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Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook

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<h2>LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD</h2> The special importance of the sense of hearing comes from the fact that it is the sense organ connected with speech. Therefore, to train the child’s attention to follow sounds and noises which are produced in the environment, to recognize them and to discriminate between them, is to prepare his attention to follow more accurately the sounds of articulate language. The teacher must be careful to pronounce clearly and completely the sounds of the word when she speaks to a child, even though she may be speaking in a low 70 voice, almost as if telling him a secret. The children’s songs are also a good means for obtaining exact pronunciation. The teacher, when she teaches them, pronounces slowly, separating the component sounds of the word pronounced. But a special opportunity for training in clear and exact speech occurs when the lessons are given in the nomenclature relating to the sensory exercises. In every exercise, when the child has recognized the differences between the qualities of the objects, the teacher fixes the idea of this quality with a word. Thus, when the child has many times built and rebuilt the tower of the pink cubes, at an opportune moment the teacher draws near him, and taking the two extreme cubes, the largest and the smallest, and showing them to him, says, “This is large”; “This is small.” The two words only, large and small, are pronounced several times in succession with strong emphasis and with a very clear pronunciation, “This is large, large, large”; after which there is a moment’s pause. Then the teacher, to see if the child has understood, verifies with the following tests: “Give me the large one. Give me the small one.” Again, “The large one.” 71 “Now the small one.” “Give me the large one.” Then there is another pause. Finally, the teacher, pointing to the objects in turn asks, “What is this?” The child, if he has learned, replies rightly, “Large,” “Small.” The teacher then urges the child to repeat the words always more clearly and as accurately as possible. “What is it?” “Large.” “What?” “Large.” “Tell me nicely, what is it?” “Large.” Large and small objects are those which differ only in size and not in form; that is, all three dimensions change more or less proportionally. We should say that a house is “large” and a hut is “small.” When two pictures represent the same objects in different dimensions one can be said to be an enlargement of the other. When, however, only the dimensions referring to the section of the object change, while the length remains the same, the objects are respectively “thick” and “thin.” We should say of two posts of equal height, but different cross-section, that one is “thick” and the other is “thin.” The teacher, therefore, gives a lesson on the brown prisms similar to that with the cubes in the three “periods” which I have described: <div>72</div> Period 1. Naming. “This is thick. This is thin.” Period 2. Recognition. “Give me the thick. Give me the thin.” Period 3. The Pronunciation of the Word. “What is this?” There is a way of helping the child to recognize differences in dimension and to place the objects in correct gradation. After the lesson which I have described, the teacher scatters the brown prisms, for instance, on a carpet, says to the child, “Give me the thickest of all,” and lays the object on a table. Then, again, she invites the child to look for the thickest piece among those scattered on the floor, and every time the piece chosen is laid in its order on the table next to the piece previously chosen. In this way the child accustoms himself always to look either for the thickest or the thinnest among the rest, and so has a guide to help him to lay the pieces in gradation. When there is one dimension only which varies, as in the case of the rods, the objects are said to be “long” and “short,” the varying dimension being length. When the varying dimension is height, the objects are said to be “tall” and 73 “short”; when the breadth varies, they are “broad” and “narrow.” Of these three varieties we offer the child as a fundamental lesson only that in which the length varies, and we teach the differences by means of the usual “three periods,” and by asking him to select from the pile at one time always the “longest,” at another always the “shortest.” The child in this way acquires great accuracy in the use of words. One day the teacher had ruled the blackboard with very fine lines. A child said, “What small lines!” “They are not small,” corrected another; “they are thin.” When the names to be taught are those of colors or of forms, so that it is not necessary to emphasize contrast between extremes, the teacher can give more than two names at the same time, as, for instance, “This is red.” “This is blue.” “This is yellow.” Or, again, “This is a square.” “This is a triangle.” “This is a circle.” In the case of a gradation, however, the teacher will select (if she is teaching the colors) the two extremes “dark” and “light,” then making choice always of the “darkest” and the “lightest.” Many of the lessons here described can be seen 74 in the cinematograph pictures; lessons on touching the plane insets and the surfaces, in walking on the line, in color memory, in the nomenclature relating to the cubes and the long rods, in the composition of words, reading, writing, etc. By means of these lessons the child comes to know many words very thoroughly––large, small; thick, thin; long, short; dark, light; rough, smooth; heavy, light; hot, cold; and the names of many colors and geometrical forms. Such words do not relate to any particular object, but to a psychic acquisition on the part of the child. In fact, the name is given after a long exercise, in which the child, concentrating his attention on different qualities of objects, has made comparisons, reasoned, and formed judgments, until he has acquired a power of discrimination which he did not possess before. In a word, he has refined his senses; his observation of things has been thorough and fundamental; he has changed himself. He finds himself, therefore, facing the world with psychic qualities refined and quickened. His powers of observation and of recognition have greatly increased. Further, the mental images which he has succeeded in establishing are not a 75 confused medley; they are all classified––forms are distinct from dimensions, and dimensions are classed according to the qualities which result from the combinations of varying dimensions. All these are quite distinct from gradations. Colors are divided according to tint and to richness of tone, silence is distinct from non-silence, noises from sounds, and everything has its own exact and appropriate name. The child then has not only developed in himself special qualities of observation and of judgment, but the objects which he observes may be said to go into their place, according to the order established in his mind, and they are placed under their appropriate name in an exact classification. Does not the student of the experimental sciences prepare himself in the same way to observe the outside world? He may find himself like the uneducated man in the midst of the most diverse natural objects, but he differs from the uneducated man in that he has special qualities for observation. If he is a worker with the microscope, his eyes are trained to see in the range of the microscope certain minute details which the ordinary man cannot distinguish. If he is an astronomer, 76 he will look through the same telescope as the curious visitor or dilettante, but he will see much more clearly. The same plants surround the botanist and the ordinary wayfarer, but the botanist sees in every plant those qualities which are classified in his mind, and assigns to each plant its own place in the natural orders, giving it its exact name. It is this capacity for recognizing a plant in a complex order of classification which distinguishes the botanist from the ordinary gardener, and it is exact and scientific language which characterizes the trained observer. Now, the scientist who has developed special qualities of observation and who “possesses” an order in which to classify external objects will be the man to make scientific discoveries. It will never be he who, without preparation and order, wanders dreaming among plants or beneath the starlit sky. In fact, our little ones have the impression of continually “making discoveries” in the world about them; and in this they find the greatest joy. They take from the world a knowledge which is ordered and inspires them with enthusiasm. Into their minds there enters “the Creation” instead 77 of “the Chaos”; and it seems that their souls find therein a divine exultation. <hr class='toprule' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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