Cobb School | What is Montessori?

by Subha Sankaran

Our prep week begins a good seven days before the children arrive, and one would think that would be ample time for teachers to set up, especially knowing that some schools give teachers only two days. And yet, throughout August, I saw teachers coming in here and there, puttering around their classrooms.

One teacher’s classroom looked completely set up and absolutely beautiful, but she was still unsatisfied.

She had a fish-shaped basket she wanted to place by the entrance to hold the children’s name tags. The tags themselves were handwritten in beautiful cursive on acorn-shaped cards, carefully cut and mounted on cardstock, laminated, and finished with satin ribbon, so that our newest children would be known and welcomed from the moment they arrived.

But the basket wasn’t quite right.

She needed two black buttons of a certain size for the fish’s eyes.

She had looked in store after store, often after dinner, with her husband, who by then had become equally invested in the project. For five days, whenever I checked in with her, I heard about the fish and the elusive buttons. Finally, she found exactly what she was looking for and excitedly sewed them on.

Why All This Effort?

The meticulousness with which Montessori teachers prepare their environments can seem excessive at times. The perfect little soap for handwashing. The pretty box for the beads. The small bowl in which a bell is kept. The basket that apparently cannot be complete without exactly the right pair of eyes.

But these choices are not simply about making a classroom pretty. Beauty is part of the function of a Montessori environment.

Purposeful and Inviting

There is very little in the classroom that does not serve a purpose, and often many purposes at once.

The plants are there for beauty, certainly, but also to give children meaningful work. A young child can water them, wash their leaves, notice their shapes, or compare their many shades of green to the gradations in the color tablets. An elementary child might observe how a leaf turns toward the light, learn to propagate a plant, study its adaptations, or discover the story of its origins and uses. So a variety of plants are carefully selected.

The soap on a handwashing table is chosen to fit comfortably in a toddler’s hand. The little brass figurines placed around a primary classroom are decorative, but they are also cared for by the children through brass polishing. A fossil in an elementary classroom will unravel the child’s imagination when they hear the story of the trilobite’s mass extinction.

These objects are purposeful, but they are also attractive. They invite attention. A child wants to handle them, smell them, feel them, examine them.

Beauty, in this sense, is not decoration added after an environment has been made functional. Beauty is part of what makes the environment function. It invites the child in.

The adult then connects the child to this environment, the child’s environment, and together they delight in its beauty. The teacher shows the child how to handle an object with precision, return it to its place, and care for it, almost as if it were a family heirloom.

A Place for Everything

Order matters for the same reason. Things have a place. Materials are complete and accessible. The child knows where to find what is needed and where to return it. This external order creates predictability and calm. A design that allows independence and choice, and, over time, supports the child’s developing internal order. The environment quietly says: You can find your way here.

And it says something else as well: This is your home. You belong here.

This Is Your Home

Montessori classrooms are deliberately home-like. There are plants and art, rugs and baskets, a kitchen, real dishes, placemats, napkins, and objects chosen with care. The environment is not simply a room adults have prepared for children to occupy. It is a place that belongs to the children.

Sometimes you can actually watch that transformation happen.

When a teacher acquires a new material for the classroom, whether purchased or gifted, it may be unboxed almost ceremoniously, with the children gathered around as though opening a present. They notice it. They appreciate it. They share their gratitude for it.

Even in Upper Elementary, I once opened and set up a new whiteboard while the children watched. That day, I happened to be beginning a poetry lesson, and I wrote the word “Ode” across the top.

Not knowing what it meant yet, the children immediately decided that Ode was the whiteboard’s name.

From that day forward, no matter what lesson I was giving, they insisted that I write “Ode” at the top first. It became an inside joke that connected them. By personifying this otherwise ordinary object, they had somehow made it ours.

This connection between child and environment, whether to a whiteboard, a beautiful object on a shelf, a classroom plant, or a garden, has enduring effects.

Learning to Look Closely

Children are naturally drawn to small things and interesting details. A rich environment gives them details worth noticing. They begin to look carefully. They discover that there is something to observe, some purpose to understand, some story behind almost everything.

And that habit of attention matters.

It is the beginning of the eye of a naturalist, an engineer, an artist, a biologist: Look closely. Notice what others might pass by. Wonder why.

Caretakers, Not Consumers

Primary child dusting This relationship with the environment also teaches something important about responsibility.

Twenty-five children may use the same material throughout a year. It may not be made of indestructible rubber or plastic. It may be wood, glass, ceramic, or metal. It could chip. It could break.

And yet, it can remain complete and beautiful.

Children learn to carry things carefully. They return materials for the next person. Teachers repair and restore rather than automatically replace, involving children in that process when possible. Some Montessori classrooms contain materials that have been used and cared for by children for decades.

There is a lesson in that, too.

When something is beautiful and useful, when we know where it came from and understand that others will need it after us, we begin to develop a different relationship with things. We don’t simply consume and discard them. We become their caretakers.

The care of a classroom material becomes care of the classroom. Care of the classroom extends to the garden and the school. And, one hopes, that sense of responsibility eventually extends outward to the larger world we share.

But perhaps the most immediate purpose of all this preparation is much simpler.

It draws the child to the work.

The prepared environment is an invitation: to notice, to wonder, to choose, to work, to care, and ultimately, to take ownership of one’s own learning.

Which brings me back to the fish.

The children may never fully know what went into finding those two perfect black buttons. They will simply encounter a whimsical little fish waiting by the door, holding their carefully made names.

They will notice it. They will touch it. They will learn where it belongs and care for it.

Two little black buttons can seem like an awfully small thing.

In a Montessori classroom, small things rarely are.

Freedom to choose work is the most distinguishing feature of a Montessori classroom. It can also be the most terrifying feature. Can children do whatever they want in a Montessori classroom?

To understand the importance Montessori placed on freedom in a learning environment, we first have to shed our assumptions about schooling- that we, the adults, need to tell them what to do and when to do it, that all children should be doing the same thing at the same time, or that children need incentive to learn. We need to step back and look at natural development.

Freedom and Natural Development

All life grows and develops as nature guides it and depends on the environment to nurture its needs. Nature drives curiosity in children. It makes them want to actively explore and understand the world around them so that they can become an independent member of society. Our role as educators is to not get in the way and suppress the drive to learn by imposing our will on them.

Instead, we give them the opportunity or freedom to follow their love for learning. Montessori classrooms give children these freedoms:

to make choices based on their interest
to work at their own pace without interruption
to make mistakes and learn from them
to move and be active
to socialize and collaborate

When children are free to pursue their interests and choose an activity, they are absorbed into their work, focusing their attention and satisfying a deeper need. You might recognize this when you immerse yourself in an activity that calls to you. Such work is not the result of external pressure, incentives, rewards, or punishments. Instead, it is self-driven and self-motivated. This learning brings the most satisfaction and cannot be achieved without the freedom of choice.

Watching children enter their classrooms and start their day by choosing from a myriad of activities on the shelves is truly captivating. But how do children know what they want to do?

A young child is driven almost unconsciously by nature to activity. When children have the opportunity to practice this self-driven decision-making every day, they develop both self-discipline and self-knowledge as they get older and make more conscious decisions.

The design of the tangible and the intangible environment guides the child not only to physical independence but also to intellectual, social, and emotional independence. With the freedom to choose, explore, repeat, make mistakes, and self-correct, children can achieve not only a deeper understanding of the subject or skill but also engage actively in decision-making, creativity, and problem-solving.

Limits

Yet, as in any organization or society, for the freedom of each individual to be protected, there are boundaries within which the freedoms exist. There are consistent, predictable structures that allow the children to feel safe and authentically free.

Grace and Courtesy: The limits to individual freedoms are the rights of others. Lessons in grace and courtesy show children how to move within the environment without disturbing others, handle materials carefully, talk with respect and kindness, wait patiently, and care for their environment.
Presentations: The guides present clear and consistent lessons for how to handle and work with a given material.
Purposeful work: Every material and activity is orderly and carefully curated to be purposeful and support development.
Competence: The range of freedom given at any stage depends on the competence shown and the independence gained by the child.
Limited materials: There are constraints to the number of materials or resources available, which means they have to wait, work together, or choose alternatives.

Responsibility

Elementary children are conscious decision-makers. They are shown that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand and that we each have a responsibility to society, the environment, and ourselves.

With the freedom to choose work comes the responsibility of understanding that there is work that they can do and there is work they must do. The guide may help the child understand that there is a variety of ways in which to achieve that goal.
With the freedom to work with others comes the social responsibility of being fair, inclusive, and respectful.

Structures in the environment, such as using work journals and student-teacher conferences, support self-reflection and responsibility. The guides constantly observe children to determine their ability to choose and initiate responsibly. If a child needs help with making a choice, they are shown how to make a choice rather than being told what to do. Great value is placed on supporting the child in finding their drive to learn and making responsible decisions.

Think of a young child who chooses window-washing repeatedly. Through this choice, the child is building confidence in their decision-making, exercising self-discipline, following multi-step directions, and developing coordination, concentration, and attention to detail, all while taking care of the environment. If they spill water and make a “mistake,” they know how to solve it. They can concentrate and take the time needed to complete the work to satisfaction.

For children aged 6 to 12, interest is stimulated by storytelling, opportunities for group work, and activities that stretch the boundaries of imagination and abstraction. Following a lesson on long division, children may get excited about dividing a large number. The fact that they can choose to do this may not have occurred to them if they were always used to someone telling them what they should do. The adult does not limit this drive but encourages and is ready for it. They are free to work together by attaching several sheets of paper, talking, collaborating, and dividing roles. They may take several days to complete the problem. They have devised a creative way to practice, enjoy working, and problem-solving. There is no need here for stickers or grades to incentivize. Their motivation is purely internal.

In a day and age where information is readily available, education is not simply to teach and memorize facts and complete tasks but to develop independent thinkers. By understanding the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility, Montessori classrooms create an environment that fosters the child’s natural love for learning and nurtures individuals who are self-disciplined and self-motivated. They enjoy work, are responsible, and are respectful. These are fundamental skills they will need to be lifelong learners and productive, thoughtful citizens.

Why the Little Things Matter – The Prepared Environment