Responses to comments

Supposedly, all the comments (including the originally missing one) are posted, but when I actually visit the blog, they are not there! I don't know what's going on with Blogspot at the moment. I may copy and paste the comments in myself later on. Here, however, is my response! I hope it makes sense! It took me at least a couple of hours, many distractions, etc.


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What great feedback! It will help me in honing in better to explain things for those less familiar with this aspect of Montessori. It’s so easy to just come from a place of understanding that I don’t consciously think about and just kind of assume everyone’s at the same place I am!


I’m going to tackle evenspor’s comment first:



First, I’d like to make a distinction between imaginary play and fantasy play. Pretending a baby doll is a real baby is imaginary; pretending about fairies is fantasy. It’s impossible. They don’t exist and they certainly don’t have castles. I don’t know if Maria Montessori actually wrote about this distinction, but things I’ve gathered from things written by others make a big distinction between the two. Just to explain my use of fantasy in my previous posts.



My son (around 3 at the time) engaged in pretend play after we saw the car across the street on fire. He spent a week playing with a little fire truck and some cars and how the fire truck came to put out the fire on the cars. It was his way of processing the event and it was very good for him. That said: I would be appalled if a Montessori primary classroom I had him enrolled in had him spending his time pretending or encouraging him to pretend. I would not be spending the money for a Montessori education for him to be spending his time playing like that!



But, I will reiterate what I recall Maria Montessori actually writing on the topic: pretend/fantasy/imaginative (take your pick ;) ) play is normal, children do it, but for a child under 6, she felt, and I agree with her, that a school’s job is not to provide a means for imaginary play but to help the child better connect with the real world around them. That is not to say that imaginary play doesn’t have therapeutic purposes in certain situations, but we aren’t talking therapy here: we are talking an educational approach to teaching children ages 3-6.



I wonder if part of the problem is that Montessori is being seen as a “preschool”, which in many cases today is very much like an educational daycare (if you’re lucky!). Montessori is not a daycare; it is a school. Its aim is to educate. And so, again, I have to say that pretend play has no place to be encouraged, and must be absolutely discouraged when it happens with the materials, in a Montessori school. In a Montessori home, I would expect pretend play because a home is about raising the child 24 hours a day, not just 15-30 hours a week. (Just again a reminder that we are talking 3-6yo’s here; it’s an entirely different ball of wax for those above 6. And the original question was about using Montessori materials for fantasy play.)



Now as for fantasy play not accomplishing something real, I don’t think I actually said that. I think I said that it takes the child away from what is real and what is right now. Some imaginary play may connect the child with what is real, like my son at age 3, and some imaginary play is to substitute for something real the children would like to do that they can’t, like play kitchens and baby dolls, and other pretend play that is all about fun. But this has nothing to do with the instructional focus of what is Montessori education. I do not need to educate my son in how to play with fire trucks. :) (Of course, then there is fantasy/pretend play that goes too far where the child can not seem to disconnect from the play, either out of habit or escapism, but that might be a whole other topic).

The more I write this time, the more I feel I am focused on: Montessori is an educational approach, with an aim to be teaching the children something. The Montessori classroom for the 3-6’s is a school, not a preschool (which actually means “before school”). Montessori does not say pretend play is not allowed, simply not (usually) in the Montessori classroom where the focus is on developing a wide range of skills, developing concentration—reaching everything that it means to be “normalized”. How do you educationally address a young child’s fantasy play, especially when it was found over and over that if you connect them with a variety of here-and-now activities, they become focused and content and work very happily? And not only that, but do away with the pretend play on their own during that school time?

What am I talking about? Paula Polk Lillard describes in “Montessori in the Classroom” how she allowed a small box of toys in the classroom. At the end of each session in the beginning days, the children had time where they could choose one toy and play in a fashion that did not disturb others. It took very little time before the children kept themselves so busy with the activities available in the classroom that they did not even care about the toys. Maria Montessori had found the same thing years earlier. She had put toys in the classroom at first. They ended up untouched. I think that is very telling.

As for the “whole child” lauding, I find it hard to not take the term literally and don’t think any approach actually does it. ;) I don’t know if it’s a term Maria Montessori ever used to describe her philosophy or if others used it because of their understanding of what it means.


As for the second comment, about imagination-poor households: I don’t believe that’s the norm (although I do agree it’s an increasing phenomenon), especially for the likely well-to-do families sending their children to a Montessori school. Plus, the better schools ask parents to not have their young children watch TV, etc. But, I could just be naïve, I admit. I have heard of some Montessori primary classrooms allowing at the end of the day a brief period of imaginary play. I don’t know how they make it work or how it affects the child’s work or development during the other part of the day, especially since we are talking 3-6-year olds. But it might be a workable solution. In proper Montessori fashion, the directress would experiment and observe what happens over time with and without the playtime. I do not see how actually encouraging or allowing imaginary play with the materials (which was the original question) during the actual education time could be helpful to the classroom. Maybe the idea of the toy box shared above is one that could be kept, with the faith that what happened in the past in Montessori classrooms can happen again, as long as the activity levels are consistent with the Montessori approach (kids shouldn’t be running around screaming, etc.).

As for outdoor time, it really ought to be a part of a Montessori education, although I know it doesn’t always happen. That’s the particular problem of that Montessori school; I don’t think it would provide a reason for allowing pretend play.

As for imagination, the imagination of a 3-6yo is vastly different from the imagination of older children and adults. Calling the Pink Tower a fairy castle isn’t really what I would consider using the imagination to create something. This is a harder topic to cover and one I can’t really touch on at the moment; especially since this response is getting VERY long!


There is something about the objections that leave me with a feeling that there is a push for Montessori to be the perfect approach that will encompass every potential psychological, emotional, physical, social, etc. need, including those brought on by the disordered society in which we now find ourselves living. Part of that disorder is that we live in a society where so many schools and businesses and organizations try to be all things to all people. We can’t do it. The Montessori Method is an educational approach, not a method of therapy. It should not be a school, a therapy centre, a child-rescue centre, etc. and everything that it can possibly be to help children. It is a school. If a child’s home life is so disordered that a Montessori classroom has to change its ways in order to benefit him, it simply may not be the right place for that child. And yet, I can’t help thinking that a 3-6yo child deprived of imaginative time at home would still reach that point of normalization in a traditional Montessori classroom where he could be part of reality rather than in front of a tv screen or video games all day.

I can’t comment on Montessori’s assertion that “the imagination should be separated from the development of the child” because I don’t know where she ever said that. Her basic premise was that children already imagine and do a fine job at it (let’s leave the exceptions out of it!) and our job is to help the 3-6yo child connect with the world around them.

Those wishing to really understand where Maria Montessori came from on this topic really ought to rely on what she and even her son wrote and not how I am trying to explain it. :)

(Was this long enough? LOL!)