Choice and Perceived Control by Maria Montessori

Choice and Perceived Control

These children have free choice all day long. Life is based on choice, so they learn to make their own decisions. They must decide and choose for themselves all the time . . . They cannot learn through obedience to the commands of another.

  MARIA MONTESSORI (1989, p. 26)

Children in Montessori classrooms freely choose their work. They arrive in the morning, look around the classroom, and decide what to do. They work on it for as long as they are inspired to, then they put it away and select something else. This cycle continues all day. Occasionally children, particularly young ones, might need some guid­ance in their choices. A teacher might present a 3-year-old with the option of doing Table Washing or Sound Cylinders, or a child who has not fol­lowed up on a grammar lesson might be asked to choose a time when he or she will do the work. But for the most part, children’s choices are limited only by the set of materials they have been shown how to use, by the avail­ability of a material (since with few exceptions there is only one set of each), and by what is constructive both for the self and society. Home time is also relatively free: few Montessori schools assign homework. Practically speak­ing, this is because the learning materials stay in the classroom. In addition, probably because of differences in structure, Montessori children appear to achieve enough during the school day to obviate the need for homework. As one child who moved from a Montessori to a traditional school put it, “In Montessori we did our work at school. In my new school we do our work at home.”

          In a traditional school classroom, the teacher, the school administrator, or even the state legislature chooses what the children study and when. Children arrive in the morning, then are ushered hour by hour through a preset curriculum, with nary a choice over what topic they study at each hour, with whom they will study it, when they will take breaks, and by when work should be completed. Thus, traditional schooling is tightly con­trolled. The exception to this is recess. Although the time of recess is sched­uled, during that time period children are usually free to choose their ac­tivity and social partners. The fact that recess is the only established free choice time in traditional schooling may be an important part of why it is so popular. For traditional schoolchildren, even time at home is restricted by homework.

          The high level of externally imposed control in traditional classrooms may be a natural sequela of the factory model. For a factory to operate effi­ciently, raw materials must be ushered down the assembly line without re­gard to individual differences among materials of the same type. Factory workers are treated similarly as well, with no allowance for personal choices about what a worker would like to work on at any given moment. The assembly line would probably break down if everyone arrived in the morning and chose the job they most wanted to do.

            The factory model is reinforced by the Lockean model of the child. If learning occurs when a teacher pours knowledge into children and rein­forces children’s correct answers, then whole-class learning is the most prac­tical format. First, the teacher can only pour out one stream of knowledge at a time, and second, the teacher cannot attend simultaneously to 25 or so children’s different choices of activities and reward each child appropri­ately. Even the possibility of children making choices is philosophically jux­taposed to this model. Behaviorists do not attend to inner impulses that might lead to choices; instead, an organism should do what it has previ­ously been rewarded for doing.

          Yet psychological research clearly shows that restriction of choice and control are not optimal for human learning and well-being. People have a basic need for autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2000), which American culture par­ticularly nourishes (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Feeling one can make choices fulfills this need and allows people to flourish. Too much choice can be debilitating and serve to undermine one’s sense of control (Schwartz, 2004), but some choice is clearly good. In this chapter I first discuss research on the benefits of choice for task performance and well­being, both in experiments and in traditional classroom situations. I then dis­cuss choice in Montessori classrooms before moving on to the issue of how limited choice is most beneficial. Finally I discuss research on concentration and self-regulation and their importance in Montessori education.

Research on the Benefits of Choice

When people are able to make choices, they tend to perform better and feel better. Below I first consider studies of performance, then studies of well­being. The last section concerns studies that focus on both performance and well-being in traditional classroom situations.

The Impact of Choice on Task Performance

Having a sense of control over one’s environment and over what one does has been shown to benefit both adults’ and children’s performances. A few studies with adults will be considered first to show the broad applicability of this principle; results with children are consistent and will be presented after the adult findings.

            In one study adults performed two tasks: tangram puzzles (in which several smaller shapes must be combined to make a larger one; the puzzles used in this study were actually unsolvable) and proofreading a paper, both in a room where a buzzer repeatedly made a loud noise (Glass & Singer, 1972). Half of the subjects were told they could terminate the noise at any time with a switch, but they were discouraged from doing so and few peo­ple actually used the switch, whereas others were simply subjected to the loud noise, with no suggestion that they could control it. Even though they had not opted to control the noise, those who believed themselves able to control it noticed significantly more errors on the proofreading task and were significantly more persistent in their attempts to solve the tangram puzzles. Although both groups were trying to work under the same noisy conditions, the group that believed it had control over those conditions per­formed better on tasks requiring careful attention and persistence.

            Another study reported similar effects in adults for solving anagrams, in which letters are unscrambled to make words. In this case the anagrams were patterned, so the rearrangement of letters was the same (by place­ment) for each anagram (Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). One might learn to de­tect this arrangement in the first few anagrams and thus solve later ones very quickly. The manipulation of interest was a pretreatment of uncon­trollable noise, as opposed to controllable noise. After a period in which they heard noise which they believed they could escape, participants were subsequently significantly more likely to discover the pattern in the ana­grams. When participants thought the noise was inescapable, they were much less likely to subsequently discover the pattern. Later learning was thus influenced by a prior provision of choice.

            Choice has also been shown to affect memory in adults. In a paired-associate task, people are given pairs of words to memorize; later they are asked to recall the second word of each pair when presented the first. In one study, half of the participants were allowed to choose which words were paired, whereas the other half was assigned pairs (Perlmuter & Monty, 1977). To ensure that the chosen pairs were not easier than the assigned ones, participants were “yoked” so the groups were in fact memorizing the same pairs. Even though they were assigned the same word pairs, the par­ticipants who chose their word pairs remembered significantly more than did yoked participants.

            One could of course argue that even though both groups had the same pairs, personal connections between words for the choice participants could be responsible for this result. In a second study checking for this, choice participants first chose a set of associate pairs, but subsequently learned a list of pairs that were preselected. Although these participants had been able to make choices only about the first set of pairs, they still learned the second, assigned set better than did a control group that had not been allowed to choose associate pairs initially. Again, believing one has control over one’s situation was associated with improved task per­formance.

            The positive effects of choice on learning and performance are not lim­ited to adults. In one experiment, 7- to 9-year-olds were asked to solve ana­grams, and one group was allowed to choose from among six categories of anagrams, such as animals, foods, or parties (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999). A - second group was told the experimenter had chosen their categories, and a third was told their mothers had made the choice. Categories were in fact yoked, so all the children had the free-choice group’s anagrams.

            There were two significant findings of interest here. First, the children who had chosen their own category solved twice as many anagrams as chil­dren who thought their mothers or the experimenter had chosen their cat­egory. Second, during an optional free-play period after the initial anagram task, the children who had chosen their own category spent much more time freely choosing to solve anagrams than did children whose category had been chosen for them. Free choice was thus associated with both ini­tial level of performance and with task persistence, which undoubtedly would lead to additional performance gains over time.[1]

            One might argue that children who chose their own category chose cat­egories they knew more about, and that the findings all derived from this knowledge. Alternatively, they might have been more interested in their categories, which would also influence learning, as discussed in chapter 4. A second experiment addressed this problem by replicating these results with a very superficial choice manipulation that was not in any way related to what was being learned. Children used a computer math game designed to teach mathematical operations. Some of the children were given two triv­ial choices: what kind of spaceship (of a set of four) they traveled in during the game, and the name of the spaceship (from among four choices). Other children were told that their spaceship and its name were designated by their agemates. During the game, all children could opt for more and less challenging problems and could ask for hints. Pre- and post-tests of chil­dren’s proficiency with mathematical operations were given, along with several other measures such as ratings of how well children liked the game.

            The children who had chosen and named their own spaceship liked the computer game better and played it more than children who did not choose and name their spaceship. They also chose more challenging games and asked for fewer hints. They even rated themselves as generally liking math more. Finally, the choice children showed greater improvement from pre­test to post-test and performed better on the problems while playing the game (even though they chose more challenging problems). Clearly, having a sense of control over one’s environment is associated with better learning and performance in children. A wide range of positive outcomes stemmed from a very simple choice manipulation.

            Another study focused only on the motivational aspects of choice, which surely lead to performance gains. First- to third-graders were pre­sented a drawing game, either as a choice or as an assignment (Swann & Pittman, 1977). Children were brought individually into a room where sev­eral activities, including the drawing game, were available. Children in the choice group were told they could do whatever they liked, but it was strongly suggested that they start with the drawing game. Children in the no-choice group were told that the experimenter used to let children choose, but not any more, and that they should start with the drawing game. Following a few minutes of drawing and other activities, the exper­imenter told the children they had a few minutes left and could do what­ever they wanted. The experimenter noted what activity the child chose first and how long children engaged in the drawing activity during this free choice period.

            Whereas 80% of the children in the choice condition chose the drawing activity first, only 20% of the children in the control group did so. Further­more, children in the choice group drew for an average of five minutes, whereas children in the no-choice group drew for an average of one and a half minutes. Thus, the provision of choice surrounding an activity in­creased the likelihood that children willingly engaged in it. This would surely impact learning as well.

            Another study showed that a child’s general sense of control in his or

her life, as opposed to control of a particular task, was related to perfor­mance on a spatial task. Fifty elementary school children were given draw­ings with embedded figures to find and a “locus of control” measure (Cran­dall & Lacey, 1972). Locus of control refers to the extent to which one sees oneself or external forces as being in control of one’s life. Children who saw themselves as more in control of their lives identified more hidden figures, and found those figures faster, than did other children. Interestingly, when age and IQ were controlled for, this finding held for girls but not for boys. For boys, performance on the hidden-figures task and IQ were synony­mous, perhaps reflecting that boys’ IQ performance was particularly swayed by spatial skills. Studies of the relationship between perceived con­trol and performance do not typically report a gender difference.

            Extending these findings further, children’s locus of control has also been related generally to academic performance, both for school grades and for achievement tests (McGhee & Crandall, 1968). The longer children spend in traditional school environments, the more external their locus of control in those environments becomes (Harter, 1981), but children who buck that trend and manage to retain an intrinsic locus of control do better. This is supported by the work of Carol Dweck (1999) on mastery versus performance orientations, which will be discussed particularly in chapters 5 and 8.

            In addition to improving task performance, interest, and persistence, the provision of choice has also been shown to positively impact children’s creativity. Preschoolers were grouped into choice and no-choice groups and asked to make collages (Amabile & Gitomer, 1984). Those in the choice group were given a choice of collage materials, and those in the no-choice group were yoked, so each no-choice child was given the same collage ma­terials as a choice child had freely chosen. A group of artists blind to the children’s condition then judged each collage for its creativity. They rated the collages of children who had been given a choice of materials as more creative than the collages of children given no choice but using the very same materials.

            Even 2-month-olds appear to take positively to experiences of control. In one study, a group of infants learned that turning their heads to the right (or left) would result in a mobile above their heads moving (Watson & Ramey, 1972). For a second group of infants, the mobile moved on its own every three or four seconds. These mobiles were set up above the infants’ cribs at home for just ten minutes per day for two weeks. Over the two weeks, the infants with control increased their head turns to nearly double the rate of the noncontrolling infants. Even more interestingly, the infants with control over their mobile were reported by their mothers as being much more engaged with it, smiling and cooing while interacting with it.

            Later, in the laboratory, the infants were shown a new mobile they could control (Watson, 1971). Only infants with a prior experience of control fig­ured out that they could control the new mobile; ones who were exposed to a randomly moving mobile did not figure out that they could control this one. Six weeks later the infants returned to the laboratory and were exposed to yet another mobile that they could control, and the results were the same. Thus, even in infants, control over one situation transferred to control over another and was associated with more positive emotion.

            In sum, both in adults and children, the provision of choice is associ­ated with several positive consequences. People learn and remember bet­ter, solve tasks better, and opt to engage in tasks more and longer when they think they have more control.

Studies of Choice and Well-Being

Other studies focus on how a sense of control relates to well-being more generally, both in the elderly and in infants. Well-being is apparently en­hanced even in very young infants when they feel a sense of control. In a more recent study using a paradigm similar to the one just described, 2­month-olds who learned to kick their legs to make a mobile move above their heads increased their kicking frequency and also engaged in a great deal of smiling and laughing at the mobile (Rovee-Collier & Hayne, 2000), just as had the head-turning infants in the prior study.

            A second study combined the positive effects of contingency experi­ence with the negative effects of removing the contingency with infants. In­fants aged 2 to 8 months were placed in an infant seat in a small theater, where they received several three-second presentations of a pleasant au­diovisual stimulus: a picture of a smiling infant, with the Sesame Street theme song piped in (Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan, 1990). During a learn­ing phase, for half of the infants the stimulus presentation occurred when­ever the infant moved an arm, activating a switch to which the arm was tied. For the other half, the display came on at random times. During a later extinction phase, arm movements were not tied to stimulus presentation for either group. During the learning phase, the contingent group expressed greater joy than the noncontingent group, consistent with the prior work, but this experiment also rated interest and found increased interest in the mobile for the contingent group. Infants who had more control over their environments were apparently more interested in their environments, which undoubtedly would lead to more learning.

            Perceived control continues to impact well-being across the life span, as demonstrated in a classic investigation by the psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin (1976). This study is notable for the subtlety with which control was communicated and for the extended time course over which the control communication had influence. Nursing home residents were given a short talk about decision making in their nursing home. The ad­ministrator opened by stating that the nursing home had a good deal avail­able to the residents. Then, for residents receiving a passivity-inducing mes­sage, it was emphasized that the nursing home was making good decisions for them, and that if they had complaints the staff would do its best to pro­vide each of them with time and attention. The residents were given a plant as a gift, and told that the nursing staff would take care of the plants for them. Finally, they were told there would be a movie shown on the follow­ing Thursday and Friday, and that the staff would let them know to which night they had been assigned.

            For the other, active-control group, it was emphasized that the resi­dents were responsible for making their needs known, and that they should be thinking about and deciding what should be changed and what they liked in the nursing home. They were also given a plant, but were allowed to choose that plant and were told it was their responsibility to care for it as they would like. Finally, they were told about the new movies, and that they could decide whether and on which night to go.

            Residents were interviewed and the nursing staff was given a ques­tionnaire to fill out both one week prior to and three weeks following these communications. The questions addressed the well-being of the residents, such as how active, happy, and sociable they were, how much control they felt they had, and their visiting patterns. Following the interview, the experimenter, who was blind to the residents’ condition and to the purpose of the study, rated each resident on level of alertness. Also measured were the attendance at the movies and participation in a contest.

The pre-test questionnaire ratings revealed no significant differences between the residents receiving each type of treatment, indicating that the two groups were similar at the start of the experiment. The changes from pre-test to post-test, however, revealed significant improvements in the active com­munication group: they reported themselves to be happier and more active after the communication than they had reported themselves to be before it. The interviewer rated them as more alert. The nurses rated them as gener­ally more improved, as visiting others more, and as talking with others more. Among the passive group, in contrast, there was little change across the two rating times. In addition, a significantly greater number of residents in the active communication group attended the movies and participated in the contest than did patients in the passive group. This study dovetails with a host of studies of nonhuman animals showing that having little or no con­trol over one’s environment (“learned helplessness”) is not good for well­being; having a sense of power and choice is (Seligman, 1975).

Thus, from infancy to old age, a sense of control over one’s environment has positive effects on well-being, whereas loss of such control is negative. Both the performance and the well-being findings have also been observed in the setting of most interest for this book: schools.

Natural School Settings

In a famous study of natural school settings and motivation, Richard De Charms (1976) defined what he called “origin” and “pawn” orientations in classrooms. In a classroom with an origin orientation, the students appear to have some say in the classroom; in contrast, in pawn classrooms, children are treated like pawns, controlled by the teacher. Teachers in origin class­rooms are like “authoritative” parents: they are warm and accepting, but provide clear and consistent rules, and insist children go by them (see chap­ter 8). In contrast, teachers in pawn classrooms are controlling and directive, employing a style called “authoritarian.” De Charms’s research showed that children tend to be internally motivated and have a greater sense of personal responsibility in origin classrooms, and that they are more externally motivated in pawn classrooms (De Charms, 1976). One might wonder if the children were driving the teacher styles to begin with. However, when teachers in pawn classrooms were instructed on how to change the class­room orientation, changes in the children ensued. This suggests that teach­ers can at least sometimes create their classrooms’ orientation, irrespective of the students.

            Other studies have also shown that the degree of control children per­ceive themselves to have in the classroom affects learning and well-being. For example, in one study, when teachers of fourth- through sixth-graders were more autonomy-oriented, children were more intrinsically motivated to learn, saw themselves as more competent, and expressed a greater sense of self-worth (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981). In addition, teacher’s self-ratings of how autonomy-oriented they were in the classroom were highly correlated with the perceptions of their students, indicating that, in such studies, one can go either to the teacher or to the students to determine to what degree children have a sense of control in the classroom.

            A more extensive study examined how fourth- through sixth-graders’ perceptions of their classrooms related to their sense of competence, self-worth, and motivation (Ryan & Grolnick, 1986). The results again indicated that when children perceived themselves to be more in control of their classroom environment, they were also more likely to see themselves as ac­ademically competent, as more worthy (in a global sense), and as motivated more by learning (mastery motivation). However, in this study, since the questionnaires assessing classroom environment and well-being measures were administered together, it is possible that children filled them out with the same valence: “lam more powerful, I am better and more motivated.” It was therefore advisable to confirm the findings using different instru­ments and allowing a time lapse between assessments. To do this, the re­searchers returned to the school two months later and gave a common psy­chology test called a Thematic Apperception Task (TAT). For this task, the children were shown a picture of a child in a traditional classroom situation and were asked to write a story about the picture. Independent coders rated the stories on the degree to which the author expressed an origin orienta­tion for the protagonist in the story, the degree to which the teacher in the story was portrayed as controlling, the level of aggression in the story, its creativity, its technical merit, and the effort expended.

            Relating the stories back to the questionnaire ratings taken two months earlier, students tended to create protagonists whose origin/pawn percep­tions mirrored what they had expressed on the prior questionnaire. Thus, the students’ own origin orientation in their classroom was reflected two months later in their stories about a fictional classroom, suggesting that the prior result was not only due to having filled out similar questionnaires in the same way. Not surprisingly, then, the children’s own origin orientations and the degree of autonomy allowed by the teacher they created in their stories were significantly related. What is new in this study is the finding that origin orientation and degree of autonomy were also significantly re­lated to the technical merit ratings of the essays and the degree of effort the judges believed had gone into the essays. In other words, students who saw their classrooms as more child controlled also wrote better stories and ap­peared to have worked harder on the stories, replicating the laboratory findings described earlier in a classroom setting.

In addition, degree of origin orientation was in inverse proportion to the degree of aggression in the stories, raising the possibility that more student-controlled classrooms may have a lower degree of aggression. This makes sense in light of findings discussed in chapter 5: when adults become more involved in children’s relationships, children become more aggressive towards one another. (Obviously there are times when intervention is nonetheless warranted.)

            Finally, students who two months earlier had described their classroom environment as more child controlled were rated as more creative in their stories. Children’s perceptions of the degree to which they control the class­room environment and are free to make choices were therefore related to several variables pertinent both to well-being and to school performance: technical skill, effort, lack of aggression, and creativity.

            Again, one might question the degree to which these findings are all child-driven to begin with: teachers can allow certain kinds of children more freedoms, and those kinds of children also tend to be more intrinsi­cally motivated, perform better in school, and so on. To some degree, that is undoubtedly true. However, there are good grounds for suspecting that the teacher can lead children to these positive outcomes. In De Charms’s study, when teachers were trained to give students more of a sense of per­sonal autonomy in the classroom, students subsequently achieved more, showed more adaptive risk taking, and were absent and tardy for school less often than in classrooms in which the teachers received no autonomy training. Second, recall that in the experimental studies described in earlier sections of this chapter, participants were randomly assigned to choice and no-choice conditions, and the results aligned with those from natural class­room situations. People assigned to more internally controlled situations performed better and felt more positively than those who were assigned to the more externally controlled situations. Having a greater sense of choice and control over one’s classroom environment appears to result in superior learning and well-being.

            Research on having choice and control over one’s environment shows that the provision of choice and a sense of control has positive conse­quences for both cognitive and emotional functioning. Participants ranging from infants to senior citizens show higher degrees of emotional well-being and higher levels of performance when they have a sense of being able to control their environment and tasks. Traditional schools are not designed to give children a lot of choice over what they do: schedules, books, and top­ics are set. Even within these limitations, traditional teachers who give chil­dren more of a sense of control have classrooms that are more apt to flour­ish. In Montessori classrooms, choice is built into the day-to-day program.

Choice and Control in Montessori Education

Dr. Montessori’s description of how she came to see the possibility of free choice in school is illustrative of her talent for making valid yet quite sweeping inductions from single events. The text also illustrates how al­lowing children more control over their activities enabled her to see the children’s natural tendencies, and in turn to select more useful materials for the classroom. As she described it, in the first Montessori classroom in the housing projects in Rome,

One day the teacher came a bit late to school after having forgotten to lock the cupboard. She found that the children had opened its door. Many of them were standing about it, while others were re­moving objects and carrying them away. . . . I interpreted the inci­dent as a sign that the children now knew the objects so well that they could make their own choice, and this proved to be the case.

            This began a new and interesting activity for the children. They could now choose their own occupations according to their own particular preferences. From this time on we made use of low cupboards so that the children could take from them the material that corresponded to their own inner needs. The principle of free choice was thus added . . .

            The free choices made by the children enabled us to observe their psychic needs and tendencies. One of the first interesting dis­coveries was that the children did not choose all the various objects provided for them but only certain ones. They almost always went to choose the same things, and some with an obvious preference. Other objects were neglected and became covered with dust.

            I would show them all to the children and had the teacher dis­tribute them and explain their use, but the children would not take some of them up again of their own accord.

I then came to realize that everything about a child should not only be in order, but that it should be proportioned to the child’s use, and that interest and concentration arise specifically from the elimination of what is confusing and superfluous. (1966, p. 121)

From this simple observation, Dr. Montessori developed a school sys­tem in which children choose what they want to do. Children arrive in the morning and decide whether to first continue with a report they might have already started, work with a math material, do a science experiment, play music with the Tone Bars, and so on. Children decide when they are done with each activity and will go on to the next one. They decide with whom to sit and with whom to collaborate. They choose what field trips (“Going Out” trips) they will arrange and go on. In Montessori classrooms, within reasonable limits that will be discussed, children have choice and control over their lives.

People often wonder how a school program in which children make their own choices all day long could work. Indeed, this feature is very un­usual. Other major progressive programs today, such as Reggio-Emilio and Steiner, tend to operate on the basis of teachers’ assigning particular work for the group to do in unison. Montessori programs can operate on indi­vidual choice in part because of the carefully prepared environment.

           

The Prepared Environment of a Montessori Classroom

Dr. Montessori believed that for a child to make productive choices, the en­vironment had to be prepared—specially designed to stimulate construc­tive activity in children. Free choice in an environment that did not have an appropriate quantity of materials designed for organized activity, and that was not populated with concentrating, constructively engaged classmates, might lead to chaos.

            One way in which Montessori environments are prepared to facilitate child choice and control is through order. Common sense suggests it is eas­ier to make choices when the alternatives are arranged in an orderly fash­ion. Stores arrange aisles by item type, and clothing stores continually fold and reshelve items after customers have tried them on, always returning to order. The orderliness of Montessori environments as compared with the average traditional school classroom is striking (although individual tra­ditional teachers vary). Discussion of this topic is reserved for chapter 9. Here I discuss other ways in which the prepared environment’s materials, layout, and furniture facilitate the child’s constructive choices and sense of control.

            Montessori materials facilitate children’s making choices because the materials are exposed on shelves in the classroom, or on tables and rugs when other children are using them. Because Montessori work is done with hands-on materials spread out on tables or rugs, children can walk around the classroom and see what will be available to use when the child currently using a material puts it away. Another feature facilitating choice is that the materials are within a child’s reach. The shelves in a Montessori classroom are all low, and normally only as deep as a child’s arm could easily reach. It is easy for a child to take a material off a shelf, use it for a time, then put it away. In contrast, in traditional classrooms hands-on materials are often stored in a cupboard where they cannot be seen or easily taken out to use. The teacher controls when the materials are used.

            Another feature facilitating the child’s sense of choice and control is that the furniture is movable and appropriately sized for children, so a child can even choose to rearrange furniture to suit his or her needs and desires. At the time when Dr. Montessori opened her first school, children’s school furniture was not appropriately sized. In traditional schools of the day, small children sat on benches that were too high, so their legs dangled. Fur­thermore, the furniture was usually bolted to the ground. Making movable furniture the proper size for children, rather than having children sit in adult-sized furniture, was apparently a Montessori innovation (Elkind, 1976). As Dr. Montessori described it:

The principal modification in the matter of school furnishings is the abolition of desks, and benches or stationary chairs. I have had tables made with wide, solid, octagonal legs, spreading in such a way that the tables are at the same time solidly firm and very light, so light, indeed, that two four-year-old children can easily carry them about. I also designed and had manufactured little chairs. . . . We permit the child to select the position which he finds most com­fortable. He can make himself comfortable as well as seat himself in his own place. And this freedom is not only an external sign of lib­erty, but a means of education. [Through such furnishings, the] child has learned to command his movements. (Montessori, 1912/1964, pp. 81-84, italics in original)

According to her biographer, E. M. Standing (1957), Dr. Montessori de­signed such furnishings as a matter of necessity:

It was not in her power to furnish it with desks like an ordinary schoolroom, because her expenses, being borne by a building so­ciety, had to be put down as an indirect item in the general upkeep of the building. For this reason the only expenditure permitted was such as would have been required by an office for furniture and equipment. That is why she had tables made for these small chil­dren, with chairs to match, instead of school desks which were uni­versally in use at that time. This turned out, as it happened, to be a fortunate limitation. She also had a number of little armchairs made, presumably under the excuse that, even in an office, people have to rest sometimes. (p. 37)

The child-sized furniture was apparently an opportune reaction to an ad­ministrative requirement, and it allowed both for education of movement and for choice regarding where and how one sits to do work. Via the layout, materials, and furnishings, the Montessori-prepared environment facili­tates children’s sense of control and their ability to make good choices. But although the child sees many materials on the shelves, in fact for very few children are all those choices available, which leads to the next topic: the limitation of choice.

Not Taking It Too Far: The Benefits of Limited Choice

Given the positive benefits of having choice and a sense of control, it is important to bear in mind that an abundance of options is not associated with well-being. Too many options can be demotivating, an experience some have while examining extensive restaurant menus. One study demon­strated this in a fancy grocery store setting in which a display was set up of­fering special jams. When a very large selection (24 or more) of sample jams was available to try, people were less likely to purchase a jam than when only 6 sample jams were available. When they did purchase jam, people se­lecting from fewer options were more satisfied with their choices (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000). A replication showed this same phenomenon with gour­met chocolates. In fact, people who had to choose one among many choco­lates later preferred to take money rather than additional chocolates as a re­ward; people choosing from among 6 types opted for more chocolate. A third experiment offered students the opportunity to write essays for extra credit in a college course, which allowed the experimenters to examine the effect of limited choice on performance as well. Students who were given 6 possible essay topics not only were more likely to write an extra credit es­say than were students who were given 24 topic choices, but they also wrote better essays.

            There is a point at which having too many choices becomes negative and works against people’s sense of control. Other work discussed by Barry Schwartz (2004) makes the same point.

Limiting Choice in Montessori Classrooms

Although children freely choose what to do in Montessori classrooms, there are several limits on their choices. Choices are limited by the amount of ma­terial, by what children know how to use, and by the requirement that they be constructive and responsible. Before considering how choice is limited, however, it is pertinent to discuss the number of choices available in light of the research just discussed. Montessori classrooms have vastly more than six options available to children, and even given the limits, one might won­der if there is too much choice.

The Number of Choices in Montessori Classrooms

Montessori classrooms have many materials—far more than six—for the child to choose among. The experiments just mentioned suggest that Montessori classrooms might proffer more choice than is optimal. After all, the experiments showing that having choice is better than not having choice had few choice options—one could choose to turn off noise or not, or one could choose one of 4 spaceships or 6 categories of anagrams. When the number of choices rose to 24, the experience of choosing became negative. A Montessori classroom has more different kinds of work options than can easily be quantified, so a question arises as to whether the options are too many.

First, it is important to remember that no child has access to all the ma­terials, except perhaps a few children who are about to move on to the next level of classroom. Every classroom has an amount of material that most children master in about three years, and children master those materials gradually. Every child’s choices are limited to the materials that he or she has been shown how to use. Further, a child’s choices might be helped by the fact that there are only six or eight basic subject areas to choose among (in Elementary, there are mathematics, geometry, science, language, music, art, history, and geography). But within each area a child does have the choice of doing any work she or he has been shown how to do, and the sheer amount might be perceived as overwhelming.

            Learning to make good choices for oneself is considered part of one’s education in Montessori. As the epigraph for this chapter put it, “Life is based on choice, so they learn to make their own decisions.” Thus, even if choices might be difficult to make, learning to make them is seen as part of Montessori education. Yet there are also reasons to think that the choices children face in Montessori are less difficult than those faced in experiments showing that having over 20 choices is detrimental.

Dr. Montessori (1917/1965, p. 79) claimed to have “experimentally de­termine[d] the quantity of material necessary for development” in her classrooms by watching children with varying amounts of material. Every material that should be in a classroom, its underlying logic, and exactly how it should be shown to children are presented in the training courses Dr. Montessori developed. Although there are many materials, the total amount was chosen intentionally, through trial and error. Below, I discuss three con­siderations relevant to whether there is too much choice in Montessori classrooms.

            Perhaps larger numbers of choices work for children in Montessori classrooms because children are not choosing among the same types of cat­egories. Rather than needing to choose 1 among 30 jams to eat, children are choosing whether to prepare carrots to eat, to wash tables, to work with Sandpaper Letters, and so on. These are rather different types of activities, more akin to the choices an adult faces when spending a day at home. There are over 20 options on what to do, but the choices are among different sorts of activities. Indeed, the grocery store is not overwhelming because we pur­chase in categories within each of which there are not necessarily too many choices: there might just be six types of soap, or four types of olive oil.

            Two additional considerations can be derived from a major theory of why abundant choice can be problematic (Schwartz, 2000). The theory maintains that abundant choice is problematic because people are not equipped to process the information they need to make choices among many new, fairly similar alternatives. For children in Montessori class­rooms, the information about each choice is presented gradually over the course of the three years. At no point are they suddenly given a lot of in­formation about many new kinds of work and expected to process it all, which is the case for adults in limited-choice experiments. To return to the grocery store example, even when there are many choices, some familiarity with some products might help us.

            Second, the theory claims an abundance of choice is problematic be­cause it leads to more “buyer’s regret.” Buyer’s regret refers to situations in which one makes a choice and then cannot undo the decision. A child in Montessori can take out a material, work with it for a while, and then de­cide to do something else, at no real cost. For this reason as well, having many options for work in a Montessori classroom may not be problematic for children.

Dr. Montessori saw that “over-abundance debilitates and retards progress” (Montessori, 1917/1965, p. 79). Although there are more than six choices for most Montessori children most of the time, choices are still lim­ited. Below I consider some of the ways that choice is limited in Montessori classrooms.

Limiting Choice via the Materials

Although there are many dozens of materials out in a classroom at once, very few children really have the choice of using all of the materials. For young children, in fact, Dr. Montessori advised giving only a very limited choice. For example, a parent of a 2-year-old might just keep two or three shirts-in a drawer that the child can access to choose his or her outfit, keep­ing the rest of the child’s clothes on a high shelf out of view. A Primary teacher might greet a 3-year-old who seems to need help with choices by asking, “Would you like to build the Pink Tower or use the Metal Insets now?” As children get older and are able to handle more choices, they are given more.

            Occasionally an older child might fail to make the choice to do a par­ticular kind of work. In such cases, the Montessori teacher might very sub­tly limit the child’s choice. The teacher would not usually ask the child to do the work, because that would take away the child’s sense of control. In­stead, a Montessori technique for handling such a situation is to ask the child to choose a day or time by which they will complete an activity. The child has a sense of control—he or she will choose the time—even as the teacher is making sure the work gets done. This technique is consistent with the research on deadlines, discussed later in the chapter.

            Another way choice is limited in Montessori is that with very few ex­ceptions, there is only one of each material in the classroom. If another child or group of children is using a material, then for that moment it is not an op­tion. Dr. Montessori claimed that in general it is important to have only one of each type of material in the classroom (1989, p. 64). There are two reasons for this. First, children need to learn to work together as a society, and learn­ing to share limited resources is part of that learning (Montessori, 1917/ 1965, p. 174). Second, since one of the ways Montessori children purport­edly learn is by observing others doing different work (as discussed in chapter 6), and watching others use a material is supposed to inspire them to do work with that material, having only one material of each set is in­tended to increase learning in the entire class.

            In sum, the materials themselves create limitations on choice in Montessori. There is only one of each material, so children learn to share re­sources and see a greater variety of work out at any given time. Children are also limited to the materials they have been shown how to use. Besides limits on choice posed by materials, there are also limits posed by society.

Limitations Imposed by Society

The liberty of the child should have as its limit the collective

interest; as its form, what we universally consider good [behavior].

We must, therefore, check in the child whatever offends or

annoys others, or whatever tends towards rough or ill-bred acts.

—MARIA MONTESSORI (1912/1964, p. 87)

Dr. Montessori is sometimes misrepresented as claiming that every child should always be allowed to do whatever he or she chooses. Clearly Dr. Montessori meant children should have the freedom to make constructive choices. Choice has to be limited to what works for the classroom and soci­ety. Freedom is issued hand in hand with responsibility in Montessori; chil­dren who do not handle the responsibility of freedom are not granted it. Al­though once children are concentrating on work, it is imperative that adults not disturb them, when children are misbehaving, their freedom must be curbed:

Do not apply the rule of non-interference when the children are still the prey of all their different naughtinesses. Don’t let them climb on the windows, the furniture, etc. You must interfere at this stage. At this stage the teacher must be a policeman. The policeman has to defend the honest citizens against the disturbers. (Montes­sori, 1989, p. 16)

One might wonder how Montessori teachers handle children who typ­ically misbehave. The simple answer is that their freedom is restricted: they might be asked to stay right by the teacher, perhaps for the entire morning or day, so she can by her presence help the child to control himself or her­self. Research suggests that fewer children would misbehave in Montessori classrooms than in traditional ones, however. First, as described earlier, children in origin classrooms see others as less aggressive, which could translate to their own behavior. Second, as will be discussed later, training in attention appears to reduce aggressive behavior. Because they can make their own choices among interesting work, and because of the prevalence of concentration, children may be less apt to misbehave in Montessori class­rooms than in traditional ones. This would be an interesting topic for research.

Limit to What Is Useful for Self-Development

Choice in Montessori classrooms is also limited to what is useful for the child.

When we speak of the freedom of a small child, we do not mean to countenance the external disorderly actions which children left to themselves engage in as a relief from their aimless activity, but we understand by this the freeing of his life from the obstacles which can impede normal development. . . . This goal leads to the creation of a suitable environment where a child can pursue a series of in­teresting objectives and thus channel his random energies into or­derly and well-executed actions. (Montessori, 1967b, p. 62)

The child is free to choose among activities that can provide for the child at his or her current stage of development. Typically, a child who is begin­ning Primary is not allowed to choose the Movable Alphabet. The child is not mentally ready for this material, so it would not be a useful choice. Once a child has developed enough self-control (generally considered to be age 3 in Montessori classrooms), the child is not allowed to take every item off the shelf, but can use only those items she or he has been shown how to use.

One effect of this limitation might be to assist younger children with choices because such children might benefit from having only a few op­tions. Another effect might be to inspire excitement about lessons because they expand one’s choices. A child can see himself or herself growing up as more choices become available. Montessori teachers report children asking to be able to work with new materials that they see another child using, or see newly put out on the shelves, suggesting the children want to expand their choices.

            Choice is also limited in terms of what a child can do with each object, again for self-development. For example, a child can make words with the Movable Alphabet but not use the letters as dolls. Each material has its care­fully designed purpose, and the Movable Alphabet is for making words, not using as dolls or bending and breaking. Some are concerned that this limitation on what one can choose and how objects are used stifles creativ­ity in Montessori classrooms. Although not definitive, because children were not randomly assigned to groups, one study comparing Montessori and non-Montessori children from similar populations found the Montes­sori children performed more highly on a standard test of creativity (Dreyer & Rigler, 1969). In addition, in the Miller and Dyer Head Start study (1975) in which children were randomly assigned, tests of creativity were among the first ones on which Montessori children showed an advantage.

In sum, in Montessori classrooms choices are limited both by materi­als and by the dictate that choices be constructive for the child and for the larger group.

The Effects of Deadlines on Performance and Motivation

In terms of self-development, sometimes children do not make the best choices. A child who needs to do more science work in order to complete that part of the curriculum might simply not make the choice, day after day As noted earlier, Montessori teachers have a technique for handling such situations, which is consistent with the research on deadlines.

Deadlines clearly take away one’s sense of choice: there is a set date upon which one must finish something, or one “drops dead.” Yet people oc­casionally need deadlines; traditional schooling functions by them. The practice of imposing deadlines on students is certainly widespread, and at times is clearly necessary. Children have to learn to handle deadlines, just as American adults have to face the IRS filing deadline of April 15. But re­search shows that deadlines are in some ways demotivating and suggests that their widespread use in school ought to be curbed.

            In one study illustrating the negative impact of deadlines on task in­terest, Stanford University undergraduates were given a crossword puzzle—creating game called AdLib (Amabile, Dejong, & Lepper, 1976). Some stu­dents were told, either directly or implicitly, that there was a deadline for completing the games, after which their data would be of no use. In fact this deadline could be easily met. Others were told only to work as fast as they could, and yet others were not given any information about working fast or completing by a certain time. All participants actually completed the games in the allotted time, confirming that the deadline was a comfortable one.

            Interest in the game was measured both by how much time partici­pants spent on it during a later free period and by their answers on a ques­tionnaire about their interest. Students who had been told to work fast and students with no deadline spent over half of their free time in the subse­quent period continuing to play AdLib, whereas students in both deadline conditions spent less than a third of their time playing it. Given free choice, then, those with deadlines were simply not as interested in the game later as those who had played it earlier without deadlines. Responses on the questionnaire also reflected varying degrees of interest, with the deadline group reporting less interest in and enjoyment of AdLib. Merely being led to believe one had a deadline decreased motivation for the task.

A later study replicated this result with a different task. College stu­dents were asked to play a game of Labyrinth, a motor skill task requiring one to move a metal ball through a maze suspended on a wooden frame (Reader & Dollinger, 1982). All of the students were asked to get the ball through the maze as quickly and accurately as possible, and half of the stu­dents were also asked to set a timer for 10 minutes, in effect giving them a deadline. After 10 minutes, the experimenter returned (for all participants), engaged them in another task, and then left them alone in the room with Labyrinth and some magazines for 8 minutes during which they were in­structed to do as they please. Over half of the participants who had played without a deadline spontaneously played the game during these 8 minutes, whereas fewer than a third of those who played with the timer did so.

Although deadlines set by others have a negative impact on task inter­est and motivation, self-imposed deadlines do not. Indeed, studies suggest that students even work faster when they impose their own deadlines. In one study comparing self- to instructor-imposed deadlines, students who set their own deadlines for coursework complied with their self-imposed schedules better and completed work faster than students on an instructor-imposed schedule (Roberts, Fulton, & Semb, 1988). This fits with what is known as self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000): deadlines im­posed by others are demotivating because they reduce one’s sense of con­trol. When deadlines are self-administered, control is maintained, so dead­lines are not demotivating.

            Taken together, this research indicates that the regular administration of deadlines for schoolwork has negative consequences that could be avoided by changing the source of the deadline for completion from teacher to student. However, it might be the case that deadlines are less necessary in Montessori because of the presence of other factors known to positively impact motivation: a sense of choice, interest in what is being learned, and removal of expected extrinsic rewards. These are the topics of this and the next two chapters. Because all three factors are at work in a Montessori classroom, motivation might generally be less of an issue than it is in tradi­tional schools. interestingly, Montessori education is also well aligned with the research in terms of when and how deadlines are imposed.

Specification of Completion Times in a Montessori Classroom

As will be described more fully in the next chapter, Montessori Elementary teachers keep track of children’s progress in work via each child’s Work Journal. The child and teacher meet, usually weekly, to go over the Journal, in which the child records the week’s activities, including the time when each work was done and how much was accomplished. If a child is not choosing to follow up on a lesson, the teacher can bring it up at this meet­ing as they examine the Work Journal together. The teacher might say, “I see You have not followed up on the Grammar Box lesson I gave you on Tues­day. When do you plan to do that?” The child makes a time commitment, but it comes from himself or herself. The child has a sense of control.

            This aligns with the research showing that externally imposed dead­lines reduce subsequent interest in an activity. The commitment is made by the child, with some help from the teacher. If children do not adhere to the time frame they have set up, the teacher gradually might consider ways to enhance the child’s interest in the activity, or if necessary might gradually remove freedoms (for example, asking the child to always do that work first thing in the morning). The research suggests that there are motivational costs to this approach, but if a child was not motivated to begin with, it might become necessary.

What is important is that these externally imposed structures remain minimal for what a particular child requires, so the child’s personal control is maximal for what that child can handle. The Montessori teacher watches each child carefully and uses a level of structure—a degree of freedom—that fits what that child is ready for and adjusts it as the child changes. In this way, the factory model of having all children do the same activities at the same times is replaced with individual allowances. The Montessori sys­tem can adjust to the individual child’s ability to take responsibility for do­ing his or her work.

Concern about children not choosing to work across the curriculum has led to the development of work checklists in some Montessori implemen­tations. With such checklists, children may choose from a very limited se­lection of work. This might include one type of language work, one type of math work, one type of geography work, and so on. Every day, once a child has checked off a work of each type, then the child is free to choose any work he or she likes. Although such an implementation might sound good on the surface, research reported in chapter 5 on rewards shows a serious problem with implementations involving checking off work in order to get to other work: when one activity is posed as a means to an end, that activ­ity is devalued relative to when it is simply presented on its own (Lepper, Sagotsky, Dafoe, & Greene, 1982). The result of such systems can be deval­uation of the very work that was considered most important. There might well also be costs in terms of attention and concentration, discussed later in this chapter. Children who are told they must check off some work in or­der to get to other work might engage in initial work superficially, without deep concentration. With the Work Journals, in which Elementary children simply record what they have done each minute of the day, the child has a greater sense of choice and freedom. Teachers still ensure that children do not leave large areas of the curriculum untouched, but this is done in a way that gives the child a sense of control. Research suggests this is a better way to enhance learning than imposing deadlines and using checklists.

In sum, Elementary Montessori teachers employ a method consistent with research on deadlines: they ask children who are not making the choices needed for a full education to set their own deadlines. In this way, the child retains a sense of control, and the teacher ensures that the child’s progress is not retarded. The degree of control imposed by the teacher is kept at the minimum level for what that child needs.

Thus far, we have considered what the environment and the teacher do to assist the child in making good choices. A third source of good choices is the child’s own self. A certain degree of self-regulation is re­quired if one is to make good choices. In Montessori classrooms, children are thought to make good choices in part because their personalities have been “normalized” through concentration. Next I consider research sug­gesting that the act of concentration—focusing one’s attention—leads to an array of positive outcomes that closely align with Dr. Montessori’s con­cept of normalization.

Research on Concentration and Self-Regulation

One outstanding feature of Montessori classrooms is that children concen­trate deeply and for long periods of time on their work. Dr. Montessori was initially surprised by this, but she came to see it as integral to what happens in her classrooms. By concentrating hard on work, Dr. Montessori claimed, children’s personalities normalize—meaning their deviations and misbe­haviors go by the wayside—and they become kinder and more interested in work. According to her observations, children who can concentrate treat others kindly and work constructively with materials rather than choosing to distract classmates or abuse materials. Research suggests her observa­tions have merit and are particularly relevant in today’s world of attention-controlling television and computer programs.

            Theorists of child development have noted the close connection be­tween attention and self-regulation (Ruff & Rothbart, 1996). To pay attention is to regulate one’s behavior. Children who are better at self-regulating show more positive social behavior on a variety of measures. For example, one study obtained teacher ratings of 82 preschool children on four dimensions of self-regulation, each consisting of multiple items: focused attention (items such as “When drawing or coloring in a book, shows strong concentration”), attention shifting (“Can move on to a new task when asked”), inhibitory control (“Can lower his/her voice when asked to do so”), and impulsivity (“Sometimes interrupts others when they are speaking,” an item that is “reverse-scored”) (Cumberland-Li, Eisenberg, & Rieser, 2004). Parents’ rat­ings were also obtained on these measures for about half of the sample. In addition, children nominated three classmates who were nice, three who were cooperative, and so on, and these nominations were summed to give each child an agreeableness rating. Teachers also gave agreeableness ratings of children, via a 20-item scale stating how descriptive of a child each item was (such as “cooperative,” “warm;’ and “generous”).

Strong correlations were found for teacher-rated agreeableness and all four of the teacher’s self-regulation ratings. Children who were more able to regulate their attention and behavior were seen by their teachers as more generous, warm, cooperative, and so on. Of course, one could argue that the regulation measures are simply qualities teachers like and that thus a “halo effect” governed all these results. The parent and child ratings can address this. Children’s ratings of other children’s agreeableness were also fairly well related to teacher ratings of those children’s abilities to control their at­tention, and they were even more strongly related to parents’ ratings of those children’s ability to focus attention and control impulses. Thus, al­though some halo effects might have been operating, the results present a consistent picture whereby preschoolers who are higher in self-regulation are also seen by others as being warmer, more cooperative, and so on.

These findings with preschoolers are consistent with a larger body of research showing similar findings for children in elementary school and even for adults. Emotion regulation is positively related to psychological adjustment, competent social functioning, empathy, sympathy, and proso­cial behavior in elementary school (Eisenberg et al., 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2004; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994). This is consistent with Dr. Montes­sori’s descriptions. “When the children begin to be interested in the work and to develop themselves. . . lively joy. . .  mutual respect and affection” become manifest (Montessori, 1917/1965, pp. 93-94).

            According to the psychologist Mary Rothbart, the relationship between attention and positive personality characteristics may exist in part because effortful control is needed to subjugate one’s own feelings and perspective to consider those of another. For this same reason perhaps, inhibitory con­trol is significantly related to tasks assessing an understanding of other’s be­liefs (Carlson, Moses, & Hix, 1998). Even for adults, the ability to regulate one’s own behavior is related to agreeableness as well as conscientiousness (Jensen-Campell et al., 2002). Interesting comparative research has shown that in monkeys, attention training appears to reduce aggression and im­prove self-regulation even outside of the training contexts.[2] Nonhuman pri­mates raised in captivity can be notoriously difficult and are described as natural models for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Training them on tasks requiring sustained attention results in general im­provements in behavior (Rumbaugh & Washburn, 1996).

The ability to pay attention has also been trained in human adults with brain injury (Sohlberg, McLaughlin, Pavese, Heidrich, & Posner, 2000) and children with ADHD (Klingberg, Forssberg, & Westerberg, 2002; Semrud­Clikeman et al., 1999). For patients with brain damage, the brain circuits regulating attention (in particular, the anterior cingulate area of the pre­frontal cortex) are restituted following attention training (Sturm et al., 2004). Unsurprisingly, practice at paying attention, or concentrating, is evidenced in the neurological changes that undergird that practice as well as in be­havior.

            Interestingly, the attention training used in these studies tends to in­volve computer programs. However, the tasks incorporated in these pro­grams are not at all like the tasks on computer programs typically aimed at children. The tasks on many popular software packages for children might be described as “bells and whistles” tasks: they pull children in and regu­late their attention for them, much as television programs do. An increas­ing body of research is pointing to possible links between television watch­ing and the incidence of ADHD. One recent study showed that the more hours children watched television each day at ages 1 and 3, the higher the likelihood they would be diagnosed with ADHD at age 7 (Christakis, Zim­merman, DiGiuseppe, & McCarty, 2004). Other studies have shown con­current relations between attention problems and television watching among preschoolers and elementary school children (Levine & Waite, z000 Ozmert, Toyran, & Yurdakok, 2002). Although further research is needed to check whether such relations have obtained because parents are more likely to set children with attention problems in front of the television, at least one study suggests this is not the case: fourth- and fifth-graders’ television watching was related only to their teachers’, not their parents’, perception of their difficulty in paying attention. In addition, 1-year-olds are well be­low the age when ADHD is usually diagnosed. I would speculate that tel­evision and some computer programs work against children’s ability to reg­ulate their attention because these media are often so attention grabbing that the children have no work to do on their own. The Montessori materi­als, in contrast, seem to meet children halfway. The materials are interest­ing and engrossing, but still require children to regulate their own attention. This is suggested by the fact that it takes some time for children in a new Montessori classroom to settle down to work, whereas it can take no time at all to get young children transfixed on a computer or television screen.

Another area of research that seems pertinent to Dr. Montessori’s the­ory regarding concentration and normalization concerns meditation. In meditation, one’s task is to attend fully to the here and now. Meditation can be seen as an attention-training exercise. After meditation, people report feeling calm and refreshed. Studies suggest that people who engage in meditation derive lasting mental and physical health benefits from it. In one study, people who had applied for a course in mindfulness meditation were divided into two groups, one of which was given the course, and the other of which was told the course was full (Davidson et al., 2003). This made an excellent control group, since it eliminated the possibility that the medita­tors had differed to begin with. Whereas other studies have shown differ­ences in the patterns of neural activation of meditators during meditation courses, this study was unusual in looking at people several months after the meditation course was completed. Meditators (who were still engaged in regular meditation sessions) at that point had more activation in the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere of their brains. This pattern is typi­cal of people during meditation courses and is generally considered a “happy pattern.” People with stronger left than right hemisphere activation at rest report higher levels of well-being, presumably because they have a stronger approach than avoidance tendencies (Urry et al., 2004). Interest­ingly, even several months after the course, the meditators also had a stronger immune response to a flu vaccine, suggesting they might be less likely to become ill as well. The deep concentration children achieve in Montessori classrooms seems in some ways akin to meditation.

In sum, attention can clearly be trained with practice. The literature suggests that the practice of regulating one’s own attention might lead to positive changes, including improved social skills, increased empathy, re­duced aggression, increased happiness, and improved immune response. Several of these findings reflect what Dr. Montessori said occurred when children began to focus their attention on work in her classrooms: “Each time that such a polarization of attention took place, the child began to be completely transformed, to become calmer, more intelligent” (Montessori, 1917/1965, p. 68). Whether the findings actually apply in Montessori class­rooms is a fascinating possibility for further research.

Concentration in Montessori

Children learn to concentrate in Montessori classrooms. In one classic ex­ample, a girl was concentrating so fully on the Wooden Cylinders that Dr. Montessori lifted the armchair she was working in, and the girl did not even seem to notice, but kept on working with the cylinders on her lap. Af­ter doing the work 44 times, the girl “looked round with a satisfied air, al­most as if awakening from a refreshing nap” (Montessori, 1917/1965, p. 68). Dr. Montessori noted that Primary-aged children would repeat exer­cises 30 or 40 times in succession and afterward would appear rested and refreshed.

Much patience is required of a teacher in a new classroom as he or she waits for concentration to begin. The teacher presents materials to the chil­dren over and over and checks their misbehaviors, waiting for the materi­als to engage the children’s attention. Over the weeks, one by one, Dr. Montessori said, the children would become absorbed with the materials and concentrate.

The level of concentration children appear to attain in Montessori class­rooms is reminiscent of what Csikszentmihalyi (1997) terms “flow.” Pri­mary classrooms in particular often have a “hushed” quality when children are busy with their work. Elementary classrooms are more likely to include children chatting as they work, displaying an ability to multitask and a greater need for social engagement. Dr. Montessori saw concentration as crucial to children making constructive choices. In this section, I first dis­cuss the personality change she called normalization, then move on to how Montessori classrooms facilitate concentration.

Normalization

According to Dr. Montessori, being free to make constructive choices de­velops positive personality characteristics. Normalization in turn helps children make good choices.

All we have to do is set [the child’s developmental] energy free. It is as simple as that. This is not giving freedom to children in the common sense. What is the use of freedom to children, if it is free­dom to develop their deviations? When we speak of freedom in education we mean freedom for the creative energy which is the urge of life towards the development of the individual. This is not ca­sual energy like the energy of a bomb that explodes. It has a guid­ing principle, a very fine, but unconscious directive, the aim of which is to develop a normal person. When we speak of free chil­dren we are thinking of this energy which must be free in order to construct these children well. (1989, p.12)

Concentration in Montessori classrooms is thought to facilitate chil­dren’s access to inner guides that direct children to make constructive choices. Although this sounds somewhat mystical, developmental psychologists suggest something similar when they explain what stimuli children seek out. Young children are thought to prefer looking at and engaging with ma­terial that is just above their current level of competence. (This moderate discrepancy hypothesis is discussed more in chapter 4.) Infants are thought to choose to engage with stimuli that will assist their development to a higher level.

Dr. Montessori also believed that children who have choices will spon­taneously engage with that which they need to further their development. A similar phenomenon is seen with nutrition. People with mineral defi­ciencies are sometimes driven to consume clay, and chicks who are permit­ted to select their own diet select ones that yield maximum growth, normal body temperature, and high activity levels (Rovee-Collier, Hayne, Collier, Griesler, & Rovee, 1996). Young children also appear to regulate their caloric intake naturally, consuming fewer calories following high-calorie snacks than low-calorie ones (Johnson, McPhee, & Birch, 1991). Dr. Montessori be­lieved that the same principles apply when children are given choices with regard to their psychological development. In a properly prepared envi­ronment, meaning one that provides positive choices, children who are nor­malized (through concentration) will take what they need from among those choices for their healthy psychological development.

Psychology research has not addressed how concentration affects choice. Do people make better choices after a bout of deeply concentrated work? Are children internally guided toward what they need in a prepared envi­ronment? To determine this requires establishing a clear sense of what a given child “needs” or is most ready for, then seeing if he or she is more apt to gravitate toward it in a prepared environment than in a nonprepared en­vironment. The moderate discrepancy hypothesis is currently regarded as only a hypothesis (Siegler, 1998). We do know that children learn most when new material is pitched just above but not too far above their current level of understanding (Kuhn, 1972; Turiel & Rothman, 1972), but whether they spontaneously choose that level is an unanswered question. Work presented in chapter 6 shows that children are especially apt to imitate other people who are just older rather than much older than themselves (Hanna & Meltzoff, 1993), and work presented in chapter 5 shows that children choose more challenging tasks when no external rewards are offered. These results are suggestive, but more research is needed.

In sum, in Montessori theory, children become normalized through making choices, and that normalization leads to their being able to follow inner guides in choosing what they need for their development. To assist children to be in touch with these postulated inner guides, Montessori classrooms facilitate concentration. More research is needed to examine whether this in fact happens, but it is consistent with developmental theory and some research.

How Montessori Environments Facilitate Concentration

Montessori environments facilitate concentration in at least three ways: en­gaging materials, three-hour work cycles, and minimizing of forces that might disrupt concentration.

WORK WITH INTERESTING, HANDS-ON MATERIALS

Montessori materials are designed to deeply engage the child’s hands and mind. The hands-on aspects of materials were discussed in chapter 2, and interest is the topic of chapter 4, so this means of facilitating concentration is not discussed further here.

CONCENTRATION AND THE THREE-HOUR WORK CYCLE

As was mentioned in the prior chapter with regard to recess, children who are regularly interrupted might be unable to develop concentration on their work. This concentration, according to Dr. Montessori, is necessary for chil­dren to tune into the postulated inner guides that help them to make good choices. Every adult-imposed interruption at which children are removed from their freely chosen work during three-hour morning and afternoon work periods diminishes the quality of concentration children can achieve during those periods. Although I know of no research on how imposed breaks diminish concentration, common sense suggests they do. Most adults in our culture know how disruptive it is to get up from our work at prescribed intervals to do something else. If we can choose when to take breaks, then breaks work for us, but if their timing is externally imposed, breaks can be disruptive to concentration.

Dr. Montessori believed that children need sufficient time to delve into work, to concentrate, and to develop their inner guides. This period of time is three hours in the morning for all levels of the classroom, with the oldest children in the Primary classes staying for an additional two- to three-hour work period after lunch. In Elementary, children work for three hours in the afternoon as well (Montessori, 1917/1965).

In one of Dr. Montessori’s books, several graphs show various work cy­cles (Montessori, 1917/1965, pp. 97-108). The normal cycle consists of tak­ing perhaps 30 minutes to get going in the morning (9:00-.9:30 A.M.), then a half-hour period of easy activity, followed by a few brief moments of rest (perhaps walking around the classroom looking at others’ work), then a one- to two-hour period of intense new work that stretches the mind into new territory, followed by a serene period during which the child disen­gages from work. Dr. Montessori described a child who was probably fairly new to Montessori and who was not yet “normalized” in this way:

He enters, is quiet for a moment, then goes to work. The curve [on his activity chart] is drawn upward into the space representing or­der. The child tires and, as a result, his activity is disorganized. The curve is then drawn through the line representing rest downward into the space representing disorder. After this, the child begins a new task. If, for example, he at first works with the cylinders, then takes up some crayons, works assiduously for some time, but then disturbs his neighbor, the curve must again he drawn downward. After this, he teases his companions, and the curve remains in the space designating disorder. Tiring of this, he takes up the hells, be­gins to work out the scale and becomes very absorbed; the curve again ascends into the space representing order. But as SOOD as he is finished, he is at a loss to occupy himself any further and goes to the teacher. (Montessori, 1956, p. 81)

The teacher, she advised, must have faith and patience through this pe­riod, waiting for the environment (including the materials) to do its job of attracting the child’s interest, and helping the child to order his or her ac­tivities. The period of time the boy just described spent working with the Musical Bells was a beginning. (The bells are shown in Figure 3.1.) After some time in the classroom, children apparently begin to adopt construc­tive work cycles independently. Such patterns present an interesting pos­sibility for further study.

Dr. Montessori maintained that it is extremely important that children not be interrupted during the three-hour work cycles. A “negative action is the interruption of work at fixed times in the daily program. They say to the child, ‘Don’t apply yourself for too long at any one thing. It may tire you’ ” (Montessori, 1967a, p. 241). She believed that children need to be free to complete their work, without unnecessary interruption. “There is a vital urge to completeness of action, and if the cycle of this urge is broken, it shows in deviations from normality and lack of purpose” (Montessori, 1948/1967, p. 57). Montessori teachers who adhere to three-hour work pe­riods without interruption claim one can see the difference in the quality of children’s concentration on days when children know they will be leav­ing the classroom in an hour for a field trip or doctor’s appointment or spe­cial music class.

During three-hour work cycles, children are not removed from work for recess or extracurriculars. Besides extracurricular activities and recess, another extrinsic element that can be disruptive to concentration and ac­cessing inner directives is visitors to the classroom.

POSSIBLE IMPACT OF PARENTS AND VISITORS ON CONCENTRATION AND CHOICE

Dr. Montessori’s belief in inner forces that guide children to what they need is responsible for one practice that sometimes concerns people regarding the Montessori school program: classroom visits are often kept to a mini­mum. Many American parents want to be part of their children’s day, and indeed traditional schools encourage close parent-school partnership be­cause in traditional schools it is associated with better student outcomes. To be sure, Montessori schools do not, as a whole, discourage close contact with parents. They may, however, discourage parents from entering the classroom during concentrated three-hour work periods.

Some reasons for this are related to children’s postulated inner direc­tives. First, visitors (including parents) often interrupt children’s concen­tration by asking children what they are doing, commenting on their work, or even just being there. Visitors might not notice that children are concen­trating, because it is unusual for children in our culture to concentrate deeply. Or they might not realize that the concentration is crucially impor­tant in Montessori. For this reason, if parents and other visitors are allowed in a Montessori classroom, they may be asked to sit quietly and not speak unless spoken to. This can leave visitors who do not understand feeling un­hosted or unwelcome in the Montessori classroom.

Second, parents may, consciously or unconsciously, directly or even by their mere presence, sway their children’s choices in work. For example, they might direct their child to do more math, causing the child to do math not from the child’s own inner impulse, but in order to please the parents. As discussed earlier, many American children are less motivated toward work chosen by their parents, and they do their work less well when their parents choose it for them (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999).

In the same vein, some Montessori schools do not regularly send chil­dren’s work home, out of concern that parental praise might lead children to value work that they can show their parents more than work that they can­not. For example, children in Primary may come to prefer Metal Inset draw­ing to working with the Brown Stair because their parents praise the former but not the latter (because there is no product that comes home), yet both ac­tivities are crucially important to the child’s development in Montessori.

Another concern about parents influencing children’s work is that par­ents might focus on errors when what may be important for their child at that time is not that the work be error-free, but that it have some other fea­ture, such as that the child is independently choosing it and concentrating on it. For example, a child who had been resisting writing an original re­search report on early language but finally has freely chosen to do it might make some spelling errors. The teacher knows they will work on the spelling, but for the time being the advance is that the child did the work. The teacher sees the child’s work in the context of everything the child is do­ing in the classroom. The parent, however, sees only the tiny slice of the child’s school day represented by the work he or she brings home. The neg­ative effects of such extrinsic interferences are considered further in chap­ter 5 on rewards. In Montessori theory, such input from parents could dis­tract children from the inner guides helping them make choices about what work to do.

To summarize, Montessori classrooms facilitate concentration by pro­vision of interesting, hands-on materials, by incorporating three-hour work periods without interruption, and by minimizing the presence of parents and visitors in the classroom. By allowing concentration on work, the class­room environment is thought to bring about normalization in the child. Such normalization also comes from the child’s being able to freely choose, and in turn, as the child becomes increasingly normalized, the child is be­lieved to make more constructive choices.

Can Montessori Children Adapt to Traditional School Settings?

A question people often have after learning how much choice children have in Montessori classrooms is whether such children can possibly adapt to settings where they are told what to do and are ushered through a preset curriculum. The best evidence for this is probably from the studies men­tioned in chapter 1. The Montessori Head Start children went on to tradi­tional schools and by second grade were showing academic outcomes su­perior to those of children in traditional no-choice, whole-class learning programs. Other evidence is from the Milwaukee study, in which children were in Montessori through fifth grade. When tested in high school, with the comparison sample matched at test and thus a very difficult standard of comparison, the Montessori children fared as well as or better than children who had been in other pre- and Elementary school situations. Clearly, the average Montessori child’s adjustment to traditional school programs, if it is ever problematic, disappears quickly. Whether there is an initial period of adjustment would be an interesting topic for research; the evidence I know of is either anecdotal or concerns only children graduating from a specific Montessori school.

Chapter Summary

By leaving the children in our schools at liberty we have been

able with great clearness to follow them in their natural method

of spontaneous self-development.

¾    MARIA MONTESSORI (1912/1964, p. 357)

Freedom in intellectual work is found to be the basis of

internal discipline.

¾    MARIA MONTESSORI (1917/1965, p. 108)

In traditional school environments, children have little choice, yet research shows that the greater their sense of control in the classroom, the better they fare. Montessori classrooms are based on personal choice and freedom within the limits imposed by being constructive for oneself and society. Children make choices in part by being in touch with postulated inner guides that direct them toward what they need, an interesting speculation ripe for empirical research. They also clearly make choices based on what interests them. Montessori education also capitalizes on interest, the topic of the next chapter.

---

[1] The findings given here are with regard to Euro-American children. For Asian Ameri­cans, maternal choice was associated with even better learning.

[2] David Washburn, personal communication, April 20, 2004.