The core principles of Montessori education are said to be universal, but is the same true for teacher training? A training program in Europe, it focuses on certain materials and certain historical contexts. But what if the teacher then goes to a classroom in Southeast Asia or South America? The cultural nuances, they are very different. The way children interact with adults, the way they learn in groups versus alone, all of this can be different. A high-quality training activity must address this. It cannot be a one-size-fits-all model. It must be flexible, it must be dynamic. The trainers must be able to adapt their own lessons. They must not be rigid. They must understand that the “prepared environment” is not just the classroom itself, but the cultural and social context around it. The training often teaches the first, but forgets the second. This is a very big, and very confusing problem. We are trying to plant a seed in a foreign soil, but we are not preparing the soil correctly. It’s an illogical thing to do. We think the seed is enough, but it is not. The soil is just as important. The training is the soil. And if the soil is bad, the plant, it will not grow well. This is a simple truth, but a very difficult one to implement. It requires a lot of thinking and a lot of work. And a lot of times, the trainers are not trained for this. A very big problem indeed.
The Illusion of a Single “Truth”
In many Montessori trainings, the philosophy is presented as a single, absolute truth. “This is the way,” they say. But the world is not a single truth. It is many truths. A high-quality training activity must teach the teacher to see these many truths. To understand that what works in one classroom may not work in another. It must be about observation, yes, but observation of everything, not just the child. Observation of the parents, of the community, of the country. The training must teach the teacher to be a cultural detective, to be a social scientist. But most trainings, they are too dogmatic. They teach the “what” but not the “why” or the “how.” They teach the materials but not the spirit behind them. This is a very big mistake. The teacher leaves the training with a toolbox full of materials, but without the wisdom to use them. The spirit, it is the most important thing. But it is the hardest to teach. It is not something you can write in a manual. It is something you must feel. And the training, it must create the conditions for this feeling to emerge. A very confusing and difficult thing to do, but it is necessary if we want to be truly international. We must go beyond the books. A lot of people, they do not understand this. They think that reading a book is enough. It is not.
The Importance of Localized Case Studies
A high-quality training activity must include localized case studies. Not just stories about Maria Montessori in Italy, but stories about teachers in Brazil, in India, in Kenya. The training must show the teacher how the philosophy is applied in different contexts. It must show the teacher the problems, the failures, and the successes. This makes the philosophy real. It makes it tangible. It shows the teacher that they are not alone. That other people, they have faced the same problems. But most trainings, they are too abstract. They are too far away from the real world. They are in a bubble. The training, it must burst this bubble. It must bring the real world into the training room. This is the only way to prepare the teacher for the world. A very big problem if they are not. A very big, big problem.
