Grace & Courtesy
As we've mentioned before in this blog, Montessori is full of jargon and sometimes seemingly antiquated terminology that does not do justice to the activity involved. One prime example of this is "Grace & Courtesy" lessons. This wonderfully old-fashioned title belies its relevance to children today.
Grace & Courtesy lessons teach social skills - important knowledge, abilities and self-discipline children need to navigate social spaces and situations. Put simply; manners.
If we want our children to be helpful and respectful, how do we teach this?
As parents and teachers we quickly come to realise that we cannot tell a child to do one thing and expect them to do it when we instead do something else. Children notice immediately when our words do not match our actions as Under Fives are particularly attuned to this in order to acquire all learning through observation - so we must role model the behaviour and language we want children to acquire. Grace & Courtesy helps the Montessori teacher achieve this.
Grace refers to physical skills for social situations or specifically in the Montessori environment. For example: how to carry a chair, how to roll a work mat, how to carry a tray, jug or sharp object like scissors, how to cough or blow your nose, or how to turn the pages of a book.
Courtesy refers to language skills for social interaction. For example: how to greet someone, how to say excuse me, how to introduce yourself, how to interrupt politely, how to offer help, or how to express your admiration for someone/something.
Grace & Courtesy lessons are role-play groups led by a teacher. Each lesson isolates a particular positive behavior the teacher wishes to model. First the teacher invites particular children to join them for a group. Children are never forced to join - this would be counter productive because the child's own interest is the motivating factor for their learning, so they have to want to be a part of the group. Our experience tells us that children almost always want to join in! Once the children are gathered sitting on chairs in a circle, the teacher will introduce the behaviour and explain its importance, for example how to walk around a work mat. The teacher will explain that to ensure we do not disturb a friend's work or damage the materials they are working on we must take care always to walk around a work mat on the floor, never across it. Then the teacher will roll out a mat on the floor in the middle of the circle of children, and invite them to watch. With elaborate care she will place her foot just beside the rug with every step she takes. Each time she comes to a corner, she will accentuate going all the way around and not cutting the corner by stepping over it. She will then announce, “Now you know how to walk around a rug”. After the children have watched this role-play demonstration then each child gets an opportunity to role-play and repeat walking around the mat themselves.
Without this one skill, children who know no better would blunder into and across each other’s spaces, causing disturbance and hurt feelings. Being a group activity, we can teach the children how to function in the ways we wish without shame or blame; accentuating the positive rather than reprimanding. If after this Grace & Courtesy lesson the teacher sees a child in excitement or forgetfulness run across another child's mat she will approach them quietly and ask "Do you remember when I showed you how to walk around a rug?” Often this is all that is required. When on the rare occasion children are seen to be acting deliberately disrespectfully, a different approach may be needed to help them calm down and try again.
If the lesson is something that requires two people, e.g. shaking someone's hand to greet them, then the teacher may invite an older more experienced child to help them. Having an older friend involved in the group is often of immense interest to the younger children and helps them concentrate. Equally, the older child gains in confidence from demonstrating their mastery of the activity to their younger friends.
The magic of Grace & Courtesy is that it does not just result in a calm and purposeful classroom, but also the children gradually build the social skills of a well-mannered society, helping them be kind and compassionate members of that society.
