A Peaceable Revolution
by Kathleen Voormolen
Getting to know the children in my community is a joy. Each child holds such beauty, each unique, even siblings; each child has his or her own gifts to bring to the community and each child has his or her own struggles to overcome. Within the community, they support each other and provide much of the motivation to progress. Uma Ramani trained me in how to set up their environment to engage and support their development and how to connect them to it, but it is theirs in which to act independently. Yes, they emerge from primary ahead of their peers according to typical academic metrics, but they also know how to choose work, organize their work, push themselves through challenging tasks, and protect and restore the materials, not to mention how to work with others, communicating their needs, resolving disagreements, seeking out help and then there is their joy in learning and self-accomplishment. They carry all this home, continuing to hone their new-found skills in their families, contributing to their home culture. Maria Montessori observed the same in her schools.
Most children don’t have the privilege of this approach, being trapped in the mechanics of an archaic education system which treats children with widget efficiency, a system where children leave disenfranchised. It is a sad irony that her schools are synonymous with affluence when Dr. Montessori’s first attempts with developmentally normal children were in a community so dire that even the police were intimidated by it.
People around the world were so amazed by what the children accomplished in this school that there was eagerness to expand on her experiment. She was enthralled and continued observing the children around the world, letting them guide her on what they really needed. One could say that this was education for the children by the children because that is how it evolved. This was a work of activism for Dr. Montessori. She never wanted to follow her father’s suggestion to become a teacher as was normal for women at that time. She overcame the odds against her to become the first female doctor in Italy. She had a profound sense of injustice and rallied for the rights for those without, especially children. She first addressed the League of Nations about education for peace after the 1st World War, and continued until the end of her life when she proposed “The Peaceful Revolution” to UNESCO. She couldn’t sit idly by when she saw how children were mere pawns for our whims.
And yet 50 years later, little has changed. As I gently guide my little community each day, I lament at how other children don’t get the benefit of this appropriate education and more importantly what this means to our world. The child incarnates his environment at this age and expands on it as an adult. He needs the very best of us and yet so many are lucky to get any consideration. It is imperative that we share our insight and expand on Maria Montessori’s mission. It would be wonderful if all children could experience this type of education and that they have security and support beyond the casa.
“Let us go out of the schools, let us all go in procession into the world and proclaim that the child opens to us a new gate-way which it lies in our hands to throw open for the benefit of the world!” (Montessori, IX International Montessori Conference, 1951)
© 2021 Kathleen Voormolen
Kathleen Voormolen
Kathleen Voormolen followed her children into Montessori education, earning her Primary AMI Diploma from MINT after a career as a food scientist in South Africa and the United States. She previously worked with Adolescents and is currently a primary guide at St. Francis Montessori in Irving, TX while supporting other Montessori-based programs on the side.
