by David Fleischacker
It is key that all materials and activities in the Montessori world assist the child in self-correction. The explanation for this is intrinsic to the nature of the child. Interiority reveals this in questions. The questing spirit of a child continues to press forward until there are no further relevant questions about something. In other words, when the natural desire to understand and to know is alive and well, there is intrinsic to the fulfillment of these desires a process of self-correction.
Let’s take one example to illustrate this point. One of the materials developed by Montessori was a block of cylinders. Each cylinder varied by diameter and diameter alone. The diameters are ordered from smallest to largest along the length of the block. The task of the child is to return each cylinder to its home in the block. The self-correction nature of this is obvious, but it is helpful to focus upon the details of this self-correction as it unfolds in the interiority of the child.
As mentioned, the variation of the cylinders is by diameter alone. So when a child looks at the block and the cylinders, the color, texture, and materials used to create the cylinder are the same. The only variation is diameter, and so as the child approaches the block, perhaps with an unspoken wonder about what it is, the child will be drawn to the one single variation of each cylinder, namely the diameter. Now the child will not have a geometric understanding of diameter because that belongs to the explanatory realm for a later sensitive period. Rather, the child will grasp diameter in its descriptive form, with the descriptive being first touch (at least I think so) and second an association to the visual. It is helpful to have the child run their fingertips around the cylinder and then to trace the cylinder hole which is the home of the cylinder. One can even show them how to grasp the cylinder at the base and as they move to place it back in the hole, allow their fingertips to guide them by matching it with the felt diameter of the hole. All of this gives them the proper sensory operations into which they can then develop their insights which allow them to name what they touch and see.
It is important to note that if all the cylinders were the same diameter, then the child would not be able to discover the notion of diameter. Diameter is a width of a cylinder or of a hole, but it is any width. That variability is key. So, a child only gets the notion right with the variations included.
As the child develops a descriptive experience of the varying diameters of each cylinder and hole, the activity of placing the cylinders back into their respective home in the block takes place through the child asking the question for truth, even if not explicitly stated. In other words, interiorly, as the child fits the cylinders into the hole, the child needs to be wondering about whether this is right (or true). All of the cylinders must be returned to their home in the block as a group. If any are left out, then the child has not validated the felt and visual notion of diameter yet. One could for example put a cylinder with a smaller diameter into a hole with a larger one. But then some of the cylinders will remain without a home. This assists the child in answering the “Do I have it right?” quest about diameter and the child will pursue the answer to this until the quest is satisfied, and then probably go on and repeat it multiple times until it becomes thoroughly habituated into the being of the child.
Notice how the self-correction thus requires that there be a proper limit to the descriptive notion. Children learn one notion at a time, and one operation at a time. Then once learned, combinations can be made (such as cylinders that vary in length and diameter). This is true of all materials and activities. And children in the absorbent phase rapidly take these notions and operations into their being and then go on to combine the notions and operations in a variety of ways, so that they can learn far more complex combinations of notions and activities. Think of all that is involved in properly washing dishes or walking across a floor without spilling something.
One last note, the child’s own desire to “do something himself or herself” can become disordered. Through a kind of self-correcting pride, development becomes hindered when a child fails to realize the relations of dependence he or she has in this world upon others, upon their parents and history, and ultimately upon God. However, in the best schools that I have seen, this is avoided or minimized through properly ordered personal relationships that become habituated into the child in the first stages of Montessori education. Children have a natural propensity to work with each other as well, especially those within the same sensitive period of life.