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Education and Peace Dr. Montessori's faith in children extended to their role as peace makers in the world. The staff reread a collection of her speeches, Education and Peace, last summer, and we devoted our first parent education meeting to the ways we educate for peace at Lake Country School. Wendell Berry wrote that "what leads to peace is not violence, but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, active state of being." Peaceableness, an alert, informed, practiced, active state of being, is what we nurture at Lake Country. Our classrooms are structured to help children be compassionate people who solve problems peacefully. We talk about peaceful resolution instead of conflict resolution. We don't avoid the very real presence of conflict in our community, but our method for resolving those differences is to focus on the ultimate goal of resolution arrived at peaceably.
Excerpted below are the opening remarks of five staff members from the evening on peace and education.
Contemplations on the Child from 0-3 by Ann Luce
Education and Peace by Sarah Endsley (Children's House)
Education and Peace by Patricia Bachmeier (Elementary I)
Education and Peace by Juliann McDermott (Elementary II)
Peace and Adolescence by James Moudry
Contemplations on the Child from 0-3 by Ann Luce Possibilities for Peace Are Born
Parents are the primary educators of their children. Promoting peace with young children has to do with things that most parents do very well. In the first plane of development, the child must first attach to a primary caregiver and discover him or herself as an individual. To encourage a secure attachment, there are a number of intentional acts that a parent can do. The first is a commitment to parenting. Even when the child is in the womb, the parents can anticipate the child. The most important preparation that we do is the mental or psychic work. We try to prepare ourselves, open our hearts and commit to the partnership of parenting.
Creeping Toward Peace
When the child enters the family, the easiest task is to love that child. The newborn is best served when the parent recognizes the child as a unique individual and tries to accommodate his or her needs. Responding promptly to crying as well as creating a predictable environment helps the child feel secure. The secure child learns to trust her environment and feels free to explore it. Secure attachment is necessary for the child to develop independence as well as autonomy. Maria Montessori believed that when children are raised and educated in a setting in which they are respected and their physical, intellectual, and spiritual needs are met, they will be able to function on a higher moral level.
Baby Steps toward Peace
Developing an awareness of self and of one's feelings promotes the ability to handle emotions and relationships, or what we call emotional intelligence.
Through the recognition of basic emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, or happiness, we confirm and give names to the intensity of life. Developing emotional intelligence includes awareness of feelings, learning to understand and handle emotions, managing relationships and developing basic social skills, and self-motivation. These are baby steps toward peace.
Moving Away from Peace
A recent report by Paul Connolly, a sociologist at the University of Ulster, indicated that prejudice can develop in children as young as three years old. To Montessorians, this report was not surprising. Children between the ages of birth and six have what Montessorians call an "absorbent mind," meaning that they absorb all aspects of their environment like a sponge. We say that they incarnate the world around them: all aspects of language and culture that they are exposed to become a part of their identity.
Young children also absorb both the loves and the prejudices of the parent and culture. When mistrust or prejudice against another culture is communicated over and over again, a child might start formal schooling with certain preconceived notions about the world.
Peace and Community
While we need the community of the family and the culture to give us security and identity, it also gives us ethnocentrism and prejudice. The antidote for narrow vision is the experience of a larger community, the educational community or even the neighborhood. Children benefit from being in school or other social environments with a diverse population. When children encounter and enjoy others from diverse backgrounds, all students benefit. Relationships develop, bonds form, and community is created.
From 1936 to 1939 as war loomed over Europe, Maria Montessori delivered a series of lectures on education and peace at the European Peace Conference. Her tireless and profound work in service to the child, and ultimately humanity, led to two proposals for her as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949 and 1950. Her lectures are published in the book Education and Peace and offer deep insight into her powerful mind.Montessori said, "Education is the cornerstone of peace. It is not enough to keep the child from playing with toy weapons or to stop making him study the history of mankind as a succession of feats of arms, but rather education must campaign against war in and of itself. This would be the role of t e classroom ... offering a positive effort to bring about peace in the world."
The child is capable of developing and giving us tangible proof of the possibility of a better humanity. She shows us the true process of the construction of the normal human being. All the potential wealth of each human being lies within each child. We see children change as they acquire a love of caring for things, especially plants and animals. We see a sense of order and self-discipline as children ages three to six begin to form a community in a room of 28 children. Self control develops when a desired work is being used by someone else and one must wait. Each child has a divine mission constructing her own life.
Through her extensive observations of children, Montessori discovered that there are certain innate observable tendencies within each child. All children, no matter what circumstances they grow up in, embody these universal tendencies. In order to educate for peace, we as a culture, a community, and as individual adults must come to understand these tendencies and follow the child. We must avoid placing obstacles in the way of this self-construction of the child.
These are the tendencies of our children that give both a hope and a promise to mankind:
exploration - I am a natural explorer through my senses and through activities I do in all aspects of my world: reality, fantasy, plants, animals and people.orientation - What is my relationship to my world and all of the things and people in it? Am I bigger or smaller than this plant?
order - From seeming chaos and confusion I draw order to build solid foundations. From this base I realize my dreams and aspirations.
communication - More than a gesture or a string of sounds, communication is my bridge to knowledge and the link of understanding between the world and its people.
repetition - Through practice I learn control and satisfy my spirit with a degree of perfection I could not otherwise know.
exactness - When pieces don't fit together as well as they should, I make the extra effort to refine and adjust.
activity - I experience through action the things in my environment. With each new experience I acquire knowledge and experience.
manipulation - I work with my hands and learn by doing. What I hear I forget. What I do I remember.
work - I cooperate with others and with the forces of life and nature on which survival depends.
self-perfection - What greater satisfaction can I know than the satisfaction of becoming the conscious master of my body and spirit.
abstraction - I watch the birds in flight and wish, too, that I could fly. And so I create something in my mind that did not exist before.
When you enter a Children's House classroom, you are walking into an environment prepared with these tendencies in mind, ready to receive children three to six years of age. It is a beautiful simple place of warm inviting colors, child-sized furniture, and orderly materials that invite the child into exploration and discovery. It is a place of freedom, to move, to communicate, to explore with respect. I often hear children say, "This is my Lake Country School."
How do we see this profound work of the child unfold in our children in the classroom? Most of the time we don't ... unless we look carefully.
I had the privilege of observing in classrooms this past Friday and was gifted. A five-year old girl was working at a table doing some additions with a little three-year old girl sitting next to her. The little girl got up for a brief moment to get a drink and a little three-year old boy sat down in her place. When she got back she was overcome and grabbed the little boy by the scruff of the neck and tried to remove him from the chair. At this moment the older girl stood up and "Oh, no, Tommy, would you please get up from Leah's chair? She just went to get a drink." Up he popped and the little girl sat down and life went on.
There is no other soul closer to God or the earth than the child.
Education and Peace by Patricia Bachmeier (Elementary I) Many people believe that Montessori's contribution to the world was the development of a truly enlightened educational methodology. Certainly this is true. But the real goal of her life's work was much broader. It was her intention to ignite a social revolution world wide; to shift human consciousness. She had great faith in the potential for good in our species and believed that humankind carried the responsibility to work consciously towards our own evolution and that of the planet, which in her mind were inextricably connected. For her, education was not only a way to transmit culture to our children but also the means by which it could be carried forward. Poised as she was between two great world conflicts, there was urgency to her work.
The freedom to act in accordance with our inner nature and to follow our unique interests was a core principle in her educational design. Montessori had an uncanny ability to see to the very heart of human nature. She recognized a commonality in our needs and tendencies as humans, though the ways in which we express them tend to be unique to each individual and reflective of the rich diversity of the human family. She believed that each of us has a contribution to make, a role to play in the unfolding story of the universe, and that it was our task to discover it. Work ennobled the human. Through deep engagement in work, both individually and collectively, we would come to know a profound sense of purpose, joy, connection and peacefulness.
Montessori believed that the great agent of change is the child. The laws of nature are most purely manifested in childhood, and distortions and obstacles to human nature are most pernicious at this period in development. To forward humanity, we need to protect our children. We need to provide for them the necessary conditions so that they can fully realize their human potential .... to grow into peaceful people. The method she proposed at the elementary level is called Cosmic Education.
First, at the elementary level children manifest extraordinary imaginative powers. They need a vision of the universe and of their place in it that is compelling, grand, and awe inspiring. This "big picture" calls to the mind and heart of all children, captures them, draws them in, and motivates exploration. Story is the vehicle that we use at the elementary level to impart this vision, and we call these stories the Great Lessons. These lessons are meant to ignite the imagination of the six to twelve year old child, which is perhaps his most powerful tool and the one that allows him to explore beyond the limits of time and space. I believe that adults too need a new story. Think about the possibility for transformation in the world if political factions began negotiations by first re-envisioning reality: by seeing ourselves as profoundly connected and by recognizing the grandeur of the human enterprise which is all of our inheritance. What if we were so inspired by this new story that we found ourselves profoundly grateful for the gifts bestowed on us by the cosmos and by humankind? The centerpiece of Cosmic Education is telling a story of the unfolding universe, the formation of the earth, the coming of life on earth itself, the role of the human in it.
Second, Cosmic Education creates conditions that encourage an ethic of work. This ethic recognizes that authentic work ennobles the human spirit and makes it manifest in the world. What are art, music, engineering, architecture, and scientific endeavor, but expressions of the human spirit and the fruits of our labor?
Third, Cosmic Education encourages individuals to develop strength of character. It does this by offering children repeated opportunities to exercise their will as they make daily choices around their work and their relationships. Virtue is the result of inner construction; it is a muscle of the soul, and it can never be achieved by external imposition. So, the elementary classroom is a gymnasium where character gets regularly exercised. It is here that the child gets to practice patience, perseverance, kindness, and humanheartedness.
Fourth, an elementary classroom promotes and requires collaboration among its members. The task undertaken, an exploration of the universe and human culture, could never be undertaken by a single individual. Our physical universe is the result of the collaboration of a finite number of elements. Human culture too is the result of the collaborative effort of humankind over time. The Montessori method of investigation and collaboration models this extraordinary strategy of nature.
Fifth, an elementary classroom must contain systems by which mistakes and errors can be dealt with and rectified. Precisely because classrooms are human communities, broken strands in relationships, ideas and communications occur. The great glory and curse of human nature is that we must choose to align with the best in ourselves. This is a learning process, and clear systems to recognize error and opportunities to realign are crucial. Certain rituals have developed in all of our elementary classrooms to respond to and deal with these needs.
There is one last feature of a Montessori elementary classroom that is perhaps the most important and enormously challenging to sustain for parents and teachers alike. An elementary classroom must be a charged environment. Its source of energy is the life force of each and every child in it. Confidence in the child's process is like a coil; it ups the amperage. If the adults, parent and teacher, join forces like two stakes in the ground, they transmit to the children confidence in their process. The best way to short circuit a classroom, a child, or cosmic education is to pull up a stake.
The world is in peril. Let us join forces and hold ground.
Education and Peace by Juliann McDermott (Elementary II) "Preventing conflicts is the work of politics.
Establishing peace is the work of education."
- Dr. Maria MontessoriHow can I talk about peace in education in the year 2002? Living through the events of the last year and knowing that my sadness and fears have been experienced by people living throughout history and all over the planet cloud my thoughts as I ponder this subject. Montessori powerfully realized the importance of education and the knowledge of peace.
I have read and reread the collection of Montessori's lectures entitled Education and Peace. Last summer I attended the international study conference on Education and Peace and spoke with my wise friends and mentors, but it was the children that gave direction to my thoughts.
Where do we teach peace? The Great Lessons of Cosmic Education provide the big Picture. They help put the child in his or her place on earth and help the child see the fragility of life. One lesson illuminating peace is the story "The Coming of Humans," in which the children learn of the great gifts of being human: the mind with the ability to imagine; the hand, which, combined with the imagination, allows us to alter our environment; and best of all a capacity to love. This ability to love allows us to love our families, our school and - here's the connection to peace - people we do not know. We care about people who have suffered from flooding, drought, earthquakes and war. From the story, Montessori students learn a special capacity to love people they do not know.
But where do our children learn to be people of peace? I asked the students if peace was present in our community. They quietly nodded. If we know peace is here, how did it get here? What do we do in our days together that brings peace? How did we learn to be peaceful people? Their answers bring me hope and true faith in the work we do. I was told that peace is here because it is so regularly talked about. It is truly evident as a school value. "We are always talking about it at assemblies. The assemblies remind us of its importance, and we kids know it's something we need more of in the world."
Most clear is the understanding of the relationship between peace and respect. Those four little rules of respect learned so early in the infant community and Children's Houses appear to be the very heart of peace in the Lake Country communities. They are: respect for others, respect for self, respect for the materials and respect for the environment.
In all the communities throughout the school, children learn what it means to respect each other. Thanks to the teachings of Lake Country cofounder Larry Schaefer, each child throughout the school comes to know that the person who irritates them the most is also the person who has something to teach them.
Respect for self includes making choices for work, peers and interests. A student, new to our school, spoke of the freedom to choose work and to learn at his pace. He loves the freedom to work in the Montessori community. Choosing worthy work brings meaning to one's life. It is a form of self respect.
Respect for materials emphasizes taking care of an item that is vital to the community. If you take it out, you put it away. If you use it up, you refill it. Break it? Repair it.
One student explained respect for the environment, "We care for the environment of our school and the earth! We don't merely respect the differences and rights of other people but the animals, plants, water, soil and air."
So how does peace find its way into the Lake Country classroom? At Lake Country we believe that peace is learned in community. A 12-year-old student explained it like this, "Many of us have been together since Children's House ... we are like family. Sure, conflicts exist but we solve them with conflict resolution in a peaceful way. We learn from our mistakes. We realize we want to get along and we have time to learn without feeling rushed."
A new member of the adolescent community commented that, "Our communities are safe places. Safe to make mistakes ... to talk about anything. The lack of competition makes it a peaceful place to be and you are free to be yourself. You are free to learn and free from worry." Another student explained, "There is enough respect in our class that peace just happens."
The children of Lake Country School experience respect in their daily lives. It doesn't just happen. We work at it every day. Since they know respect and how to contribute to a community, they know peace and carry it with them into their other communities.
As Dr. Montessori said in her closing lecture at the Sixth International Montessori Congress held in the Hall of Parliament in Copenhagen in 1937, "Nothing can be achieved in the world of the adult that is not first achieved in the world of the child."
The philosopher Parmenides who lived 2500 years ago enjoyed a great conflict between what he perceived with his senses and what he reasoned with his mind. As a rationalist in the end, his faith lay in his reason.Montessori as a scientist and doctor had a similar experience. She saw the first behaviors of the child and reasoned from them. She did not settle for what her senses presented. Her reason told her that inside these children lay the "true child," a "new child." She also saw this with adolescents. For in what other age of development is the peaceful child as difficult to perceive? The peaceful adolescent is hidden away. We must look carefully to find him.
How can we think of peace and adolescence? It is caught in little moments. Like the young child's normalization, it is not an arrival point. It is not a point where we say "Aha, that's it, I have it. Now I have peace forever." It is fleeting and, therefore, must be consciously and continuously cultured.
How do we create a culture of peace? We may think of peace in two parts: internal and external. We see the vision of the adolescent community here at Lake Country as supporting both in tandem.
We strive to create a culture and community of civility and peace. The community of peace at school starts with the staff and at home with parents and relatives. Adolescents learn how to become adults through observation. Adolescents focus on the adults around them, on adult roles and interactions, adult ways and culture. What anxieties and pressures the modeling adults feel and demonstrate as well their peaceful ways, will always be passed on to the children.
The community of mature adults must model a culture that is often counter-cultural to the outside world. Adolescents are idealists and when exposed to the ideal can thrive in it. The school day is not about deterring or monitoring negative behavior. It is about inspiring and modeling in relationships the vision we have for these young people.
Montessori wrote that, "The teachers must have the greatest respect for the young personality, realizing that in the soul of the adolescent great values are hidden, and that in the minds of these boys and girls there lies all our hope and future progress and the judgment of ourselves and our times. The intimate vocation of man is the secret of the adolescent."
The personalities of the faculty create and feed the focus of the whole school. The young adolescents reflect their environment. The environment is not merely physical. It is dramatically psychic. It is monumentally social. The role of the parents and the other adult models is crucial at this time.
An external community of peace fosters the creation of an internal peace. Internal peace comes from knowing one's role, one's place, one's contribution. Our daily gatherings, weekly class meetings, and most importantly the evening meetings on trips are times to listen to each other and times to speak to virtues and defects in the community processes. The creation of those times of safe sharing and peaceful emotional spaces creates in the individual a faith in the conversation. A faith in the community. We see it internalized and carried out of this community
Students will not always find these same reserved times for sharing and listening in other communities. It is vital then that they have this safe place. It allows them to carry out from here a vision of a peaceful community, a vision that guides their future community-building work in other schools, at jobs, and in their current and future families.
Montessori said, "It is during the period of adolescence that interest in the construction and functioning of society presents itself in germinal form in the individual consciousness."
What leads to peace for the adolescent? The vision of peace is about individual identity and personal meaning. Young people at this age are on a search. The role of the adults in their life is to help these brand-new-youngest-of-adults find their new adult selves. What is that new self? I don't know. They don't know either. But we must know that what it is, their mission, their meaning, holds the key to their inner peace.
This article appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of the Lake Country School CourierLCS Home Page > Parent Resources > Articles > Education and Peace