Mindfulness in Montessori

Thoughts & Reflections

There are buzzwords in education, and they’re rarely focused on academics. Instead, we’ve been hearing a lot about these “soft skills,” interpersonal skills and characteristics which help lead to success, which employers and college professors are noticing lacking in young adults.

Not that long ago, it was Mindset. Specifically, a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed mindset. The idea that there could be myriad solutions, that we are capable of amazing things through hard work and through learning from defeat.

More recently, it was Grit. Stick-to-itiveness. Acknowledging that something is hard, and that you’re capable of mastering it, and of climbing to the next peak after that.

Lately, Mindfulness has just been everywhere. Yoga, meditation, and other mindful practices have been growing in recent years, in tandem with the organic and slow food movements, an emphasis on community, and on slowing down busy lives.

It is a common and natural desire for parents to provide a better life for their children, to want to improve things for their children, so we see the emergence of these practices in schools — meditation instead of detention, yoga as part of P.E, a call for organic, whole, nutritious school lunches.

So what is Mindfulness? It has been described as awareness, being present to the moment, feeling, perceiving, sensing without judgement, without “should.”

It could be argued, isn’t this how very young children experience the world?

Our youngest students cannot help but be present to the moment. A child is tearful when saying goodbye, a friend who was focusing intently forgets the work completely to comfort, to offer a hug, to cry in solidarity for no reason other than empathy.

A child is frustrated at not being able to do a new work. She is frustrated, even angry at herself. What does it matter that this is a brand new material to her, that if she could master this work in the first moments it would mean she was presented with it too late, that it’s currently just beyond her skill set and that’s the whole point because that’s how we learn things, how we grow. None of that matters. No talking through, no conversation will override that frustration in the moment. She feels it. This is happening.

“We do not need to instruct our children on mindfulness, we need the mindfulness ourselves.”

A child is working with Hand Washing. He has gathered a pitcher of warm water, and is so captivated by pouring, by the motion and the sound of the falling water, that it doesn’t matter that most of the water is missing the basin. He dips his hands in, the water wicking up his sleeves, and yet he senses no discomfort, the warm water is soothing and familiar, he doesn’t know where his skin ends and the water begins. He rubs and flips the slippery soap in his hands, the building suds are so pleasing, bewitching that he doesn’t notice, doesn’t care, doesn’t see he has more than enough to sanitize his hands. That is not the point. The point is the sensations.

How could you be fully present to these moments if you weren’t mindful?

Therefore, we do not need to instruct our children on mindfulness, we need the mindfulness ourselves. The children are happy to be present to the moment, we are the ones who worry and scurry and focus on what needs to be done.

Some of this is necessary. We dance around the child who is concentrating, protecting that mindfulness from any interruption. We observe what a child is doing, how she is moving, what he is interested in, what we can present to a child next for her to be completely enthralled by.

But the worry. The worry gets in the way.

The Worry stands tall when there is water everywhere, stepping on Mindfulness to say, “Look at all this MESS! This needs to be cleaned up, and NOW!”

The Worry is loud, shouting when we’re trying to get out the door and the two-year-old is patiently working his zipper. Is the world actually going to come crumbling down if we’re five minutes late?

The Worry pokes you awake at night, telling you all the balls you dropped, all the ways you could have been better. For the teacher, perhaps it is the presentation that wasn’t quite perfect, the careful wording that wasn’t careful enough, all the times you weren’t enough. For the parent, perhaps it is a whole list of “shoulds,” should your three-year-old be in ballet, should the five-year-old be reading yet, should you have more family nights, should you have allowed your child another dessert, should you quit your job to spend more time with your child, should, should, should.

The Worry is not mindful. There is a beautiful quote, Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”

This is Mindfulness. This is why the children sleep soundly, and we’re the ones kept awake with Worry and Should. They are soothed into slumber by that Quiet Voice.

This is what seeps into a vulnerable crevice in as a child grows, and requires us to re-introduce mindfulness.

Perhaps we can protect a child, as we protect that moment, dancing around the concentration, preventing any overt or inadvertent interruption, so the child never experiences all the whirlwind happening around her, all the other children’s movement and concentration and development which could otherwise interrupt her own. Perhaps we can just be with the water on the floor, or the amount of time we get to spend with our child (which, let’s be honest, could never, ever, be enough), or the effort we put in today, and silence the Worry with our own Quiet Voice.

For when we are worried about what should be, or could be, or isn’t, we simply cannot be present to the world that Is, to the soap suds cascading to the floor, to the child sounding out words, to the tender small one cleaning up oh so much water.

For when we are mindful, we are free to dance. For, with, around the child.