Maintaining Classroom Discipline, 1947. (13 minutes, 44 seconds.) How human nature has not changed; but how American society and culture have…
What do you tihnk?
June 25, 2009
Our Natural State: Action
In The Montessori Method, Dr. Maria Montessori wrote:
True rest for muscles, intended by nature for action, is in orderly action; just as true rest for the lungs is in the normal rhythm of respiration taken in pure air. To take action away from the muscles is to force them away from their natural motor impulse, and hence, besides tiring them, means forcing them into a state of degeneration; just as the lungs forced into mobility, would die instantly and the whole organism with them.
It is therefore necessary to keep clearly in mind the fact that rest for whatever naturally acts, lies in some specified form of action, corresponding to its nature.
To act in obedience to the hidden precepts of nature — that is rest; and in this special case, since man is meant to be an intelligent creature, the more intelligent his acts are the more he finds repose in them.
(pp. 354, The Montessori Method by Dr. Maria Montessori, trans. Anne E. George, (c) 1964 Schocken Books, New York (and (c) 1988 Random House), ISBN 0-8052-0922-0)
This idea is generally consistent with evolution, Aristotle’s philosophy, the Renaissance’s and the Enlightenment’s ideas of reason, the philosophy of man of the ancient Greeks, modern science and technology…
June 24, 2009
More Chicago
Doing “25 or 6 to 4” (1974; in the studio). Awesome music. Another thing that takes the video a step up is that it has…horses and horseback riding in it!! Hard to beat that!! You can also hear the song from a 1977 Houston, Tx concert. And there are more videos of this song on YouTube, of course.
Adding to That Temperature Thread
I took my temperature last night at 10:30 PM, and got a reading of 98 F with my mercury thermometer (97.8 F with my electronic thermometer).
I have not gotten around to getting all my temperature records together and running a stat analysis to find the mean and standard deviation. But it’s clearly way below the silly, poorly researched, pseudo-average value of 98.6 F.
Memories From Last Week
Riding Bareback
Nice that the evil horseflies are gone, that they have finished their one-month cycle of attacking animals for blood, so I can ride back in the woods again! Last week, the ride after this pictured ride, I went back out in the woods after a two-week absence. I did not want my horse to have to suffer horsefly attacks. They are horrible (see also URI‘s Factsheet): they swarm in groups of 5 or 10 or 25; they cut into animals with knife-like “teeth” instead of sucking blood like mosquitoes; they leave trails of blood a few inches long; they are so bloodthirsty that no amount of flyspray or Deep Woods Off will keep them away. They deserve to die.
But today and Monday I had good two-hour, unmolested rides in the woods. Sunshine, blue sky, green trees, dark shadows, brown earth, my horse, me, and peaceful, pleasant solitude.
More Chicago
Doing “(I’ve Been) Searching So Long.” (Live version with really good sound. 1974.)
In Thinking, Dig Deep
“A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
–from “Essay on Criticism,” by Alexander Pope
Things are not always as they seem, the video.
Now I don’t know what the people who made the advertisement want to say, and hence I don’t know if I’d agree with their message — do they want to say the educational system needs change? do they want to say anything goes and don’t judge? do they want to say the educational system stifles creativity? — but to me the video illustrates how we should not jump to conclusions, should look at the big picture, and should, objectively, put evidence in its proper context, in its proper relationship with other evidence and principles.
The parents, teacher, doctors and nurses are presented as jumping to conclusions, as failing to engage in proper induction: they think each piece of paper is all, in and of itself, in isolation to anything. They fail to relate part to whole, detail to abstraction — a critical aspect of thinking rationally.
The Greeks were masters of relating part to whole.
Edith Hamilton said:
Character is a Greek word, but it did not mean to the Greeks what it means to us. To them is stood first for the mark stamped upon the coin, and then for the impress of this or that quality upon a man, as Euripides speaks of the stamp — character — of valor upon Hercules, man the coin, valor the mark imprinted on him. To us a man’s character is that which is peculiarly his own; it distinguishes each one from the rest. To the Greeks it was a man’s share in qualities all men partake of; it united each one to the rest. We are interested in people’s special characteristics, the things in this or that person which are different from the general. The Greeks, on the contrary, thought what was important in a man were precisely the qualities he shared with all mankind.
June 23, 2009
Montessori: Self-discipline Comes Through Individual Liberty, Not Spartan Authoritarianism
After discussing (but not agreeing with) the dictum of another age (but still with us!!) that “children should be accustomed to eat everything” on the grounds that “thus…in the various circumstances in which he may be placed throughout his life, [the child] will be ready to eat whatever comes to hand, and will not be greedy and capricious,” Dr. Montessori counters and elaborates with:
Very similar methods are now adopted by those who insist that children should pay attention to things they dislike, in order to accustom them to the necessities of life. But as in the case of psychical nourishment hunger is never brought to bear upon the “cold and distasteful viands,” the indigestible and heavy food weakens and poisons the unwilling recipient.
Not thus shall we prepare the robust spirit, ready for all the difficult eventualities of life. The boy who swallowed the cold soup and went fasting to bed was the one whose body developed badly, who was too weak to resist infection when he encountered it, and fell ill; and morally it was he who, having a store of unsatisfied appetites within him, looked upon it as the greatest joy of his liberty, when he became an adult, to eat and drink to excess. How unlike was he to the boy of today, who, rationally fed and made robust of body, becomes the abstemious man, who eats to live in health, and combats alcoholism and excessive and injurious feeding; the modern man, who can defend himself by so many means against infectious diseases, and who is so ready for effort that, without any compulsion, he braves the arduous exertion of sport and attempts and carries out great enterprises, such as the discovery of the Poles and the ascent of lofty mountains.
So, too, the man capable of braving the icy wastes of moral conflict, of undertaking spiritual ascents, will be he whose will is strong, whose spirit is well balanced, whose decisions are prompt and steadfast.
And the more a man’s inner life shall have grown normally, organizing itself in accordance with the provident laws of nature, and forming an individuality, the more richly will he be endowed with a strong will and a well-balanced mind. To be ready for a struggle, it is not necessary to have struggled from one’s birth, but it is necessary to be strong. He who is strong is ready; no hero was a hero before he had performed his heroic deed. The trials life has in store for us are unforeseen, unexpected; no one can prepare us directly to meet them; it is only a vigorous soul that can be prepared for everything. (pp. 129-130, The Advanced Montessori Method – I (formerly Spontaneous Activity in Education) by Dr. Maria Montessori, trans.s Florence Simmonds and Lily Hutchinson, Clio Press, Oxford, (c) 1991 Montessori-Pierson Estates, ISBN 1-85109-114-9.)
This general idea applies also to Ms. Vance-Cheng, the PEG graduate we saw interviewed about a week ago. Ms. Vance-Cheng would not have been made stronger or been better off by being made to go to a school that had bad social experiences she had to endure.
A Parent Speaks
A parent of one student I tutor said:
Knowing that you are willing to play a major role in [my son's] education will certainly help me make up my mind [about homeschooling]. You are offering him something that no one else ever has – a passion about thinking, about learning and connecting ideas instead of regurgitating little bits of information. Heck, you inspire me….I can’t imagine how inspirational you can be to a kid who loves to learn but was starting to forget how to learn.
