The Montessori Elementary Material / The Advanced Montessori Method

The first lessons in grammar which I gave to children go back fully sixteen years. I first attempted the education of defectives in the "Scuola Magistrale Ortofrenica" in Rome in the year 1899 following a course of lectures I had given to teachers in the normal school of our capital. In this experiment I went far enough with primary work to prepare some of the defective children for successful examinations in the public schools. A very brief and incomplete summary of my pedagogical studies delivered in the teacher's courses is given in the appendix to this volume.

The teaching of grammar was not at that time so complete as it has since been made in my work with normal children; even so it was a marked success. Grammar was actually lived by the children, who became deeply interested in it. Even those wretched children who came, like rubbish thrown out of the public schools, directly off the street or from the insane asylums, passed delightful half hours of joyous laughter over their exercises in grammar. Here are some excerpts from the old pamphlet of 1900 giving an idea of the didactic material which was then used and some notion of a lesson on nouns. "As each word is read or written for every object-lesson, for every action, printed cards are being assembled which will later be used to make clauses and sentences with words that may be moved about just as the individual letters were moved about in making the words themselves. The simple clauses or sentences should refer to actions performed by the children. The first step should be to bring two or more words together: e.g., red-wool, sweet-candy, four-footed dog, etc. Then we may go on to the sentence itself: The wool is red; the soup is hot; the dog has four feet; Mary eats the candy, etc. The children first compose the sentences with their cards; then they copy them in their writing books. To facilitate the choice of the cards, they may be arranged in special boxes: for instance, one box may be labeled noun; or the boxes may be distinguished thus: food, clothing, animals, people, etc. There should be a box for adjectives with compartments for colors, shapes, qualities, etc. There should be another for particles, with compartments for articles, conjunctions, prepositions, etc. A box should be reserved for actions, with the label verbs above it, containing compartments for the infinitive, present, past and future. The children gradually learn by practise to take their cards from the boxes and put them back in their proper places. They soon learn to know their "word boxes" and they readily find the cards they want among the colors, shapes, qualities, etc., or among animals, foods, etc. Ultimately the teacher will find occasion to explain the meaning of the big words written at the top of the drawers, noun, adjective, verb, etc., and this will be the first step into the subject of grammar.

NOUNS

We may call persons and objects by their name, their noun. People answer if we call them, so do animals. Inanimate objects, however, never answer, because they cannot; but if they could they would. For example, if I say Mary, Mary answers; if I say peas, the peas do not answer, because they cannot. You children do understand when I call an object and you bring it to me. I say, for example, book, beans, peas. If I don't tell you the name of the object, you don't understand what I am talking about; because every object has a different name. This name is the word that stands for the object. This name is a noun.

Whenever I mention a noun to you, you understand immediately the object which the noun represents: tree, chair, pen, book, lamb, etc. If I do not give this noun, you don't know what I am talking about; for, if I say simply bring me ... at once, I want it, you do not know what I want, unless I tell you the name of the object. Unless I give you the noun, you do not understand. Thus every object is represented by a word which is its name; and this name is a noun. To understand whether a word is a noun or not, you simply ask: Is it a thing? Would it answer if I spoke to it? or Could I carry it to the teacher? For instance, bread: yes, bread is an object; table: yes, it is an object; conductor: yes, the conductor would answer, if I were to speak to him.

Let us look through our cards now. I take several cards from different boxes and shuffle them. Here is the word sweet. Bring me sweet! Is there anything to answer when I call sweet? But you are bringing me a piece of candy! I didn't say candy: I said sweet. And now you have given me sugar! I said sweet! Sweet, you see, is not an object You cannot guess what I have in mind when I say sweet. If I say candy, sugar, then you understand what I want, what object I am thinking about, because the words candy, sugar, stand for objects. Those words are nouns."[2]

This summary, however, fails to give a real idea of the success of these lessons. When I said with a tone of decision, as if I could not think of the necessary word, "Bring me—bring me—bring me—," the children would gather round me, looking fixedly at my lips, like so many little dogs, waiting for me to throw something for them to fetch. They were in fact ready to run and get what I wanted. But the word refused to come. "Bring me—, bring me—." Finally in great impatience I cried, "But bring it to me quick—I want it." Then their faces lit up and they would laughingly cry, "But bring you what? What is it you want? What shall we bring you?"

This was the real lesson on the noun, and when, after great difficulty, the word "sweet" came out, the children would run and bring me every possible object that was sweet. I would refuse each one in turn. "No, I didn't ask for candy! No, I didn't ask for sugar!" The children would look at the object they had in their hands, half laughing, half puzzled and beginning to realize that sweet was not a name, that it was not a noun. These first lessons, which seemed something like commands that needed the help of the children to express themselves, brought the children to understand some part of speech, while evoking, at the same time, vivid and interesting scenes. They furnished the original impulse to the development we have reached to-day in our lessons on grammar. For such lessons we have adopted the term "commands." But with normal children these "commands" were gradually multiplied and evolved. They are no longer entrusted to the teacher's ingenuity; nor are they dependent solely upon her dramatic sense—something essential if she is to stimulate the weak nervous reactions of little defectives and so gain and hold their attention. The "commands" to-day are written and may be read. They are combined with the card-exercises where the cards are read in silence and interpreted through actions—a method which grew spontaneously and with such great success from the work in the "Children's House." That is why, to-day, we speak in the elementary courses of "reading commands" or even of "writing commands."

The study of grammar has finally been arranged in a methodical series of exercises and the material has been prepared after careful and rigid experiment. Those who read this method will get a clear idea of the teacher's task. She has a material ready for use. She need not bother to compose a single sentence nor to consult a single program. The objects at her disposal contain all that is necessary. She need know simply what they are and how they are to be used. The lessons which she must give are so simple, and require so few words, that they become lessons rather of gesture and action than of words. It must be borne in mind, further, that the work is not as uninteresting as would appear from this arid summary. The actual school is a real intellectual laboratory, where the children work all the time and by themselves. After the material has been presented to them, they recognize it and like to hunt for it. They know how to find for themselves the precious objects which they want to use. They often exchange materials and even lessons with other children. The few lessons the teacher gives connect, as it were, a system of live wires, which set in motion activities quite disproportionate to the energy expended in the simple act she performs. She pushes, so to speak, a button and here a bell rings, there a light goes on, there a machine begins to buzz. Very often the teacher sees a whole week go by without any need of intervention on her part.

And yet what delicacy and tact are necessary properly to "offer" this material, to give in an interesting way a lesson calculated to exert a direct action upon the child's spiritual activity! How skilful we must be to leave all the child's spontaneous impulses free to develop themselves, to keep careful watch over so many different individual impulses! This we must do if we are to "keep the lamp burning"! When, for example, on passing a table where the child has analyzed a sentence with the colored cards, the teacher shifts about, as if in play, one of the little slips, not only must she be possessed of the psychological insight necessary for intervening in this child's work at the proper time, but she must also have in mind the grammatical rule of which she wishes to give the child his first intuition. It follows that every single act of the teacher, however insignificant apparently, is, like the acts of the priest in the service, of the greatest importance, and should come from a consciousness thoroughly awake, and full of potentiality. Instead of giving out what she has in herself, the teacher must bring out the full possibilities of the children.

The teacher's extrinsic preparation is a matter of thorough acquaintance with the material. It should be so much a part of her that she knows at once what is needed for each individual case as soon as it arises. Actual practise soon develops this skill.

The exercises are performed with these little packages of specially prepared cards. The most important problem (for Italian grammar) is in the agreements; the agreement of article and noun, as we have already shown, the agreement of noun and adjective, and later on of pronoun and verb, and pronoun and noun. There are two kinds of exercises, which we have termed respectively "analyses" and "commands."

The commands involve both work done by the teacher and exercises performed by the children. The purpose here is to clarify the meanings of words and often to suggest a practical interpretation of them. This explanation is followed by an exercise of the children themselves, who in turn practically interpret the meaning of one or more sentences written on a card which they read just as they did in the first exercises of reading in the "Children's House." On this card are the words which the teacher has just explained. In our experiments we gave these lessons immediately after "silence" just as we did for reading in the "Children's House." All the children, however, do not necessarily take part in these executions—oftenest it is only a group of children, sometimes one child alone, again, at other times, almost all of them. If possible the commands are given in another room, while the other children continue their work in the large hall. If this is not possible it takes place in the same room. These commands might be called "an introduction to dramatic art," for right there little dramatic scenes full of vivacity and interest are "acted out." The children are singularly delighted in working for the one exact "interpretation" which a given word requires.

The analyses, on the other hand, are of quite different character. "Analysis" is done at the table. It is work which requires quiet and concentration. While the command gives the intuition, the analysis provides for the maturation of the idea. The grammar boxes are used in these exercises. In a larger compartment which each box contains, are placed several slips bearing a printed sentence; for example, Throw down your handkerchief. The child draws a slip and places it to one side on the table. Then he takes from the different boxes the colored slips corresponding to the different words in the sentence and places them side by side one after the other. In this way he composes the entire sentence: Throw down your handkerchief. The child is actually doing here a very simple thing: he is merely translating into colored cards the sentence which is printed on his slip. He composes this sentence in the same way in which he has already composed words with the moveable alphabet. But here the exercise is even more simple because the child need not remember the sentence, for it is there right before his eyes. His attention must be concentrated on other facts, so that all intellectual effort in the composition of the sentence itself is eliminated. The child has to note the colors and the position of the cards in the different boxes, since he must take the cards now from the noun box, now from the adverb box, now from that of the preposition, etc.; and the colors together with the position (each section has a title, as we have already seen) strengthen his consciousness of a classification of words according to grammar.

But what really makes this exercise in analysis so interesting is the teacher's repeated permutation of the different cards. As she goes by a table she changes, as though in fun, the position of a card, and in this way provokes the intuition of grammatical rules and definitions. Indeed, when she takes out the card, which refers to some new part of the exercise, the remaining sentence with its changed meaning emphasizes the function of the part of speech which has been moved. The effect shows a distant analogy to the light that pathology and vivisection throw on physiology. An organ which fails in its function illustrates exactly that function, for never does one realize the precise use of an organ more clearly than when it has lost its power of functioning. Furthermore the removal of the words demonstrates that the meaning of the sentence is not given by the word alone but by the order of the word in the sentence, and this makes a great impression on the child. He sees the same cards first in a chaotic mass and then in an orderly arrangement. What was first a collection of meaningless words has suddenly become the expression of a thought.

From now on the child begins to experience a keen interest in the order of words. The meaning, the only thing the child is after, is no longer hidden in confusion. He begins to enjoy subtle permutations, changes which, without destroying the expression of a thought, obscure its clarity, complicate it, or make it "sound wrong." It is here that the teacher must have at her fingertips the rules governing the position of the various parts of speech. This will give her the necessary "lightness of touch," perhaps even the opportunity of making some brilliant little explanation, some casual observation, which may suddenly develop in the child a profound "grammatical insight." When the child has understood this he will become a deep "strategist" in mobilizing, disposing and moving about these cards which express thought; and if he really succeeds in mastering this secret, he will not be easily satiated with so fascinating an exercise. No one but a child would ever have the patience to study grammar so profoundly and at such length. This subtle work is, after all, not so easy for the teacher. That is why the material must be such as to suggest each step in detail. The teacher should be relieved as much as possible of the labor of preparation and research: for her delicate work of intervention is a task hard enough in itself. In preparing this material we have worked for her: we have acted as the workmen who produce the various objects necessary to life; she has but to "live" and "make live." This will show still more clearly how far from truth is the modern conception of pedagogy which attempts to realize its desire for freedom in the school by saying to the teacher, "Try to respond to the needs of the pupils without being conscious of your authority over them." When we ask a teacher to respond to the needs of the inner life of man, we are asking a great deal of her. She will never be able to accomplish it, unless we have first done something for her by giving her all that is necessary to that end. Here is our material:—

Commands on Nouns

These commands lend themselves to a little dramatic scene. It is really a sort of play, which the children recite.

The tendency to recitation and to imitation is very strong and often well developed at the age of five years. Little children experience a singular fascination in pronouncing the words with sentiment and in accompanying them with gestures. One can hardly imagine the simplicity of the little dramatic acts which interest the five year old child. Nothing but actual experiment could possibly have revealed it to us. One day, in fact, our little children were invited to be present at a dramatic entertainment given by the older children of the Public Schools. They followed it with really surprising interest. However, they remembered only three words of the play they had heard; but with these three words they made up a little dramatic action of their own, which they repeated over and over again the following day.

The commands of these "call" cards are, accordingly, real plays for our little ones. The child calls, pronouncing the name with a sort of sustained drawl; the child who is called comes forward; then the same thing is done with the other names, and each child obeys as he is called. Then the incomplete calls begin: blonde! blonde! beautiful! And no one moves! This makes a great impression on the children. Imperative commands, like requests, lend themselves to active dramatic action. Peter has been called and has brought his chair; George has brought the cube; Louis has taken out a frame; but Charles sits there intent, expectant, while the child calls out,—But bring it to me, bring it to me quickly! And how expressive we found the vain request,—Come, come! please give me a kiss,—come, come! At last the cry,—Mary! come! brings the resulting action and Mary runs to give the kiss which has been so long invoked!

These little "plays" require a real study of the parts, and the children rehearse their different rôles over and over again.

V

Analyses

The material for word analysis consists of small cards for articles (tan), nouns (black) and adjectives (brown). There is one box with three compartments, each section marked with a card bearing the respective title: article, noun, adjective. At the front of the box is a space for other cards containing printed sentences to be analyzed.

Descriptive Adjectives

The child is to read the sentences, find the objects described in them, and finally build the sentences with his cards as follows: suppose the card reads:

The child finds the three colored tablets used in the familiar exercise of the "Children's House" for the education of the sense of color. He places these tablets on his table. Then he builds the phrases out of his word cards:

Beside the completed expression he places the green color-tablet. Passing to the next phrase, he does not disturb the words the and color. He removes only the word green and substitutes for it the adjective blue, at the same time removing the green tablet and substituting for it the blue. Similarly, for the third phrase, he changes the adjective, putting the red tablet at the end. Thus the three different objects were distinguished only by the adjective:

All the phrases and sentences refer to objects used in the previous educational material. Occasionally the teacher will have to prepare something herself (e.g., hot, cold, warm, or iced water; clear water; colored water). For this exercise on water, the box contains six slips with the six printed phrases. In the box-sections, the child finds the corresponding word-cards which are exactly in the number needed for the exercise (not corresponding, that is, to the number of words in the phrases, since the articles and nouns are not repeated). There are five groups of such exercises, dealing with various kinds of sensation.

The teacher who is observing notices whether the child has taken the right objects; if so, she proceeds to the permutations.

Permutations

At this point, the teacher should recall (in dealing with Italian) the grammatical rules for the position of adjectives, some of which (the fundamental ones) will certainly be very useful to her in executing these first permutations:—

I. In general, the adjective follows the noun. If placed before the noun, it is less conspicuous; if placed after, it assumes more importance and has a different force.

II. When the adjective is used to signify the exclusive superlative of a quality, it is not only placed after the noun, but is preceded by the article. (Umberto il buono, "Humbert the Good.")

Example:—The child has composed the following phrase with his cards: il triangolo rettangolo "the right-angled triangle." The teacher can interchange the words thus: il rettangolo triangolo, "the triangle right-angled." Similarly also, for other phrases:—

Both the meaning and the child's habits show him the normal position of the adjective. In some phrases, such as,

the placing of the adjective before the noun renders the meaning vague, figurative, emotional, or generic, whereas it would be clearly descriptive and precise were the adjective in its normal position:

(In English the normal position of the adjective is before the noun. The permutation develops a strong rhetorical flavor, of which the child will become conscious later in his studies on poetic inversions.—Tr.)

After the teacher has made these changes, if they have interested the child, she may say for example: "The adjective comes after its noun" (for Italian); "The adjective comes before its noun" (for English). In this way she will have given a lesson in theoretical grammar.

Inflection of Adjectives

Another exercise to be done at the table deals with the formation of the singular and plural of adjectives in the two genders. This exercise brings the child in contact with a great many adjectives of quality. Two series, one of twenty masculine, the other of twenty feminine adjectives (in the two numbers) and two other series, twenty singulars and twenty plurals (in the two genders), form four groups of cards, one-half of which (tied separately) serves to direct the placing of the other half. Here are the words in their groups:

Here, just as with the four noun forms (masculine, feminine, singular and plural), class games may be found useful. The plural forms may be dealt out to the class, while one child reads aloud the singulars, one after the other. The child, who, in a given case, has the proper plural, reads his card in answer. Similarly, for masculine and feminine.

Logical and Grammatical Agreement of Nouns and Adjectives