Many traditional educational settings, and adults, view discipline as something that comes from external sources and is imposed upon an individual.
Montessorians believe that discipline comes from within the individual and that it is born from meaningful experiences carried out in a well planned environment (for classroom discipline and management). Hand-in-hand with discipline comes normalization.
Normalization is a key concept in the Montessori Method and is truly what the adult seeks to help each child achieve so that they may continue down an obstacle free path and develop their mind and personality as intended by nature. This is a transformation so powerful that it can even transform the adult within the child’s environment. If all environments were normalized there would be no need for divisive behavior management techniques, cajoling and threatening (eg: authoritarian leadership) on the part of the adult and time could be better be spent on allowing children to achieve their construction of self, especially during the first plane of development, ages 0–6.
Obstacles to normalization fall under four categories for a child; those that happen prenatally (eg: fetal alcohol syndrome), effects of the time and space which the child is born into (eg: war torn areas, poverty) those from within child (eg: illness and structural defects to the brain) and from the adult (eg: parenting style, lack of knowledge about development). These obstacles can cause deviations in the child. These deviations are not “evil” in the sense of good and bad, they are like ruts in the road that keep the child from taking the best path to the formation of a healthy, normalized adult. If the experiences happen during the first plane of development, when the power that is the absorbent mind (with its ability to take in the totality of an experience) is active, these deviations can become a permanent fixture of the character, or permanent as an inability on the part of the child. This is especially true as the doors to individual sensitive periods start to narrow when the child ages (the child who is not given opportunities for movement during the sensitive period for movement may have later complications eg: the current correlation between ADHD and children with weak spinal muscles from lack of prone positions at an early stage in development. Their deviation is then the amount of energy drawn towards keeping the child upright instead of processing higher order functions).
Montessori classified children into two categories: those who were “weak children”, usually passive children who submit or surrender to the obstacles, are whiney or clingy and at the farthest end of the spectrum lie or steal (passive defenses) and those who were “strong children”, usually aggressive
children who resist obstacles, prone to aggression, fighting and defending themselves. A weak child may combat an obstacle such as abuse or poverty by becoming withdrawn, non-talkative. A strong child may combat the same obstacles by becoming aggressive, lashing out at the surrounding environment. With these obstacles there could be the feeling of hopelessness, which could become a deviation such as the inability to read because the child sees no reason to try. The belief that there is no hope is a self-constructed barrier in response to what feels like an insurmountable obstacle and eventually there is a lack of trying which leads to an inability. These obstacles could also cause the child to splinter from reality into a fugue of fantasy, a constructed mental environment made by the child as a form of escape.
When a child is received into the Casa (a Montessori Primary Class for ages 3–6) the goal of the guide is to help children navigate through the collective stage of the community, when deviations may be present, towards normalization. The end goal of normalization is achieved through freely chosen, purposeful work, done by the hands, using real objects that create an unification of physical and mental energies. This unification is known as concentration and it is exhibited by a focused attention with control of movement both in body and hands, a repetition of the work with growing exactness and precision until the work is perfected, bringing pleasure. The pleasure for the child does not come from a “perfect” completion of the extrinsic physical work, but from some part of an intrinsic formation of self (a mind, body, spirit connection) which has been met and brings a sense of release.
In the end regardless of the obstacles to normalization that a child may face, the sooner the child is within a normalized environment, the easier it will be to heal the deviations that are present. Both strong and weak personality types can, when exposed to self-directed, hands on experiences of real materials leading to concentration, establish self-discipline and social discipline, two outcomes that will create an obstacle free path down which the child can further develop their mind and personality.