Montessori is for Grown Ups Too
When my husband and I began looking at schools for our daughter, a wise friend told me, “You’ll go on tours and meet the staff and some parents at the school, and one of them will just feel better than the others to you.” We landed on a Montessori school for her because it just felt really good to be on the campus.
The classrooms were beautifully equipped with materials for her to work with, all placed on furniture at her height. “We make sure to meet them where they are. If they have what they need available to them, then it will amaze you what tasks they are capable of.”
A guide explained this to me as I watched a 3-year-old pour water into her own cup with a pitcher, and slice her own strawberries in an egg slicer for a snack. She then enjoyed her snack and cleaned up afterwards, putting each item she had used back in its place. Meeting them where they are fosters independence, and when children experience this independence, they feel a sense of joy and pride, an intrinsic motivation, in learning to and doing something for themselves.
“We give the children an uninterrupted block of time, around three hours, to focus on their work.
They will choose an activity that they are interested in and may receive a lesson from one of the classroom guides, or perhaps from an older student in the classroom that has already mastered the work. This block of time allows them to practice the work they have chosen, and repeat the steps in order to master the lesson. They understand they have the responsibility to use their time productively. They may work with other children, and need to negotiate who should complete each task in order to finish the work.”
I watched as two children assigned numbers to sections of beads on a long, segmented thread, as they essentially learned to multiply by 5.
Every interaction I’ve experienced at my daughter’s school has been polite, respectful and attentive. “We practice grace and courtesy with our students throughout the day and teach them to treat each other with the same respect. This extends past please and thank you, which are important, to listening to others, showing care for our environment by putting things away neatly and in their place, and being thoughtful about helping others when they need it.” At an admissions event, a panel of now high school and adult alumni answered questions about their experience now, having gone to a Montessori school. A high school freshman stood up to answer and said one thing he has noticed is that he is the only one of his friends that pushes their chair in when they get up from the table. I was sold.
As we filled out our admissions paperwork and read the mission of the school was ‘to nurture each child to become an independent, responsible, compassionate, learned individual who thinks critically and realizes clearly his or her role in the world,’ something dawned on me: If you replace the word child with employee and world with company, then you’d be winning as an employer.
As a leadership coach and HR professional, I help business owners and managers strategize on how they can create a workplace that people love to come to work for. Workplaces where they understand clearly the goals and values of the company and the role they play in its success. Workplaces where they feel trusted and empowered to make decisions without the fear of failure. These concepts are emerging in workplaces, but in actual practice, they are by and large, exceptions to the rule. What I’ve come to recognize is that Montessori principles show up for me in my work with adults all the time, I just didn’t know about Montessori.
When studying businesses that are thought leaders in creating workplaces where people thrive, at the very base level, you’d expect to have a prepared environment that meets the employees where they are.
The right software or computer equipment, or in a workplace that is more physical, you’d have tools and equipment to complete the tasks required: trays and glassware and silverware at a restaurant, safety equipment and tools at a construction site. This also shows up when businesses are prepared to provide training to employees.
When studying businesses that are thought leaders in creating workplaces where people thrive, at the very base level, you’d expect to have a prepared environment that meets the employees where they are. The right software or computer equipment, or in a workplace that is more physical, you’d have tools and equipment to complete the tasks required: trays and glassware and silverware at a restaurant, safety equipment and tools at a construction site. This also shows up when businesses are prepared to provide training to employees.
Most people would expect to work in a diverse community with peers at various age and experience levels, and they would hope that they could count on those peers to ask questions, seek support or learn new ways to be successful in their work.
Some companies are more successful than others at providing focus time for work, but you’d be hard pressed to meet someone who didn’t wish for less meetings or to develop a practice of blocking time on their calendar to get their work done.
“The best people leaders will tell you that creating a culture at work that celebrates wins and makes it safe to fail encourages people to take risks, test new ideas and form independent opinions that they may not have otherwise for fear of blame for a poor outcome.”
Some of the most progressive leaders have even thrown the idea of performance evaluations out the window in favor of building cultures of feedback and regular conversations around goals and alignment of the employee’s values with company values, because when employees feel connection to the beliefs of the company that they work for, then they stay longer.
By extension, this is true in life. Happiness is rooted in the relationships we build with people, our internal sense of health and well-being, and the feeling of having a purpose.
All of this is to say, that these principles of fostering independence and intrinsic motivation, of giving people space to explore their ideas and not comparing them to others, recognizing that each of us experience things at our own pace. All of it is just the right way to treat people. And if more children experience this and are modeled these practices now, then maybe they’ll grow up to create places that feel like that to work in, and live lives rooted in these same values.
Maybe people all over the world will push their chair in when they get up from the table. We could all use a little more of that.