June 6, 2025 • 56 mins
Montessori is about following the child... right? Then why do so many of us feel completely lost when we try? In this episode, we're unpacking one of the biggest misconceptions in Montessori homeschooling: the idea that “following the child” means stepping back entirely. We get it! You’re trying so hard to respect your child’s independence and let them lead—but instead of feeling confident, you’re wondering if you’re doing enough. Or anything at all. Here’s the truth no one talks about enough: Montessori isn’t passive. It’s deeply intentional. Following the child doesn’t mean letting go of structure—it means creating it with purpose.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hey there friends, I'm Aubrey Harkis.
Today's episode is a replay fromthe Child of the Redwoods live
show that I host with my husbandin Montessori Homeschooling,
partnering crime, David Harkis. You can watch the full episode
on the Child of the Redwoods YouTube channel.
Here's the clip. Montessori is about following
(00:24):
the child, right? So why is it that every time we
think, OK, this is so simple, we're just going to follow our
child and everything will work out, we find ourselves lost?
Like, how exactly does one follow the child?
You know, like, do we literally meander with them as they're
(00:48):
wondering, do we just let them do whatever they want?
Are we supposed to be doing anything while we're following?
Or are we literally just, you know, letting them take the lead
on everything? And what parents find is that
when you do just kind of take that passive backseat and you
just wander along behind your child and let them do whatever
(01:12):
they want and just continually cater to them, there is trouble
that happens. And that trouble is in the form
of not your child experiencing joy and having a great time
because they will. Sure, but boredom happens.
Your child doesn't always keep that steady, steep stream of
energy and interest. And parents end up feeling like
(01:36):
I just keep, you know, helping my child with what they're
interested in, but now they're not interested in anything.
Yeah, it's a really common problem, right?
I think we, you know, if you're here with us, unless you just
stumbled upon the channel, in which case, welcome.
But if you're watching a Montessori Power Hour show,
(01:58):
you're probably trying to honor your child's independence, OR
you're at least thinking about it, right?
It's somewhere in your mind. You're like, I know I'm supposed
to follow the child, or I want my child create.
I don't want their creativity tocome through, you know?
So what do we want to do? We want to step back, right?
Not, not always a bad thing. We want to give them the freedom
(02:21):
and then nothing, nothing happens, right?
We're just waiting to. Wait and waiting continues to
play with trains for hours and hours and hours, day after day
after day, and nothing else happens and you're like, wait a
minute. I thought there would be more.
Yeah. And so I think this is when
we've talked about this in the past in other episodes, I think
this is when we get into the materials trap, right?
(02:42):
We think that if we buy the right kinds of materials, then
the magic will happen, right. Oh OK, That's the thing I'm
missing. Or we get into the unschooling
trap and we're like, OK, like, so we're not schooling.
We're doing the opposite of schooling.
So what does that mean? No materials are necessary or no
instruction is necessary. And it really does.
(03:04):
It sounds great. It's great underlying advice.
Maria Montessori herself talked about it all the time.
We talked about it in our primary course and in this
beautiful section she wrote called A Planet.
What is it? A planet without school, where
she makes the case essentially for unschooling.
But then when you dig deeper into her work, you find she's
(03:27):
not actually recommending that adults don't do anything.
She is just saying it is within the nature of every single child
to want to learn, to have that desire to learn and to be ready
if the right environment and theright nurturing is there, right?
So I think like, those are the things like, what is that right
(03:47):
environment and the right nurturing?
Where's that balance between being too micromanaging and just
totally hands off? Yeah, so that's what we're going
to talk about today. And if you are live with us,
welcome, welcome. We're so happy to have you.
We'd love to hear your comments and thoughts as always in the
chat as we're going along. But you know, this is one of
(04:09):
those big misconceptions. I, you know, as I think about
it, when we talk about followingthe child, it's so simple
sounding, right? And yet super deceptive, right?
In fact, it's deceptively simplesounding.
And I do think it leads to a number of outcomes.
I think 1 outcome is we then puttoo much faith in the materials.
(04:33):
And I think that's where the kind of materials obsession
comes from in a part. I think we put too much faith in
a didactic curriculum. So I think that's where we then
fall into like, well, it's not working.
The materials aren't enticing them, so I must need more
structure, which may be the case, but then that sometimes
(04:54):
are often can look like and now we're going to work through
these workbooks or these foldersor something and have a very
prescriptive method that's not following the child, but it's a
logical reaction to my kid just keeps going back to the Legos.
I spent all that money on the materials.
Another reaction I think is a logical outcome is like, oh,
well, there's a, there's a bunchof people out there who are
(05:15):
telling me that it's actually OKthat my kids just kind of doing
whatever they want all the time.So I guess that's valid too.
And you know, we're not I'm, I'ma man of peaceful intentions.
I have love for all, but there are certain educational
philosophies that I don't think work quite as well.
And I especially when taken to an extreme.
And I think that can be. You can find that in
(05:36):
unschooling. Radical Unschooling.
Radical unschooling and the sameand I would have the same
criticism for people who go radical curriculum right.
Neither one of those, they're both extremes and neither one of
them is necessarily going to work for most kids, right?
But you might as the parent findcomfort in them because they,
(05:56):
well, they can feel like a justification, right?
Like I can justify that I'm homeschooling by making sure
they're completing these books, or I can justify that I'm not
homeschooling in the way that society expects by saying, well,
actually, I have a label and it's this.
And neither one of those is necessarily following the child.
In fact, neither one of those isfollowing the child.
(06:18):
Let me clarify. You're not following the child
if you're just you. Can't follow a curriculum and a
child at the same time. And you can't just give the
child complete total free reign and expect and be following the
child either. The child is growing and
learning. Your responsibility as the home
educator, as any educator, as the parent is to create a
nurturing, positive, loving, creative, inspirational
(06:41):
environment. So it's not to say when we say
follow the child, we don't mean follow them over the Cliff,
right? And we also don't mean like
follow them by actually putting them in a harness and saying,
now you all walk this way, Now you walk this way and I'm
walking behind you, right? That's not following either.
There's it's something totally different.
(07:02):
Yeah. Maria Montessori believed that
children should have a lot of freedom in their educational
environment. They should be free to make
choices about what kinds of things interest them and to what
in terms of like what they actually want to focus on or
concentrate on. So children have a lot of
freedom in that. And for children, we're also
(07:24):
really encouraged to be free to move.
And that actually is still not really true in a lot of
traditional education settings, maybe the exception of some
preschools. But like once you get into
elementary school or like kindergarten and beyond,
children are really kind of expected to be still a lot.
Even in a lot of preschools, they're expected to be still a
(07:45):
lot. You can just look into a
classroom and see whether the classroom is set up for movement
or not. And if you see, like, one of
those little rugs with a little dot on each one, you know, like,
evenly spaced apart, you know, those children are going to be
doing some sitting. But Maria Montessori believe
children should have the freedomto move around and be
(08:06):
themselves, the freedom to, like, be their own unique
person, but with one caveat, that true freedom cannot come
also without boundaries around it.
And she even said, I have a beautiful quote here.
It's from the observant mind. It says to let the child do as
he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control
(08:30):
is to betray the idea of freedom.
And so this is something that wecan really play with as
Montessori and as parents. The idea of like, what are those
powers of control, you know, so and I imagine is Maria,
obviously like was around a lot of 2 1/2 and 3 year olds who
(08:51):
maybe have not yet developed thepower of control not to throw
things, right. So you've got your two year old,
your 2 1/2 year old who is presented with a beautiful pink
tower and what do they want to do with it?
Like pick it up and Chuck it. That would be an example of it.
Is it inappropriate to develop the gross motor skills of
(09:11):
throwing? No, you know, but what is the
appropriate thing to do that with a sock or a ball or, you
know, something that's soft that's not going to cause damage
to the item itself or another person.
Maybe something purposeful too, You know, the hoop to throw it
into or the laundry mask it to to check it into a block being
(09:33):
thrown across the room is is just damaging and destructive
and potentially dangerous. And it's not setting a good
model for respect, right? Because you also, that's a big
part of it as well is that you're wanting to teach a sense
of respect. And so when we talk about
following the child and, and we're going to dig into this in
(09:53):
a minute, but it occurs to me that part of it is teaching the
child self respect. And So what does self respect
look like? It it it means to me, I'd be
curious if we have other thoughts out there.
But for me, self respect isn't just loving whatever I do at all
times, right? Because that can be some pretty
(10:15):
bad behaviors, right? I love smoking and I'm going to
smoke 100 cigarettes a day. Self respect, Like, no, we all
know that's wrong. Like no, no, no, not a good
idea, right? There is some sense of you like
that analogy. You like that example.
It's a great thing to bring up on a children's show.
Don't smoke boys and girls. Everybody knows that.
(10:37):
That's why it's a bad example. You can't do that.
It's not healthy for you. And self respect would be to
respect who you are, but in a way that's not destructive,
right? And so to, to understand the
sense of like destructiveness isa part of it as well.
And some of that destructive is like this kind of toxic poison
you might introduce into yourself.
(10:59):
I'm gonna eat nothing but candy.You like that?
Example or even verbal if your inner dialogue is all very self
shamy or you're constantly feeling guilt and you're not
enough and criticizing yourself if that inner critic is too.
(11:19):
Yeah, too. Big.
That's also a form of disrespectto yourself.
Exactly so, Maria. Montessori believed that
children deserved the freedom when they had developed some
powers of control. That I guess would include self
respect as well. But I think those words like not
(11:40):
yet developed is really, really important in that particular
quote from Absorb the absorbent mind to let the child do as he
likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control,
which means they're going to be developed.
Yeah, I hear you. And I know you're trying to
redirect us to the script, but Iwant to say because I think this
goes with self respect. I want to, I want a little bit
(12:01):
more on self respect because I want to say that and.
Go ahead and talk about self respect.
No, it occurs this is. I like this idea a lot because
when we talk, I want to tease itbecause when we talk about they
have not yet developed the powers of control.
I think I think that in there isthe concept of self respect.
(12:23):
I guess what I'm wanting to convey is that when we give kids
either too much freedom or too much rigid structure, we're not
enabling them with self respect.Self respect is about learning
(12:44):
how you treat yourself, others, the environment, as you work
through that. And as parents, we know that a 2
year old's ability to perceive that is very different than a 7
year old's. And so I think when we talk
about this idea of portraying the idea of freedom and tying to
this idea of self respect, what we're talking about is
(13:05):
understanding that you're tryingto help the child progress to a
state where they are a fully realized adult human.
And a fully realized adult humanis filled with self respect and
sees themselves within the society and understands how they
fit. And it isn't just self obsessed
(13:25):
or self critical at all times. And they have developed that and
you've helped guide them there by understanding where their
readiness is. And that's what Montessori also
teaches. Anything else you want to say
about self respect before we go on?
(13:46):
No. OK, all right.
We've talked a lot about what the opposite of following the
child, you know, could, could look like or misinterpretations
of it, right? Like it's being two hands off.
It's misunderstanding what children actually need from you
(14:06):
in order to develop those powersof self-control or self respect.
It's choosing, and I say this with absolute love and respect
for like the hardness that is teaching the Montessori way.
Like we're really teaching home schooling in general.
Like it's very, very hard. But sometimes parents will avoid
(14:32):
giving those lessons because it feels hard and there's pressure.
And they're like, what if I get it wrong?
I need to go and, like, practicethis a million times and study
it and prepare. And we emphasize this a lot in
the Montessori community that, like, you really need to be
(14:53):
trained first before you're ready to give a lesson.
And this is great because in thelarger culture, what do we say
to preschool teachers? We say y'all are just daycare
workers. Yeah.
You know, any anyone with maybe a GED can be hired as a daycare
worker. You don't have to have a college
(15:14):
education. It's like not a hard job.
That's what we say. That's like the message that I
think a lot of early childcare educators get is that their work
is not valued. They're not paid as much.
They don't aren't required to have as high of degrees.
You know, before getting those jobs.
It's often, I will tell you it often is minimum wage, you know,
(15:37):
here in the United States that you would be paid as a child, as
a child caregiver. And that really does make
Montessori special because when you are Montessori trained, you
are putting a lot of a lot of care and attention into your
(15:57):
craft. That's true.
And that's something that Montessori training centers
really do give to teachers of these very young children.
As they say, like not everybody can do what you're doing.
What you were doing is very, very special.
Yeah. So I think sometimes we tend to
over emphasize that in the Montessori community, which on
one hand is really wonderful forMontessori teachers.
(16:17):
Yeah, cuz it's the counter narrative, right?
But it's not so great for those of you who are homeschooling
your kids because then you receive the message of like, I'm
not trained properly. I'm not good enough to do this.
I have to study for hours and hours before I can give this one
significant lesson. And So what happens is we put
our all into that one lesson. We do do the work, we prepare,
(16:40):
we give the lesson, and then it lasts for like 5-10 minutes and
it's done in here. We have spent like, I don't
know, hours preparing for it andit falls flat.
And maybe it falls flat because our child senses like that we
want something out of it or thatwe've put a lot into it.
So like there's that. That is troubling.
(17:01):
So sometimes parents avoid giving the lessons.
And if you're avoiding giving the lessons and you feel like
instead you're following your child because you're not giving
lessons to your child, then thatis a form of that hands offness
that pushes the pushes the boundary of of not following the
(17:24):
child. You know what I mean?
Like not going to be guilt inducing or shamy or, you know,
or judgy in any way. I've been there so many times.
I'm still there so many times with our kids.
You know, things can be intimidating, but if you're, if
you're leaving things on the table and you're just not doing
the work because you're scared to do it, then that is that
(17:46):
could be the source of your problem.
Another way we cannot follow ourchild.
I think I used to worry about this a lot because our children
in particular used to require large amounts of pretend play.
And so I, you know, so I can speak from experience with this.
Like I have many, many times wondered like, is 3 days of
(18:10):
pretend play in succession enough?
You know, like when am I supposed to like, you know, get
in with those lessons? Does that mean I need to if they
I've allowed them to just make this?
They've done puppet theatre for three days in a row.
Puppet. Theatre for three days.
And are they going to do the next?
Does that mean like I have to make the next three days all
(18:30):
about like non-stop lessons in order to make up for it?
Like, I mean, it's a hard balance, you know, So I'm not
saying it's easy, but if you arenot really, really clear on what
following the child means to youin your daily practice with your
children, then that's not a formof freedom for you or for them.
(18:52):
It leads to frustration for bothof you.
So let's talk very, very specifically about what it means
to give your child the freedom that they need with the
boundaries that they need in order to have that self respect
and for you to have that self respect for yourself as the
guide. And it can help you to actually
(19:12):
follow your child in real life. All right.
And if you are listening out there and this is resonating and
would love to hear in the comments as well.
Yeah, absolutely. OK, so so let's just be really
clear. Following the child is an active
process, is an active engaged process.
It is not a hands off approach. It is also not a micromanaging
(19:37):
approach. So here are here are some things
that you can do in your real life.
You can give your child the freedom of choice and make that
a mainstay of your home school. Your child does not always
choose what lesson you give to them.
That's your choice. You know you can think of it.
(19:57):
You always talk about the meal analogy, right?
Like you're setting forth some physical science, some life
science, humankind and geographystuff, and some little reading
lessons and some math. You're displaying this all for
your child, except on a instead of a plate.
It's on your shelf, or it's likejust in your environment, but
(20:18):
your child is going to choose what to concentrate on and what
to repeat. But they don't necessarily get
to choose exactly what lessons they're going to get.
Yeah. So it's freedom within limits.
And like you were saying earlier, what this is exactly
what Maria was saying. Like what are those limits?
What's like what determines the limits?
It's it's the child's readiness.And so the younger the child,
(20:42):
the fewer things you're going toput on that plate and the more
control you're going to have over setting that plate.
As the child gets older, when your child is in there, let's
say by the time they're into their lower elementary years,
you want to give them a lot morefreedom to pick the ingredients.
But it's not the it's not the grocery store, it's the
(21:05):
refrigerator where you've already stocked all the goods.
That's right. That's good.
So you're kind of you're going to expand.
So the toddler, they get a plate, it's got a few things on
it, they eat what they want, Youknow that whatever they've eaten
from that plate, delicious and nutritious, they get older,
maybe they can go to the fridge and pick out what they want, but
you stock that fridge with good stuff.
(21:26):
That's the idea with the curriculum as well.
So you want to give them a good academic creative diet,
something that's going to be nutritious, and then let them
select from those activities based on where they are and if
you're in tune. I love what you just said about
being active because it's so important.
We talked about that a lot when we did the observation Series A
(21:50):
while, but not very long ago, right?
We being observing in the Montessori system is a highly
active process. It's not just passively sitting,
it's really being engaged. The same thing for following the
child, right? You're highly engaged and when
you feel, when you're really in rhythm with your child, you're
(22:10):
going to be able to start to anticipate and you're going to
be able to stock that fridge or set that plate in advance of
where you know your child is going.
Mm hmm. Yeah, so giving your child
choice can be as simple as setting some classic Montessori
materials or DIY materials on a shelf, showing your child what
(22:31):
they do, modeling with them often so your child sees them
being used, and then allowing your child the choice of which
one they might want to do. And, and I also think parents
get tripped up because homes have a lot of different kinds of
materials. Like we've got stuffies and
we've got. Yeah, there's also a.
Toilet, right? Like, and so a lot of Montessori
(22:56):
homeschooling parents really struggle with like, I want my
child to choose what's on the shelf, but they want to choose
the Barbies. Is that OK?
And that's a personal choice. Like if it's from my opinion,
like it feels unfair to your child if you say you can only
play with these toys, like I don't want you to play with
(23:16):
those. Like those aren't good enough.
You can play with these instead.It can cause some discord in
your child's mindset, if that makes sense.
So there are a few things that parents have done in order to
help with that. And I'll just go ahead and tell
you, since you're watching today, some parents do create a
(23:36):
separate homeschool area of their home.
And so their rule is like when we're in this room, you can
choose between all of these things.
You know, so you would only put in the room or in that certain
area, things that you're totallyfine with your child engaging
with or playing with. And you would say, like for
this, you know, from for the next hour, like we're going to
(23:57):
be in here and you can choose anything that's in here, right?
And so that's setting a boundaryaround it.
And if you don't have that specific place, I would just
really be thinking about like, if there's stuff in your home,
your child, you're not fine withyour child choosing, maybe it's
time to get it out of the home. Like, you know, if you if you
don't feel like your collection of Barbies is educational and
(24:21):
has value and is a worthy choice, it shouldn't be in your
house. OK.
So, and I feel really strongly about that.
Like we get to choose what is inour children's environment.
And if there's not something that's aligned, it's OK to tell
relatives or pack it up, put it in the box and just draw a line
(24:45):
of with it, you know, And of course there's going to be
challenges with that as well, but that is your choice.
Yeah. And I'm going to extend here a
little bit. I think the biggest challenge
I'm. Not saying that having a
collection of Barbies is wrong. No, right?
Like maybe it's, maybe it's I think.
It's your minds, right? I think what you're saying is
it's your mindset, right? Like if you, because you Barbies
(25:07):
can be an awesome conduit for creative play, right?
They're just dolls. They're stuffies of another
kind. And playing with stuffies or
playing with dolls or puppets orthings is really, really healthy
and totally on the mark for the age of your child.
You know, if if you're watching the show, your child's probably
a little guy and that's awesome.I think where you want to put
(25:28):
the line is you have to make thedecision how much of the of the
diet do you want to be creative,free play with dolls versus I
also want you to do this, read some books with me or I also
want you to do this fun science experiment.
So this is where you are giving them freedom of choice within
(25:51):
limits. Yeah, yeah, you can use the
words before or after. Like, first I'm gonna give you a
lesson and then you can choose what you'd like to do or how
long would you like to work on this?
How long do you think the Barbiework will take you?
You know, would you like to workfor 20 minutes or 30?
I will remind you when it's timefor us to do our lesson.
(26:12):
And so those are all things thatI said to our kids when they
were little. And it's a way of imbuing them
with self respect and showing them that you respect their
choices. Another thing that you can do
that's very practical at home isto give your children the
freedom to repeat work. This is something I would love
to see parents encourage more. I think parents undervalue or
(26:38):
kind of just don't see the repetition as being as valuable
as participating in the lesson. And this is a bias we have, not
as homeschoolers, but in our larger traditional world of
education. People just don't see.
They don't see the value in repeating.
(27:00):
Yeah, You know, I, you're right.If there's a really firm
misconception, I think it's it goes way back when we think of
like the Socratic method. What do we imagine, right?
This is the foundational teaching principle in Western
thought, right? A person talking, right?
Imagine a lecture. Or we imagine the sage on the
stage is the old cliche, right? The teacher teaching Mr.
(27:25):
Whatever, Hollands Oak, this guyor whatever.
Like. We, we used to have a there was
a period when we were, when I was a kid that it seemed like we
had a million movies about inspirational teachers of one
type or the other. And what, what do they all have
in common? They had perfect discipline and
they super engaged their kids with their oratory.
And that is not how learning works.
(27:45):
Like really what you're aiming for in learning, adult learning,
child learning, whatever. A little bit of new information
and a whole lot of time to practice, apply and creatively
think through that new information.
You're going to give them a little bit of a nugget and then
they're going to go to town, right?
It's the little bitty seed that grows the great big tree.
(28:08):
I actually had a recent conversation with a homeschooler
who said the Socratic method is really the only method you
should use because it is the best and it's the most time
tested and I know that you love the Socratic.
I do love the Socratic method. You love it.
But Maria Montessori disagreed with that approach.
She said actually by using the Socratic method, especially with
(28:30):
very young children. And we'll, we'll also say like
you were a high school teacher when you know, and it was an
effective method when you were teaching in the classroom, not
your the only method that you used.
No, but especially with little children it doesn't work.
No, no. In fact, you want to talk less?
Yeah. The younger they are, the less
(28:51):
you want to. Stay.
And so that repetition, back to that repetition, it is part of
the learning process. It is very, very important that
children repeat. So giving a lesson once is
great, but did you know you can give the same lesson many times
in slightly different ways? And it's actually super, super
(29:13):
healthy for children, super beneficial.
It totally goes against everything we feel like we know
about education. We think education is just this
linear progress. And in fact, grade levels are
set up like that. You know, like what is a school
system approach to education? You start out at the beginning
of the year, you give these lessons during the six weeks.
(29:35):
Next six weeks you cover these things.
Next six weeks you cover these things.
And by the end of the year, yourchildren have had all of these
lessons. Cumulatively, they take a test
and hopefully they do well on itbecause you have imparted all
this knowledge through all of these lessons.
I'm sorry, we don't do that. We repeat things a lot, and we
(29:58):
believe that by teaching that same concept in slightly
different ways over longer stretches of time and
encouraging our children to keepwrestling with that concept,
they're going to get a stronger foundation in that knowledge
area. And it may not be testable at
the end of the year. You know it might not.
(30:20):
Because you don't know where they're going to go.
You don't know where they're going to go and you don't.
You don't know what they're going to end up wanting to
repeat, but that is something very significant and it is not a
freedom that is granted to most children in a traditional school
site. It's just not.
Yes, totally. You just don't value it.
So it's like you have a magic plate that it has your carrots
(30:41):
and your beans and your whatever, your delicious
cornbread, and they choose to eat a lot of carrots one day.
And you're like, OK, that you'redone with carrots now.
No, no, the carrots keep coming.They keep coming.
If they want more carrots now you're going to change the plate
out, right? This is where you are having
(31:03):
that prepared environment where they have freedom of choice
within limits. And so you're not going to give
them the same exact plate every day.
You're going to change it out sothey get a balanced diet.
But if they don't want to do anything but eat carrots, in our
analogy, it's OK. So in in an academic, if all
they want to do is play with thepink tower, yeah, it's fine.
OK, let's think about beans. Let's pretend you got some Pinto
(31:24):
beans on that plate. How do you?
How boring would it be if, like,you gave them Pinto beans and
said, well, you ate them, so you're good, we'll give you
something. Try something else, right?
You can't do many more beans. But no, Marie Montessori says,
like, let's give them Lima beansone day.
Let's give them cranberry beans.Let's click in black beans.
(31:46):
Let's you know, there's still beans, but we're giving variety
and you see that in the math. The whole math curriculum is
exactly like that. We move from the golden bees to
the stamp game. Guess what?
You're teaching the same concept.
That's right. You know, you're not teaching
anything different. You're still doing dynamic
addition or you know that early multiplication with single
(32:09):
digit, like you're still doing it, but it's with a slightly
different material and it is encouraging the repetition.
So again, like when we talk about repetition, we're not
talking about just drilling on math facts until they're
mastered and then, you know, being done with them.
We're talking about giving children the literal freedom
that comes with repetition, and through repetition comes growth
(32:34):
and. Mastery.
And eventually mastery, but it might take a long time to get to
that mastery. And the mastery isn't the point,
it's the progress that's the point.
Yeah, that's right. We we don't like to say mastery
here because it's. I don't like the word mastery.
Yeah, no, it's AI mean. I think everybody knows what it
means, but it is a word we wouldlike to kind of erase because it
(32:55):
implies A finality. Like you've come to the end of
the road and we would actually say that you are never really
full, you've never really fully mastered.
You've only achieved levels of proficiency.
And actually, that's a much moreexciting way to approach life.
You may not need to go to the NTH degree.
The level of proficiency you've achieved and let's say cooking
(33:18):
beans, to go back to our beans analogy, may be good enough.
You don't need to become like a five star chef.
We eat a lot of beans. We do, but you could.
And so the level of proficiency or your level of mastery should
match to the level that is rightfor you.
OK, now we had a comment. This is from, I think Sarah must
be out there. Hello.
(33:39):
Or Sarah, member from the great Northwest, I believe.
I think what has helped me is watching your foundational
lessons and reading the activities.
Then I introduce things more fluid with our day.
Beautiful. Like we were waiting outside for
his dad to finish and there was a landscape rocks and we started
to order biggest to smallest. Excellent.
(34:00):
Perfect example. It is an awesome example.
Yes, sensitivity to order was being expressed.
You've given the lesson, you know, like what to look for and
you gave him the ability to go out and do it.
So that's the freedom of choice.And then obviously repeating
something that was taught earlier for sure in another
(34:20):
environment. So that is great.
That's a great example, yeah. The third thing we want to
mention is the freedom to have independent work, to do that
purposeful independent work, youknow, not that learning in a
social context isn't also important, becomes more
important the older children get.
(34:40):
But the freedom to follow your own path of learning is
something that we don't often afford children in a traditional
school system that we do in Montessori.
You know, think about a traditional classroom.
Everyone is supposed to be. I don't know if our friends know
this out there, but the words are on task.
(35:03):
OK teachers, I I would love to know modern teachers if this is
still the buzzword. Task on time, time on task.
Students on task? Or are they not on task?
And being on task is definitely the key to getting a good
evaluation as a as a class. Yeah, it's called time on task,
like it was a metric and maybe they don't do that anymore.
(35:25):
I mean, it's changed. We haven't been in in a public
school classroom in a few. I've been out of the classroom.
Many years now, but my sense is that if the even.
If the words are different. The melody is the same, like I
suspect that the the words have changed but the tune hasn't.
Task really just means doing what the teacher says you're
(35:47):
supposed to be doing. Learning at the same on the same
concept, doing the same thing that all the other students are
doing in task and being off taskcan be anything from being
distracted. I mean, I'm guessing like
teenagers on this these days is a big problem.
So that could be a form of beingoff task could be like talking
(36:07):
to your neighbor. I don't know.
I was told that in school a lot too.
I mean, I wasn't. I was very I.
Mean it's just generally not doing.
But I heard it a lot like it's. Just generally not doing the
thing you were told to do. Yeah, right.
But I will tell you, like, so I wasn't the kid who was like
misbehaving on purpose in class or clowning around.
(36:29):
I don't know anybody who might be clowning around in class back
in the day. But it wasn't me.
And I wasn't like just sitting there just chatting with my
friends. I was often like reading under
my desk or doing. I was often off task, you know,
in school, which a lot of teachers were willing to let fly
(36:51):
cuz I was so quiet. You know, well, you got your
work done, so you weren't a problem.
I mean, in this like, So now we're kind of getting into the
deeper things, like what does time on task mean?
It just means, did you do the thing I told you to without
something else? And if you weren't doing the
thing I did, I told you to do, were you causing a problem?
Yeah. And there's just a lot of school
(37:12):
that kind of is about that still.
Yeah, So we're shaking it up. We're saying in in Montessori,
like you actually don't have to be on task for what your teacher
says you're supposed to be doingat that moment.
You get to choose, you get to repeat, and you get to work at
your own pace and independently on your own thing, you know, if
(37:33):
you want to. I would also say, like in
Montessori environments, we often have the image that
children are just sitting there working by themselves all the
time. And that's not true.
There's there's a lot of collaborative work that goes.
Yeah, so freedom to work independently does not mean no
group work. That's right, but it does mean
that that the adult is not leading every single activity
(37:54):
and hovering over micromanaging it.
Children should be allowed to pursue their interests and go
deeply into it and work on theirown projects as much as
possible. Some children will are like
extremely independent learners and some children are more
social learners and will requireyou as a homeschooling parent to
(38:16):
be more present with them because they just really like
that kind of collaborative work.And that's fine.
That's not what we mean by independent.
What we really mean is that you are not dictating every single
task that your child is supposedto be doing and enforcing it.
That's right. You are allowing the learning
process to unfold, allowing yourchild's inner guide to lead them
(38:37):
them to unexpected discoveries. Yeah, you're hoping to unlock
the work cycle. Yes.
So these when we let's tying it back a little bit to this idea
of what does it mean to follow the child.
Sorry, I was going to look at this real quick.
So the things that we've mentioned, the three things
we've mentioned, which are freedom of choice, freedom to
within limits, freedom to repeatand freedom to work
(39:00):
independently. The reason that it's following
the child isn't just letting thechild go off and do whatever
your child go off and do whatever.
It's because the these concepts or sorry, the concept of
following the child is woven within the very structure of how
Montessori works. So when we say freedom of choice
(39:21):
within limits, we're talking about understanding the planes
of development. We're talking about the kinds of
materials or lessons you would give based on the child's level
of development, right? You talk about the freedom to
repeat. What are you describing here?
How you would prepare? You would give a short lesson,
put the material out and allow the child to go and repeat the
(39:42):
lesson again and again. How you would focus on a fewer
number of tasks and freedom to work independently.
Like I said, this is the work cycle, right?
You're wanting to give the childtime to work independently, to
feel that inner guide come forthand then let that guide the work
into a real deep way. And when we confined it, we
(40:02):
talked about this in detail I think last week when we start to
confine that by a clock. That's you really will break
that. So because we don't necessarily
know, we know that you want to set aside time for it, but when
it happens, how like will it happen every day?
What will spark it? How long will it last?
This can vary. And so you want to give them
(40:22):
that time to work independently so that you can create the best
possible conditions. So following the child is woven
within all of the concepts of what Montessori is about.
Yeah. So you're dedicating yourself to
these principles. You are agreeing that following
your child means giving your children choices.
(40:42):
You're agreeing to allow them and encourage them and model for
them that repetition. You're, by following them,
you're encouraging that independent work where the
Spirit takes them. All right.
And what does this require of you?
It requires you to be a very good observer of your child and
(41:03):
to have a good working knowledge.
I think Sarah demonstrates this with her comment of the
Montessori scope and sequence, so that when you are out in the
world, you have an idea of the kinds of of the structure of
what a good Montessori lesson looks like.
How to use your hands to show and not overly talk.
(41:23):
How to gently guide your child towards, you know, something of
interest and then observe them and their reactions and adjust
based on what they're doing. But like, if you don't have that
knowledge of the like where you're headed, the scope and
sequence of like my child's, basically we've leveled
(41:44):
everything one to six. So if you know the kinds of
lessons that are in Level 1 of math and you're really familiar
with them and you're looking at them often, as we encourage
parents to do by using our Montessori planning cards, which
I've left upstairs, otherwise, Iwould show you, then you can
(42:04):
take that knowledge out into thereal world and apply it over and
over and over again. OK, So you have to have that
working knowledge. And we give parents that working
knowledge through the materials that we offer them the lessons.
It's an activities guide throughthe lesson explorer in our
complete curriculum that where parents can go and just type in
a concept and see the lesson immediately the.
(42:26):
Steps on how to do. It so that you can take your,
you don't have to have your little lesson and activities
guides with you to give lessons.We're hoping, and I think that
we're starting to see parents use it like this, that you can
go out into the wild, into the museum or into onto the
playground, out in the real world at Grandma's house and
(42:48):
you'll still have the scope and sequence and all of the lessons,
all 3000 lessons that we have created.
Now I wanna. In the the lesson.
I wanna underline something herebecause I have seen the
proliferation of AI is so fast. So you might be, it's true.
You can search for Montessori lesson or I don't know, ordering
(43:09):
or sensitivity to order on the Internet.
You have to tread lightly in a way that you didn't.
Yeah, tap it into ChatGPT is a lot of people are starting to.
Yeah. So I'm not saying that because
it doesn't have good information.
I'm saying that it's come to my attention just even as a passive
consumer, consumer of entertainment or others, that
(43:29):
the AI is really transforming the quality of information on
the Internet. So it's actually we're coming
into an age where we're having areliable source.
A definitive. Sort of actual human source will
become pretty valuable. So whether you're in our
community or our or finding someone else, go find a human
(43:53):
being to work with because it really is important it and it
will help you know what to look for and then what to anticipate.
That's. Right now.
We had another comment I wanted to toss in rules.
Sarah again says I've observed Montessori class and I was
impressed with children helping other children and even teaching
(44:13):
each other. I felt a little insecure that
when I give that when I play or give a lesson alongside and
acting more like a teacher. I think that's a good.
I don't know. How would you advise?
Like if you're trying to play with your child with a lesson,
how do you keep yourself from feeling like a teacher?
(44:38):
I think you have to just try outa lot of hats and see how your
child responds. You know, there's definitely
like our children even can identify it like when we put on
our teacher voice sometimes our kids.
You're the one who's you're always like pointing it out to
me like I am. Oh, this is Stad's business
voice. This is Stad's teacher voice.
It's the teacher voice. Yeah.
I don't know, You know, it's notlike we developed a teacher
(45:00):
voice only through the classroomuse.
Sure. I think that owning your
instructor like that part of youthat in kind of authoritative or
something, I don't know that instructor kind of voice my
children could start to identifyin me when they were very, very
little. I think even when our youngest
was like 3 or 4, he could start noticing when mom shifts into
(45:24):
Montessori guide mode versus just mom.
And what happened, I'll tell youwhat happened is this ended up
just being a kind of modeling for us.
And what we noticed in our kids is that by watching us, you
know, sometimes assume that guide voice or that teacher
(45:48):
persona, they learned how to putit on themselves.
And so by the time they were like 6 or 7 years old, maybe
567, 8:00, that's when children really start.
And I don't know if you've noticed this with your kids,
Sarah, but that's often when parents will notice that their
child starts wanting to teach other people lessons or things
(46:12):
about the world you know they'llhave.
Talk about those Barbies again. Yeah, knowledge bombs.
And it's sometimes it's really surprising.
It's developmental, but it's also kind of surprising.
And I was also also just like inawe during those moments when
our children like assumed that role that kind of, I mean, I
(46:33):
don't want to say like authoritative, but like that
confident, excited to engage in part knowledge type of persona
with other people. And it's often happens like
spontaneously, you're out in thepark or something and another
adult is, I don't know, getting a drink from the water fountain.
Your child comes up and it's like, did you know that?
(46:54):
And you're like talking to a. Stranger randomly.
What's happening here? And if it's a nice stranger, you
know, they look up and they're like pleasantly amused, your
adorable child who's informing them of something.
And what what I know now is like, this is actually a
developmental thing that does shift and does happen.
And so I don't think using that teacher voice or having that
(47:17):
persona is a bad thing, you know, so, but play with it and
understand that sometimes your child will want the teacher
voice and sometimes they won't, you know, so and so if you
notice that they're not responding to you as well
because they feel like you're not being your authentic self
with them, they will let you know through their behavior.
(47:40):
The they'll be a little more skeptical of like, who are you
like, right, I don't. I didn't come here to be sold
something. Right, like, are you trying to
manipulate me into something I don't want to be manipulated?
You know, you'll they'll kind ofget that and you'll be like, oh,
is that too teachery? And so next time you like, let
it go and the next time you'll come in with a softer opener.
(48:02):
So I think it's just part of thelearning process.
Just embrace it. And the other thing I would add
on this, because I think it's implicit to the question is
about friends, right? And who the playmates are.
You talked about you're playing and teaching your child and then
you saw in the classroom like group work or you know,
(48:24):
homeschooling can be lonely, butin our experience, it doesn't
have to be. So go seek.
Go seek out. Even if you can't find a
homeschool group, find an after school Group, A play group,
sports, karate, an art school. We put our kids in a lot of.
Three class, whatever, whatever might be available.
(48:46):
Wilderness, the scouting, whatever might be available for
you. I was in 4H.
It was an awesome program, I loved it.
Depending on the age of your child getting them involved in
something, you don't have to worry about them not being in a
class with lots of kids all the time.
You just want to give them social time with others.
(49:09):
And like Aubrey said, you don't have to worry about putting on
the teacher. Teaching and learning are also
natural. What we don't like is to be
manipulated. So when you're genuine, it's
fine. Like now when they get to be
teenagers then they'll roll their eyes because everything
they say is like you again. It really is.
It doesn't seem like it matters.But I think you've got a ways to
(49:33):
go with you. Doesn't matter what comes out of
my mouth anymore. And so, but you know, in the go
back with following the child, you know, follow your child's
lead on wanting social time, they'll show you.
It was very clear for us where our two sons are very different
in terms of the being introverted or extroverted, it
was super clear how much socialization social time each
(49:55):
of them wanted. And for the one who is more shy,
it was our responsibility to make sure that they had for our
others, our responsibility to make sure that he had enough
because we were trying to follow.
And that's, that's an example offollowing your child, right?
Like we gave them freedom withinlimits.
Like you have to have some socialization time and we want
(50:16):
to make sure that you have all that you need.
All right, sorry. Final thoughts on observation.
What are we gonna? Say, OK, final thoughts is that
this tension between freedom andboundaries is nothing that is
ever going to be 100% solved, especially because children are
(50:38):
growing and developing and theirneeds change and the curriculum
and, you know, changes as they get older or as they develop
more skills. And so try not to worry too
much. We've given you a lot to think
about in terms of actionable things that you can hold
(50:58):
yourself to when following your child, but don't try to always
hit that perfect balance every single time or to feel bad if
you're not. Because home schooling, all of
teaching, whether you're in a classroom or whether you're at
home, it's it's just ebb and flow and push and pull.
(51:18):
And maybe I like to think of it as like, it's like the metronome
that like hits the balance, you know, like, but you only hit the
balance like once. And most of the time you're
either on this side or this side, right?
Like balance. OK, balance, right?
And the more often you hit it, the faster it's going.
(51:40):
So that's. Right.
Sometimes it's better to be a little bit.
A little slower with the ebb. Yeah.
So following your child is deeply intentional.
There's a lot to it. There's so much more that we
could talk about and we could doa whole more episodes on this
thing. Fortunately, we have started a
new series and this is the firstin this little series helping
(52:05):
you to kind of get through thesevery common hurdles that
Montessori parents go through when they're exploring
Montessori homeschooling for thefirst time.
There are lots of little hiccups.
Next time we're going to be talking about the difference
between Montessori and like the kind of box curriculum that you
might get with a traditional homeschooling curricula all in
(52:27):
one curriculum offering. And to know that like you can
always come to Child of the Redwoods and depend on us for
like authentic, genuine Montessori information.
And if this is interesting to you and you'd like to go deeper
with with us and kind of explorethese topics some more.
(52:51):
Head over to our website Child on the website.
Yeah, Child of the redwoods dot.Com fun fun ways you can engage.
You can take a trial of our curriculum and you could.
I also would recommend that you start with a little quiz that we
have on our website right now tohelp you find that perfect
rhythm. Find your perfect Montessori
self. What will you be, I wonder?
(53:13):
All right. Hey, wait a minute, guys.
Hey, Mr. Bunny, You know you can't forget about bunnies.
Never. No, I was listening to your
little stories and stuff about following the child and well, I,
I, I was wondering if following the child applies to rabbits.
(53:39):
Oh, you mean like following a little Bunny?
Yeah. Oh, I think it does.
What do you think? Well, I guess it depends on what
you're after. Yeah.
So for example, what if I were hopping along and then I saw a
hole in the ground and I hopped in it?
Well, do you know whose hole it is?
(54:02):
Is it? Is it like a a Bunny hole, like
where your family members dug it?
Or could there be another littlecreature in there?
Well, that's a good question. Like what if there was a little
snake or it was snake or a Gophers hole I don't know.
If yours I can, I don't know. I guess what you're saying is
(54:24):
they should not leap before you look.
Is that is that the idea here? Well, I think maybe it's good to
be aware of your environment. Oh all.
Right, so let's see, I was hopping along and my little
cousin, I was following my cousin, OK, and he hopped in
that hole. Should I hop in after him?
(54:45):
Oh well. Is it the same hole where you
don't know if there might be a snake in there?
A snake. It could be, I don't know if
there was a snake in there, if there was a possibility of it.
What do you think your responsibility would be, Mr.
Bunny? Well.
I probably should tell him not to jump in that hole.
You might want to warn him that's true.
(55:07):
So maybe I should do the leading?
Well, maybe you should talk about these things before you go
hopping around and that might help.
All right, well, you know what? That makes sense.
I guess setting your expectations is a good way to
live your life. Yeah, maybe.
What if you sat down with your cousin and you were like, let's
(55:27):
go hopping around? Yeah.
And if we come into any holes that we don't know, here's the
plan. And then maybe the plan is.
Hop in that hole. The plan is maybe to call down
and see or to inspect it, see ifit looks like a rabbit hole or
yeah. Don't jump into holes that you
(55:48):
don't know. Who lives there?
That's a good rule, I. Think it's a good boundary.
Yeah, all right. Well I will tell my cousin that
and I think we will have a hop and good time.
I think you will. I don't have any doubts.
Bye. Bye, Mr. Bunny.
Thanks for joining us, friends. You have any other questions,
please e-mail us at hello@childoftherebels.com.
Hey there friends, I'm Aubrey Harkis.
Today's episode is a replay fromthe Child of the Redwoods live
show that I host with my husbandin Montessori Homeschooling,
partnering crime, David Harkis. You can watch the full episode
on the Child of the Redwoods YouTube channel.
Here's the clip. Montessori is about following
(00:24):
the child, right? So why is it that every time we
think, OK, this is so simple, we're just going to follow our
child and everything will work out, we find ourselves lost?
Like, how exactly does one follow the child?
You know, like, do we literally meander with them as they're
(00:48):
wondering, do we just let them do whatever they want?
Are we supposed to be doing anything while we're following?
Or are we literally just, you know, letting them take the lead
on everything? And what parents find is that
when you do just kind of take that passive backseat and you
just wander along behind your child and let them do whatever
(01:12):
they want and just continually cater to them, there is trouble
that happens. And that trouble is in the form
of not your child experiencing joy and having a great time
because they will. Sure, but boredom happens.
Your child doesn't always keep that steady, steep stream of
energy and interest. And parents end up feeling like
(01:36):
I just keep, you know, helping my child with what they're
interested in, but now they're not interested in anything.
Yeah, it's a really common problem, right?
I think we, you know, if you're here with us, unless you just
stumbled upon the channel, in which case, welcome.
But if you're watching a Montessori Power Hour show,
(01:58):
you're probably trying to honor your child's independence, OR
you're at least thinking about it, right?
It's somewhere in your mind. You're like, I know I'm supposed
to follow the child, or I want my child create.
I don't want their creativity tocome through, you know?
So what do we want to do? We want to step back, right?
Not, not always a bad thing. We want to give them the freedom
(02:21):
and then nothing, nothing happens, right?
We're just waiting to. Wait and waiting continues to
play with trains for hours and hours and hours, day after day
after day, and nothing else happens and you're like, wait a
minute. I thought there would be more.
Yeah. And so I think this is when
we've talked about this in the past in other episodes, I think
this is when we get into the materials trap, right?
(02:42):
We think that if we buy the right kinds of materials, then
the magic will happen, right. Oh OK, That's the thing I'm
missing. Or we get into the unschooling
trap and we're like, OK, like, so we're not schooling.
We're doing the opposite of schooling.
So what does that mean? No materials are necessary or no
instruction is necessary. And it really does.
(03:04):
It sounds great. It's great underlying advice.
Maria Montessori herself talked about it all the time.
We talked about it in our primary course and in this
beautiful section she wrote called A Planet.
What is it? A planet without school, where
she makes the case essentially for unschooling.
But then when you dig deeper into her work, you find she's
(03:27):
not actually recommending that adults don't do anything.
She is just saying it is within the nature of every single child
to want to learn, to have that desire to learn and to be ready
if the right environment and theright nurturing is there, right?
So I think like, those are the things like, what is that right
(03:47):
environment and the right nurturing?
Where's that balance between being too micromanaging and just
totally hands off? Yeah, so that's what we're going
to talk about today. And if you are live with us,
welcome, welcome. We're so happy to have you.
We'd love to hear your comments and thoughts as always in the
chat as we're going along. But you know, this is one of
(04:09):
those big misconceptions. I, you know, as I think about
it, when we talk about followingthe child, it's so simple
sounding, right? And yet super deceptive, right?
In fact, it's deceptively simplesounding.
And I do think it leads to a number of outcomes.
I think 1 outcome is we then puttoo much faith in the materials.
(04:33):
And I think that's where the kind of materials obsession
comes from in a part. I think we put too much faith in
a didactic curriculum. So I think that's where we then
fall into like, well, it's not working.
The materials aren't enticing them, so I must need more
structure, which may be the case, but then that sometimes
(04:54):
are often can look like and now we're going to work through
these workbooks or these foldersor something and have a very
prescriptive method that's not following the child, but it's a
logical reaction to my kid just keeps going back to the Legos.
I spent all that money on the materials.
Another reaction I think is a logical outcome is like, oh,
well, there's a, there's a bunchof people out there who are
(05:15):
telling me that it's actually OKthat my kids just kind of doing
whatever they want all the time.So I guess that's valid too.
And you know, we're not I'm, I'ma man of peaceful intentions.
I have love for all, but there are certain educational
philosophies that I don't think work quite as well.
And I especially when taken to an extreme.
And I think that can be. You can find that in
(05:36):
unschooling. Radical Unschooling.
Radical unschooling and the sameand I would have the same
criticism for people who go radical curriculum right.
Neither one of those, they're both extremes and neither one of
them is necessarily going to work for most kids, right?
But you might as the parent findcomfort in them because they,
(05:56):
well, they can feel like a justification, right?
Like I can justify that I'm homeschooling by making sure
they're completing these books, or I can justify that I'm not
homeschooling in the way that society expects by saying, well,
actually, I have a label and it's this.
And neither one of those is necessarily following the child.
In fact, neither one of those isfollowing the child.
(06:18):
Let me clarify. You're not following the child
if you're just you. Can't follow a curriculum and a
child at the same time. And you can't just give the
child complete total free reign and expect and be following the
child either. The child is growing and
learning. Your responsibility as the home
educator, as any educator, as the parent is to create a
nurturing, positive, loving, creative, inspirational
(06:41):
environment. So it's not to say when we say
follow the child, we don't mean follow them over the Cliff,
right? And we also don't mean like
follow them by actually putting them in a harness and saying,
now you all walk this way, Now you walk this way and I'm
walking behind you, right? That's not following either.
There's it's something totally different.
(07:02):
Yeah. Maria Montessori believed that
children should have a lot of freedom in their educational
environment. They should be free to make
choices about what kinds of things interest them and to what
in terms of like what they actually want to focus on or
concentrate on. So children have a lot of
freedom in that. And for children, we're also
(07:24):
really encouraged to be free to move.
And that actually is still not really true in a lot of
traditional education settings, maybe the exception of some
preschools. But like once you get into
elementary school or like kindergarten and beyond,
children are really kind of expected to be still a lot.
Even in a lot of preschools, they're expected to be still a
(07:45):
lot. You can just look into a
classroom and see whether the classroom is set up for movement
or not. And if you see, like, one of
those little rugs with a little dot on each one, you know, like,
evenly spaced apart, you know, those children are going to be
doing some sitting. But Maria Montessori believe
children should have the freedomto move around and be
(08:06):
themselves, the freedom to, like, be their own unique
person, but with one caveat, that true freedom cannot come
also without boundaries around it.
And she even said, I have a beautiful quote here.
It's from the observant mind. It says to let the child do as
he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control
(08:30):
is to betray the idea of freedom.
And so this is something that wecan really play with as
Montessori and as parents. The idea of like, what are those
powers of control, you know, so and I imagine is Maria,
obviously like was around a lot of 2 1/2 and 3 year olds who
(08:51):
maybe have not yet developed thepower of control not to throw
things, right. So you've got your two year old,
your 2 1/2 year old who is presented with a beautiful pink
tower and what do they want to do with it?
Like pick it up and Chuck it. That would be an example of it.
Is it inappropriate to develop the gross motor skills of
(09:11):
throwing? No, you know, but what is the
appropriate thing to do that with a sock or a ball or, you
know, something that's soft that's not going to cause damage
to the item itself or another person.
Maybe something purposeful too, You know, the hoop to throw it
into or the laundry mask it to to check it into a block being
(09:33):
thrown across the room is is just damaging and destructive
and potentially dangerous. And it's not setting a good
model for respect, right? Because you also, that's a big
part of it as well is that you're wanting to teach a sense
of respect. And so when we talk about
following the child and, and we're going to dig into this in
(09:53):
a minute, but it occurs to me that part of it is teaching the
child self respect. And So what does self respect
look like? It it it means to me, I'd be
curious if we have other thoughts out there.
But for me, self respect isn't just loving whatever I do at all
times, right? Because that can be some pretty
(10:15):
bad behaviors, right? I love smoking and I'm going to
smoke 100 cigarettes a day. Self respect, Like, no, we all
know that's wrong. Like no, no, no, not a good
idea, right? There is some sense of you like
that analogy. You like that example.
It's a great thing to bring up on a children's show.
Don't smoke boys and girls. Everybody knows that.
(10:37):
That's why it's a bad example. You can't do that.
It's not healthy for you. And self respect would be to
respect who you are, but in a way that's not destructive,
right? And so to, to understand the
sense of like destructiveness isa part of it as well.
And some of that destructive is like this kind of toxic poison
you might introduce into yourself.
(10:59):
I'm gonna eat nothing but candy.You like that?
Example or even verbal if your inner dialogue is all very self
shamy or you're constantly feeling guilt and you're not
enough and criticizing yourself if that inner critic is too.
(11:19):
Yeah, too. Big.
That's also a form of disrespectto yourself.
Exactly so, Maria. Montessori believed that
children deserved the freedom when they had developed some
powers of control. That I guess would include self
respect as well. But I think those words like not
(11:40):
yet developed is really, really important in that particular
quote from Absorb the absorbent mind to let the child do as he
likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control,
which means they're going to be developed.
Yeah, I hear you. And I know you're trying to
redirect us to the script, but Iwant to say because I think this
goes with self respect. I want to, I want a little bit
(12:01):
more on self respect because I want to say that and.
Go ahead and talk about self respect.
No, it occurs this is. I like this idea a lot because
when we talk, I want to tease itbecause when we talk about they
have not yet developed the powers of control.
I think I think that in there isthe concept of self respect.
(12:23):
I guess what I'm wanting to convey is that when we give kids
either too much freedom or too much rigid structure, we're not
enabling them with self respect.Self respect is about learning
(12:44):
how you treat yourself, others, the environment, as you work
through that. And as parents, we know that a 2
year old's ability to perceive that is very different than a 7
year old's. And so I think when we talk
about this idea of portraying the idea of freedom and tying to
this idea of self respect, what we're talking about is
(13:05):
understanding that you're tryingto help the child progress to a
state where they are a fully realized adult human.
And a fully realized adult humanis filled with self respect and
sees themselves within the society and understands how they
fit. And it isn't just self obsessed
(13:25):
or self critical at all times. And they have developed that and
you've helped guide them there by understanding where their
readiness is. And that's what Montessori also
teaches. Anything else you want to say
about self respect before we go on?
(13:46):
No. OK, all right.
We've talked a lot about what the opposite of following the
child, you know, could, could look like or misinterpretations
of it, right? Like it's being two hands off.
It's misunderstanding what children actually need from you
(14:06):
in order to develop those powersof self-control or self respect.
It's choosing, and I say this with absolute love and respect
for like the hardness that is teaching the Montessori way.
Like we're really teaching home schooling in general.
Like it's very, very hard. But sometimes parents will avoid
(14:32):
giving those lessons because it feels hard and there's pressure.
And they're like, what if I get it wrong?
I need to go and, like, practicethis a million times and study
it and prepare. And we emphasize this a lot in
the Montessori community that, like, you really need to be
(14:53):
trained first before you're ready to give a lesson.
And this is great because in thelarger culture, what do we say
to preschool teachers? We say y'all are just daycare
workers. Yeah.
You know, any anyone with maybe a GED can be hired as a daycare
worker. You don't have to have a college
(15:14):
education. It's like not a hard job.
That's what we say. That's like the message that I
think a lot of early childcare educators get is that their work
is not valued. They're not paid as much.
They don't aren't required to have as high of degrees.
You know, before getting those jobs.
It's often, I will tell you it often is minimum wage, you know,
(15:37):
here in the United States that you would be paid as a child, as
a child caregiver. And that really does make
Montessori special because when you are Montessori trained, you
are putting a lot of a lot of care and attention into your
(15:57):
craft. That's true.
And that's something that Montessori training centers
really do give to teachers of these very young children.
As they say, like not everybody can do what you're doing.
What you were doing is very, very special.
Yeah. So I think sometimes we tend to
over emphasize that in the Montessori community, which on
one hand is really wonderful forMontessori teachers.
(16:17):
Yeah, cuz it's the counter narrative, right?
But it's not so great for those of you who are homeschooling
your kids because then you receive the message of like, I'm
not trained properly. I'm not good enough to do this.
I have to study for hours and hours before I can give this one
significant lesson. And So what happens is we put
our all into that one lesson. We do do the work, we prepare,
(16:40):
we give the lesson, and then it lasts for like 5-10 minutes and
it's done in here. We have spent like, I don't
know, hours preparing for it andit falls flat.
And maybe it falls flat because our child senses like that we
want something out of it or thatwe've put a lot into it.
So like there's that. That is troubling.
(17:01):
So sometimes parents avoid giving the lessons.
And if you're avoiding giving the lessons and you feel like
instead you're following your child because you're not giving
lessons to your child, then thatis a form of that hands offness
that pushes the pushes the boundary of of not following the
(17:24):
child. You know what I mean?
Like not going to be guilt inducing or shamy or, you know,
or judgy in any way. I've been there so many times.
I'm still there so many times with our kids.
You know, things can be intimidating, but if you're, if
you're leaving things on the table and you're just not doing
the work because you're scared to do it, then that is that
(17:46):
could be the source of your problem.
Another way we cannot follow ourchild.
I think I used to worry about this a lot because our children
in particular used to require large amounts of pretend play.
And so I, you know, so I can speak from experience with this.
Like I have many, many times wondered like, is 3 days of
(18:10):
pretend play in succession enough?
You know, like when am I supposed to like, you know, get
in with those lessons? Does that mean I need to if they
I've allowed them to just make this?
They've done puppet theatre for three days in a row.
Puppet. Theatre for three days.
And are they going to do the next?
Does that mean like I have to make the next three days all
(18:30):
about like non-stop lessons in order to make up for it?
Like, I mean, it's a hard balance, you know, So I'm not
saying it's easy, but if you arenot really, really clear on what
following the child means to youin your daily practice with your
children, then that's not a formof freedom for you or for them.
(18:52):
It leads to frustration for bothof you.
So let's talk very, very specifically about what it means
to give your child the freedom that they need with the
boundaries that they need in order to have that self respect
and for you to have that self respect for yourself as the
guide. And it can help you to actually
(19:12):
follow your child in real life. All right.
And if you are listening out there and this is resonating and
would love to hear in the comments as well.
Yeah, absolutely. OK, so so let's just be really
clear. Following the child is an active
process, is an active engaged process.
It is not a hands off approach. It is also not a micromanaging
(19:37):
approach. So here are here are some things
that you can do in your real life.
You can give your child the freedom of choice and make that
a mainstay of your home school. Your child does not always
choose what lesson you give to them.
That's your choice. You know you can think of it.
(19:57):
You always talk about the meal analogy, right?
Like you're setting forth some physical science, some life
science, humankind and geographystuff, and some little reading
lessons and some math. You're displaying this all for
your child, except on a instead of a plate.
It's on your shelf, or it's likejust in your environment, but
(20:18):
your child is going to choose what to concentrate on and what
to repeat. But they don't necessarily get
to choose exactly what lessons they're going to get.
Yeah. So it's freedom within limits.
And like you were saying earlier, what this is exactly
what Maria was saying. Like what are those limits?
What's like what determines the limits?
It's it's the child's readiness.And so the younger the child,
(20:42):
the fewer things you're going toput on that plate and the more
control you're going to have over setting that plate.
As the child gets older, when your child is in there, let's
say by the time they're into their lower elementary years,
you want to give them a lot morefreedom to pick the ingredients.
But it's not the it's not the grocery store, it's the
(21:05):
refrigerator where you've already stocked all the goods.
That's right. That's good.
So you're kind of you're going to expand.
So the toddler, they get a plate, it's got a few things on
it, they eat what they want, Youknow that whatever they've eaten
from that plate, delicious and nutritious, they get older,
maybe they can go to the fridge and pick out what they want, but
you stock that fridge with good stuff.
(21:26):
That's the idea with the curriculum as well.
So you want to give them a good academic creative diet,
something that's going to be nutritious, and then let them
select from those activities based on where they are and if
you're in tune. I love what you just said about
being active because it's so important.
We talked about that a lot when we did the observation Series A
(21:50):
while, but not very long ago, right?
We being observing in the Montessori system is a highly
active process. It's not just passively sitting,
it's really being engaged. The same thing for following the
child, right? You're highly engaged and when
you feel, when you're really in rhythm with your child, you're
(22:10):
going to be able to start to anticipate and you're going to
be able to stock that fridge or set that plate in advance of
where you know your child is going.
Mm hmm. Yeah, so giving your child
choice can be as simple as setting some classic Montessori
materials or DIY materials on a shelf, showing your child what
(22:31):
they do, modeling with them often so your child sees them
being used, and then allowing your child the choice of which
one they might want to do. And, and I also think parents
get tripped up because homes have a lot of different kinds of
materials. Like we've got stuffies and
we've got. Yeah, there's also a.
Toilet, right? Like, and so a lot of Montessori
(22:56):
homeschooling parents really struggle with like, I want my
child to choose what's on the shelf, but they want to choose
the Barbies. Is that OK?
And that's a personal choice. Like if it's from my opinion,
like it feels unfair to your child if you say you can only
play with these toys, like I don't want you to play with
(23:16):
those. Like those aren't good enough.
You can play with these instead.It can cause some discord in
your child's mindset, if that makes sense.
So there are a few things that parents have done in order to
help with that. And I'll just go ahead and tell
you, since you're watching today, some parents do create a
(23:36):
separate homeschool area of their home.
And so their rule is like when we're in this room, you can
choose between all of these things.
You know, so you would only put in the room or in that certain
area, things that you're totallyfine with your child engaging
with or playing with. And you would say, like for
this, you know, from for the next hour, like we're going to
(23:57):
be in here and you can choose anything that's in here, right?
And so that's setting a boundaryaround it.
And if you don't have that specific place, I would just
really be thinking about like, if there's stuff in your home,
your child, you're not fine withyour child choosing, maybe it's
time to get it out of the home. Like, you know, if you if you
don't feel like your collection of Barbies is educational and
(24:21):
has value and is a worthy choice, it shouldn't be in your
house. OK.
So, and I feel really strongly about that.
Like we get to choose what is inour children's environment.
And if there's not something that's aligned, it's OK to tell
relatives or pack it up, put it in the box and just draw a line
(24:45):
of with it, you know, And of course there's going to be
challenges with that as well, but that is your choice.
Yeah. And I'm going to extend here a
little bit. I think the biggest challenge
I'm. Not saying that having a
collection of Barbies is wrong. No, right?
Like maybe it's, maybe it's I think.
It's your minds, right? I think what you're saying is
it's your mindset, right? Like if you, because you Barbies
(25:07):
can be an awesome conduit for creative play, right?
They're just dolls. They're stuffies of another
kind. And playing with stuffies or
playing with dolls or puppets orthings is really, really healthy
and totally on the mark for the age of your child.
You know, if if you're watching the show, your child's probably
a little guy and that's awesome.I think where you want to put
(25:28):
the line is you have to make thedecision how much of the of the
diet do you want to be creative,free play with dolls versus I
also want you to do this, read some books with me or I also
want you to do this fun science experiment.
So this is where you are giving them freedom of choice within
(25:51):
limits. Yeah, yeah, you can use the
words before or after. Like, first I'm gonna give you a
lesson and then you can choose what you'd like to do or how
long would you like to work on this?
How long do you think the Barbiework will take you?
You know, would you like to workfor 20 minutes or 30?
I will remind you when it's timefor us to do our lesson.
(26:12):
And so those are all things thatI said to our kids when they
were little. And it's a way of imbuing them
with self respect and showing them that you respect their
choices. Another thing that you can do
that's very practical at home isto give your children the
freedom to repeat work. This is something I would love
to see parents encourage more. I think parents undervalue or
(26:38):
kind of just don't see the repetition as being as valuable
as participating in the lesson. And this is a bias we have, not
as homeschoolers, but in our larger traditional world of
education. People just don't see.
They don't see the value in repeating.
(27:00):
Yeah, You know, I, you're right.If there's a really firm
misconception, I think it's it goes way back when we think of
like the Socratic method. What do we imagine, right?
This is the foundational teaching principle in Western
thought, right? A person talking, right?
Imagine a lecture. Or we imagine the sage on the
stage is the old cliche, right? The teacher teaching Mr.
(27:25):
Whatever, Hollands Oak, this guyor whatever.
Like. We, we used to have a there was
a period when we were, when I was a kid that it seemed like we
had a million movies about inspirational teachers of one
type or the other. And what, what do they all have
in common? They had perfect discipline and
they super engaged their kids with their oratory.
And that is not how learning works.
(27:45):
Like really what you're aiming for in learning, adult learning,
child learning, whatever. A little bit of new information
and a whole lot of time to practice, apply and creatively
think through that new information.
You're going to give them a little bit of a nugget and then
they're going to go to town, right?
It's the little bitty seed that grows the great big tree.
(28:08):
I actually had a recent conversation with a homeschooler
who said the Socratic method is really the only method you
should use because it is the best and it's the most time
tested and I know that you love the Socratic.
I do love the Socratic method. You love it.
But Maria Montessori disagreed with that approach.
She said actually by using the Socratic method, especially with
(28:30):
very young children. And we'll, we'll also say like
you were a high school teacher when you know, and it was an
effective method when you were teaching in the classroom, not
your the only method that you used.
No, but especially with little children it doesn't work.
No, no. In fact, you want to talk less?
Yeah. The younger they are, the less
(28:51):
you want to. Stay.
And so that repetition, back to that repetition, it is part of
the learning process. It is very, very important that
children repeat. So giving a lesson once is
great, but did you know you can give the same lesson many times
in slightly different ways? And it's actually super, super
(29:13):
healthy for children, super beneficial.
It totally goes against everything we feel like we know
about education. We think education is just this
linear progress. And in fact, grade levels are
set up like that. You know, like what is a school
system approach to education? You start out at the beginning
of the year, you give these lessons during the six weeks.
(29:35):
Next six weeks you cover these things.
Next six weeks you cover these things.
And by the end of the year, yourchildren have had all of these
lessons. Cumulatively, they take a test
and hopefully they do well on itbecause you have imparted all
this knowledge through all of these lessons.
I'm sorry, we don't do that. We repeat things a lot, and we
(29:58):
believe that by teaching that same concept in slightly
different ways over longer stretches of time and
encouraging our children to keepwrestling with that concept,
they're going to get a stronger foundation in that knowledge
area. And it may not be testable at
the end of the year. You know it might not.
(30:20):
Because you don't know where they're going to go.
You don't know where they're going to go and you don't.
You don't know what they're going to end up wanting to
repeat, but that is something very significant and it is not a
freedom that is granted to most children in a traditional school
site. It's just not.
Yes, totally. You just don't value it.
So it's like you have a magic plate that it has your carrots
(30:41):
and your beans and your whatever, your delicious
cornbread, and they choose to eat a lot of carrots one day.
And you're like, OK, that you'redone with carrots now.
No, no, the carrots keep coming.They keep coming.
If they want more carrots now you're going to change the plate
out, right? This is where you are having
(31:03):
that prepared environment where they have freedom of choice
within limits. And so you're not going to give
them the same exact plate every day.
You're going to change it out sothey get a balanced diet.
But if they don't want to do anything but eat carrots, in our
analogy, it's OK. So in in an academic, if all
they want to do is play with thepink tower, yeah, it's fine.
OK, let's think about beans. Let's pretend you got some Pinto
(31:24):
beans on that plate. How do you?
How boring would it be if, like,you gave them Pinto beans and
said, well, you ate them, so you're good, we'll give you
something. Try something else, right?
You can't do many more beans. But no, Marie Montessori says,
like, let's give them Lima beansone day.
Let's give them cranberry beans.Let's click in black beans.
(31:46):
Let's you know, there's still beans, but we're giving variety
and you see that in the math. The whole math curriculum is
exactly like that. We move from the golden bees to
the stamp game. Guess what?
You're teaching the same concept.
That's right. You know, you're not teaching
anything different. You're still doing dynamic
addition or you know that early multiplication with single
(32:09):
digit, like you're still doing it, but it's with a slightly
different material and it is encouraging the repetition.
So again, like when we talk about repetition, we're not
talking about just drilling on math facts until they're
mastered and then, you know, being done with them.
We're talking about giving children the literal freedom
that comes with repetition, and through repetition comes growth
(32:34):
and. Mastery.
And eventually mastery, but it might take a long time to get to
that mastery. And the mastery isn't the point,
it's the progress that's the point.
Yeah, that's right. We we don't like to say mastery
here because it's. I don't like the word mastery.
Yeah, no, it's AI mean. I think everybody knows what it
means, but it is a word we wouldlike to kind of erase because it
(32:55):
implies A finality. Like you've come to the end of
the road and we would actually say that you are never really
full, you've never really fully mastered.
You've only achieved levels of proficiency.
And actually, that's a much moreexciting way to approach life.
You may not need to go to the NTH degree.
The level of proficiency you've achieved and let's say cooking
(33:18):
beans, to go back to our beans analogy, may be good enough.
You don't need to become like a five star chef.
We eat a lot of beans. We do, but you could.
And so the level of proficiency or your level of mastery should
match to the level that is rightfor you.
OK, now we had a comment. This is from, I think Sarah must
be out there. Hello.
(33:39):
Or Sarah, member from the great Northwest, I believe.
I think what has helped me is watching your foundational
lessons and reading the activities.
Then I introduce things more fluid with our day.
Beautiful. Like we were waiting outside for
his dad to finish and there was a landscape rocks and we started
to order biggest to smallest. Excellent.
(34:00):
Perfect example. It is an awesome example.
Yes, sensitivity to order was being expressed.
You've given the lesson, you know, like what to look for and
you gave him the ability to go out and do it.
So that's the freedom of choice.And then obviously repeating
something that was taught earlier for sure in another
(34:20):
environment. So that is great.
That's a great example, yeah. The third thing we want to
mention is the freedom to have independent work, to do that
purposeful independent work, youknow, not that learning in a
social context isn't also important, becomes more
important the older children get.
(34:40):
But the freedom to follow your own path of learning is
something that we don't often afford children in a traditional
school system that we do in Montessori.
You know, think about a traditional classroom.
Everyone is supposed to be. I don't know if our friends know
this out there, but the words are on task.
(35:03):
OK teachers, I I would love to know modern teachers if this is
still the buzzword. Task on time, time on task.
Students on task? Or are they not on task?
And being on task is definitely the key to getting a good
evaluation as a as a class. Yeah, it's called time on task,
like it was a metric and maybe they don't do that anymore.
(35:25):
I mean, it's changed. We haven't been in in a public
school classroom in a few. I've been out of the classroom.
Many years now, but my sense is that if the even.
If the words are different. The melody is the same, like I
suspect that the the words have changed but the tune hasn't.
Task really just means doing what the teacher says you're
(35:47):
supposed to be doing. Learning at the same on the same
concept, doing the same thing that all the other students are
doing in task and being off taskcan be anything from being
distracted. I mean, I'm guessing like
teenagers on this these days is a big problem.
So that could be a form of beingoff task could be like talking
(36:07):
to your neighbor. I don't know.
I was told that in school a lot too.
I mean, I wasn't. I was very I.
Mean it's just generally not doing.
But I heard it a lot like it's. Just generally not doing the
thing you were told to do. Yeah, right.
But I will tell you, like, so I wasn't the kid who was like
misbehaving on purpose in class or clowning around.
(36:29):
I don't know anybody who might be clowning around in class back
in the day. But it wasn't me.
And I wasn't like just sitting there just chatting with my
friends. I was often like reading under
my desk or doing. I was often off task, you know,
in school, which a lot of teachers were willing to let fly
(36:51):
cuz I was so quiet. You know, well, you got your
work done, so you weren't a problem.
I mean, in this like, So now we're kind of getting into the
deeper things, like what does time on task mean?
It just means, did you do the thing I told you to without
something else? And if you weren't doing the
thing I did, I told you to do, were you causing a problem?
Yeah. And there's just a lot of school
(37:12):
that kind of is about that still.
Yeah, So we're shaking it up. We're saying in in Montessori,
like you actually don't have to be on task for what your teacher
says you're supposed to be doingat that moment.
You get to choose, you get to repeat, and you get to work at
your own pace and independently on your own thing, you know, if
(37:33):
you want to. I would also say, like in
Montessori environments, we often have the image that
children are just sitting there working by themselves all the
time. And that's not true.
There's there's a lot of collaborative work that goes.
Yeah, so freedom to work independently does not mean no
group work. That's right, but it does mean
that that the adult is not leading every single activity
(37:54):
and hovering over micromanaging it.
Children should be allowed to pursue their interests and go
deeply into it and work on theirown projects as much as
possible. Some children will are like
extremely independent learners and some children are more
social learners and will requireyou as a homeschooling parent to
(38:16):
be more present with them because they just really like
that kind of collaborative work.And that's fine.
That's not what we mean by independent.
What we really mean is that you are not dictating every single
task that your child is supposedto be doing and enforcing it.
That's right. You are allowing the learning
process to unfold, allowing yourchild's inner guide to lead them
(38:37):
them to unexpected discoveries. Yeah, you're hoping to unlock
the work cycle. Yes.
So these when we let's tying it back a little bit to this idea
of what does it mean to follow the child.
Sorry, I was going to look at this real quick.
So the things that we've mentioned, the three things
we've mentioned, which are freedom of choice, freedom to
within limits, freedom to repeatand freedom to work
(39:00):
independently. The reason that it's following
the child isn't just letting thechild go off and do whatever
your child go off and do whatever.
It's because the these concepts or sorry, the concept of
following the child is woven within the very structure of how
Montessori works. So when we say freedom of choice
(39:21):
within limits, we're talking about understanding the planes
of development. We're talking about the kinds of
materials or lessons you would give based on the child's level
of development, right? You talk about the freedom to
repeat. What are you describing here?
How you would prepare? You would give a short lesson,
put the material out and allow the child to go and repeat the
(39:42):
lesson again and again. How you would focus on a fewer
number of tasks and freedom to work independently.
Like I said, this is the work cycle, right?
You're wanting to give the childtime to work independently, to
feel that inner guide come forthand then let that guide the work
into a real deep way. And when we confined it, we
(40:02):
talked about this in detail I think last week when we start to
confine that by a clock. That's you really will break
that. So because we don't necessarily
know, we know that you want to set aside time for it, but when
it happens, how like will it happen every day?
What will spark it? How long will it last?
This can vary. And so you want to give them
(40:22):
that time to work independently so that you can create the best
possible conditions. So following the child is woven
within all of the concepts of what Montessori is about.
Yeah. So you're dedicating yourself to
these principles. You are agreeing that following
your child means giving your children choices.
(40:42):
You're agreeing to allow them and encourage them and model for
them that repetition. You're, by following them,
you're encouraging that independent work where the
Spirit takes them. All right.
And what does this require of you?
It requires you to be a very good observer of your child and
(41:03):
to have a good working knowledge.
I think Sarah demonstrates this with her comment of the
Montessori scope and sequence, so that when you are out in the
world, you have an idea of the kinds of of the structure of
what a good Montessori lesson looks like.
How to use your hands to show and not overly talk.
(41:23):
How to gently guide your child towards, you know, something of
interest and then observe them and their reactions and adjust
based on what they're doing. But like, if you don't have that
knowledge of the like where you're headed, the scope and
sequence of like my child's, basically we've leveled
(41:44):
everything one to six. So if you know the kinds of
lessons that are in Level 1 of math and you're really familiar
with them and you're looking at them often, as we encourage
parents to do by using our Montessori planning cards, which
I've left upstairs, otherwise, Iwould show you, then you can
(42:04):
take that knowledge out into thereal world and apply it over and
over and over again. OK, So you have to have that
working knowledge. And we give parents that working
knowledge through the materials that we offer them the lessons.
It's an activities guide throughthe lesson explorer in our
complete curriculum that where parents can go and just type in
a concept and see the lesson immediately the.
(42:26):
Steps on how to do. It so that you can take your,
you don't have to have your little lesson and activities
guides with you to give lessons.We're hoping, and I think that
we're starting to see parents use it like this, that you can
go out into the wild, into the museum or into onto the
playground, out in the real world at Grandma's house and
(42:48):
you'll still have the scope and sequence and all of the lessons,
all 3000 lessons that we have created.
Now I wanna. In the the lesson.
I wanna underline something herebecause I have seen the
proliferation of AI is so fast. So you might be, it's true.
You can search for Montessori lesson or I don't know, ordering
(43:09):
or sensitivity to order on the Internet.
You have to tread lightly in a way that you didn't.
Yeah, tap it into ChatGPT is a lot of people are starting to.
Yeah. So I'm not saying that because
it doesn't have good information.
I'm saying that it's come to my attention just even as a passive
consumer, consumer of entertainment or others, that
(43:29):
the AI is really transforming the quality of information on
the Internet. So it's actually we're coming
into an age where we're having areliable source.
A definitive. Sort of actual human source will
become pretty valuable. So whether you're in our
community or our or finding someone else, go find a human
(43:53):
being to work with because it really is important it and it
will help you know what to look for and then what to anticipate.
That's. Right now.
We had another comment I wanted to toss in rules.
Sarah again says I've observed Montessori class and I was
impressed with children helping other children and even teaching
(44:13):
each other. I felt a little insecure that
when I give that when I play or give a lesson alongside and
acting more like a teacher. I think that's a good.
I don't know. How would you advise?
Like if you're trying to play with your child with a lesson,
how do you keep yourself from feeling like a teacher?
(44:38):
I think you have to just try outa lot of hats and see how your
child responds. You know, there's definitely
like our children even can identify it like when we put on
our teacher voice sometimes our kids.
You're the one who's you're always like pointing it out to
me like I am. Oh, this is Stad's business
voice. This is Stad's teacher voice.
It's the teacher voice. Yeah.
I don't know, You know, it's notlike we developed a teacher
(45:00):
voice only through the classroomuse.
Sure. I think that owning your
instructor like that part of youthat in kind of authoritative or
something, I don't know that instructor kind of voice my
children could start to identifyin me when they were very, very
little. I think even when our youngest
was like 3 or 4, he could start noticing when mom shifts into
(45:24):
Montessori guide mode versus just mom.
And what happened, I'll tell youwhat happened is this ended up
just being a kind of modeling for us.
And what we noticed in our kids is that by watching us, you
know, sometimes assume that guide voice or that teacher
(45:48):
persona, they learned how to putit on themselves.
And so by the time they were like 6 or 7 years old, maybe
567, 8:00, that's when children really start.
And I don't know if you've noticed this with your kids,
Sarah, but that's often when parents will notice that their
child starts wanting to teach other people lessons or things
(46:12):
about the world you know they'llhave.
Talk about those Barbies again. Yeah, knowledge bombs.
And it's sometimes it's really surprising.
It's developmental, but it's also kind of surprising.
And I was also also just like inawe during those moments when
our children like assumed that role that kind of, I mean, I
(46:33):
don't want to say like authoritative, but like that
confident, excited to engage in part knowledge type of persona
with other people. And it's often happens like
spontaneously, you're out in thepark or something and another
adult is, I don't know, getting a drink from the water fountain.
Your child comes up and it's like, did you know that?
(46:54):
And you're like talking to a. Stranger randomly.
What's happening here? And if it's a nice stranger, you
know, they look up and they're like pleasantly amused, your
adorable child who's informing them of something.
And what what I know now is like, this is actually a
developmental thing that does shift and does happen.
And so I don't think using that teacher voice or having that
(47:17):
persona is a bad thing, you know, so, but play with it and
understand that sometimes your child will want the teacher
voice and sometimes they won't, you know, so and so if you
notice that they're not responding to you as well
because they feel like you're not being your authentic self
with them, they will let you know through their behavior.
(47:40):
The they'll be a little more skeptical of like, who are you
like, right, I don't. I didn't come here to be sold
something. Right, like, are you trying to
manipulate me into something I don't want to be manipulated?
You know, you'll they'll kind ofget that and you'll be like, oh,
is that too teachery? And so next time you like, let
it go and the next time you'll come in with a softer opener.
(48:02):
So I think it's just part of thelearning process.
Just embrace it. And the other thing I would add
on this, because I think it's implicit to the question is
about friends, right? And who the playmates are.
You talked about you're playing and teaching your child and then
you saw in the classroom like group work or you know,
(48:24):
homeschooling can be lonely, butin our experience, it doesn't
have to be. So go seek.
Go seek out. Even if you can't find a
homeschool group, find an after school Group, A play group,
sports, karate, an art school. We put our kids in a lot of.
Three class, whatever, whatever might be available.
(48:46):
Wilderness, the scouting, whatever might be available for
you. I was in 4H.
It was an awesome program, I loved it.
Depending on the age of your child getting them involved in
something, you don't have to worry about them not being in a
class with lots of kids all the time.
You just want to give them social time with others.
(49:09):
And like Aubrey said, you don't have to worry about putting on
the teacher. Teaching and learning are also
natural. What we don't like is to be
manipulated. So when you're genuine, it's
fine. Like now when they get to be
teenagers then they'll roll their eyes because everything
they say is like you again. It really is.
It doesn't seem like it matters.But I think you've got a ways to
(49:33):
go with you. Doesn't matter what comes out of
my mouth anymore. And so, but you know, in the go
back with following the child, you know, follow your child's
lead on wanting social time, they'll show you.
It was very clear for us where our two sons are very different
in terms of the being introverted or extroverted, it
was super clear how much socialization social time each
(49:55):
of them wanted. And for the one who is more shy,
it was our responsibility to make sure that they had for our
others, our responsibility to make sure that he had enough
because we were trying to follow.
And that's, that's an example offollowing your child, right?
Like we gave them freedom withinlimits.
Like you have to have some socialization time and we want
(50:16):
to make sure that you have all that you need.
All right, sorry. Final thoughts on observation.
What are we gonna? Say, OK, final thoughts is that
this tension between freedom andboundaries is nothing that is
ever going to be 100% solved, especially because children are
(50:38):
growing and developing and theirneeds change and the curriculum
and, you know, changes as they get older or as they develop
more skills. And so try not to worry too
much. We've given you a lot to think
about in terms of actionable things that you can hold
(50:58):
yourself to when following your child, but don't try to always
hit that perfect balance every single time or to feel bad if
you're not. Because home schooling, all of
teaching, whether you're in a classroom or whether you're at
home, it's it's just ebb and flow and push and pull.
(51:18):
And maybe I like to think of it as like, it's like the metronome
that like hits the balance, you know, like, but you only hit the
balance like once. And most of the time you're
either on this side or this side, right?
Like balance. OK, balance, right?
And the more often you hit it, the faster it's going.
(51:40):
So that's. Right.
Sometimes it's better to be a little bit.
A little slower with the ebb. Yeah.
So following your child is deeply intentional.
There's a lot to it. There's so much more that we
could talk about and we could doa whole more episodes on this
thing. Fortunately, we have started a
new series and this is the firstin this little series helping
(52:05):
you to kind of get through thesevery common hurdles that
Montessori parents go through when they're exploring
Montessori homeschooling for thefirst time.
There are lots of little hiccups.
Next time we're going to be talking about the difference
between Montessori and like the kind of box curriculum that you
might get with a traditional homeschooling curricula all in
(52:27):
one curriculum offering. And to know that like you can
always come to Child of the Redwoods and depend on us for
like authentic, genuine Montessori information.
And if this is interesting to you and you'd like to go deeper
with with us and kind of explorethese topics some more.
(52:51):
Head over to our website Child on the website.
Yeah, Child of the redwoods dot.Com fun fun ways you can engage.
You can take a trial of our curriculum and you could.
I also would recommend that you start with a little quiz that we
have on our website right now tohelp you find that perfect
rhythm. Find your perfect Montessori
self. What will you be, I wonder?
(53:13):
All right. Hey, wait a minute, guys.
Hey, Mr. Bunny, You know you can't forget about bunnies.
Never. No, I was listening to your
little stories and stuff about following the child and well, I,
I, I was wondering if following the child applies to rabbits.
(53:39):
Oh, you mean like following a little Bunny?
Yeah. Oh, I think it does.
What do you think? Well, I guess it depends on what
you're after. Yeah.
So for example, what if I were hopping along and then I saw a
hole in the ground and I hopped in it?
Well, do you know whose hole it is?
(54:02):
Is it? Is it like a a Bunny hole, like
where your family members dug it?
Or could there be another littlecreature in there?
Well, that's a good question. Like what if there was a little
snake or it was snake or a Gophers hole I don't know.
If yours I can, I don't know. I guess what you're saying is
(54:24):
they should not leap before you look.
Is that is that the idea here? Well, I think maybe it's good to
be aware of your environment. Oh all.
Right, so let's see, I was hopping along and my little
cousin, I was following my cousin, OK, and he hopped in
that hole. Should I hop in after him?
(54:45):
Oh well. Is it the same hole where you
don't know if there might be a snake in there?
A snake. It could be, I don't know if
there was a snake in there, if there was a possibility of it.
What do you think your responsibility would be, Mr.
Bunny? Well.
I probably should tell him not to jump in that hole.
You might want to warn him that's true.
(55:07):
So maybe I should do the leading?
Well, maybe you should talk about these things before you go
hopping around and that might help.
All right, well, you know what? That makes sense.
I guess setting your expectations is a good way to
live your life. Yeah, maybe.
What if you sat down with your cousin and you were like, let's
(55:27):
go hopping around? Yeah.
And if we come into any holes that we don't know, here's the
plan. And then maybe the plan is.
Hop in that hole. The plan is maybe to call down
and see or to inspect it, see ifit looks like a rabbit hole or
yeah. Don't jump into holes that you
(55:48):
don't know. Who lives there?
That's a good rule, I. Think it's a good boundary.
Yeah, all right. Well I will tell my cousin that
and I think we will have a hop and good time.
I think you will. I don't have any doubts.
Bye. Bye, Mr. Bunny.
Thanks for joining us, friends. You have any other questions,
please e-mail us at hello@childoftherebels.com.
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