Educational-Journal
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the human development and how nature assist this. These are the contributions of the first two planes and how they are apparent in The child you envision entering the third plane.
Dr. Montessori has focused on the child from a holistic point of view. She considered the child, the human being as a being of greater purpose within the universe. Dr. Montessori stretched the difference between the human and the animal. It is clearly differentiated between their ways of learning and understanding the environment they live in, the environment that we started to share since the appearance of the human form on this planet. The environment has been prepared for the human over millions of years, until evolution has found the right moment to combine all components on this planet to create us, the human being. So, nature has found the right dependencies, created interdependencies that led to the collaboration of many unicellular creatures to gather and share the work that needed to be done. Step by step, nature has set the necessary features to allow evolution do its evolutional magic. Once the organism has reached a first step of perfection, the need of survival was given to the human through multiple, endless experiences that have formed the psyche, which has supported and developed mechanisms that have been passed on throughout the years that humanity has roamed the world. That is what we call human tendencies. This is one of the components that are a gift of nature, helping us to support our personal development throughout, what Montessori calls the four planes of development. The four planes of development are a classification of planes that are identified with a exact number of years. The change, what is referred to as ‘re-birth’, happens every 6 years. The four Planes (or phases) of development are an overall vision of Montessori’s developmental psychology from infancy to adulthood. Her vision of the whole of development and growth was not her own. It provides a holistic view of the developing human being and explains the constant Montessori idea of the importance of education as a “help to life”. Next to the human tendencies, that represent the practical application of the Montessori method which is based upon these human tendencies, that include moments of ‘to explore’, ‘to move’, ‘to share’ with a group, to be independent and make decisions, create order, develop self-control, abstract ideas from experience, use the creative imagination, work hard and repeat. Nature has found a way to internalise, pre-design these qualities in the human being. It is the apparatus, the motor for self-perseverance on all levels. This is essential for the child in the first plane to develop its own self. It helps with the tendency, such as orientation, order, exploration to help and support, to give a profound and strong base for the child to discover itself and its surrounding. In the second plane, these tendencies are still applicable but the focus changes. This time the children will apply these tendencies to go out and discover the relationships with others. Key within all the four planes of development is the prepared environment. It represents the tendency order, orientation, exploration communication and activity. It needs to be prepared according to the age group and hence fulfil the needs of the individual. When this is applied consciously and scientifically, the child will reach normalization. When this is the case, the child’s contribution to society is positive and helpful, being cooperative. Maria Montessori said: ‘Only ‘normalized’ children, aided by their environment, show in their subsequent development those wonderful powers that we describe as spontaneous discipline, continuous work, and happy work, social sentiments of help and sympathy for others. Activity freely chosen becomes their regular way of living. The healing of their disorders becomes the doorway to this new kind of life.’1. The child grows through these planes of development and has the support of the tendencies which are levitated by the sensitive periods, primarily apparent in the first plane, followed by the sensitivities, which are morality, potentiality for work, acquisition of culture and imagination, which supports the child’s growth during the second plane of development. The moment indicates a strong ‘attraction’ towards a responsiveness targeting a strong absorption or voluntariness towards a need that needs to be met. The sensitive periods define the stages of human growth from birth to biological maturity. Each stage lasts approximately six years and a different set of psychological characteristics can be observed in each stage. Human tendencies manifest according to these characteristics. Sensitive periods guide each stage of development and are most pronounced in the first plane. During the second plane, the children are guided by the cosmic education. Cosmic Education is the term to describe the approach of introducing the elementary child to the universe, with all its wonders and its awes. The universe is the whole of, what Montessori perceives, as the answers to all the questions Humanity has. It is the presentation of the whole what leads the child to the details. This creates gratitude and humility what paves the path to a global understanding of the fascinating facts that nature does and has provided in the evolutionary process of the creation of men and its psychological, spiritual and physical environment. All that was said so far about a cosmic vision and the cosmic plan or cosmic organization; about the cosmic agents with their variety and diversity of tasks and work, leads to a cosmic order; and man’s special place and role in the cosmos for creation. All of this is involved in the cosmic education. The universe is a gigantic source of information with many answers that are and continue to be discovered. Camillo Grazzini said: The Montessori vision of the world has a cosmic dimension because it is all-inclusive: Montessori looks at the world, on a very grand scale, that is, at the level of the universe with all of its interrelationships.2. During the second plane the child is marked by many changes. These changes are physical and psychological. Their needs are expanding beyond the classroom. During this intellectual period the child’s questions are innumerable . He wants to know everything, his thirst for knowledge is so insatiable that people generally are at their wits and about it. Therefore, they mostly choose the easy way, and simply force the child to be silent and to learn what we group up and consider useful for the child. The child has had the opportunity to profit from the Absorbent Mind throughout the first plane. This is giving a solid foundation for children to enter into elementary education. The Absorbent Mind functions like a sponge. All the concepts presented to him, or ways and routines are absorbed in a way that the child learns effortlessly. There also, Nature has provided mankind with a gift of an essential technique to prepare for what’s to come. Dr. Montessori said: “Our work is not to teach, but to help the absorbent mind in its work of development. How marvellous it would be if by our help, if by an intelligent treatment of the child, if by understanding the needs of his physical life and by feeding his intellect, we could prolong the period of functioning of the absorbent mind!”3. As much as the universe, ‘Life’ has created an environment for us, the members of humanity by using its maximum effort, yet following the laws of nature that have had to be created to provide a logic and suitable world, the child has the capacity to do so likewise. It is fascinating how the cosmic plan shows its wonders daily. Mario Montessori said: ‘There is a plan in which the whole universe is subject. All things, animate and inanimate, are subordinated to that plan’.4 We as educators, teachers and guides, need to provide this environment for such an opportunity to work with maximum effort11. As nature, hence humanity and therefore our children have the will and potential to do work with full concentration during the work-cycle that we provide to them. This is the role of the adult. In Education for Peace, she stated,’ In order to begin the task of reconstructing man’s psyche, we must make the child our point of departure. We must recognize that he is more then our progeny, more than just a creature who is our greatest responsibility. We must study him not as a dependent creature but as an independent person who must be considered in terms of his own individual self.’5 So as responsible person guiding the environment, the child is helped to be himself, to find and develop his own personality. It is the holistic approach, the isolation of difficulty, within the academics and also the physical. It is important to find the right equilibrium between the two aspects to achieve the utmost throughout the child’s preparation for the third plane. It is not exclusive to physical or intellectual work. It needs to be balanced in a way that all the needs are met. Nature has provided us with the laws of dependencies that exist in the environment. Humans have identified and recognised the needs of humanity. It is important to have a full awareness of the prepared environment. That is creating the appropriate conditions for the preparation of the child to move to the next plane of development. Camillo Grazzini said: ‘The child’s hands, guided by his intelligence, begin to do jobs of a definitely human type. This child is always doing something with his hands’.6. This work prepares the future adolescent for the plane he will enter. The adolescent wants to be physical and use his hands. Purposeful activity enriches his development. One can see that the preparatory work executed in the first two planes is creating the path for the child’s conquest of independence. Development takes the form of a drive toward an ever greater independence. ‘It is like an arrow released from the bow, which flies straight, swift and sure. The child’s conquest of independence begins with the first introduction to life.’7. This is based upon the force that ‘Sir Percy Namn’22 refers to as a constant drive to reach the goal that is to be reached. This a force that sits within the child to prepare himself for the third plane. During the two planes of development that the children leave behind to enter the third plane of development, they have been equipped with helpful characteristics and allowed to follow their tendencies to sooth their unconscious needs. All of that is supporting and will support their future study. Nature has handed them the gift of absorption and will. They have been equipped with sensitivities that focus on the necessary abilities to become independent. Independency is a concept the third plane students are seeking for in a wider and in-depth manner. They want to explore furthermore, detach from their family and discover and understand their environment and also themselves. Now they have the urge to apply this concept of outside the classroom, away from the chaperoned outings they were helped with in the second plane. They want to explore and discover the world. Thanks to the prepared environment in the previous two planes, the children had the opportunity to practise decision making and hence had the opportunity to become independent in execution of work, organisation, exploration, orientation and imagination. Dr. Montessori said: ‘An inner change has taken place, but nature is quite logical in arousing now in the child not only a hunger for knowledge and understanding, but a claim to mental independence, a desire to distinguish good from evil by his own powers, and to resent limitation by arbitrary authority. In the field of morality, the child now stands in need of his own inner light’.8 The child is ready to face the challenges of the third plane. It was provided with a cosmic curriculum showing many secrets of how it all is interrelated and dependent. With this global view and holistic understanding, decisions can be supported by the large internalized knowledge-base. This allows the adolescent to focus on his second re-birth entering the third plane.
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