Cultivate a Friendliness with Error

Often times in Montessori education we can get carried away with creating the most perfect environment for our children. We discover how vitally important our role modelling is to the child and because of this we can develop impossibly high standards that we expect of ourselves and others . We can hold expectations that resources will only be used in certain ways, or that children will follow exactly how we showed them, but in my experience this is simply not the case.

All this perfectionism can cause a lot of angst and pain, and at the end of the day it is simply not realistic.

Dr Montessori wrote in her book, The Absorbent Mind, “It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose which it truly has.” *

She talks in this particular chapter about how the adult can develop this idea that they must never make a mistake, and if they do they should never admit to it, and she goes on to say that we must welcome “Mr Error” into our lives as one of our greatest teachers!

Now I don’t know about you, but it seems that my life has been full of trial and error, trying things out and finding what doesn’t work and beginning again. Once upon a time I did think it was important, even necessary to keep my mistakes hidden, I thought I had to be perfect and I tried my hardest to be “good”. It always led to pain, it kept me isolated from those I could have reached out to for help and made the learning harder and much less fun.

A huge part of my work right now is the observation of very small children, it’s something that brings me huge joy. It is incredibly humbling to watch a young baby or toddler practicing a new skill. Recently I had the opportunity of working alongside 2 two-year-old children for several weeks. I noticed that, each day they spent time on the monkey bars and climbing dome that were present in their early childhood education setting, they were usually together during this time as they took turns climbing up and swinging down. They practiced holding on with two hands then dropping, and holding on with one hand and dropping (interestingly enough over many repetitions I noticed one child always swung by the left hand and one child always swung by the right hand…), they observed each other, laughed when each “fell” down and then immediately repeated - over the several weeks I witnessed at least 100 repetitions - and those were just what I saw when I was there. It was obvious in their “work” they didn’t have the slightest concern for error, and certainly weren’t bothered by what anyone watching them might be thinking. They were deep in the process of self-perfection in the least painful way.

Infants and toddlers have perseverance by the bucket load, and joyful perseverance too! They’re not worried by the “errors” being made and yes they may get frustrated or cry in their challenges but generally if they are challenges they have set for themselves they will never give up until mastery arrives. They repeat and repeat joyfully, and after all their effort they are peaceful, contented with the work they have done.

How many of us can truly say we approach new learning with the same unselfconscious approach of a baby or toddler? Do we welcome our “errors” with gratitude - thanking them for showing us what doesn’t work and for pointing to the direction that might just work this time? Do we beat ourselves up and put ourselves down for having “should’ve known better” or do we peacefully acknowledge that we too are on this path of self-perfecting, knowing we may never arrive… the joy is in the journey!

Maya Angelou is often quoted as saying “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” This is the kindest way for us to be travelling the path of self-perfection, it’s how infants and toddlers do it and you can do it too. Go ahead - cultivate a friendliness with error.

Aroha Nui

Carli

*The Absorbent Mind, 1952/2019, Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company, p. 223