“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.”
I love this quote.
If you have followed my blog or heard about my lessons, it should not be a surprise why I love it so much. I have made it my life's work to make PE better for the Montessori classroom and PE teacher and child. It all started when I observed my first PE class when I started working at Rogers Park Montessori fifteen years ago. At the time, they had hired an outside PE company to come in and conduct classes. I quickly noticed that PE class was a rotation of dodgeball and basketball and not much else. I admired the rest of the Montessori curriculum so much. How could this one area be at such a deficit?
We all acknowledge that physical activity is good for us. No one argues against that. But unfortunately, that has been the excuse to justify substandard physical education. The kids were moving, which was "good enough." They get to dump their energy and return to the classroom, hopefully, a little more at peace or at least tired. However, there was much more potential for physical education than exercise and student pacification.
When I heard the quote from above, I realized Dr. Montessori literally says that movement and physical activity are essential for learning everything! If that is the case, which I believe to be accurate, then the best place to harness this incredible learning power is in PE class. Dr. Montessori specifically mentioned "even abstract ideas," which meant that PE had the potential to teach more than gross and fine motor movement but something beyond. PE could teach things that we usually reserve for the classroom. I'm going to use another Montessori quote a little out of context to explain how:
"The different parts of the brain must not only be stimulated in order to make them function but must work together in harmony: this is what is called "integration."
The approach I would take, inspired by advice from my mentor Michael Dorer, a devoted Montessori educator, would be to integrate the PE curriculum into lessons from the Montessori classroom. I would use lessons I learned in my training and lessons learned from my colleagues in their training and infuse them into fun physical games. I would anchor my curriculum to the classroom curriculum so I did not have to reinvent the wheel. I just follow the classroom the way that a teacher follows the child.
By doing this, I believe that the students move and play through my lessons to literally understand abstract concepts. In the same way that students move from the concrete to the abstract, the students play a concrete game with layers of abstract meanings tethered to the rules and gameplay. When the students move, they perceive this idea in another way other than seeing or hearing it, but by moving through it. This kinesthetic sense is what I hope I have tapped into. I hope that through the movement, a student may unlock the abstract meaning of a concept and be able to bring that back to the classroom or the dinner table.
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