How Does Montessori Build Empathy?

One of the many things that I still love about the Montessori pedagogy, even after all these years, is the natural way children get to experience, become comfortable with, and build empathy.

The ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of others requires opportunity. The opportunity to share space with various people of various backgrounds and ages, the opportunity to explore and feel out new feelings safely, and a safe space to express them. The Montessori environment offers this kind of opportunity in every way.

How does the Montessori pedagogy and Environment support the building of empathy exactly?

We create a safe space of respect and encouragement.
We see the children as they are: new, younger, less informed versions of ourselves. We understand they do not know what they do not know, and it is our responsibility as their guides in this world to help them navigate through all the various experiences. We do this by removing any shame from interactions, encouraging the children to name their feelings (and helping them find those names when needed) to communicate them, and give them the space to express their thoughts, feelings, and needs.

We model expectations.
Every piece of the environment or classroom is prepared to reflect respect and empathy. This is part of what is meant by the term "Prepared Environment." Everything from the child being invited to a lesson rather than simply being "instructed" at adult dictated times, how the lessons are presented, keeping in mind and respecting the child's developmental needs, individual needs, and considering their abilities, and how the adults model the way we physically move about the classroom, how we interact with one another and meeting each other where we are.

Children are invited to lessons so that they can feel the excitement of learning something new and so that the adult can be sure that the child is truly ready to receive the lesson - able to focus, ready to move away from what they are currently doing, and able to be a willing participant so that the information is truly taken in.

Lessons are presented slowly (I always say as if we are moving underwater) to allow the child to soak in every aspect. The lessons are presented from the child's viewpoint, at their eye level, with tools built for their use (size, weight, shape, and feel), and the lessons are presented when the child is truly ready to receive the information.

Adults model empathy by always following the same rules, expectations, and boundaries as the children. Yes, sure, there are things only a teacher can do. Still, we ALL walk with care, we all use kind words even when we are angry or frustrated (yes, teachers feel those feelings too sometimes), we all treat the environment (nature, but also chairs, tables, and works) with respect, and we always treat each other with respect.

We offer authentic independence to the child.
Not only are the children independent in their choices - what work to choose, where to work, and with who to work with, they are the independent of correcting their mistakes. For example, even at the toddler age, when a child bumps a table and spills water from another's work, the child has the opportunity to independently, and without shame, help correct the mistake. By having access to cloths to clean the spill, the child can apologize for and wipe the spill. The adults have modeled how to respond by using words like "oh you bumped the table, and that made Johnny's paint water spill. Let's help him by wiping it up." or modeling for the child whose work was spilled "yes, Alice bumped your table and spilled your paint water. That's really frustrating. She can help by wiping the spill." Or even taking it a step further and offering, "Alice, is there anything else Johnny can do to help you get back to work?" And no matter what that may be, whether refilling the water or simply giving space, Johnny has the ability to do both. He has access to water to refill the water independently, and he has the space to move away and the independence to choose his own work.

Montessori environments offer Mixed - aged classrooms.
Because the classroom environment has mixed ages, it is natural there are mixed levels of ability and skill mastery. This allows the older children that have mastered many functional independence skills to help the younger ones still refining their mastery. We often see the older children recognizing frustration in their friends and helping to zip a coat or assist with putting shoes back on, reaching for something out of reach, writing a friend's name on their work, or sometimes just lending a hand.

This allows the older children to flex that empathy muscle and the younger to see it in action. This real-life in real-time unprompted engagement goes such a long way to really solidifying the positives of putting yourself in other's shoes, of taking the time to imagine what it might feel like because we have all been that younger friend at one point, the friend that hasn't quite mastered the ability to pinch the zipper tab while also pulling it up, or maneuvering our foot into the ever-elusive shoe, or trying so hard to reach for something so close yet so far, or not quite having the pencil grip to have mastered the control of movement necessary to write one's name, or just needing a hand to get back up.

The Montessori Environment really is a microcosm of the real world. This one happens to have highly trained adults available as guides.