© MariaMontessori.com
After observing in toddlers or primary, prospective parents invariably comment upon how civilized it is, how the children get along so well and are so respectful of each other and their teachers. “How do Montessori children know how to wait for a turn, respect someone else’s space, walk in the classroom instead of run, ask politely for help or offer to help someone else?” they want to know. “It’s not magic,” I respond. “They have learned each of these skills, and many more, in the lessons of Grace and Courtesy.”
These lessons are a regular feature of the toddler or primary classroom, especially at this time of year when new children are being introduced to the classroom. In primary, these often happen at a group time, first thing in the morning. On of the first skills introduced is simply “How to walk around a rug.” The teacher will unroll a small rug on the floor in the middle of the circle of children, and invite them to watch. With elaborate care she will place her foot just beside the rug with every step she takes. Each time she comes to a corner, she will accentuate going all the way around and not cutting the corner by stepping over it. She will then announce, “Now you know how to walk around a rug,” and invite several children, one at a time, to have a turn.
© MariaMontessori.com
When the group time is over and children are excused to move about the classroom and choose their own activities, she can observe the results of her handiwork, as the children pay special attention to walking around each rug they encounter. If anyone forgets and steps on someone else’s rug, she has only to remind them: “Do you remember when I showed you how to walk around a rug?”
It seems so simple, doesn’t it? And yet, consider this — without this one skill, children who knew no better would blunder into and across each other’s spaces, causing disturbance and hurt feelings.
Another early lesson is “How to watch someone’s work.” Again the teacher will role play this important skill, emphasizing her closed mouth and the placement of her hands by her sides or behind her back.
With the introduction of just these two skills alone, the teacher has eliminated a large percentage of the frictional elements that plague the average “preschool.” In this same way we teach each of the social skills that allow a group of children to function independently but also respectfully: how to excuse yourself when stepping in front of another; what to do when you come to the water pitcher and someone else is already there getting a drink; how to serve the carrots that you have just peeled and sliced; how to blow your nose; how to walk in a line; how to wait rather than interrupt. The list goes on and on.
Last year as I was substituting in a primary class, I noticed a social skill that the children lacked. In one area of the classroom two shelves jutted out, creating a narrow passage between. Children coming from opposite directions would bump into each other coming through. Rather than admonishing these children for their lack of social awareness, I made a mental note instead. The next morning I gathered the whole group around the space in question. The assistant and I role-played what to do in this situation. We each picked up a tray and entered the narrow space from opposite directions. I made a deliberate show of stopping, stepping back, and inviting her to go first. Following this group time, as children went about their independent activities, I noticed any number of them looking for an opportunity to pass through this same narrow space. If someone was coming from the opposite direction one of them would stop, move back, and in a little piping voice say, “Oh, excuse me. Please go through first.”
In this way the children gradually build the social skills of a polite society. As they find activities that meet their inner need for self-development and as their space and autonomy are respected, a sense of calm and purposefulness settles over the classroom. Perhaps it is magic, after all.
Peter Davidson was the founding Head at the Montessori School of Beaverton, an AMI school in Portland and currently serves as consultant for Montessori in Redlands, an AMI school in Southern California.
Delightful article. May it reach the eyes, ears, and classrooms of many!
I’m not quite sure what to make of this, on one hand I can see the benefit of using these teaching techniques, but on the other, I would worry that the normal “rough and tumble” of childhood would be restricted. My son found himself in a class which was made up of 18 boys and 3 girls, the play fighting and wrestling that went on was considerable!!!and I would have hated for this natural predisposition to be curbed by them having to worry unduly about invading someone elses space, but I do understand how these methods bring order to chaos, I just wonder at what cost.
Lovely!
Anne– I don’t think grace and politeness have to mean never having a chance to be rough and tumble. The two are not mutually exclusive. For example: I have two boys, 3 yrs and 9 months. Already they have begin to roughhouse and wrestle (yes, the 9 month old even goes to tackle his brother already!). This is ok with me, BUT we have strict ground rules that we are implementing. For example: we can only play rough while on a soft surface (we have one queen mattress on the floor in one of their rooms), and if either child shows any signs of distress or not liking what’s going on, they MUST STOP and check in to make sure everyone is ok. When the baby is old enough to speak and understand this, we will also designate a “safe word” that can be said that will immediately stop all wrestling whenever either one is hurt or simply wants to stop.
Play fighting is fine and even good AS LONG AS everyone is happy with what is going on, and I think that is part of what grace & courtesy teach. Personally, I think any sort of rough play or even tickle games must have ground rules that respect everyone’s wishes and boundaries in order to be both safe and fun.
Anne: I have 5 children in Montessori school. 2 in primary and 3 in elementary. Yes, it restricts this behavior in the classroom. Because it is not appropriate in the classroom. In the classroom the skills of grace and courtesy are required. When they go out to recess the go nuts and L.O.U.D. But, never in the classroom.
My kids are plenty rough and tumble (a big pile of puppies), but they have learned appropriate behavior for different situations. I don’t let them roughhouse in the living room. That doesn’t stop them from being a big pile of puppies, it just teaches them that some areas are used for different purposes.
Montessori or not, I guess I don’t see what classroom would allow that type of behavior.
Love this. I realize even more the power of modeling behaviour to my littles rather than just explaining it with words. Thanks
Nice article, Peter!
I want to underline Peter’s point that although children do learn life skills through Grace and Courtesy lessons, the more direct purpose for these in the Montessori classroom (whether at the 3-6 yr old or 6-12 yr old levels) is that they are the underpinnings for creating a learning environment in which children can work independently. That is, if it weren’t for Grace and Courtesy, you wouldn’t get the freedom, choice and self-reliance for which Montessori education is justly famous. (You also wouldn’t get all the great development of cognitive “executive functions” – but that’s a story for another day.)
In schools where the children are all doing the same thing at the same time, with a teacher presiding over it all to keep everyone on track, Grace and Courtesy would just be a nice add-on — call it “character development” or “manners”. But in a classroom of 30 children, each choosing his/her own work, taking turns with materials, choosing his/her own work space, moving freely around the room, communicating freely with each other and the adults, etc., — and doing it all so that the room is quiet enough and calm enough for concentrated work to take place — the whole thing would implode were it not for the children’s ability to co-habit the space peacefully and in an ordered, mutually respectful way. The same thing is true at the elementary level, except there the Grace and Courtesy has more to do with working collaboratively on big projects and the sometimes overheated dynamics of childhood friendships.
BTW, at the elementary level, Grace and Courtesy is presented a bit differently than it is to the younger children. Instead of the precise, economical demonstrations of G&C described so well in Peter’s article, the elementary teacher often presents what NOT to do and does it with some humor. For example, one famous English elementary teacher used to do a hilarious shtick about how NOT to get on a bus while carrying an umbrella. I used to do a counter-demonstration of table manners in which I ate my whole lunch while the 9-12 yr olds looked on. I tried to break every rule of table etiquette known to man (including the many unwholesome things one can do with a bottle of ketchup and little imagination), and the children’s job was to see how many faux pas they could catch. Some of them could get to lists of 30 or more transgressions – and they were insanely excited about it. (I remember one girl who took her list home, typed it up and decorated it so that she could put it up on her wall.) Then when parents visited our class for Thanksgiving lunch, the children knew exactly what not to do … and didn’t do it.
Great article. Modeling proper behavior is so important for children. . . Unfortunately, I grew up watching the three stoogies. Took a life time to recreate my civilized side…
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Grace and Courtesy are the most important lessons learned in life. If these lessons were not taught at school as well at home, how could children grow up to be professionals. They need to learn the bounderies of all places and in school rough and tough play should be bottled up and exerted at recess only. I am a Montessori teacher and we teach grace and courtesy in every aspect of the school day. We even teach the children about riding too close to others on the bike trail. My children are both boys and are 5 and 3. They are in the same classroom and know not to wrestle or rough house in school. They get outside in our outdoor classroom and they have a blast. They build with tree discs, ride bikes, chase bubbles, and many other creative fun outdoor activities. When they get home they ride bikes and wrestle in the yard. They are growing up just fine with the diversity in life.
I admire John Davidson’s article greatly and agree mightily with John Snyder’s comments. I would expand on the comments on elementary level by pointing out the importance of transitions and the guide’s facilitating the children’s traversing the great gap between the planes it is a gift to the child entering the elementary level from the children’s house to have the grace and courtesy honored first in the known form lest the new six year-olds, one foot still on the other side, take civility to be a comic aspect of being young. I often experienced that new children upon entering the elementary with it’s hustle and bustle of collaborative work from the serenity of individual self-formation in children’s house would misunderstand initially, would mistranslate the robust atmosphere for a summer camp mode from which they may have just returned. I always presented grace and courtesy to the children in its gracious and courteous form for the six-to-nines.
Another reason I left the English lady’s version for upper el where it seems to work so powerfully well is that the new experience of ing from a reasoning mind, being driven to analytical pursuits and engaging so collaboratively presents the entire community as well as each individual member with a whole new set of challenges requiring a new series of social skills for gracious and civil learning. In my experience the early elementary children and their community are hungry for the great array of new lessons in grace and courtesy. To my mind these are the initiation and orientation into the new territory with its particular culture. These lessons tell the children that in this new land we are still just as gracious and courteous, we value civility although we work in a new way. This clarity and these new skills and manners are what make the collaborative work to be so productive and creative.
Then I would turn over the children of nine to the upper elementary level and the English lady’s way of emphasizing all the new manners by showing their extreme opposites. Perfect for that age! Although, I must say that over all these years, try as I may, cannot conjure in my mind an image of that fine lady demonstrating thus. Anyone out there actually observed her giving one of these lessons?
Thank you Peter, John and Donna for your insights and for the parents willing to add their thoughts. Grace and Courtesy are unspoken characteristics that define us as humans in an uncivilized world. Montessori children do stand out as they become adults because they have learned this on a fundamental level through those lessons that are presented on a daily basis in the classrooms from A-I through adolescents. Although simple concepts Grace and Courtesy are fundamental to life’s challenging moments.
My three children (normalized, polite, respectful) college graduates (2 boys and a girl, all began their Montessori Education at the age of two years old, and continued through 8th grade. Each of them speak to their regret that the Montessori Method was not taught at the high school and college levels. In fact, they have said that they never had to really study in high school as they learned everything at Montessori.
Examples: After a high school biology class, my daughter (Director of Development of Genocide Intervention) said “we were learning the parts of a fish by looking at a chalk board. If this were Montessori, we would have a fish in our hands. And we would have really learned something.” Our oldest son wrote a very convincing college thesis on the premise that the Montessori Method should be taught from preschool through doctoral programs. He now works for Google. Our youngest son, a doctoral candidate at Loyola Universal in Clinical Psychology, mentions that he transformed all classes taught at the high school and college levels into the way Montessori would have taught it, and tributes the usage of those skills the single most critical aid in helping him excel at each level.
My point is that my children did not inherit a huge intellect from their parents. What they did benefit from was that we were lucky enough to have a neighbor, whose children were older than our toddlers make a convincing enough argument as to why we should do ‘whatever it takes’ to send our Children to Montessori, as they had. She convinced us that it would pay lifelong dividends. And I am saying this now, on this message board, as heeded advice was spot on. We are blessed with the kindest, most respectful, sensitive and thoughtful adult children. And Maria Montessori played a HUGE part in that, to which we are forever grateful.
Readers of this subject might enjoy the Michael Olaf summer newsletter on Grace and Courtesy: http://www.michaelolaf.net/newsaugust2011.html