The little things
Happy Friday, everyone.
One of the unforeseen consequences of covid has been the way it has eroded habits that we deeply care about. Modifications that were supposed to be temporary have actually disrupted many of the deeply engrained practices that shape our work.
In our younger communities, for example, it is an important part of our program that the children use real dishes and experience eating communally as the meaningful and elevating activity that it is. And yet, during covid, we have had to adjust. We have had to use plastic cups and plates, to drink from water bottles rather than shared glass pitchers, to avoid serving each other, to skip sharing many of the joys of eating together as a community.
None of these adjustments in themselves represent a threat to the developing child. It is human nature to adapt, and a global pandemic unsurprisingly demands such adaptation. The Montessori spirit does not depend on glass dishes, or pitchers of water, or serving tea to guests, or any other specific element of our program that might require modification. The Montessori spirit is a spirit of adaptation. Even under unusual constraints, we can fully meet the needs of our students.
The real danger is not that we make small practical modifications in response to an external challenge, but that we lose the spirit itself. The modifications can chip away at our appreciation that the little things matter.
Temporary practices can persist as unintentional habits. We stop noticing that a child is still raising her hand to go to the bathroom after we’ve told her she doesn’t have to do so anymore. We stop saying hi to children in other rooms that we used to greet every morning, but have not been seeing as much as we used to. We stop appreciating the importance of having children put away materials independently because we had to implement a policy of having adults disinfect them down first. We stop shaking hands in the morning, and lose sight of the power of the small rituals that make our communities magical.
In the bigger picture, the real dishes in the toddler room do matter, but not because of some dogma that it is the Montessori way. The glass pitcher matters because it is not just a glass pitcher—it is a beacon reminding the child and adult alike that beauty matters, order matters, care matters, precision matters. Whether a child’s lunch is served on a plate or a napkin itself is not very important—but as a symbol of the fact that a community values the rituals of eating, it is deeply important. Whether a young child cuts a banana and offers it lovingly to classmates is not itself mission critical—but the experience of preparing for one’s own needs with efficacy, and serving the needs of one’s peers, is mission critical, as is the joy, confidence, and solidarity that such experiences bring.
The reality is that in these little things are to be found all the big things. Whether a picture frame is straight or crooked, whether a title on a chart is underlined using a ruler, whether a meeting agenda spells everyone’s name correctly, whether we look up and smile at the UPS delivery man outside the window—these things tell us whether we love the beautiful, appreciate the orderly, and revere the highest in ourselves and in children.
The big things are not anything separate from the little things that make them up. The big things are patterns of little things. The little things are exemplars of big things.
The way a guide prepares a shelf is devotion to her community. The way a head of school straightens the posters on the wall is a form of her custodianship of the school. The way a child puts away a piece of work is a piece of his attitude towards life itself.
The great poet Tennyson expressed this idea in this short poem, “Flower in the crannied wall”:
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Tennyson is saying that human knowledge is connected: if we understand every last thing about any one thing in the world, we understand everything. The same is true of human action. If we put our full love into any one area of our lives, if we glean all the wisdom and joy from any one experience, if we notice and reflect completely on any one aspect of another human being, we end up trending towards a total embrace of the good and the beautiful in life.
So why do we cut our lines straight? Why do we make our beds in the morning? Why do we model for children to tidy their environment, tuck in their chairs, walk not run through the halls, greet guests with a warm hello? Because these are opportunities to imbue meaning into a child’s life.
Such opportunities are not to be wasted. They are not just an opportunity, but the opportunity to imbue concentrated meaning into childhood.
The surface area for meaning is lager for adults. We do complex work, have a web of chosen relationships, and understand and uphold abstract ideals. For children, life is more immediate, less reflective, less intentionally constructed, more first-order. They are just starting out. For us adults, the little things are one part of life, and there are options in how much meaning we want to invest in any one of them. We can choose which ones to imbue with meaning, and which ones to de-emphasize. For a child, the little things are it. The little things, for a child, are the work of life. That is the beauty of childhood, and the beginning that it represents.
If we do the little things wholeheartedly—and if we help and inspire the child to do these things wholeheartedly—it shapes an entire approach to growing up.
The small things of childhood are, after all, no small thing. Childhood is a beginning, and beginnings are small, but they are also the source of everything that is to come. In Montessori’s words: "It is not always imperative to see big things, but it is of paramount importance to see the beginnings of things."
Ray Girn
Chief Executive Officer, Higher Ground Education