A Match Made In Science: Reconciling Big History and Montessori Education
Link to File
This is my attempt, after receiving much needed guidance from Cynthia Stokes Brown, to bring together two very important educational approaches.
- Used by people who call the work: Big History, Montessori Cosmic Education
- Applies a deep time evolutionary perspective to: Ecology/Sustainability, Education, Religion/Spirituality
- Learning Stages: Secondary 9 - 12
- Type: Article
- Keywords: Big, History, Montessori, Cosmic, Education
- Why I love this Resource: This article allowed me to learn about big history from an entirely new perspective, and a much needed one at that. Before writing this, I had thought big history and cosmic education lined up in every single way, but it turns out there is at least one difference, and it's a critical one. I am indebted to Cynthia Stokes Brown and Lowell Gustafson for their patience in helping me understand this difference clearly.
- File:https://dtnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/A-Match-Made-In-Science.pdf
- Posted By: Kyle Herman
- Date Added: May 15, 2016
Dear Kyle, I very much enjoyed reading your article ‘A Match made in Science.’ It provided much food for thought. I don’t know much about Montessori education as I’ve taught in English state and a private (non-Montessori) school. However, I empathize with your approach, as I understand it, that although Montessori’s Cosmic Education was for 6-12 it can be fruitfully adapted to the 12+ years. It seems you are finding Big History a really useful tool to provide a scientific objective foundation of the origins and development of the Universe, Earth and Life. From this firm and sound basis the… Read more »
Rod, Thank you for your response. It’s always nice to hear feedback, especially from people outside of Montessori. Regarding your comment that you’d love to see Big History for elementary, it’s my opinion that Montessori has already done the groundbreaking work – long before Big History – for this plane of development with Cosmic Education. If you’re interested in learning more about the philosophy and practice of Cosmic Education, you should read To Educate the Human Potential, as I think this is her most important explication of this theory. I know you said you’re not teaching in a Montessori school,… Read more »
Hi Kyle… It’s a wonderful study you wrote, that inspired me a lot in several respects, even though I differ with your political view towards the cause of what you call “terrorist” attacks. I agree with you that Big History, even though it lacks a kind of “meta-materialistic” guidance or purpose, it furnishes a first base for education across all civilizations to have a common origin & history story, to start breaking through national & religious prejudice that is ingrained within current History & Religion subjects taught in schools, to start building a global human identity in children. The problem… Read more »
Noha, Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond so thoughtfully to my article. I also see that you signed up for my webinar! Thanks for that, too. Your concern about the limitations of a peaceful cosmic curriculum within a larger world of economic, political, and social injustice gets right to the heart of the matter. It’s important to keep in mind that the scale of this Work is so huge that we cannot expect to “fix” our ills in one or two or even three generations. This is a long-term vision of gradual changes, with… Read more »
Thank you Kyle for your again thought-provoking reply 🙂 I agree with you that we cannot expect to reach a utopian organization of the world that doesn’t include a duality of good vs. evil. But as you said, we have direct the inner progress of children (through the added philosophical guidance framework suggested by Cosmic Montessori) toward maximizing justice, & minimizing injustice, & not just that… I think also children should be directed toward being greatly dissatisfied with revolutionary tendencies against the current framework of organization ruling societies across the world right now (including the so-called democratic ethnocentric “nations”), because… Read more »
Noha, I encourage you to read some of Montessori’s work because it will allay your concerns about a Montessori teacher viewing a different cultural belief as dysfunctional. Of course, there will, in any institution, be people who don’t hold themselves to the exacting standards of that institution, but to truly qualify as a Montessori teacher means not imposing one’s “subjective biases” onto children. That’s an integral component of what Montessori calls the spiritual preparation of the teacher, and it’s one of the key features that separates Montessori philosophy from the traditional approach. I understand your point about power and wealth… Read more »
Kyle, I agree with all that you say, especially to protect the innate wisdom of children to bloom of its own naturally, without corrupting it with the subjective biases that adults’ minds hold. But your last paragraph has left me thinking… That children should be left to develop normally in order to bring up a new man who embraces love for everything around him… What about children here, who are not living or developing in normal circumstances?! Could we actually say that “most” children in the world now are not developing in normal circumstances? I was once standing in a… Read more »
Noha, You speak of analyzing events with an unprejudiced view, and yet you characterize America as the aggressor (the cat in your analogy) and extremist/terrorist groups as the victim (the purely reflexive mouse)…herein lies your contradiction, which does in fact “hinder [your attempt] to find & eliminate the root cause of this cycle of violence.” First of all, we are humans, not cats and mice, and as such, we have the capacity to control our actions using logic and reason in ways that the rest of the animal kingdom cannot. Secondly, your analogy misses the mark because in the situation… Read more »
Kyle,,, Again I agree with what you say, which you say so beautifully, & sadly – because I know this is not reality – I think that if enough people in the world think like you, it would’ve been a different plant. I hope you’re not angry with me for my, perhaps shockingly different, view towards those groups, but I look forward to you being tolerable to me, because I, myself, am confused & hurt for everything that’s happening around me… Like you, for all the ideals that I hold, but find are shattered & ridiculed, by the unmerciful force… Read more »
Noha, Thank you for clarifying your position. I totally agree that I live in the lap of luxury, far removed from the unimaginable reality that you have witnessed and lived through yourself. While that may discredit my philosophy to some extent, I think it benefits me to the extent that I can view the situation with some perspective. Just as when someone wrongs me personally (even on a small scale), I may want to exact revenge, but someone who is not a party to the grievance, someone outside of the conflict who still has clear faculties of logic and reason,… Read more »
Kyle, You have to realize that you hold your own prejudices that the social, economic, & political context around you forces upon your psych. Thinking that you are an unbiased observer hinders your ability to understand & analyze the dilemma of violence going on, instead when you lay bare your prejudices in front of you, this would be an important step toward your attempting to step outside the box. Examples of your prejudices: how you equalize in sequence & scale between the organized mass violence committed by your country’s army & the individual acts of limited violence committed by ISIS;… Read more »
Noha, Unfortunately, it seems that our conversation has taken a turn, and I regret that it seems we cannot have a productive dialogue. I am not angry with you, please know that, but calling me a murderer is deeply offensive and reveals an underlying lack of respect for me as a human being independent of the decisions my country has made and is making. Though I do cast a vote for my elected officials, they don’t always get elected, and not one of them so far has asked me personally whether I want my tax dollars spent on our military… Read more »
Dear Noha, I’m deeply grateful to you Noha for baring your anger and hurt in this conversation, as difficult and disturbing as it is for us to hear about atrocities committed by our own country supported by tax dollars that we paid. Your effort to reach for mutual understanding by expressing your prejudices is courageous and comes from a yearning to speak truth. I hear you and believe you. We don’t hear this side of the story in our news media but for little glimmers. The horror of so many thousands of innocent women and children being slaughtered by American… Read more »
Noha, There’s more I want to say…my reaction to your last post was reflexive, and I’ve thought a lot about it since I commented this morning. The truth is, your perspective matters to me, and it deserves to be heard. It needs to be heard, especially those of us in America who denounce the heinous acts that some of our soldiers have committed. You are a living witness to what must be the most divided, complicated, war-torn region in the world, and as such, you have invaluable insights to offer anyone who really wants to know the truth, however hard… Read more »
Hi Kyle, Many thanks for your reply. And thank you for the link – “To Educate the Human Potential.” I’ve given it a quick look and will need to find time to give a more in depth study but one quote really stands out for me : – “If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. ” In my experience this is one of… Read more »
Rod, I’m glad you’re finding that work helpful – it’s one of my favorite works of Montessori. The quote you chose is one I’ve gone back to many times. The universe story is more than a way of generating interest, though it certainly does that. Rather, it generates the kind of deep contemplation and fascination that leads to profound epiphanies about nature and our place in it (a concept that Montessori calls our cosmic gift/cosmic task). Hence the reason that origins stories have been central to cultural identities for millennia. Please let me know what you think after you finish… Read more »
Dear Kyle & Jennifer,,, I truly cried when reading your comments. I don’t know what to say! Thank you so much for being tolerant with me, with all my faults, confusions, & misunderstandings! Kyle I’m extremely sorry to offend you, it was at all of no intention from me! I didn’t mean at all to direct the word murderer as a personal description, & believe me if I had the slightest hint it would offend you, I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all. I’m sorry, as I don’t talk to people a lot, that’s why when I get to talk… Read more »
Dear Noha, Thanks to Jennifer Morgan, we have been reading your letters to Kyle, and we would like to write you a short note now. If you wish, then, we could correspond again, maybe at more length. First, just about ourselves. One of us, Juliana, is a teacher who founded and for years administered a school for young children. The other, Dick, is a retired pastor in the Episcopal Church, who has taught sociology for years and studies the way social systems work, or don’t work. The story you told about the boy whom you reluctantly let go, as he… Read more »
Dear Richard, Juliana, & Dick,,, Thank you so much for this beautiful comment, which has truly moved me 🙂 I’m very happy to see that you have the same appreciation for human empathy & compassion as I do, which it seems arises from our common interest in psychology. I sadly, cannot claim that I closely understood the boy’s wish to die or the raped girl’s situation, & this is the thing that hurts me the most, & causes my depression; the idea or image that another human being has gone through suffering which I cannot fully fathom because I’m not… Read more »
Hi Kyle, This resource is so valuable and enduring. It’s one of the most popular resources on the Network. Thanks so much for creating it. Jennifer