The learning potential of outdoor play has been at the heart of Montessori practice since its earliest days, explains Barbara Isaacs…
Long before the forest school approach arrived in the UK, and before the government provided capital investment for early years settings to develop outdoor classrooms, Maria Montessori advocated “bringing the inside out and the outside in”.
The aim was to provide connections between observations of nature and opportunities to learn about plants and animals found in the immediate environment of the nursery.
As early as 1911, Maria Montessori devoted a whole chapter to this topic in her first book The Montessori Method. This was later revised (with the chapter in question significantly re-written) as The Discovery of the Child, published after World War II.
In this chapter, entitled ‘Nature in Education’, Montessori refers to her inspiration, Jean Itard, who studied the behaviour and development of the Wild Boy of Aveyron (the subject of Francois Truffaut’s 1970s film The Wild Child).
The boy was abandoned as a baby in the forest and brought up by wolves. When people discovered this feral child at the age of seven and brought him to Paris, Itard observed his very unique relationship with the outdoors.
He loved storms and wind, and when the snow fell he ran outside, rolled in it and ate it. Montessori was much taken by this story and researched further, referring in her chapter to the work of British-born Mrs Latter, who recommended education based on gardening and horticulture.
Baccelli in Paris developed this idea further, advocating for “little educative gardens” within the confines of special schools.
Children looked after the little plots, giving them an opportunity to learn how to care for and nurture a variety of shrubs and flowers. The idea was that they learned gardening skills, which they could use to earn a living later in life.
This research helped Montessori formulate her own ideas about the importance of experiences of nature. She stated that “the best way of invigorating a child is to immerse him in nature”.
Further on in the chapter she wrote, “it is also necessary… to place the soul of the child in contact with creation, in order that he may lay up for himself a treasure from the directly educating forces of living nature”.
In her unique language, Montessori advocated the need for the real experiences so firmly embedded in good early years practice of today.
Montessori organised her ideas about children’s need for contact with the outdoor environment into a number of principles. Paraphrased, these are as follows. Children should:
Whilst some of these ideas may seem a little strange, Montessori schools continued, where possible, to have little plots of land that children could cultivate and take responsibility for.
This started first in the Children’s House in Rome. Meanwhile, in the nursery in Milan, children had an opportunity to care for a pair of pigeons and were delighted when young fledglings hatched.
Today, most Montessori nursery and primary schools keep a pet and grow their own flowers and vegetables. Children enjoy caring for them and also harvesting, cooking and eating their own produce.
I often ask students to reflect on their earliest memories when we begin to explore learning in the area of Understanding the World.
It is not surprising that many come up with sensory experiences of nature, such as seeing a rainbow for the first time, experiencing a summer storm, seeing the first snow, walking by the sea and collecting shells or jumping into piles of leaves in the garden.
I would like to invite you to ponder your own early experience and the importance of having contact with nature in your own life today.
Barbara Isaacs is the academic director of Montessori Centre International.
