In today’s blog post we are diving deep into the ebbs and flows of the three-hour Montessori work cycle. Once the children settle into their day, you can see them with a sense of happiness and satisfaction absorbed in their work. There is a productive hum in the studio. Then, about an hour into the morning work cycle, there is a noticeable rise in movement and voices, and it appears the children begin to lose interest in their work. Dr. Maria Montessori termed this natural restlessness as “False Fatigue”.

She further observed that this period lasts for about 20 minutes and the children used this time to get to the next level of their work, to find their focus and concentration in their own time. Dr. Montessori explained this phenomenon as the child searching for their “maximum interest.” She went on to explain that this period of “false fatigue” is necessary for the child to get absorbed in more challenging work in the studio.  

Consider false fatigue in the same way you would take a break for fresh air, or to stand up and get away from your desk. The child experiences the same “mental” need, the need for a reset so they may get back to properly concentrating on their work again.

As guides, we are trained to observe and stay back and put our full faith in the child and the Montessori environment. When the guides step back and avoid disrupting the period of false fatigue, the children have the opportunity to return to their work with more focus and concentration than the prior period.

It is part of our inner work (takes so much practice) to not work on mitigating the restlessness. A Montessori Musing Place writes: “By anxiously stepping in and ‘managing’ at this point, teachers (guides) replace the child’s will with their own.” That observation sums up the impact of “doing something” about false fatigue. Interfering may actually make the period of false fatigue last longer.

“Work chosen by the children, and carried out without interference, has its own laws. It has a beginning and ending like a day, and it must be allowed to come full circle.” ~ E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work

“In Montessori education, children learn to learn by learning… Academic skills are essential to learning and knowing, not the aim of learning and knowing.”

The Authentic American MontessoriSchool, p. 43

Montessori materials are a crucial part of the prepared environment forming the very basis of budding attributes of independence, curiosity, concentration, intrinsic motivation, care of self, care of the environment (social responsibility and citizens of the world), and academic preparation. Beyond the direct subject and skill presented by a given activity, lie indirect- yet critical- opportunities for the formation of these attributes, leading to the development of the whole child.  

The direct goals of the Practical Life activities like spooning, hand washing, window washing, sweeping, sewing, brooming, etc. are: independence, broadening the child’s experience of their immediate environment, care of self and the environment, control of movement, and grace and courtesy. Indirect goals include: hand-eye coordination, motor control, preparing the wrist, and development of the pincer-grip for writing. Understanding of freedom and boundaries also largely comes into play in this area of learning. 

The direct goals of Sensorial activities like the pink tower, color tablets, rough and smooth boards, or the thermic tablets include: refinement of senses, language for the different qualities that the matter possesses, (rough, smooth, hot, cold, dark, darker, darkest), and strengthening of muscle memory. 

The direct goal of Math and Language is academic preparation. The indirect goals include:  independence, critical thinking, problem-solving, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation. The goals can be broken down even further. For example, when a child is using the Movable Alphabet, our goal is not to make sure a word is spelled correctly, but rather, to work on actual word-building (using letter sounds to make words/writing) and further decoding them as a natural next step to reading. Words could look like “osum” (for awesome), “luv” (for love). This all ties in as an example of literary independence and critical thinking. 

The goals for Culture – Botany, Science, and Geography- are very similar to that of the other areas, and also open young minds to the world outside, and their role/relationship with and within it, as the citizens of the world. 

“The developing child not only acquires the faculties of man:  strength, intelligence, language; but, at the same time, he adapts the being he is constructing to the conditions of the world about him.”  

Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 61

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Ascent’s approach to freedom and boundaries at the Spark level, inspired by Maria Montessori, is an approach blended with compassion, observation, and clarity. Freedom is experienced through great choice within the prepared environment; boundaries come into introduction and practice via the grace and courtesy lessons which lay a clear foundation for respect for the studio space, respect for each living being, and the larger environment. When introducing a boundary, a guide’s goal is to be concise, clear, consistent, and bring in reason and safety for the whole group in our words and actions. 

Some quick examples to explain the above would be – 

• We use gentle hands to keep ourselves and others safe, 
• We use walking feet in the studio; our hands are for helping, caring, working, and playing 
• I see that you are upset but I can’t let you hit me. 
• I am going to put this material away for now and you can try again tomorrow with gentle hands.  

“The task of the adult then is not to inject or teach discipline, but to offer the child suitable forms by means of which he can individually and socially follow and express the dictates of his inner discipline.” (Joosten, p. 58). 

 

 

 

The bead chain cabinet has visitors on a daily. These colorful-looking chains draw the attention of the learners old and new. The older ones find joy each time they can count further than the previous time, and the younger ones await a lesson earnestly. This visually appealing work requires both manual dexterity and persistence. Like any math or sensorial work, this lesson creates a sensorial impression of bigger concepts in their brain. This material illustrates the squares and cubes of numbers from 1 to 10. The chains sitting on the shelves illustrate the squares of numbers while the hanging chains illustrate the cubes of numbers. This material takes children from the concrete to the abstract.  At the simplest level, it is a counting exercise to practice the order of numbers -that after 39 comes 40, etc.  At the next level, this material illustrates skip counting, counting by ones, twos, threes, etc. all the way up to counting by tens. Towards the end of the Spark program and in the lower elementary, this material serves as indirect preparation for the memorization of the multiplication tables.  This material also illustrates the squares and cubes of these numbers and their relationships with each other.