Maria Montessori, May I Have a Word With You?

The toothpaste bandit struck again last night.

This time, the toiletry of choice was liquid soap.

I thought I heard the little V-meister in the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning, but, having conducted a midnight raid earlier in the evening, I was just too bone tired to get up and investigate.

This morning I awoke to liquid soap smeared all over the bathroom floor and fixtures. There were other giveaways: one very slimy soap dispenser and a soap saturated wash cloth that had been employed in a foolhardy attempt to clean up the crime scene.

Turns out that a toothpaste fetish is not the issue. Nor is it liquid soap.

No, it appears there is a specific phenomenon among Montessori school initiates characterized by a driving need to indulge in household rituals involving fragrant gelatinous substances under cover of darkness.

The P-dog found out about it during his Montessori information course for parents last night. (I would be attending, too, if it weren’t for the fact that my absence at Lithuanian choir practice would cause the soprano section to fall apart entirely.) It seems that some of the little V-meister’s Montessori pre-school cohorts are displaying similar behaviors in their respective homes.

(What else did the P-Dog learn? Only that our children might as well have been raised by a pack of wolves, so ass-backwards is our parenting style.)

But we are lucky by comparison.

The V-meister’s class boasts not only a couple of toothpaste and liquid soap bandits, but also a ketchup bandit (There but for the grace of God . . .)

You see, there is one entire part of the Montessori curriculum entirely devoted to practical skills. The classroom is a pre-schooler’s dream come true, complete with authentic, child-sized household implements and an environment in which children are encouraged to practice the tasks of choice to their little hearts’ content.

They get to polish their own shoes, prepare and eat their snacks on Wedgewood china, spray and wash the classroom windows, build stuff in the workshop using actual nails, comb and style their hair at a little vanity table, and sweep and polish floors. That is, when they’re not busy learning theoretical mathematics, of course.

Naturally, the desire to replicate these new found skills in the home environment is overwhelming.

But some of the childrens’ mamas are neurotic control freaks who would rather gouge their own eyes out with an ice pick rather than allow their children to have free reign over the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

These children must engage in secret midnight missions to satisfy their squeezing, pouring, and smearing needs. It seems the occasional toothpaste tasting I was kvetching about the other day is just a by-product. You’re busy rationing it out into Dixie cups, you get the midnight munchies, what’s to stop you from having a berrylicious taste?

I’d like to have a word with Maria Montessori.

I’m a fan of her educational philosophy, but I wonder if she had children of her own?

The Rimarama household is going into full lock-down mode this weekend. But once the little V-meister has mastered these charming household tasks and can be trusted to perform them in a responsible manner, I’m putting her to work.