Fire

“If a child is to be treated differently than he is today a radical change, and one upon which everything else will depend, must first be made; and that change must be made in the adult.”
-Maria Montessori


The word ethos is defined as: “The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.”

As I began to study and process the Montessori Philosophy I realized that they could be easily organized into the elements, and used as core values of my classroom, and of a Montessori Public school community. Each element is used as a reminder of important concepts of the Montessori Philosophy. The purpose being to create a common language, to shape the spirit of the culture, to serve as a constant guide as individuals and school communities strive to embrace the Montessori Philosophy in the public school setting.

Fire, Wind, Wood, Earth, and Water are in some way a part of our everyday lives, and are essential to our survival as individuals and as a community. They are also at the core of the Montessori Curriculum: The Needs of Humans Chart, Functional Geography, The Timelines, and God With No Hands. Maria Montessori based her philosophy on the basic elements of child development, and the essentials needed to guide that development. As one engages the curriculum and daily life with the students, the elements will serve as a reminder of who you are striving to be as a director or directress in a Montessori Public school.

Fire is first because it burns. It purifies. It refines. You have to go through it in order to prepare yourself to understand, to grasp the other elements.

If you teach in a public school, you have a state teaching license. If you have a state teaching license you have at least a bachelor’s degree in education and at least a semester of student teaching. At the minimum, assuming you attended pubic schools growing up, or something similar, you have been a part of the standard American system of education for 13 years, plus 4 years learning how to be a facilitator of that system, plus the number of years you have been a teacher in a public school. The minimum number of years being indoctrinated into the “school as factory” process of education is 17. 17 years. The thought processes, the habits, the instincts that are developed during those years run deep. They become a part of who we are.

“Traditional teaching fits both a teacher’s memory and the culturally dominant view of what school is, and teachers who have less understanding of alternatives will naturally fall back on it.”

“Teachers have to work very hard to use unconventional methods in the face of all the structural support schools provide for the traditional method.”
-Science Behind the Genius, pg. 13

In order to embrace the Montessori Philosophy, we must go through the fire. A change must occur in us at a deep, spiritual level. While camping with my family this summer, I noticed several times that the wood on the campfire, the wood that creates the most heat, is burning from the inside out. It has become consumed by the fire, not in a way that it is gone, but in a way that from its core, it is radiating heat outward.

“It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers is more the spirit than the mechanical skill of the scientist: that is, the direction of the preparation should be toward the spirit rather than toward the mechanism.”
-Maria Montessori

Practicing the Montessori Philosophy must radiate from the core of who we are. Our beliefs about education and children, and possibly even the world have to be reexamined and possibly changed. It is hard. But it is necessary.