Choice and Trust
In our last newsletter, we mentioned four principles of a Montessori program: interest, choice, trust, and accountability. Today, as we close in on completion of the classroom, we’re thinking a lot about the interactions between choice and trust.
It’s not fair to plunge a child who has not had a lot of experience with a Montessori environment into total free choice. That’s overwhelming and frightening, and leads to children feeling stuck instead of liberated. So we support choice by releasing it slowly, introducing just a few key materials at a time, and observing children with great care. We believe with our whole selves that every child is capable of (and deserves) true freedom within the limits of responsibility to the community. So we hold that vision of the child for each child to step into without pressure or fear.
Time and again, we’ve seen children flourish. Each one does it in their own time, via their own path. Our work is to help them find that path, and then to help them build it, one step at a time.