Staff Under the Guide’s Direct Supervision With Respect to Your Children

(Assistant, Specialists)
An assistant in elementary environments is not necessary except for
safety/legal reasons. An assistant may also be required by the educational
policies and regulations that prevail in a particular region.
If present, the assistant needs to have an assigned place/work
station. If present, need to have something to do (repair, cook, going-
out)
The assistant does not give presentations nor check children's work
 Hiring
 Training
 Daily Work
o Taking official attendance
o Greeting children who come late
o Discharging children who leave early notes to parents from school
o Taking messages from phone calls
o Making phone calls at request of teacher
o Take in any money required by school functions
o Assist with projects, seasonal (banquets) or other (have to use an
unsupervised room)
o Taking inventory of supplies
o Taking inventory of materials periodically (Repair? Replace? Missing?)
o Place orders
o Make material under supervision
o Mailing
o Supervise children as necessary (recess, experiments)
o Go with children to replenish supplies
o Go with children to library
o Go with children as needed for Going Out
o Light cleaning of classroom (after children leave/before they enter.)
▪ Dusting
▪ Mopping Wall marks
▪ Furniture cleaning-
▪ Chair rails
o Coordinating with parents as volunteers for specified tasks
o Other tasks as indicated by teacher
▪ Listening to child read (when trained/able to do so)
▪ Attending to children doing experiments
▪ Clerical tasks (not confidential information about children; i.e.,
assessment records)

NOT!
 o Giving presentations
o Answering children's questions about their work
o Being the children's buddy
o Responsible for whole class transitions (arrival, dismissal)
o Handling behavioral situations
o Communicating with parents
o Communicating with other assistants about class matters

Specialists in such subjects as Physical fitness or a second language must be

sympathetic to the Montessori philosophy and approach to the child. They must be
carefully screened, provided with orientation to the manner in which they are to
work with the children (in the environment, voluntary attendance by children, etc.)
They should receive on-going training, and they should be helped to offer their
specializations in a way that corresponds to the Montessori approach.

Other Staff Not Under the Guide’s Direct Supervision (Other teachers , Bus driver ,
Lunch personnel , Recess personnel, Custodial personnel)

 Find out who they are and what they do

 Children need to be introduced to each of these people
 Children need to be given knowledge of how to interact with them

Adults Not Under the Guide’s Supervision (Experts (Librarians, Museum docents,
Parents, Extended Family)

 Experts (need to be minimally informed prior to interacting with children)

 Librarians (are important links to the information network)
 Museum docents (All visits must be prepared for.)
 Parents
o Pre-entry to the school
o Ongoing Parent Information
o Literature
o Events
 Extended Family
o Ongoing Information Evenings
o Literature
o Events
Maria Montessori’s Trade Secrets
When Montessori shares a secret, we should listen!
The secret of success is found to lie in the right use of imagination in
awakening interest already sown by attractive literary and pictorial
material, but all correlated to a central idea … The Cosmic Plan in which
all, consciously or unconsciously serve the great Purpose of Life.
Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

We are already in possession of the secret … The child must learn by his
own individual activity, being given a mental freedom to take what he needs,
and not to be questioned in his choice. Our teaching must only answer the
mental needs of the child, never dictate them.
Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile

field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming
imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand,
and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as
to enthuse him to his innermost core.
Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

The secret is always to present these things in the most interesting

way possible and then allow free choice when the child has
understood.
Maria Montessori: Unpublished Manuscript , London, 1937

In the first plane, the ideal was that the child was so active that the guide
could disappear. There was a sensorial world which the child took in through
the senses and not through teaching.
But now at the second plane, the guide cannot disappear. Here the child
absorbs not with the senses, but with the intelligence and the guide must be
there to give food. Before, the guide was a director to activity. Now instead,
the guide must be the guide into this super-world, the world of culture
created by the intelligence of man. Here the figure of the guide changes but
we must not forget that the child has not ceased to develop.
There are two parts. The continuation of help to the development of the
individual and the giving of culture. Culture must be given to aid the forming
of the individual
The technique should be as follows. The items of knowledge we wish to
impart must be given so as to impress the mind, to strike the imagination
which thus arouses the intelligence. Once the intelligence has been aroused,
clear vision has been given. The rest must be left to the work of the
subconscious. The guide gives inspiration. The work is done by the
individual who is inspired. So here we cannot say, as we say in the first plane
that it is best to know when to withdraw. Here it is necessary that the guide
know how to inspire. Maria Montessori: Unpublished Manuscript
 Our concept of education may be figuratively described by saying that the
educator stands behind the child and allows him to go forward as far as he
can, whereas the other method is to stand in front of the child and prevent him
from going further than the limits imposed on him by the teacher.
Maria Montessori: What You Should Know About Your Child

Here then is an essential principle of education: to teach details is to bring

confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.
Maria Montessori: From Childhood to Adolescence

The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity

to which he will give all his potential.
Maria Montessori: From Childhood to Adolescence

All other factors however sink into insignificance beside the importance of
feeding the hungry intelligence and opening vast fields of knowledge to eager
exploration. Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

In many schools, the question of respect for the child has been interpreted by
our guide to mean that she must stand aside entirely and just bring the
apparatus. This is not so. The guide should be the animating spirit of the class
which awakens interest through teaching and gives it direction. Then comes
free choice and repetition of the exercise. The secret is always to present
these things in the most interesting way possible and then allow free choice
when the child has understood.
Maria Montessori: Unpublished Manuscript

...We do not need to choose what we shall teach, but should place all before
him for the satisfaction of his mental appetite.
Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us
give him a vision of the whole universe.
Maria Montessori: To Educate the Human Potential

The teacher must obey two rules, she must not interrupt a child who is
working. She must not correct indiscriminately the errors of the child. Only if
she follows these two golden rules, can she build courage and self-confidence
in childhood.
Montessori, Maria: Creative Development in the Child - Volu