Play

"The question then boils down to this. What is the best way, at this stage, of helping the small child to build up a strong, creative imagination? Are we, by trading on his immaturity and inexperience, to lead him by suggestion into a world of make-believe entities and unreal activities? Or are we to keep him in a real world, with real activities, real problems, real decisions?

Dr Montessori is unhesitating in her reply: she is all for a real world, an objective world, a world of things seen, felt, moved, experienced. The best way we can help the child to develop his imagination then, is to put him in relation with an environment so prepared that he can lay up a store of accurate images by means of his spontaneous observation in it. 'ah, but', exclaim Montessori's objectors, 'that is going in flat contradiction to the nature of the child. You claim her method is based on the observation of the child; yet everyone knows that the child left to itself prefers to escape from reality into a world of make-believe and play.

Does it ? That is the whole point. It is true, says Dr Montessori, that the child often does escape from the real world into a world of make-believe and 'let's pretend'. But from WHAT real world?

From a world which adults have made for themselves. A world with adult proportions, adult standards, adult aims, a world with an adult tempo, a world where the child is looked upon as "il disturbatore" - a disturber of the adult peace; a world from which the child is therefore relegated, if possible, to the nursery or schoolroom, so as not to be in the way, until he is ready to reenter it as a useful member of society. Remember too, that in these places of relegation, the nursery and the school, he is still under adult domination."
Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, p 341, Chap XX

Perhaps no part of Maria Montessori's work has caused so much controversy and misunderstanding as her belief that children prefer work to play. What is important to understand is that she came to this conclusion following her own very detailed observations of the many children in her care.

She did not start off with this as a theory - in fact she, herself, was astonished by what she saw. What she recorded was that children underwent extraordinary transformations in overall happiness, self-confidence and self-discipline when they were allowed to follow their own innate needs.

This led her to challenge whether in fact play was a characteristic of childhood, or whether it was, more accurately, a characteristic of the frustrations of the imposed restraints of that childhood. Montessori believed that a normal child would always choose a purposeful, interesting activity that met his needs in the real world, over one that was based on fantasy.

She felt so strongly about this that she was upset that many people still called the activities that they saw going on in the schools as 'spontaneous play'. "I have to defend my method... from those who say that it is a method of play. Such people do not understand that work is natural to man... that man builds himself up through work." (Standing p 345).

She felt that adults had consistently underestimated the desire of children to do real activities connected to the real world and that it was only by allowing them the freedom to choose their activities for themselves that each child's individual needs could be met. This misunderstanding concerning the child's real nature had resulted in the word freedom being synonymous with play and disassociated from a desire to work.

In schools, therefore, children were very often told that they were 'free to play' only after they had completed the tasks that had been prescribed for them by adults, and such a situation continues today. She saw that the work of the child, therefore, was fundamentally different to that of the adult: that the child worked for the joy of the process rather for the end result, that the child had a need to repeat activities over and over until an inner need was fulfilled, and that the child was excited and energised through work, rather than burdened and fatigued by it.

Her emphasis on the word work was there to ensure that adults took the activities of children much more seriously than had been the case up to that time.

Quotations

"Though the school contained some really wonderful toys, the children never chose them. This surprised me so much that I myself intervened, to show them how to use such toys, teaching them how to handle the doll's crockery, lighting the fire in the tiny doll's kitchen, setting a pretty doll beside it. The children showed interest for a time, but then went away, and they never made such toys the objects of their spontaneous choice. And so I understood that in a child's life play is perhaps something inferior, to which he has recourse for want of something better..."
The Secret of Childhood, p123, (original translation) Chap 19

"A child's imagination can give a symbolic meaning to any object whatever, but this creates fantastic images within his mind... Children are given toys with which they can play, but which create illusions and afford no real and productive contact with reality."
Ibid p156, Chap 23

"Toys furnish a child with an environment that has no particular goal and, as a consequence, they cannot provide it with any real mental concentration, but only illusions."
Ibid p.156, Chap 23

"The Childrens Houses possess not only a miniature kitchen, kitchen utensils, balls and dolls... but also cupboards, couches, and beds, that is, all the necessary furniture for a doll's house. There are also cottages, trees, flocks of sheep, papier-mache animals, celluloid ducks and geese that will float on water, boats with sailors, soldiers, wind-up trains, country estates, stables, cattle in spacious enclosures, and so forth." (NB The first Children's Houses had numerous such toys, but Montessori's experiences then led her to place much less emphasis on them)
The Discovery of the Child p230, Chap 16

"But I was greatly surprised to see that the children, after they had learned how to understand the written cards, refused to take the toys and waste their time in playing and making those friendly gestures to their little companions. Instead, with a kind of insatiable desire they preferred to take out the cards one after the other and read them all. I watched them, trying to fathom the riddle of their minds. After I had thought about this for some time, the thought struck me that through some human instinct children would rather acquire knowledge than be engaged in senseless play, and I reflected on the grandeur of the human mind."
Ibid p 232, Chap 16

"...the objects used in these writing games are for the most part toys, of which we have a great many in the 'Children's Houses'. Among these toys are the furnishings of a dolls house, balls, dolls, trees, flocks of sheep, or various animals, tin soldiers, railways, and an infinite variety of simple figures."
The Montessori Method p 300, Chap XVII

"With Montessori the child's highest and noblest form of self-expression is work, in the sense of... that spontaneous activity which the child creates himself... With the Froebelians the child's highest form of spontaneous self-activity is play. This is usually a make-believe activity in an environment which is no longer treated as an objective reality, but transmuted by the child's imagination into something else."
Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, p334, Chap XIX

"Without going into the various theories as to the nature of play, we may note that Dr Montessori maintains that play is something which satisfies only a part of one's nature, but that work goes deeper and brings a satisfaction to one's whole being. The child prefers work because it satisfies the subconscious longing of his nature to grow and develop into a harmonious personality."
Ibid p 345, Chap XX

Study guide

The Secret of Childhood - Chapters 19, 26 and 27

The Montessori Method - Chapter XVII

Montessori: Her Life and Work - Chapters VIII, XIX, XX

Journal articles

Bruce, T (1984) 'A Froebelian Looks at Montessori's Work', Early Childhood Development and Care, v14, n1-2, p75-83, February

Krafft K & Berk L (1998) 'Private Speech in Two Preschools: Significance of Open-Ended Activites and Make-Believe Play for Verbal Self-Regulation', Early Childhood Research Quarterly, v13, n4, p637-58

Moore, R (1996) 'Outdoor Settings for Playing and Learning: Designing School Grounds to Meet the Needs of the Whole Child and the Whole Curriculum', NAMTA Journal, v21, n3, p97-120, Summer

Zener, R (1995) 'Nurturing the Creative Personality', NAMTA Journal, v20, n1, p12-29, Winter

Archive resources

Boyd, W (1917) From Locke to Montessori, George Harrap & Co London.

Culverwell, E (1913) The Montessori Principles and Practice, G.Bell & Sons, London.

Kilpatrick, W (1915) Montessori Examined, Constable, London.