This article is the first in a series of posts on facilitating independence for children who are homeschooling or in remote learning.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the forms work can take for elementary children. “Work” is one of those terms with great resonance in Montessori, but it doesn’t always have its colloquial meaning. In our adult world, work means “accomplishing things, often for the purpose of satisfying someone else,” but when we think of work for children in Montessori, we mean “meaningful, concentrated, and freely chosen activity.” Work can be sitting at a desk and solving word problems, but it can also be struggling to build a fence, program a robot, or get along with a sibling.
Sometimes work looks like this…
What does work look like?
As a Montessori guide, I frequently pause to look around my classroom, and see what the children are doing. I’m asking myself if they are engaged in work and if any of them need some support to get going or get reoriented to their work. I’m also looking to protect the children’s work: if a child is having trouble settling into work, that’s fine, but if that child is disrupting the work of other children, that’s not fine. The trick is to recognize what work looks like.
These are the key features of work that I look for:
Meaningful: True work should have meaning to the child. Isolated tasks with no context don’t have much appeal, but children are willing to work extremely hard on a seemingly rote task when they see it as part of a bigger picture.
Concentrated: Learning, of any sort, requires concentration. While this looks different for elementary children than for primary children (I’ll get to this below), the principle that work can’t happen without focused attention still applies.
Satisfaction and excitement: The work may not always be pleasurable, and frustration is normal, but children show signs of satisfaction upon succeeding at something new and thrill at new discoveries. Compare this to simple relief at getting an unpleasant, boring, necessary task finished.
Collaborative: In the elementary years, work is frequently collaborative, and I look for children actively working together on a project, rather than simply doing their own work near each other.
Freely chosen: The key to facilitating meaningful, concentrated, joyful work is choice. When we try to force work on a child (or frankly, on an adult), the need for autonomy and dignity frequently begin to take priority over any particular learning or interest, and work becomes a battle. Once work takes on this dynamic, we need ever more complex tools of manipulation or force to “make” children do their work. Pretty soon, we end up with grades, discipline protocols, gold stars, detentions, suspensions, and class rankings at school, and we end up with fights, frustration, more gold stars, time outs, and grounding at home.
This is not to say that we can’t lay the foundations for students to do the particular work that every child must do. Part of a guide’s role is to give the children the tools to take responsibility for their “obligatory learning” and to trust that children want to meet the expectations placed on them.
And these are some physical signs from the children that tell me: “Meaningful work in progress. Do not disturb”
Intently leaning forward over work
When children work together, talk is focused on the topic at hand or on the process of the work.
There may be self-talk, if the child is working alone.
Children work through frustration. They ask for help when needed, but don’t rush to ask an adult to fix everything for them.
Frustration at being interrupted
Eagerness for more: when children are begging for a longer school day or another lesson, I know I’m doing something right.
Negotiating solutions to social challenges. The negotiations may be loud, frustrated, or even angry, but they are peaceful and focused on the problem at hand.
Work can also look like this…
Work isn’t continuous
The sort of focus required to actively learn something new and difficult is exhausting, and no one can keep it up indefinitely. (See, for example, K. Anders Ericsson’s famous study of violin students in Germany. The best violin students in the world are not the ones who simply practice, though they do practice a lot, but the ones who intently focus on the most difficult parts of their playing. They do this for only two hours or so, and then they have to rest.) After a period of intent work, children need to stop and relax, play, or simply stare out the window and think for a bit.
The best way to find this rhythm is to allow the children to manage it for themselves. By providing a three hour work cycle and not dictating what the children must do or when they can change activities, the children learn to find their own balance between harder work and rest.
When we remember that the purpose of the children’s work is to build themselves, not to get a head start on adult work, it becomes obvious that more isn’t always better. The goal isn’t to get lots done, it’s to maximize learning, and that requires both purposeful effort and restful breaks.
And sometimes, work looks like this.
Navigating the social world is work
Elementary children are learning to navigate their social world, and this means that social conundrums and conflicts frequently arise, and the pull to enjoy time with friends is very strong. While we do guide the children to view peers as collaborators, rather than playmates, during work periods, it’s important to realize that conflicts will arise, and learning to navigate these is part of the work.
Why do we approach work this way?
The purpose of work in Montessori is “self-construction”, that is, the child’s development of their own intellect and character. Cognitive neuroscience now tells us that Dr. Montessori’s belief in self-construction is quite accurate: children’s brains are refined through their own activity, not through pouring in information from the outside. While children need guidance from adults, the guidance is not the learning. An adult can share an inspiring story or provide useful information, but it’s the child’s own thoughts that lead to learning, not the adult’s words directly. This means that the job of adults supporting a child is to provide the child with the tools and guidance necessary for activity and deep thought, and then to get out of the way.
It also means that the purpose of work is not to create, achieve, or finish something, nor is it to satisfy an adult; the purpose of the child’s work is to satisfy the child in their need to learn, discover, and grow. Just as we can encourage toddlers to walk, but they practice out of their own desire to get around; we can encourage and guide the children’s work, but they are ultimately driven to work out of their own desire to know and discover.
I think this fact is key; as adults, we are often looking for a product as a sign of work, but for children, the work may have achieved its purpose before any product is created, and this is okay.
What does it all look like?
The principles of work in Montessori are easy to understand, but the truth is that every Montessori guide struggles with the balance of when to wait and watch, and when to step in. As a parent working with your children at home, this challenge is even harder, because you don’t have the benefit of comparison: guides have seen lots and lots of children, and then gives us a lot of information about what is typical. This year, you are also likely lacking the benefit of a social environment for your child, and that is going to make an elementary child’s work more difficult. On the other hand, you know your child better than anyone, and that will give you an advantage in understanding their work patterns.
Here are some examples of ambiguous scenarios you might observe. I’m sharing them here for you to think about. Which ones do you think might count as focused work and which ones do you think might be signs that you should set a limit or offer something else. I’m not giving the answers, because there is never one correct answer; it depends on your child, their age, and your situation. Nevertheless, I invite you to share your answers in the comments. I will share my thoughts on each of these scenarios in another post.
Your child stops one activity, takes out their sketchbook, and draws a picture of a superhero, then chooses something else to do.
Your child draws superheroes for an entire morning.
Your child draws superheroes for an entire week.
Your child takes their sketchbook to the patio and spends the whole morning drawing the backyard.
Your child writes a fifteen page story, but it’s full of spelling errors, and when you read it, nothing seems to happen in the story.
Your child spends half an hour staring out the window.
Your child spends the morning in the kitchen, making lunch for the family.
Your child does no math all week.
Your child spends all morning with a research book and a piece of paper out on their desk, but gets up 17 times and doesn’t actually write anything.
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