As a Montessori guide you become the key-keeper. You have to own the keys to every area that might be of interest to the child.
And you have to be ready at any time to offer the precise key to any child, when he is asking for it.
The many areas of Montessori elementary education
So, when Greg told us that we have to introduce children to every area I got a little worried.
Because God knows I weren’t a straight A student in school and for some of the subjects I just always weaved my way through. The areas I had worries for were:
- Geography
- History
- Art
- Music
A lot to worry about, right? That’s what I thought too!
For the first two, it was because of the way they were taught in my school: you had to memorize some numbers (years, population, surface, statistics) and names (rulers who conquered land by leading bloody battles, capitals of countries, names of rivers etc.) and if you weren’t able to memorize all of them, in the order they were introduced by the teacher, you would get bad grades and be considered a fool.
But for art and music, it wasn’t the fact that I didn’t like them or the way they were presented to me.
I just never had a gift in drawing and I used to believe my voice was far from giving shivers down anybody’s spine. If I were to compare, I used to think I had the drawing skills of a sleepy, right-handed, three-year-old, who draws with his left hand.
And as for singing, I was sure I could make a deaf man shush me.
Experiencing before presenting to the child
From this point of view, attending this course gave me more faith in my own strengths and abilities to improve in any area.
The fact that we sang every day, before lectures, made me more confident about my voice and made me want to practice singing more.
So, when I got back home and went to my Elementary Classroom, I wasn’t that afraid of introducing songs to children.
It came naturally! And they loved it!
The same happened with drawing. If at first, I was shy and didn’t even know where to put the pen on the paper, after doing some drawings for the course, I noticed I wasn’t that awful at it.
If I put a little effort in it and even a little feeling, my drawing would become close to “cute”!
I don’t think I’ll ever have my own gallery opened, but at least my children won’t laugh at me when I draw them the parts of a plant.
This course has not only given me information about how to guide children in an Elementary Montessori Environment, but also made me discover abilities I didn’t know I had and made me want to improve them.
I always look for all positive aspects of every event in my life and I can honestly say, this course changed my perspective, my believes, my life!