Ginni Sackett is an AMI Trainer, Consultant, and Examiner at the 3-6 level, with over forty years of experience in Montessori education. Ginni came to Montessori education with a Bachelor Degree in History and a Master of Arts Degree in Asian Studies, then achieved the AMI 3-6 Diploma in Portland Oregon USA in 1982. She worked for 12 years as a classroom teacher before taking a position as Course Assistant at Montessori Northwest in 1994, an experience which inspired her to become an AMI Trainer. She served as a 3-6 Director of Training at Montessori Northwest until 2017, and she served as the Director of Pedagogy at AMI from 2018–2021.

Ginni brings to her work a deep commitment to the value of Montessori Scientific Pedagogy and in particular to the transformative potentials of Montessori adult education. She frequently presents on a variety of topics at regional, national, and international workshops and conferences. Her articles have been published in AMI Communications, The NAMTA Journal, and other Montessori publications, and she is the author of two pamphlets published by AMI/USA.

Responsibility is a loaded word. Look it up – you can easily get lost in the nuance of context and countless applications. Applying it in the particular context of our Montessori work with children, it can become a paralyzing burden extending to liability, answerability, and accountability. So, let’s step back for a moment to focus on the core of the term: the ability to respond.

Which leads me to a clarifying thought once shared by my AMI Trainer Rita Schaefer Zener when I was a brand new 3-6 diploma holder launching my Montessori career. Quoting Dutch Trainer Hannah Levan’s advice to her, Rita offered a centering and calming view of our role:

You’re not responsible for how the children act.

You’re only responsible for how you respond to how the children act.

Our entire Montessori ‘system’ can be seen as a response to how children act. After all, Montessori entered her work with predictable preconceived notions – notions that her experiences with actual children negated. Remember her comment, found in The Secret of Childhood, “I’ll believe it next time …”, describing unexpected behaviors in the section ‘Who Are You?’. When we prepare and maintain our well-crafted environments, we are taking first steps in responding to how children act. Similarly, our role as observant Montessori adults cultivates readiness to see and respond to what is actually happening in the moment – avoiding reflexive adult responses to children’s behavior. With our educated understanding of developmental motivations, and the matching opportunities provided in our environments, we can also side-step pre-conceived notions, giving ourselves permission to pause, observe, take a calming breath (or ten), then choose our response to how children are acting in the moment.

Two other enlightening comments to guide us, these via AMI Trainer Shannon Helfrich:

Interrupt the behavior – give them something interesting to do.

or

When in doubt, stay out.

But how to decide? Interrupt? Or stay out? What I found: Interrupt in the moment if there is danger. Stay out, doing nothing in the moment, if there is no danger.

I came to recognize danger as immediate harm to another person; to the child themself; or to a material. If any of those are potential outcomes, interrupt and give something interesting enough to distract and re-direct attention. Otherwise, do nothing in the moment beyond observing and planning a detached response for ‘later’.

Some 3-6 environment examples:

Interrupt: A child with the pink tower suddenly begins throwing individual cubes across the room. This is obviously a danger to other children; and to the cubes as well. Intervene immediately in a calm yet authoritative manner.

Something Interesting: intentionally or not, throwing different cubes explores comparative weight: the smaller/ lighter the cube, the further it flies. So show “something new” – perhaps how to compare and grade the cubes like the Baric Tablets. Notes for ‘later’: is it time for a reminder lesson ‘How to Handle the Cubes’? or new activities with the Pink Tower – a Game or Language, perhaps? Plus work with the Baric Tablets.

Stay Out: A new table washer is very sloppy with the water. It’s accumulating on the floor but not posing an immediate danger. Observe and start planning follow-up lessons. And give other children a chance to act. When this happened in my environment once, I noticed two five-year-olds watching the scene and ‘conferring’. They took it upon themselves to gently intervene, show the washer how to mop up, and start over. This raised the washer’s awareness of care with water much more effectively than an adult intervention.

Combination of the Two: Suddenly a child tackles another child to the floor and the tackled child is crying. Definite physical and psychological danger to another. Serious intervention – gentle but firm to separate them; then perhaps describe what you are seeing, ask the tackler what they were trying to do, coach the tackled in verbally expressing how they feel about it. Re-direct each as needed – details will depend upon your knowledge of each child and the immediate circumstances. Begin to accumulate observations of the tackler to detect patterns of aggression. Start or increase Grace & Courtesy Lessons for all children around physical aggression and how to appropriately respond to an aggressor.

I found that these guidelines for Montessori adult behavior opened numerous doors for my own relationships with children. And helped me develop new, compassionate, and productive responses in line with our goals of supporting the natural development of each child rather than imposing adult expectations and conditioned reactions.