How social skill is developed in a child below 5 years (in Montessori)

It is surprising to observe that even a complex social skill can be imparted to a child of less than 5 years in Montessori. And, considering the surprisingly naive manner in which training is conducted in companies, I thought it would be useful for training professionals to understand how it is done in a Montessori school. 

Social skill is not sitting with someone else and listening others talk, joke, blabber, or patting each other’s back. Social skill is sitting with others to solve social problems and pursuing aims acceptable to all. Therefore social skill requires a skill to harmonise individual activities. If the latter is social development, then fostering social development requires developing five traits: 1) Acquiring self discipline to speak what is necessary, 2) respecting others time and presence, 3) taking care of common resources that belong to all, 4) listening to others with patience, and 5) utilizing each others to ask for help or give help, when necessary.

Let us see how these traits are developed indirectly in a Montessori School. No scholastic material is prepared to develop social skills of a child; instead, in Montessori,  an environment is created, which invokes specific experiences in a child, so that it enables the development of child’s social skills. Let us see how it is done. 

For instance, in a Montessori school, as many of the Montessori apparatus are found in only single sets, the child, who does not find what he wants to work with, needs to wait for it to come back to the shelf. This fosters patience and tolerance towards other children in the environment. The child learns to control the urge to grab the material from others and has to instead learn to live with others.

The child in a Montessori school has the freedom to move and work wherever he wants to. However, he quickly finds out that his freedom is not limitless. Like others can disturb him, he also realizes that he can be a source of disturbance to others. He has to therefore learn to inhibit his impulse to disturb others if he has to enjoy his own freedom of working himself. Unknowingly he learns to respect others. A child is not taught to respect others, instead he learns this through experience in a Montessori.

In a Montessori, a child has to take care of the material himself. Because everyone shares one set of material, the child understands that the materials are common resources used by everyone. He not only has to take care of the material, but also keep it back in the same state of preparedness and completeness that he got the material, after he finishes his activity. This itself promotes self-discipline and acute awareness of other’s needs, an important trait for social development

In a Montessori, children with diverse and mixed age group work together. Infact, the diversity in a Montessori enables child to experience different type of children: active, bubbly, silent, demanding, whining, talkative etc. Older children become heroes and teachers of the younger children, as younger children intuitively understand that when they will become older they will be able to do what older children can do. As a five year old child can communicate with a three year old far more easily than adult, a junior child often ‘ seeks help’ from the senior child about his activity instead of adult. This social experience of helping each other in a Montessori strongly promotes social skill development.

In other words, careful preparation of environment in a Montessori promotes social development better than any traditional classrooms. It is not done through specific actions, but through creating an environment, where a child learns through ‘experiencing’ instead of intellectual reasoning. As Paula Lillard mentions "Unlike traditional classrooms the children speak to each other and initiate activities together whenever they like. They are not forced, subtly or otherwise to share themselves with others when they are not ready or interested".


Amen !

Lesson 4 from Montessori for Corporate HR ( L&D)

Lesson 4 is perhaps the most fundamental principle. It states that 'When child is provided content, he develops when he self-constructs the given content to resolve real-life situations'. To comprehend this principle, you will need to understand alternative principle of learning that is in vogue. This alternative principle states 'Children are empty vessels, and we just have to pour content into them for them to develop'. As practiced in traditional schools, teachers therefore 'tell' the lesson to the class as verbal instructions, and a child will fill his 'empty vessel' diligently. Development is supposed to occur automatically once the content is filled!

To enable child to ‘self construct’ knowledge from the content, content in Montessori school therefore is introduced to child in a structured lessons, and that too in a specific sequence. For instance, in Montessori, a child develops his knowledge of 'numbers' 1 to 10 through a sequence of structured lessons. In the first lesson, child is introduced to 9 number rods, each increasing in constant increment, that is second rod is double the size of first. At this stage, no concept of 1 or 2 is introduced. This lesson enables child to learn about numbers only through visual discrimination. In the next lesson, child uses tactile discrimination while tracing numbers through sandpaper numbers. In the next lesson, number 1 is linked to each number rod in the child's mind through 'Card lesson'. This is when '1' is linked conceptually to 'one number rod'.

To further consolidate the linkage of '1' to 'one number rod', spindle box lesson is offered later to the child. In this lesson, 1 to 9 numbers are linked to 1-9 spindles. Next, concept of zero is introduced sensorially, by asking child to 'Jump 3 times, jump 5 times, and jump zero times'. At the end of sequence, card and counter game is introduced to consolidate each number to a unit in child’s mind. Only after numbers are understood through these successive lessons, child is introduced to the more complex lessons of 'additions'.

How does the child self-construct content of every lesson? In Montessori, after teacher introduces a lesson by showing every step, child performs the lesson all by himself. Control of error (mentioned in principle 2) enables the child to self-correct his mistakes. Child repeats the lesson ( as long as he chooses to)until he can do it without mistake. A child therefore does not move to the next lesson until he masters earlier lesson. This mastery ensures self-construction of content. Therefore, unlike a child in traditional school who may learn to repeat 'numbers' by rote, a child in Montessori understands the meaning of number in real life situation through 'self construction' of his knowledge.

Lessons for companies

As you would have realised, practicising this principle is very difficult than preaching it. The rigor required for designing each lesson and then sequencing it is very high. Case study method uses similar principle of learning. Although case study is commonly used to train students in management colleges, it is not as commonly employed in companies to train executives.

I have however observed it in few instances. I know of a company, which depended on agriculture inputs, wanted to develop its Farmer representatives to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural inputs from the farmers. Company designed a case study based on real-situation a representative faces, used local language to impart the case study, sequenced the 'sessions' rigidly to move from one level of complexity to another. While imparting the session in free flowing format, it allowed each representative to learn at its pace so that the learner slowly self constructed the content into useful knowledge. This enabled the company to develop their farmer representatives far more consistently than the alternative method of class-room training.

Lesson 3 from Montessori for HR ( L&D)

Before writing third principle of Montessori, i would like to respond to one of my friend's response to this blog. He felt that these are pretty basic elements of learning. Isn't it surprising that companies do not follow them, he asked. I think Montessori method is really built on pretty basic principles. Montessori method is unique because it has tied together these basic principles tightly in actual practice, not just design. And i think the same is true with companies. A company may follow one principle completely, but do not practice the rigor to integrate all the principles tightly.

Third principle of Montessori learning is ' Learning happens when you offer choice to the child'. At the outset, it should be mentioned that Principle 2 of ' Give lessons to child only when interested' and this principle go hand-in-hand. Psychologists today agree that having choice is critical for learning/development to occur. Many studies can be cited to substantiate this.

It is amazing to watch how Montessori follows this principle rigorously. Traditional schools and Montessori schools offer choice to the child at two different levels. Traditional schools offer no choice at macro level ( you have to sit in the Language lesson at 10 am?) but offer lot of choice at micro level ( you can learn the language lesson the way you wish, because every teacher teaches the lesson in her/his style!).

Montessori method reverses this principle. It offers lot of choice at macro level ( you can engage in a lesson at the time you wish. As there are no group lessons in Montessori,a child can actually exercise this choice!) but very little choice at micro level ( you can engage in a lesson only in a specific steps and sequence. Every Montessori teacher is thoroughly grilled to impart lessons in a structured sequence)

This unique configuration of macro and micro choice in Montessori makes the environment of a child very conducive to learning. Macro choice enables child to engage in a lesson when he is sufficiently interested ( part of principle 2). It is often observed in Montessori that some children will immediately engage in lessons after they are introduced to a lesson, while some take a very very long time. A child is never pushed into learning the lesson. Further, as every lesson in Montessori is individualistic ( unlike blackboard method in Montessori), a child in Montessori can work at it's own pace. This not only ensures that child engages when he or she is ready, but also engages in the lesson at it's speed. A child is not pressurised to learn at the speed of class.

On the other hand, restricted micro choice ensures that every child engages in a lesson in a fixed and structured manner. Structured lessons compels child to engage with the lesson in specific steps only. Although Montessori method is often criticised for its rigid structure, the effort taken in designing lessons ( and even to sequence them appropriately) is indeed commendable. Montessori uses a unique innovation - control of error - which is similar to TQM method. Every lesson has an inbuilt design of error-control. Due to this 'control of error', a child understands that it is making a mistake in completing a lesson and self-corrects. This self-correcting structure of lesson therefore goes a long way in ensuring deep learning! (Another unintended consequence of this method: Unlike traditional school, Montessori method is less dependent on the soft qualities of a teacher.)

How can companies gain from this principle? Generally, end purpose of training program is not fully shared with employees. As employee knows very little about the benefit of a training program, he/she cannot exercise his/her macro choice deliberately. On the other hand, like traditional schools, companies offer too much of micro choice to the employees. A training session is typically structured in a very loose manner. Loose structure causes unpredictable delivery which in turn leads to uncertain outcome in learning. Quality of learning heavily depends on the quality, style and mood of trainer ( or facilitator).

Good companies do a lot in offering macro choice to their employees. However, as far as micro choice is concerned, I have seen very few companies exert rigour and discipline in structuring a session. Although benefits of structuring are numerous, due to the huge effort required in structuring a training program, very few companies walk the extra mile. If companies visit Montessori school to watch the benefit of structuring, they may change their minds, i guess.

Lesson for HR ( L&D) from Montessori - Lesson 2

The second principle of Montessori learning looks pretty logical and straightforward to a layman, but which surprisingly is ignored by experts.

According to Montessori, learning happens only if the child has interest. In Montessori, therefore, care is taken to use 'sensitive period' to ensure interest. For instance, as child is interested in using and exploring 'senses' at the age of 3, 'sensorial lessons' are imparted at the age of 3. At a later age, child loses interest in sensorial lessons.

This method in Montessori is followed even to introduce cognitive subject like language. For instance, language is introduced to child through 'sensorial means'. For instance, words are introduced to a child phonetically ( which is natural to him) instead of introducing them through 'alphabets, as is done in traditional school. For instance, even before teaching alphabets, a child is taught simple phonetically 'right' words such as mat or rat.

This serves two purpose. Due to focus on 'sound' ( one of the sensorial means), child quickly takes interest in learning more words. No compulsion is needed. Extreme care is taken to ensure that a child is not blocked in this method of learning. For instance, when child pronounces cat as 'kat', a child is not corrected, because Kat is phonetically right. Secondly, this initial learning of words invokes child's interest to a sufficient level and automatically pulls him to know more about alphabets. Using this simple method of interest generation ( and subsequent resolution), the child n a Montessori understand figures of speech by the age of 5!!!

Contrast this with learning principles practiced in corporate world. An employee is 'instructed' to attend a training program or is 'pushed' to attend a training program to comply with norms. For instance, employees are instructed to attend a training program to ensure that a batch of 20 is completed, or are pushed to attend 'six sigma' training program because the company is keen on getting a certificate of Six sigma! In such a situation, the employee attends training programs for the sake of 'recording his attendance'. Millions are wasted in training.

If Montessori principles are applied smartly by companies, they will at least get adequate return from their huge investment. For instance, if trainings are done just at the sensitive period, it will ensure high interest and assimilation. For instance, employees need to learn the skills of 'Project management' when they are asked to lead a project. Or when employees are promoted from sales officer to Sales Manager, they would be far more interested in attending a training program on 'Managerial development'.

Companies can also 'seed' interest in employees smartly. For instance, companies can use 'individual level coaching' to suggest need of specific skill, say the skill of 'team alignment' , 'communication' or 'delegation'. Once an employee accepts the need of skill, he or she is more likely to assimilate learning from a relevant training program. Apart from coaching, companies have various other non-intrusive ways of 'seeding' and 'developing' interest. One of the way is use of intranet web.

Lesson for HR ( L&D) from Montessori - Lesson 1

My wife has joined Montessori course two months back in Bangalore. I have therefore immersed in understanding and learning these Montessori concepts from practical angle, as against the theoretical understanding i had about this method. I have been amazed at observing the simplicity with which the basic learning principles are put into action in Montessori method. However, in the same breath, i have been surprised how we in corporate ignore these fundamental principles of learning.

For instance, Montessori believes that a child comes to the school with already learnt baggage. Therefore, during the initial period of classes, what is called as M1 ( year 1 of learning), Montessori spends time on enabling the child to engage in 'Exercises of Practical life'. These exercises are the daily tasks of a child such as sitting down on a mat, using towels, picking spoon, lifting a glass. Teachers are trained in performing these tasks so that they can help the child perform them in an appropriate manner.

The purpose of engaging in these practical tasks in the first year of Montessori is four-fold. One, it enables child to spend time with the teacher and develop mutual trust and confidence to engage in next set of complex activities. Two, it helps child develop the basic motor coordination skills that are necessary for the next activities such as writing. Three, it helps inculcate the basic foundation of self-imposed discipline through use of peer pressure. Four, it helps the child use the new skills in his environment at home and therefore gain the self confidence of doing a task efficiently. This feedback loop of real-life is necessary not only to strengthen the learnt skills but also gain the confidence to increase the pace of learning cycle.

Contrast this with the training programs that typically happen in a corporate life. You will find at least three big mistakes in training employees. One, an employee is assumed to come with a clean slate, not a baggage. This does not allow the trainer to build on what is available with the employee. Two, because the trainer overlooks these daily activities, the employee finds it difficult to apply the training lessons in his existing tasks. Training remains a class room activity. Because the new lessons are not applied in his real life, the employee is not able to use the feedback loop to strengthen the new skills nor develop the necessary confidence in building the new skills. Opportunity of fueling the new learning is missed. This is the third mistake.

In Systems thinking, there is one metaphor to explain this phenomenon: Slow is fast. Corporate trainers do not engage in this initial period of learning, because it is supposed to be waste of time. Everyone is exhorted to focus on a given task immediately. But this haste to achieve focus actually slows the pace of 'learning' and sometimes 'stops' the learning. In other words, Montessori method follows the principle of 'Slow is fast', while Corporate follows the principle of 'Fast is slow'. Isn't that interesting?