This week, we’ll take a dive into what to look for when you are observing! These suggestions apply whether you’re observing in the home or in the classroom. Today’s post marks the midpoint of our series on observation — You can find the previous posts here and here.
“Maaaama, what’s that?” my three and a half year old asks. They aren’t pointing, just looking in a direction. My eyes scan the shelf that they are looking at.
“What’s….what? Can you point to what you are talking about?” They gesture to the bottle of mouthwash. “Oh, are you asking what is in the bottle?” I ask.
“No! I know it is mouthwash. What is THAT?” they say, climbing the step stool and gesturing to the small seal of approval on the front.
“Oh, that’s a seal! It tells you that it is approved by doctors and dentists.”
My three-year-old sighs, annoyed. “NO, mama. WHAT IS THAAAAAAT? With the wings, and the spiral.” They gesture once again, this time to something within the seal. It is a teeny tiny caduceus. “CADUCEUS!” they chant triumphantly, after I tell them. Then they trot away.
When you’re trying to observe children, it can sometimes feel like this interaction with my three-year-old: They had an agenda, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Shooting in the dark, I got there eventually, but MY GOODNESS it would have gone faster if I’d had a little more… direction. That’s what I’d like to lay out for you now: let me offer some direction for your observations by discussing what we are looking for when we observe. This will pair nicely with the challenges I hope to issue during week 5, so I hope it’ll stay fresh in your mind.
Kari, WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR WHEN I OBSERVE?!
I want to start by saying: this is not a conclusive list of all the things a person can observe. These are just the things I feel are most widely applicable and easily identifiable.
As a guest in the Casa or Primary prepared environment, your job is really to watch for the hallmarks of Montessori; that is, what makes this environment prepared? How do the children exist within this prepared environment?
–Look for independence. Take note of the many things children are able to do without adult intervention or aid. Look for situations where independence may lead to perseverance, or the overcoming of a difficult task. Watch how the children problem solve and mediate.
–Look for different levels of concentration: Children are still developing their ability to concentrate, so remember that true and sustained concentration is a point of arrival. How do you see concentration manifested in the environment? How is it protected — by the environment, the other children, and the guide? How long do you see children concentrating for? What kinds of work seem to foster concentration? It may be that they are concentrated on a challenging equation, or on solving a problem together, on a conversation they are having or simply on table scrubbing. All are valuable!
–Look at socialization, and the benefits of the multi-age classroom: See which activities seem to inspire and develop social behaviors. Notice the interactions of children with peers their age, and also those older and younger than them. Are there examples of leadership? How do children problem solve when adults are unavailable? How does the span of ages change the avenues children have to learn? And finally:
–Look at the different ways children are learning: You might see two children working together on Golden Beads; a child sitting on their own doing a puzzle map; children working on the chalkboard. You might see someone focused deeply on the up-and-down motion of a needle through burlap; the effort needed to push the apple slicer clean through the apple; the successful portage of a bucket filled with water. There may be varying degrees of focus, and various modes through which the children are using their hands to manipulate the materials. You may also see a child observing a lesson they’d like to have in the future–by watching, children absorb, and this is an important part of learning for the young child.
All of this work, practical, abstract, conversational, or meditative, is a part of the child’s process of self-development, and it’s often only when we stop to take the time out to observe the children that we recognize it as such.
If you are observing as the prepared adult (teacher or assistant, homeschool parent), there are some additional tasks you might undertake:
–Look for adult interventions: How often are you (or other adults) intervening in the child’s work? Take note of when, and why! Additionally, you can take note of how often the child is coming to an adult and why. How does this intervention (or lack of intervention) seem to aid or hinder concentration and independence? (Y’all, this one is easy to overlook but it is SO POWERFUL.)
-Look for order and disorder: How are order or disorder created in the environment, by the children or the adults? What seems to happen right before disorder? How is order restored? How do children respond to either state? Take note of the role of the adult in the maintenance of order or the restoration of order, and see whether it seems to affect the process.
-Look for how the child handles fatigue: What does the child do when they are experiencing mental or physical fatigue? How does it affect the flow of their activity? How does it affect the other children in the environment? It can be different for every child. Note how they cope with and overcome fatigue.
-Look at the way the child handles error: Is the child friendly with error? How do they react when they discover an error, on behalf of themselves or of others? How do they discover and correct error–is it independent, or does an adult need to point it out?
-Look at emotions, temper, and will: How does the child handle their emotions when they rise? How do they handle the emotions of others? How do they utilize their will, positively and negatively, to make things happen around them? If you have multiple children, how do their personalities ebb and flow in the environment in this regard?
-Look for the way a child shows engagement and interest : What does the child’s face look like when they are deeply engaged? How does their body language change? How does the child’s work or effort change when an activity is well-aligned with their sensitive periods or interests?
These questions are a springboard to help get you started. Observation is like a muscle–use it, and strengthen it, and each time it will get easier and your ability to use this feedback to distill helpful information about how to adjust yourself and your environment to better serve the child.
If you’ve practiced observing the things I’ve outlined above and you want to go deeper, research Work Curves.
Dr. Montessori describes Work Curves at length in Spontaneous Activity in Education (Side Note: This link goes to a full, FREE eBook of the text at Project Gutenberg. There is a paperback edition of this original version available for purchase here. The edition I use is titled: “The Advanced Montessori Method,” which can be purchased here).
Breaking down this idea would be a standalone blog post, but briefly: A work curve is a way to graph a child’s engagement with the materials and the environment, and the development of their concentration over time. It’s quantifiable data that can only be gathered through observation. Montessori lays out how to interpret the patterns in this data to gain insight about how a child’s psyche is developing — it’s pretty amazing stuff.
Ultimately, observation is a way to know the child more intimately. How special is that? To be able to look back at your own notes; things the child has said or done, and see there the small way they share each day part of the secret of the child with you. When you think about what you want to observe, think about how you’d like to more deeply understand and engage your child. That will guide you in the right direction. Maria Montessori describes the power of true observation like this::
“At first the teacher will say, ‘I have seen the child as he ought to be, and found him better than I could have ever supposed.’ This is what it means to understand infancy. It is not enough to know that this child is called John, that his father is a carpenter; the teacher must know and experience in her daily life the secret of childhood. Through this she arrives not only at a deeper knowledge but at a new kind of love which does not become attached to the individual person, but to that which lies in the hidden darkness of this secret. When the children show her their real natures, she understands perhaps for the first time, what love really is. And this revelation transforms her also. It is a thing that touches the heart, and little by little it changes people.”
(p. 282, The Absorbent Mind)
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Montessori Miscellany 
This is so important! My 2.5 year old is so strong willed. She ended up getting a double ear infection and our usual tricks didn’t work, so she had to go on antibiotics. It was a daily struggle for the medication until I observed she wanted to squeeze it into her own mouth. Then it was so easy. Talk about wanting independence already!!
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