Camillo Grazzini and Baiba Krumins, directors of training at the International Center for Montessori Studies of the Bergamo Foundation, offer arguments from Maria Montessori’s writings on the following question:
Question: In our elementary schools we receive the Child of the Second Plane. Should we subdivide this plan by having separate environments for six-nine-year-olds and the nine-twelve-year-olds? Or should we have just one environment for the entire six-twelve group? Camillo Grazzini and Baiba Krumins, Directors of Training at the International Centre for Montessori Studies Foundation of Bergamo, provide ample arguments from Maria Montessori’s writing pertaining to this particular question.
Answer: What is so striking about the Montessori approach to educational is the clear and deep harmony between theory (understood as a logical formulation of the principles and general laws underlying the description of a reality, be this natural or social) and practice (understood as activities aimed at a concrete result). This kind of harmony is rare, if not unique, in the field of education where, at best, one cannot find any relationship at all and, at worst, there is outright conflict between theory and practice (and where “theory”, in any case, is often only understood as the aims of education whilst “natural development” is left up to psychologists and more recently to neuroscientists).
So what does the undivided plane of childhood for the years six-twelve mean in practice? That the work development that the child undertakes during the years six-twelve is essentially the same throughout this plane. Much of this developmental work can be summed up in the request “help me to think by myself”. This new-found need for mental (and moral) independence is what education for this plane has to respond to and this kind of independence is acquired gradually throughout the entire cycle of elementary and by means of many different activities with their various specific goals. Viewed in these very general terms and looking for consistency between “theory” and “practice” one can conclude that the prepared elementary environment is one and the same for all the years between six and twelve. Most certainly it is not possible to justify the notion that the advanced materials whilst the nine-twelve children should only (or virtually only) work with books. This is a false division of the second plane: it seems to indicate a qualitative difference of the kind one would expect if this plane were divided into two sub-planes. The division also does not make sense because there are many Montessori elementary children who have not undertaken all the work and exploration with all of the advanced materials, even by the time they leave elementary at the age of 11 or 12. The work with solid geometry and volume is a prime example.
Mixed Ages
One of the best-known specific references to mixed ages is that found in The Absorbent Mind. But let us consider this and other references in chronological order.
AMI Communications
In her article “What age difference should there be among children in a Montessori group?”, (Communications, 1983, no.1) Rosy Joosten-Chotzen quotes what Maria Montessori said during her third London Course in 1923. “What difference should there be among children in a group? Not more than three years difference. The groups should comprise children from three to six years of age.” The quote goes on to stress the importance of mixed ages as opposed to “single-age classes like those found in ordinary schools.” The question here is if the part not more than is correctly quoted.
The Child Society and the World: Unpublished Speeches and Writings
This book (Clio Press) includes a lecture given by Maria Montessori on a course in India, in 1942. The lecture is called “On the principles of the Montessori school” and it is extremely important for the organization of a Montessori school in general. In this lecture Montessori says “Most of the schools, perhaps I should say all, have children of the same age in the different classes. In fact their curriculum is based on age. Our experience has separated us from this general rule, for in our school, what we seek is just this difference in ages. And if we were to place a limit on their difference, then we should say that there must be a difference of at least three years.”
The crucial thing is the at least, which is very different from the earlier not more than. What Montessori is saying here is that a three-year difference of age is a minimum and the maximum age difference is not specified. In other words, these statements would strongly indicate that both a six-twelve class and six-nine and nine-twelve classes are equally acceptable from Montessori’s point of view. However, in the same lecture, Montessori also emphasizes the importance of the freedom to circulate from one environment to another, and this means that the three-six, six-nine and nine-twelve environments are interconnecting, both physically (architectural implications) and psychologically (an attitude of open doors).
The Discovery of the Child
Montessori states in The Discovery of the Child (1948, Kalakshetra, chapter 25) “What an immense advantage belongs to this method, one which would make very easy the instruction in rural schools, and in schools in small villages in the provinces, in which these are a few children in which many different classes could not be formed and which would have a few teachers. The result of our experiment is that a single mistress can handle children who are at such varying levels as those between three years of age in the infant school and the third class in the elementary school (…). As for the mistress she is able, without danger of exhausting her strength, to remain all day with children who belong to such diverse grades of development, just as in a home the mother is in company with her children of all ages (…).”
Note: Whereas the Kalakshetra edition is based on the translation by Mary A. Johnstone, the Clio edition uses the translation by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J
To Educate the Human Potential
In To Educate the Human Potential (Kalashetra, chapter 2), first published in 1948 and fundamental for the second plane, all Montessori says is “in our schools the ages are, to a limited extent, mixed’.
The Absorbent Mind
The Absorbent Mind, first published in 1949, is dedicated to the first plane of development. Nonetheless, the chapter called “The Periods of Growth” deals with the planes of development and there Montessori makes it very clear that whilst the first plane is divided into two sub-phases, the second plane is an undivided plane. Then, in the chapter “Social Development” there is a section called Social Life which constitutes the best-known Montessori source of reference for mixed ages. In that section it is obvious that Montessori envisages an environment for the three-to-sixes and one for the six-to-nines, since she actually refers to “the room for sevens, eights and nines”. Once again, however, she makes it clear that “there is always easy access from one classroom to the next”.
However, in the same section Montessori also refers to six ages when she says “When some of our own teachers wanted to apply the principle of one age for one class, it was the children themselves who showed what great difficulties sprang from this. It is just the same at home.” A mother with six children finds them easy to manage.” And also “the mother with six children of different ages is far better off than the mother with one.”
Conclusions
Leaving aside the first reference given above, the overall conclusion would seem to be that both a single cycle and the two cycles of elementary are acceptable from a Montessori point of view. Which option is actually used would then depend on the specific circumstances involved, above all (as Montessori herself points out in The Discovery of the Child) on the number of children involved: in this case, those of elementary age. However, it is also clear that there are other very important aspects that have to be borne in mind: access to environments for other ages and access to all of the advanced materials on the part of all elementary children.
If both options are acceptable from a Montessori point of view, then trainers, teachers and schools in general are able to opt for either one, but without ever implying that the alternative is somehow non-Montessori or less Montessori.
It is clear that schools will opt for one or other possibility according to what is more convenient from an organizational and financial point of view. In addition, if the numbers of children are such that it is possible to have a six-nine class and a nine-twelve class, that is what the school may choose (rather than two six – twelve classes) if one of the teachers is new or very much less experienced. However, all these reasons are practical reasons, which have nothing to do with Montessori reasons of a psycho-pedagogical nature.
A far more serious situation is raised by the possibility of a school preferring two cycles in elementary because the school, wishing to save on the costs of material, divides the full set of advanced materials between the two cycles. This limits the child’s freedom of choice of work and interferes with the children’s freedom to work at their own pace in all the various areas (mathematics or geometry or whatever). In other words, unnecessary limits to the children’s exploration are being set up. Children are different and we have to respect those differences also by providing each elementary environment (be it six-nine or nine-twelve) with a full set of advanced materials. Otherwise, at least to some extent, the adults are imposing their own choices on the children. Naturally, the problem is only exacerbated if, in addition, there is no freedom to circulate at the children’s own initiative.
AMI Communications – 2003/1
