The Fully Alive Child

By Jamie Watts

Embark on a transformative journey of educational discovery with the author as they navigate from uncertainty about their children's education to embracing the Montessori approach. From personal experiences to observations, explore how the Montessori method fosters curiosity, independence, a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Montessori School of Education
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869324818

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The Fully Alive Child

Jamie Watts

A Montessori School of Education Publication

Copyright © 2024 Jamie Watts

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9798884849211

Cover design by: Josh Mode

Library of Congress Registration Number: TXU2416650

Printed in the United States of America

For AW Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Afterword

Acknowledgement

About The Author

Introduction

A New Normal

I didn’t always have a clear picture of what I wanted school to be like for my children.

We all gather a jumble of truisms and expectations (spoken and silent) about school from our childhood experiences: children should do their homework, ace tests, be respectful, etc. But parenting a messy, singing, sassy, beautiful, willful, confusing, hilarious child has a way of shattering assumptions. So, when the time came for me to decide how I should educate my own children, some serious soul-searching was required.

I looked to my own school experience for clues. My father was an educator, so academics were a big deal in my household. Good grades were expected. Conversations about world events and abstract concepts were common at the dinner table. And importantly, my parents cared about my opinions or, at least, pretended to. Even though we moved around a lot, my parents did what they could to keep my sister and I attending honors, gifted, and AP classes wherever we went.

Hence, my formal education included the good, the bad, and the ugly.

From my perspective as a young adult, here was the scorecard:

The good: I enjoyed school when I had a teacher willing and able to explore topics beyond the basic curriculum. Recess and lunch were usually the highlights of my day.

The bad: I was bored a lot of the time. The topics that did not interest me felt like a waste of time. Why in the world did I need to know the quadratic formula? Also, sitting still for long periods felt like torture.

The ugly: I was frequently bullied, and the toxic masculine shame from that took decades to heal.

I knew I wanted something better for my kids than what I experienced. In short, I wanted a place where they could explore their interests and retain their love of learning in a safe and respectful environment. I say retain their love of learning because I had already recognized, early in their development, that they were innately curious. They diligently worked puzzles, asked endless questions, and got into everything. In this behavior, I saw a burning desire to discover and understand the world around them. Their wide-eyed wonder was, and is, precious to me. There had to be something better out there than what I experienced.

I searched the words child-led learning on the internet, and an ad for a local Montessori school was listed among the tutoring services and home school curricula. I’d never heard of Montessori before. For all I knew, it might have been a race car or an obscure form of pasta. From the description, I became curious and quickly went down an internet rabbit hole on Montessori schooling. Now completely intrigued, I scheduled an appointment at the local school to observe a classroom. Yes, Montessori schools actually encourage you to come and observe.

Now, after teaching for roughly twenty years, earning multiple college degrees, and completing three Montessori certifications, I can more accurately define my goals for my children's education. And here’s what I would have advised my younger self, knowing what I know now:

Dear Younger Self,

Look at your child tearing across the playground, eyes shining with laughter, a fistful of twigs (in this case, imaginary ice cream cones), and you will see that they are experiencing an enviable time in their life. Deep in your soul, you know they are already living their best life.

Your fully alive child displays the seeds of curiosity, bravery, happiness, wisdom, patience, generosity, humility, and gratitude. Those traits will blossom over the next few decades because of their hard work and dedication. But the work is theirs, and so should be the credit.

The school they attend must see your child as a human being who is worthy of dignity, respect, and admiration. Their time and energy should not be wasted on proving their worth to adults.

Your child should be a full partner in their educational experience. Their agency, will, and wishes should be respected at every phase of the journey. Properly prepared adults should nurture their souls, inspire them to take on daring adventures and offer them necessary wisdom along the way.

But if in doubt, the adults should move aside. Much as the proverb first, do no harm cautions doctors against over-treating patients, the same mentality should be displayed in the classroom. Your child’s teachers should practice minimally invasive education.

They’re a person, not a product.

Sincerely,

Older Self

P.S. Buy Apple stock.

Dr. Montessori put it more poetically, We shall be confronted by a child not as he was considered before a powerless being an empty vessel that must be filled with our wisdom. His dignity will arise in its fullness in front of our eyes as he reveals himself as the constructor of our intelligence, as the being who, guided by the inner teacher, in joy and happiness works indefatigably, following a strict time-table, to the construction of that marvel of nature: Man. We, the human teachers, can only help the great work that is being done, as servants help the master. (Montessori, 2021)

Everyone knows that children are amazing. We love our kids and want them to become the best possible versions of themselves. This desire comes from deep within us; when our children are born, some new part of our hearts and minds open up to receive this tiny miracle. We become different people in the blink of an eye.

But, despite our head-over-heels love for our children, we come to the relationship with our own social, emotional, and cultural baggage that makes things difficult from day one. We communicate our love in countless ways through service, generosity, patience, etc. But, the baggage we carry affects how we treat them, too. Inherited cultural norms, played out in our behavior, give children a very different idea about how adults see them.

Children get the message loud and clear from adults, educators included, that they are naturally troublesome and that rewards and punishments are needed to get them to do pretty much anything worthwhile. When you are good, you get praise or privileges. When you are bad, you get spanked or grounded. Without these interventions, it is assumed children will become useless, mean, and/or wild.

To illustrate, let me tell a story:

Bob pulls into the parking lot at work about five minutes late. The traffic was terrible. Knowing that excuse won’t fly with his boss, Bob tries to sneak in the back door to get to his desk. However, when he opens the door, Bob finds his boss, Jim, waiting.

Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Jim asks.

I… Well, traffic was bad, Bob stammers.

Traffic was bad, hmm? Jim responds.

Bob nods his head.

Well, why didn’t you leave earlier? Jim asks. Everyone else was able to get here on time.

Maybe they come a different way? I don’t know, Bob says.

Are you getting sassy with me, Bob? Jim asks, his tone sharpening.

No, Bob looks down.

No, what? Jim asks.

No, Mr. Sanders.

A pause.

Am I going to have to call and remind you to leave earlier in the morning? Would taking away your break room privileges help you remember?

No. No. I can do it. I just need another chance. Bob begs.

Jim crosses his arms and stares at Bob.

I need you to make better choices, Bob.

Bob nods, It won’t happen again.

In today’s society, this would be a typical conversation between an adult and a child. But, when we imagine it between two adults, the toxicity becomes clear. Jim’s a jerk, right? You’d quit on the spot if your boss talked to you that way. At least, I hope you would.

The Observation

Reading about Montessori doesn’t truly prepare you for your first in-person observation of a Primary (3-6-year-old) classroom. That’s because it sounds too good to be true, like some kind of Lilliputian utopia. A couple of dozen little kids in a room of beautiful, fragile, and expensive wooden and glass objects with minimal adult interference - what could go wrong? Going into the observation, I think I half-expected to see some kind of Lord Of The Flies meets Chuck E. Cheese free-for-all. Nothing would be further from the truth. 

The Directress led me into a work/break room that shared a wall with the classroom. A sizable one-way mirror had been installed on the wall-in-common for observation. She then turned off the light so we could more clearly view the children. She explained that every morning, students have a three-hour work cycle when they practice lessons they have been invited to and receive presentations on lessons they’re ready to work on. They can choose any lesson they like and work on them as long as they want.

Except for a large white refrigerator, the brightly lit room was entirely outfitted with child-sized everything: tables, chairs, brooms, dustpans, shelves, etc. The walls and shelves were painted the same shade of white, giving the whole room an ethereal feel. The little chairs had blue plastic seats on brushed metal frames, and the tables were constructed from light wood—possibly pine. In one of the room's corners, two kid-sized, cozy, upholstered chairs were placed on top of a vibrantly colored rug. Commercial tile with white and gray speckling covered the floor; an open space had a blue elliptical line. There were two or three wall art pieces, but I don't remember what they depicted.

The highlights, visually, were the contents of the shelves. Each shelf on the approximately twenty low bookcases held several fascinating lessons: complete sets of materials in attractive wicker baskets, elegant wooden boxes, or bright plastic food trays. There were also miniature flags, colorful wooden cups with matching colored pencils, removable blue geometric shapes set into pink metal frames, a tall cabinet with strings of multicolored bead chains, a few globes, some house plants, and various other oddities.

Some children sat at the tables or on the floor in front of little mats, working lessons with their hands. Some students watched the others work. Some students wandered around, looking at the objects on the shelves. One of the teachers sat in a tiny chair next to a child, demonstrating a lesson. The other teacher crouched in a corner of the room, observing the students. Once or twice during my observation, that teacher, an assistant, rose and went to aid a child who appeared to be having difficulty.

Contrary to my expectations, no child ran, screamed, or threw anything across the classroom at any time during my visit. In fact, the whole mood of the little community was calm, focused, and content. It wasn’t library-quiet; there was a gentle hum of activity. Students spoke with quiet-ish voices; each took great care scooting in their chairs so they didn’t make a scraping sound on the tile, and everyone placed materials carefully on surfaces that would otherwise have made a loud noise. It was… surreal.

Honestly, I couldn’t imagine my children, or any child I knew, acting this way. Years later, while conducting an observation, one father asked me playfully if we drug the children. I quickly learned that parents who come to the classroom for the first time need to know that their little fireball will do well there. Most of the time, this story helps.

Dr. Montessori observed about her students:

All normalized children acted in a uniform manner, i.e. they continued to work concentrated on something, serene and tranquil. This, at the time, was surprising, because it had never before been seen in small children. They also showed a special characteristic not seen in adults and not before seen in children: they worked with the maximum effort, and continued their activity till the task was completely finished and with exactitude. (Montessori, 2021)

The Directress drew my attention to a student on one side of the classroom sporting a blue, waterproof apron. The child stood at a table, painstakingly transferring water from a red plastic pitcher to a smaller brown vase, juice glass, and porcelain bowl. For the sake of visibility, the water was artificially tinted blue. The child poured water into the appropriate containers and put the pitcher down. Then, she assessed the water depth in each one. Seeing that one of the containers wasn't quite as full as the others, she poured a little more. Then, she did another check of the levels and, this time, was satisfied.

She sat in her little chair and thought about what