How do we correct children? Maria Montessori has an answer.
a few Montessori materials (apparatuses), including the mentioned Pink Tower, Cylinder Blocks and Red Rods
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Two editions of ‘The Absorbent Mind’ used for this episode and for the transcription below:
Mistakes and their Correction, by Maria Montessori
there is one thing [the teacher] must never do and that is, to interfere by praising a child’s work, or punishing him if it is wrong, or even by correcting his mistakes. This may sound absurd and many people find it a stumbling block.
“How,” they say, “can we improve the child if we never correct his mistakes?”
Most teachers think it is their main business to correct, both in the moral and intellectual field, else the teacher does not feel she has done her job. The child’s education has, they think, to be guided by two reins: prizes and punishments.
But if a child has to be rewarded or punished, it means he lacks the capacity to guide himself and that the teacher is hovering over the child and directing him.
But supposing the child sets himself to work; then the addition of prizes and punishments is superfluous; they only offend the freedom of his spirit. Hence, in schools like ours which are dedicated to the defense of spontaneity and which aim at setting the children free, prizes and punishments obviously have no place. Moreover, the child who freely finds his work shows that to him they are completely unimportant.
This is so difficult to understand that even in so-called Montessori schools they are given; how often have I been invited to a ‘prize-giving’ in such “Montessori” schools! Whereas if the children are given freedom, they are absolutely indifferent to prizes.
In my first experiment [with schools], the teacher, who was the caretaker’s daughter, also had this idea of prizes and punishments. After all it is so common in the home as well as in the school, that it is almost incarnated in the soul of man. I was against it then, but had no method as yet, and I tolerated it because the poor teacher had to have something to do. She made big ‘military’ crosses in gold or silver paper as rewards and pinned them to the breasts of the children rewarded, with a silk ribbon. I did not think much of the idea, but I left it alone. One day I went to the school and found a child seated all by himself on a chair in the middle of the room and wearing a large cross. I asked: “Have you given a prize to this one?” The teacher said: “No, he was being punished; that is why he is sitting alone.” The cross had actually been given to another child, but it was getting in his way as he worked, so he gave it to the child in the middle of the room who had nothing to do and with whom it would not interfere! And the child in the middle was indifferent both to the cross and to the punishment! We found also that sweets and such rewards were not appreciated.
Prizes we might have abolished without serious protest. After all, this is economical; it affects few children, and then only once a year.
But punishments! That is another story. These are given every day, and ‘corrections’ are still more frequent. What does this correction, in exercise books for example, mean? It means putting a mark A, B, or C or 10 or 0. How can a zero correct anyone’s defects? Then the teacher says, “You keep on making the same mistake. You don’t listen to what I say. You will never pass your examinations like that!”
All these corrections in books and these accusations of the teacher only have a lowering effect on the child’s energies and interests. To tell a child he is naughty or stupid just humiliates him; it offends and insults, but does not improve him. For if a child is to stop making mistakes, he must become more skillful, and how can he do this if, being already below standard, he is also discouraged? In olden times teachers used to fasten donkeys’ ears to stupid children, and smacked their fingers for writing badly. But even if they had wasted all the paper in the world to make donkeys’ ears, and if they had reduced the tiny fingers to pulp, this would not have brought any fresh powers into being. Only exercise and experience can correct a disability, and it takes long practice to acquire the various kinds of skill that are needed. The undisciplined child enters into discipline by working in the company of others; not by being told that he is naughty. If you tell a child that he lacks the ability to do something, he could quite easily tell you, “Then why talk about it? I can see that for myself!”
This is not a correction. It is a statement of fact. Improvement and rectification can only come about when the child practices voluntarily for a long time.
True, it may happen that the child makes a mistake without knowing it; but also the teacher can err unconsciously. Unfortunately, teachers usually have the idea that they must never make a mistake themselves, for fear of setting a bad example. Hence, if the teacher does make a slip, she will certainly not admit it to the child. Her dignity rests on being always right. The teacher feels she has to be infallible. However, this is not entirely the fault of teachers. The whole school system is to blame, resting as it does on a false foundation.
Supposing we study the phenomenon of error in itself; it becomes apparent that everyone makes mistakes. This is one of life’s realities, and to admit it is already to have taken a great step forward. If we are to tread the narrow path of truth and keep our hold upon reality, we have to agree that all of us can err; otherwise we should all be perfect. So it is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has.
Many errors correct themselves as we go through life. The tiny child starts toddling uncertainly on his feet, wobbles and falls but ends up walking easily. He corrects his errors by growth and experience. We deceive ourselves if we imagine we are always following life’s highway towards perfection. The truth is that we make mistake after mistake, and do not correct ourselves. We fail to realize our faults; we live in a state of illusion shut off from reality. The teacher who poses as perfect and does not recognize that she makes mistakes, is not a good teacher. Whichever way we look, a certain “Mr. Error” is always to be seen! If we seek perfection, we must pay attention to our defects, for it is only by correcting these that we can improve ourselves. We have to face them in the full light of day and realize their existence as something unavoidable throughout life.
Even in the exact sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc.), errors play an important part, because they have to be taken into account. The coming of positive science made it necessary to study the error scientifically. Science is only considered immune from error because it makes use of exact measurements to evaluate error. When measurements are made, there are two things that matter, one is to obtain a precise figure, the other is to know the extent to which it may be wrong. Whatever science has to say is stated as an approximation, never as an absolute, and this is allowed for in the conclusions drawn. For example, an antibiotic injection is found to be successful 95 per cent of cases. But it is important to know there is this 5 per cent element of uncertainty. Even a linear measurement is cited as correct only to a certain fraction of a unit. No figure is ever given, or accepted, without an indication of its probable error and it is the calculation of this that makes it valuable. Probable errors are as important as the data themselves, which are not taken seriously without them. If the evaluation of error is so important in the exact sciences, it is even more so in our work. For mistakes, to us, have a particular importance, and to correct or eliminate them, we have first of all to know them.
So we come to a scientific principle which is also a path to perfection. We call it ‘the control of error’. Whatever is done in school, by teachers, children, or others, there are bound to be mistakes. So we need this rule as a part of school life: namely, that what matters is not so much correction itself as that each individual should become aware of his own errors. Each should have a means of checking, so that he can tell if he is right or not. I need to know whether I am doing well or badly, and if — at first — I treated my own mistakes as unimportant, I have now become interested in them.
Children in schools of the usual kind often have no idea that they are making mistakes. They make them unconsciously and with complete indifference, because it is not their business to correct them but the teacher’s! How far this is from our own idea of freedom!
But, unless I can correct myself, I shall have to seek the help of someone else, who may not know any better than I do. How much better it is if I can recognize my own mistakes, and then correct them! If anything is likely to make the character indecisive, it is the inability to control matters without having to seek advice. This begets [or brings about] a discouraging sense of inferiority and a lack of confidence in one’s self.
What we know as a ‘control of error’ is any kind of indicator which tells us whether we are going toward our goal, or away from it.
Supposing I want to go somewhere and I can drive a car, but I do not know the road; this happens often enough in daily life. In order to be sure that I go right, I take a map; and I also see signs in route that tell me where I am. I may have been seeing signs which said ‘2 miles to Ahmedabad’ but if then I suddenly see a sign that says ’50 miles to Bombay’ I know I have gone wrong somewhere. The map and the signs have helped me; if I had had no map I should have had to ask and be told many things contradictory in their advice. Reliable guidance, and the possibility of checking as we go, are the indispensable conditions for getting anywhere.
So, what science and practical life both need must surely be accepted from the start as necessary in education. This is the possibility of ‘recognizing one’s own mistakes.’ We must prove this as well as instruction and materials on which to work. The power to make progress comes in large measure from having freedom and an assured path along which to go; but to this must also be added some way of knowing if, and when, we have left the path. If this principle be realized, both in school and in daily life, then it does not matter whether teachers and mothers are perfect or not. Errors made by adult have a certain interest, and children sympathize with them, but in a wholly detached way. It becomes for them one of the natural aspects of life, and the fact that we can all make mistakes stirs a deep feeling of affection in their hearts; it is one more reason for union between mother and child. Mistakes bring us closer and make us better friends. Fraternity is born more easily on the road of error than on that of perfection. A “perfect person’ is unable to change. If two “perfect people” are together they invariably quarrel, because neither can comprehend the other nor tolerate any differences.
It will be remembered that one of our children’s exercises is that with a set of cylinders of equal height but varying diameter, which fit into corresponding sockets in a block of wood. The first thing is to realize that all are different; the second is to hold them by the knob at the top of each, using the thumb and first two fingers. The child begins fitting them one at a time into their sockets, but finds when he comes to the end that he has made a mistake. One cylinder is left which is too large for the only remaining hole, while some of the others fit too loosely. The child looks again and studies them all more closely. He is now faced by a problem. There is that cylinder left over, which shows that he has made a mistake. Well, it is just this that adds interest to the game and makes him repeat it time after time. So this piece of apparatus meets two requirements: (1) that of improving the child’s perceptions, and (2) that of providing him with a control of error.
Our apparatus is always designed to have this property of offering visible and tangible checks. A little one of two may start using it, and quickly gets the idea of correcting his own mistakes. This sets his feet upon the path to perfection. By daily practice he becomes sure of himself. But this does not mean he is perfect already, only that he acquires a sense of his abilities, and this bestirs in him the desire to try.
[If the child could express his thoughts fully], he might say, ‘I am not perfect, I am not omnipotent, but this much I can do and I know it. I also know that I can make mistakes and correct myself, thus finding my way.’
So here we have prudence, certitude and experience; a sure viaticum for the journey through life. To give this sense of security is not so simple as one might think; nor is it easy to set children upon a pathway toward perfection. To tell a person he is clever or clumsy, bright, stupid, good or bad, is a form of betrayal. The child must see for himself what he can do, and it is important to give him not only the means of education but also to supply him with indicators which tell him his mistakes.
Let us watch a somewhat older child who has been educated in this way. He works out sums in arithmetic, but is always shown how to check the answer, and this he forms a habit of doing. So instead of the teacher correcting, we let the child get into the habit of controlling his own errors. The checking often attracts him even more than the sum!
The same thing happens in reading. In one exercise the child puts cards with names on them beside corresponding objects. As a check, there is a card kept apart on which the same objects are pictured but with their names written beneath them. The child’s greatest pleasure is to use this to see if he has made any mistakes.
If in the daily routine of school we always arrange for errors to become perceptible, this is to place us on a path to perfection. The child’s interest in doing better, and his own constant checking and testing, are so important to him that his progress is assured. His very nature tends toward exactitude and the ways of obtaining it appeal to him. A little girl in one of our schools saw a ‘reading command’ worded like this: ‘Go outside, close the door, and come back.’ She studied it intently and then started to carry it out, but stopped mid step and went to the teacher and said: ‘Why did you write it like this? How can I come back if I have shut the door?’
Then the teacher said: ’You are quite right. It was my mistake,’ and she re-wrote the sentence.
‘Yes,’ the child said with a smile, ‘now I can do it.’
From all this awareness of mistakes, there springs up a kind of brotherhood. Errors divide men, but their correction is a means of union. It becomes a matter of general interest to correct errors wherever they may be found. The error itself becomes interesting. It becomes the link, and is certainly a bond of harmony between children and adults. To detect some small error in a grown-up person does not produce lack of respect in the child or loss of dignity in the grownup. The error becomes impersonal and is then amenable to control.
In this way, small things lead to great.