On Kindness

Thoughts & Reflections

Adam Phillips is a masterful thinker of childhood. As a matter of fact, he may be one of the single greatest advocates, or rather, champions of childhood, working today. A trained psychotherapist and self-described evocative essayist, Phillips spent a decade at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, where he served in the capacity of chief child psychotherapist.

In his wonderfully concise, sharp text, “On Kindness”, written with the historian Barbara Taylor, he seeks to tell the history of kindness, which he deliberately links to the history of childhood. Picking up on a thread from Rousseau, they operate on the assumption that “children begin their lives ‘naturally’ kind, and that something happens to this kindness as they grow up in contemporary society”.

How is kindness shed as we develop? Well, as Phillips and Taylor explain, our society has formed a certain image of kindness, coupled with an image of the self, that runs counter to its historical roots in kinship and sameness. Today, kindness is often perceived, not necessarily as being generous or warmhearted, but rather, as a form of weakness. Kindness is, to put it more bluntly, something that we’ve grown to be skeptical about, and have a judgement of, typically thinking of it in either “moralistic or sentimental” terms.

“ What is new perhaps is how easily people today are persuaded not to take kindness too seriously. ”

The question they ever so delicately ask is: “How has something so integral and essential to ourselves become so incidental, so implausible to us?” If kindness is shaped by childhood, which seems like a more than plausible claim, one that could easily be traced with a certain degree of scientific rigor, how can it be nurtured as a natural condition of development? Or, more conservatively, perhaps, what are the optimal conditions in which kindness needs to flourish?

We thought it might be a useful exercise to showcase, more specifically, how kindness is fostered in Montessori, as a necessary, and constitutive condition of the environment. To jumpstart our discussion, we also thought it might be helpful if we establish this post in some real world perspectives. We asked a handful of our older students to share their insights: “What does kindness mean to you?” Here’s one:

The main comments included associations with terms like, “respect”, “sharing”, and “helping”. “I like when my sister lets me play with her dolls.” Their sincere, good-spirited responses started us thinking. While we see kindness exhibited on a daily basis, in a plethora of different ways, many of the children are plain unaware of their spontaneous acts of kindness. They just naturally act it. In a certain sense, children don’t have a vocabulary for kindness. Or, they have yet to learn it. Primarily, we would conjecture, because they don’t need to. They live it. How does this pertain to us, as adults? Well, as Phillips and Taylor rather candidly states:

“ People are leading secretly kind lives all the time but without a language in which to express this, or a cultural support for it. ”

As Phillips and Taylor conjoin, in a rather dense but important sentence: “It shows how the kind life – the life lived in instinctive sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of others – is the life we are more inclined to live, and indeed is the one we are often living without letting ourselves know that this is what we are doing.”

We would wager, rather wholeheartedly, that these traits are allowed to transpire in a Montessori classroom. The prepared environment provides the much needed cultural support. Yet, following Phillips and Taylor, how did this cultural shift in mindset towards kindness happen? A good place to look would be to the education of our children.

When observers view a Montessori classroom for the very first time, they are typically blown away by three main components. The noise level, which is to say the lack thereof; the concentration, which Montessori described as the first essential of childhood development; and, most surprisingly for visitors, the natural ability for children to work independently, collaborate, and coexist peacefully in a mixed-age environment.

Not only is the quiet, healthy murmur of the classroom so startling, visitors are equally and visibly disarmed by the joy of the learning that they witness. “I don’t remember my education this way,” they jest. Students, to their surprise, are happily engaged. Of course, there is a simple reason for this phenomenon, one which makes Montessori so relevant today. Namely, when children are not forced to learn, they naturally (just as Phillips and Taylor remark on kindness as being a natural condition of development) want to learn.

“Why are the children not arguing with each other?” these visitors inquire. Then, they quickly rattle off their thoughts, as if trying to answer them aloud: “Why are they not fighting over the materials?” “I’ve never seen anything like this.” “I didn’t think children could act this way.” “Are they always like this?” “I’m not sure my child would fit in this environment.”

Instantly, they are taken-a-back by the tranquility, or as Montessori would say, the harmony of the classroom. While so many different things are happening simultaneously, with children working on a wide array of activities spread throughout the classroom, they are all in accordance with a deep, rich sense of community. Essentially, every standard assumption of childhood – and education for that matter – is completely undermined by the calmness of the experience. This raises an excellent point: Montessori needs to be seen to be believed.

As we begin to respond to their puzzled, bewildered looks, we remember the words of Montessori from the Absorbent Mind: “The child comes to see that he must respect the work of others, not because someone has said he must, but because this is a reality that he meets in his daily experience. There is only one (material) between many children, so there is nothing for it but to wait. And since this happens every hour of the day for years, the idea of respecting others, and of waiting ones turn, becomes an habitual part of life which always grows more mature.” (Our italics)

“Kindness is respect,” we recall from the video interview.

Anticipating Phillips, then, Montessori calls this period of development the birth of social life. Basically, and as she envisioned, children live and work in an environment that is predicated on community, on a shared sense of participation and social responsibility. This is a safe, beautiful , friendly place, where children can learn to work side-by-side, despite their age, interests, or ability. All differences are cast aside, and their uniquenesses are recognized. If we can be so bold, Montessori is a space specifically created just for children to discover how to live in the world with others. Kindness, of course, is a natural condition.

In this type of environment, the traits that we normally assign, or associate with traditional education, such as competition, efficiency and productivity, are displaced by a different set of characteristics, ones that include collaboration, process and thoughtfulness. It’s an entirely different value structure, one that is not teacher-centric, but rather, child-centric, as the classroom itself is focused on helping children explore their own interests, in an environment that supports their curiosity.

“ The only social life that children get in ordinary schools is during play-time or excursions. Ours live always in an active community. ”

This is an important idea that Montessori presents, which underlies everything that she created: as adults, we can’t teach children anything that they don’t want to learn, but they can learn by experience. Kindness is no exception. With the above quote in mind, what Montessori highlights is how consciously she considered the significance of social interactions in education. As Montessori further relays, “There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with the utmost ease.”

Kindness, to be sure, is one of those elements. It is not something that can be taught, per say. It is, however, something that can be nurtured. This is a concept that Montessori, no doubt, would endorse. Kindness is natural. It is, perhaps best thought of as a spontaneous action, instead of a prescribed determination. It doesn’t need to be taught. It can be experienced, though, especially in an environment that is created to allowed for it to voluntarily occur. Kindness can, given the right conditions, be embraced.

“ Here is a field in which children have nothing to learn from grown-ups. – Montessori ”

Phillips and Taylor have a remarkable ability to recognize the singular importance of children, while, at the same time, dissecting, with scientific precision, the vital characteristics of development. The ability to communicate and be sympathetic with their peers, as well as the capability to support their success, is an integral component to what makes Montessori a wholesome environment in which kindness is the normal outcome of daily, social interactions.

There is great strength in kindness.