Help Me to Help Myself: Part 1 of 3
March 1, 2016

Independence in the First Plane of Development


In this article we are going to talk about the child’s plea for help in achieving independence in the First Plane, the years from birth to six. This of course means physical independence: independence in the here and now, the present world of time and space, in the world that we see and touch. As always in Montessori we want to keep in mind where the child is going next so that we are helping the child build a strong foundation for the succeeding plane. In this case: childhood’s “age of reason” and the Second Plane, the years of 6 through 12. The child now asks of us “help me to think my own thoughts.”


Recognizing this succeeding need helps us to understand that the child’s ultimate goal in independence is actually a spiritual one. It is the human spirit within the child that asks of us “help me to help myself” from birth to six and “help me to think my own thoughts” from six to twelve.” This ultimate need of the child reminds us that we want always to see the child before us, to look deeply into his or her eyes, human spirit to human spirit, “subject to subject,” recognizing and respecting that this is a unique human being never created before and never to be created again in all of human history – past, present or future. This incredible mystery, and the awe it calls forth, is the basis of our loving interactions with our child. It is in these moments of awe that we find the answers for how to help our children to eventual independence from us, both in the physical world and in the abstract world of ideas, reason and imagination. These answers are far more likely to be based in our own intuitive observations of our children than in the many “how to” books of our current day, helpful as some of them may be.


I was fortunate to have just such an opportunity for intuitive observation of children in the early 1960’s. It was this experience that led to my initial attraction to Montessori’s ideas of education and an understanding of the importance of independence in early childhood. I was a young mother of four children under the age of six– and in my twenties in the late 1950’s – when suddenly I found myself totally overwhelmed by the very life I had dreamed of having since childhood. How could this have happened? I was in complete shock. I knew how hard my parents had tried to be the best of parents, and I had done everything that was asked of me from good grades in school to social expectations. What could have gone wrong? Hence, began a long journey of self-reflection and understanding.


The opportunity to see Montessori’s approach to independence for children in action was a key part of that learning process. I was able to witness for a full school year the opening of a Montessori classroom for three to five year olds taught by an experienced teacher who happened to be in France just before the outbreak of World War II and had attended lectures there by Dr. Montessori herself. Miraculously, I saw these little children choosing their own work, putting it back, calmly and peacefully going about their uninterrupted morning with minimal adult direction.


Subsequently, I learned that visitors from all over the world had come to Rome from 1907 to 1913 to see Dr. Montessori’s original classes of young children, first with children of poor and illiterate parents but almost immediately with children from wealthy homes as well. These visitors reported their astonishment as they watched these children quietly choosing their own work, being kind and helpful to each other, and above all, calm and at peace whether: gardening, preparing hot lunch, serving each other with tureens of soup, and even learning to combine sounds and letters, numbers and one to one counting, thus becoming literate and numerate all by age six or seven.


Even more amazing, in these early classes in Rome--as in the classes I eventually observed in Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1960’s--the children’s willingness to struggle, their self-motivation and energy when dealing with mistakes and accidents, their matter of fact attitude about them, their lack of dismay or discouragement, universally impressed those who came to see them. By 1913 Montessori had published her first book on what came to be called the Montessori Method and established her first International Training Course in Rome with participants coming from over thirty countries.

Visitors to our classes at Forest Bluff School today see the same phenomena as in those early days and ask the same universal question of those first visitors: “But how do the children know what to do?” We have come full circle to the young child’s plea, “Help me to help myself ” and the older child’s plea “Help me to think for myself.” The goal of our Parent Child and Continuing Education Series for parents is, in part, to help our parents at home to meet these needs of their children for eventual independent action and independent thought in their lives as adults.


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Forest Bluff School graduates perform a song onstage at their high school talent show.

Montessori Graduates Shine in High School Talent Show

By Margaret J. Kelley • May 19, 2025
I attended the Lake Forest High School Talent Show for the first time in February (2025). I’d been interested in it for years—watching talented young people with the courage to perform before a crowd is one of my favorite things to do. But it wasn’t until this year, when a friend with a child in the talent show actually procured tickets for me that I finally got around to going. The show runs three nights in a row, and we attended the second night. I brought my own ten-year-old daughter who has a special interest in singing and performing with me. As we settled into our seats and watched the show begin to unfold, I was struck by three things, in quick succession. First was the positive, welcoming community that made up Lake Forest High School (LFHS). There were cheerful parents working the concession stand and selling raffle tickets. There were enthusiastic teenagers, gathering in groups and excitedly finding their seats. Second was the immense array of talent already apparent just a few acts in—The MC’s who entertained the audience with skits and banter between performances, the pit band who played a variety of songs during downtime, the entertaining short videos that interspersed the live performances, and, of course, the extraordinary talent of the participants themselves. We saw various bands, a pianist (“And hockey player!”, more than one person pointed out to me) whose fingers flew over the keys, two girls who tap danced across the stage to Hamilton, a young woman who belted out an opera song that almost took the roof off the school, and many other incredible feats of talent and courage. Third, and most personal for me, were the Montessori alumni I saw that night. They were scattered throughout the crowd, supporting their peers. I saw the dark french braid of a sophomore who I’d known in the Young Children’s Community at Forest Bluff School. I noticed the wide smile of one of the most cheerful Primary students I’d ever known, and I overheard the happy laughter of a confident sophomore who’d graduated from eighth grade and was now surrounded by new friends. But the Montessori alumni who struck me the most that night were the Forest Bluff graduates I saw on the stage, participating in the talent show itself. There were three young women—a sophomore assisting with the live production, a junior who performed as a drummer in two acts and the pit band, and a senior who performed in several acts and served as the stage director for the entire production. These students are all markedly different in their temperaments and talents, and were supporting the show in vastly different ways, but they were all integral to the performance. They were all contributing to the experience for hundreds of students, parents, and community members, sharing their work ethic, skills, and inborn strengths. Two questions began to form as I watched them work together to create this two and a half hour feat—How did Montessori play a part in what these students were able to do tonight? And—How was Montessori able to serve these different young women in ways that allowed them to find their roles in the same shared experience? Fortunately for me (and for you!)I know all three girls personally. I reached out to them individually and asked them if (in exchange for a coffee or tea of their choice) they’d be willing to sit down with me to tell me more about what they did for the show, what the experience was like for them, and what role Montessori had played in preparing them for this work. They all responded quickly and cheerfully—happy to discuss their experiences with the LFHS talent show and their Montessori education.