The Montessori Method Part 15

Here Randone has tried, very fittingly, to rebuild and revive a form of art which was once the glory of Italy and of Florence--the potter's art, that is, the art of constructing vases.

The archaeological, historical, and artistic importance of the vase is very great, and may be compared with the numismatic art. In fact the first object of which humanity felt the need was the _vase_, which came into being with the utilisation of fire, and before the discovery of the _production_ of fire. Indeed the first food of mankind was cooked in a vase.

One of the things most important, ethnically, in judging the civilisation of a primitive people is the grade of perfection attained in _pottery_; in fact, the _vase_ for domestic life and the axe for social life are the first sacred symbols which we find in the prehistoric epoch, and are the religious symbols connected with the temples of the G.o.ds and with the cult of the dead. Even to-day, religious cults have sacred vases in their Sancta Sanctorum.

People who have progressed in civilisation show their feeling for art and their aesthetic feeling also in _vases_ which are multiplied in almost infinite form, as we see in Egyptian, Etruscan, and Greek art.

The vase then comes into being, attains perfection, and is multiplied in its uses and its forms, in the course of human civilisation; and the history of the vase follows the history of humanity itself. Besides the civil and moral importance of the vase, we have another and practical one, its literal _adaptability_ to every modification of form, and its susceptibility to the most diverse ornamentation; in this, it gives free scope to the individual genius of the artist.

Thus, when once the handicraft leading to the construction of vases has been learned (and this is the part of the progress in the work, learned from the direct and graduated instruction of the teacher), anyone can modify it according to the inspiration of his own aesthetic taste and this is the artistic, individual part of the work. Besides this, in Randone's school the use of the potter's wheel is taught, and also the composition of the mixture for the bath of majolica ware, and baking the pieces in the furnace, stages of manual labour which contain an industrial culture.

Another work in the School of Educative Art is the manufacture of diminutive bricks, and their baking in the furnace, and the construction of diminutive _walls_ built by the same processes which the masons use in the construction of houses, the bricks being joined by means of mortar handled with a trowel. After the simple construction of the wall,--which is very amusing for the children who build it, placing brick on brick, superimposing row on row,--the children pa.s.s to the construction of real _houses_,--first, resting on the ground, and, then, really constructed with foundations, after a previous excavation of large holes in the ground by means of little hoes and shovels. These little houses have openings corresponding to windows and doors, and are variously ornamented in their facades by little tiles of bright and multi-coloured majolica: the tiles themselves being manufactured by the children.

Thus the children learn to _appreciate_ the objects and constructions which surround them, while a real manual and artistic labour gives them profitable exercise.

Such is the manual training which I have adopted in the "Children's Houses"; after two or three lessons the little pupils are already enthusiastic about the construction of vases, and they preserve very carefully their own products, in which they take pride. With their plastic art they then model little objects, eggs or fruits, with which they themselves fill the vases. One of the first undertakings is the simple vase of red clay filled with eggs of white clay; then comes the modelling of the vase with one or more spouts, of the narrow-mouthed vase, of the vase with a handle, of that with two or three handles, of the tripod, of the amphora.

For children of the age of five or six, the work of the potter's wheel begins. But what most delights the children is the work of building a wall with little bricks, and seeing a little house, the fruit of their own hands, rise in the vicinity of the ground in which are growing plants, also cultivated by them. Thus the age of childhood epitomises the princ.i.p.al primitive labours of humanity, when the human race, changing from the nomadic to the stable condition, demanded of the earth its fruit, built itself shelter, and devised vases to cook the foods yielded by the fertile earth.

CHAPTER XII

EDUCATION OF THE SENSES

In a pedagogical method which is experimental the education of the senses must undoubtedly a.s.sume the greatest importance. Experimental psychology also takes note of movements by means of sense measurements.

Pedagogy, however, although it may profit by psychometry is not designed to _measure_ the sensations, but _educate_ the senses. This is a point easily understood, yet one which is often confused. While the proceedings of esthesiometry are not to any great extent applicable to little children, the _education_ of the _senses_ is entirely possible.

We do not start from the conclusions of experimental psychology. That is, it is not the knowledge of the average sense conditions according to the age of the child which leads us to determine the educational applications we shall make. We start essentially from a method, and it is probable that psychology will be able to draw its conclusions from pedagogy so understood, and not _vice versa_.

The method used by me is that of making a pedagogical experiment with a didactic object and awaiting the spontaneous reaction of the child. This is a method in every way a.n.a.logous to that of experimental psychology.

I make use of a material which, at first glance, may be confused with psychometric material. Teachers from Milan who had followed the course in the Milan school of experimental psychology, seeing my material exposed, would recognise among it, measures of the perception of colour, hardness, and weight, and would conclude that, in truth, I brought no new contribution to pedagogy since these instruments were already known to them.

But the great difference between the two materials lies in this: The esthesiometer carries within itself the possibility of _measuring_; my objects on the contrary, often do not permit a measure, but are adapted to cause the child to _exercise_ the senses.

In order that an instrument shall attain such a pedagogical end, it is necessary that it shall not _weary_ but shall _divert_ the child. Here lies the difficulty in the selection of didactic material. It is known that the psychometric instruments are great _consumers of energy_--for this reason, when Pizzoli wished to apply them to the education of the senses, he did not succeed because the child was annoyed by them, and became tired. Instead, _the aim of education is to develop the energies_.

Psychometric instruments, or better, the instruments of _esthesiometry_, are prepared in their differential gradations upon the laws of Weber, which were in truth drawn from experiments made upon adults.

With little children, we must proceed to the making of trials, and must select the didactic materials in which they show themselves to be interested.

This I did in the first year of the "Children's Houses" adopting a great variety of stimuli, with a number of which I had already experimented in the school for deficients.

Much of the material used for deficients is abandoned in the education of the normal child--and much that is used has been greatly modified. I believe, however, that I have arrived at a _selection of objects_ (which I do not here wish to speak of in the technical language of psychology as stimuli) representing the minimum _necessary_ to a practical sense education.

These objects const.i.tute the _didactic system_ (or set of didactic materials) used by me. They are manufactured by the House of Labour of the Humanitarian Society at Milan.

A description of the objects will be given as the educational scope of each is explained. Here I shall limit myself to the setting forth of a few general considerations.

_First._ _The difference in the reaction between deficient and normal children, in the presentation of didactic material made up of graded stimuli._ This difference is plainly seen from the fact that the same didactic material used with deficients _makes education possible_, while with normal children it _provokes auto-education_.

This fact is one of the most interesting I have met with in all my experience, and it inspired and rendered possible the method of _observation_ and _liberty_.

Let us suppose that we use our first object,--a block in which solid geometric forms are set. Into corresponding holes in the block are set ten little wooden cylinders, the bases diminis.h.i.+ng gradually about the millimetres. The game consists in taking the cylinders out of their places, putting them on the table, mixing them, and then putting each one back in its own place. The aim is to educate the eye to the differential perception of dimensions.

With the deficient child, it would be necessary to begin with exercises in which the stimuli were much more strongly contrasted, and to arrive at this exercise only after many others had preceded it.

With normal children, this is, on the other hand, the first object which we may present, and out of all the didactic material this is the game preferred by the very little children of two and a half and three years.

Once we arrived at this exercise with a deficient child, it was necessary continually and actively to recall his attention, inviting him to look at the block and showing him the various pieces. And if the child once succeeded in placing all the cylinders properly, he stopped, and the game was finished. Whenever the deficient child committed an error, it was necessary to correct it, or to urge him to correct it himself, and when he was able to correct an error he was usually quite indifferent.

Now the normal child, instead, takes spontaneously a lively interest in this game. He pushes away all who would interfere, or offer to help him, and wishes to be alone before his problem.

It had already been noted that little ones of two or three years take the greatest pleasure in arranging small objects, and this experiment in the "Children's Houses" demonstrates the truth of this a.s.sertion.

Now, and here is the important point, the normal child attentively observes the relation between the size of the opening and that of the object which he is to place in the mould, and is greatly interested in the game, as is clearly shown by the expression of attention on the little face.

If he mistakes, placing one of the objects in an opening that is small for it, he takes it away, and proceeds to make various trials, seeking the proper opening. If he makes a contrary error, letting the cylinder fall into an opening that is a little too large for it, and then collects all the successive cylinders in openings just a little too large, he will find himself at the last with the big cylinder in his hand while only the smallest opening is empty. The didactic material _controls every error_. The child proceeds to correct himself, doing this in various ways. Most often he feels the cylinders or shakes them, in order to recognise which are the largest. Sometimes, he sees at a glance where his error lies, pulls the cylinders from the places where they should not be, and puts those left out where they belong, then replaces all the others. The normal child always repeats the exercise with growing interest.

Indeed, it is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the didactic material lies, and when the child with evident security places each piece in its proper place, he has outgrown the exercise, and this piece of material becomes useless to him.

This self-correction leads the child to concentrate his attention upon the differences of dimensions, and to compare the various pieces. It is in just this comparison that the _psycho-sensory_ exercise lies.

There is, therefore, no question here of teaching the child the _knowledge_ of the dimensions, through the medium of these pieces.

Neither is it our aim that the child shall know how to use, _without an error_, the material presented to him thus performing the exercises well.

That would place our material on the same basis as many others, for example that of Froebel, and would require again the _active_ work of the _teacher_, who busies herself furnis.h.i.+ng knowledge, and making haste to correct every error in order that the child may _learn the use of the objects_.

Here instead it is the work of the child, the auto-correction, the auto-education which acts, for the _teacher must not interfere_ in the _slightest_ way. No teacher can furnish the child with the _agility which he acquires_ through gymnastic _exercises_: it is necessary that the _pupil perfect himself_ through his own efforts. It is very much the same with the _education of the senses_.

It might be said that the same thing is true of every form of education; a man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done.

One of the difficulties of putting this method into practice with teachers of the old school, lies in the difficulty of preventing them from intervening when the little child remains for some time puzzled before some error, and with his eyebrows drawn together and his lips puckered, makes repeated efforts to correct himself. When they see this, the old-time teachers are seized with pity, and long, with an almost irresistible force, to help the child. When we prevent this intervention, they burst into words of compa.s.sion for the little scholar, but he soon shows in his smiling face the joy of having surmounted an obstacle.

Normal children repeat such exercises many times. This repet.i.tion varies according to the individual. Some children after having completed the exercise five or six times are tired of it. Others will remove and replace the pieces at least _twenty times_, with an expression of evident interest. Once, after I had watched a little one of four years repeat this exercise sixteen times, I had the other children sing in order to distract her, but she continued unmoved to take out the cylinders, mix them up and put them back in their places.

An intelligent teacher ought to be able to make most interesting individual psychological observations, and, to a certain point, should be able to measure the length of time for which the various stimuli held the attention.

In fact, when the child educates himself, and when the control and correction of errors is yielded to the didactic material, there _remains for the teacher nothing but to observe_. She must then be more of a psychologist than a teacher, and this shows the importance of a scientific preparation on the part of the teacher.

Indeed, with my methods, the teacher teaches _little_ and observes _much_, and, above all, it is her function to direct the psychic activity of the children and their physiological development. For this reason I have changed the name of teacher into that of directress.

At first this name provoked many smiles, for everyone asked whom there was for this teacher to direct, since she had no a.s.sistants, and since she must leave her little scholars _in liberty_. But her direction is much more profound and important than that which is commonly understood, for this teacher directs _the life and the soul_.

_Second._ _The education of the senses has, as its aim, the refinement of the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises._