and intelligibility
My concern is to have children and students and any age taught in the way that is natural and a delight to them and that will open for them the wonders and mysteries of our wonderful world and short life (It goes so quickly!)
What a stimulating answer! I want to say so much to answer it so will have to answer in several parts!
I was so interested in your own wish to learn yourself from a text book. Some years ago here there was a teacher’s strike and some young people gathered together for several weeks to work by themselves as they had their GCSE exams coming up. They worked by themselves and so of course will have gone at their own rate as no one else was in charge making them keep to an external time for each one’s learning. Their results the were higher than they had ever been!
You say “How can we help our teachers? ” The real whole answer is to change the whole system in the way that I hope will develop during our correspondence. I hope to show the main stages of development and then teachers can suggest the best subjects to fit into those periods of development which I hope will become very clear. If we feed these then when the students come to what we hope to show will be a true university, that would be a help to civilization …Mankind in general.
Meanwhile the best help is to get teachers to put energy into the preparation of their learning environment, so that every person is catered for at their level. There are computer program teaching helps as well as the teacher. It is simple these days to individualize and so to allow each student to learn thoroughly at the rate of each.
Often language will give a clue as to how best people work…
I HEAR what you are saying” (auditory)
I SEE what you mean (visual)
I FEEL the need ( tactile”)
Another present practical tip is to make things with their own marking system so that their are control of error cards, where pupils can see what is wrong themselves and try again until something is perfect.
If left to ourselves there is an inner drive towards perfection. The burglar even has an inner wish to be the best burglar! There is also this wish for effort but only if the environment is right.
If we went fishing with a stick and piece of string and however hard we tried we caught nothing, we should not bother. Similarly if every time we caught something without effort we should give up but if we had to make an effort and then could catch something, we would go on! Prepare the environment like that. Something for effort and the possibility of a catch for each person.
You can see this again on a desert island. We would build a shelter first but then we would go on and extend and beautify it and make it better and better with maximum effort.
The teacher then should put a lot of effort into the preparation of the environment. Stimulus joint lectures or classes for a mix of ages works well particularly if the environment gives pupil options from it.
I also think that a “Proof Reader” should be in each school so that books are marked in two ways, one for spelling, English and punctuation and the other by the subject teacher for content. The proof reader would set exercises or programs for the corrective learning of mistakes made and a set time should be in the schools for these exercises to be done. The proof reader could also mark maths before the teacher examines the work to see the help that may be needed.
Also the teacher should put someone who has just mastered something, to teach it to somebody else. However many in the class it means that number of ‘teachers’ available. To teach something consolidates the knowledge.
Another immediate practical help to teachers is for them to have a simple cheap photo copier in each room. The pupils could duplicate when they wanted to try again for a better mark.
Of course a technical adviser would be of great value for giving videos, programs etc. and for any technical problems.
But these are all just help until we get the whole educational system back with the thrill and wonder that it should engender.
I realize by the way that although I see the importance of Lonergan and understand the basic principals you are a much better scholar of Lonergan and should summarize for us.
I should like in my next, to give the major periods of development and then together perhaps and with the help of other people, we can suggest the natural subjects for within those periods.
Re the other people coming in. In a few letters time we shall need as much expert help as possible because by then our theme of developmental stages will have became clear and then we want to rearrange everything including subjects not usually included and then we need as much help as possible.
I feel just at this moment that once we see these stages then so many questions that would arise will have been dealt with or if not then they should come then. I just feel now that we both are beginning to follow the thread together and I would like to establish this at this point…then when the skeleton framework is clear and fits in to Lonergan, Newman and Montessori basic philosophy and psychological observations on learning ( she was a medical doctor) THEN your friend would be invaluable and it would be great fun to have him join the conversation. There is one observation, and that is to be positive as possible to help get this really on the way of getting the main structure established so that it really fits the inner development of any learner any where any culture and any age!
We’re on the way!! How wonderful to have this opportunity to get something in place of what we know is so wrong!
The stages lead to the university and in order to be a member of this type (Newman) of university I think that it would be of value for students to get to know themselves by Lonergan’s Method. They would then have an idea of true values and would have a love of learning if they came through the
earlier stages.
I shall try to sketch out the main phases and indicate areas and then research will always be able to fill them in. It is this main human potential, potency, form and act which are so important to understand. and utilize or rather immerse education together, not impose ‘methods’.
Subj: Main phases
I am keeping this ridiculously contracted.
The first six years are the sensorial phase is divided naturally into two sections 0 to 3 and 3 to 6.
Montessori if brought up to the present environment of today with space, technology etc. using the basic philosophy , then Lonergan can be seen in action with the three stages of reflection etc.
Here the child through games that follow the natural imitation of the culture and traditions are important and are in m. The exercises of Practical Life. At the same time sensorial materials help classification and language. The child absorbs the habits and morality of the environment and family. The skills for reading and writing (including modern technology) are acquired by analysis of the eventual skill and helping through games that please the natural sensitivity found within the child.
He should have the wonder of the world shown in every way possible so that he knows the beauty and wonder of the earth and the universe, before education breaks it into required detail. This is so important for our industrial world to show the rain forests, the might of our weather, the wonder of the opening flowers( slowed up film) etc. etc. All the language and verbal terminology will be used naturally as this is the stage for ‘collecting’ language.
Similarly this is the stage for loving other language, which can be given as a whole not as grammar etc and will be absorbed as a totality.
We may go into detail later. There is so much to describe for each stage, but this is the outline. Follow the child and prepare the environment to feed, and keep order of classification and care of the environment and discipline will be careful and orderly and yet happy and freer.
Subj: Next phase
The development from 6 to 12 is the golden age for loving learning if the environment is prepared and the potency, form and act is then able to develop the child.
By seven all the basic philosophical questions are asked in basic form! Now comes the stage of delight in collecting information and detailing it. One can see the potential of the lawyer! There is a logic and exactness now sort. The ‘WHY” becomes more concrete. The primordial quest that LONERGAN points out that is there right from the beginning of that person, and that drives each on to experience, ….Now it is a concrete conscious desire for knowledge. Here the best teaching comes by stimulation not by imposition. The stimulus lecture and the prepared environment followed by individual work that develops from the child’s own quest to know.
The higher examination syllabus points in each subject to the concrete and follow up materials. The Maths equipment that shows the later theory in practical ways. Everything that has to be known theoretically can be shown and shown and experienced in many ways. The language will be acquired in a natural way and definitions acquired. Keys given for easy research and written work stimulated by thrill from within the child.
At the same time the possibility of examinations through special achievement centers open separately and for all at any time. See if the child is interested in soils and rocks and gets an early understanding of geology he can take an achievement test at any time and any level.
Writing and reading are of course acquired at the up to six stage and so expression is now easy.
The child’s own religion has been developed at the absorbent early stage and there is so much to fill in but now there is conscious interest and feeding.
For this stage it would help if the university could devise there own subject materials for practical demonstration of their theoretical work. A tremendously high standard is able to be reached at this stage.
Every stage depends on the one before for personality and social and religious development.’ It is then that we come to the ‘Universal viewpoint’ and that real love is praise will be given to God and His creation and a love engendered towards themselves and their uniqueness of character, and the use of their talents with love for their neighbor.
They will have the ‘detached, unrestricted desire to knew’.
It must at this stage be the STUDENT’s (not the teacher’s) potency of will that turns will willingness (not through pressure or reward) to a conscious action. Then understanding, reflection and an expansion of consciousness will be seen.
I feel that I must get the view of the whole and then I will ease up and not go so fast each day!
After this, if I give an illustration of one type of material or explanation for each section then others can fill in much better than I would. Other people’s creativeness and understanding would come into play and we will all experience an expansion of consciousness that Lonergan speaks about.
So, the first stage is practical sensorial experience for classification and the absorbent mind for games initiating into the culture and traditions. It’s the age for mimicking the adult and so activities such as
pouring etc. Everything helping towards personal physical independence within the family. The absorbent mind works all the time for everything, so if our cupboards are seen untidy it is no use saying to the child to be tidy!
The next stage is one of great logical interest and love of detail. There is a love for written definitions and terminology and for great detail.
In Maths when a new step is mastered they like to make up their own sums and their own problems. The ones they make up are eventually far more complicated than we would dare to give!
They follow on conscious work from the practical experiences of the earlier stage. English grammar if symbols are used ; they is enjoyed especially when putting them onto Dickens or different writers to compare styles before putting them on their own writing. Six year old enjoy this. Most things come much earlier because every thing just follows on and so fulfils their own development.
At the practical stage they may have used a watering can over a soil model hill and seen rivers and deltas form Now is the time for finding in great detail and then mapping themselves rivers and deltas in different countries and leaning physical and social geography of quite advanced kinds. similarly with all subject following on from the practical and always going back to and from the earth or universe and always going from or to the whole…never detail in isolation. this is because their interest is in living.
Now the next stage 12 to 18 is quite different and now the interest is no longer on detail. These are the years of the growth spurt and it is wrong to keep for those two years, the students sitting in desks and chairs.
Also they need the subjects where the hormones that make for changes in mood and strong feelings and self doubt, these now need to find ways of expression and sublimation. Again a large range of subjects can be covered but they need to be those that fit this stage. I shall try to do this in detail.
I shall then come back to physical and social activities and discipline for each stage.
Each of these goes with different stages and is achieved personally.
Subj: adolescence
This stage is so very important to get right because at the end the student will be no longer a child but an adult and becomes a member of society. He must be helped now to understand how society works whilst being still protected to a certain extent.
He must be helped to have adaptability to live comfortably in the modern world and must be helped to have common sense but also foresight. He needs to be helped towards compassion and respect and love for his neighbor through a love of God whilst learning to live in the transcultural post modern era.
At present at this stage study often becomes a crushing and heavy load. Students at this stage are able to study to a high standard if given subjects and activities to fit their great growth spurt and their very dominant emotions. It is a critical stage psychologically and he must be helped to feel strong ly his self worth, Together with self confidence we must help him to develop powers of adaptation for his place in society within a changing world.
Just as the period from 0 to six is the period of’ Help me to do it myself” so this is now a period for growth of new independence and linking with his friends and stepping gradually into society knowing his own unique talents and ready to use them; becoming now free of his parents but becoming friends and loving them. Nature within tells him to decide things for himself.
This is a natural time to group together away from the family and to do this he needs a small society meeting his needs. He needs (I shall say he but I mean both he and she) contact with nature in the country side and the possibilities of being alone sometimes . He His education needs to be widened. He must have the possibility to act on his own initiative, to help make and govern within a frame . He must be able to know more of his religion and be able practice it and must be able to have the opportunities to discuss and argue any points so that he can live truly.
1) There should be possibilities for choice of time and work as far as possible in these subjects which give possibilities for personal development and emotional expression and fun and laughter.
MUSIC:
Through listening he should learn to recognize compositions and the composer and period. He should have choral singing of different types and ages, including some modern music. He should have some possibility of solo and orchestral playing of an instrument however rudimentary up to advanced.
Language
diction (through fun of mimicry!)
Acting plays stories and poems
Making speeches
learning to present logical argument
debates and discussions. Learning to argue also from another point of view other than ones own.
Presentation of new ideas.
ART
Drawing and modeling not as a proper art training but giving expression to individual taste.
Handicraft of some kind
Learning modern techniques.
There are very big other parts to this age that are very important and more innovative and will take some time writing them up.
Adolescence 2
I am giving the way of more natural education for all races and religions.
I should like to discuss later specific religious development and teaching.
The next subjects are very formative at this stage: Moral education, Mathematics and languages.
Moral education comes through the understanding of the society in which they now play an active part and through valuing themselves.
Mathematics: It is impossible to take part and to understand life today without realizing the part of Mathematics in nature and for social living.
It is necessary to understand mortgages, to be able to make comparisons, to make measurement for home furnishings, to keep account of money and to understand the wonder of astronomy and so on. They need to use Maths that they will need for their future life and to understand space travel etc.
Abstractions should always be materialized as far as possible.
Language
Today it should be a social convention that education should give the ability to read and write correctly in several languages. If the spoken language is acquired at the very early absorbent mind stage and then copied and whispered whilst copying in writing from books, then there should be no difficulty with grammar as it will be instinctive just as their own language formation.
There is a third section of other subjects and then the activities that are essential.
It should be noted here that subjects like these are for USE.
Adolescent 3 interim note
There are six years to do what is being outlined and it seems to me that some of it goes specifically into two year periods of special sensitivity to the subject and others are dominant throughout. What is cleaner is that there is the primordial why? to answer and that it must be as far as humanly possible, that the potency of will must find an environment carefully catering for that age so that the willingness eagerly comes and is turned into will conscious judgement followed by act. We shall then see a social microcosm that is functioning for the good of all and that love and loving acts abound and peace and contentment are obvious. The adult puts all his energy into seeing that the environment provides the stimulus tight for the stage and the spiritual, academic and physical food being sort after being available there.
Adolescent 3 interim note
There are six years to do what is being outlined and it seems to me that some of it goes specifically into two year periods of special sensitivity to the subject and others are dominant throughout. What is cleaner is that there is the primordial why? to answer and that it must be as far as humanly possible, that the potency of will must find an environment carefully catering for that age so that the willingness eagerly comes and is turned into will conscious judgement followed by act. We shall then see a social microcosm that is functioning for the good of all and that love and loving acts abound and peace and contentment are obvious. The adult puts all his energy into seeing that the environment provides the stimulus tight for the stage and the spiritual, academic and physical food being sort after being available there.
Adolescence 3b
The third group of subjects should be presented in a form that will stir the emotion for science t today has helped us to understand even more this wonderful and extraordinary world. They need to understand that knowledge itself is allowed by God and encouraged by God by the primordial’ why?’ but the morality comes in with the way that we obtain and use that knowledge. The prime moral rule is love for the individual. Many of the terrible religious wars happened because this rule was not realized.
The study of the earth and living things will lead to geology, geography, cosmology, astronomy, botany, zoology, physiology, psychology, the mind and the brain, anatomy, and biology.
One will always lead into the other because subjects are really man made divisions and life is totality. This is where the prepared environment with computers, videos, first rate encyclopedias and well written stimulus text books are necessary. The students will follow their own ‘Why?” and “How?” They will absorb so much through the thrill of their own chase.
Buckminster Fuller came and gave a wonderful talk to all ages for all ages from 7 up! He excited them all with his talk of space ship earth. We were all spell bound…adults included. The higher the person in their field the more they can convey the excitement and wonder and the amount that is still there to find out.
We are there and have the privilege ‘to keep them company on the way.’
There are still some exciting things to have in the environment for this age. I have to cover this all in a fair amount of detail so that the difference is understood.
Subj: More tips for present teachers!
When a student goes on writing without putting in full stops in spite of being told, there is one way to cure immediately! Get the student to whisper (it must come through the actual speech part of the brain) the whole sentence BEFORE WRITING IT. Then he must not add to it but keep to that and whisper again each word as he writes down the sentence…THEN he puts the full stop. It actually works! If he then has something that he thought of and would have liked to add then he must put it in a new sentence, which again he must whisper in totality BEFORE beginning to write it, again whispering each word as he writes. Then there he puts another full stop.
Subj: PS to yesterday’s tip
When the child (yesterday’s tip) child points out the word and then the sentence he likes best, if you have read and understood Lonergan’s work, you will understand the tremendous importance of reflection. You will then never spoil the moment by saying “Now see if all your writing can be like
that!” You will leave the inner reflection to operate. It will do its job much better than if you imposed your wishes. The wish for the child to strive for more perfection is in there. Let it operate and the child will grow in stature …and the writing will also improve because the conscious eye has begun its work and there will be continuous expansion of consciousness. Lonergan is so relevant to teaching.
Subj: Sketch of rest of this period
Museum of pictures and real and videos of history of MACHINERY> The importance of machinery for man is shown and possible machinery suggested for the future. The long legged growth spurt age are ‘apprenticed’ for mending and understanding plugs, cars computers etc. This is the natural stage away from desks and chairs for much of the time.
PUPIL’S SHOP Open every day for a set period.
There is a school shop with its OWN CURRENCY worked out and used.. Adults stock the shop with things that are very much desired and help with book keeping and stock buying, pricing etc.
Students can earn this money by helping with cleaning and general care of building and garden.. Lists of jobs and ‘wages’.
I have done this and it works wonderfully. Jobs that are unpopular are the most highly paid etc. The economic reality of work and payment within society is experienced within a safe environment. Books are kept, stock taking. Buying stock is done by adults who help to supervise as needed and together they make out the worth of the school currency.
There is no way to be able to buy without school currency and that can only be learnt.
Profit is worked back into ordinary money and investments looked at and money invested and followed.
Sale for parents held each term.
There is a special parents sale of craft work made by students, lemonade, cakes etc.
There should be a bank where money gained from craft made or cakes or lemonade etc. where it may be exchanged for school currency. This is a ‘bank’ and rates have to be worked out. It may be spent or an investment made.
In the last year ready for university, Lonergan is studied with the aim of self knowledge and appreciation of values
Subj: Some general observations.
It must be remembered that during these six years although there is so much to do, there are not classes as such but stimulus lectures and demonstrations followed by individual work within a very carefully structured environment.
It works very well if one keeps certain areas for each subject. If it is carefully structured the atmosphere of eagerness of individualized work is wonderful as there is a certain energy engendered that isn’t seen and felt in class teaching. This has been experienced from time to time and written
about.
Montessori in The Formation of Man, in the chapter entitled Revelation of Natural Order says that Tolstoy describes a similar sudden intensely moving experience when the children at Jasnaja Poliana suddenly began working independently, coming in extra early and reading going on and on without
any sign of fatigue and with a joy not shown before this independence of work.
In the same chapter she quotes Pestalozzi “I was only an amazed onlooker!” He saw spontaneous and indefatigable work followed by perfidious progress.
As soon as we allow our students of any age to work from a carefully prepared environment, satisfying the inner urge, then children work with peace and joy and don’t get tired as they do when we impose our will instead of allowing their own potency of will to become active and their own inner reflection to guide them to the next step from their inner questioning. When these vital inner laws are allowed to function then we see a new type of learning with enthusiasm and with a feel for their own place in their help with God’s ongoing creation. They grow in their faith in God as they grow in faith of themselves.
I hope to describe how religious faith is fed. There are again general stages that can be seen and these must be met by our own faith where we carefully structure the material and help within their environment. It has a natural stage for meditation at about 14 and a later stage that seeks self discipline and self given hardship. The needs of each stage are different from each other.
Subj: Teacher hints for today
I have often seen senior pupils who have been preparing for advanced exams, and who have reasonable knowledge of the subject, having had written at the end of their essay answer, “You have not answered the question!”
This can be cured very speedily. The student should read the question twice. The first time with eyes only, (one eighth of the brain), the second time whispering very quietly (eyes and speech and hearing are of the brain, now involved.) He then just needs to underline the KEY WORDS and make each of these the subject of a separate paragraph. The answer looks good because of paragraphing and it is exactly on the question asked.
Students are thrilled at the receipt of higher grades which result from this simple procedure.
Once you see the truth of the natural stages, our present system seems so barbaric, however kindly!
So many ‘Montessori schools are not really Montessori as they just buy the apparatus and don’t realize how she would have made differences to fit life today.
How is it that our education system doesn’t see the importance of the running commentary that we are born to have going on all the time. This reflective analysis is never really used and yet that is so much part of everyone. None bothered to think why until Lonergan.
Subj: Continuation
During these years it is important to give them the knowledge of everything that they will need to make a home for if they have a family.
They should have homemaking skills including first aid, cooking, cleaning, planning rooms and gardens, how to repair, managing on a budget.
I know many people whose families have been alcoholics and drug addicts for several generations and they have never seen a real home or lived on a budget according to their means.
It is interesting for this age group to pick a profession and see what is the average salary and plan an appropriate life style, with a control of error card that reminds of all the items that will have to be taken into consideration. This needs to be done again for presuming that the only income is social benefit.
(In my own case I take Eton school boys on the Slough and London Runs to the disadvantaged and at the beginning they have no idea how little money there is in some cases and that if someone gets a hair cut he may have rot choose between that and a meal.
They could also do the same with the average earnings of a workman.
This can be followed by the understanding of meals on a tight budget also meals when there is no cooker available and then costed.
All of these activities bring a realization of how society is made up and will help them to be more understanding of other people.
They should also, following a pattern for their own religion at every stage (which I hope to detail) have possibilities for incorporating their own Catholic religion at this stage. They need active religious experience and discover their own inner faith and also have some knowledge of other religious beliefs that they are likely to meet.
At the last stage of these years the inner faith and self knowledge would be discovered through a study of Lonergan before entering the university such as Newman envisaged.
Montessori maintained that every young person should come into real contact with newly born babies so that respect for life was engendered. She even said that teacher training really should be to be present at a birth and then to follow the first three months of the life of the child. Then she said, we should have real respect for individual progress and the sanctity of life!
Subject: Continuation
Subj: Teachers’ tip.
When you have a child who leaves out an occasional word in a sentence, ask the child to always whisper very quietly as she writes each word. Why is it no use saying it only in the ‘mind’s eye’?
The answer is interesting. Our minds from earliest times classify everything. They have to see that something is a chair although they may not have seen one just like it before.
It often goes speedily and completes a classification when something is not finished exactly. If we hold up an unfinished square with each side not quite joined up and show it quickly to someone asking what it is, they will reply ‘a square’. It is the same with the sense of sentences. Our mind completes it even if we leave out a word. Even if proof reading it by eye alone, the child will not see it. But immediately the speech part of the brain is activated, then it is very different. The speech part would see the gap.
Subj: Cardinal Newman
By now you will see how all of this fits in with what Cardinal Newman was showing, with only one difference: what he says has been interpreted with only university whereas, really, it is the key to education.
Here are a few quotes:
This line applies to me when it all seems so obvious!
Persons are often to be found who are surprised that they cannot persuade all men to follow them, and cannot destroy dissent by preaching a portion of the divine system INSTEAD OF THE WHOLE OF IT.(my caps.)
It is obvious that to be earnest about seeking the truth is an indispensable requisite for finding it.
It will not satisfy me if religion is here and science there, I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and the moral discipline.
This is a very serious state of things that these various faculties and powers of the human mind have for so long been separated from each other, so long cultivated and developed each by itself.
A comprehensive view of truth in all its branches, of relations of science to science, of their mutual bearings and their respective values.
Knowledge indeed when thus exalted is also power; not only is it excellent in itself, but whatever that excellence may be, it is something more, it has a result beyond itself.
Perhaps with these quotes you will see, Dunstan, why I asked for no questions too soon. It is because, now, as the way of true education begins to unfold (and I hope to go on to the university), how Newman, Lonergan and Montessori all fit together.
The education as described is universal and will bring morality and religious sensitivity.
Before going too far on I hope to show how a Catholic school would use the periods of sensitivity so that the child has an inner faith that cannot be dislodged later because it is living and not only intellectual. It is seen as the whole of the wonderful world and ourselves in totality.
Subj: Teacher Tip
When young children are first writing their names, when they are mastering it, but you see the paper moving without the child holding it still, then you are likely to find later that the child will have difficulty in spelling. The same child is later likely to have trouble learning the multiplication tables. When learnt he is more likely than others not to retain the memory easily.
These children are often quite clever, but because the two hemispheres of the brain are equal in size one doesn’t dominate and there is not the usual cross modal transfers linking the two hemispheres together.
These same children will often solve problems in maths being able to see the problem as a whole but find it difficult to put down the working on the page.
With the tables it is the sequencing that is the difficulty. If you want them to say the table in sequence just write down in order below each other the numbers one to ten and you will probably find that the table can be said!
There is no need to learn a table in sequence as this is seldom really needed. Just put each item of one table down on a separate card with the answer on the back. They should say each aloud and the answer and then look to see if it is right. The right ones go on the right and the wrong on the left. The child repeats those on the left until finally all are on the right. He then shuffles the cards and does them again.
Remember, Einstein found sequencing difficult. This difficulty is nothing to do with lack of intelligence it is a different type. Many very big steps in understanding have been made in history by people with this type of brain. Our present educational system is not very helpful to this type of brain!
Subj: Next teacher tip
At about seven when a child is sorting out right and wrong, if he? she continually comes to tell you of others wrong doings, it usually means that confirmation is needed that it is wrong and this confirmation is sort more often when home and school morality are not quite the same! The best thing to do(unless there is danger of course) is to confirm that you think it is wrong and say “I wonder if you could put it right” Try to get the child to comfort someone or right a wrong where possible without the child seeing you punish someone as a result of her telling. It is very important that the negative is met with positive action.\ The teacher should of course make sure what all is well and the child is busy putting right as far as possible what was wrong. It is very interesting to see in the Nursery class a child who has had difficulty in being dry, if another child makes a puddle he is the first to show shock or horror. we all tend to be stronger about wrong doing if we are tempted ourselves or had great difficulty overcoming some temptation or our thoughts wander in that direction.
The thing to remember is not to reprimand the other child in front of the bearer of the news but always confirm whether you agree that the action is wrong or disagree. The child needs to know.
Subj: Teachers’ tips
From the very beginning children like order in their lives. They feel secure if a tender and loving order is kept around them. In a Montessori room, the teacher is not seen to bear down on children for order but she quietly reminds children that everything in the room has its right ‘home’. Whenever something is required, the child has to go to that object’s ‘home’ to get it. In this way children are prevented from grabbing something from someone. When they have finished then back it goes to its own place.
This doesn’t prevent children playing together and they are shown how to ask whether they may join in. When the children are sitting in a group with their teacher, she presents the way to ask and the way to reply if they would like the companionship or if not how to reply to say that they will tell the other person when they are putting the object back.
All social customs and manners are taught by having a few minutes each day helping children to act out various situations. Children then love to show their own skill when in the same situations and the enjoy showing that they know what to do.
This care of the environment goes right through all the age groups and becomes quite natural With the older age group their care goes onto the outer environment of the countryside.
The greatest difficulty in teaching is to get teachers to stand back. I really mean this. I guarantee that if we prepared the environment carefully with self corrective materials and left it for children when they wanted to use it, (without any adult)it would always be full! Please tell Dave that I do believe that we must get away with the idea that teachers “work with children’ They keep them company and work on the environment for them. This is the most extraordinary difference. If children were with us and we were all talking together and there was a table with materials there, children would go to it before playing!! Playing is of course terribly important but work is an inner drive and to the young child is play if the environment is right.