Get Out of Their Way

After I became a mother and dined out with G in tow, I started paying attention to the Kid's Menus at restaurants. I was appalled at the grease-soaked and sugar-infused offerings that most restaurants offer -- fried chicken tenders, fries, corn dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (on white bread), and the old stand-by, macaroni and cheese from a box complete with reconstituted orange powdered cheese food. I even found this faux macaroni and cheese in an Italian restaurant dedicated to pasta. Finding child-sized (and priced) portions of real food was virtually impossible. I decided that these horrible children's menus exist not because those foods are what children prefer to eat, but because that's what adults think children prefer eat.

Maria Montessori would have called this just one more prejudice that adults hold about children. Montessori identified the very subtle prejudices that we hold against children, particularly in the science and education fields, and observed how those closely held prejudices, or beliefs, influence the way we treat children. These prejudices are not intentional or malicious, they are simply mental blocks that we as adults have about how children operate in the world. Montessori asserts that

"The adult has not understood the child or the adolescent and is therefore in continual strife with him. The remedy is not that the adult should learn something intellectually, or complete a deficient culture. He must find a different starting point. The adult must find in himself the hitherto unknown error that prevents him from seeing the child as he is." (The Secret of Childhood, pp10-11)

We believe that children only like bland food, so we only serve them bland food. We do not believe that a child will eat green peppers or broccoli because of the strong taste. We believe that children are not ready to go to school until 5-6 years old, so we do not send them to school until 6 years old. But we find that children will eat green peppers if given the chance and we do not interfere by telling them "you won't like it." We do interfere and obstruct children's natural development because

The adult has become egocentric in relation to the child, not egoistic, but egocentric. Thus he considers everything that affects the psyche of the child from the standpoint of its reference to himself, and so misunderstands the child. It is this point of view that leads to a consideration of the child as an empty being, which the adult must fill by his own endeavors, as an inert and incapable being for whom everything must be done, as a being without an inner guide, whom the adult must guide step by step from without. (The Secret of Childhood, p. 11)

These ideas about children are not the sole purview of the parent. Montessori also noted that science and education professionals hold prejudices about children's capabilities and those attitudes find their way into the classrooms, laboratories, boardrooms, and offices of people entrusted to develop policies, procedures, theories, and methods for educating children. These prejudices and attitudes inhibit and obstruct children from real learning and delays so-called formal education. Children begin learning about the world and their place, as humans, in it from the moment they are born.

As parents, we are told to "baby-proof" our homes to make it safer for them and yet we find ourselves running around behind our children constantly telling them "No Touch." In our efforts to protect children from their dangerous habitat, we actually create an environment hostile to learning, experimentation, and exploration. We do everything we can protect our belongings from children and in doing so thwart their desire to learn about the world. Children are natural scientists. They want to know everything about the world; how it works, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it tastes like, what it feels like, and why. Why, why, why and what if. We stifle those little explorers and hinder their learning.

Recently, the astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, answered Time's 10 Questions. Among those questions was, what did he believe was wrong with science education is America today. He said that we adults get in the way when children want to experiment and explore. We prevent them from exploring because children tend to destroy the house in the process of discovering the hows, whys, and what ifs of the world. .


I think that Dr. Montessori would agree with Dr. Tyson, that if we want to really help children learn about the world, one of the best things we can do is just get out of their way and let them explore.