The purpose of this essay is to define the term sensitive periods, and explain how the teacher’s knowledge and understanding of these periods determines his/her preparation and custodianship of prepared environment.

Maria Montessori describes sensitive periods as transitory periods that “correspond to special sensibilities to be found in creatures in process of development and are confined to the acquisition of a determined characteristic.”(Montessori, Secrete of childhood, p.36). After the acquisition of a certain characteristic this special sensitivity or impulse disappears. One could describe sensitive periods analogous to a window that opens and closes. During a sensitive period, when the window is open, the child is drawn to determined activities and performs them repeatedly with pleasure until it has acquired certain skills and abilities. However if the characteristic has not been formed before the sensitive period ends, i.e. the window closes, which could occur because of disturbances during the process of learning or lack of stimulation in deprived environments, the child’s psychic life will be disturbed. This will be discussed in more detail later on.

Montessori observed six main sensitive periods; a period for sensitivity to order; a period for the refinement of the senses; a period of sensitivity to language; sensitivity for walking and movement; sensitivity for small objects; sensitivity to the social aspects of life (Montessori, 1936). Sensitive periods can overlap or be continuous. The duration of a sensitive period varies among individuals and between periods as well. Only skilled people and trained teachers are able, through observation, to determine in which period or periods the child is in.

The first sensitivity for order is the first to occur in human life, which appears in the first month of life, but it can only be evidently observed when the child is mobile and can manipulate its environment, starting at the age of 1 ½ years. The child moves objects in its surrounding environment and puts these objects back to the original place where they were first perceived. Furthermore, infants, age between two and three, play hide and seek different from older children. When they play the game one child hides at a particular place, for example inside a wardrobe. All the other children go out of the room; one child hides in the wardrobe; children come back into the room and find the child inside the wardrobe with shrieks of pleasure. Montessori illustrates this pleasure of finding things in the expected places; with an experiment she conducted (Montessori, 1936). Children asked her to join their game, which she did. However, she did not hide inside the wardrobe; she hidden somewhere else. Once the children did not find her in the expected place, they asked her why she did not play the game and hidden. Thus, the children thought she did not join the game because she was not in the expected place. Montessori mentioned that disturbances in behaviour of a child can be explained by exposing the child to unfamiliar places and people (Montessori, 1936). She experienced such a disturbance of behaviour when she was walking with a group of people along a passage in Naples. One of the people was a mother with her 1 ½ year old child. The child was walking alongside the mother until he became tired; the mother picked him up and after a while she became hot. She took off her coat and hanged it over her arm. When she picked up her child again it started crying instantly. The child was given from person to person to calm it down, but the opposite happened. Montessori made the mother put on her coat again and the child stopped crying and said “Mamma, coat on”, indicating that a coat should be worn not carried (Montessori, 1936). The sense for order and feeling of discomfort was so strong that the infant would not accept his mother without the coat on. This sensitive period creates an outer orientation through order so the child can categorise relations between the parts of the environment he/she perceives and make sense of the world.

At the end of the first year of life the sensitivity for small objects, such as small insects, stones or grass, occurs. The infant pays attention to detail by showing big interest in the very small objects, which are nearly invisible. Montessori states in The Secrete of Childhood, Chapter 3:’…From beginning of second year of life, children are no longer drawn, by the peculiar fascination we notice in the sensitive periods, to showy objects or bright colours, but rather to tiny things that we should not notice…’ An example given by Montessori is as followed. She observed a little girl sitting outside on a terrace laughing with noisy delight. It seemed the girl was staring onto the group for no reason. When Montessori came closer and still could not see anything. The girl was showing her a tiny nearly invisible insect, which was the cause of her delight and excitement.

The sensitivity for walking and movement starts soon after birth, although the child only learns to walk at about 9 months of age. The child will be in constant repeated or explorative movements from the moment he/she is mobile and able to crawl. I observed 2 and 3 year olds, with no toys, at a circled indoor platform which had three stairs. The children where running and jumping up and down these stairs and walking in circles for hours with no signs of boredom. This example illustrated the need for practising movements to perfect these skills. The consequences of holding a child back from moving around would cause abnormal behaviour. Montessori additionally emphasises that the child needs to have a balance between physical and mental activities to develop adequately (Montessori, 1949).

The sensitive period for refinement of the senses is one of the longer periods and driven by natural human curiosity. It starts from the moment the child can explore its environment until the age of 8 years. With help of this period the child develops an inter-sensory judgment. An example is an infant 1 ½ years old sitting on a rage with several different toys made up of different materials, say one is wooden and the other one is rubber. The child picks up the wooden toy and puts it into his/her mouth, chews on it for a little while and than put it down again. The same procedure happens with the rubber toy. The child is not only chewing on the toys to taste them, but to co-ordinate unconsciously the interactions between all separate senses. The incoming stimulation of the taste organ from the toy in the mouth is continuously modified by other sense organs such as the touch from his/her hands or smell from his/her nose.

The sensitive period to social aspects of life begins around the age of 3 and firstly appears in a co-operative behaviour towards other children in the group. The child spontaneously starts to have a sense of cohesion and is aware of being part of a group.

Montessori was especially keen to emphasise in her writing, “The Absorbent Mind” that early development is particular important and, in my view, went as far to suggest that it is fundamental to his holistic growth (Montessori, 1949). Montessori further notes that psychological development occurs simultaneously with periods of physical growth (Montessori, 1949). An example of this simultaneousness may include a newborn being in one of its first sensitive periods, where he/she unconsciously concentrates attention on structure of human language and absorbs all stimuli associated with it. At the end of the first sub-phase of growth, the child will be able to form his first word, because he/she has practised the muscles and mechanisms needed for language. However at this stage the child sensitivity for language has not disappeared. Approximately at the age of five it disappears and the child should have acquired a basic sentence pattern. Of course the child continues to develop their skills, i.e. complex sentence structures, during primary school, but conscious and with more effort than previously. All children during there first five years of life, no matter what language, complex or simple, going through the same observable stages of language development, which are not gradually rather than like jumps; first the child pronounces syllables, followed by words and finally syntax and grammar. However Montessori believes that the child’s inner work of achieving these stages is gradual and immense and not accessible through observations (Montessori, 1936). The importance of early support and facilitating of the sensitive periods is that in these formative years the child creates himself from nothing to a personality with help of its absorbent mind, which creates impressions from the surrounding environment and from that forms own mind. Montessori states in The Absorbent Mind, Chapter 3:’...the child undergoes a transformation. Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it. They incarnate themselves in him. The child creates his own “mental muscles”, using for this what he finds in the world about him…’ If the child grows up in a deprived environment and cannot fulfil its natural psychological needs than that has huge consequences, such as limitations in intellectual growth. For example the wild boy of Aveyron, who lived in a French forest until he was approximately 11 years old, had no exposure of human language, and therefore was never able to speak.

The last part of the essay focused on the prepared environment, which the teacher has to create to ensure maximum support for each individual during their sensitive periods. The sense for order is supported by making the prepared environment ordered, meaning no clutter or unnecessary objects in the room. The room should also be as plain as possible, still attractive and interesting with some flowers or paintings, but not over decorated, which would make it to over stimulating for the child and the materials would not speak for themselves. All materials have their specific place in the room, in an open-for children visible and accessible at all times- cupboard, so children know where to find the materials they are drawn to or want to practise. The materials within the prepared environment are organised into learning areas, for example sensorial materials are separate from practical life materials, to ensure an order of things. The child has the freedom to explore the environment by him/herself with no time pressure, which supports the fulfilment of the sensitive period for the refinement of senses and gives the child a feeling of security and control. The materials in the room are real, so the child can experience all the features of the objects with all their senses. The prepared environment must be child-sized and provide opportunity and places to work on the floor or table, for a comfortable and independent working experience. This also allows the child to develop their interests spontaneously and thus learns the skills or abilities much quicker and easier than if it would have bee forced to learn it later in his/her development. The social aspect of life is addressed by the element that most of the activities are only available once and children have to show respect to each other by sharing and learn to be patient. The teacher additionally promotes the development of the child’s manners and social skills, which is very important because child creates the interest of being part of a society. Some materials, like in real life, are fragile (Glass or Porcelain) and the child therefore has to be careful and learns to be responsible and may experience cause and effect. Accurately observing the child’s sensitive periods is only possible within this prepared environment as well as supporting the child with specific activities placed in the environment

All these adjustments and special arrangements in the prepared environment make it possible for the child to follow their inner drives, fulfil sensitive periods, and develop naturally without deviations and abnormal behaviour. An important component of the Montessori philosophy is to give the child during its first stage of development enough freedom for physical and mental activity.
Bibliography

Montessori. M.,(1936). The Secrete of Childhood. London. Longmans, Green and Co. LTD.

Montessori. M.,(1949). The Absorbent Mind. Madras, India. Theosophical Publishing house.