The Tao of Management - 2. Receptive K'un

"Receptive is the nature of the man who serves.  It is the station of second place.  Thusly, should all managers describe themselves.  The manager becomes receptive, yielding, devoted, moderate, and correct.  The receptive mind is obedient to natural principles and is able to develop understanding from confusion.  The manager makes things right, strives for fulfillment of his duty, and completes his tasks without fabrication." - Bob Messing

     The successful and fulfilled Montessori guide and parent or the guide and parent striving for success and fulfillment practice receptive.  It seems to me that receptive in the Tao relates to Montessori's observing, and Buddhism's deep listening.  The manager, the guide, or the adult must be receptive (open-minded throughout communication).  There must be a yielding or willingness to be silent.  A genuine inner devotion to resolution leads to a greater possibility towards peace.  Utilize the ability to moderate the given situation.  Doing all of these things and having the mindfulness of correctness leads to the experience of receptive.

    How can we or how do we inspire receptive in the classroom or for the parent?  Do you have any examples of how receptive has been experienced in your classroom or school?  \

With gratitude I look forward to your comments and contributions!!!

"The Tao of Management" The Creative - Ch'ien

    I found this book "The Tao of Management," by Bob Messing in Ocean City, New Jersey.  After looking through it I thought to myself what it would be like to apply the wisdom from the "Tao Te Ching" into the perspectives of the Montessori Classroom and possibly home life too.  In all fairness, there is already a wonderful book called "The Tao of Montessori".  Then I came to the conclusion that I am going to take on a little experiment this summer.  I am going to read the sixty-four passages in this book "The Tao of Management," reflect on each one, and then see and write about how it can be applied.  I think and hope that we will both find some value in this experiment.  


Bob Messing writes for his first passage, The Creative - Ch'ien


    "The creative represents the strength of Tao, you, and your organization.  Strength is born, expanded, fulfilled, and consolidated.  if any of these aspects of strength are lacking, the creative quality of strength is not complete.  The manager must never confuse strength with force.  They are not the same.  The manager concentrates on the accomplishment of his task(s), and is minimally visible.  Arrogance is the extreme of knowing something about winning but nothing about losing.  Arrogance blocks a manager by diminishing his creative strength."  


    Without the creative, the child will be lost both in the classroom and at home.  The adult must be creative in their capacity to inspire.  Remember, inspiration is different then motivation.  Anyone can be motivated to do something.  It is using something external to get someone to do something that you want them to do.  Inspiration is getting the person to light their own spark and to take off.  That is what we want to do for the child in the classroom and hopefully what the adult wants for their child at home.  One must be creative to inspire.  The more creative is exercised, the more strength there is.

    Strength is internal just like inspiration.  It seems to me that the frustration of not being able to or even understand that they must inspire causes the adult to use their force and they become misguided thinking that they have strength.  The adult must focus on what they wish the outcome to be, especially upon failure.  It is necessary for the adult to focus on what the goal is for the child, give them the tools and then be visible as little as possible during their process.  Each failure of the child is truly another opportunity for the adult to express more creatively and find a different way to inspire.  In realty we always hear, "location, location, location," but in learning it should be, "presentation, presentation, presentation."  Presentation is how learning and teaching can be successful with all of its components, variances, and ability to provide and accept idiosyncrasies.  

   If we allow ourselves to remove the internal obstacles, and be careful to not confuse or misuse force for strength then the child keeps us humble.  An important thing to note is that when you are aware of arrogance as you are trying to present something or too comfortable with successfully presenting, it is then that the adult's creative strength is blocked and the trust in the presentation is temporarily disconnected.  We have the opportunity to be humbled by the child.  The problem here is not in having confidence, but in not being able to adapt to the child and be creative because of arrogance or force.

   Well, this was the first of sixty - four passages.  I look forward to your observations, thoughts and insights.  Maybe you have a different interpretation that you would like to share.

Cosmic Education

Cosmic Education

‘It is this vision of an indivisible unity made up of energy, of sky, of rocks, of water, of life, of humans as adults and humans as children that lends a sense of the cosmic to Montessori’s thinking. This cosmic sense pervades all of Montessori’s work, both her thinking and her educational approach for all of the different planes and stages of development of the human being: from birth without violence to the Infant Community, to the Casa dei Bambini, to the elementary school, to the Erdkinder community for adolescents.  Quite clearly, then, this cosmic vision belongs by right to the whole of the Montessori movement: it is indeed the key which gives us a shared direction and a common goal in our work’.

‘Maria Montessori’s Cosmic Vision, Cosmic Plan and Cosmic Education’ p 81 – 82 Conference Proceedings, Paris 2001

Maria Montessori saw the first plane of development as being the start of cosmic education.  The child needs freedom to explore and absorb the environment.  They need to learn how to function and communicate in their immediate environment.  The adult in the classroom and the parent(s) at home need to learn how to observe, prepare and manipulate the environment and obstacles for the child in order to establish the greatest possibility for success and inner fulfillment.  The instructions for success are within the child just as the instructions for a seed are within that seed to become what it is meant to.  Both just need the right ingredients.  Both the adult in the classroom and parent(s) at home need to be more thoughtful of themselves and the child.  Thoughtfulness is a large part of what cosmic education is all about.  Your child’s education should incorporate a collaboration between home and school and not consist of two completely separate entities. 

The six to twelve year old child is literally given the universe.  They receive a vision of their role as a human being from the first humans to the modern day human.  Very generally and literally speaking here is where they begin to learn how to function and participate in the world beyond their immediate environment.  A general to specific education is given at this age.  The child learns about the laws that the universe follows all the way up to the specific details and foundations of subject matter which is not limited to mathematics, language, science, and history, but everything in between.   The foundation of the elementary education is interdependence.    There is an interdependence that can be seen and felt between each other and subject matter. 

The second component of Montessori’s Cosmic Education is what Camillo referred to in the quotation, as the ‘ vision of an indivisible unity …’ this determines the Montessori view of the Universe. In her book ‘To Educate the Human Potential’ Chapter 1 ‘The six-year-old- confronted with the Cosmic Plan’ Dr. Montessori describes it in this way, ‘Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality, and an answer to all questions. We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal centre of himself with all things’

(Clio 1989 p 5 – 6)

The third plane of development includes the twelve to eighteen year old adolescent.  Most people do not distinguish an adolescent from a child or an adult.  However, an adolescent can be characterized by that person which is no longer a child and not yet an adult.  They are more concerned with themselves constantly self-assessing.  There is regular critical thinking and self re-evaluation.  The adolescent is transitioning both physically and mentally.  This is where beginning to find themselves and their place in the world truly begins and should be nurtured.  Social and moral values are constructed and reconstructed.  Maria Montessori termed “Erkinder,” “Children of the Land,” as a key for the adolescent to unlock their innate powers.  A model of an education on a farm is where the child practices and learns for success in life.  All the subject matters can be learned and applied within a farm like structure and there is a co-existence between classroom learning, internships and farming. 

When you perceive the differences between traditional western education and Maria Montessori’s concept of Cosmic Education you can only come to one true conclusion.  Cosmic Education leads to the probability of fulfillment while traditional education leads to the possibility of material success in some profession.  Education through Maria Montessori’s Method leads to material success and happiness as a side effect from achieving fulfillment; they are not the goals in and of themselves.    The goal of an education through Maria Montessori’s vision is that of fulfillment from birth through the age of eighteen.  This is the foundation for life, the rest is just details.

Patience is a Virtue

In this fast paced present day world there is no time for patience. Or so it seems, especially in a traditional classroom. However, I think many people are beginning to recognize we cannot afford as a society microcosmically or macrocosmically to not exercise patience and other virtues for that matter. In my mind, this is what separates the so called “Montessori community” from the mainstream community. It is my contention that pretty much every parent and educator realizes this, at least in the back of their minds.

Presently, it is those Montessori parents that have the courage to allow guides to exercise patience and other virtues in themselves, and give their child or children the gift of a good Montessori centered education. More parents have come from public schools this year than any other year to observe my classroom. Upon listening to the radio, experiencing the many visits from public school parents, and speaking with public school teachers, I can’t help but believe the tides are changing.

How amazing it would be to experience the end of “Industrial Revolution Education” in the United States. What an incredible experience it would be to witness the integration of true Montessori education and the like. It does not have to be just the ideas of Montessori, as there were many great thinkers that also contributed to her works and thought similarly to her. But, how marvelous to be a part of a time where education could possibly be about the child throughout our mainstream education system.  I recognize many things need to occur for all of this to happen. I would like to introduce something that I have known, yet had not more fully experienced until this past month. It has to do with patience as a foundation in the guide’s ability to educate.

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” ~ Plato

I believe that patience is something that can never be completely attained, but is rather something that needs to be practiced and exercised daily, as you would a muscle. This especially holds true for parents and teachers. So, at best, by being harsh and forceful with a child you are temporarily controlling. One must discover with patience how to amuse the child and, as Montessori says “seduce the child”. As Montessori parents, this is what you are giving us (Montessori guides) permission to do. You are giving us the time to observe, to persuade, and step back to let your child’s genius express itself. I humbly thank you for that trust and opportunity. I know of no other place that allows this to unfold.

“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.”
 ~ John Dewey

Many say we want this for ourselves and our children, but we are afraid to go on the path that it takes to get there. It may be difficult to let go of our personal experiences of education. A part of us knows, we had things that were missing when we were growing up. One of those things was a pure enjoyment of going to school. How many parents can say math, language or science was their favorite subject in school? How many of you enjoyed lunch, gym, or snow days more? Meanwhile, I am constantly amazed at how much so many of the children in my class love school and learning. They are overtly happy to be here. It is even hard to get many of them to leave at the end of the day. This does not happen just in my class, either. I have had the same experience in several Montessori classrooms in several different states. In addition, many of the teachers I trained with told me the same thing of their students and the students of the classrooms they observed.

This brings me back to the practice of patience, not only with our children but with our selves. Maria Montessori says, “We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.” Over the past month I have really been able to digest this quote more than before. It had a bit of a negative connotation for me until now. Admittedly, I have my own stigmas and expectations. Taking it a step further, I have assumed expectations in my mind that you have for each of your children. But, something magical happens when I can briefly forget all of that, and place myself as the servant to your children. It is my duty to put my personal feelings, and about what I think your possible feelings are, aside. This way I can observe and persuade based on their interests as objectively as possible.

"As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate." - The Secret of Childhood:: Fides Publishers, 1966 :: p. 145

After all that is our goal, for your children to concentrate. No one truly concentrates on anything other than what interests them. At some point throughout the six years of elementary your child is to experience all of that which is in the prepared environment and more. Believe it or not, I have to remind myself of this for you, when those warranted and engrained fears creep in. Is my child reading fluently and comprehending by the end of second grade? Does my child know all of his or her times tables by the end of third grade? Can my child name all of the states, capitals, and spell them correctly by fifth grade? Is my child writing paragraphs and paraphrasing correctly for report writing by the end of fourth grade?


"Our task is to show the way to discipline. Discipline is born when the child concentrates his attention on some objects that attracts him and provides him not only with a useful exercise but with a control of error." - The Absorbent Mind :: Clio Press Limited, 1994 :: p. 240

Here, Montessori is expressing what the Prepared Environment does for the child. It also leads to an interest of exploring the world. For example, some children expressed an interest in art and went to the art museum in Philadelphia after researching different works of art in the classroom. Several children have done research on Leonardo Di Vinci and are now planning on going to his exhibit at the Franklin Institute. It is awe-inspiring to be a part of the experience of so many different children, and to see what happens to them, as they become inspired and concentrate.

There are three things that tend to cause a child to act out or not do as we would like them to do; they are overstimulation, tiredness, or boredom. The hard part, what most don’t have patience for, is deciphering which one it is, and then figuring out what to put in front of the child for him or her to discover. We give them the environment and what is in the environment and they make the discovery. When it comes from them, or when they believe it comes from them, they own it.

As I stated earlier patience is a virtue. Without it, we cannot achieve what we want for our children to achieve. I believe you’re giving the gift(s) of patience and other virtues to your children by sending them to an A.M.I. Montessori classroom. You are giving me the gift of experiencing it and being a part of it. Let’s take this opportunity to remind ourselves of all of this, relax (but not too much), and smile.