by Elliot Ewert

Created on: October 10, 2010

Famed teaching philosopher and early childhood education reformer Maria Montessori claimed that she only felt successful during a day of classroom instruction if she could unequivocally state, “the children are now working as if I did not exist!"  Montessori communicated in this assertion that her pupils had effectively grasped the expectations of her classroom and recognized its paths to learning; they could thus engage in their respective pursuits without the need for further instruction. Contrast this “catch and release” approach with common portrayals of early childhood education in the popular culture, especially in comedy mediums. The plotline in the caricatured classroom is one of child and adult functioning in a relationship of antagonism, the instructor making the vain effort to strike a tenuous balance between his authority and the collective will of a clan of mischievous human subspecies known as homo sapiens infantus. This view of the educational environment as one requiring continuous supervision on the part of the caregiver, parent, or instructor as the only bulwark against all proverbial hell breaking lose is a misleading one, and it is unfortunate that it has real world impact (though I could not in good faith assert that such perceptions have social repercussions without statistical proof). As an anecdotal example, in my (unscientific) surveys of college level classrooms, this perverted view of the young child as inherently desultory in nature is cited far more frequently than financial expenses as the number one reason students do not plan on raising families.

Yet the care and instruction of young children is rarely a negative interaction. Any parent or professional of merit will state that the time spent  “working” with young children is extremely enjoyable for both themselves and their charges. Montessori was one such professional who derived her existential value from a life devoted to the betterment of young children. Her example has been selected for this essay as a means of comparison to how a lay teacher can effectively engage children in learning because her philosophy reversed the prevailing educational philosophy of her period (with much success). Diverging from the widely held belief that children were “vessels” to be filled with knowledge, Montessori radically altered the student-teacher dynamic in the early childhood classroom, allowing children to take the lead when it came to

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