Before the Timeline of Humanity

Creating a Remarkable Learning Tool

By Lawrence V. Schaefer

Since my training at Bergamo in 1970 and 1971, I have been struck by a missing historical timeline for the elementary Montessori program. We lacked a really effective timeline of human history, a timeline of all civilizations.

There is a Timeline of Civilizations, and some Montessori elementary teachers use it. Eleanor Honnegger, one of the Bergamo trainers, showed this timeline to the training class in 1970-71, but she did not present it. This Timeline of Civilizations, however, is difficult to use and is ineffective in inspiring student work.

Missing also was someone to embrace the challenge Maria Montessori set forth in the 1930s and published in her 1948 Erdkinder essay, to present “the history of humanity … as completely as possible.” She believed adolescence was a sensitive time for the development of a person’s humanity, and by humanity, she meant the study of how people created culture—the many hundreds of cultures.

But later, in the 1940s, when Montessori created Cosmic Education, it became clear that the presentation of the history of humans must begin in the elementary program. Adolescents study history at a higher, more thoughtful and critical level, but to do so as well as we would like, they must have a basic knowledge learned in elementary classes.

To embrace the challenge of presenting “the whole history of humanity” meant creating an effective and complete timeline of humanity–an awesome task. In the summer of 2005 at NAMTA’s Orientation to Adolescent Studies at Hiram College, OH, NAMTA Executive Director David Kahn asked me to take up this challenge and create a timeline of all human history. He said that the growing numbers of adolescent programs and teachers needed the proper framework to present all of human history. An effective Montessori timeline would provide it.

This moment in July 2005 was one of those special moments when a great challenge met great preparation and great enthusiasm. I was electrified by David’s request, and knew that this challenge was for me – a student of “Big History,” a PhD in Modern European and American history, a lover of timelines and an expert in Montessori timelines, an educator with many years of experience as an upper elementary teacher and 25 years with the Montessori adolescent.

So began a two-year “great work” in drawing, redrawing and then drawing a third time the Timeline of Humanity. I completed the project in the summer of 2007 and then published the timeline through the Lake Country Institute. Since then I have developed a guide to accompany the timeline and to assist teachers in using it.

As I wrote the timeline and guide, I traveled to Montessori elementary and adolescent programs around the world, from Hawaii to Ohio to New Zealand, presenting the timeline to teachers and students. The only way to determine the true effectiveness of the timeline was for teachers to present it and to observe student reaction. I was delighted by what I observed.

Adults and children alike responded with awe and wonder. The timeline spans the last 40,000 years of human civilization on earth and measures 18 feet in length, a physical manifestation of a very long, deep period of human time. It includes every major human culture.

I watched as students and teachers pored over the timeline. One high school student placed his hands over a fraction of the timeline. “I’ve only ever learned about this,” he said. “I’ve missed out on all the rest.” An elementary student asked what the key symbols stood for. When I told her they represent important or “key” inventions and discoveries, she searched the entire timeline. “I’m looking for the invention of art,” she explained. “I think that’s a really important invention and I want to see if it’s here.” This provoked a spirited discussion about how people decide what constitutes an important invention.

Red dragons on the timeline that depict challenging or negative forces from both within and from outside humankind sparked debate in an early adolescent program. One of the dragons represents the many different human languages. Some students felt this diversity of language was a good thing, not a negative. Others argued that the many languages created barriers to communication and could have been a factor in the beginnings of wars.

Students also liked the loose images that come with the timeline – modes of transportation, influential people in human history, great wonders of the world and fallen or collapsed civilizations. Eagerly, they searched for the proper section of the timeline so that they could place the images in the right time period. They talked about other images that would be appropriate to create and to place on the timeline.

One aspect of the study of history I was hoping to spark in the students was the consideration of the Why, the What, the How. I wanted students to see the connections and to explore why and how those connections occurred. Because the timeline reads both horizontally and vertically, students can discover what was happening in civilizations around the world at any given time. They can trace evolutions and changes in civilizations, and they often turned to me or to their teacher with questions: “How come these people started farming before these people?” and “Why did this civilization just end and why did it happen right then?”

When creating the Guide to the Timeline of Humanity, I included a number of “sweep” stories – stories designed to reflect the whole compass of an age in history and to spark student interest in the details of that age. I found that students loved these stories and I encouraged them to come up with stories of their own, researching the details and putting together a story about a particular age and a particular culture that fascinated them.

Having watched students and adults work with the timeline, I realized that not only is it an effective timeline for teaching the whole history of humanity, but it serves a deeper purpose, one that points to the rationale behind Montessori’s original challenge. The Timeline of Humanity inspires students to look into the human heart and mind and make judgments – distinguish the good from the bad, to celebrate the great achievements, acknowledge the mistakes and understand the consequences of human actions. They gain a deeper understanding of cultural, ethnic and group identities and are able to better understand themselves and to appreciate others. While critical thinking skills are important and give students a real leg up as they go on their educational path, even more important is the fact that, by studying the whole history of humanity, they are able to envision peace. They look at the end of the timeline and question where the human race is headed. They see the accomplishments and struggles in human history and wonder what we can learn from history to help us create a peaceful world today.

Lawrence V. Schaefer is co-founder of Lake Country School in Minneapolis and of the Lake Country Institute. He holds a doctorate in history and has long been a leader in developing a perspective on world history for Montessori educators.

The Timeline of Humanity comes with a detailed teacher’s guide. They are available through the Lake Country Institute at (612) 436-9860 or snelson@lakecountryinstitute.com or www.lakecountryinstitute.com