Tree of Life Montessori School of Atlanta

Back to school! Our first week back we focused on friendship and emotions. We read books, sang songs and made twisted "friendship" bracelets.

We also had our first birthday ceremony of the School year where the child carries the globe of the Earth around an orange round candle representing the Sun.

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BORN IN ITALY - REBORN IN INDIA - THE ROSARY - NAMASTE

“I came to teach, but India has taught me.”

In 1939, when the ship carrying Dr. Maria Montessori and her son Mario docked in Chennai, she was sixty-nine years old, and a woman who had already lived several lifetimes, joys and heartaches of living her Method. She’d already lived the European nobility and travelled extensively.
She expected to give a short training course in Chennai and leave but that was not to be.
War closed the seas and she was stuck almost nine years.

Nine years in exile.

Nine years as a white European woman of noble birth living under British colonial rule in a land that was burning for independence and in troubled upheaval. She now lived and experienced Colonialism . What did she see? How did she feel? What moved her?

Nine years of monsoon heat, mosquito nets, vegetarian ashram meals, and the daily sound of temple bells at dawn.

And in those nine years India did not merely host Dr Montessori.
India remade her. Formed a whole new human being - wholly culturally aware.
This is a phenomena that everyone who has lived in foreign countries for a longer period of time will attest to. Cultural awareness becomes strong. We live. We learn. We experience.

Montessori arrived carrying the rosary of her Catholic childhood in one hand and the scientific method of the Casa dei Bambini in the other.
She left carrying both still, but now the beads of the rosary were interlaced with the strong teachings of India.

She experienced grown women sitting on the floor for hours without a chair back, legs folded like all Indian grandmothers.

She watched, perhaps learned to eat with her fingers, to receive prasad with reverence, to bow to elders with joined palms.

She watched Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Christian, and Jain children work side by side in the same classroom and realised that the prepared environment works beautifully with Peaceful adults who have prepared their hearts, souls and minds.
Understanding that these Indian teachers and assistants, too, carried their personal burdens yet they continued forward, onward in the search of scientific beauty for humanity- for the child.

She wrote:
“I have seen the same child, born of Hindu parents, of Muslim parents, of Christian parents, reveal the same phenomena, the same forms of creation, the same deviations, the same need for love and for order… The human soul is one.”
Dr Maria Montessori, lectures in Ahmedabad, 1940s

She wore white cotton saris in the fierce Indian summers because dignity does not require European tailoring.

She celebrated Diwali with oil lamps and Christmas with midnight Mass in the same week, refusing to choose between them.

When Gandhi was assassinated in 1948, What did she feel? What did she say? Did she speak up of non violence?

She, of Italian nobility who once dined amongst the aristocracy of Italy, learned from India the deepest lesson of humility:
that truth is larger than any single culture, and the child will find it no matter what language the adults pray in.

TRUTH IS LARGER THAN ANY SINGLE CULTURE, AND THE CHILD WILL FIND IT NO MATTER WHAT LANGUAGE THE ADULTS PRAY IN.
We who claim her legacy would do well to remember this.

When we insist that a Montessori classroom must look, sound, smell, and feel exactly as it did in 1907 Rome, we forget that the woman who created it allowed India to change her. The environment must echo the sounds and smells of the country in which we are living with that special hint of cultural acceptance to all.

When we bristle at a guide who removes shoes at the door, or lights incense before the work cycle, or teaches the children to greet one another with “Namaste” instead of a handshake, we forget that Montessori herself learnt and bowed to a culture not her own and found it. Discovered it. Accepted all of its teachings. So when in India we are greeted beautifully with a “Namaste” we, too can introduce other cultural greetings in our cultural lessons, “Hola! Ciao! Hej! Bon jour!”
In Paris we learn and accept and give graciously lessons that include little ones from far away countries.
“Nie Hao” to the little Chinese boy new from Beijing.
“Hej” to the girl from Sweden.

She wrote from India:

“The education of our day has become too exclusive…
We must take from every nation what is good in its civilisation and reject what is bad, creating a humanity that is truly universal.”
Dr Maria Montessori, The Child, Indian edition preface

And in a later letter to Mario she confessed with rare vulnerability:
“I came to teach, but India has taught me.”

“I CAME TO TEACH BUT INDIA HAS TAUGHT ME.”
So let the Montessori world today be brave enough to sit on the floor when the floor is offered.
Choose a bench when that is offered.
Teach indoors or outdoors whichever is practical.
Adapt to circumstance but do so reverently.

Let us taste the food of another culture and embrace the aromas that feed our senses.

Join in on the celebrations of Light and Color or Thanksgiving, Christmas, Ramadan, Yom Kippur - the most holy of days. With reverence.

Let us learn the songs in languages we do not speak, because the child’s spirit recognises melody before grammar.

Maria Montessori, daughter of Italian nobility, became in India simply “Madam.”
And in becoming simply Madam, she became universal.

The lotus opened in foreign soil and did not lose its fragrance.
The rosary rested against a cotton sari and did not lose its prayer.

This is the deepest curriculum she brought home from exile:

Love does not colonise.
Love learns.
Love bows.
Love becomes larger than the self it started in.

May every Montessori classroom on earth, no matter where it stands, remember the woman who once lived and observed the experience of sitting cross-legged on an Indian floor and discovered that the child, like truth itself, belongs to no single nation, only to the one human family.

We live, we learn from real experiences of others.
©️Althea Cutting

NB: All our articles are©️copyright. Please kindly reference.

As usual with gracious thanks to all who share hours of research discovering historical images via the www encouraging our journey of learning. With gratitude 🙏🏼🕊️

This week finished our July summer camp. Our themes included frogs and camping. We learned about the life cycle of the frog, varieties, sounds and more. We practiced drawing simple frog shapes. We read books and included books about camping.

https://theconversation.com/kids-do-feel-the-cold-so-why-wont-they-wear-a-jumper-287859

Kids do feel the cold. So why won’t they wear a jumper? When you say ‘but aren’t you cold?’ what are you really asking? Kids will answer how they feel now; parents are planning ahead.

2nd week of our 3-week July Summer Session.

Our theme this week was fireflies. We learned about their life cycle and made an art project called "Fireflies in a jar," In the summer, on Fridays we have popsicles and water play.

Hands on learning is essential ...

The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents | Fortune Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”

July Summer Session! Our themes this week were blueberries and bears! We ate lots of blueberries, read books and made a blueberry basket art project. The children also learned a Native American bear song and a Qigong movement called The Bear.

Also in the summer sessions, we play longer outside and on Fridays we have fruit popsicles and water play.

Why the tripod grip is so important and what we can do to help children develop it.

Why the Three-Finger Grasp Matters More Than You Think While working with a group of older four-year-olds on a craft project, I looked on in amazement as the children held their pencils like spears, ready to be launched.

Our last day of the School Year! This last week we focused on Buddha's Birthday and butterflies. We learned about Buddha's life, meditated and had rice pudding. We read about butterflies and their life cycle plus named the parts of their bodies. We also made butterflies out of coffee filters.

Our last day was a hit with outdoor water play, popsicles and a pizza lunch. .

This week we focused on Cinco de Mayo/Mexico and Mother's Day. We read books, made paper flowers and learned how to draw simple flowers. We listened to music and had a special snack.