Chapter 18 Children's Education
We must realize this most important reality: children have a spiritual life, and the subtle expression of this life will be unconsciously destroyed by adults before it is noticed.
The adult environment is not suitable for children, but a group of obstacles, which strengthen children's defense, make children's attitude surly and easily be hinted by adults. All along, children's psychology and children's education have been studied from the perspective of adults, not from the perspective of children. Therefore, we must fundamentally re-examine their conclusions. We can see that every abnormal reaction of the child provides us with a problem to be solved; Every time you lose your temper, it is an external manifestation of some deep-rooted contradiction. This kind of conflict can not be simply explained as a defense mechanism against hostile environment, but should be understood as a manifestation of higher quality seeking self-display. Losing your temper is like a storm, which prevents the child's heart from revealing from his hiding place.
Obviously, all these disguises hide the child's true heart. The rough, struggling and deformed performance masks the child's self-realization efforts and prevents him from showing his true personality. Behind these discordant external manifestations, there must be an individual's spiritual embryo developing according to a precise plan. Just under these external manifestations, there is an unknown child who must be free. The most urgent task for educators is to get to know this unknown child and liberate him from all obstacles.
The fundamental difference between psychoanalytic research and this kind of psychological research on children who have not yet known is that the secrets of adults' subconscious are self-restrained, and children's secrets are rarely covered up by their environment. To help an adult, it is necessary to help him solve the complex adaptive chaos formed over a long period of time. To help a child, we must provide him with an environment in which he can develop freely. The child is in the stage of self-realization and should completely open the door for him. In fact, he is creating himself, that is, he is in the process of never being, from potential ability to practical action. He can't be complicated at this stage. As the child becomes more and more energetic, he won't have much difficulty in showing himself.
In an unconstrained environment, that is, an environment suitable for his age, a child's spiritual life will naturally develop and reveal its inner secrets. Only by adhering to this principle, otherwise, all future educational attempts will only make a person fall deeper into endless chaos.
The basic purpose of new education is to discover and liberate children. The primary problem related to it is the existence of children; Secondly, when he is mature, provide him with essential help. This means that there must be an environment suitable for children to grow up. Obstacles must be reduced to a minimum, and the environment must provide the necessary media for activities to develop children's energy. As adults are also a part of children's environment, they should also adapt to children's needs. They should not be obstacles to children's independent activities, nor should they carry out activities to make children mature on their behalf.
The most basic feature of our education system is to emphasize the environment.
The role of teachers in our school has always been an object worthy of attention and discussion. The teacher passively cleared the obstacles caused by his activities and authority for the children. In this way, children can make themselves masters. Teachers are satisfied when they see their children's initiative and progress. None of this can be regarded as the teacher's own invention. He may be inspired by the thought of St. John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
Another feature of our education system is respect for children's personality, which has reached an unprecedented level.
These three principles have been fully embodied in the organization originally called "Children's Home"; The name "Children's Home" has the meaning of family.
The new education system has been widely discussed, especially involving the reversal of the roles of children and adults-teachers have no desks, no authority and hardly teach, while children are the center of activities, free to walk around and choose their own homework. Some people regard this as utopia, while others regard it as exaggeration.
On the other hand, some other innovative measures have been approved and accepted: some items suitable for children's bodies, bright classrooms, low windows decorated with flowers, miniature furniture imitating modern family furniture, small tables, small armchairs, beautiful curtains, cabinets that children can easily open and various items that children can use at will stored in the cabinets. All these can be regarded as practical improvements and contribute to children's development; I believe that more Children's Home will do everything possible to protect this pleasant and convenient external feature as a major feature of Children's Home.
Now, after extensive research and a lot of experiments on these things, it may be very valuable to investigate them again, especially their origins.
Some people think that the actual observation of children can lead us to an amazing conclusion that children have a mysterious nature, and the intuition of this truth makes us conceive a special school and a special education system. In fact, this idea is wrong. It is impossible to observe what is still unknown. It is also impossible for a person to think that children have two natures through a simple intuition and try to show them through experiments. What is not recognized should be displayed through its own energy. When it is displayed in this way, no one will be more skeptical than the first person who witnessed it. Like everyone else in the world, he refuses new things. Therefore, this fact, which has not been recognized so far, will continue to be imposed on him before it is finally seen, recognized and enthusiastically accepted by people. Those who are shocked by the new phenomenon and finally accept it will be deeply infatuated with it and devote their lives to it. His passion is so great that he thinks he is its creator. However, in fact, he is only sensitive to its presentation. It is difficult for us to discover new things, and it is even more difficult to convince ourselves of the truth of what we have discovered, because the door of our senses is closed in front of new things. However, when we make this discovery and admit this fact, we become like the merchants looking for spheres in the gospels. When we find a priceless treasure, we will sell everything to buy it.
Our wisdom landscape can be compared to a noble studio, closed to strangers. If he wants to go in, he must be accompanied by someone he already knows. Therefore, if a person is not introduced, he has to break the closed door or sneak in. When he finally entered the room, he became a sensational news figure. Volta must have watched the muscles of the dead frog vibrate with mixed feelings of surprise and doubt, but he persisted in the experiment and realized the effect of static electricity. A little thing sometimes opens up a new and endless field. In essence, man is a pioneer, and only by discovering seemingly meaningless details can he move forward.
In physics and medicine, there are strict standards for identifying new phenomena. In these fields, the new discovery is the confirmation of facts that were not recognized before. It is quite possible that this unknown fact has always been beyond doubt. This fact exists objectively and does not depend on personal intuition. When verifying this fact, there are two steps: first, separation research must be carried out under different conditions; Second, it must be reproduced and studied from different angles to ensure that it is not an illusion at all, but a tangible asset with real value. Such an example can be seen in First Children's Home, but the initial discovery of these seemingly meaningless facts has produced great results.
The origin of our method
The following description of the origin of China's education system is taken from some old notes I took down at that time.
Who are you?
Our first school ("Children's Home") enrolled children aged 3 to 6, and was founded on June 6th. 1907. At that time, we had not established a special education system. Except for more than 50 extremely poor, ragged and obviously timid children, I have nothing, many children are still crying, and almost all the parents who entrusted their children to my care are illiterate.
Set aside a room in the apartment where these children live, and I was invited to look after this shelter, so that these children would not be left on the stairs, where they would dirty the walls of the apartment and become a source of trouble.
I don't know why, but I think a great work is about to start and will be successful. This day is epiphany, and the theme of mass and prayer seems to be a prophecy: "The earth is completely shrouded in darkness, and when the stars appear in the east, their brilliance will become people's guide."
People attending the opening ceremony were surprised. They asked themselves, "Why did Miss Montessori provide such a good shelter for the poor?"
I started my work, like a farmer who refused good seeds, but he got a fertile land and planted seeds in it. The result is the opposite. As soon as I dug the mud, I found gold, not grain: there was treasure hidden in the mud. I am like Aladdin holding the magic lamp, but I don't know that this is the key to the hidden treasure. At least the work I did for these children brought me a series of surprises.
I have done a lot of work for these mentally retarded children and educated them with various objects, which has achieved good results. It is reasonable to infer that the means that have been successfully used to help children with mental retardation and correct their way of thinking are also helpful to children with normal intelligence. Based on these experiences, some principles of mental health are elaborated and applied to others as convincingly as possible. However, this does not change the fact that the initial effect of these methods on normal children still surprises me and often makes me feel very suspicious.
The effect of these objects applied to these normal children is different from that applied to mentally retarded children. When a normal child is attracted to an object, he will concentrate all his attention on it and continue to work with amazing concentration. When he finished his work, he looked satisfied and relaxed. This kind of ease and satisfaction is the first time I have seen it in the calm little faces and shining eyes that are satisfied after completing the spontaneous task. What I give children is like turning the key of a clock, but there is one main difference here. When the clock is wound, the clock itself continues to run. After giving a child an object to use, it can not only be used continuously, but also make his mind and mind healthier and stronger than before. It takes time to convince me that this is not an illusion. After every new experience proves this, I still can't believe it for a long time, but at the same time I feel very shocked and surprised. Whenever the teacher tells me what the children are doing, I will blame him. This happens all the time! I always say seriously, "Don't tell me this illusion." I remember that she was not angry, and she kept answering with tears: "You are right. When I saw this situation, I thought there must be a patron saint inspiring these children. "
Finally one day, when I looked at these children with great respect and love, I put my hand on my heart and asked, "Who are you?" These children may be babies in Jesus' arms. Jesus once talked about them: "whoever accepts this baby for me will accept me," he added: "whoever does not admit that the kingdom of heaven is like a baby, he cannot enter it."
That's how I met them. The children were in tears and looked scared. They are so timid that I can't make them talk. Their faces were expressionless and their eyes were confused, as if they had never seen anything in their lives. In fact, they are poor and neglected children. These children grew up in a dark and shabby family and lacked anything to stimulate their hearts. Everyone can see that they are malnourished, need to be fed, and need fresh air and sunshine. They are like buds that seem destined not to bloom.
What is the special environment that produces such amazing changes? What gave them new life and spread the brilliance of this new life to the whole world?
The obstacles to their development were obviously removed, and they found a medium to liberate their hearts. But who can imagine what these obstacles are? Or who can guess what is needed to make these children's hearts sprout and blossom? Usually, this is something that may have the opposite effect.
We can start with the family prospects of these children. Their parents belong to the bottom of society, and almost all of them are illiterate. They don't have regular jobs, and they have to go out to look for jobs every day. Therefore, they have neither time nor way to take care of their children.
Obviously, it is hopeless to bring such a child. As it was impossible to find a trained teacher for these children, a young woman worker was hired to take care of them. She studied and wanted to be a teacher, but later she gave up. Therefore, she has neither education nor prejudice. Otherwise, she will have such prejudice. Another factor to consider is that our first school is a private institution. It was subsidized by a real estate company, which regarded its subsidy as the direct cost of house maintenance. They gathered the children together purely to avoid the wall of the apartment building being damaged, thus reducing the cost of house maintenance. It is not a real social welfare work, and I have never thought about providing free lunch for children or providing medical insurance for sick children. The funds provided by this real estate company are only enough to set up an office with furniture and other equipment. So we only prepared our own desks and chairs at first, and didn't buy desks for school. Without these many situations, we can't analyze and demonstrate various psychological factors that prompt these children to change.
So first, Children's Home is not a standard school to a great extent, and its value is still unknown. Because our funds are so limited, neither children nor teachers have desks, nor any other equipment that can be seen in some ordinary schools. The equipment in this room makes it exactly like an office or a home. Although everything around me is so simple, I have some special equipment used by educational institutions for disabled children. In any case, it is certain that these things cannot be classified as school equipment. This first Children's Home is not as bright and pleasant as the Children's Home we see today. There is a solid desk, which can be more or less a teacher's desk; There is also a big cupboard, which can be used to store different items. The solid door of this cabinet is locked with a key, and the key is kept by the teacher. The children's desks are made strong and durable. They are like desks in school, arranged next to each other. These tables are enough for three children to sit side by side. Every child has an ordinary small armchair except a long bench for children. Although there were plants in the yard, there were no flowers, because there was nothing but a small lawn and trees, which later became the characteristic of our school. I don't fancy doing some important experiments in such a school. However, I set out to train these children's senses to understand how their reactions are different from those of mentally retarded children I have come into contact with before. I especially want to know whether there are some differences between young normal children and older children with mental retardation.
I have not imposed any restrictions on teachers, nor have I imposed any special responsibilities. I just teach the teacher how to use various objects to train the children's senses, so that she can teach the children to use them. She became interested in these sensory materials, but I didn't stop her from taking the initiative.
After a while, I found that the teacher made some other things for the children to use. Among them, there are beautifully decorated golden crosses. She made these decorations out of paper and gave them to the children as a reward for their good behavior. I often find some children wearing these harmless medals. She also creatively taught children how to salute, with one hand on her chest and the other touching her forehead. These salutes seem to make her happy. I find that they make children happy and harmless, because the oldest of these children is only 5 years old.
So, under such circumstances, we began a quiet and lonely life. For a long time, no one noticed what we were doing. In any case, it may be useful to summarize the main activities during this period. My own work may be unscientific, and what happened may be meaningless. However, some important observations and discoveries are under way.