Kathryn L Hill

In the early years of raising my two children, I desperately searched for a "How To" manual. I began studying books written by Dr. Maria Montessori and later enrolled my children in a Montessori school. Here, I regularly conferred with Maria Peerzada, the directress of her own school. She had worked closely alongside Maria Montessori, herself. From her I gradually Iearned the fine art of "child listening". I am fortunate to be able to share my insights through these HubPages. My son's birth brought forth the question and my daughter's, the answer. It is a story worth telling and provides insights and answers that are perhaps 300 years ahead of their time. Prepare to be amazed. The future brings undreamed of possibilities!  

Dr. Montessori explained, "The will is to the psyche, what the heart is to the body." It is our duty to provide ways for the developing child to to practice independence and self-reliance. Montessori discovered that work is really a child's play. The natural child (one on its' natural course of development) would rather learn to read and do math than play with toys. It is the nature of the child to adapt to his world and function in it through interaction with it. Dr. Montessori provided many didactic (self-teaching) materials for the children in her schools, thereby facilitating the self-mastery of their minds, bodies and hands, via and use of the senses. Driven by nature, every child strives to become what he or she is destined to become. Montessori explains that they "incarnate" their own abilities through the work of their minds and hands. We must facilitate this process of nature and not stand in its way. This is where New Direction Education begins...within the natural child.

Children can be negatively affected by adults who unwittingly destroy the ability of the child to tune into his own inner-life, thereby interrupting the natural process of the child's development. (Interrupting the growth of the spiritual embryo results in psychic deviations, which Montessori discusses in her books.) Inner-life Interference by adults must be prevented, for only when a child is in touch with his true self will he proceed confidently onward, finding and fulfilling his own goals and ambitions.