Number 100
December 2, 2011
In September, we were pulled into the vortex of Back to School Night, which funneled into yet another video on the ideals of Montessori.
I am a big fan of Montessori. In terms of early childhood education, the curriculum emphasizes age-appropriate development of the individual, and each of our kids has thrived in the self-directed environment.
These videos are punishing, however. Through the soft-focus cinematography, we parents are subjected to perfected Montessori environments. The classroom segments are instructional for us, but when the camera turns toward the Montessori-ed home, it’s something of a knockout blow to our nascent careers as parents.
Take one video, for example.
The off-screen narrator is a calm stay-at-home mom (strike 1), who has received her Montessori certification (strike 2). Both she and her husband, she says, have decided that the pathway forward for their family involves her staying at home to care for their two very well-mannered boys (strike 3), who are about 4 years and eighteen months. These delightful cherubs gather toys from the neatly sorted bins stacked against the wall (strike 4) and play with them on the colorful rug placed in front of the bins (strike 5). As she describes the structure of their calm and clean home life (strike 6), her two very well-mannered boys gather the toys and return them to the bin (strike 7). No voice is ever raised (strike 8).
Their dinnertime is the civil affair of which we all dream (strike 9). The boys are silently scooping food from their bowls as Mom and Dad both help to serve them (strike 10). There are no cranky tears (strike 11). There are no spills (strike 12). Mom and Dad do not look tired (strike 13).
Some months later, a quick tour of our family home reveals that we have whiffed on just about everything Montessori.
Those plastic bins have been replaced by IKEA shelving overstuffed with every little goodie, it seems, that has been given to our kids since birth. Teething rings and rattles are mixed in with library books, and half the contents have been vomited out onto the floor, where they will remain until Daddy completes his weekend sweep. Papers, crayons, toys, play cups, and crumbs, crumbs, crumbs have pockmarked the living room, the termite mounds of tiny people. At any given moment, one of our two kids may be loudly tumbling through another physical or emotional bruising, generally perpetrated by the other.
Our bedroom is no better, with heaps of clothing growing up the corner walls. As far as providing an exemplary Montessori home, we have failed.
It’s good, in a way, to see an idealized version of what our kids could be doing at home. In another way, though, who cares.
That video, of course, did not include the outtakes after the credits. There was no blooper roll of kids having tantrums, frazzled Mom and Dad, or any form of physical intervention. We did not see or hear “cut” once.
And that doesn’t happen in home life. The camera is always rolling. Our life at home is very much focused on the present. What needs to be done right now? What ails which kid? The eye may wander a bit to the future but rarely further than the weekend.
These things to which we’ve been exposed through video, these canned moments in the past, do not receive much screen time in our family life. We’ve bought some of the Montessori “materials,” the physical objects used in the classroom, but they receive the same scattered attention as any other thing grabbed off the shelves. The Montessori mindfulness, those moments of detachment that enable parents, teachers, and guardians to smoothly navigate through difficulties with little ones, cannot calmly and rationally push to the side the roil of emotions and obligations of the moment at hand. And there is no pill for end-of-day fatigue for anyone no matter their age.
The dichotomy of behaviors in the classroom versus behaviors at home stuns me at times, but the ones I understand are inside our front door. We can bring a little Montessori home. We can build a loving and safe home. But, our family cannot live Montessori.
And I’m ok with that.
That Montessori perspective, however, that sense of detachment that our kids’ teachers put on everyday they work with little people, would be wonderful to close up in their lunchboxes, along with the leftover spaghetti strands and uneaten slices of carrot. Two orders of that to go, please.
###
