Montessori is NOT Self-Help...

Back in college I read a lot of Spiritual and Self-Help type books. I was interested in growing and becoming a better person... or stopping the gnawing existential pain I kicked up in the process.

When I got into Sales I was pleased to discover a culture of personal and professional development. Guys like Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn were instrumental in helping me ground my mind in this worldly reality and get a grip on who I am becoming as a man. Mentors and friends helped as well. But ultimately it all comes down to experience.

Since I never took a marketing or finance class... EVER... I had to teach myself these things through experience (aka repeated failure). I started businesses and made sales calls and did all the things the gurus said. And I've gotten much better. But something still nags at me... about the potential I have within me that I fear may never see the light of day.

Reading some Maria Montessori this morning (founder of the Montessori schools - AMI) I thought back to my two years as a Montessori kid. They made sense. I grew and understood how I was growing. I engaged in playful mastery of the material and I was recognized as a young, developing soul. It was joyous times.

The chapter I read this morning talked about how to really mess up a child for life. Luckily I spent the rest of my schooling in institutions that read THAT manual and my jaw dropped in astonishment at the aftermath and how it has played out in my life.

When I say Montessori is NOT Self-Help, what I mean is that as I read the chapter and thought about the impact these negative schooling experiences have had on my life, I realized that the next page would not be some treatise or meditation exercise designed to free my soul from the bondage of psychological anguish these naughty naughty institutions have inflicted upon me.

No. There would be no Self-Help epiphany today.

What I see very clearly, though, is a need to assist parents and teachers in honoring the soul of the child and not foisting the habituated traumas we acquired in our own schooling and socialization on our children, but truly "Following the Child" and learning something of our own humanity in their innocence and joy.

Montessori is a recipe for a child who will not need much, if any, self-help work. There will always been an edge to grow to, but the negative feelings that we were saddled with in childhood need not hinder that growth or create mind-boggling challenges that make us say things like, "I'm afraid of success." Something is wrong with a culture that instills fear of completion and the joy of accomplishment in its populous.

What can we do to help our children grow up free from the weeds of the antiquated schooling and socialization process?

Cheers,

Craig

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