Practical Life Exercise Essay Example

to inspire practice and incite growth.

Gradually, the child’s choices need not be pointed out as often by the directress. The child learns to recognize his own choices, as evidenced by the wide range of interesting material that are presented to him, waiting attractively on the shelf. The child is granted uninhibited freedom to not only choose his activities, but also the time, place, duration and pace of his engagement. "Man achieves his independence by making efforts. To be able to do a thing without any help from others: this is independence.

If it exists, the child can progress rapidly; if it does not, his progress will be slow. ("The Absorbent Mind”, Ch14, Pg 155) The second type of independence is cultivation of certain skills and knowledge, such as reading, writing, maths, geography; social courtesy, physical grace and house hold skills- all which shall facilitate competent living. As a Directress, we can accouter the child for adaptation to a burgeoning intellectual space. The freedom to work at an individual pace hones these new skills, and opens the gate to the next, larger space.

The process continues, until the child eventually emerges into the space usually called society, and begins to be called an adult. It is therefore imperative to “teach teaching, not correcting” (“Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work”, Ch 13, Pg 219) in order to allow the child to be a fully functional member in his own society. Physical and Intellectual Development The second plane of development in a child’s life lasts from the age of 6 till 12 years. During this time, new powers appear in children that facilitate revolutionary change.

These powers are both physical and

intellectual. The mental powers of the earlier periods, the Absorbent Mind and the Sensitive Period, are replaced by new intellectual endowments. Montessori referred to these new attributes of the second plane as “psychological characteristics”. Physical changes in children are often the first ones to be noticed by parents. For example, the children’s baby teeth fall out and permanent teeth grow in, their legs grow longer and their bodies become thinner and taller. Their physical health is more stable, due to which many childhood diseases are over.

The children’s new physical strength and stability gives them great stamina and energy. They feel adventurous and ’rough and tough’. They enjoy overcoming obstacles and have a new fortitude in facing challenges. Mentally, children have an immense power and are capable of great effort and concentration. Their intellectual curiosity is limitless and is very different from that of an adult. For example, a scientist seeks to find something new whereas a child’s purpose is the formation of his own mind. He takes in new information, reforms and amalgamates it with what is already there.

Montessori called this stage of the child’s formation the Intellectual Period, during which the child’s appetite for knowledge is immense. They are not satisfied with bits and pieces of isolated information: this part to write a report on, that part to memorize and reproduce for a test. “All other factors... sink into insignificance besides the importance of feeding the hungry intelligence and opening vast fields of knowledge to eager exploration. ” (“Paula Polk Lillard: Montessori Today”, Ch 3, Page 46) Dr. Maria Montessori believed that a child absorbs learning from the physical environment in which he lives.

She

created a prepared environment to reveal the child and not mould him. This not only encompasses the physical setting, but includes the all-important preparation of the parent, caregiver, or teacher. In the Montessori environment, independence is an ongoing, organic process, and the Practical Life curriculum is integral to this. Material and activities that encourage the child to ’do for himself/ herself’ and foster developmental progress, confidence and self-esteem are the cornerstones of the Practical Life curriculum.

As a child learns to pour water, tie his shoe lace, clean his/her workspace and consider others in his/her Montessori classroom or home community, independence takes root and grows. With independence comes the need for self-discipline. In the prepared environment, the Montessori child makes decisions based on limited choices, and achieves success in those decisions. Parents learn to create the environment for such successes by planning ways to involve their children in daily life activities and in offering limited choices.

In doing so, the child is then able to learn how to make wise, well-thought-out decisions. "The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences. " (“The Absorbent Mind”, Ch 8, Pg 81) “A child’s work is to create the man he will become”. (“The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori”) Children are born with special mental powers that aid in the work of their own construction.

But they cannot accomplish this task of self-construction without purposeful movement, and exploration and discovery f their environment - the things and the people that come with it. Dr. Montessori felt that the goal of education should not be to fill the child with facts

but rather to cultivate their own natural desire to learn. The Montessori Method consists of a carefully developed set of materials to create the proper environment for children at each stage of their development. With the able guidance of trained teachers, children can develop their intellect and acquire the full range of skills and knowledge of the human civilization.

The prepared environment is the link for a child to learn from adults. Rooms are child sized with activities set up for success and allow freedom of movement and choice. The environment has to be safe for the child to explore, and must be ready and exquisite so it invites them to work. Montessori refers to work as an activity the child does- what many people might call play. She calls this work since it is through this that they create themselves. A child’s play is his work and yet he enjoys it. The adult’s role is to construct the environment within which they will learn.

The development of the child is therefore dependent on the environment he or she is in, which includes the parents. “He is progressing, step by step, towards a more advanced state of being; and each new stage of development is marked by a new phase of this inwardly creative commerce with the environment, which we call work. " (“Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work”, Ch 8, Pg 143). "So, whether we go to the origins of human life, or follow the child in his work of growth, we always find the adult not far away. " (“The Absorbent Mind”, Pg 30).

If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must channel

them towards independence. It must initiate them into activities which they can perform independently. We must help them to learn how to walk without assistance, to run, to go up and down the stairs, to pick up fallen objects, to dress and undress, to wash themselves, to express their needs in a way that is clearly understood, and to attempt to satisfy their desires through their own efforts. "The teacher’s first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest.

It’s influence is indirect, but unless it be well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual. " In the Montessori environment the first activity the child is introduced to is the practical life exercise because they can immediately begin to satisfy the young child’s desire for skills and self sufficiency. The practical activities allow the child to do what adults all around may be seen doing on a daily basis. For example, dressing, cleaning the home, and greeting people.

In addition to giving the child an opportunity for self development, these activities provide an orientation to the customs of the child’s social environment. The precise content of the Practical activities should therefore differ from culture to culture. Practical life exercises contribute to the child’s whole development- physical, mental and moral. All these activities come under “synthetic movements”, that is movement ordered and directed by the mind to an intelligible purpose.

They help the child in his great task of “progressive incarnation” i. e. of building up the physical instrument which is used for the expression of his personality. Children at this stage of

development derive an immense satisfaction from the use of their voluntary muscles that is of “the flesh”. Montessori’s aim is to help the child carry out his instinctive actions in a more perfect and orderly manner. Our help consists of placing within the prepared environment “motives of activities” designed specially to answer the needs of this “sensitive period” through which he is passing.

The child not only has intense interest in these “synthetic movements” but is endowed with special capacity for fixing them (i. . , making them habitual) with an ease and spontaneity which never recurs. Practical life exercises are designed to give the child real life experiences. The materials used to conduct the activities should be working tools, and not just toy versions of adult tools. This is vital so that the child gets feedback from his interactions with the environment. For example, if the plastic glass never breaks, then there is no inherent reason for the child to learn to be careful with them. His only reason is because the adult demands.

Another important reason for the use of real objects is the motivation for use that comes from real things. For example, with a child-sized carpet sweeper, the child can actually sweep the carpet and see that he has cleaned the classroom. This also indicates that adult trusts the child. Although these tools are not toys, they are child-sized, so they can be properly grasped and put to effective use. Like all Montessori material, each Practical Activity apparatus has its own special place in the environment, and are kept out and accessible for use without an adult’s assistance.

Each material must have a definite

purpose and should be meaningful to the child. The difficulty or the error that the child is to discover and understand must be isolated in a single piece of material. The material progresses from simplex to more complex design and usage. These are designed to prepare the child indirectly for future learning. These materials begin as concrete expressions of an idea and gradually become more and more abstract representations. Montessori materials are designed for auto education and the control of error lies in the materials themselves rather than the teacher.

The control of error guides the child in his use of the materials and permits him to recognize his own mistakes. The Practical Life activities are totally engaging: •These activities are easily understood from start to finish. •They have visible movement. •They give direction to his movement. •They have an attractive invitation to the child's will. •They lead to greater skill and perfection. •They lead to self-accepted discipline. •They create unity between thought, will and action. The Practical Life exercises, also referred to as the exercises of Daily Living, are usually divided into 4 categories.

Activities grouped under ‘Development of Motor Skills’, such as carrying, pouring, spooning, folding, sorting etc. give the opportunity to exercise and co-ordinate body movements of the child. Movement is very important to the child because it contributes not only for the physical growth but also intellectual and spiritual development of the child. Movement possesses a fascinating interest when the muscular and nervous apparatus responds to exercise, especially for young children. “Through Movement, he acts upon his external environment and thus carries out his own personal mission in the world.

Movement is not only

an impression of the ego but it is an indispensable factor in the development of consciousness, since it is the only real means which places the ego in a clearly defined relationship with external reality. ” (“The Secret of Childhood”, Pg 97) Under the Care of Self children acquire some of the skills needed for their own independence. This category includes the dressing frames which are wooden frames with cloth pieces attached to both the sides, the pieces are joined in the middle by a variety of fasteners, such as zippers, buttons, bows, and so on.

The concept of isolation of difficulty is apparent here: it’s easier for a child to learn to tie shoelace when the additional difficulty of the shoelace’s location is removed. Other activities in this category are related to grooming and cleanliness, such as hand and face-washing, brushing of teeth and hair (with the child’s own brushes, which must be cleaned after each use), blowing the nose, and others. While doing these exercises, children hone their motor skills, understand the importance of sequence in tasks and enhance focus and concentration.

Care of Environment - Life skills category includes exercises such as fitting jars and lids together, locks and key exercises, nuts and bolts, and so on. The pouring activities can be extended quite naturally into measuring and then into cooking. Exercises such as peeling, cutting, and serving carrots, nut shelling or even making peanut butter, and other simple food preparation exercises are available. Each Practical Life activity includes cleaning up after oneself, and return of the materials to the shelf ready for the next worker.

Lessons of Grace and Courtesy are considered so important

that it is recommended to postpone introducing the didactic material until the ‘right rapport’ has been established between the child and his environment. This will include such matters as how to sit down and stand up properly-and when to do so; how to salute persons according to various degrees of intimacy; how to beg pardon for small offences, as for instance in passing in front of another person, or interrupting them in what they are doing; how to open and shut a door quietly; how to hand objects to another person, especially sharp ones like pair of scissor or a knife, and so forth.

Directress should prepare the means of carrying out these exercises and should also arrange them in her mind-in a graded sequence, commencing with the simple ones. Montessori says “Our task is to show how the action is done, and at the same time destroy the possibility of imitation. What we have to consider is how we can present this action to the small child and at the same time disturb as little as possible the creative impulse. ” (“Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work”, Ch 13, Pg 216). A teacher should not be too forceful while presenting as she will attract the child’s attention to herself, and not to the action.

In fact under such circumstances the child might easily copy unessential peculiarities in the teacher’s way of doing it with a slavish imitation. Imitation may be a danger just because adults in general do not act in the same way as children “Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow and is working to create the

adult, the person that is to be. ” (“Tim Seldin -The Montessori Way”, Pg 61). A child keeps on repeating the task as there is mysterious inner force which impels him to do so. Teacher must therefore indicate the action, but leave it to the child to do his own way.

By acquisition of new skills the child learns dexterity, improves his hand-eye co-ordination and develops spatial awareness. He refines his gross and fine motor skills, all of which develop him physically. His mental development is aided by satisfying his inner need to grow in self-knowledge and in confidence, and at the same time his self-image improves. He also satisfies his need for order, and learns to enjoy his work. Spiritual development is encouraged as he learns to become responsive to the needs of others, while learning to appreciate the culture of his immediate environment.

In conclusion, Practical Life Exercises refine movement, providing a foundation in early learning, attitudes and dispositions. Practical life exercises also provide children a sense of accomplishment as they engage in real, meaningful work with tangible results. The indirect aim of any exercise includes self-evident purpose of the action and preparation for future learning. The practical life exercises help the child’s concentration, his search for independence and ultimately lead to the mastery of self. “An individual is disciplined when he is master of himself” (“The Discovery of the Child”, Ch 3, Pg 51).