In my last post we examined Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of the learning process as built of three components, which he labeled romance, precision, and generalization. Today we look at how Dr. Montessori’s definition of the three-period lesson relates to Whitehead’s construct. A basic primer in Montessori would doubtless include a definition of the three-period lesson. Taken literally, it illustrates the basic parts of a Montessori lesson. The first period is the naming of the new information. For instance, a geometry lesson on types of triangles would commence with their identification, using wooden sticks for their construction. “This is a scalene triangle, this is an isosceles triangle, this is an equilateral triangle.” The first period is often impressionistic and dramatic (though admittedly as a teacher you’ve got your work cut out for you using this particular example). The second period involves the referencing of the information given in the first period. “Show me the isosceles triangle, show me the scalene triangle.” Similarly, questions like “Show me the triangle with three equal sides” would be considered second period as well. The third period eliminates the reference and serves as a confirmation of the learning. “What is this triangle? And this? How about this triangle”? In Montessori slang, if you will, the three-period lesson is sometimes referred to as “This is….., Show me……, and What is……”?

On a superficial level, the three-period lesson is a structure upon which a holistic lesson is built. We can, however, expand our definition of the first period to include the reception of any new information by the child. We can expand the definition of the second period to include any activity in which the child works independently with the material. And we can think of the third period as any demonstration of mastery by the child or apparent felicity with a concept. Whitehead argued that a failing of traditional education lay in the de-emphasis of the romance, the laying of the contextual layer. Similarly, Montessorians would argue that a traditional pedagogy deals almost exclusively with the first and third period. Students are given information, and then told that they will be quizzed on these dates in a week’s time (“Here are some historical dates to memorize, I will test you on them.”). The emphasis in a Montessori classroom is on the second period, the child’s work. The teacher-involved first and third periods, pale in comparison.