Wind

“If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children,
for the children are the makers of men.”
-Maria Montessori

The Greek word for wind is “pneuma”, also spelled “nooma”, which is translated as spirit or breath. As the wind blows it speaks to us. Sometimes as the gentle reminder of a cool breeze on a warm day. Sometimes as the harsh rebuke of a fierce storm. It is always there, a spiritual force, reminding us of our greater purpose.

In “Science Behind the Genius,” by Angel Lillard, she compares the predominant school model to a factory of mass production. As the country industrialized, the factory mass production ideals of efficiency and standardization were used to shape our school systems. Administrators were urged to run schools as a business, viewing teachers as middle managers or assembly line workers and students as products, essentially dehumanizing the entire educational process. Even today, “children in traditional schools are still marched in lockstep through an educational system and even daily schedules and physical structures reflect the factory model…the factory model makes poor sense both from the standpoint of how children learn, and of what society seeks,” (Science Behind the Genius, pg. 9).

Woodrow Wilson once said, “We are not here merely to make a living. We are here to enrich the world. We impoverish ourselves if we forget the errand.” At the core of the Montessori Philosophy, is the understanding of the actual purpose of education. Maria Montessori once said herself, the aim is, “how to live, not merely how to make a living,” and, “there is a moral union of boys and girls pledging themselves to members in a group with a definite moral aim,” (Her Life and Work pg. 358-359). The author of “Her Life and Work”, E.M. Standing, summarizes, “From the bottom of our hearts, we adults of a different world wish you Godspeed, for you carry, literally you carry, in your frail barque, the hopes of humanity and the destinies of the human race,” (Her Life and Work pg. 105).

I've been reading a book called Affluenza by John DeGraff. I found this little nugget of Montessori goodness on pg. 115 in a chapter called "Disastisfaction Guarnteed". From psychologist Richard Ryan who has done studies and showing material wealth does not create happiness, one of which was done with adolescents..."The wealth seekers had a higher incidence of headaches, stomachaches and runny noses. Ryan believes that while people are born with intrinsic curiosity, self-motivation, and playfulness, too often these qualities are squelched by deadlines, regulations, threats, directives, pressured evaluations, and imposed goals that come from external sources of control rather than self motivated choices and goals."

Montessori embraced and understood that the children of today are the adults of tomorrow and the very future of humanity was dependent upon the healthy development of today’s children. The purpose of education was not to mass-produce but to guide each student, individually, through the process of development. Her observations led to discoveries that form the core of the philosophy that allow this important developmental process to take place.