No worksheets, just Great Work

There didn’t appear to be a grand plan at the beginning, it was just that the numbers that Haami and Owen were dividing gradually got larger and larger.  First it was thousands divided by a two-digit number, then millions, billions, up to a twenty-three digit number.   The next day they discovered that number names went beyond trillions and they found a googol.  Not a miss-spelled search engine, but the number: 1 followed by a hundred zeros.  And, well, if there is a mountain in front of you, then why not climb it?

Before long a 124-digit number was being written out on a growing sheet of squared paper, all ready to be divided by 14.  Without a pause they set about working out how many times 14 would go into pairs of digits, following the pattern of division, subtraction, and bringing down the next category.  You may remember this process for long division, and the shape that looks like a reversed 7 which emerges as the series of subtractions work their way down and across.

Eventually that one division problem stretched more than a metre across and a couple of metres down.  From the realisation that they could complete a long division without the aid of the Test Tube Division materials to completion had taken most of the week. Other small pieces of work occasionally caught their attention, but they kept returning to division for hours at a time.



Dr Montessori called experiences like this ‘great work’ and she observed that children in the second plane of development (from 6 to 12 years) were not only capable of working in this way; they actively sought it for themselves.  It is a wonderful thing to be able to rise a challenge that someone else has set, but to choose to set yourself an ambitious goal and be able to meet it is something entirely different.

This is why we offer presentations that show the child how to do something, and then offer the freedom, and the trust, to take the idea as far as then want.  By contrast worksheets or workbooks limit the imagination of the child, giving them the message that this is all there is, this is all you need to do.  Subtly there is a shift from exploring for the sheer pleasure of it to learning because it is required.

Over time, the experiences of great work help the child to acquire a wonderful gift; intellectual independence. This is a main goal of the child in years from 6-12, central to the approach offered in the Montessori Elementary.  The intellectually independent 12 year old is self-propelled and self-directed in their acquisition of culture. They have a desire to roam broadly and deeply, with fused the capacity to self-challenge and the character to see it through.   In Montessori education there are many little things that can make a big different, not closing off tasks is one of them.