Montessori Childrens House
of the west coast

The Process of Learning

Posted on Friday, January 23, 2009

Creation! Construction! Perfection! These are key words in understanding how Montessori saw the process of learning:
* The unconscious creates the interest, the need to learn.
* The subconscious constructs itself by experiencing the activity.
* The conscious mind becomes aware of the new ability and makes a “conscious” effort to perfect it.
It is the unconscious which creates the need to explore and learn.  The child is compelled from within to do what he needs to do. These are the child’s “tendencies.” The child is following an inner urge to learn certain things at specific stages of his development.

When the child follows these urges and explores and discovers his environment these experiences are absorbed in the subconscious. The subconscious in fact is constructed out of these experiences.  Each and every experience leaves a neural trace called an engram.  So by repeating certain actions, by doing them subconsciously without thinking, the child is actually constructing his subconscious. 

These impressions remain forever in the subconscious of the child as well as the adult.
Finally, the child becomes aware of his new abilities, enjoys it and makes a conscious effort to perfect and master it. This is a definite decision of the conscious mind. It is the foundation by which a host of new experiences will be built.

If the foundation is sound then the child can easily be introduced to new experiences. If the foundation is not sound then it may often lead to frustration.  The child must have mastered each component part of an action in order to perform it successfully.  For example: a child can successfully put on a coat if he is able to hold it, find the armholes and button or zip it.

The adult can help a child to lay a solid foundation for his action by “indirect preparation” which is a fundamental pattern of Montessori education.  Let the child prepare in one stage of development for the needs of the next. This tenet is exemplified by the experience of grasping and holding the knobbed cylinders in the cylinder blocks which then prepares the fingers for holding a pencil and writing.

Another very important factor in the indirect preparation of a child is his keen sense of observation, his observations of the adults in his world and the desire to imitate them.  The adult should always strive to act the way we wish the child to learn.  The adult’s actions will eventually be reflected back by the child to the adult like a mirror.  Adults must always act responsibly and intelligently around the child.
When the time comes for a child to learn a new skill, when he shows interest, the child should have a joyful time with the experience. It is a fine art for the adult in a Montessori classroom to discern when a child is ready to learn something new: the right time and the right stage of development.  However, this is often simplified by the child himself who simply asks to be shown.  This is the power of following the child.