Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook Part 3

The child scatters the ten pieces over a light-colored carpet, and then beginning sometimes with the thickest, sometimes with the thinnest, he places them in their right order of gradation upon a table.

(3) Ten rods, colored green, or alternately red and blue, all of which have the same square section of four centimeters a side, but vary by ten centimeters in length from ten centimeters to one meter. (Fig.

12.)

The child scatters the ten rods on a large carpet and mixes them at random, and, by comparing rod with rod, he arranges them according to their order of length, so that they take the form of a set of organ pipes.

As usual, the teacher, by doing the exercises herself, first shows the child how the pieces of each set should be arranged, but it will often happen that the child learns, not directly from her, but by watching his companions. She will, however, always continue to watch the children, never losing sight of their efforts, and any correction of hers will be directed more towards preventing rough or disorderly use of the material than towards any _error_ which the child may make in placing the rods in their order of gradation. The reason is that the mistakes which the child makes, by placing, for example, a small cube beneath one that is larger, are caused by his own lack of education, and it is the _repet.i.tion of the exercise_ which, by refining his powers of observation, will lead him sooner or later to _correct_ _himself_. Sometimes it happens that a child working with the long rods makes the most glaring mistakes. As the aim of the exercise, however, is _not_ that the rods be arranged in the right order of gradation, but that the child _should practise by himself_, there is no need to intervene.

One day the child will arrange all the rods in their right order, and then, full of joy, he will call the teacher to come and admire them.

The object of the exercise will thus be achieved.

These three sets, the cubes, the prisms, and the rods, cause the child to move about and to handle and carry objects which are difficult for him to grasp with his little hand. Again, by their use, he repeats the _training of the eye_ to the recognition of differences of size between similar objects. The exercise would seem easier, from the sensory point of view, than the other with the cylinders described above.

As a matter of fact, it is more difficult, as there is _no control of the error in the material itself_. It is the child's eye alone which can furnish the control.

Hence the difference between the objects should strike the eye at once; for that reason larger objects are used, and the necessary visual power presupposes a previous preparation (provided for in the exercise with the solid insets).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--BOARD WITH ROUGH AND SMOOTH SURFACES.]

During the same period the child can be doing other exercises. Among the material is to be found a small rectangular board, the surface of which is divided into two parts--rough and smooth. (Fig. 13.) The child knows already how to wash his hands with cold water and soap; he then dries them and dips the tips of his fingers for a few seconds in tepid water. Graduated exercises for the thermic sense may also have their place here, as has been explained in my book on the "Method."

After this, the child is taught to pa.s.s the soft cus.h.i.+oned tips of his fingers _as lightly as possible_ over the two separate surfaces, that he may appreciate their difference. The delicate _movement_ backwards and forwards of the suspended hand, as it is brought into light contact with the surface, is an excellent exercise in control. The little hand, which has just been cleansed and given its tepid bath, gains much in grace and beauty, and the whole exercise is the first step in the education of the "tactile sense," which holds such an important place in my method.

When initiating the child into the education of the sense of touch, the teacher must always take an active part the first time; not only must she show the child "how it is done," her interference is a little more definite still, for she takes hold of his hand and guides it to touch the surfaces with the finger-tips in the lightest possible way.

She will make no explanations; her words will be rather to _encourage_ the child with his hand to perceive the different sensations.

When he has perceived them, it is then that he repeats the act by himself in the delicate way which he has been taught.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--BOARD WITH GUMMED STRIPS OF PAPER.]

After the board with the two contrasting surfaces, the child is offered another board on which are gummed strips of paper which are rough or smooth in different degrees. (Fig. 14.)

Graduated series of sandpaper cards are also given. The child perfects himself by exercises in touching these surfaces, not only refining his capacity for perceiving tactile differences which are always growing more similar, but also perfecting the movement of which he is ever gaining greater mastery.

Following these is a series of stuffs of every kind: velvets, satins, silks, woolens, cottons, coa.r.s.e and fine linens. There are two similar pieces of each kind of stuff, and they are of bright and vivid colors.

The child is now taught a new movement. Where before he had to _touch_, he must now _feel_ the stuffs, which, according to the degree of fineness or coa.r.s.eness from coa.r.s.e cotton to fine silk, are felt with movements correspondingly decisive or delicate. The child whose hand is already practised finds the greatest pleasure in feeling the stuffs, and, almost instinctively, in order to enhance his appreciation of the tactile sensation he closes his eyes.

Then, to spare himself the exertion, he blindfolds himself with a clean handkerchief, and as he feels the stuffs, he arranges the similar pieces in pairs, one upon the other, then, taking off the handkerchief, he ascertains for himself whether he has made any mistake.

This exercise in _touching_ and _feeling_ is peculiarly attractive to the child, and induces him to seek similar experiences in his surroundings. A little one, attracted by the pretty stuff of a visitor's dress, will be seen to go and wash his hands, then to come and touch the stuff of the garment again and again with infinite delicacy, his face meanwhile expressing his pleasure and interest.

A little later we shall see the children interest themselves in a much more difficult exercise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--WOOD TABLETS DIFFERING IN WEIGHT.]

There are some little rectangular tablets which form part of the material. (Fig. 15.) The tablets, though of identical size, are made of wood of varying qualities, so that they differ in weight and, through the property of the wood, in color also.

The child has to take a tablet and rest it delicately on the inner surfaces of his four fingers, spreading them well out. This will be another opportunity of teaching delicate movements.

The hand must move up and down as though to weigh the object, but the movement must be as imperceptible as possible. These little movements should diminish as the capacity and attention for perceiving the weight of the object becomes more acute and the exercise will be perfectly performed when the child comes to perceive the weight almost without any movement of the hands. It is only by the repet.i.tion of the attempts that such a result can be obtained.

Once the children are initiated into it by the teacher, they blindfold their eyes and repeat by themselves these exercises of the _baric sense_. For example, they lay the heavier wooden tablets on the right and the lighter on the left.

When the child takes off the handkerchief, he can see by the color of the pieces of wood if he has made a mistake.

A long time before this difficult exercise, and during the period when the child is working with the three sorts of geometrical solids and with the rough and smooth tablets, he can be exercising himself with a material which is very attractive to him.

This is the set of tablets covered with bright silk of shaded colors.

The set consists of two separate boxes each containing sixty-four colors; that is, eight different tints, each of which has eight shades carefully graded. The first exercise for the child is that of _pairing the colors_; that is, he selects from a mixed heap of colors the two tablets which are alike, and lays them out, one beside the other. The teacher naturally does not offer the child all the one hundred and twenty-eight tablets in a heap, but chooses only a few of the brighter colors, for example, red, blue and yellow, and prepares and mixes up three or four pairs. Then, taking one tablet--perhaps the red one--she indicates to the child that he is to choose its counterpart from the heap. This done, the teacher lays the pair together on the table. Then she takes perhaps the blue and the child selects the tablet to form another pair. The teacher then mixes the tablets again for the child to repeat the exercise by himself, _i.e._, to select the two red tablets, the two blue, the two yellow, etc., and to place the two members of each pair next to one another.

Then the couples will be increased to four or five, and little children of three years old end by pairing of their own accord ten or a dozen couples of mixed tablets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLOR SPOOLS]

When the child has given his eye sufficient practise in recognizing the ident.i.ty of the pairs of colors, he is offered the shades of one color only, and he exercises himself in the perception of the slightest differences of shade in every color. Take, for example, the blue series. There are eight tablets in graduated shades. The teacher places them one beside another, beginning with the darkest, with the sole object of making the child understand "what is to be done."

She then leaves him alone to the interesting attempts which he spontaneously makes. It often happens that the child makes a mistake.

If he has understood the idea and makes a mistake, it is a sign that _he has not yet reached the stage_ of perceiving the differences between the graduations of one color. It is practise which perfects in the child that capacity for distinguis.h.i.+ng the fine differences, and so we leave him alone to his attempts!

There are two suggestions that we can make to help him. The first is that he should always select the darkest color from the pile. This suggestion greatly facilitates his choice by giving it a constant direction.

Secondly, we can lead him to observe from time to time any two colors that stand next to each other in order to compare them directly and apart from the others. In this way the child does not place a tablet without a particular and careful comparison with its neighbor.

Finally, the child himself will love to mix the sixty-four colors and then to arrange them in eight rows of pretty shades of color with really surprising skill. In this exercise also the child's hand is educated to perform fine and delicate movements and his mind is afforded special training in attention. He must not take hold of the tablets anyhow, he must avoid touching the colored silk, and must handle the tablets instead by the pieces of wood at the top and bottom. To arrange the tablets next to one another in a straight line at exactly the same level, so that the series looks like a beautiful shaded ribbon, is an act which demands a manual skill only obtained after considerable practise.

These exercises of the chromatic sense lead, in the case of the older children, to the development of the "color memory." A child having looked carefully at a color, is then invited to look for its companion in a mixed group of colors, without, of course, keeping the color he has observed under his eye to guide him. It is, therefore, by his memory that he recognizes the color, which he no longer compares with a reality but with an image impressed upon his mind.

The children are very fond of this exercise in "color memory"; it makes a lively digression for them, as they run with the image of a color in their minds and look for its corresponding reality in their surroundings. It is a real triumph for them to identify the idea with the corresponding reality and to _hold in their hands_ the proof of the mental power they have acquired.

Another interesting piece of material is a little cabinet containing six drawers placed one above another. When they are opened they display six square wooden "frames" in each. (Fig. 16.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--CABINET WITH DRAWERS TO HOLD GEOMETRICAL INSETS.]

Almost all the frames have a large geometrical figure inserted in the center, each colored blue and provided with a small b.u.t.ton for a handle. Each drawer is lined with blue paper, and when the geometrical figure is removed, the bottom is seen to reproduce exactly the same form.

The geometrical figures are arranged in the drawers according to a.n.a.logy of form.

(1) In one drawer there are six circles decreasing in diameter. (Fig.

17.)