Welcome to the OB Montessori 50th anniversary LLSD exhibit

Tomorrow, Aug. 19, will be the official opening of the Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development (LLSD) programs of the five Operation Brotherhood Montessori schools to the public to celebrate the 50th OB Montessori anniversary. The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2016-2030) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG 2000-2015). Also known as “UNESCO 30 Sustainability Agenda,” it is the UN’s call to all governments of the world to instill “lifelong education” for economic sufficiency.

Dr. Maria Montessori’s birth-month is August so it is just fitting to acquaint all visitors, including local government personnel, school heads, parents and teachers with the Montessori system that conditions children to work independently. The Greenhills headquarters at #3 Eisenhower corner Annapolis streets in Greenhills will feature the students at work from preschool, elementary school and professional high school (junior and senior level).

The Greenhills tour agenda

Each of the line managers will lead a group of visitors to five major sites of the building complex. On the ground floor are the offices of the cashier, registrar, environment care (ECO), clinic and warehouse adjacent to Bistro Sta. Ana where students work. You will also find here most of the 23 holy monuments, which represents the different aspects of education. Most of them are the works of Pempe Floriano, the “artist in residence” guided by mystic Punay Kabayao Fernandez from 1970 to 2000. He is a UST Fine Arts graduate from a family of sculptors. He is psychic and gifted not only in carving wood but in painting.

In front of the school are: The Temple Shrine of the Holy Family – Jesus at 12 preaches to Pharisees and scribes in the temple of Jerusalem. St. Joseph and Mother Mary proudly stands by Him. It symbolizes the good and hypocritical members of society. The Lord of Love on the Horse Tempo – The lieutenant of God the Father, creator of heaven and earth is mounted on a pedestal with symbols of justice, ark of the covenant, defense, music, Mother Earth, etc. Angelique Victoria covers the eight-story college building on the left of the façade with the motto “ad dolore as gloriam” (from pains to gains) while on the other side the sculpted Greek Vestal Virgin nurturing a flame signifying “We are the keepers of the flame.” Each child holds the flame of God which will light the destiny of the nation.

The Grotto of The Lord of Sacrifice and Our World Mother both sitting on a bench with hands upheld in bless, facing the courtyard where students assemble. It is meant for people of different faiths. On top of the grotto is the Angel with the Pointing Hand. The flaming sword held by her right hand is the badge and talisman of power, love and courage to achieve the highest ideals of life.

The Mothercraft Literacy House. This is a typical barrio hut furnished with the necessary living, dining, and bedroom equipment. Through the regular household items, the mothers are trained on Personal Grooming, House Keeping and Child Care, which is convertible to backyard businesses.

Ristorante La Dolce Fontana. The mural of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Claire took a whole year to do in 1990. About a meter high on the restaurant wall are 200 animals that customers’ children delight in, several showing mother with their young. The Good Shepherd carrying a staff and holding a lamb close to His chest mystically appeared on top of the golden unicorn horn. San Francesco and Sta. Chiara are painted three times.

The healing room of the Lord of Love and Compassion and Our Lady of Hope and Liberty are on the second floor. They beckon us to lift our hearts and mind to heaven with prayers. She wears the Star of David and holds the lotus symbol of our spiritual unfolding. Her power rod sends healing energy.

The tour continues on the second floor, occupied by preschool classes and the Publication, Executive, Personnel, Purchasing and Finance offices. Academic coordinators for all levels keep office also here next door to the Guidance Office.

The third and fourth floor are occupied by the primary and intermediate grade school with the former holding a library of 23,000 books for all levels. On the fifth floor are the High School Computer and Science Laboratories. This includes tissue culture activities), Café Lycee, OB Montessori Child and Community Foundation Office. The newly constructed sixth floor has the Training department with the Cosmic Science and Math Curriculum exhibits. Two well equipped kitchens including a demo lab for well-known chefs are used for Culinary and Food Technology courses.

Two rooms on the seventh floor contain Costumes and Props that provide the needs of our yearly theater spectacles held in the eighth floor Maria Montessori multi-purpose auditorium. The art museum of Philippine paintings and the Band Room are also here. The new Senior high School classrooms are on the seventh floor.

Unlocking the immense treasures of humanity through the Montessori movement

On Feb. 3, 1930 Maria Montessori had been TIME’s cover girl. They recounted that, “the young woman who showed up at the new housing project in the slums of Rome one day in the early 1900s was supposed to be more than a medical advisor for the children of the tenants. But as soon as she saw her little charges, she knew that she would have to be a good deal more than that. The 60 children were bedraggled and a restless lot, ‘naughty because of mental starvation.’ There and then, physician Maria Montessori decided to give them a whole new type of school.” Within a few short years, the article underscored, the Montessori method became “the talk of educators all over the world.”

Maria Montessori felt increasingly the burden of a responsibility that could not be evaded. She felt the duty of going forth as an apostle on behalf of all the children in the world, born and as yet unborn, to preach for their rights and their liberation.

Some of her friends and relations counselled prudence. “Prudence,” says William Blake, “is an ignorant old maid courted by incapacity,” but incapacity was never a characteristic of Montessori then or at any other time. The spirit of the pioneer was strong in her. She resigned her university lectureships and had her name removed from the list of practicing physicians. Her mother, Renilde with deep intuitive faith in her daughter’s mission, approved of her decision. As before, the event justified her intuition. From that time onwards, Maria Montessori was able to support herself and those dependent on her chiefly through the training of teachers in her method, and to some extent also from the royalties of their books.

Like Christopher Columbus, a Spanish navigator, who discovered the “World Without” (The Americas), Maria Montessori discovered a “World Within” – within the soul of the child. Montessori had the rare ability to arouse great enthusiasm in her followers – a great gift but not without its dangers. Many who tried to set up Montessori Preschools lacked the training. Unless one is acquainted with the Montessori principles and practice, he or she will not be capable of igniting the independence of preschool children.

She was an effective liberator of mankind. She represented Italy at a feminist congress in Berlin, championing the cause of working women. In 1900 in a similar congress in London, she attacked the use of child labor in the mines of Sicily. In response to this Queen Victoria patronized the Montessori movement.

Scientists inspired Dr. Montessori, not educators

Unlike Friedrich Froebel, Dr. Montessori was inspired by the research of unknown specialists. The Spanish priest, Fr. Pereira, the French scientist Itard, and his protégé Seguin, specialized on the experimental treatment of nervous diseases of children. Dr. Itard looked after the education of the boy of Aveyron, who grew up in the wilderness. She designed and ordered self-teaching devices to develop the child’s independence in the movement, the sharpening of his senses and eventually the gradual introduction to the three R’s (reading, writing, arithmetic) and other cultural pursuits. Like Montessori, Pereira (1751-1780), Itard (1775-1838) and Seguin (1812-1880) were not educators but scientists.

Unlike the unfortunate children who Dr. Montessori had to energetically persuade to use the materials, the normal children worked spontaneously with them. She discovered that children possess different and higher qualities than those we usually attribute to them. It was as if a higher form of personality had been liberated, and a new child had come into being. The “new child” as seen through the eyes of Maria Montessori revealed hidden treasures as: an amazing mental concentration, love of repetition, love of order, preference for work instead of play, obedience, no need for reward and punishment, lovers of silence, refusing sweets, explosion into writing and reading.

A universal appeal of the ‘new children’

From the very beginning, as soon as the visitors began to appear on the scene, Montessori was impressed by a remarkable fact – the universality of the appeal, which was made by the life and behavior of the “new children.” By this we do not mean simply that people of all kinds of views were impressed by what they saw. It was much more than this. To use Montessori’s own words, it was because each visitor seemed to find there the “embodiment of his own ideals.” A famous politician even remarked, “Here we see discipline through liberty.”

At a Socialist Congress in Berne it was proclaimed that “to be educated according to Dr. Montessori’s method is one of the social rights of man.” A Catholic priest wrote, “The humility and the patience of the mistress in the Children’s House the superior value of deeds over words; the sensorial environment as the beginning of the life of the soul; the silence and recollection obtained from the children; the liberty left to the child’s soul in striving after perfection; the minute care in preventing and correcting all that is evil, even simple error, or slight imperfection…”         During the past forty years, Montessori principles have been applied by persons of all kinds of religious beliefs, and of none – by Catholics, Mohammedans, Buddhists, atheists, etc. From this, it is quite clear that Montessori principles are based on fundamental characteristics common to all types of humanity.

From the very beginning it is noteworthy that people of discernment recognized in Montessori’s experiment an event of great significance. Queen Margherita said, “I prophesize that a new philosophy of life will arise from what we are learning form these little children.” The head of a religious order, after visiting the schools said, “This is a discovery, which is even more important than Marconi’s.”

The Montessori 50th anniversary exhibit is launched from SY 2015 to 2016. Group tours of the school are welcome through reservation. Please call OBMC Greenhills, 7220019 / Sta. Ana, 5635356 / Las Piñas, 8203011-12 / Fairview, 4617773-74 and Angeles, (045) 3040965 or (045) 6261148 for reservation and inquiries.

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