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Dear Parents,
Thank you to all those who shared their thoughts and
provided constructive ideas on how to better meet your needs
and understanding.
This month’s newsletter will focus on the second of six
principles that all SAMA member schools are required to
follow, which is that Montessori schools accommodate an
extended period of uninterrupted self-chosen activity – a
period during which children can choose their own activity and
work undisturbed for a minimum of three hours.
A well-functioning Montessori community requires the
following to ensure the children attending receive the full
benefit of the programme:
- An appropriately trained and prepared adult to teach at
the relevant age level they engage with;
- A prepared environment that has been specifically
furnished and equipped to cater for the developmental
needs of the children in it;
- An uninterrupted three-hour work period where the
children can freely choose stimulating tasks that are
developmentally appropriate.
Flow Theory
Modern research has affirmed the importance of long,
uninterrupted blocks of time for optimal learning and
development.
In 2007, Rathunde and Csikszentmihalyi, authors of The
Developing Person: An Experiential Perspective delve into
how episodes of deep engagement facilitate learning and
development.
A person may experience one of eight mental states during
the learning process. When learning, one experiences a
combination of skill and challenge levels of a task (Figure 1).
In non-optimal combinations, an experience of mental states
including anxiety, apathy, arousal, boredom, control,
relaxation, and worry is negative and therefore not
supportive of optimal learning.
Flow is the most optimal mental state to experience for
learning. This is where this skill level and challenge level of
a task are both at their highest, which creates an opportunity
for learning and intense focus. Those learning in this state
become so immersed in a task that they feel as though they
lose track of time.
Est. 2003 www.samontessori.org.za September 2016 2016
The Montessori Messenger
Montessori 101 Principle 2: The uninterrupted three-hour work cycle.
Figure 1: SOURCE: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Page 2 of 4
One can experience relaxation in completing a task when
the skill level is very high and the task challenge is very low.
Conversely, one can experience anxiety when the skill level
is very low and the task challenge is very high. Neither of
these states is supportive of optimal learning.
This pattern of healthy self-regulation, which is also referred
to as psychological complexity, instigates development by
allowing the person to actively respond to aversive
experiential states (e.g. boredom and anxiety – Figure 2) in
ways that enhance their inspiration (intrinsic motivation) and
therefore full engagement.
The flow theory examines how the capacity to regulate
experience, and the likelihood of finding flow, are affected by
socialization and the levels of support and challenge
children receive in family and school contexts.
Flow can be experienced in any task in any field of activity.
Three-Hour Work-Cycle
The ideal in a Montessori classroom is that each child
receives opportunity to create their own personal three-hour
work cycle. Prominent Montessorian, Maren Schmidt,
describes a work cycle consisting of choosing an activity,
doing it, achieving some internal satisfaction, returning the
activity to original order, followed by the selection of the next
activity.
She elaborates further in saying that the Montessori
classroom is a vibrant and dynamic learning environment,
with each child selecting his or her activity, doing it, and
returning the activity to the shelf. After successful completion
of a task, there is a period of self-satisfaction and reflection,
after which the child chooses the next activity. This creates
an endless rhythm for the child which is free of interruptions,
thereby supporting optimal learning as skill and challenge
are matched by the child. The adult in the environment
keeps a close eye on the children, offering support when
required or presenting activities that slightly increase the
challenge experienced.
Upward Spiral of Growth
In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,
Steven Covey refers to this phenomenon as a vital
ingredient of the upward spiral of growth and change (figure
3).
He describes this growth in the following way: “Moving along
the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on
increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think
that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we
must learn, commit, and do - learn, commit, and do - and
learn, commit, and do again”.
Montessori saw the three-hour work cycle as a critical
vehicle for aiding normal development in the human being, a
way to foster this dynamic process, described by Covey, as
Figure 2: SOURCE: http://www.enterprise-
gamification.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=File:FlowTheory.png
Figure 3 SOURCE: Jairo Gonzalez; 7 Habits of highly effective people”
Stephen R. Covey. www Slideshare.net
Page 3 of 4
Figure 4: SOURCE: The Advanced Montessori Method Volume 1. By Maria
Montessori
Figure 5: SOURCE: The Observers Notebook. By Paul
Epstein Ph.D
“learn-commit-do”. This process empowers us to move
toward continuous improvement, both as children and
adults: A process Montessori called normalization.
Schmidt confirms that children, as well as adults, develop
concentration in two ways: Firstly, by doing a series of short
activities for longer periods.
Secondly, doing one activity for
successively longer periods.
Very often adults assume that
the child is expected to spend
three hours engaged with one
activity and are concerned that is
unreasonable to expect a child to
concentrate for that length of
time.
A three-hour work period in a Montessori school is a
protected time where they can complete multiple cycles of
activity, eventually creating a three-hour or longer work
cycle.
In a Montessori school the focus is on the children and their
development rather than merely delivering content. By
providing an opportunity where the child is free to choose
tasks that are useful to their own development and by
presenting new materials for the child to match skill and
challenge, a state of ‘flow’ can be reached. Ergo, optimal
learning!
The Montessori Difference
Traditional preschools are structured with a multitude of
group activities filling the day - usually 15 to 20 minutes per
activity. This assumes that young children have attention
spans that are limited to 15 to 20 minutes.
What Montessori discovered through observation, and what
Montessori guides today are able replicate through their own
note taking, is that given a consistent uninterrupted three-
hour work period, young children will choose three or four
familiar activities, each lasting 15 to 20 minutes each and
then enter into a period of restlessness, which Montessori
termed ‘false fatigue’.
In traditional schools this is when a break period is often
scheduled. Montessori noticed if the adults working with the
children waited out this period of false fatigue, which
usually lasts ten to fifteen minutes, the children progress to
select an activity that constitutes challenging work or new
learning, and are able to concentrate on that activity for an
hour or more. (Figure 4)
Montessori teachers appreciate that at the end of the three-
hour work cycle the child experiences a period of calm and
peaceful sociability because they have reached a state of
flow.
The five-year-old child who has developed a morning three-
hour work cycle will begin a second work period in the
afternoon. Adults, elementary students, and teens, may
have developed two, three, or even four three-hour work
cycles during their day.
Another later phenomenon of the work cycle is that the older
child’s concentration level begins at the point where false
fatigue initially began and that level may be maintained for
over three hours. This development of concentration (Figure
5) can be observed and charted.
Page 4 of 4
Example of a child’s work cycle
A four-and-a-half-year-old’s three-hour work cycle might look
like this:
• Button Frame, 10 minutes. (builds confidence, easy task)
• Explore and try extensions with Pink tower, 15 minutes.
•Water plants, 20 minutes.
•Sweep floor, 10 minutes.
•Walk up and down steps, 5 minutes (false fatigue)
•Prepare and eat own snack, 15 minutes
•Visit with classmate, 10 minutes.
•Build 100 piece puzzle, 45 minutes.
•Practice tying shoes, 45 minutes.
•Help younger students put shoes on, 15 minutes (Period of
sociability)
Completing a three-hour work cycle gives the child, or adult,
a sense of accomplishment followed by calm composure,
along with the desire to do more work
Example of an adult’s work cycle
The following is an example of what an adult’s three-hour
work cycle could look like on a Saturday morning.
•Check schedule. See that the morning is free until 1 pm.
•Clean kitchen, 15 minutes.
•Start laundry, 15 minutes.
•Make phone calls for appointments, 20 minutes.
•Vacuum, 20 minutes.
•Feeling of restlessness, What to do next? (False fatigue)
•Cup of coffee, 10 minutes.
•Balance bank statements, pay bills, 90 minutes.
•Fix lunch, 15 minutes. Eat with family and visit 30 minutes.
(Period of sociability.)
Why do some schools not offer this?
Some Montessori schools do not offer a three-hour work
period for the children. These schools may very well have
happy children and families but negating the importance of
this principle shows a lack understanding of the philosophy
and therefore an inability to offer an environment that helps
the children learn in optimal conditions.
There are some activities that have become common
practice in schools and are thought to be part of the three-
hour cycle. These activities, particularly if adult driven,
actually break the cycle and deny the child the opportunity to
experience flow or an upward spiral of growth. Such
activities include:
• Group snack
• Ring time or any other whole group lesson
• Extra mural activities
• Taking the whole group out to play
• Any group announcements
• Interrupting individual work for presentations.
• Aftercare / holiday care programmes that deny
purposeful work opportunity or break routine.
• Short week programmes, where children attend
inconsistently (2 or 3 days per week)
• School administration and policies
• Too many children new to the environment, starting
at the same time.
The achievement of
“normalisation” is dependent on
the removal of interruptions and
disturbances from the environment
Montessori, Advanced method 1 1965/1918, 58
Warm regards,
Kym
PS: I look forward to your feedback and any questions you may
have on the content of this newsletter.