Assignment 2 Szilvia Baranyak
For me is a very fascinating point to see how the spontaneity can rule the world. Montessori explained that the transformation she experienced in children’s behaviour at the Children’s Houses was staggering for her. She and the teachers never made attempt to force children to learn if they resisted or use the materials, never compelled themselves on to the children – as we usually used to in the traditional schools, nevertheless she and her staff faced with unexpected success. Children became settled, well-organised, disciplined and socialized in her school. She eventually looked for the way to make the children’s life better, to keep them a chance having a more balanced life in there future and she actually got anything which shook old, stick in the mud teaching system.
“Work is love made visible.” (Gibran, K. The Prophet (1948), page 33 in Montessori (1949), page 189).
Montessori used Gibran’s motto as her essential milestone. She stated normalisation cannot be alive without ‘real’ work. The work which itself is build upon mental maturity. Mental maturity which is the result of concentration and the concentration which is derived from the motives of activity based on child’s freedom. Freedom with her means that child has a choice using materials as frequently as he wants from the proper environment. And now we can return the beginning of the concept that is to say to get normalised child.
Normalisation is a progress – ‘…does not depend on his /child/ age, but also on being free to look about him.’ (Montessori (1949), page 207)
The whole path usually takes long period of time which depends on the child’s character, his age, the quantity of the time he spends in the school and the level of deviation.
Deviation alienates the child’s personality to find the path of self perfectionment. The abnormal development inhibits the normalisation or postpones its process. The child’s character becomes strong or weak...