Maria Montessori and Thelema
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,
I have recently enrolled my 3 year old in a Montessori school and I am amazed at the similarities between Maria Montessori's methods of teaching and the principles of Thelema, particularly with regards to the respect that is paid to the individual's will.
Crowley's essay on the education of children reads as if it could be written by the same hand as many papers of Maria's authorship.
I encourage anyone who has children under the age of 15 to explore the Montessori schools and their methods, particularly young one's, even down to a year old. Starting them early can make such a difference.
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93s
Both my boys go to Montesorri. I'm pretty happy with the methodology although I'm also interested in looking at the Waldorf (Rudolph Steiner) Schools. I don't know much about the Steiner methodologies but people that I have great respect for (in a Thelemic sense) seem to recommend it more than Montessori. The bad thing I've heard about Montesorri is that when kids are older, they sometimes struggle with the more competitive "dog-eat-dog" environments, like in college for example....I'm not sure if that is true although someoone I know did a study on it.
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Excellent topic.
I've got a few years yet, but I'm already thinking about education for my 1 year old.
Being a new father, I say to anybody spiritually inclined: wow. All these latent instincts and forces (too strong a word?) that rear their heads. Amazing. Never knew what I had in me.
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@modernPrimitive said
"they sometimes struggle with the more competitive "dog-eat-dog" environments, like in college for example....I'm not sure if that is true although someoone I know did a study on it."
At least you know the short coming and can compensate elsewhere in their lives. Best of luck.
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@TGoC said
"Anyone who is raising children Thelemically would also do well to check out the continuum concept of Jean Liedloff.
www.continuum-concept.org/cc_defined.html"Excellent stuff there! My wife and I have realized these very points. I think having confronted our own "childhood demons" have made us realize the huge responsibility parenting entails.
I mean take a simple example of when a toddler accidentally breaks a glass...the parent's first response is to dramatically pull the child away (for fear of the child hurting them self), followed by the parent cleaning up "after the child". The message the child is getting is..."I fucked up and am not good enough to fix it"...and then we wonder why we see people in their late twenties calling on their parents to clean up the messes they've made, because they're "not good enough". A better action to take is to get the child to participate in the cleaning up until they're old enough to clean it up themselves.
Anyway, it's no use being paranoid about parenting....we can only do the best we can, and with the best awareness we're capable of at the time. The thing is to cultivate awareness of one's actions and how they might affect one's child's psychological wellbeing. Of course we must have fun while doing this otherwise we're prone to self-abuse which is pointless. Awareness in the spirit of having some fun.
My kids are 6 and 7 and they already know about the concept of True Will, though in a simple form that is appropriate for their level.
Good luck to all the other parents here.....enjoy your kids! One of the most fantastic things they can teach you is embodied in the first two cards of the Tarot, the fool and the magician. I've learned more about "mundane every-day" magick from my kids than from most books!
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This rang a bell, so I googled Montessori and Laban, and they are often spoken of as working along similar lines, but I don't know if they worked together. Rudolf Laban was IX degree OTO but didn't accept Crowley as world head. Their lifespans and working lif spans certainly correspond.
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I've been doing a little research on the Montessori educational method and Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf educational method. I am currently seeking volunteer positions at both the local Montessori school and the local Waldorf school in order to learn more about them from observation. I'm also considering the possibility of some day seeking teacher certification in one of these methods. This stuff just fascinates the hell out of me.
Anyway, the philosophical similarities of both Waldorf and Montessori are interesting.
In both, the child is viewed as "the father of the man" (or the mother of the woman). The child is thus viewed with great respect and reverence. It is the task of the adults to create a protective & nurturing environment for the child, much like the role that the womb plays to the fetus. The philosophy of both seems to be that child's inner guide is the real teacher, and adults are facilitators to help bring that out.
Both emphasize the education of the whole child, spiritual, mental, physical, psychological, over any particular academic curriculum.
Both systems base their education on the needs of the child, believing that this will lead to meeting the needs of society as a whole. It is the will of the child to guide humanity into the direction that we most need to go. Indeed, these are both educational systems unique, and I believe vitally important to the aeon of the child.Perhaps more interesting still are the differences between these two educational methods. Because I don't know much about child psychology or development, I cannot say which methods sound more effective than the other. But I wonder what you folks might have to think about their respective approaches.
Academics and Fantasy
In Montessori, there is a feeling that young children have difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy, and therefore fantasy should be postponed until the child is firmly grounded in reality. The tasks and activities the children do are reality oriented. Montessori filled her first school of 3-6-year-olds with dolls and other traditional make-believe toys but found that when children were given the opportunity to do real work such as cooking, cleaning, caring for themselves, each other, and the environment, they completely lost interest in make-believe and preferred real work. All toys are focused towards specific learning concepts, and each has a very specific use. Intellectual focus is introduced very early on in Montessori's method. Children are introduced to the real world in all is variations in the first six years, and then use these experiences for creative endeavors in the future.In Waldorf, there is a feeling that young children do no share the same distinction between fantasy and reality that adults have. To the child there is only one world, and that is the very real one in which and with which he plays. The tasks and activities the children do are oriented towards the creative imagination. The Waldorf curriculum of up to 7 years largely incorporates storytelling and fantasy, such as a strong emphasis on art, myths, expressive body movement, etc. Academic subjects such as reading, writing and maths aren't touched upon much until about 1st grade. The idea is that play and fantasy occurs on the surface and if the imagination is kept vibrant, the work of intellectual unfoldement takes place beneath the surface according to its own timing. The less finished and the more suggestive a toy may be, the greater its educational value, for it really enlivens the imaginative life of the child. The child can use for the most part any of the classroom materials in any way (unlike in Montessori).
Individuality and the Group
Montessori classrooms are mix-aged (groups of 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, etc) in order to facilitate realistic socialization. In the classroom you will never see an adult lecturing to a large group of children (except when telling stories perhaps). Children are free to move about at will, and the day is not divided between work periods and rest or play periods. The choice of what to study or work on at any one time is left to the child, with guidance whenever necessary by the teacher. Each child works independently, doing a different task from the other children. work is focused on individual learning tasks, performed separately, with the teacher giving lessons individually to one child at a time, and often lessons are given by one older child to another younger one. The child's choice and concentration is respected and protected from interruption by others.Waldorf classrooms are a single age only, to facilitate the specific needs of that age group. Work in the Waldorf school is more traditional in structure, in that it is more group oriented. The teacher has the role of orchestrating how the development of the young child in the social realm happens – through modeling good social behavior with children, through joining together in movement activities, singing or games to develop group consciousness. Waldorf sees the child thriving in a rhythmical atmosphere – knowing what he/she can count on from day to day and week to week. There are times for coming together and working as a whole group, times for playing individually or with friends, times for directed activity like crafts or baking or painting, and times for creative play (such as acting a story out through movement, doing finger games, watching a puppet show). The Waldorf teacher works with the year’s seasonal rhythms and themes, weaving artistic activities, stories, songs and verses to enliven and capture the children’s interest and imaginations.
Freedom and Structure
From what I see so far, both schools recognize that the child needs structure in order to facilitate personal freedom, and both feel the physical setting needs an underlying order to help the child feel secure. But the two philosophies interpret these things in quite different ways:Montessori allows freedom in regards to the child's choices of academic direction, and is structured in regards to the specific subject matter and methodology of learning and teaching.
Waldorf is structured in regards to the child's choices of academic direction, and allows freedom in regards to the specific subject matter.Anyone have any thoughts on these methods?
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"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"
It is nice to see people raising their kids as thelemites. I think the way people raise thier kids in western society is very destructive to the child. Perhaps more people will catch on and we can turn this mess around. I will have to research maria motessori, she sounds very interesting. Great thread by the way.
"love is the law, love under will"
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@Vissago_66 said
""Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"
It is nice to see people raising their kids as thelemites. I think the way people raise thier kids in western society is very destructive to the child. Perhaps more people will catch on and we can turn this mess around. I will have to research maria motessori, she sounds very interesting. Great thread by the way.
"love is the law, love under will""
I agree:)
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.