A common way to describe the Montessori method is to say that we “follow the child.” But this phrase is often misunderstood — some imagine that children can do whatever they want, assuming they set the rules themselves, even believing that adults don’t have any authority at all. However, those are all misconceptions, and this phrase has a deep and specific meaning.
To explore what it truly means to follow the child as Christian parents and educators, l turn here to the story of the wise men. While the wise men only appear briefly in the book of Matthew, there is much to learn from their example. We all know how they traveled far to present gifts to Christ, but what does this have to do with Montessori education? Let’s start with the first verse that mentions them.
A Great Distance
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem
— Matthew 2:1
Scholars believe the wise men came from Persia – from the East – meaning there was about a thousand miles separating them from Jesus. Raising and teaching children comes with its challenges, and at times, we may feel a similar sense of distance, as if we are a thousand miles away from each other. Maria Montessori observed this herself, noting, “in the construction of society something — some essential element — has been missing; that the characteristics of the child have had too little influence, because he and the adult have been too far apart” (Montessori, The Child in the Church).
For the wise men, this distance was made even more challenging by their journey on camelback. Imagine them climbing over mountains, crossing through rivers, enduring the desert heat by day, and the frigid cold by night. In comparison, our task of reaching our children doesn’t seem so difficult, does it?
This feeling confuses us, as we are with our children every day and they are the most important thing in the world. How, then, can we be distant? The Bible reminds us that proximity does not necessarily make us close to our children; let us remember that the Pharisees in Jerusalem were relatively close to Christ, only about six miles away from where He was born, but they still didn’t recognize the signs of the Messiah’s coming.
For the wise men, it was a great distance that separated them from Christ. But like the Pharisees, what separates us from our children isn’t distance — it is our ignorance of them. In a state of ignorance, it can be just as challenging for us to reach a child who is within the same house as it would be if he were a thousand miles away.
Stars Above Us
Fortunately, the wise men did make their way to Christ, so if we hope to close the distance between us and our children, we should ask: how did they start their journey?
“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
— Matthew 2:2
The wise men’s journey began by looking upward, beyond themselves, towards something greater: the divine universe. They had seen a beautiful universe full of stationary stars that formed constellations. They had seen wandering lights that seemed to revolve on circular paths. Moreover, the wise men reflected on what it was that they saw. Everything that they saw had an order, and everything obeyed unseen laws that must have been created by a force outside of themselves.
These men were wise to the fact that they could not impose themselves on the stars. They could not force a random star to lead them to Christ, nor could they make the stars follow their will. It was they who had to follow the laws of the stars.
Likewise, if we hope to reach our children, we must start by humbling ourselves, which means lifting our eyes beyond ourselves, beyond our biases and assumptions about children. If we were to do that, we would quickly understand that children have been created by a force outside of ourselves. But what does acknowledging the natural laws of the stars have to do with reaching our own children?
Maria Montessori put it simply when she said, “The child has his own laws of growth and, if we want to help him grow, we must follow him, not impose ourselves on him” (Montessori, The Absorbent Mind). Just like the stars above us, we must remember that the laws of child development are above us too.
Observing the Heavens
If we are to make use of God’s laws, it is not enough to merely acknowledge that they exist. We have to study the laws. For the wise men, this task was made easier thanks to their Persian heritage which was heavily influenced by the religion of Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism viewed celestial events as signs of the divine, leading its followers, including the wise men, to study the stars scientifically. Whether we are trying to understand the nature of the stars or the development of children, there is inspiration in the words of Galileo Galilei who intertwined faith and reason, saying:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use” (Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina).
Since God has given us the gift of reason, we should use reason to discover the beauty of His work within children. Fortunately, how one studies children isn’t all that different from how the wise men studied the stars. Maria Montessori said of the teacher, “her new task is apparently passive, like that of the astronomer who sits immovable before the telescope while the worlds whirl through space. This idea, that life acts of itself, and that in order to study it, to divine its secrets or to direct its activity, it is necessary to observe it and to understand it without intervening” (Montessori, The Montessori Method).
A Divine Guide
The wise men had humbled themselves to God’s laws, recognizing that they could not change them but only submit to them. By studying these laws scientifically, they were able to see Christ’s star — a divine guide that led them on their journey. In the same way, if we humble ourselves to God’s design of children and study it scientifically, then we too will be given a divine guide for our own journey: the children who are already in our lives.
These children will reveal to us the flaws in our schools that arise when we ignore the laws of child development: Schools demand children sit still when their bodies require movement and activity. They demand children stay quiet when their souls require communication and connection. They demand children learn at the same rate when learning requires self-pacing and volition.
We know our children should find fulfillment and happiness in school. Yet, they too often tolerate it at best — and dread it as worst. Maria Montessori wrote:
“Now God has given to the child a nature of his own, and has fixed certain laws for his development…Anyone who is responsible for the child’s normal development should become acquainted with those laws. To turn away from them would mean to lose that direction which God, as the guide of the child, gives us” (Montessori, The Child in the Church).
This is what it means to follow the child: to recognize that children are created with their own divine laws of development, and that our role is to observe, study, and follow those laws. If we take this idea seriously – that the child has been placed before us a divine guide, pointing the way – then that means we must humble ourselves to the nature of children, trusting that God has already laid the path before us.
To follow the child is to embark on a journey in which we will be led step by step back to our children as surely as the wise men were led to Christ. In doing so, we will discover our children again, allowing them the freedom to move about, to choose their own work, and develop at their own pace. If we were to do this, then we will become like the wise men, not just meeting a child, but meeting the divine.
References
The featured image is “Adoration of the Magi” by Italian artist Giotto di Bondone, c.1304 – c.1306.
