Inner Peace

What does it mean to be at peace with yourself? We looked in a previous post at Maria Montessori’s desire to achieve world peace through education.  Today we will examine how inner peace plays a role.  While global citizenship and social justice are certainly major components to the Montessori method, peace education must inherently start with inner peace.

When Montessorians say inner peace, we mean both the ability to regulate and express one’s own emotions, and also a degree of self-assurance, self-confidence and self-love.  Being human is messy and even when we want to be peaceful, we slip up sometimes.  Inner peace includes allowing yourself to make mistakes and learning how to make things right.  This is hard enough to do as an adult– but with intention and practice, we can instill these skills in even the youngest children.

One of the main ways we develop inner peace with our students is through practicing the skills of emotional regulation.  In my classroom, we do a lot of breathwork.  I have a basket on my peace table of felt shapes representing different breathing exercises– flower breath, rainbow breath, bear breath– that the children can practice.  By practicing these in the moments when children are calm, it makes it easier for the children to access these tools  in moments of dysregulation.  

I can tell this is working when the children begin reminding the adults around them how to navigate their emotions. Recently I was struggling with hanging something in the classroom, and said aloud “I’m frustrated!” One of my 3 year old students responded, “You should take a deep breath and ask for some help.”

We also practice peaceful conflict resolution in Montessori classrooms.  Through repetition and practice, children develop the abilities to communicate their feelings, assert their boundaries, and ask for what they need to make it better: “Please don’t bump into me. Next time give me more space.” or “I’m angry that you knocked my work over. Please help me clean it up.”  This creates a classroom culture of accountability, kindness, and consideration of everyone’s needs.

Everyday at line time, children in Montessori classrooms play the silence game. In my class we call this “making silence.”  And yes, every single day, my group of rowdy, curious, rambunctious preschoolers will sit and calm themselves and collectively sit in silence with their eyes closed for a full minute.  Sometimes there are giggles and wiggles to be sure.  But every day, I remind them that they can block out distractions and focus on the peace within them.  I also remind them that they have this ability to create silence and stillness within themselves, and that they can do it whenever they need to find some calm.