Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician and philosopher who also wrote frequently and eloquently about education. He was a contemporary of Maria Montessori (though I’ve yet to find any record of them actually meeting) and it’s instructive to examine how their thoughts on pedagogy overlap. Whitehead saw the learning process as having three components, which he labeled romance, precision, and generalization. In the romance stage, the child is first presented with a new concept and enjoys the emotion of discovery. According to Whitehead, the child is “becoming used to curious thoughts, of shaping questions, of seeking for answers, of devising new experiences, and of noticing what happens as the result of new ventures.” Picture a child’s first experience at a beach strewn with shells of various shapes, sizes, texture, and color. They are given to the visceral excitement of the moment as they explore the myriad of what is before them. If this energy is acknowledged and supported, Whitehead asserts that a second desire will arise, one that craves deeper, more precise information, to answer the very questions that the stage of romance engendered. The child, home from the beach, gets out shell identification books and the “S” encyclopedia (Googles it?) and excitedly learns the types, biology, and nomenclature of shellfish. Whitehead made a point of noting that traditional education puts an emphasis just on this second stage of precision; the facts, the specifics, the right and wrong. But without the more general, the broader view that comes from the romance stage, he argued, the facts are barren and nebulous, unattached to any larger context, and quickly forgotten. The third stage of the learning process, is that of generalization and synthesis. It is a stage that leads the child further, allowing the integration of this new-found information into creative ideation and a cogent “whole”. It also, quite elegantly, leads the child back to the first stage of romance, of discovery, but with the addition of this gained wealth of knowledge. Subsequent excursions to the beach equal the excited discovery of the first trip, but the experience is now imbued with a greater sense of wisdom, as the specific is now seamlessly integrated with the whole.
Tag: philosophy
learning in context in a montessori classroom
A Montessori education provides a rich and integrated curriculum that stresses learning in context. The study of geometry includes a study of its Latin roots, a study of unlike denominators in arithmetic includes the writing of the rule, a study of an ancient civilization coincides with a study of rivers, ph studies evolves into soil testing. Specific Montessori materials can also reflect this sense of context. For example, the Detective Triangle Game, located on the language shelf, consists of a box of triangles of different types (scalene, isosceles, etc…) in different colors and of different size. Labels accompany the work: “Find the large, red, equilateral triangle.”…etc; geometry as a grammar work. Speaking more broadly, the concept of Cosmic Education, unique to this pedagogy, is the overarching theme of a Montessori classroom. It holds the fabric of a Montessori experience together and places everything the child learns in context. Cosmic education states, grandly, that a human developmental process underlies all growth, and further, that education has a role to play in this development. It is a belief that theoretical structures, in all areas of study, should find practical use within our classrooms. Simply put, Cosmic Education presents three concepts; that all things are interdependent; that humans have a role in the universe; and that each of us has a cosmic task.
One aim of Cosmic Education is the development of the whole human being. It would follow then that academic achievement is not the only goal of a Montessori classroom. The child will realize their full natural potential, learning that involves the physical and emotional being, not only the intellect. A second aim is the formation of relationships. By building a sense of marvel and respect for the vast scale of things and appreciating the dignity of all things, we show a relationship between the child and the universe. A third aim is the realization of responsibility, to all life, to the human species, and to the child themselves. And a last aim is one of independent action. In broad terms to take, but to give in return, to share willingly and with compassion, and to appreciate both the conscious and unconscious service of those plants, animals and humans that have come before us. Cosmic Education then, is not a singular area of study, but rather a connective web that unifies the curriculum, providing both respect and responsibility to the child throughout their school years.
