M has started school - actually today is the last day of her school term - she started school a couple of months ago. Montessori. Did not realise what Montessori was all about until M joined the school. Not sure we still do but the first signs have been very encouraging. We were initially looking for a 'play school' so she can make friends and run around but I am so glad we did not go in that direction.
Two things happened in the first week. First, M got fully potty trained in 5 days. We were just about resigning ourselves to a lifetime of 'toilet accidents' when her potty training happened in double quick time once she joined school. It was eerie to see how quickly she picked it up and insisted on her own routine. Suddenly, there was no trace of something we had been struggling with. Now, if you are not a parent, you cannot imagine the immense relief we felt. This was BIG.
Second, we saw she lost a certain edge that was building up in her - like a caged animal - a kind of frustration that was growing stronger. We did not know then what it was due to but we could see that school made it go away.
Learning Tree is a wonderful little place in Shastri Nagar that M took to immediately. Well, not quite immediately. The first couple of days were agonising for me to sit outside helplessly and listen to her wail inside the school. The Principal did the kind thing by me and asked me to go home. M adjusted and soon she loved it. But not for reasons we had thought. She was not making friends or having a jolly time as we thought she might. She was enjoying her 'work', to use a Montessori phrase. An hour of uninterrupted time to engage with various kinds of materials of her choice was manna from heaven for her. We had noticed earlier in her the need to be engaged with 'real' things around the home rather than toys and only after reading Montessori we realise that most children have this remarkable sense of order and a need to be productive that is not recognised and is hence smothered by adults.
We think M lost her edginess when she joined school because she could be engaged in ways she was not at home. Her personaility resonated with the Montessori environment. It was a good fit.
M likes to repeat things. Over and over again. If I were to write that sentence over and over again many times over, it would still be short of the number of times she likes to repeat. We breathe. She repeats. (She also breathes, thank goodness!)
Montessori demands much from parents. As if parenting were not hard enough. But it is difficult to turn away from her demands. She exhorts us to be better people. As I read her book I have this gnawing sense of how much more one could be as a parent and as a person. She asks us to purge ourselves of anger and pride. Now, I went to a Krishnamurti school where the idea was to 'look at' everything - not to attempt to purge it. So it is jarring to read this. But in a way it is also liberating. For Montessori speaks of things from a pragmatism that is immediate. And concrete. Anger is real and its effects on a child are too real. You can see the face collapse, the colour drain, the tears roll and you know that something has tripped inside which you may not be able to put back again. You can see it happen. In slow motion. And you know it is a direct result of your anger. Guilt about anger is useless because it just postpones doing something about it and is an easy way to not take real responsibility. Which is to trap the anger as it arises and not allow it to explode.
So Daily Parenting is a demand to not defend one's own personality against the child's. In public, people speak only of the joys of parenting but in reality it is hard work. And there is no getting around the fact that it is unrelenting.
M will be back from school soon. Today she wore a red and white dress as the school celebrates Christmas before they close for the term. She has learnt "Santa Thatha is coming to town". She made a paper Christmas tree two days ago and pulled out all the gold and red stars from it and stuck them on our door. Welcome home!
No comments:
Post a Comment