Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952) was one of the twentieth century’s most influential educators of young children. She was known for the respect she had for children’s ability to learn through their own sensory exploration of the world around them. She believed that educators should provide a rich and interesting environment for children to investigate and should support these investigations as unobtrusively as possible. Montessori called her institution ‘The Children’s House’ and believed it should indeed resemble a real house. The furniture should be child-sized so that the children could take responsibility for managing day-to-day activities themselves – cleaning, tidying, setting the table and cooking. She believed that these sort of domestic activities offered children real experiences that were much more meaningful to them than pretending to cook and clean with toys manufactured for the purpose (Montessori, 1964, first published 1914).
Photograph of Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Canfield Fisher and Montessori
American writer Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) visited Montessori’s children’s house in Italy, and took her ideas back home with her to the USA (Washington, 1982). She did a great deal to popularise Montessori’s ideas in her own country, and wrote a manual advocating for their applicability both in the home and in formal education. She endorsed Montessori’s belief that children should participate in household work, writing: ‘Fortunate, indeed, the child whose mother still cooks, and sews, and bakes, and washes and allows her children to aid in these processes. Such children receive Montessori training without any formal apparatus’ (Canfield Fisher, 1912, p.72). If children were introduced to these activities early, Canfield Fisher believed, they would have enthusiasm for them and avoid the laziness that she had observed in older children.
The Home-maker
It is slightly disappointing that Canfield Fisher implied in her manual that cooking and baking was something that only mothers might do at home. In fact, her clearest exposition of how a child might be taught how to cook using the Montessori method occurs in her novel. The Home-maker (1983, first published 1924) and the parent who is supporting the child in this instance is the father. Following an accident which means he has to use a wheelchair, Lester gives up work and stays at home with the children. His daughter, Helen, explains that he is learning to cook ‘and so am I – learning – I mean. We’re learning together.’ (p.183). We see what this means when Helen learns to crack eggs. Lester allows her to take the lead, does not step in when her confidence fails and she worries about hitting the egg too hard, and allows her to find the right way through her own experimentation. The narrator comments ‘How queer not to have somebody tell her what to do and make her do it’ (p.209). Similarly, Lester’s younger son, Stephen, learns how to use an egg-beater, something that his mother would never let him touch because he would make a mess. Lester does not show him what to do but lets him experiment. Stephen loses his temper and throws the beater across the room but he returns, and tries again, until finally ‘His face was ruddy and glowing with his effort, with is triumph. All his fatigue was gone. Whir- r-r. (p.244).
Montessori and cooking today
Cooking is still important in Montessori settings today. The Global Montessori Network lists ‘Practical Life’ as a key curriculum element throughout children’s school life. Three to six years old, they suggest, should be washing and cutting fruits and vegetables, preparing and serving food and drinks, cooking and baking. This is important in order to help them develop the skills and attitudes they need in order to for them to fulfil their own desires independently and so maintain confidence and enthusiasm (Global Montessori Network, 2024). If the children in these settings have adults as sensitive and intuitive as The Home-Maker’s Lester, these experiences will be invaluable.
References
Canfield Fisher, D. (1912) The Montessori Manual, in which Dr Montessori’s Teaching and Educational Occupations are Arranged in Practical Exercises or Lessons for the Mother or the Teacher’, Chicago: W.E.Richardson and Co.
Canfield (Fisher), D. (1983, first published 1924), The Home Maker, Chicago: Academy Chicago.
Global Montessori Network (2024) ‘Montessori Practical Life Lessons for K-5’, available at https://theglobalmontessorinetwork.org/practical-life-lessons/.
Montessori, M (1964, first published 1914) Dr Montessori’s Own Handbook, Cambridge, MA: Robert Bentley
Washington, I. (1982) Dorothy Canfield Fisher: A Biography, Shelburne, Vermont: The New England Press
Picture Credit
'Noted Vermont Author, Dorothy Canfield Fieher, as a young woman', Unknown Author, Unknown source, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dorothy_Canfield_Fisher.jpg
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