Psychic
Through physical and social growth, the child’s mental and emotional life is enhanced.
Sensorial Impression Vs Sensorial Education
“ Thought is his human birthright, all education aims at helping the individual to think clearly about them instead of half-knowing things all in a muddle.”
- Pheobe Child
Montessori recognized that the senses must be educated first in the development of the intellect. As mentioned earlier, the effective functioning of the intelligence depends a great deal on mental constructions that are built by experience and by conscious thought.
Sensorial impressions are feelings or images that the child absorbs in his environment. A child may go for a walk in the park or sit in the garden and absorb the beautiful surroundings; the birds flying, the leaves rustling in the breeze, the ants crawling, the colourful flowers; nevertheless, receiving these impressions do not mean that the child is receiving a sensorial education.
However, sensorial impressions are necessary in a child’s development. During the age of 3-6, sensorial education is used to tap the young child’s mind of absorbed information from the first three years of his life. The information at that period is a sea of impressions in the unconscious mind. But it is a sensorial education that allows a child to use his senses to understand what he sees.
Sensorial education helps develop a child’s intellect. The idea of sensorial education is to help the child know and understand what he sees. By getting the child familiarized with sensations that are contrasting, for example the smell of lavender and of durian, the child learns to compare and discriminate. In turn, he is able to distinguish different sense impressions and puts them in some kind of order. When a child begins putting his impressions into order, he begins learning consciously, and starts to know and understand his environment. “This is the beginning of the development of the intellect and it is brought about by the intelligence working in a concentrated way on the impressions given by the senses.”
“One example of this is when someone sits through a concert of beautiful music but feels only boredom and weariness because his senses have not been trained to appreciate and understand what he is listening to. Impressions alone are not enough: the mind needs to be trained to discriminate and appreciate, otherwise it is a case of ‘eyes that see no, and ears that hear not’. This is where sensorial education is required.” (Montessori St Nicholas Centre, Unit 19: Sensorial Education and the Development of the Intellect.)
The Purpose of Sensorial Activities
The primary purpose of the Sensorial activities is to help the child sort out the varied impressions given by his senses. “ The Sensorial Activities help the child to do this in four ways: they are designed to develop, order, broaden and refine sense perception.
Develop – The exercises build up from concrete to abstract ideas. It challenges the child and thus, develops his senses.
Order - Because the activities identify a single quality, the child’s sense perceptions are given ‘order’.
Broaden – Just like learning new words, the child’s sense perception is broadened when he discovers new, smells or tastes etc.
Refine – The child is allowed to experience and concentrate on qualities of the materials in clarity and isolation, thus refining his sense peception.
As a child works with the Sensorial Materials, his mind becomes aware of concepts of size, colour, weight, dimension and so on. When the differences are clear, the names are introduced to describe these concepts. Montessori builds on concept upon concept. There is an order and sequence to the materials presented. Montessori’s sensorial approach helps a child categorize and use the vast amount of subconscious knowledge to unlock the door of the mind.
Sensorial apparatus provide a particular purpose and focus that satisfies the child’s need for work. It includes using the child’s hands, senses and spontaneous activity. Montessori understood that this activity was a manual and active approach. She believed that children wanted to see and feel real objects. Consequently, she developed a vast array of learning
materials from which concepts begin as concrete expressions of an idea and gradually become more abstract. The greater the child’s absorption with a piece of material, the more likely he is making the transition from concrete knowledge to abstract knowledge. They play an important role in helping students develop their sense of order.
Characteristics of Sensorial Materials
The sensorial materials are highly interesting to young children and are a major area of concentration, typically between ages three and six years.
“The sensorial materials comprise a series of objects grouped together according to some physical quality which they have, such as color, shape, size, sound, texture, weight, temperature, and so forth.” (Discovery of the Child)
The essential qualities needed in any sensorial apparatus are as follows:-
1. The isolation of a single quality in the material
Sensorial materials have many qualities, such as weight, texture, colour, form, size and so forth, however, there is an isolation in single quality, and attention may focus on it. For example, in colour tablet, they are used to distinguish colour. They are made from the same material, size, and dimension, but then they are of different colour.
2. Indirect preparation for a more advanced activity
Each piece of material acts as an indirect preparation for a more advanced activity. For example, pink tower exercise. The direct purpose of this exercise are visual and muscular perception of dimensions and an awareness of dimension leading to observation, co-ordination of movement, and development if concentration, independence and appreciation for beauty in design. On the other hand, by doing this exercise, children are being prepared for mathematical mind. The mathematical purposes are ten cubes as a preparation for the decimal system, and preparation for cube root: 8 of the smallest cube make the second cube (2x2x2), 27 of the smallest cube make the third cube (3x3x3), 64 of the smallest cube make the fourth cube (4x4x4), 1000 of the smallest cube make the tenth cube (10x10x10), these cubes therefore represent the cubes of the number 1-10. The child also learns the basic language importance in mathematics.
3. Auto education
Montessori materials are designed for auto-education and the control of error lies in the materials themselves rather than in the teacher. “The child proceeds to correct himself, doing this in various ways…. it is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the didactic material lies…. This self-correction leads the child to concentrate his attention upon the differences of dimensions, and to compare the various pieces.” (The Essential Montessori, pg. 77).
The control of error guides the child in his use of the materials and permits him to recognize his own mistakes. For example, the knobbed cylinders that contain four wooden blocks of cylinders, each contain ten cylinders with knobs, fitting into its respective hole in a given block. The variation in the four sets are, one set varies in height, one set in diameter, one set in both height and diameter and the last set varies in
both dimensions, but inversely the cylinders go from wide and flat to tall and narrow. If a child makes an error in placing the cylinder, one cylinder will disappear into a hole that is too deep and another will project from the hole that is too small. In this way the child will understand immediately that an error has occurred and he will try to correct it without anyone having to tell him.
4. Demand an activity and repetition
Each material in the sensorial demands an activity. The ability of a thing or toy to attract a child does not depend on the quality, however it depends on the ability to make a child do an action or activity. An expensive toy without doubt can attract a child, but if he only can look or touch, soon he will lose the interest, and change to another object. On the other hand if the object can be removed, used or in other word demand an activity from the child, it will interest the child for days. For example, the knobless cylinder, to make a tower or arrange the knobbles cylinder could be a demanding task for a child and it needs a great concentration, and observation, the child needs to make comparison and judgement. To actually gain control and to become familiar with the knobbles cylinder material, the child needs to repeat the exercise.…”the mistakes which the child makes, by placing a small cube beneath a larger one are caused by his own lack of education, and it is the repetition of the exercise which refining his powers of observation will lead him sooner or later to correct himself.” (Montessori’s Own Handbook, pg. 75)
5. The material is limited in quantity
There is only one piece of each type of equipment, a child must wait until another child is finished using the apparatus. Consequently, courtesy is developed because there is no alternative, children learn to wait their turn and fit in the community.
6. Stimulate precise language
Each material stimulates the child to precise language so that he can express ideas about the knowledge gained. There are words that a child can learn in each exercise. For example, in the knobbed cylinder, the child will learn thick, thin, as thick as, not as thin as, wide, narrow, big, bigger, biggest, as big as, small, smaller, smallest, deep, shallow, short, tall, etc.
7. Attractive
The materials are attractive. Colour, brightness, and proportion are sought in everything that surrounds the child. Not only the sensorial material should be attractive but also the environment. For example, the colour tablets are graded into sixty-three different colours, the beautiful coloured letters of the alphabet lie in their proper bin. The colours used in knobless cylinders are yellow, green, red, and blue, which attract the child’s attention.
8. Fulfill a need
Each material has a definite purpose and is designed to fulfill a need. Therefore, misuse is not allowed. However, scope for the creativity within much of the material. For example, in the red or long rods exercise, the child learns to sequence the rods from shortest to longest. The child can also use his creativity to make a maze from this rod. But, if the child uses the rods for playing, for example treat the rods as a sword, it is not allowed.
How Sensorial Materials Aid the Child’s Development in Different Areas.
“The aim is not an external one… The aim is an inner one, that the child trains himself to observe, that he be led to make comparisons between objects, to form judgments, to reason and to decide. (Montessori’s Own Handbook, pg. 71).
The materials itself does not offer to the child the content of the mind, but the order for that content. Doing exercises with the materials helps the child identify similarities and differences as well as to classify sensations appertaining to surfaces, colours, dimension, forms, and sounds.
For example, the exercise for Colour Box 1 and 2 requires the child to match same colours, which requires judgment and observation. Then, in Colour Box 3, the child performs grading exercises from lightest to darkest colour or vice versa. In this exercise, a great amount of observation and attention are needed to compare, judge and then make a decision. This exercise teaches the child about colour, builds concentration and educates the child’s hand to perform fine and delicate movements. To arrange the colour tablet in a straight line is a skill that can only be perfected after considerable practice. The mind has formed itself by doing exercises of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying. The mental attitude acquired by such exercises leads the child to make ordered observations in his environment that may be as interesting as discoveries. In this instance, a child out on a boat in the sea would marvel at the different shades of blue he experiences and would understand the beauty of nature.
Another example is the exercise for perception of dimension, building the pink tower. The child learns after much practice that he needs first to discriminate the different sizes and to make steady accurate movements before a harmonious looking tower can be built. When the child stands up to admire his tower, he can see the beauty of it. In turn, this child, if asked to arrange a stack of books would do so by arranging it from the biggest to the smallest. And maybe this child, upon seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, not only would marvel at its beauty, but also perhaps even understand the concept of how it was built.
Conclusion
Sensorial education gives the child the ability to make precise observations of the natural world. Not only are his senses refined, giving him the power to understand his surroundings, but the child also receives experiences in artistic, architectural and musical appreciation which in my opinion, develops him into a perceptive person.
The sensorial education is the base for intellectual education. The children of today will be tomorrow’s adults. You could even say that the child exists to become an adult. As an adult, he will build and nourish his social environment. And I feel that an adult can do that well only if he has been given the opportunity to understand the world around him. The child stands at the basis of human life and therefore he is the builder of the human.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Montessori, M. The Absorbent Mind Clio Press Oxford, 2003
Montessori, M. The Discovery of The Child Clio Press Oxford, 2003
Montessori M. Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook Shocken Books New York
Gettman, David Basic Montessori St Martin’s Press New York, 1987
Hainstock, E.G. The Essential Montessori New York, New American Library, 1986
