There are key times in children’s lives when they can consolidate emerging parts of themselves before moving into a new area of growth and change. Three significant times of change for young people are around age six, around age twelve, and around age fifteen, the Kindergarten, 6th-grade, and high school freshman years. Both biology and Montessori theory offer insight into why these are significant times in children’s lives.
Montessori’s Planes of Development
Dr. Maria Montessori believed that children’s work is to construct the adults they will become. This is really important work! Adults can support children’s self-construction, but not do it for them. Children can accomplish self-construction through their activities and interactions with the environment.
Dr. Montessori’s observations of this self-construction led her to develop a theory of four planes of development. When looking at children’s development from a scientist’s point of view, Dr. Montessori found that development did not occur steadily but rather occurred in phases or planes. Dr. Montessori considered that the change in children, as they moved from one plane to another, was so profound that it resembled a rebirth.
Each plane or phase of development lasts for approximately six years: infancy (0 to 6), childhood (6 to 12), adolescence (12 to 18), and adulthood (18 to 24). The turning point around age six is when children move from infancy into childhood, around age twelve they move from childhood into adolescence, and around fifteen young adults feel more settled, stable, and confident in themselves.
Biological Changes
Biologically, considerable hormonal changes are happening during these two transition times in children’s lives. While our society generally recognizes the biological shifts as young people move into adolescence, we are less well-versed about what happens in our six-year-olds.
It doesn’t take much, though, to realize change is afoot! Think about what we see in terms of dramatic physical changes around age six: their teeth start to fall out, their hair gets coarser, they lose that baby-soft skin, and they become leaner and lanky. Similarly, our twelve-year-olds are on the brink of adolescence, another period of dramatic physical growth and change. Our fifteen-year-olds are learning who they are as individuals and crave social independence.
However, there can be a gap between these physical signs of maturity and the cognitive and emotional development happening for our six-year-olds and twelve-year-olds. Often children at these ages are moved too quickly into an environment that doesn’t meet their needs and doesn’t honor the internal growth that still needs to occur. When this happens, they lose the environmental stability that allows them to develop a deeper sense of self-confidence and to truly consolidate the intellectual and emotional skills they have been developing over the previous years.
Capstone Years at Wheaton Montessori School
We recognize the importance of these transitional years and intentionally design our classrooms to support our students during this time. The six-year-olds and twelve-year-olds are the oldest in our Primary (Preschool and Kindergarten) classroom and Upper Elementary classroom respectively and fifteen-year-old freshmen are the oldest, by design, in our Adolescent Community. They know the routines and expectations, they have secure relationships, and they get to help others who are newer to the classroom communities.
Because they aren’t trying to assimilate into a new environment, our six-, twelve-, and fifteen-year-olds can serve as leaders for their mixed-age classrooms. They can focus on challenging work and big personal achievements. By being with their younger classmates, they can see where they have grown up and how they got to where they are now.
These are the capstone years, the final piece to complete the critical building-up that has been happening during the previous formative years. The level of mastery allows our six-year-old, twelve-year-old, and fifteen-year-old leaders to integrate their social, emotional, and intellectual selves.
During these capstone years, children gain a sense of self-confidence and self-satisfaction from successfully navigating the bigger projects and bigger conversations. The younger learners in the classroom communities are working toward these capstone capabilities and admire the oldests’ social, emotional, and academic strengths. All of these realizations are within a community of adults and peers who have shared their learning experiences over several years.
By having the opportunity to integrate their learning in a safe, stable, and secure environment, our young learners can do their important work of self-construction.
Wheaton Montessori School’s carefully designed programs meet each child’s age-specific needs and follow the stages of development identified by Dr. Maria Montessori which research keeps confirming. Completing each program’s cycle is ideal for the development of the person.
It is never too early to start planning for the next stage of education for your family. Schedule a school tour by clicking this link so you can observe the significance of these capstone years at Wheaton Montessori School.
Current families are invited to schedule their classroom observation by clicking the green buttons below. See how these capstone years are displayed among our students and you are always welcome to level up!
