Hi all,
On the occasion of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share some thoughts on Montessori’s view of how important it is to develop an attitude of gratitude towards humanity.
In her work, Montessori repeatedly explores how best to allow for harmonious co-existence amongst human beings. She is deeply skeptical that any such harmony can be achieved by trying to force people to help each other. And because she regards all honest work as a form of helping others, she doesn’t even see much value in trying to encourage people to voluntarily choose work that involves collaboration and cooperation.
For Montessori, if our goal is a world in which people live peacefully, in a state of mutual goodwill, the fundamental thing we can do is nurture a sense of gratitude. She suggests we focus primarily on awakening, in ourselves and in children, a deep appreciation of the human potential. Not a sense of obligation grounded in an impulse to help, or a feeling of pity, but an abiding adoration and reverence for human achievement. A generalized inner appreciation for the individuals past and present who make possible human progress.
Here’s how she put the point in 1949, in San Remo, discussing the goal of human unity:
“What procedure must be followed to unite all men? Many say that it is necessary to increase their goodwill, inducing them to sacrifice themselves for others; to this end, it is necessary to create a state of harmony between the environment and the individual, to combat egoism, to call forth in men the will to work for others.
However, we cannot but observe how, in the course of centuries, men have already organized themselves to work one for the other. Indeed, there is no one today who does not work for others. ... It is men who keep other men alive; each lives thanks to the life of others and each contributes to the life of the other. Certainly this is not done in the spirit of sacrifice, but it is done. Man depends exclusively on man and is totally dedicated to activities that are useful to others...
It is therefore useless to try to achieve unity amongst men inviting them to work for each other, since this has been happening for centuries.
Instead, the question is to bring about a radical change in the way we view human relations, endeavoring to influence men's consciousness by giving them new ideals, fighting indifference and incomprehension; to awaken in man's spirit a sense of gratitude towards other men...
It is not a question of an act of charity, demanding gratitude. This type of charity involves only pathological cases and should be considered as medicine dispensed to those who suffer. The cooperation among men to which I refer should represent a common norm, a rule, not an exception and it should make it possible for everyone to participate in universal good...
This is why an indispensable element in the history of education of children is the story of human civilization in its various stages... Children should be made to realize that all great achievements in culture and in the arts, all sciences and industries that have brought benefit to humanity, are due to the work of men who often struggled in obscurity and under conditions of great hardship; men driven by a profound passion, by an inner fire, to create with their research, with their work, new benefits not only for the people who lived in their times, but also for those of the future.”
As part of our work as educators, Montessori argues, we should find ways to help children develop a sense of gratitude for human ingenuity, creativity, persistence, and resilience, and a deep wonder and awe for everything that those individuals embodying these virtues, past and present, have made possible in our lives.
In her magisterial “To Educate the Human Potential”, Montessori writes:
"What is necessary is that the individual from the earliest years should be placed in relation with humanity. There is no love in our hearts for the human beings from whom we have received, and are receiving so much in bread and clothing, and numerous inventions for our benefit. We take and enjoy all that is done for us without gratitude.
Perhaps we teach the child to thank God and pray to Him. But not to thank humanity, God's prime agent in creation. We give no thought to the men and women who daily give their lives that we may live more richly.
We write and read, and the child can be taught who invented writing and the instruments where with we write, how printing came and books became so numerous. Every achievement has come by the sacrifice of someone now dead. Every map speaks eloquently of the work of explorers and pioneers, who underwent hardships and trials to find new places, rivers and lakes, and to make the world greater and richer for our dwelling.
Let us in education always call the attention of children to the hosts of men and women who are hidden from the light of fame, so kindling a love of humanity; not the vague and anemic sentiment preached today as brotherhood, nor the political sentiment that the working classes should be redeemed and uplifted. What is most wanted is no patronizing charity for humanity, but a reverent consciousness of its dignity and worth.
On this Thanksgiving Day, this is exactly what I wish to express to you all: a “reverent consciousness of your dignity and worth.”
The work you do may, as Montessori says, be hidden from the light of fame, but it represents the greatest of achievements. You are unleashing the latent potential of children, seeing and serving their endless possibility, and through that the endless possibilities of humanity. And you are doing it not out of martyrdom, but what is much, much more: out of the character of an educator that you have created in yourself, and that allows you to find personal meaning and fulfillment in both the struggle and the success.
Thank you for this work. Thank you for having the soul of an educator that allows you to do it. Thank you for touching the lives of so many children, and through that, for enabling those children to in turn do their great work of bringing forth the grandeur and the glory that is humanity at its best.
Happy Thanksgiving week to you and yours.
Ray Girn
Founder and CEO, Higher Ground Education
Love this Ray. Thank you!
Published in Capitalism Magazine
June 29, 2021
https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2021/06/social-justice-movement-contaminates-montessori-education-with-marxist-ideology/