Pre-school eductaion: Waldorf vs. Montessori

I have recently been reading a lot about how young children learn, and there are two educational philosophies that I think are wonderful for the pre-school aged child: Montessori and Waldorf.


MONTESSORI

My son, Aiden had the opportunity to attend a wonderful little Montessori school for  2 1/2 years, from age 2-4.  I fell in love with Montessori. He learned so much there, and in such a loving environment.  Montessori strives to nurture the whole child - emotionally, intellectually, and physically.  They are very intent on fostering independence. They let the child choose his own work and pace of learning.  The areas of learning include:

Practical life (this includes improving fine and gross motor skills through pouring, scooping, lacing, folding, sweeping, dusting, etc.)

Sensorial (includes sorting, matching, putting things in order by size, weight, color, etc)

Language -  from 2009-2010 edition of Child of the World, Montessori from Three to Six Years :

Reading and writing should not be taught to a child before age six or seven, but, given the sensorial experiences of appropriate materials a child of normal intelligence will quite naturally teach herself to read and write sometimes as early as three or four years of age.

Here is a quote from Dr. Montessori about her experience in the first Casa dei Bambini, "house of children," in Rome in the beginning of this century:

Ours was a house for children, rather than a real school. We had prepared a place for children where a diffused culture could be assimilated from the environment, without any need for direct instruction . . . Yet these children learned to read and write before they were five, and no one had given them any lessons. At that time it seemed miraculous that children of four and a half should be able to write, and that they should have learned without the feeling of having been taught.

We puzzled over it for a long time. Only after repeated experiments did we conclude with certainty that all children are endowed with this capacity to absorb culture. If this be true—we then argued—if culture can be acquired without effort, let us provide the children with other elements of culture. And then we saw them absorbfar more than reading and writing: botany, zoology, mathematics, geography, and all with the same ease, spontaneously and without getting tired.

And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.

Math (uses hands-on materials where the child can compare size, weight, and numbers both by sight and touch- for example, they use beads to teach decimal places: one single bead, a rod of 10 beads, a square of 100 beads, and a cube of 1000 beads. Give the child a #: 1,316.  Then she is to put (starting at the left) one cube , then 3 squares, then 1 rod, and finally 6 single beads. The child is then actually looking at 1,316 beads to get a visual idea of that number as an amount, and is learning about the physical order of decimal places in a written number.)

Art  - art history and appreciation, as well as experimenting with many different art materials and techniques

WALDORF

Recently, I began to learn about Waldorf education.  In some respects it is very much like Montessori.  They respect children as individuals and aim to nurture the whole child.  Waldorf students also spend a lot of time on 'practical life" type activities.  However, they have fundamental differences.  In Waldorf, the teacher leads, not the student.  They have the same goal as Montessori in that they want the child to become good at decision making, but they believe that giving them too many choices too early hinders their decision-making abilities rather than helping them.  They also don't believe in teaching concepts to pre-school age children. They do not even expose them to letters and numbers at the pre-school level.  They believe that these years are a time to foster the child's imagination through make -believe play and a time to allow the child to spend his energy on physical growth.  They believe rhythm and balance are essential in daily and weekly routines and seasonal traditions.  Songs, rhymes, and stories (especially fairy tales) are part of each day.  Toys at a Waldorf pre-school are all-natural and very simple: cloth dolls, wooden toys, silk squares, pinecones, stones, shells, etc. - many are things that children can pretend are different things at different times.  In Simplicity Parenting, Kim John Payne says that make-believe play helps develop executive function, which includes the ability to self-regulate, to amend one's behavior, emotions, and impulses appropriately to one's environment and situation.  They believe art is important for children to experience, but they mainly use only a few media: watercolor paints, beeswax for sculpting, and block crayons.


We have started attending a weekly play group at the local Waldorf school. Both of my boys are thoroughly enjoying it.  In fact, although this group is for ages 18 months to 3 years, and Aiden is tagging along, I think he is getting more out of it than Owen.  I think it is a good release for him after a long day of Kindergarten.

I really like aspects of both philosophies, but I really wish I knew exactly how doing one over the other affects children in the long-term.  Do Montessori -trained kids grow up to be more intellectual?  Do Waldorf-trained kids grow up to be more imaginative? Is one group better at making decisions?  Does one group have more of a sense of inner peace and well-being? While I have not found concrete answers to these subjective questions,  I have found scientific data that backs up practices of both philosophies.

For now, I think I like the idea of mixing the two philosophies.  I lean toward Montessori in following the child's lead. I think introducing concepts is a good thing, and if they want to learn them, let them.  However, I think it is also important to set aside time each day simply for imaginative play.

A typical Montessori classroom

A typical Waldorf classroom

Some Montessori materials

Some Waldorf-inspired toys

Unconditional Parenting

"(As parents), we may be tempted to focus our energies on overcoming children's resistance to our requests and getting them to do what we tell them.  If we are not careful, this can become our primary goal.  We may find ourselves joining all those people around us who prize docility in children and value short-term obedience above all."

So, I finished the latest parenting book on my list: Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, and it was very interesting!  In the first few pages of the book, he said some things that I have used in arguments myself, so immediately I was interested.   He began by talking about what traits in children our society seems to value.  What does it usually mean when you say someone is "good?"  Well, if one is talking about an adult, it might mean kind-hearted, ethical, or honorable.  However, when talking about a child, he observes, all too often it means well-behaved, or sometimes nothing more than "quiet, or, perhaps, not a pain in the butt to me."  It seems that traits that many parents say they want to foster in their children, such as curiosity, creativity, independence, and compassion are not actually valued in children by our society, at least not as much as being quiet and having "manners."

 However, as I read on, he began to explain his main argument, which is one that I had never even heard before: that a system of punishments and rewards (including spanking, time-outs, money, verbal praise, etc.) is simply not an effective way of parenting.  It kind of blew my mind.

We know from the work of B.F. Skinner that rewards foster favorable behaviors and punishments discourage unfavorable behaviors.  However, Skinner's work only took behavior into account, not things like desires, fears, or feelings.  Kohn's argument is that behavior is not what parents should be focusing on.  We should be focusing on our long-term goals for our children: what kind of adults do we want them to become?

Some things in this book may be difficult to read, much less accept, for many parents, myself included.  Okay, so you are saying that not only is spanking bad (which most people already know), but time-outs are bad, too? Wait - even praising your child for good behavior is bad??!! This is too much! However, he really does make a compelling argument.

I guess he really has two main points to make in arguing against rewards and punishments:

The first is that when we give rewards for good behavior and punishments for bad behavior, we are basically telling our kids that we only love them when they exhibit good behavior   He called this conditional love.  Now, he is not arguing that we actually do love our kids any less when they misbehave, nor that we want them to think this.  He is arguing that this is how the mind of a child may perceive it, and that the child's perception is all that really matters.  


The second is that punishments and rewards move the focus of the consequences of one's actions from other people to the child himself, so the child becomes more self-centered and less able to empathize with others.  For example, if a child receives a time-out every time he hits someone, he very well may stop hitting people, but it will likely be that he stops the behavior only to avoid a time-out - he only cares about what is going to happen to him.  Kohn argues that if, instead, the child is engaged in dialogue about his actions and asked to try and see the situation from his victim's point of view, that he will learn to not hit people because it hurts them, and he will develop a desire not to hurt others.

While I am not completely convinced of these two arguments, they seem to make sense and are certainly are worth investigating further.  There is one chapter of the book which offers alternatives to a system of punishments and rewards, and it was my favorite chapter - I agreed with almost all of the advice he gave, so I will talk about that in my next post.  If anyone out there is raising their children without punishments and rewards, I would love to hear your input!

"I turned out just fine!"

This is just a little rant.  One of my pet peeves is when someone says, "My parents did (such and such), and I turned out just fine!"  Oh really?  How, exactly do you define "just fine?"  If you mean that you are an happy and fulfilled  person who finds joy in life and you are a joy to be around, you are responsible, compassionate, and creative; that you would be ecstatic if your children turned out to be exactly like you, then I guess your parents did a great job and you should follow in their footsteps.  However, if by "just fine," you mean little more than that you are employed, not a drug addict or a criminal, or mentally ill, then personally, I don't want my kids to turn out "just fine!"  I want so much more for them!

 I don't want them to have my faults and insecurities.  I don't want them to feel like something is missing from their life, like they have to constantly search for happiness.  I think the claim of "I turned out just fine" is a cop out.  People use it when they either don't want to admit their parents may have made mistakes, or probably more often, when they don't want to admit that they may be making mistakes , or spend the time and effort to find a better way of doing things.

We all make mistakes, but what makes a good parent is being able to admit this to ourselves and to search for better ways of doing things.  Being a good parent isn't about your beliefs.  Good parenting is a process.  It is constantly learning, growing, changing, developing, experimenting.  You don't become a good parent by reading a book or changing a behavior.  You become a good parent by raising your kids, and hopefully looking back and saying, "I wasn't perfect, but I did the best that I could," - and really meaning that.  Even if our kids don't turn out the way you hope or expect, we may never really know if it was because of or in spite of what we did as parents.  All we can do is try our best, and decide not to settle for "just fine."

Cultivating a good life

"Cultivating a good life"

I ran across this phrase recently and it really resonated with me.  I love the idea that having a good life takes forethought and planning as well as tender daily care, just like cultivating a garden.  I like to think that we are each given "seeds", and we don't know what most of them will grow into, but the way we care for them determines how bountiful our lives will be.  We only have so much control - we can't grow a watermelon from a tomato seed.  Seldom can we rush things along without sacrificing something in the process.  Some people may be dealt a very bad "hand" of seeds, while others are very lucky to get a good "hand."  Some people may only be interested in the "crop yield", but they miss out on the best part - watching the growth and development that comes from all their hard work and attention.  Sometimes we work really hard and forces beyond our control may thwart our efforts, but we can't let the droughts and locusts of life prevent us from carrying on continually trying to make our lives and ourselves better.  Okay, so maybe I got a little carried away with this analogy . . . but anywho . . .

So, how does one cultivate a good life, exactly?  Well, that is obviously going to be different for everyone, but I think at the core is defining your purpose in life and working each day to fulfill that purpose.  And I believe one's purpose can and does change.  Each of us may feel we have several purposes in life at any given time, or maybe the same few throughout life, but different ones move to the forefront at different times, or maybe there is just one big one - each of us must define this for ourselves.

Right now in my life, being a mother is my purpose.  I have other roles, certainly, but raising my sons and taking care of my family is central.  Everything else hinges upon that.  So, for me cultivating a good life means making decisions every day with the whole family in mind - myself, my children, and my husband.

This is not about being selfless or self-sacrificing.  I must be as dedicating to taking care of myself, physically and emotionally, as I am to them.  I must be calm and happy to help cultivate calm and happiness in them, and I must value my own happiness as much as I value theirs.  And, caring for them is actually part of what makes me happy, so it is all like a big circle really.
When I think about cultivating a good life, I feel a sense of peace and a sense of excitement.  There is so much to be done and so many surprises in store for us!

Respecting the pace of the developing child

Is there anything we don't feel the need to hurry? Anything we don't feel the need to enrich, improve      upon, advance, or compete over?  While we haven't figured out a way around the nine month gestation  period, once that baby is born, its childhood seems to be "fair" game for acceleration.
                                                                                                                - Kim John Payne


As parents, we want the best for our children. We want so much for them. We want them to be smart, talented, compassionate. We want them to have self-esteem.  We want to give them every opportunity to grow into their best possible selves.

Unfortunately, I think we often get so caught up in these feelings, fueled by our profound love for them, that we want to do it all now, as soon and as fast as possible.  We often see books, toys, DVDs and products, which are marketed to us as "developmental," and we think we should get as many of these things as possible to teach our children, to enrich them, and give them a "head start."

I know I have done this plenty of times with my now 5 year old son.  We had Baby Einstein DVDs, books on every imaginable subject, toys that sing the ABCs and teach addition and subtraction, and flash cards.  We started him in pre-school shortly after he turned two.  We put him in gymnastics at three and soccer at four. I was so anxious for him to learn in every way, and proud when he learned things "early." We became frustrated when potty-training took "so long."  Impressed with his pre-reading and writing skills, I had high hopes that he would be reading at age four.   I wanted him to have every opportunity to get a head start, intellectually, emotionally, socially.  All of these things, I did out of love, and also I'll admit a little for myself as well.  Many parents, I believe, hinge their "success" as parents on the "success" of their children.   However, I never really stopped to consider if faster and sooner was actually better.


"Childhood has its own mysterious processes, its own pace." -Kim John Payne

Children learn at an amazingly fast rate about the world around them every day.  Just think about the complexity of everything they are learning from what different things feel like to the touch, to how to control the different muscles in their bodies, to what different facial expressions mean, to how other people respond to their actions.  These are essential lessons that are learned by being able to experience these things in their world over and over again.  I believe that when we try to control and direct their learning too much that surely other more basic aspects of learning must suffer in some way.

 Have you seen the product called "Your Baby Can Read"?  When I first saw this product, I thought "hmmm - I wonder if that works." Now, when  think about this product, I think, "How ridiculous!  Why on Earth would a baby need to know how to read, and who would want to spend these precious months trying to teach a baby such a thing?!"  Surely, there are much more important and enjoyable things that should be happening during the first couple years of a persons life!

I remember how anxious I was for Aiden to become potty-trained.  We used a sticker chart to reward him for using the potty. We put underwear on him and let him wet his pants very day for a couple weeks when we were tired of using pull-ups.  Now, I think "Why were we in such a rush?"  I bet if we hadn't used stickers or tried to rush the process, that it probably wouldn't have taken much longer than it did, and probably would have been a lot less stressful.  I think with Owen, I will take a more relaxed approach. It will happen eventually - he won't be going to Kindergarten in diapers!!

I think the most important thing to keep in mind when teaching children is to follow their lead.  Children are naturally curious, and they will let you know when they are ready to learn a new skill.  I am not saying wait until a child asks you specifically to use the potty or to learn the ABCs.  Offer them opportunities to do these things and then let them control the pace.

"Simplifying  . . . acknowledges how a child comes to understand the world - through play and interaction, not through adult concerns and information.  The pressure is off when childhood is no longer seen as an "enrichment opportunity," but instead as an unfolding experience." - Kim John Payne

I think when we rush our children through their stages of development, we take some of the joy out of being a child and out of being a parent.  I still want my children to have every opportunity to become their best selves, I am just beginning to believe that perhaps the way to do that is with less, rather than more.

Saying "No Thanks!" to TV for young children

As parents, we are constantly bombarded by the media and peer pressure about ways to make our children smarter - to the point that we often ignore the people and institutions that really know what is best for children.  For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics (as well as almost every specialist in child development) suggests than babies under two years old watch no television, at all, and that older kids watch very little, and also limit all screen use.  Yet, as a society, we largely ignore this.  

 I have always believed in limiting screen time to some degree, but I was always more worried about content.  We don't have cable, and when we did, Aiden only watched Noggin or DVDs such as Baby Einstein or Elmo's World, so I didn't have to worry about him seeing commercials or anything inappropriate.  TV was a part of our mornings for a long time. He was an early riser, and I admit that I used it as a babysitter while I got a little more rest on the couch.  He also often watched up to an hour in the afternoons.  I thought, "Surely if I only let him watch educational shows, with no commercials, for just an hour or two a day, it won't be harmful." This is simply not true.  Every parenting book I have read warns that TV really is very detrimental for children - and not only because of things like  violence, marketing targeted toward kids, and the fact that it fosters a sedentary, and therefore, physically unhealthy lifestyle.

Researchers have determined that babies, up to age 2, need 3 types of stimuli to optimize brain growth:

 1- Interaction with parents and other human beings

 2- Opportunities to manipulate their environment (to touch, feel, and move things)

 3- "Problem-solving" activities, such as figuring out object permanence (games like peek-a-boo)

TV provides none of these stimuli.  In fact, in Simplicity Parenting, Payne states, "Multiple studies have now concluded that watching TV, even such educational programs as Sesame Street, actually delays language development." Hearing someone on TV sing the ABCs is actually not the same as hearing someone do so in real life.  The language centers of the brain only light up on a brain scan if they are spoken by a human rather than a recording!

Television and other screens have detrimental effects on older children as well.  Dmitri Christakis, a researcher at Children's Hospital states, "We think that with continued exposure to high intensity, unrealistic action, you're conditioning the mind to expect that level of input."  Real life, in comparison, can seem quite slow, and children can respond with boredom and inattentiveness.

I can attest to this personally.   When we moved, we got rid of cable, and we started to explore our new city.  We were busy all the time, and rarely watched any TV.  Then it got hot, we ran out of things to do, and couldn't play outside with the heat, so I started letting Aiden watch more TV and play more video games - a lot more.  I could tell a difference in him - his attention span did seem shorter, and he got very upset when I did limit his screen time.  I knew this was not good, but between dealing with my own fatigue and always feeling like I had to keep him entertained, I continued to allow it.  This went on for about 2 months.  Then, one day, I asked him to draw a picture for his grandfather, who was having surgery.  He has always loved to draw, so I thought he'd enjoy it.  I kept asking him, several times, throughout the day, and he kept saying he would do it later. Twice, he actually sat down and tried to start, but couldn't.  He couldn't think of what to draw nor could he sit still long enough to actually do it! I  finally got him to do it just before bedtime.  That was it. I knew I had to do something.  So, now he has a 30 minute screen time limit per day.  He usually chooses to play on my phone, but he's gotten so used to not having screen time, that some days he doesn't even ask for it. Now he has started Kindergarten, as well, so a lot of his time is occupied, and that, of course, helps.

Owen, my 17 month old has never watched a lot of TV, but after all the reading I have done, I have decided that he doesn't need any.  If Aiden or Hunter are playing a video game, I let him watch, and sometimes I show him short home movie clips of himself on my phone, but that's pretty much it.  At first, he would sometimes point at the TV and cry, but I held my ground, and now he has forgotten that it is an option.

I have also been trying to limit the amount of time I use screens in front of my children. I only watch TV after bedtime anyway, but I try to use my phone and the computer when they are napping/at school, or after they go to bed.  I admit it is challenging, having gotten used to checking my email, Facebook, and Words with Friends several times a day, but I know it won't be long before Aiden will be able to call me out on my hypocrisy! Besides, they are sooo many better things to do with my time during the day!

Too much stuff

The first area Payne talks about in Simplicity Parenting is the child's environment. This is often the easiest area to make changes in - it is certainly the one I was most eager to tackle. In  fact, I had already begun to do this before reading this book.

There are many arguments that can be made against having too many toys, not least among them that children will gain a sense of entitlement.  Some may argue that it is ecologically irresponsible. Some say it's a waste of money. These are all valid arguments, but Payne is only interested in speaking about how it affects the child.  He does mention the entitlement issue, but his main concern goes beyond that.  Basically, he believes that when children are surrounded by too many toys, books, clothes, etc., that it is overstimulating.  "Too much stuff," he says, "deprives kids of leisure and the ability to explore their worlds deeply."  If a child is surrounded by 150 toys (as the average American child is at any given time), he will likely play with one toy for a few minutes, then move on to the next, and the next, and the next, never getting full enjoyment out of any one of them.  He may even feel so overwhelmed, he doesn't really play with any of them.  Also, when a child has so many toys, he often undervalues all of them, perhaps thinking, "I have so many of these that none of them are special - I must need something else."

He also talks about how young children are such tactile beings that they want to touch, feel, throw, and sort everything.  "Imagine the sensory overload when every closet, drawer, and surface is filled with stuff."

He says this about the nature of children's play:

No special toys or quantity of toys is necessary to develop a child's imagination.  Children use and grow their imaginations quite naturally.  They need only time to do so.

  He believes that reducing the number of toys a child has leads to increased attention span and capacity for deep, imaginative play.

In addition, he talks about the types of toys that may foster or hinder imagination.  When getting rid of toys he suggests the first to go are the "exploding disasters." (I love that term!) These are the loud, obnoxious toys that all parents seem to hate. They may "whir, talk, gyrate, or detonate."  He suggests keeping a mix of both active toys (for digging, building, construction, etc.) and receptive toys like dolls and stuffed animals, as well as some art supplies.

He also talks about drastically reducing your child's books.  At first, I was taken aback by this, until I realized he was only suggesting nutting most of them in storage and rotating them out, so that there were only a dozen or so out at a time.  This way, your child can read and re-read each book several times over the course of, say, a month.  He suggests doing the same with toys, having fewer out than stored.  I think it is a good idea.

So, what did this mean for me?  Over the past month, I have gotten rid of over half of my sons' toys.  They have not yet missed a single one!  In fact, I mentioned something to Aiden (my 5 year old) about how now we can find things better, since I gave some of the toys away, and he said, but that makes me sad because I miss my toys when you give them away." I said, "Oh really? Which toys do you miss?"  "What did you give away?" he responded.  He could not think of a single toy that he missed.  I gave away most of the battery-operated toys, all the cheap plastic pieces of crap, some cars, some stuffed animals.  I put most of the extensive Beanie Baby collection from Granny in a bin in the closet.  I put most of the probably 200 books in the closet, leaving about 40 out on the bookshelf.  I bought some little baskets at Salvation Army (8 for $7) to help with organization.  We know where all the toys are now. It looks and feels great!  It's not as simplified as Payne would have it, but it is much better than it was before. Now if I could only get my own space simplified . . .