S2 E3 A rich conversation with Gabriel Salomão of Lar Montessori in Brazil

Episode Transcript
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Simone Davies (00:11):
Hi everyone, Simone Davies here and welcome
back to the Montessori Notebookpodcast. This is episode three
of season two. And today I'm inconversation with Gabriel from
Lar Montessori. The way hespeaks about Montessori you wait
to hear, it's just beautiful.
And with his calm and he's veryarticulate approach. I'm not
surprised that he has thebiggest platform in Brazil. And
so we talked about how he endedup coming back to Montessori,

(00:35):
his love of research, we talkabout preparing for literacy in
a Montessori way, and a wholelot more. So I think you are
going to get a lot out of it nomatter where you are on your
Montessori journey. And beforewe get to my conversation with
Gabriel, today, I wanted to talkto you about time, because so
many people say to me, yeah,Montessori sounds great, but it
takes so much time to have yourchild help you cook, or it takes

(00:57):
so much time to repairactivities, and then sometimes
they're not even interested. Orit's really hard to be patient
and ask gently for them to puttheir shoes on. And how many
more times before you end up notbeing very Montessori about it
at all. So I wanted to questiondoes it actually take more time
to apply a Montessori approach.

(01:18):
And when I sat down to thinkabout it, I actually don't think
it took me more time. I mean,yes, it is going to go a little
slower when they're younger. Andthat, for example, they're
learning to dress themselves.
But in the long run, they arethen capable of doing so much
more from such a young age. Andfor me, I just felt like I
enjoyed them having time to hangout with my kids. And they were
able to help me with so manythings that they didn't even

(01:40):
feel like were chores, they werehelping me cook, and lately
they've been cooking for me.
They put away their washing,they made their own lunches from
quite a young age, they packtheir own sports bag and put
their dirty clothes in thelaundry basket, putting their
own toys away. And of course,they didn't want to cook with me
every day. But they were able tohelp me set the table when I

(02:02):
needed some help. Or from thetime they were at their
monastery playgroup they taketheir plate to the kitchen, and
little things like that. So Ithink that the time that you
invest in the early years, Imean, you're getting them
dressed anyway. So it doesn'ttake much longer to slow down
and let them do as much as theycan. I also think that when we
are observing our children, westart to see that we don't

(02:23):
actually need to do so much.
Because we don't have to be theone that's entertaining them or
finding something for them todo. So when I started with
Montessori, Emma was a baby. AndI found I had so much more time
than the way that I dealt withOliver. So when there were two
of them were getting from thesupermarket. And I'd lay her on
a little mat on the floor in thekitchen with a couple of simple

(02:43):
things for her to explore. Andshe'd be concentrating on those
or watching us and I talked toher if she made some sounds to
tell her what I was doing, as Iunpacked the groceries, and then
all of our he would be aboutlike one and a half or two. And
he's helping himself to get asnack and or helping me maybe to
unpack the groceries. And when Icompare that to when Oliver was

(03:03):
Baby, I was trying to geteverything done when he was
napping, so then I could playwith him and make him laugh and
just keep him busy all the time.
And when I started applying theMontessori approach, I saw that
it was okay for them to havetime without someone doing a
constant running commentary, orme teaching them all the time.
And I could observe them and seewhat they were both interested

(03:25):
in, like stepping back untilthey may be needed some help, or
even letting them struggle alittle bit. So when they
mastered themselves, you know,they're so pleased. And there's
that brilliant Montessori quote,like never help a child with the
task of which he feels he cansucceed. So you also know how
long it takes to convince achild to get out the door. And
when we slow down and engagethem in the process. It's

(03:49):
definitely less stressful. Andwe haven't spent all that time
nagging our kids to get ready orhelping them calm down if
they've got frustrated. And sothat time that we've spent being
respectful means that it canactually take less time in those
daily battles. So of course,there are going to be some times
when there are meltdowns, evenapplying the Montessori
principles. But when we preparethat child ahead of time, and we

(04:10):
involve them, it can go so muchsmoother most of the time. And
another thing that I thinkdefinitely saved me time was
rotating toys. So back then whenmy kids were small, I mean, now
they're 2019. I not started myMontessori training, but I was
learning about it from ourMontessori playgroup and I chose
Tuesday is the day that I hadrotate some of their things. And
it was such a good investment ofmy time because it see things on

(04:32):
the shelf that they hadn't seenfor a while and they'd be
completely engaged and they gotsuch good use out of their
activities as well. And thenyou're not buying so much stuff,
which is also so important. Andnowadays, I tell parents, not
just to pick a day of the weekto change toys, but to change
them when you observe that theyaren't interested in something
or they you start to see maybethat they're developing a new

(04:53):
interest in something and Icertainly didn't have any
perfect storage cupboards orwhatever. Just boxes in a
cupboard, which I dig through tofind something that I thought
they're not seen in a while, orthat they were starting to get
interested in.
If you're short of time, it'salso quite interesting to do an
inventory of how we spend ourtime. I mean, I do think it's

(05:14):
got a lot to do with our choiceslike we are actually the ones
who are choosing to spend ourtime each day. So if you have
time to scrolling Instagram, youlikely have time to do one,
sorry. And so we might need tojust make some conscious
choices, definitely to find timeto fill up your own cup, doing
things you like, and also to bepresent with our children and
maybe just being lessoverscheduled in general. And

(05:36):
then, I know for those of youwith more than one child, you
tend to feel like life getsbusier, and there's even less
time. And then I like to say,you've actually got like your
own mini Montessori classroom inyour home with like the older
children being able to model forthe younger ones. And in
general, you see the youngerones picking things up so
quickly from their oldersiblings. Parents, like who've

(05:56):
had twins who've come into myclasses have said that if it
weren't for Montessori, it wouldhave been so much harder. Like
having two children who could bemore independent and self
directed was just so helpful.
And even for my own children,they were 16 months apart. And
it really helped me to likelearning not to, that I had to
do everything for them. And infact, not helping them if I was
doing everything for them. Andjust learning to step in. And

(06:17):
just to help that a little bitand then sit back again. And
people might also think that ifyou're working you can't do one,
sorry, because you don't haveenough time. And then Okay, go
back to season one where I spoketo trainer about working and
implementing Montessori, I thinkit was Episode Two of season
one. And she's such a goodexample of this. And personally,
I've also been working full timeand being a full time mom, and

(06:38):
you can make it work. But I'mworking, I'm working and when I
with the kids, it's phones awayand being totally there. If it's
completely new, then I don'tsuggest people start with
Montessori when they're tired atthe end of a busy work day. But
like you could start on theweekend, when you might have
more time to get the kids tohelp you cook. And the more you
practice, the more automatic itbecomes. And the more you'll

(06:58):
notice that the whole family isworking together and enjoying
each other's company a lot. Andof course, there's going to be
people who are working two jobsto make ends meet. And then
you're just like trying to getfood on the table. So I know I'm
speaking from a place ofprivilege, when I say all these
things, but I think for mostpeople listening, you'll find
that the time that you put intopreparing yourselves and the

(07:20):
environment and taking the timeto teach the skills to get them
involved, you'll find you saveso much more time. And more
importantly, it's a more joyfulplace to parent from helping
these children to grow. So Ihope that helps if you are
wondering if you need lots oftime for Montessori. And now
it's time for my conversationwith Gabriel. So enjoy. And I'll

(07:41):
be back as usual after ourconversation to answer another
listener question. Hi, everyone,Simone here and I'm really
excited to be doing this podcasttoday with my friend Gabriel in
Brazil, from Lar Montessori.
Welcome to the podcast. Gabriel

Gabriel (08:01):
Thank you. Thank you very much. It's very nice to be
here. Yeah, I'm

so happy to get to introduce you to everyone
because I know that you went toMontessori, yourself read child
from two to 14 years old. Andthen when you had finished your
university studies and came toteach literature and grammar to
high school students who werelike, Oh, actually, how can I be
a better teacher and you pickedup someone storybooks. And it
was, you know, Dawn before you'dfinished reading like the next

(08:26):
one storybook, and you'reactually not a Montessori
teacher, but a Montessoriresearcher. And so I'd really
love to get a lot of yourperspectives about the
Montessori approach. But I alsoknow that you're passionate
about helping parents and adultsto understand the Montessori
principles and also put theminto practice in their own
lives. So there's so many placesthat I'd love to go. But first

(08:50):
of all, your love of research. Imean, that's something quite
special. I saw a picture thatyou taken and you had three or
four different versions of booksout comparing Montessori
philosophies. This one inparticular was how she described
presenting activities atdifferent stages. So how did you
come to love research?

Gabriel (09:08):
I think I was stealing in the mortuary school when that
happened. The adolescent programwe had at the school a study
that was not completely similarto what Dr. Matura describes in
the art calendar. But we didhave a lot of research to do.
And I enjoyed that very much.
When I went to high school. Wedidn't have that we had lessons

(09:31):
and homework and that's it was avery conventional high school. I
missed that. And when I went touniversity, from the first day,
I saw people all around me doingwhat I did at the Monster
School, they were going to thelibrary and taking books and
taking notes and having ideasand organizing that. And at

(09:52):
first I didn't want to go twomonths it it was not something
in my mind. I went Did you studyShakespeare and poetry and
literature. But research wasalways something I wanted to do
that. And what I love aboutresearch is to find patterns and
change in patterns throughhistory. We learned that in the

(10:16):
beginning of the university withlinguistics, and that has been a
passion to this day.

Yeah, that's so interesting. And what I love is
that you bring research into away that the ordinary people can
understand it, you know, you'renot using all of this difficult
to ignore liturgy and youactually have Lar Montessori,
you set it up. And it's thebiggest platform in Brazil to
help mostly parents, right, butalso educators understand the
Montessori approach

Gabriel (10:42):
nowadays. Parents mostly Yeah, for sure, if you
think in absolute numbers, but Ithink 90 or more than 90% of
schools in Brazil, Montessorischools use live on site, in one
way or another. So I'm gratefulto be able to work with both
publics. And yeah, I like to doresearch entries like that. I

(11:04):
don't think research forresearchers sake is useful. I
think it has to be translatedinto terms that other people can
understand and use and change,and be creative with what we
find in research. It's very,it's a huge privilege to be able
to spend my time doing research.
And I'm not even in a universityenvironment right now. So it's,

(11:28):
it's that kind of joyfulobligation to translate that
into understandable words.

So one of the things that parents always ask
me when they first get to knowthe Montessori approach, and
even later, it's just a reallydifficult thing, particularly if
you've had a more traditionalupbringing, is this addiction
almost to rewards andpunishments, it's really hard
for them to switch for like,how's my child ever going to
learn to do something forthemselves, if I don't bribe
them or reward them in some way,and my child doesn't want to do

(11:59):
because it can be also thatyou're applying the Montessori
principles at home, but thechild goes traditional school,
and they have to do homework andthings. So how are we possibly
going to get rid of rewards andpunishments. And I know that you
kind of say, Well, if you treatthe child differently, and you
first prepare the environment,and then you show them little by
little how to use thatenvironment, and then you let

(12:21):
them do the things forthemselves, and you'd step back
a little bit, then you start tosee this concentration,
developing this self controldeveloping and like executive
functioning skills of them usingtheir brain. So I wondered if
you could talk to that sameYeah. So to show parents how
they can do it in maybe adifferent way?

Gabriel (12:40):
Sure. It, it depends on the plane of development.
Because sometimes we discover amonster and the child is already
seven years old. So it reallydepends on on the plane of
development. If we are talkingabout children from zero to five
or six years old, it's theenvironment, it's it's mostly
the environment, if we have alittle bit off here to prepared,

(13:04):
we don't need to have it perfectbefore we begin. And we do not
want to switch everything in asingle night. Because the child
won't enjoy to wake up in adifferent house altogether. So
if we switch the environment,little by little, to a place
where the child really can leavethere and do things as a, not as

(13:28):
an adult person would do. But asa dignified person would do
without needing to ask for helpall the time or permission all
the time, this child will startto show us that she wants to be
independent. And I always sayshe when I talk about a child,
because in Portuguese, it's ourKorean, so it's feminine. So the

(13:48):
child will want to do things byherself. And we'll find that our
difficulty is to allow the timefor the child to do it, because
she is not going to do it forthe result for the product,
she's going to do it for theprocess. And for a result that
is invisible to us. She is doingthat to develop herself and to

(14:10):
become more fully human. And wehave to allow time for that. So
I do believe that one of thehardest things for us to do is
to develop patients, as parentsso that we become able to wait
and observe and wait a littlebit more and sometimes wait a
little bit more. But when thechild is older, and they have

(14:34):
homework, for example, homeworkis a hard thing, isn't it?
Because it should beinteresting. It could be
interesting, and it's not. Yeah.
So I think one possible rolethat we can play us as parents
is to make that interesting. Andmaking homework interesting
usually means making homeworklonger. And because we think

(14:55):
homeworks terrible, we want tomake a choice. But if we try to
make shorter, we make it evenless interesting because then
it's just answering questionsand answering questions is not
interesting. discovering things,testing things, experimenting is
very interesting and a littlebit messy. But with older
children, that's what we oughtto do. Right now, my child is in

(15:18):
online learning here in Brazilbecause of the pandemics. And
what usually happens is that hisschool day, goes much longer
than the school day, because wespend a few hours trying things
out, which will take muchshorter if he just answered
stuff. So it's different foreach age at zero to six, I think

(15:42):
it's much more independence andpatience. But from six to 12,
which would be the second plane,it's trying to make things
intellectually fascinating forthe child.

And it's trusting in the child that they're going
to want to learn if it'sinteresting, as opposed to us
having to force this informationin in the way that we will maybe
board up ourselves, we have

Gabriel (16:08):
to remember they are human beings, don't we, I mean,
everyone wants to learn thingsif they are interested. We love
for example, Ted Talks. BecauseTED talks are interesting, the
same subject could be presentedin a much more boring way than
in a TED talk. But in a TEDtalk, there is an effort to make

(16:30):
everything interesting, and weenjoy that. When we have someone
showing us the world, anythingin the world, in a way that is
fascinating, we are going to befascinated. And the child who
wants to be I remember thatmyself all the time, more fully
human. And we have to allow thechild to be human to try things

(16:52):
out to explore things todiscover to create. So yeah,
trust for sure. Not in the childper se, but in the humaneness of
the child.

Actually, I loved reading about you discussing
giving the child dignity. It'ssomething that I really was
puzzling about as like, ah, Idon't think I've actually ever
thought of this together. Andyou gave the example of Dr.
Montessori doing a nose blowingpresentation. And instead of the
children, you know, going okay,well, that's not very

(17:25):
interesting, or being shamefularound blowing noses and mucus,
they actually all applauded, youknow, because, oh, there's so
much shame around nose blowing,and all that kind of thing. So
yeah, giving dignity and showingthem how they can do things for
themselves.

Gabriel (17:39):
Yeah, in Montessori classrooms, you usually find an
adult on his or her nice lookingat a child at the same eye
level. And that's symbolic. Atthe same time, that's practical,
because that adult isdiminishing him or herself so

(18:02):
that the child can grow. AndMontessori would compare that to
I think, I Christ, a Christianmetaphor. I think she says
Someone has to diminish for theorder to grow. And we are so
big. And we are so used to bebig tube important. We are
surrounded by ideology, whichsays that being successful and

(18:25):
famous and huge is veryimportant. And we forget that
being small, is to be in thebeginning of everything. So if
it was not for the child,nothing would exist. The child
is the most important thing inhuman world in human
civilization. And we forget thatwe think presidents are the most

(18:47):
important people or billionairesor diplomats or scientists, and
they are not, they are not theymay be the second, the third,
the fourth most importantpeople, the child is the most
important people in the world.
And I think that's First of all,a spiritual realization that we
have to have. And second, it'salso a practical realization,

(19:10):
when we do small changes inenvironment is small changes in
our behavior. And also bigchanges in environment and
behavior later, so that thatchild can feel normal can feel
very important, not as to becomesnobbish or anything like that.

(19:30):
Just very important as a humanbeing not more important than
any other child are moreimportant than any other person
in general, but never less thanalways equal to. I think that's
that's dignity for the child, tonot feel ashamed to be a child.
There are so many children whosay to us, when I become a

(19:53):
person I want to do and come onhere. As a person already, then
they really don't know that.
Nobody told them that they arepeople. They think they are
children. And we have to haveplaces and people and
environments and time for thosesmall people to be people.

I love that.
Because how many times do we sayto young children? What do you
want to be when you grow up asif like, this isn't already
their life in their presentmoment in their reality? Ah,
that's gonna change everything.
Okay, we're going to all try andtake that out of our vocabulary
and let each child just, youknow, have the ability and
dignity from, you know, as thechild as well.

Gabriel (20:35):
Yeah. And the most interesting answer I heard from
a child, he, I think he wasthree years old. I worked with
him in environment. And I askedonce for him before I learned
that question was an artist. Iasked him, What do you want to
be when you grow up? And hesaid, an adult? And yes, sure.

(20:59):
It is. But I realized just alittle bit later, that the
question itself is wrong. He issomething right now isn't.

He is something right now. But he's so true. I'm
just going to be an adult when Igrow up. That's all the
differences. I'm now just asmall body, and I'll just be the
big body. perfectly accurate.
Yeah, the simple reality of achild. I love it. I think also,
it makes me think of how we viewobedience differently as well
from an adult perspective and achild's perspective. And Dr.
Montessori writes about thelevels of obedience. And I think

(21:28):
that that's something thatparents could really learn from,
because I think we always thinkparticularly with this youngest
child, like, Why don't theylisten to me, and they don't
even have the ability tonecessarily comply with
obedience unless it meets whatthey're wanting to do right now
as well.

Gabriel (21:44):
Yeah, we think of obedience as a moral
characteristic. If you are notobedient, you are doing
something immoral and wrong. Andit's not a question of morality,
it's a skill. To obey is hard,as to cook is hard as to using

(22:07):
Microsoft Office can be hard,it's a skill. And you'll learn
that. And in the same way, wewouldn't expect a child to be
able to fly a plane, when theyare four years old, we should
not expect a child to be able toobey when they are when a half
or two years old. Because it's askill, and the brain needs to

(22:28):
develop certain characteristicsto be able to obey, obey in is a
complex stuff, you have tounderstand what you want to do,
then you have to understand whatthe other person wants you to
do, not only the phrase itself,but that what that person said
means that she wants you to dosomething, you have to translate

(22:51):
words into action, that's askill by itself. And to obey
means you have to give up yourown will to understand that we
will have another personsuppress your real and act on
the view of this other personfor the time being. And children
that are one year old, are notable to do that, when they are

(23:13):
two years old, they aresometimes able to do that
sometimes they are not. Andwell, the two they are
discovering they also havewheels. So it's it's one more
complication there for obedienceto happen. But if they don't
even know they want something,how can they understand we want
something. So they need tounderstand what wanting

(23:36):
something is that will comearound two years ago, two years
old, then they will become ablea little bit later to understand
we want things to be done. Andthey will start to obey. And
that would be a first level ofobedience, in which they are
sometimes able to do things weask them to do, and sometimes

(24:00):
not able, because brain isdeveloping, it's not developed
yet. A little bit later, thatyou will become able to obey,
but not still willing to obey,just able. So if we ask enough,
if we use prizes andpunishments, they will innovate

(24:23):
out of fear, out of desire forthat prize, they will innovate,
but still, we don't reallywanted because they're going to
connect, obey in with prizes andpunishments. They are not going
to connect, obeying, tounderstand and wishing to obey.

(24:43):
So later in life, they willstill obey in exchange for
prizes and punishments. And notbecause they understood and made
critical analysis and decided toobey or because that person who
is asked something is someonewho should be obeyed because
It's a admire herbal person. Butif we still have patience at the

(25:06):
second level of obedience whenthe child is able to obey but
not always willing,and we try to become what we
Montessori, we would call aprepared adult, an adult who has
patience, an adult who is ableto present the world to a child
in a fascinating way. Andadulthood prepares the

(25:27):
environment in a way that thechild can be free and capable
with independent dependent. Ifwe become able to do all that,
and we become this preparedadult, and we wait just a little
bit more, this child is going tobe willing to obey even more,
she's going to be anxious toobey, because obeying is a

(25:51):
skill. And children like topractice skills. So when they
come to this level, when theyare able to hear us and try to
do what we asked them to do, andthis skill is really developed,
they want to practice it. And ifwe are adults who are deserving

(26:13):
of obedience, if we areadmirable adults, they want to
obey us. That doesn't lastforever. When they are seven or
eight, they stop obeying again,because they want to analyze
what we asked them to do, allover again, under critical lens
and analytical lens. But up tofour, or five or six years old,

(26:37):
what happens is their districtlevels at first the child is
unable to obey or barely able toevade. Second, they are able but
not always willing to obey. Andthen the third, if we are
deserving of that, they becomewilling and anxious. And
obedience becomes delightful tothem.

And not to leave parents hanging. But once they
get to seven or eight, then youcan activate the reasoning mind
why it's important for them toyou know, leaving your house,
why we need to put our thingsaway so that we can live in our
family together, respecting thatthey have a need for big space,
and might be messy in themoment, but that it will be
packed away so that everyone canappreciate the spaces and things

(27:19):
like that as well. But I thinkthat's really helpful to know,
it's not that your child istrying to wind you up, they just
actually haven't built thatskill yet.

Gabriel (27:27):
Yeah, well, of course, the way I said it might scare
parents who are with children alittle bit older, six or seven.
When they are older, we have totalk to them a bit more we have
to analyze, we have to give itspace for exercise again. And
the exercise when they're olderis to reason is to understand

(27:47):
and to ask questions and toinvestigate. And to make the
rules together with us.
Sometimes,

I actually even heard a beautiful example of
like, elementary children. Sothat's between six to 12 years
old, the pencils were for theclassroom left, a bit unkempt,
and not really looked after. Andso a group of the children
researched about pencils andwhere they came from, and why
they should appreciate theirpencils. And then how you look
after pencils, and what's thebest method for storing the
pencils. And then they gave awhole presentation to the rest

(28:16):
of the class about it. And allof a sudden, the pencils were
much more looked after. And itjust goes to show the difference
in the thinking between theplanes of development? Yes,

Gabriel (28:24):
yes, they are not practical at all. But they
really, they understand thingsso deeply if we if we give space
and environmental time for that.

Actually, going very back to the very first
thing we talked about aboutsetting up the environment. You
said like don't just change itovernight. And also that I don't
think we need to spend a lot ofmoney on how we set up our
environment. But how can we usethe environment as parents to
make our children feel like partof the family? And what kind of

(28:55):
things do you suggest to theparents that you work with?

Gabriel (28:58):
Yeah, so it should be next to free. It shouldn't cost
almost anything at all for youto prepare the environment. And
we have two options. Basically,either we raise the floor, or we
low the ceiling, we have thosetwo options, things have to have

(29:19):
to be reachable by the child. Sofor example, beds are easy. You
have to put the cushion maybe onthe floor or next to the floor
very low, so that the child isable to go to bed when they want
to go to bed. And they do notneed to ask for our permission

(29:41):
to go to bed or to drink waterfor that matter. They have to be
able to eat drink water andsleep whenever they want you
without asking us for permissionfor doing those very basic
biological things. Later, westarted preparing the rest so
For example, the sink in thebathroom, most homes can't low

(30:07):
the sink, it has to stay alittle bit higher than the child
would be able to reach so we cangive support for the child. So I
think the most important gift wecan give a child is a soul for
anything, they, they can usethat and if your house is small,
and if your money is little, youcan give this child that's one

(30:33):
stone. And they will take it towherever in the house, they need
it. And it's going to be enoughin the bathroom in the kitchen,
they are going to use it allaround to reach stuff. And those
things which should not bereachable for the child should
be really out of reach. So bigknives, for example, should be

(30:58):
out of reach for a child that'stwo years old, it's still very
hard for them to understandrules when they are that small.
So you can't open this is notalways a very good option.
Because they will not alwaysunderstand that it's a rule
forever. I mean, it's not thatyou can't open this, now, you

(31:21):
just can't open this, and theyare not able to understand that.
So it's wiser to take that outof rich. And later in life, when
they become able to understandrules, then you can negotiate
those rules again, and it'seasier. But yeah, we should make
the home a place where the childcan leave. So they need to be
able to wash their hands freely,they need to be able to find

(31:44):
their clothes, easily. We don'tneed to leave all the clothes
available for the child, we canhave like three or four t shirts
available for the child, and theother t shirts are going to be
higher somewhere. And we canjust change the clothes that are
available to the child from timeto time. This is the first thing

(32:05):
but then we have to help thischild to interact with the
environment. So we'll have topresent things in the same way
that when we went to cook a veryhard recipe, a new recipe we
never tried. We needed a videoand a recipe. And we pause the

(32:25):
video all the time, because wewant to take notes. And we want
to understand that very well andpractice it and do it many
times, the child will do thesame for washing her hands. So
we need to show very clearlyvery slowly how to open the
water and how to wash hands andhow to use soap very slowly,

(32:47):
very carefully, verybeautifully. In the same way we
would like to find a video of arecipe that's very beautiful, we
should try to show things to thechild in a very beautiful
didactic way. And then we haveto wait the child when she or he
becomes interest. They're goingto try it out. And we have to

(33:07):
wait. They're going to repeatand until they master it. And
when they master they're goingto repeat a little bit more. And
that's basically how we do it.

It actually reminds me as well of that
phrase teach by teaching not bycorrecting that Dr. Montessori
talks about because so often Ithink I grew up in a very
traditional way. And it's soeasy to kind of want to step in
and say, Oh, no, that's not howyou do it. And instead, find
another moment where we can showit again. And like every time
that we say, you know you got itwrong, it's just another chance

(33:38):
for the child to think, Oh, Ican't do this anyway. So we kind
of end up undoing what we'retrying to achieve. But it's I
think hard for parents to adultsin general to keep this
principle of Teach by teachingnot by correcting. We know it
like when we're giving alanguage lesson. Oh yeah, I'm
not made to say that's agiraffe. I'm going to make a
mental note and teach themelephant later on those kind of

(34:00):
things. But as I slammed thedoor, or they don't know how to
reach something, we forget totake those moments to teach
them.

Gabriel (34:08):
Yeah, we have emotional reactions, immediate emotional
reactions. I think that's onething. We learned at some point
in our lives, that slamming adoor is offensive. So if I do
that, knowing that it'soffensive, then it's offensive.
But when a small child at threeyears old, is lemme door, it's

(34:30):
not offensive because he or shedoesn't know it's offensive. And
we should not take offense in anact that is unconscious or
ignorant in the best sense ofthe world word. So that's,
that's the first thing to try tonot have immediate emotional
reactions to what a child does,unknowingly, of the consequences

(34:54):
and second, sure, we shouldn'tcorrect we should wait to teach
What needs to be taught, butalso, sometimes we don't even
need to teach. Sometimes we justhave to wait a little bit for
the child to repeat a bit more.
And he or she will learn thatwithout even a lesson or
something.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It's so
much as traditional focus thatwe have to teach children, all
of this, like, this is yellow,what color is that? And we
really have tried to putinformation into the child and
feel this vessel with facts,where if we just provide them
with the real world, they'regoing to want to learn
everything about it. Okay, soone thing I found fascinating,

(35:38):
when I was looking at your workwas the eight principles for
silent education. And this wasso beautiful, because I'm just
gonna quote you, translated fromPortuguese into English. It says
noisy education is one thateveryone around us imposes on us
in various ways. Silenteducation needs to start from
within us and gradually takecare of our lives and the lives

(36:01):
of our children. It requiressome effort, but it also opens
up new paths for life, pathsfull of sound, and meaning paths
without noise, where everythingthat really matters can be
heard. And I just thought, Wow,it's all education doesn't mean
that there's no sound at all.
But it's actually having time toprocess internally and things
like that. I never thought aboutit. So I would love you to share

(36:22):
your ideas about silenteducation with everyone
listening,

Gabriel (36:27):
I'm fascinated by silence, I did a two year
research on silence, which is aweird topic to be researched.
Because, well, because andthat's one thing I read a lot in
life, that we are able to stepinto the wilderness of silence.

(36:48):
There is a Brazilian researchcalled researcher called in your
Landy, she's a professor at oneof the biggest universities in
Brazil. She works in discourseanalysis, and she has a very
small book, very interestingbook called the forms of
silence. And it's not forparents or teachers. It's really

(37:09):
nerdy research, thing,linguistics think. But what she
says there is that there is aform of silence. That's wild.
And language domesticates, thesilence. And she's not saying
that in an educational way, orin a way for us to practice

(37:31):
anything. She's just saying thatin an analytical way. But I took
that morally. We use language todomesticate silence. Because we
are fearful of silence. We don'tknow what silence will bring. So
when a child is silent inanother room, after 10 minutes,

(37:51):
we feel something is wrongthere. And I have to look,
because if silent for too long,that means danger. Because
silence is wild, we never knowwhat to expect from silence,
anything can emerge. So when achild stay silent for a long
time, the back of the car, forexample, for a long, long, long

(38:11):
time. And out of the blue, shesays something like, Oh, we call
that flower. We have a flowerroses, for example, in in, in
Brazil, in Brazil, they callthat hawza and haws. That means
also pink, in Portuguese. So achild may say, Oh, we call them

(38:39):
hawza. Because they are hawza.
Meaning we call them rosesbecause they are pink. Yeah, in
a rough translation. Out of theblue after 15 minutes in silence
in the back of the car. Becausesilence is wild, and you never
know what to expect fromsilence. Unfortunately, we don't
do very well with not knowingwhat to expect. So we use

(39:02):
silence sounds all the time weuse music we use words we use
lessons we interrupt we talk towe do whatever. We just don't
want to deal with silence. Soeven if you go into Montessori
classrooms, for example, it'swhere to find classrooms, which
do not use music all the time.

(39:27):
And you don't need music all thetime. You should have music, of
course, now and then, becauseit's cultural, and it's
interesting, but you should alsohave silence you should have
some time for the child's mindto to create to understand to
make connections without anykind of input. And of course,

(39:48):
silence is not just a lack ofsounds. It's lack of input. So
you can have visual noise youcan have tactile noise, you can
have bass to noise, if you havetoo much of anything that
becomes noise. And when I talkabout silent education, I do not

(40:13):
mean complete absence of input.
What I mean is, will give justthe input that is very
important, and will leave spacefor the mind to be wired for the
mind to create, to imagine tomake relations that that's not
new. That's actuallymotorcycles, in other words in
order metaphors, so, but that'sit.

And I love that you associate silent education
with respect and kindness andintimacy and vulnerability. Like
those are huge kind of things tohave available to our children.
Like when we speak in a tone andvolume that is required. That's
kindness, as opposed to thisvery loud, too many words,

Gabriel (41:01):
just silence is just the input that you need to give
love is very much silent. Whenwe love someone, we are able to
be silent together with thatperson isn't when we don't feel
really comfortable with withsomeone we cannot be silent.
With that person, we have tokeep talking because silent

(41:23):
silence will become weird. In avery short time, we are only
able to be silent for a verylong time with people with whom
we are really intimate. And witha child is speaking in a in a
low volume, to speak in as fewwords as we need to be as

(41:44):
concise as we have to count ourwords. That is kind in the same
way. It's kind to not water aplant all day long, you need to
put a little bit of water there.
And then you have to leave somespace for that plant to grow.
And it's the same with thechild. It's unkind, to force
input all the time, we should betogether, we should be loving,

(42:10):
we should be intimate andvulnerable. We just don't need
to give so much all the time. Wecan allow space and time for the
inner wildness of the child tocreate.

I just wrote down step into the wilderness of
silence. Yes, it was sobeautiful. Wow. So we're going
to take away that we're going tobe offer more silence to our
children. But let's say thatthere's a parent who's the
opposite to what we do. Or youmust get that question all the
time. Like they've people havejust discovered Montessori, they
started adjusting their homes,maybe giving them a bit more

(42:50):
space to try things out forthemselves discover the world.
But then you have a grandparentor a partner who just does not
seem to be getting on board,

Gabriel (42:58):
I'll start in a natural place, Park, or a place where
you can find trees and grass andmaybe even some birds. You go
there, you'll get some icecream. And you let the child
play. And you'll just be theretogether. And when the child

(43:20):
plays a little bit by himself orherself, we can make small
comments on how much that childenjoys doing things and
discovering things. And thenforget about it, you make one
comment or two comments thenthat just enjoy the day. Then
another day, you are at home,and the child is going to do

(43:43):
something her bedroom or take acup of water in the kitchen. And
maybe the other person wants tohelp or to interrupt or to
something. And we can just sayOh, she enjoys that so much. Let
her do it and come here andlet's set Let's sit and let the
child do that because she enjoysthat so much. And then another

(44:08):
day, she'll do something elsethat she enjoys so much. We
never say the word Montessorinever we wait months until we
can say the word Montessori. Wejust talked about the child at
the beginning and how she sheenjoys that how she is happy to

(44:28):
do that or joyful and how shebecomes calm when she's able to
do such and such. For example,all she enjoys helping me
folding laundry. And after wefinished she's so calm and
joyful. I just let her do it.
Come here. Let's do it with us.
And then this rent errand cancome and fold some and the child

(44:51):
will fold some and the mother orthe father will fold some and
maybe their grandparents went tohelp the child and we just Let
them we let them help once ortwice. Because love is more
important than independence atfirst, you don't want to make
grandparents think that he orshe can't love the child in
their way they know how to love.
So we have to allow space forlove. But then we can ask them

(45:14):
to come and drink some coffeewith us, or water, or juice, and
the child will stay there fordoing one more piece of laundry.
And we can say, Look, she reallylikes to do that by herself,
doesn't she so strong. And thenafter some time, we may have
been able to show thatgrandparent or that spouse that

(45:37):
the child is is capable to dothings and should be respected.
Of course, when we would neverallow violence. So shouting or
heating the child should neverbe allowed. And if we have to
interrupt that we should, but weshould not interrupt love. If
that person knows how to showlove in that way, let that

(46:01):
happen. And slowly, we can showanother way. And it's fine. If
two people show love in twodifferent ways. It's fine if at
grandma's house, she has lessindependence. But from another
point of view, Grandpa will takethat child to I don't know fish

(46:24):
with them or to make a toy outof wood. And that's also
interesting. That's also love.
That's also important. So I'llbe careful to not talk about
Montessori. At first, when wefirst discovered Montessori, all
we want to do is talk aboutmotorcycles. And I'll be careful

(46:46):
to not do that and talk aboutthe child and to show another
way to love.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that's so interesting
that you focus on the joy of thechild and that they enjoy doing
it. But also you've touched on areally important point is that
sometimes we get veryprotective. And then we start
closing off our child fromthings that aren't Montessori
where we're missing out onopportunities for them to learn
about the world from otherpeople. And actually, Dr.
Montessori writes about thechild in society. So they're

(47:13):
becoming independent and strong,not so that they become more
isolated, but so that actually,they can give more to the world.

Gabriel (47:20):
Yeah, we don't want to close opportunities for the
child. And some of thoseopportunities will come in ways
we don't agree with. And if theyare violent, we should not agree
with them, or have space forthem. But if they are not
violent, we should, we should.
Because sometimes, and incontemporary world, that's often

(47:42):
children meets on opportunitiesto learn their heritage, when
their parents are, for example,from another country, or or
their grandparents are fromanother country and know other
cultures and when to share thatin the way they know how to
share. That's good for the childand it should be allowed.

And okay, so getting back then, something
that I love observing intoddlers is maximum effort, you
know, when they need to move,they've learned to walk and now
they just don't want to walk,they need to stretch their body
and keep challenging themselves.
And I love how you see maximumeffort. Also through the
different stages as an agent,it's not just in toddlerhood,

(48:26):
with the physical side, itstarts to be that maximum effort
of different things. And Ithought that's actually a really
interesting I hadn't seen itwritten about before. In that
way. I don't know if Dr.
Montessori wrote about itherself. But can you talk about
how at different stages andages, children still are trying
to actually master things andhave maximum effort?

Gabriel (48:47):
Sure. I love maximum effort. Even for adults, it's
it's a subject I really adore.
We are not used to it. But theidea that you can be allowed to
be excellent is very interestingto me. In the school, where I
studied and later worked themortuary school where I studied

(49:08):
and worked, there was anenvironment for excellence. So
children were allowed to doeverything they were expected to
and then a little bit more, asit happens in most monitor
environments. And what wouldhappen sometimes when I worked
with adolescents, for example,one morning, a girl came to a
classroom with a piece of draftpaper. And she said I wrote up a

(49:33):
whim, she told me this teachersand said okay about and said
about corn. I said, What? Andshe said, Yeah, I bombed about
corn. Is it right? And she gaveme the poem to read. It was a
short one, in which she was ableto include every little thing

(49:55):
you can learn about corn inmiddles I was taken aback
because she had a really a pieceof research to do on corn. And
she had not delivered anythingyet, like, piece of text or
anything. And after a few days,she came with this short poem
that included everything. And Iread that and I said, You wrote

(50:17):
this yourself, right? And shesaid, Yeah, yeah. Today when I
woke up, and I said, Okay, yeah,it's perfect. I said, from the
poetry point of view, it haseverything, it has rhyme and
metrics that it has everythingthat you try to put in here. She
said, she tried to put things inthere. And from biological point
of view, it's also correct.

(50:39):
Yeah, yeah, sure. Do you want toshow that to your colleagues?
Yeah, I do. And then she showedit to everyone. This can only
happen in a environment wherewhere you have maximum effort,
because that is not the easiest,or the second or third, easiest
thing to do. When you need tomake a piece of work on corn,

(51:00):
right? To write a text is mucheasier than to write a poem to
make some slides refugees iseasier than that. And she did
that, because she was allowedto. And I find it fascinating
that in children andadolescents, you do not have to
impose excellence. Or to saythat that's a rule, that's how

(51:23):
we do things here, you just haveto allow, you must have the
environment for it. So forexample, if you have a six to 12
years old, child, this childwill have to research so you
must have a library at theirschool. It doesn't, doesn't need
to be an exhaustive library, thechild can go out and research in

(51:45):
museums and interview people,but you have a library at
school. If you have anotherlesson, you also have to have
the library. But you have tohave more than that opportunity
to work and to create, you haveto go further than that. And
this school is not enoughanymore. For an older child, you
have to go out of school, youhave to work with the community

(52:09):
and visit places and know otherpeople and interview people who
are yardsticks of quality intheir fields, so that you You
can learn more as an adolescent.
But I think first of all, wehave to allow excellence to
happen. When we as teachers orparents tell the child what we

(52:29):
expect from them. We stopallowing excellence to happen.
We allow the minimum to happen.
I tell the child I needed to dothis, this and that. And the
child may do this, there's anet. For example, when the child

(52:50):
needs to tie tidy the room and Itell the child all you have to
throw all the trash away, youhave to fold your laundry, and
you have to tidy your bed, thechild's going to do those three
things. But if I got the Chinaset up today, we are all going

(53:10):
to type all the house and youare responsible for your
bedroom. Make it beautiful,okay, and I go away, the child
is going to do much, much morethan if I just told those three
things need to do. So we cangive a little bit we should give

(53:30):
example. If we don't modelmaximum effort in our work in
our day to day routine, thechild may not do that as well.
But if we allow space for that,and time and remodel that it's
just beautiful.

Yeah, that is amazing. And I think there's
that fine line, that parentsmight think, Oh, I need
excellence for my child.
Therefore I'm going to pressurethem to become excellent. And
it's actually we were so clearthat it's not that it's actually
removing that to allow theexcellence.

Gabriel (54:01):
Excellence is natural.
Excellence is the natural. Frommy point of view. I don't even
know if that's mountainside. Butfrom my point of view,
excellence is the natural stateof the human being who you want
to be excellent. Actually, shetalks about self perfection in
human tendencies. So that'ssomething Yeah, that's more
sorry.

I think also another beautiful example about
Montessori. And the naturalprocess is learning to read,
write, and preparing for literalliteracy. So I think a lot of
parents are kind of interestedif they've got a child in the
first plane of development. Howcan I help my child READ WRITE,
and actually, there's a lot verynaturally that we can do. And I

(54:41):
know that you've put a lot ofresearch into preparing children
for literacy, and I'd love youto share some of that.

Gabriel (54:46):
I enjoy that. It happened. almost by accident. I
went to work on a mortuaryschool with three to six
children, three to six year oldchildren. And there was a child
who was almost six So he had toleave in very few months. And he

(55:06):
wasn't able to read or writeyet. He came from another school
just a few months before thatschool said he was almost
reading and almost writing, heknew almost everything. And I
try to do stuff with him. And hedidn't. I mean, he didn't know a
single letter or sound or how tohold a pencil. So what motivated

(55:30):
me to learn that better was thispair, and the head of the school
last could meet you, isstructured the literacy part of
the three to six year oldclassroom. And then I found
Maria dwyers little booklet, thepath for the exploration of any
language leading to writing andreading, I think. And that

(55:55):
really saved me, and that childand some child, some children
after him. So the first thingthat I tell parents and teachers
that we should do is to talk somuch with children, talk a lot.
And that's not contradiction tothe silence thing we just talked
about. That's conversation andconversation is very important.

(56:19):
And most of the time we talk tochildren, we do not do that in a
spirit of conversation. We dothat with orders and
prohibitions. So we say do that,don't do this, don't cry, don't
climb there. Don't open this,come here, take your something
do that. We do not really talkto this children, and we should

(56:45):
talk to them. And we should useprecise language. But when we
talk about an oak, for example,the tree Yeah, we should not say
that's the tree, we should saythat's an oak tree. So I do that
much easier. In Portuguese, Iknow all the names in
Portuguese, but that's what weshould do, we should use precise

(57:08):
language. If you have, forexample, different types of
apples, different types ofgrapes, you can use precise
language shoe all of that. Forif you are offering bread to a
child, you have Italian breadand Australian bread. And you
can say that and that's thefirst thing we should do talk a

(57:30):
lot with the child and useprecise language. The second
thing is music and poetry, musicand poetry help a lot because
they are the sounds areimportant in music and poetry.
And of course, in Montessori, weare going to use sounds as the
basis for everything inliteracy. So sounds are very

(57:51):
important. And if the childbecomes used to rhymes, for
example, that helps, that helpsa lot. Then after that, if you
are giving a lot of vocabularyto that child, if you are giving
a lot of sounds through lyricsand rhymes and poetry. After
that, it's its activities. So wehave for example, I spy in a

(58:16):
very special way monitoringsettings in which we are going
to use the initial soundsomething like I Spy, something
that begins with and the childis going to find what begins
with but but only if we alreadygave them the opportunity of

(58:37):
exercising that pronunciationthose sounds those rhymes, it's
very hard to answer that in adeep enough way in two minute in
a podcast, so I'm really sorry,I'm not able to give the whole
thing. But I think the mostimportant things we can do as
adults is to talk with the childgive a lot of precise language,

(58:59):
rhymes poetry, songs withlyrics, and Play, play with
rains. plays, sounds play playwith words. That helps so much.

Yeah, no, that's already very helpful. And also,
I think one other aspect that Iguess parents could work on is
just building hand strength, youknow, because they're eventually
going to need a utensil too,right. And so to have some
control over their bodies isalso something that can be
refined, because there's so muchindirect preparation for writing
and reading that happens with achild from zero to three, who's

(59:31):
not actually going to beinterested in reading words. But
learning to track the page fromleft to right with a ball
tracker. Holding on to playdoughor squeezing a bath toy gives
them a lot of hand strength, andthey're going to be able to hold
scissors and cut hold a penciland write that that's I think
they're really helpful because Ithink parents we get caught up
on teaching them to read whenthere's so much groundwork that

(59:53):
we can lay that it almostbecomes like you say this
natural process where childrenwant to challenge themselves.
And it will happen.

Gabriel (01:00:01):
Sure when. So there is this thing in multisided. That's
the cosmic vision of Dr.
Montessori. So for the childfrom six to 12, and we start
from general things, and we goto details later, it's exactly
the same in the body. If I wantthe three fingers of the right
or left hand of the child to beable to hold the pencil and

(01:00:25):
write, I have to start with thewhole body. And the whole body
has to be able to exercise andbe strong. It's interesting if I
really adore calligraphy,artistic calligraphy. And if you
look at Handbook of calligraphy,the first stuff they teach you

(01:00:45):
are not how to hold the quill,that's not the first thing they
teach you. The first thing theyteach you is how to sit, how to
put your body upright, how toposition your arm and your hand.
And just after you did all ofthat, okay, now we can write.
And we forget about all of thiswith the child and we just go to

(01:01:08):
that fingertips and fingertipsare not enough for us to be able
to write, we need the whole bodyto be able to write. So yeah,
children should be strong, theyshould be able to climb places,
they should be able to carryheavy stuff, they should be able
to move their arms and legs inways that are productive to

(01:01:32):
their and the ends they have inin view. And also their
fingertips. So later, we can gofor example, to wash dishes, and
you can watch very small stuff.
And you need to move your littlefinger around the cap so that
you can wash the cap and youhave to move your little finger

(01:01:56):
in order to be able to buttonyour shirt, and then your
fingertips. But first whole bodystrength, whole body control and
movement and so on pressure.

Simone Davies (01:02:08):
Yeah. I'm actually speaking of bodies. It
reminds me of my body my rules,that Montessori principle that
don't touch a child, unlessyou're invited to in any way.
And I know that parents arequite surprised if they've never
been in touch with theMontessori approach. Do you
know, oh, give me a cuddle, orI'm going to I don't even say

(01:02:29):
I'm going to take your coat off,they just start taking their
coat off. Referring back to whenwe were talking about blowing
our noses. We don't even tellthe child we're going to blow
their nose and from behind wetake a tissue and we wonder why
the child struggling. But aboutconsent, you know, this is
something in Brazil, is this acommon thing? Or is this
something we need to teachparents and adults?

Gabriel (01:02:50):
We need to learn that Yeah, for sure. Children's
bodies are public, usuallypublic in the sense that anyone
can touch them. And years later,we find it strange that adults
are not going to respect otherpeople's bodies, their private,

(01:03:14):
as private. And it's not strangeat all. We taught those adults
when they were children, thatthere are some bodies which are
public. And it's interesting theway that children learn that
isn't it because when you make achild's body public, when that
child becomes an adult, thisadult is not going to think only

(01:03:37):
that children's bodies arepublic, they are going to think
that there are bodies which arepublic. And those bodies can be
children's bodies, they can alsobe women's bodies, black
people's bodies, those bodies ofthe oppressed, because the child

(01:03:57):
is a is an oppressed class. Sothose bodies of the oppressed
are public. And then we have allthis problems with consent that
we have in the adult role. Itbegins that at birth, it begins
at infancy. And one side ittells that she was when she

(01:04:18):
talks about the seeds of war.
And she says that war begins inthe relationship between adult
and child. oppression alsobegins there. And respecting the
privacy of a body is one of theways to not oppress a child to
liberate a child. So we shouldnot touch a child that doesn't

(01:04:40):
want to be touched. Unless ofcourse there is an emergency if
that child is, I don't know,falling from somewhere very
high. Nevermind, you just readthe child but in any other
circumstances, we should nottouch the child. As if the child
could not be offended becausethe child can be offended. And

(01:05:03):
we can ask, we can watch forbody language. Because
permission does not always comethrough language. We don't say
to our partner, okay, now kissme, we don't say that we show it
through body language, that thatis an appropriate moment for

(01:05:26):
physical intimacy. And the childdoes the same thing. There are
moments when we know the childwants to be cuddled, but there
are body language there is thereis language itself. And when we
want to do something, which thechild didn't ask for, and we
need to do something with thechild, the least we can do is to

(01:05:48):
tell them, we are going to dothat. That's the minimum, at the
best we would ask, we would sayExcuse me, can I, but the least
we can do is to tell them, okay,now I'm going to brush your
hair, for example, or somethinglike that. But we should ask.

(01:06:09):
And if the child becomes moreindependent, then we have to do
less and less of this necessarytouching. And we stay with the
emotional touching, which alwayshas to happen with the child
allowing it to happen.

Gabriel, thank you, you've given us so many
ideas of things that we can doto become better parents that
are adults working with theselovely children who we will
treat with enormous dignity andrespect. And I'd love to come
back full circle, we talkedabout your love of research, we
touched on literacy. And I readrecently you wrote in books are

(01:06:53):
the most generous objects in theworld. And in that you also
wrote books have patience, waityears until we're ready. And
when we finally are they open upfull of delivery, so that a
little piece of the world canfit inside us. And so I just
wanted to end maybe with youtalking about your love of
books,

Gabriel (01:07:11):
thank you for this. I do love books, most of what I
learned, I learned from books,most of them most of the most
intense emotions I had in life Ihad with books. And I'm forever
grateful to my trainers, and tomy teachers and work colleagues.

(01:07:35):
But really, I never had betterteachers than books, because
they are really patient. We canfeel terribly stupid when
reading a book. And the bookwill not judge us. We can just
feel stupid, close the book alittle bit, drink a little bit
of water, come back to it. Wecan cry over a book and the book

(01:07:57):
is there. And we can laugh overa book in the books there. And
the author never gets offended.
I mean, the author is really faraway. So that's fine. If I had
to have a conversation like thiswith Dr. Montessori. Come on. I
never would. I never would I'llsit and listen. But when you
have a book, you can write on itreally, I doubt that need to

(01:08:17):
investigate. And that's fine. SoI do think books are
fascinating. And I think weshould give them to give the
opportunity of filling this toother people. So that's why I
went into motorcycling really. Iwas a teacher of grammar and

(01:08:38):
literature for adolescence. Theywere not very good readers. They
were they were pretty terriblereaders at the time, we began
working together. And they wentinto Missouri to find ways to
help them to become betterreaders. And when I went to work
in the first month, sorry,schoolwide work that I was hired

(01:08:58):
as a reading teacher. I mean, Iwas there to try and help the
children to fall in love withbooks. And it's interesting that
once I got a girl, she was 10years old or 11. And I asked her
the first day of school, I askedher Do you like reading? And she

(01:09:21):
said no. I said not even alittle. No, I hate it. And you
could feel the impatience in hervoice. And I said, Okay, you
have to read that that'snecessary. But I can find
something interesting for you.

(01:09:42):
What movies do you enjoy? Andshe said all her movies. I said,
Okay, so she was an 11 year oldwho already loved all her
movies. So I had to find an allher book for her to read. And I
asked her to read like aparagraph. To read that very
slowly, and she couldn'tunderstand three words in a

(01:10:05):
sequence. So I said, Okay, Ihave to find a normal book for
11 year old, with as few wordsas possible. And we had immense
library in the classroom. We had3200 books in the classroom. So
I could find that there was thisbook for her, there was actually

(01:10:25):
a whole collection of thesebooks for her. And she read one
after the other. She had twoweeks to give the book back. She
read each in three days. Andwhen she finished all of them,
she said, I finished it and I,and I said, Yeah, you did. Oh,
that's a pity. And I said, Yeah,it's a pity, but I have
something else for you. And thenI tried to keep her interested.

(01:10:46):
And after six months, we went toa day trip somewhere. It's where
it was a water purifying placewe were going to visit. And she
was hugging a book in the bus.
While we were going there, shewas inside the book, reading.
And while we came back, she wasinside the book, reading, not
talking to anyone just readingso much. She talked to her

(01:11:10):
colleagues all the time. Butthat moment, she was really,
really. And when we arrived atschool, after the day trip, she
was hugging the book. And shestopped by me. And she said,
Gabriel, do you remember thatwhen I started in this school? I
hated reading and study? Yes, Ido, remember? And she said, Oh,

(01:11:32):
now I love it. And she just keptwalking. So it's completely
possible to in six months changethe relationship a person has
with books. And we have to trybecause they are the best thing
we did. As human beings, Ithink.

Well, I know that everyone will want to find out
more about you everyone. Checkout Lar Montessori in Brazil.
Gabriel I've learned so muchjust from our conversation every
time we speak and workingtogether with you. On monster
everywhere has been a delight.
And thank you so much for yourtime today. Is there anything
that you didn't get to say thatyou'd like to share with us?

Gabriel (01:12:14):
If every small thing?
Yes, thank you for inviting meto this podcast. much earlier
than then I know you personally,working together with Mozart
everywhere. And so when Iadmired your work, I watched
your videos at Montereynotebook. And when I went to
Amsterdam, I bought your bookimmediately. It was the first

(01:12:34):
book I bought when I got there.
So for me, it's really an honorand a pleasure to be here. You
can imagine how much this meansto me. So thank you very much.

Oh, I'm sorry, touched. Thank you, Gabriel.
So interesting. I know I'm goingto be thinking a lot more about
silent education after thatconversation. So I'll put the

(01:13:09):
links to Lar Montessori in theshow notes which you can find
over at the Montessori notebookcalm and click on the podcast
step. And now it's time fortoday's listener question.
Today's question is from Heidi.
My question is regarding myspouse, he tells me to lead the
way indicating that he wants meto learn all I can to
incorporate Montessoriprinciples at home. He's
supportive in my research, butrarely listens to parts of your

(01:13:30):
podcast that I share, or readsblog posts that I recommend for
him. He often interrupts herdaughter's activities that I
spend time planning orconstantly quizzes her to see
what she has learned. He's wellintentioned and loves her so
much. How do I gently guide himor really guide all of our
family to let her lead and stopinterrupting her are constantly
asking her questions. Thank youso much for helping me in this

(01:13:50):
situation. Yeah, well, I thinkthat Gabriel answered this
already so beautifully, early inthe episode, like not
necessarily jumping in with alot of information, but pointing
out how much the child isenjoying being able to do things
for themselves. And that it's agradual process, like not
expecting them to pick it up allin one day. It does take time.
So it depends also how much theyalready know. Like, if they

(01:14:12):
don't already know these kind ofprinciples, like not
interrupting the child or notquizzing the child all the time.
I love telling stories likeabout what I was doing with the
child and saying, and I was sotempted to step in. And then
what I did was, and they, theyworked it out a little by
themselves. And so you're kindof taking them on your journey
with them. Or that you tell themhow the child has been so busy

(01:14:36):
naming things and showing youwhat they know. And that you
found it so much more relaxing,not quizzing them all the time
or you realize that when we say,oh, what color is this? or What
sound does that make? It's a bitlike that you're testing them
all the time and wanting to makethem learn faster or something.
Or even maybe just having theconversation like why do we do
that anyway? Because when youask parents like why do we say
white colors is what color isthat we actually go Oh, I know.

(01:14:58):
Actually, no, it's just kind oflike how we were brought up, I
think. And they're learning somuch anyway without all these
quizzing, and it's so much morefun to, like, learn alongside
them. I love like, yeah, Iwonder what sound it makes?
Yeah, I heard it too. You know,and then the child's likely to
say, quack, quack quack alongwith you. So I really think that

(01:15:19):
modeling is the best thing thatwe can do to keep showing them
that there's a different way.
And that's a lot of what we doas Montessori guides. And I
guess, also to be careful thatwe're not judging them, because
likely, your partner also wantsto feel like they're doing a
good job. And often, we're onlytelling them when they get it
wrong. And also family, theymight also feel like we're

(01:15:41):
judging them in some way when wesay, oh, let's do it this way.
Because then they might think,oh, weren't you grateful for the
way that you were raised. And asibling who's raising their
children a different way mightthink that we're judging the way
that they parent and everyone'sdoing the best they can with the
information that they have. Andwe also need to remember, I
think that they're going to havetheir own relationship with the
child. So we hope that they areopen to getting on the same page

(01:16:05):
about the big things like Ithink it's important, you agree
on bedtime, or timeouts, ifyou're not going to do that, and
those kind of things. But thenlet them get on and parents the
way that they're going toparent, like let them do the
activity in the way that theywant to do it. And so just as we
don't want to control the child,we don't want to end up
controlling our partner. And Imentioned back in the beginning
of this season in Episode One,that we need to be so careful to

(01:16:28):
not like should on the otheradults in our lives, because
we're trying not to interferewith the child. And then we
start interfering with ourpartner and others in our lives.
So again, something to thinkabout. Another thing I like to
do is to think about what kindof way might be interesting for
them to listen. So you saidmaybe not blog posts or
podcasts. But someone might beinterested in the research or

(01:16:49):
someone that you know, from workwho they like it has, you've
studied using one story, and youcan talk about them as an
example. Someone might listen toan audio book, and another
person might read a shortarticle. So I kind of like to
say it's a drip drip dripmethod. Again, they're not
picking things up straight away.
So you can just give them alittle bits of information over
time. Also, like look forexamples that would appeal to

(01:17:10):
your partner. So like oneInstagram account that comes to
mind is Do you know what daddid? Ashton is a super fun dad
from Dominica. And they useMontessori principles with their
daughter. And not only is hesuper inspiring, he and his
partner are deaf, and I lovelearning from him. And so I'll
link his account in the shownotes because he might be
someone like that that might bemore relatable for your partner.

(01:17:31):
Definitely, we need to pick ourmoments. And this is not
something that I am great at atall. But you could say like, Oh,
I'd love to tell you aboutsomething I just learned about
Montessori, like when would be agood time. And then when you
actually make that time, youcould actually also give them
time to maybe tell you aboutsomething that they're
interested in as well. And thelast thing I think I would add

(01:17:54):
is that I once heard aninterview with a father who had
like something like eightchildren, and once a weekend sit
down with his partner. Andthey're talking about what each
of their children needed rightnow. And he wasn't watching
Sorry, but I couldn't think ofanything more Montessori in
looking at each child and seeingwhat their needs were, and if
there was anything that we couldbe doing to support them in the

(01:18:15):
coming week. So that might besomething interesting that your
partner might be open to doing.
That might be another way tostart Montessori in your house.
So that's it for today. I'll beback next Friday with another
episode of the podcast. And ifyou're listening to this episode
when it drops, keep the 11th ofmay free. Because Jennifer and I
are hosting a zoo book launchparty for the Montessori baby
book which comes out on thatday. The Zoom party is going to

(01:18:38):
be completely free to join andwe just want to celebrate his
birth with you all as we can'tbe doing it in person at the
moment with any book events. Sothis will be the next best thing
hanging out with you all in yourliving rooms right. And the
lovely Dr. eezs Aveda of theblack Montessori Education Fund
has agreed to be the host andit's going to be a fun and cozy

(01:18:59):
chat and a bit of a behind thescenes look at the making of the
book and answering yourquestions. So we hope you can
join us on the 11th of May. Thatwould be amazing. So goodbye for
now everyone, and I'll see youon podcast next Friday. Thanks
for joining me for theMontessori notebook podcast. The

(01:19:19):
podcast was edited by Luke Davisfrom film Bravo media and
podcasts are by here. To findout more about me and my online
courses visit the Montessorinotebook comm follow me on
Instagram at the Montessorinotebook for pick up a copy of
my book The Montessori toddlerfor its new pre call the
Montessori baby from your localbookstore, Amazon or where books

(01:19:41):
are sold. They're also availableas ebooks, audio books and are
being translated into over 20languages. I'll be back in a
week with more monitoringinspiration. And in the
meantime, perhaps you'll join mein spreading some more peace and
positivity around the world.

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S2 E3 A rich conversation with Gabriel Salomão of Lar Montessori in Brazil

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