The Joy Of Learning

Why my child won’t listen?

I get asked this question quite often.

Are you interested to know what Maria Montessori’s view on this?

I have a 4 years old joined my class in January, he was what the Cantonese called “gao jin” —literally a “stubborn cow”:-)

He broke a glass pitcher, spilled the beans and refused to pick them up on the first day.

We played walking on the line, he couldn’t walk in straight line and wiggled like a worm on the chair, pushed the chair with his butts and gave out loud noise, couldn’t solve a 10-piece puzzles and wouldn’t pick them up when he didn’t want to continue.

When we played silence game, he couldn’t hear his name being called even though I called his names louder and louder for about 10 times.

Should we have started “teaching” him, do you think he can absorb?

We make sure we play silence game and walking on the line with him everyday, sometime twice a day. By the third or fourth day, he jumped up when I just whispered his name from another corner of the classroom.

One of those paradox of Montessori education. If you want your child to listen, you don’t speak louder and louder so they can hear, but to bring him silence and quietness, so that he learned to listen carefully.

Dr. Montessori invented this game when she was working with children who were partially deaf. She found that partially deaf children’s hearing was often improved when they learned to listen carefully to sounds.

Today is the last school day of his third week, he has not broken anything since the last pitcher, he is also able to sit down for 20 minutes, completing a 20 piece puzzle, all by himself. To me, that’s a big achievement for the child.

Filed under Grace and Courtesy Exercises, Montessori |