This Book Is Da Bomb

Chelsea and Tom,

Your boy is reading. 

Quick story about that. I was not such a good Froggy Dad this weekend. Twenty-four hours into a rainy weekend solo parenting my three kids, we needed a break from board games, hide and seek, and screen time so I “forced” my little tadpoles out of the water and made them read. 

Sitting next to them, I finally cracked open The Child, Society, and the World and did my homework. Reading the first chapters after reading Tom’s reflections was so fun. Can’t say I would have read the froggy metaphor with the same cheekiness Tom did, which made it more engaging. 

As I read, I found myself categorizing my takeaways in my head. So, at the risk of gamifying everything, I put some standout excerpts into three categories. 

1. Truth Bombs - the parts that shoot straight to my heart, gut, soul. 

2. Huh Bombs - huh like, “Huh…I’d never thought of it like that Maria. How interesting” Or huh like, “Maria, I have questions.”

3. WTF Bombs - record scratchers

 

Truth Bombs

• “We forget that the little tadpoles have work of their own to do - the work of growing into men and women. And this is work which only they can do.” p.5

  • Side note: I deserve Froggy Dad points here for supporting one of my three sons in his choice to be a Duke fan in our UNC home. This is a kind of personal sacrifice you might only understand if you’re from NC. Thank you for your prayers.

• “This is a new way to look at the problem of responsibility which weighs so heavily on many parents.” p. 6

  • I love this! What if we reframed the pressure of parenting away from reading the right books and following the right feeds, to expecting guardians to learn from their children!  

• When we speak about freedom in education we mean freedom for the creative energy which is the urge of life towards the development of the individual.” p.12

  • I always go back to this all-time podcast episode.

• “The cure for difficult children must be to prepare a free life for them.” p.12

  • Soooo much of what I’ve seen in education over the years misses this critical point - preparing a FREE life for the child. 

• “We must wait patiently. It will not be long because nature urges the child to right activity.” p.17

  • This is so hard to do with the pressures of expectation in schools and from parents/guardians. Patience grasshoppers.

• “So if competition is a help for practical purposes do not be afraid of using it.” p.17

  • I wonder why she doesn’t apply this same idea to reward and praise (see p. 16). 

Huh Bombs

• “And think what little savages they would grow up to be if we did not teach them manners…” p.4

  • Confession - I often think of my three boys, who I love dearly, as savages. 

• “A child without a secret becomes an adult without personality.” p.7

  • I honestly didn’t really follow her whole secret metaphor. 

• “There is only one line of development which is normality.” p.12

  • Really? Only one line? How does she know? And how do you know when a person is “normal?” Where’s the science on this? Where’s the checklist? How to avoid the bias of the observer/assessor? I call BS.

WTF Bombs

• “We must have teachers who are women who will make themselves as attractive as possible even when they are alone in the room with little children of 3-6 years old.” “Mothers must not only make themselves attractive for society and for their husbands, but also for their children.” p.14

  • Think I should bring this one home to my wife? 

• “At this stage the teacher must be a policeman. The policeman has to defend the honest citizens from the disturbers.” p.16

  • I just can’t with this police analogy. Where’s Montessori’s writing about the role of the “honest citizens” in building community with the “disturbers?” Should we google what police were up to in her home countries of Italy, India, and the U.S. in the early 1900’s for missing context (thick sarcasm here).

There’s more I’m chewing on but I’ve gotta go - off to coach one of the savages in soccer (or football for Tom)…