Motivation #2: Freedom and Responsibility

I'm reading a book called Montessori Today by Paula Polk Lillard. I recommend it if you are, like me, a conceptual rather than sensory-oriented thinker and get bogged down by descriptions of classrooms and materials. This book is much more about the general ideas behind the method. The stages or "sensitive periods" of learning, which always sounded so strange and discouraging to me, now make a lot more sense.

She talks about how Montessori environments strive to foster motivation through responsible freedoms. In other words, freedom does not mean "anything goes". It means setting things up so that children can use freedom rightly.

This is something I've been thinking about. The problem, for me, is that a lot of limits are somewhat accidental, in the sense that they are not really related to reality (what a phrase!).

Let's say it is maintained in a Montessori classroom that a child may not use the blocks for pretend play (right now my 3 year old is sitting on my lap involved in an elaborate game where the main characters are poker chips).

What is the "reality" of this restriction? In my admittedly limited understanding of Montessori, this is a convention. The Montessori teacher presumably wants the child to concern himself with the objects as they exist in space, not as they might be invested with imaginary significance. But in fact, this investing of objects with imaginary significance is a rudimentary use of symbolism which is a wonderful human capacity.

Here is where my skeptical side kicks in and I wonder if how the fictitious Montessori teacher wants the child to think of the objects, is really the best way to think about them.

As a parent, I might make a rule that children ought to brush their teeth. The goal is cleanliness, preservation of dental health and a habit of hygiene. Brushing teeth is a means to these ends, I suppose. There is no ritualistic significance to the act of brushing teeth, in itself.

So many things seem like this. One of the major themes of the Radical Unschooling site seems to be a philosophical attempt to get beyond the arbitrariness of many conventions to the truth that resides behind it. It is a good endeavour, I believe. Because often the things we take for granted as immanent are in fact contingent and matters of convention.

No conclusions here, just some processing.