We recently picked up Maria Montessori's The Secret of Childhood, the 1950 Garzanti edition — a book that captivated us with the light it sheds, in language both poetic and scientific, on the life of the young child in those early formative years.
Many don't know that Montessori began her work as an educator with disabled children. Perhaps that's why we found ourselves so deeply in these pages. What she tells us about the "normal" child — his vital need to be truly *understood* by adults so that he can be guided wisely through his development — helped us glimpse something crucial: our disabled young people have that same vital need, though it takes a slightly different form.
We chose eight episodes from her book and want to test you with them: young people and adults, educators and parents, grandparents included — anyone who spends time with small children or people with intellectual disabilities.
Think of these as a test. See whether you are an "educator," at least potentially. You may discover that the secret of childhood is also the secret of our friends who live with intellectual handicaps or behavioral challenges.
Get to work — and please write and tell us how it goes.
One day I joined a group of very young children at play. They were clapping their hands with delight because they'd found their friend hiding behind the door. They came running toward me and said: "Play with us! Hide!" I agreed. They all ran outside faithfully, the way children do when they leave so they won't see where you'll hide. But instead of hiding behind the door, I tucked myself in a corner, crouched behind a cabinet. When the children came back, they all went straight to the door to look for me. I waited a moment, and when it became clear they weren't going to find me, I came out of my hiding place. The children were disappointed and sad, and they asked me...
a) What did the children ask Montessori?
Why couldn't you play with us? Why didn't you hide?
b) Why did they react this way?
Because the joy of the game came from finding the person hidden in the place they expected. We can't see from outside, but we know where she is.
During that same period I was observing a girl about fifteen months old. One day I heard an unusually loud laugh coming from the garden — rare in a child so young. She had gone outside alone and was sitting on the brick terrace. Right nearby was a magnificent wall of geraniums blooming under an almost tropical sun. But the girl wasn't looking at them. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, where there was nothing to see. This was one of those childhood mysteries that puzzled me. I walked over quietly and looked, but I couldn't see a thing. Then the girl explained, in her own way...
a) What made the girl laugh?
A tiny insect, almost microscopic, the color of the brick, running across the ground at great speed.
b) How do we explain that such a small creature held her interest?
From early in the second year of life, children are drawn not to flashy, colorful things, but to small details — the "minima" — that escape our notice, almost at the edge of our awareness.
A nanny had to step away from an eight-month-old boy for a short time, so she asked a colleague of equal skill to watch him. The colleague found the job easy enough — until bath time. Then the baby grew agitated and distressed. He didn't just cry; he used his hands to push away, desperately trying to escape her grip. No matter how carefully she prepared the bath, no matter how meticulous she was, the baby began to resent her. Over time, he actively rejected her.
When the first nanny returned, the baby became calm and content again, and he let her bathe him with evident pleasure.
The two women compared notes to understand what had happened. They discovered that during bath time, the second nanny...
a) What did she do differently from the first?
She held the baby with her right hand under his head and her left hand under his feet — the opposite of how the first nanny had done it.
b) Why would this simple difference cause the baby to reject the bath and the nanny?
Because the different way he was lowered into the water disrupted his body's sense of orientation — something he had already learned to trust. The bath now caused discomfort, and the nanny who caused that discomfort became "bad."
A mother had gathered a collection of colorful picture postcards for her eighteen-month-old son. The boy seemed interested — Montessori writes — and brought the bulky stack over to show her. "The automobile," he said in his own way, with a single syllable: "Brun-brun," from which I understood he wanted to show me a picture of a car. The collection held images of exotic animals: giraffes, lions, bears, monkeys, birds, and domestic animals meant to interest a small child: sheep, cats, donkeys, horses, cows. There were small scenes and landscapes too, with animals, houses, and people all together.
But the odd thing was that in this rich collection, there was no automobile to be found. "I don't see any automobile," I told the boy. He searched through the cards and pulled one out triumphantly: "Here it is." It was a hunting scene, but its main focus was a beautiful pointer dog. In the distance stood the hunter with his rifle over his shoulder. In one corner, far back, a small cottage and a winding line meant to be a road. And on that line...
a) What was on that line?
A dark speck that, in almost invisible proportion, represented an automobile.
b) Why was this particular image so interesting to the boy?
Because the figure showed a recognizable car in such tiny proportions.
Here's a small family scene. The main character is a girl about six months old. In the room where the girl normally stays, a visitor arrives one day and sets her colorful umbrella on a table.
The baby seems agitated — but not because of the visitor. It's the umbrella. After staring at it for a long time, she begins to cry. The visitor, thinking this is a sign of desire, smiles and coos the way one does with babies, and rushes to bring it closer to her.
But the girl pushes it away and keeps crying. They try other approaches, but the baby grows more and more upset. What can be done? It looks like one of those tantrums that can start almost from birth. Then, all at once, the baby's mother senses what's wrong, and...
a) What does the mother do?
She takes the umbrella off the table and carries it to another room.
b) Why did that umbrella distress the baby?
Because it disrupted the familiar arrangement of objects in the order that the baby needed to remember and trust.
I once watched an eighteen-month-old boy in his home who found a neat stack of freshly ironed napkins piled carefully on top of each other. He took a single napkin from the pile, holding it with great care and supporting it underneath with his hand so it wouldn't unfold. He carried it diagonally across the room and placed it on the floor, saying: "One!" Then he walked back along the same diagonal path — a sign he was guided by some special sense of direction. Back at the pile, he took another napkin the same way, carried it along the identical path, and set it on top of the first one on the floor, repeating: "One!" He did this over and over until he had carried all the napkins across the room. Then...
a) What does the boy do at this point?
He carries the napkins back one by one to where they were, rebuilding the pile.
b) How do we explain this behavior?
Young children enjoy repeating actions they've seen adults perform, even when the purpose isn't always clear to us.
The boy was not yet eighteen months old when his family returned from an extremely long journey. In everyone's view, he was far too small to have endured such travel — yet there had been no incidents along the way. Every night the family had stayed in excellent hotels with cribs reserved and appropriate food prepared for him. Now they were in a comfortable furnished apartment. There was no crib, but the boy slept in a large bed alongside his mother. The illness began with restless nights and digestive troubles. He had to be walked through the night, and his cries were attributed to stomach pain. He grew worse, and the nights became an ordeal for the whole family. Finally, convulsions set in. We could see the boy writhing in bed in terrible spasms. The seizures came two or three times a day. They decided to consult the most renowned pediatric neurologist and arranged an appointment. It was then that I became involved. The child appeared healthy, and according to the parents' account, he had been healthy and calm throughout the journey. So there must be a psychological cause behind all these symptoms. When I formed this impression, the boy was lying on the bed seized by one of his fits of agitation.
a) What measure did Dr. Montessori devise?
She took two armchairs, placed them facing each other, and draped sheets and blankets across them to improvise a crib, which she positioned beside the bed where the boy lay. He looked at it, stopped crying, rolled over, and lowered himself into the makeshift crib, saying "cama, cama" (crib, crib), and fell asleep at once. His disturbances never returned.
b) Why had the large parental bed caused such a severe disturbance?
The boy no longer felt protected by the close railings of his crib. The loss of that protection had created "a disorder in his internal sense of orientation."
I was part of a small group passing through the Grotto of Nero in Naples. With us was a young woman leading an eighteen-month-old boy — really far too small to walk that underground passage that cuts through an entire hillside.
After a while, the boy grew tired, and the woman picked him up.
But she had misjudged her own strength. She grew warm and stopped to take off her coat, draping it over her arm. With that burden, she also held the boy. He began to cry, and his crying grew louder and more intense. His mother tried in vain to calm him; she was clearly exhausted and growing nervous. Everyone in turn was disturbed and naturally offered to help. The boy was passed from arm to arm, growing more agitated each time. People coaxed and scolded him, only making it worse. It seemed necessary that his mother take him back. But by then it had escalated to what we call a tantrum — a truly desperate situation.
The guide stepped in. With the energy of a decisive man, he gripped the boy firmly in his strong arms. The baby's reaction was violent. I thought to myself that these outbursts always have a psychological cause rooted in inner sensitivity. I attempted something: I approached the boy's mother and asked her: "Madam, would you permit me...
a) What does Dr. Montessori ask the mother?
Madam, may I help you put your coat back on?
b) What was the real reason for the boy's terrible agitation?
A coat is meant to be worn on your shoulders, not draped like a rag over your arm.