Montessori children

by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

In writing about the game of silence, it has been suggested that the game has an hypnotic quality; that the calm, beautifully poised directress imposes her own personality upon the children, controls them as the hypnotist controls his subject. This is not true. As the didactic materials furnish the right means for the child’s mental development, so the opportunity given by the game of silence makes possible the child’s moral and spiritual development. It gives him a chance to listen to the “still, small voice” that is a speaking voice in childhood but which is drowned by the babel of world tongues that we allow to make our song of life in adult years.

The story of Joanina, the little Roman girl, is retold in almost every American home. As we, ourselves, depend upon public opinion, outside amusements, entertaining friends, the judgment of the press, the fashions of the day for filling our lives, so we make our children, also, dependent upon similar forces for forming their characters. We surround children with gossip, we teach them to depend upon excitement for their pleasure; we build their ideals of conduct upon what the world will think instead of what their conscience dictates. We make of our little ones modern Babes in the Woods who lose themselves in a forest of bewildering, overgrown paths. We give them no chance to blaze their own trails.

What is the application to the American home of the Montessori game of silence?

It begins with the American mother who must cultivate a habit of quiet self-contemplation. She must be able to shut out the world as did the stoics, listening to the good voice of her own soul. It means, also, that she will be less dependent upon her environment for her daily thinking and happiness and more adept at creating her own joys. We are very restless, to-day, discontented unless we are surrounded by friends or obsessed by passion of some sort, or we must go somewhere. We will try to slip back into the simple living of our great-grandmothers, who had resources in themselves and could be radiantly happy, pottering over the lavender in their gardens or reading their Bibles in the candlelight of some long-ago evening—alone.

The mother who cultivates in herself a habit of repose will have reposeful children.

The game of silence, as it may be put into practice in the training of children, begins with ear-training. Shut out harsh sounds from the home where there are little children. To command a child in a loud voice often results in disobedience; it makes him mentally deaf for the time being. He does not hear what is said to him; it dulls his senses. We all know how the memory of some gentle voice that either sang or spoke to us in childhood comes back to us, now, as a forceful memory. It was the softness of that voice that made the lasting record in our minds.

Often a mother may whisper a sentence to a child, or call softly from different parts of the house, asking the little one to locate her by the sense of hearing. This will quicken and cultivate the child’s power to listen and concentrate upon the use of one sense. And we should eliminate all unnecessary noises from our homes; the slamming of doors, the crashing of dishes, harsh popular music, and crude songs.

As the children’s sense of hearing is refined, we will lead them to listen to the very small sounds in the world about them, the soft breathing of the sleeping baby, the far-away ticking of a clock, the hum of insects, distant footsteps, the patter of rain, the song of the wind.

Then when this fine power of listening has been cultivated, we may introduce the game of silence itself. The mother may show the child that she is able to sit quietly, immobile, relaxed for a short period of time—only thinking. Then the little ones may be encouraged to attempt the game, waiting in perfect silence, with closed eyes, until mother calls them in a soft whisper to “come back” to the world again. To darken the room a little during the game adds to its power. Gradually the periods of the silence may be lengthened, and results will show in the child’s life in greater control, quiet, and life balance. In this repose and silence, Dr. Montessori tells us, both adults and children gather strength and newness of life.