The Enlightened Adult
One universal tenet embraced by Montessori teachers around the globe is the emphasis on the importance of spiritual preparation in order to best serve the budding spirits of young children. This may sound surprising to some, but truly this is the most important place to begin. The vital and enduring question often asked by Montessorians remains: “Who will I be when I be with children?” This gets to the essence of what we mean by spiritual preparation. It is the inner work that we do first in order to prepare for becoming the observant, thoughtful, and dedicated adult guide.
This inner work starts with the willingness to be introspective enough in order to study our attitudes, motives, triggers, as well as our beliefs about children and education. All of us bring our collective experiences from our own upbringing, family, and learning into our ideas about how to care for and serve children.
Spirituality can mean a lot of different things, depending on who you ask. Montessori was prolific in addressing the inner self of both the child and the adult guide within her writings. In teacher preparation, the idea of spirituality is not religious, but it does imply a recognition of the sacredness of life and the connection between all living things.
Psychotherapist and author Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick wrote in her book for parents, Something More, “The word spiritual refers to an awareness of our sacred connection with all of life. Our spirituality is our opening to one another as whole human beings, each different and precious, and our exploring how we can truly learn to love. Day by day it is our learning reverence for our earth and its creatures.”
You will often hear Montessori teachers speak about the natural world with a kind of enthusiasm and even perhaps reverence that is truly inspiring. As we study different kinds of plants and trees, we learn the names of leaf shapes and we polish the leaves of the plants right in our classrooms with great care. Every living thing matters to us. This level of intention that we operate from is what connects us from the world of the everyday and mundane to what one might consider the more elevated dimension of spirituality.
And extending from this understanding, the spiritual world we refer to transcends the limits of sensory input. It is that part of self and the world that we cannot see, touch, taste or smell. It is that aspect of us that longs for a sense of purpose and meaning in our work. As a powerful force in the fabric of our lives, we make the connection between our intentions with our habits, choices and decision-making, both personally and professionally.
Some of us might remember that quintessential quote from the beloved book, The Little Prince that illustrates this concept:
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
--Antoine de Saint Exupery
So how do we become more aware and better observers of both ourselves and the children in our lives? One ready place to begin is in contemplating our level of comfort with our own mistakes. We know mistakes are part of learning, but how many of us endured painful experiences when we felt like we failed to measure up? At Bozeman Montessori, we often talk about our “mistake-friendly” culture because we know that one major obstacle to learning and growth lies in perfectionism and fear of failure. We encourage the adults in our community to learn to “play” with our mistakes: laugh at them and about them when appropriate. Verbalize in front of our children what we learn from errors, even as we strive to get something right.
Potential Exercise: Recall a time that you were chastised or perhaps even shamed after making a mistake as a child. What feelings arose in you during this incident? What possible beliefs or attitudes did you take away from this experience about making mistakes? This could be an excellent journal prompt to explore.
Sometimes looking into our own stories can be very illuminating as we discover what triggers a reactive response in our behaviors that is less than what we all want to be with children: patient, calm, and wise. Analyzing what drives our behavior can ultimately provide a liberation from that stimulus-response cycle of our thoughts impacting our emotions which in turn impact our behavior. From this perspective, acknowledging errors becomes liberating and actually helps us along the road to staying anchored in our authentic selves as parents and teachers.
Mistakes bring us closer and make us better friends. Fraternity is born more easily on the road of error than of that of perfection.
--Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 249
If these ideas resonate with you and you’d like to consider joining our amazing community of faculty and staff, check out our career page here: https://www.bozemanmontessori.com/careers.