Chapter II
“If we are to develop a system of scientific pedagogy, we must then proceed along lines very different from those which have been followed up to the present time. The transformation of the school must be contemporaneous with the preparation of the teacher. For if we make of the teacher an observer, familiar with the experimental methods, then we must make it possible for her to observe and to experiment in the school. The fundamental principle of scientific pedagogy must be, indeed, the liberty of the pupil;–such liberty as shall permit a development of individual, spontaneous manifestations of the child’s nature” (31).
**So she is reclaiming the term “scientific pedagogy”… rhetorically smart with powerful implications for the teacher. What is it about the teaching of writing that makes it worthy of such an approach? **Notice how this notion treats the teacher is smart, capable, professional; it becomes a profession with dignity. **Our culture of test-taking certainly stands in stark opposition to this concept.
“if a new and scientific pedagogy is to arise from the study of the individual, such study must occupy itself with the observation of free children. In vain should we await a practical renewing of pedagogical methods from methodical examinations of pupils made under the guidance offered to-day by pedagogy, anthropology, and experimental psychology” (23).
**And here is, explicitly, the IDEA extended by BERTHOFF into the realm of Composition, that experimental psychology and other “positivist” sciences can only fail the reality of the individual.
***Here is where Dobrin and Berthoff clash; Berthoff (via Montessori) remains devout to the value of the individual, the “subject.” I think he would be fine in her eyes if he didn’t feel the need to declare the essentialness of the death of teaching, which equates to the devaluing of the individual. This can only result in false knowledge of the world, according to Berthoff (via Montessori….see “The Butterfly” analogy).
I disagree, though. I believe valuable knowledge comes from quantum physics and from particle physics. Different kinds of knowledges. The Method This chapter makes many mentions of the term “method.” I wonder if it is a source for Berthoff’s focus in Forming, Thinking, Writing on “method.” And I wonder what the relationships are between Montessori’s use of the term and Berthoff’s.
Inspiration and Guidance: Itard Sequin
“The prejudice that the educator must place himself on a level with one to be educated, sinks the teacher of deficients into a species of apathy. He accepts the fact that he is educating an inferior personality, and for that very reason he does not succeed. Even so those who teach little children too often have the idea that they are educating babies and seek to place themselves on the child’s level by approaching him with games, and often with foolish stories. Instead of all this, we must know how to call to the man which lies dormant within the soul of the child. I felt this, intuitively, and believed that not the didactic material, but my voice which called to them, awakened the children, and encouraged them to use the didactic material, and through it, to educate themselves. I was guided in my work by the deep respect which I felt for their misfortune, and by the love which these unhappy children know how to awaken in those who are near them” (35).
**This passage delineates Montessori’s source of success: DEEP RESPECT FOR THE STUDENT and her potential. The way a teacher treats a student is key to the success of any pedagogical occasion. The student must “teach himself”…. Teacher as guide…. How often do I hear teachers of writing voice low respect of the student? The expectation is that they “can’t write”…. This creates an environment ripe for students not to learn…
Interesting, the passage on Seguin’s RHETORICAL use of “deficient” children on page 35: “They must, he says render themselves attractive in voice and manner, since it is their task to awaken souls which are frail and weary, and to lead them forth to lay hold upon the beauty and strength of life” (35).
Depiction of the teacher as a giver of life! (35/36) “Without such inspiration the most perfect external stimulus may pass unobserved.”
***Digital Pedagogies: Teacher provides the “life”: “encouragement, comfort, love, respect” (35) Without this, the “external stimulus” and its potential value, i.e. the digital/ “didactic” materials will largely not work.
THE TEACHING OF READING AND WRITING
“I will only note that at this time I attempted an original method for the teaching of reading and writing, a part of the education of the child which was most imperfectly treated in the works of both Itard and Seguin” (36).
**WOW! She started with Reading/Writing!!! And… it was “most imperfectly treated” in Itard/Seguin. I wonder why it was so? And I wonder what the specific results were of her initial forays. “They had been helped in their psychic development, and the normal children had, instead, been suffocated, held back….I found myself thinking that if, some day, the special education which had developed these idiot children in such a marvelous fashion, could be applied to the development of normal children, the ‘miracle’ of which my friends talked would no longer be possible…” (36).
**Disability Studies The Progressions Introduced Here “Seguin, indeed, led the idiot from the vegetative to intellectual life, “from the education of the senses to general notions, from general notions to abstract thought, from abstract thought to morality.’ But when this wonderful work is accomplished, and by means of a minute physiological analysis and of a gradual progression in method, the idiot has become a man…” (37).
**Essential Montessorian concepts! Montessori’s Writing Process “I withdrew from active work…felt the need for meditation…I translated into Italian and copied out with my own hand, the writings of these men, from beginning to end, making for myself books as the old Benedictines used to do before the diffusion of printing” (37).
****Umm…. AWESOME! “I chose to do this by hand, in order that I might have time to weigh the sense of each word, and to read, in truth, the spirit of the author” (37).
**What does this suggest about Montessori’s ideas about writing????
OH>>>>>.. First, she studied for 2 years via the “Medical Pedagogic Institute.” It is here 1889-1890 where she worked with “idiot” children (not the Casa di Bambini). (33). In 1907, MM began at the Casa di Bambini!!! “normal” tenement children (38). Why young children? Established on page 39… stems from the study of “deficient” children and has to do with developmental stages.
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