“A system of education that is based on liberty ought to aim at assisting a child in obtaining [independence], and it should have as its specific aim, the freeing of the child from those ties which limit its spontaneous manifestations. Little by little, as a child proceeds along this way, he will freely manifest himself with greater clarity and truth and thus reveal his own proper nature.” (Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, Clio, 57).
Conquests of independence from one developmental stage to the next lie at the heart of Montessori education. Each form of independence is a building block in the journey of self-construction and shapes the intelligence, the moral character, and the potential for adaptability in the human being.
“Help me do it myself” is the mantra of the young child (0–6), striving for functional independence by interacting with the environment, absorbing knowledge of the world through the senses, integrating experiences through movement and the work of the hand, connecting experience to language, and gaining mastery of care of self, others, and the environment.
“Help me think for myself,” demands the elementary child (6–12), whose emerging reason and imagination drive a discovery of the ways and processes of the universe, deriving patterns of mathematics and language through exploration and experiment, testing the logic and fairness of social codes and group dynamics, working toward mental and moral independence.
So what of the adolescents (12–18)? What level of independence do their internal drives, the Human Tendencies, urge them to seek as they experience the “sensitive period for Justice and personal dignity?” (Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, Montessori-Pierson).
Maria Montessori tells us that adolescents have two developmental needs:
- to be protected during a time of vulnerability and change and
- to experience the role they will play in society.
“Protect” does not mean coddle and enable, but to treat with respect, to support with knowledge of the changes that are happening in the body and in the brain and with reverence for the nobility of the emerging future adult.
Likewise, “experiencing a role in society” does not mean discovering one’s future career or specialisation. It means experiencing that one can have a role, can be a member and a contributor to the group, can have an impact on the environment and assist the work of the community collaborating to meet its needs. There are many different roles one can play over time in a community that organises itself to solve problems and care for each other as it consciously stewards the environment whose resources it draws on. Each experience of contribution solidifies a sense of belonging and responsibility to the group; each endeavour of integrated work and study results in knowledge and skill in service of the community; and the experience of living, working, and studying together with peers and adults as partners demands moral consideration of consequence and the impact of one’s actions.
The vital experience for the adolescent, Montessori tells us, is to experience the social organisation of the group, which is a reflection of the fundamental web of human and natural interdependence we are all a part of on the planet. The adolescent, Montessori tells us, must live this experience concretely and holistically.
Social experience, grappling with the impact of our actions, gaining awareness of and gratitude toward everyone else’s contributions to the whole—this is what the adolescent must shape as the building block of the third plane. E.M. Standing in his biography of Maria Montessori, calls it the “socially conscious individual” who emerges from the third plane ready to commit to service of humanity in the fourth plane (18–24) (E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, Plume, 116).
Social and Economic Independence are the achievement and contribution of the third plane - being able to function, belong, and contribute as a strong and confident individual to the group’s endeavours is one layer. Participation in the intricate system of production and exchange - which is how we connect in often invisible but irreplaceable ways with the rest of humanity on the planet - is the other layer. In working toward acquiring these layers of independence, the adolescents feel themselves on the road to adulthood, building the capacities of maturity, and shaping the moral conscience necessary to effect change in the future.
“Help us to do it ourselves, to experience the impact of our contribution to the whole.” That is their call to us as educators, parents, and community members who commit to supporting them. “Help us understand through our own experience, in our own work and study, as we live and work in community, how humans organise themselves to get things done, to take care of each other and the planet, and to participate in the great interdependency.” For, as Montessori says:
The consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, with almost religious dignity. The feeling of independence must be bound to the power to be self-sufficient, not a vague form of liberty deducted from the help afforded by the gratuitous benevolence of others….Thus at all the various and successive stages of development, independence is a valid guide for education (“Principles and Practices in Education,” Montessori’s first lecture at the Institute of Medical Psychology, London, November 1936, 13).
Laurie Ewert-Krocker, AMI 12–18 Trainer
