My daughter is now in to her second year at a Montessori school, which she absolutely loves. And while I’m long overdue on writing up an article on the numerous ways in which I find Montessori teaching methods to be compatible with my own beliefs and that of other Scientologists I know, I wanted to say a thing or two about one of my favorite aspects of how my daughter’s activities at school are treated.
I’ve not read up enough on Maria Montessori’s reasoning for this to know why it was made a part of her method, but from a Scientology viewpoint, there are a ton of mechanics behind why this approach works so well, and is so beneficial for kids.
Reason 1: Exchange
A huge factor in keeping kids sane is maintaining a balance of Exchange. If a child is only being contributed-to and is not contributing anything back, or is not permitted to contribute anything back, one is basically making a criminal out of him. Please, please watch this video which explains this subject in more detail. It’s as important as anything in parenting.
Belittling a child’s activities as “play” and not casting any of it as helpful “work” reduces what he can do which is actually helpful. Case in point: one of my daughter’s friends was doing the “wash the baby” work pictured above, when he miscalculated the strength required to lift a tub full of water, and created a tidal wave through the classroom. Instead of spanking him, the teacher took it as an opportunity to teach the whole class how to use a mop. BLAM – now the whole class gets to do something helpful by cleaning it up.
A number of Scientology parents have contributed articles to this site on the same subject – like Diane Norgard’s brilliant article on the subtle invalidation of children, or Christine Anderson’s article on her 3 and 5 year old farm helpers. It doesn’t matter, really, if you factually needed the help or not. As long as the child feels like they are learning how to do things that help, and are doing things that help, they are going to be – to that degree – more sane.
Reason 2: The Cycle of Action
L. Ron Hubbard wrote a fantastic book called The Problems of Work in which he illustrated quite completely how much value there is in allowing people to complete cycles of action. If you haven’t already, please watch this video which illustrates the point rather well. I’m sure you all have had a boss which kept interrupting you with some “urgent thing” which you had to drop everything to do, not letting you simply start change and stop the thing you’re on . It makes people crazy, in addition to then resulting in incomplete jobs sitting around.
The same exact thing happens to kids when you assume that whatever they’re doing is just “play” and can be interrupted at any time.
I find it easy to see examples of this when I watch my kids in the sandbox. They each get extremely emotionally invested in whatever project they’re doing (making tractor tracks, making a hole, burying a toy, etc), and the full and satisfactory completion of that is simply VITAL to them, in their universe. Easiest way to get an upset out of either of my kids is to just randomly say “time to go!!” and force them to stop when they’re obviously in the middle of something. I’ve actually had an easier time getting them out of the sandbox by asking them to complete the work they’re working on, and then go – as opposed to a “5-minute warning” type system.
Obviously, kids need to be able to play. They need to be able to just go run around a jungle gym or run up & down the hall with laundry baskets on their heads or whatever. But when they’re busy on something, I’ve definitely found it much more rewarding in terms of a more happy & able child, to really grant the same importance to any of their work that I’d hope a boss or superior would grant to mine.