to two adults from the children’s house (ages 3 to
6) level and up.
But in these classes, children learn to be basically selfregulating.
They make choices and they go through
the day with a very quiet hum. It should almost feel
like uncanny silence, but it shouldn’t be the silence
of the teacher running around going, “Shhh, shhh,
shhh.” It should be coming from within the children.
KELLY: Montessori teaches kids to learn how to think
and develop their self-internal, intrinsic motivation.
TIM: I like to think of Montessori as being based on
four pillars. Those pillars are first, a voluntary passion
for excellence, the desire to do things, not just
to win, not just to be the best in the class, but simply
because we really care about our work. It’s not just
something we do to get a paycheck. We do it because
it defines who we are. The passion for excellence that
Tom Peters wrote about years ago in his bestselling
book, In Search Of Excellence, is very much connected
to the entrepreneurial spirit of Montessori,
whether in a young child or in a Montessori adult.
The second pillar is the idea of internalizing a set of
universal values, not just hearing them in chapel, not
just having them parroted back, but literally learning
to live in such a way that you follow the rules
because it’s the right thing to do, not what’s in it for
you if you obey and what could happen to you negatively
if you disobey. That just invites a child to ask,
“Am I willing to pay the price or do I think I’m going
to get caught?”
There are universal values: nonviolence, integrity,
empathy, compassion, peacefulness that we teach in
all good Montessori schools.
The third pillar I would suggest is the idea that we
want our children to be global citizens and to have
a real sense of global understanding. Every Montessori
school is an international school.
We think they need to know their family story, your
country-of-origin story, the nature or a story of the
community in which they’re living at this time and
place. They need to be rooted in the understanding
that they don’t live alone. They’re connected to all
of humanity and all of life. They have to think globally,
not just about the moment, about this quarter’s
bottom line, but about the good of the long haul,
about the generations unborn.
The fourth is the idea of service, service to others
and self-service, taking care of yourself. You might
think of everything in this as balance, but it tends
to produce entrepreneurs, not the typical drudge or
the child who burns out by the third year of high
school or the third year of college. Usually, these are
kids that just keep going and never want to retire
because they’re having too much fun doing what
they’re doing.
KELLY: Does Montessori work for all families and all
types of kids?
TIM: Well, it’s not that it wouldn’t work. I think a
better way of understanding it, Kelly, is it simply
may not work because, ultimately, the parents are the
captain of their child’s fate. They are going to decide
what they feels is best for the child.
As type-A personalities, what many parents want is
something that’s going to make their child do more,
faster, as if it were a race. I think that’s a very misguided
approach. It leads to a great deal of the anxiety,
depression, and mental illness that we’re seeing
in the world around us.
Montessori is not a religion; we don’t believe that we
can, or should, try to convert people. We try to find
families who are going to love us for what we are.
Part of our message is that we create conditions in
which children will develop at their own best pace in
their own best way. What we’re really going to focus
on is character, kindness, compassion, and an openness
to learning, a sense of wonder.
KELLY: You’re saying that it’s best to start when the
child is three. What about people who keep their
children home until later? Are they missing any key
things that happened in the earlier years?
TIM: The earlier children enter Montessori and the
longer they stay, the deeper the impact of Montessori
is likely to be.
We encourage parents to enroll their children as
young as possible; as close to birth as we possibly
can. This is not because we’re going to teach
them to read and write and do four-digit arithmetic
earlier. That might happen, but when it does,
it is a by-product of Montessori. We all want our
children to become the very best people they can
become. In Montessori, it’s easy to create those
kinds of communities with children who are toddlers
or age three, and sometimes age four.
If you just want to think of it from a curriculum
perspective and that’s, in my opinion, a very small
part of it, there is so much to learn in a threefour
and five-year-old class. Children entering
Montessori a year or two late, will normally be
well behind most of the other children. However,
that doesn’t mean that the older child can’t enter a
“MONTESSORI IS NOT
A RELIGION; WE DON’T
BELIEVE THAT WE CAN,
OR SHOULD, TRY TO
CONVERT PEOPLE. WE
TRY TO FIND FAMILIES
WHO ARE GOING TO
LOVE US FOR WHAT
WE ARE. PART OF OUR
MESSAGE IS THAT WE
CREATE CONDITIONS IN
WHICH CHILDREN WILL
DEVELOP AT THEIR OWN
BEST PACE IN THEIR
OWN BEST WAY. “
8 TOMORROW'S CHILD © OCTOBER 2020 WWW.MONTESSORI.ORG
/WWW.MONTESSORI.ORG