Recently, I've been thinking a lot about fantasy in the lives of children. As a Montessorian, I had to take a deep look at what Dr. Montessori wrote on fantasy. But, as I went back through her books and Internet pieces on what others have written about it, I came to a dilemma I don't often come to when contemplating Dr. Montessori's work. How much do I really agree with her on this point?
I wanted to start by outlining her take on fantasy with her own words. However, even though I own seven books written by Dr. Montessori, I could find very little on the subject. I believe she has talked extensively on the subject, but that information is lacking from my library of her major works. She does touch on the subject in the Absorbent Mind by defining spending too much time in the world of fantasy as a disorder in the child, specifically, the "child's difficulty, or inability, to concentrate his attention on real objects" and instead turning everything into fantasy. She felt that this constant disconnection from reality hindered the spiritual life rather than fostered it for, she believed, "the spiritual life is really built upon the fundamental basis of a unified personality, well attuned to the outer world." "The wandering mind that breaks away from reality, breaks away from...healthy normality," she wrote, and "attention to real things, with all the future applications that derive from this, become impossible."
Many people who have not deeply studied the Montessori philosophy, or (in my opinion) misinterpret her, believe that Dr. Montessori was against imagination. But, what she was really saying is that while we all see and observe that imagination is the natural inclination of the child, it stems from what is real. Giving the child something unreal and made up is not his imagination or creativity, but someone else's. In that fact, it thus has less value to the child than had he used his own creativity and imagined something. This is ultimately the difference between imagination and fantasy. To stimulate the child's imagination, therefore, you must give him real things and a real understanding of the world from which he can extrapolate and use creatively. While the child is drawn to fantasy, it is the knowledge from the real world that can enrich his ability to imagine and create.
Dr. Montessori wrote: "Yet, when all are agreed that the child loves to imagine, why do we give him only fairy tales and toys on which to practice this gift? If a child can imagine a fairy and fairyland, it will not be difficult for him to imagine America. Instead of hearing it referred to vaguely in conversation, he can help to clarify his own ideas of it by looking at the globe on which it is shown." In To Educate The Human Potential she wrote: "Educationalists in general agree that imagination is important, but the would have it cultivated as separate from intelligence, just as they would separate the latter from the activity of the hand. They are vivisectionsists of the human personality. In the school they want children to learn dry facts of reality, while their imagination is cultivated by fairy tales, concerned with a world that is certainly full of marvels, but not the world around them in which they live. Certainly these tales have impressive factors which move the childish mind to pity and horror, for they are full of woe and tragedy, of children who are starved, ill-treated, abandoned, and betrayed. Just as adults find pleasure in tragic drama and literature, these tales of goblins and monsters give pleasure and stir the child’s imagination, but they have no connection with reality."
In my opinion, part of what I think Dr. Montessori was critiquing adults' misunderstanding of the child, always trying to occupy his time with fake things or toys that serve the purpose of making the child "busy" so that he does not interfere with adult things. Sometimes this stems from not understanding what the child really needs or is capable of, and sometime it stems from sheer self-absorption (we don't want to clean something up, we don't want to include the child who will take too long, we want it done perfectly). For example, instead of letting a child explore the things we have in the kitchen or let them assist us in preparing dinner, we buy them plastic kitchens and tell them to "play." This act of play is devoid in meaning because it robs the child of the ability to learn something or develop skills by working with real objects.
While wooden or fabric toys (I hate plastic ones) that focus a child's grasping or sensorial skills can be good, it is just as important to let our children explore what is real. Now that he has developed the powers of grasping and holding, I let my son entertain himself with real objects to explore: a spoon from the kitchen, a brush, a sock, etc. Rather than buy him a toy piano with light up noises, we let him explore a real piano. When he showed fascination in his father's guitar but my husband was worried about him damaging it, we bought him a cheap Ukelele to manipulate until he's old enough to respect the guitar (rather than a fake plastic toy one). I try to find ways to involve him in the world rather than simply occupy him. I think it is most important for our children to explore, to enter the world of real things and make genuine discoveries that will have value to them.
The same goes for the things we tell our children. What is real is what fuels the imagination. Before the age of five, children do not have a clear understanding about the concept of real and unreal, things that are untrue and fantastical. It's important to think of that when we consider what we show our children in movies or what stories we tell them. When Dr. Montessori talked about fairy-tales, I don't think she was thinking of a full ban on them. Maybe she was, but I cannot ask her, so I must go with my instincts. Fairy-tales have their place as representations of culture; they are full of thoughts on morality, history, and mystery. But, in the same breath, to the very young child, they can be danger. Dr. Montessori also said, in The Advanced Montessori Method: "But how can the imagination of children be developed by what is, on the contrary, the fruit of our imagination? It is we who imagine, not they; they believe, they do not imagine. Credulity is, indeed, a characteristic of immature minds which lack experience and knowledge of realities, and are as yet devoid of that intelligence which distinguishes the true from the false, the beautiful from the ugly, and the possible from the impossible." She makes a good point to all of those who think that showing a child fantasy teaches him to use his imagination. These stories are the products of an adult's imagination. They do not teach the child how to imagine, but instead fill his stories with unreal ideas that stem from the minds of others.
I'm not saying that fantasy has no place in a child's life. I don't think Dr. Montessori was either. I think the point is that we need to be very careful with fantasy, and we need to be realistic when we think about a child's needs with regard to it. Before we expose our children to things they may not understand, we need to remember that they might take what is unreal as real. This is of importance when you think about exposing a child to Star Wars or you tell him there are monsters. So many times, as a teacher, I saw children on the playground attacking each other with light sabers without any real understanding of the implications of such a thing. When children don't understand what is real and it enters into their play, they can become desensitized to things like violence without every full understanding what it means. They can also develop very real fears because they don't have the ability to separate the unreal from the real. How many of us have seen a child terrified of something that made no sense...and how often has that stemmed from fantastical stories he may have heard?
Some people might argue with me here that the value of a fairytale likes within its moral structure, its tale of the human condition or human social structure. Fairytales can tell us how things should be or make us think about the nature of good and evil. But, fairytales were not written for young children. Because, children below a certain age do not understand the complexities of these ideas. As they turn five or six and their ability to understand more abstract social concepts develops, then these moral tales have some value. Before this age, however, children are too concrete to see anything more than the superficial storyline.
I think, when it comes to fantasy, we must strike a balance with our young children under the age of five. I think that when we hope to occupy them, we should look to engage them in what is real, because that is what will benefit them the most. Helping them learn about the world and what exists is always more valuable than what doesn't exist. At the same time, however, it is an enriching experience to expose children to stories that are timeless and classic to the culture in which we live. But, we should be careful and think about what those stories tell our children. We should not hesitate to talk to them about the story and let them know that it is not real. When we read a story about a talking cow, it is important to point out to the child that cows don't talk and so that this story is pretend. We should be careful before we share ideas with young children that may cause them fear because they cannot detach the fantasy from the reality. I don't think that means we should sugarcoat everything. Rather, we should be honest about what is fantasy and what is not. What behaviors are acceptable in the stories we see, and what are not. What is possible in the real world, and what is not. We should talk about the ideas brought up by the story with regard to what is real and what is not.
Fantasy has it's place, but we should remember that, with all things, moderation is key. Before we come to the belief that children should live in an endless world of fairytale and make believe, we should consider what they are missing by not being in the real world, developing real skills, and interacting with real things. And when we do engage the world of fantasy, we should remember that the young child takes everything as fact, so it is our job to help them differentiate.
Great article, interesting and helpful. Thanks for sharing.
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