I recently returned from my first North American Montessori Teachers Association Meeting, held in Seattle, WA. What I learned there absolutely reaffirmed that education is the best way, certainly the best voluntary way, to support liberty. [...]]]> “No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.” ~Maria Montessori

I recently returned from my first North American Montessori Teachers Association Meeting, held in Seattle, WA. What I learned there absolutely reaffirmed that education is the best way, certainly the best voluntary way, to support liberty. I am not talking about college courses and white papers churned out by think tanks (I love you think tanks, you know I do!). We have to start earlier, we have to cultivate a culture that educates about the ideas of freedom from the beginning, not one that merely tries to change minds later.

I had the opportunity to spend time with the lovely Marsha Enright of the Reason Individualism and Freedom Institute, while at the conference. A long time Montessorian who also is a true lover of liberty and the founder of the new College of the United States, whose vision is: “To create the global leaders of tomorrow who will fulfill the vision of our Founding Fathers by becoming successful men and women of principle and action, capable of spreading the benefits of reason, individualism and the bounty of liberty worldwide through their work and their example. “

We spoke about how the Montessori Method supports the development of the child in a way that generates a love of liberty, a respect for others individuality and a recognition of the value of their own. It is such an amazingly thorough pedagogy, and absolutely goes against the cookie-cutter mentality of compulsory education.

“We must, therefore, quit our roles as jailers and instead take care to prepare an environment in which we do as little as possible to exhaust the child with our surveillance and instruction.” ~Maria Montessori

Each Montessori Guide is a gentle hand that helps to cultivate an environment (sort of like law is supposed to be) that allows each child to find their strengths, at their own pace, in a way that encourages a love of learning and therefore a love of thinking.

Isn’t that amazing? An education that in its very principles supports the thing I value the most: freedom, especially the freedom of children!

Below is a song by the elementary students of Countryside Montessori School in Northbrook, Illinois It is an excerpt of their opera, “On the Road to Freedom”

They are reciting the words on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEW-uDC1VII]

“How can the mind of a growing individual continue to be interested if all our teaching be around one particular subject of limited scope, and is confined to the transmission of such small details of knowledge as he is able to memorize? How can [...]]]> Maria Montessori writes the following in “To Educate the Human Potential”:

“How can the mind of a growing individual continue to be interested if all our teaching be around one particular subject of limited scope, and is confined to the transmission of such small details of knowledge as he is able to memorize? How can we force the child to be interested when interest can only arise from within? It is only duty and fatigue which can be induced from without, never interest! That point must be very clear” (6)

“knowledge can be best given where there is eagerness to learn” (3)

The end of the eductionist “is the child’s spontaneous interest and application” (16)

“The child should love everything that he learns, for his mental and emotional growths are linked. Whatever is presented to him must be beautiful and clear, striking the imagination. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationist will disappear” (17)

Doesn’t the fact that interest, eagerness and knowledge cannot be forced in from the outside require us to understand the child? Not only the general needs and tendencies of any age group, but the interests, needs and tendencies of each particular child we seek to guide? If so, this would mean that a classroom cannot be centrally planned!