Trusting the Child

I had the pleasure of joining a fellow Montessori teacher for lunch this past weekend and our conversation inspired this post.  As a teacher trainer and as a classroom coach, I do advise teachers to trust the child. But really, what does it mean? What does it look like?  And is the adult actually in the child’s way?

I have taught in both private and public Montessori environments, and both have their own unique challenges. (And blessings!) By far one of the hardest to navigate is expectations of student progress from parents.  We live in a highly competitive world which is the opposite of how our classrooms operate.  Parents are well-intentioned in looking for ‘results’ from their children in academics and often do not understand fully the holistic approach we employ.  This pressure can influence our practice with the children and get in the way of offering them our full trust.  We know trusting the child to make choices is important.  We understand that the activity selections the child makes are driven by developmental needs. BUT how much freedom do you really offer? How must trust does the child enjoy to do what they feel they need to do without interference from an adult to select a ‘more appropriate/challenging work’? *I am going to be honest here-I was guilty of this too!

Back to the conversation I was having with my colleague. She has opened her own one-room school and found that redirecting children to more challenging activities was a knee-jerk reaction.  She did some reflecting and decided to try something, ensure all children had plenty of lessons, and then…wait for it…100% trust the activity choice of the child. It took a bit to see what would happen because the children were already conditioned to her redirection, but she held firm and said nothing. What she observed was that after the children spent a few days enjoying the works they were usually asked to put away, they naturally began selecting activities that were engaging, challenging to them, and totally appropriate. What was this teacher’s reaction? “It works! It really works!” My challenge to you is to think about trust. Are you getting in the child’s way of really doing what they need to do? 

A special thank you to Sara Elledge and Little Lantanas Montessori!

                  

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