Discovering children … and ourselves

By Paul Clement Czaja

Every child is a being ascending.

Unique among beings in nature, the human child is beyond evolving and has been gifted with unique powers enabling him or her to ascend to being just a little less than an angel.

As this child grows up he or she becomes a person vastly apart from all other creatures. The developing child can not only think but also create, possesses not just a body and brain but an imagination and a will to change the world for the better.

Each new generation stands on the shoulders of its parents and can see possibilities we could never see.

When Maria Montessori tells us to “discover the child” she is placing before us not only a challenge of observation but also a challenge of respect. What an honor it is for us to be parentcators—educators of parents—and educators of the children placed in our care.

The children are ascending right before our eyes!

Remember that it is the personal desire to have communion with another person that brings about efforts of communication and eventually the creation of a mutually nurturing community such as the family, the neighborhood, the church, the school—and the World Wide Web.

Just as rain falls from the heavens helping the “green glory” of plants to happen from the inside out, so too grace falls down upon all of us making each one of us wonders day by day from the inside out, a little bit more glorious than the day before.

All of this is steeped in mystery, but I am certain that more than mere matter, we at our very core are spiritual. (Mathematicians are finding that even when we look deep down in mere matter we discover the presence of mysterious fractals suggesting the spiritual influence there too.)

As primary educators we must observe, respect and respond to the spiritual potential of our children.

Write this down somewhere: Glory’s scientific name is “loving-kindness”—and witnessing glory calls forth glory. Deep down in the heart of our potential to be a loving-kind person we find this startling presence of fractal-like glory.

I am philosophically a personalist and an existentialist—which means everyday I choose to be for a good purpose—to be a caring gardener of children as they become more and more glorious because of all the loving-kindness falling on them—a loving-kindness that endures forever.

The first novel I ever read from beginning to end was Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. I was in grade school and borrowed the book from our local public library because I liked the cover, which depicted a boy about my age wearing a blue cap and jacket and a red scarf blowing in the wind, ice skating on a frozen creek. I did not own ice skates but I enjoyed roller-skating on the sidewalks around my home in the Bronx.

It was such a great story that I became lost in it and before I knew it I had read the whole thing. By chance, I then went back to look at the cover again and noticed on the bottom the words: by Mary Mapes Dodge.

Up to that moment I was so completely involved with enjoying the story that it had never dawned on me that it had been written by someone!

At school we all had been required to copy this or that—and never asked to write something on our own, never asked to be an author. I suddenly realized not only had the story about Hans ice skating in Holland been a delight but that another human person had created it. There were authors in this world—and perhaps I could write something on my own and be an author too.

It was in college later on that I came to realize that there were real human beings within every academic subject—and that to learn any subject area truly, one would have to get into the biography of those who had been part of creating its specifics. For example, as an educator presenting the mathematical details of the Pythagorean Theory, I would be limiting it to mere dry facts if I did not tell the story of the Greek man, Pythagoras, from whose fascinating life (mind/heart/soul) that insight into mathematics originated.

The same would be true of course in history. It is only a small part of the truth to know that “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.” Who was this explorer and what life challenges did he and his crew face on that historic journey?

Also every bit of science has someone with a terrific story as the discoverer. And the full study of literature must include a knowing the real live authors. When I first read Robert Browning’s poetry, I was soon led to his letters and his wonderful relationship and marriage to Elizabeth Barrett—and then, of course, to her writings. It all became intensely interpersonal—and therefore most meaningful.

Whenever we as educators introduce a learning opportunity to students we must keep in mind that existential education always involves life answering life.

If we limit the opportunities to intellectual facts we are missing the wholeness of the subject matter—and the wholeness of the learner. All knowledge is derived from personal experience and sharing it must remain full of the personal character and personal relationships. Education is purposed to enhance personal life not narrowly but superabundantly.

In a Montessori school the child’s quest for learning is fundamentally a quest for true freedom.

It is our responsibility to “discover the child” given us—and to help that child begin the journey of self-discovery.

If we want learning to become a lasting life-learning and not a shallow only-for-a-quiz, here-today-gone-tomorrow type of study we have to respect the whole child, not just his or her mind. We must engage the learner’s personal will—the intentionality that says: “Yes! I want this!” Children are persons not robots and so must be given the freedom to be whom they truly are—and to do the things they are meant to do at the heart of their up-spiraling development.

Our role is to respect what the child needs and to provide it in a manner that catches the child’s interest and inspires engagement.

We are all more than we can ever comprehend—and yet we each must try to complete that revelation that begins: “I am …” To do so takes courage and a spirit of openness—and it requires the freedom to be who we truly are as individuals.

We are “meant for more”—as the mystics tell us—“always more.” It is about personal life—choosing with one’s heart—getting a taste of the truth of everything and everyone we meet—a celebration of experiencing all that has the gift of actual “being” in our here and now—much more than merely learning the facts. There is a deep joy in recognizing true “being”—a joy we and our children are worthy of experiencing.

I am working now as a Montessori school’s resident philosopher who knows that our responsibility as parentcators and educators is to have our children join us in this finding what is truly significant in our lives—who we are, what is our individual place in the whole of life, what is meaningful, what is phony, what shines out with the light of truth against the murkiness of deception, what is right.

We are being called by life itself to possess the inner freedom necessary to be truly creative and to have the personal care to be open for honest dialogue with others around us so that we can change ourselves and the world.

This vital goal, my friends, is the true purpose of what we know to be a Montessori education—it is as Maria wrote: Education for a New World—a world based on the fundamental freedom of the human person to become all that he or she can be.

Paul Clement Czaja is resident philosopher at Island Village Montessori School in Venice, FL., and an instructor of the Montessori philosophy and observation with the Montessori Live distance learning training program (www.montessorilive.net). He can be reached at Czaja36@yahoo.com.