However, you are undeniably creative; you simply haven’t been blessed with the opportunities to unleash that ability or even realize your own creativity.

Human history began the moment someone shattered a stone to craft a hand axe. That, in and of itself, is truly the history of creativity.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Use your hands and think deeply. That is what true intelligence is.

Yati
This episode’s theme is creativity. I’d like to start with a definition: what is creativity? I think when most people hear “creativity,” they picture something like art.

Hiro
First of all, creativity is something we’re born with. It’s innate.

Yati
That sounds connected to the Montessori idea that children are born complete. So what do you mean?

Hiro
The way I see it, creativity is the hand. Humans are born with hands, so our very existence is creative.

Yati
You mean making things with your hands?

Hiro
I mean the hand is a tool for manipulating the environment, the world outside yourself. You act on the environment, and the environment comes back to you as a different environment. To get a little technical, there’s this thing called a “symbol.” Say there’s a stone lying here. Just by shifting this stone a little, the environment changes. If the stone was blocking some water, now the water can flow through. If there’s wind, the way the wind passes changes. Maybe a little bird was sitting here, or an earthworm was resting underneath. Maybe a centipede was resting there. Maybe someone would have tripped over this stone. Maybe the sunlight casts a shadow there. Even a single pebble is an environment.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
So a stone is, in the end, a symbol. We name it “stone” and say, “This is a stone,” but strictly speaking, it’s a mineral, right? And “mineral” is also just a name, a symbol. Depending on its composition, there’s mica, metamorphic rock, basalt, all kinds of things. If you look closely, there’s zeolite, quartz, and so on. But we lump them all together and call them “stone.” We call a hard lump of elements a stone. So what do you call water droplets falling from the sky?

Yati
Rain.

Hiro
Right, we call it rain. There’s big-drop rain, small-drop rain, all kinds, but we lump it all together and call it rain. In the same way, we treat the things we manipulate as grouped-together symbols. This is epistemology, the study of how we know things. In computer science and interface design, it’s the most basic of basics, and it’s the most interesting part of the study of software.

Yati
That’s interesting, but how does it connect to the idea that creativity is manipulating the environment with your hands?

Hiro
This might be more about intelligence than creativity. Intelligence means being able to act on things, affect the environment, and remake it into the environment you want. Here’s something interesting from recently: cows use tools too. People thought cows didn’t use tools, but they do. For example, they’ll push a fence with their nose and move it aside a little. And they use that to be mean to sheep and such, like blocking them so they can’t get through. They do things like that.

Yati
That’s pretty smart.

Hiro
Having intelligence ultimately means being able to manipulate an object so that it has the effect you aimed for, so the environment becomes what you intended, and actually getting that effect.

Yati
Recently, there was news of exactly that, a cow using a tool. The cow used the two ends of a deck brush differently to scratch its body. Cows have even been potty trained, and one of the people who trained them said, “People tend to think of farm animals as dirty and not very smart, and that affects how they’re treated. If people realize these animals are smarter than we thought, maybe they’ll care more about treating them better.” That reminded me of when Maria Montessori discovered a new picture of the child. The point is to respect that both children and cows have intelligence.

Hiro
Right. It’d be great if pasture raising became the norm.

Yati
That was a bit of a tangent, but back to animals using tools. To give the scientific side, there are three conditions for something to count as tool use. First, the tool acts as an extension of the animal’s body. Second, the tool makes possible something that would be very difficult without it. Third, the animal orients the tool so that it does its job. That’s why things like a crow using a stick to pull bugs out of a hole, or a monkey cracking nuts with a stone, are recognized as tool use. And you were telling me before about an interesting study with chimpanzees, right? The one about using tools in two stages.

Hiro
Yes. In the first stage, they put a banana just barely within reach of one stick, and first have the chimpanzee do a test where it can get the banana by using the stick. Then they put the banana somewhere one stick can’t reach, but two sticks could. If the chimpanzee does what it just learned, it can’t reach. So what does it do? It figures out that joining the two sticks together lets it reach. But if you skip the first stage and only give the second stage, they can’t solve it.

Yati
So they just go, “Can’t reach it,” and give up.

Hiro
But the ones that have succeeded once can get there.

Yati
That’s fascinating.

Hiro
It’s like the experience of success lets them apply what they learned.

Yati
So is that what creativity is? It’s not necessarily about making something.

Hiro
Right. For humans, the most controllable tool of all is the hand. A cow can only shift a fence. Pigs and wild boars dig holes with their snouts, and dogs and beavers carry things in their mouths, but the hand is by far the most free. What is the hand? It’s an externalized brain. Using a tool with your hand is a two-stage task.

Yati
Thanks to our hands, we can use all kinds of tools as if they were extensions of our own bodies.

Hiro
And what I was getting at is that there are symbols, and computers let us use a GUI, a graphical user interface. For example, there are icons like the trash can, or folders. A computer works through a repeating cycle: you click on something, you get a response, and you act on it. Click a file and it opens. Move a file to the trash and it’s thrown away. What you’re doing is changing the environment inside the computer depending on what action you give to an object.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
But what’s actually happening inside is just zeros and ones being processed as pipelines and calculations. We use metaphors to bundle it all up so it’s easy for humans to understand, so everyone can operate it without getting lost.

Yati
To sum up so far: the hand is the source of creativity. Nobody really thinks about it, but by manipulating outside things, our hands remake the environment. And that same thing now shows up inside computers too. That was the analogy.

Hiro
Exactly. Originally, computers used a command line interface, where you typed commands. So only programmers could use them. Then they became graphical, with things represented on screen. You could see icons for files and folders, open them, and work with them. That was the evolution. From there we went from the mouse to touch, and then to voice.

Yati
And now in the age of AI, we’re kind of going back to the command line, aren’t we?

Hiro
Yes. We went from the command line to graphical and now back to the command line. AI generates and edits text at incredible speed, and basically we operate it through chat, which means through commands. That’s the same as how early programmers used to have something like a conversation with the computer through commands. You write a program, compile it, and the results come back as text too. You read that and program again. It was basically chatting.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
Now AI can understand and speak human language, and people say it’s gained intelligence, but this isn’t real intelligence. Today’s AI is an extremely good autocomplete, but it’s not intelligence. Intelligence is when, through experience operating on things, you get better at operating, and you become able to make a better environment. Through lots of trial and error, you get better and better at making a better environment. And an environment that’s only good for you doesn’t count. It has to be good for all kinds of agents, meaning good for other people too. When you think about it, that’s what truly wise people are like in human society. People who can create a good environment not just for themselves but for those around them and for others, those are the wise ones. Someone who builds an amazing environment just for themselves isn’t called wise.

Yati
Right. And that’s true of other living things too. If you trace the history of life, like the Timeline of Life in elementary Montessori, amoebas, insects, small animals, birds, microbes, they’ve all been shaping and improving the environment. And among them, humans, with our hands, can affect the environment the most.

Hiro
To give the scientific side, there’s a theory called cybernetics, developed by Norbert Wiener. Basically, it’s about how to get machines to behave like living things, and the answer is to loop behavior through feedback control. In other words, the results of what you did come back to you, and that changes your own behavior and improves it. Then you act again, and feedback comes back again. The cycle keeps going around and around. By repeating this, you learn through trial and error. Ages 0 to 3 are exactly that period of trial and error. Kids try lots of things, and if adults get in the way at this point, creativity gets lost, or rather, basic intelligence doesn’t develop. Movement and the senses don’t fully develop either.

Yati
So everything 0 to 3 year olds do day to day is connected to creativity, in the sense of manipulating the environment.

Hiro
You often see little kids pouring a drink, like juice, from a big container into a cup, spilling a lot, but somehow managing to pour it and drink it themselves. In Montessori, they do this themselves with a pitcher and a small cup, but I don’t think other kinds of education talk much about why that matters.

Yati
Right. And no other approach thinks of something like that as creativity, either.

Hiro
People call things like making something out of clay, or art, or building something in the sandbox, “creativity.” But bringing the water you want to drink, pouring it yourself, and drinking it yourself? I think that’s really creative.

Yati
And from there, after pouring for themselves, they learn to properly prepare drinks for other people, carry them on a tray, lay a place mat on the table and serve, or arrange flowers. That’s usually not considered creative, but it’s incredibly creative. The tables of creative people are so well arranged and beautiful. Every single detail is in high resolution.

Hiro
What’s fundamentally different is that they’re enjoying it. First, they enjoy pouring their own drink into a cup, and they’re using their hands. Holding the cup properly with both hands. They enjoy using their hands in the first place. So maybe enjoying using your hands is what being creative is.

Yati
That’s an interesting definition. Just like when kids paint or make clay art, we should respect the creativity in pouring water into a cup and watch over them.

Hiro
It’s hard to get anything right on the first try, isn’t it? You find your way while trying things out, like “No, that’s not it.” So “trying” really matters. It’s where creativity starts. If you’re not allowed to try, creativity never begins. That also means being allowed to fail, and having your will respected. It also means having your human rights properly recognized.

Yati
Here I want to add a word of caution. I think there’s a misunderstanding about creativity. In Montessori, we’re taught not to intervene if a child is doing something from a good motive, and to intervene if not. For example, if a child is holding a serving spoon differently from how it was shown, but they’re trying to serve rice, we don’t intervene. But if they’re squishing the rice into a mess and playing with it, we do. Some people see that as sensory exploration or creativity, but I don’t think it’s creativity, because its effect on the environment isn’t a happy one.

Hiro
So you’re saying define creativity in more physical terms. Simply put, creativity is syntropy, the opposite of entropy, creating order. Increasing syntropy. In other words, locally reducing entropy. How’s that?

Yati
That’s very physical. Basically, it’s putting things in order. That fits the earlier example of setting the table too.

Hiro
So physically, making a mess is easy, because entropy, the scattering force, is at work across the entire universe.

Yati
Like the example of pouring into a cup.

Hiro
Leave it alone and it spills. This suddenly gets into philosophy, almost cosmology, but everything in this world is dynamic. Nothing is fixed. In this world, if you leave things alone, any ordered state gets broken down. That’s the physical principle at work in the universe, and putting things in order is incredibly hard.

Yati
So being creative was about putting things in order. What Steve Jobs did was creative because he was putting things in order.

Hiro
The iPhone, the iPad, and the MacBook let you handle huge amounts of information with little cost and little energy.

Yati
This is going to sound really harsh, but preschools and schools are losing to entropy, and they’re becoming less and less creative.

Hiro
What is real education? It’s improving intellectual ability. “We’ll look after your kids while you’re at work” is childcare, right? That’s babysitting, not education. That’s getting swapped out more and more. It’s being replaced. What used to be education is turning more and more into babysitting.

Yati
What do you mean by improving intellectual ability?

Hiro
Purely learning about the universe’s physical laws through your own trial and error, and deepening your understanding of the universe based on what you want to do. For example, say you’re learning about fish, and you spend a 50 minute class period with a textbook and pictures drawn on the blackboard.

Yati
Use the real thing already, right?

Hiro
Catch a real fish, hold it in your hands, dissect it yourself, and you go, “Oh, so that’s how it works,” or “It’s slimy and gross,” or “But the insides are actually kind of beautiful.” You make so many discoveries in a short time.

Yati
Schools used to do dissections. They’re losing to entropy.

Hiro
It keeps moving toward less and less hands-on experience. People give all sorts of reasons, like not having money, but not having money is itself a case of losing to entropy. For example, in a cold region like Iwate, in northern Japan, it used to be normal for school PE to say, “Let’s ski during the winter,” and now they don’t ski. And in summer, kids used to swim in the ocean, and that became the pool. In Japan, most public schools have their own pool.

Yati
And now there’s no money for upkeep, so when the pool breaks, that’s the end of swimming class.

Hiro
Inquiry through hands-on experience keeps disappearing.

Yati
The elementary school in our neighborhood used to have a garden that was like a little zoo and botanical garden, and now it’s been completely torn down.

Hiro
In the past, families took care of chickens, horses, or cows at home, right? Now you can only do that if you go to a farming school. And lighting fires, too, you used to be free to have a bonfire. People did it in their yards whenever they liked. But that got banned too, all of it. Nowadays many parks in Japan ban ball games, so you’re not even allowed to play baseball in the park. Like this, if you leave things alone, nothing stays real. The system collapses. Things drift toward the easy way, the easier way, toward doing nothing. Everyone should know that if you do nothing, entropy makes things scatter and break down.

Yati
These days, about the only place you can have a bonfire or ride a horse is inside a video game.

Hiro
Exactly. And in response, saying “Yes, we’ll do a botanical garden,” “We’ll go skiing,” “We’ll dissect fish,” “We’ll go to the ocean,” “We’ll make salt,” saying yes, let’s do it to everything, that’s our school, Polymath School. While the existing education system keeps breaking down, we’re trying to take back everything educational that it has lost. So yes, we’re creative. Guilty as charged.

In this episode, we discussed how to make an Earth history observation kit, which is perfect for Cosmic Education in Montessori. We hope you’ll get hands-on and try making one for yourself!

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Hands-on recreation of how the Earth was formed.

Yati
For ages 6 to 12, I’d like to introduce how to make an “Earth Pod,” which we’re practicing at home. Simply put, an Earth Pod is a large planter with various plants growing in it. The concept is to observe an ecosystem.

Hiro
First, get a pot. We use a big commercial planter, about 60 liters, but it doesn’t need to be that large. Around 20 liters should be enough. For soil, get pumice, the drainage stones for the bottom of pots, plus akadama, a red granular clay soil used for bonsai, and dark, humus-rich topsoil.

Yati
Just those three.

Hiro
Seal the bottom of the pot so soil doesn’t leak out. Then layer from the bottom: pumice, akadama, topsoil. Get a sapling from a nursery and plant a tree. Place it in the center of the pot after adding a good amount of akadama. A small tree is fine, like a little blueberry. Any fruit tree you like.

Yati
Something edible. A Japanese pepper tree or a lemon tree would be nice too.

Hiro
Those get quite large. Start small, and figure it out yourself. Any deciduous fruit tree works.

Yati
After placing the tree, add the topsoil. Why do you layer pumice, akadama, and topsoil from the bottom?

Hiro
This mimics Earth’s soil layers. In soil science, they’re classified as A, B, and C horizons. Soil is earth that contains humus, which allows plants to grow. People call Martian material “soil” too, but without humus, plants won’t grow.

Yati
What’s humus?

Hiro
Remains of past organisms decomposed by microorganisms. That’s what makes the topsoil dark and rich.

Yati
And the akadama?

Hiro
Akadama doesn’t contain much humus. It’s accumulated volcanic ash. Pumice is weathered rock. Let me talk a bit about chemistry. There’s nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, used for stem growth, fruiting, and root development respectively. Magnesium, calcium, and carbon are also needed. These are abundant in the topsoil and supplied from there. You might wonder, “Don’t we need fertilizer?” or “Don’t we need potting mix?” The answer is no.

Yati
Why not?

Hiro
Potting mix has nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium pre-mixed in large amounts. That’s not natural. In nature, fungi and microorganisms fetch what’s needed. For example, legumes have root nodule bacteria in their roots that fix nitrogen. Nitrogen fixation means converting atmospheric nitrogen gas into bioavailable ammonia that can be used in the soil.

Yati
Since 78 percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen, rather than adding ammonium nitrate as fertilizer, it’s better to have microorganisms near the plant take it from the air.

Hiro
Exactly. Nitrogen is essential for growth, for humans too, and for all kinds of organisms including microbes. Microorganisms and fungi bring it and make it usable. In return, plants give them sugars produced through photosynthesis.

Yati
When making bread or yogurt, you add sugar for yeast or lactic acid bacteria. Plants do the same thing in nature.

Hiro
But when humans ignore this process and add fertilizer, microorganisms stop working, and problems arise.

Yati
Like the human supplement problem. Your body can make vitamin D naturally, but when you take it as a supplement, you can end up with too much, and that causes problems. It’s the same with folate during pregnancy. Folate matters, but it’s become almost automatic to tell every pregnant woman to take synthetic supplements, and we strongly disagree with that. You can’t solve everything with a pill. The vitamin A in supplements isn’t the same as the carotene in vegetables. Your body converts only as much carotene as it needs, but supplement vitamin A goes straight in, and too much of it can harm a baby. It’s better to improve your diet and get these from natural foods, like plenty of vegetables and seaweed.

Hiro
Adding fertilizer causes excess of something, so insects come to break it down. Cabbage and leafy greens get ravaged. By giving unnecessary things, that part becomes weak, and insects can see it, so they come to eat it all.

Yati
And instead of stopping fertilizer use, people use insecticides. We talked about that in our episode for ages 0 to 3.

Hiro
Some argue that without fertilizer, you only grow tiny vegetables. That requires some study.

Yati
We actually tried it, and we grew a really tiny watermelon. Can you really grow things large without fertilizer?

Hiro
The point is, if the soil’s microbial network isn’t active, it can’t fetch what’s needed.

Yati
So if only small vegetables grow, the soil’s microbes aren’t connected yet?

Hiro
It’s not that they’re not connected. There just aren’t enough. Low quantity, low diversity. Like how a small village doesn’t produce big tech companies.

Yati
And it takes years to increase them. People can’t wait, so they add fertilizer.

Hiro
But if you keep doing that, microbes will never increase, and you’ll have to keep adding fertilizer forever.

Yati
Many places are already dependent on fertilizer. Can they really change?

Hiro
You might think you have to endure in the short term, but there are ways to avoid that. It’s a trade secret, so look it up yourself. There are methods to activate soil microbes and speed up their establishment. We experienced this early on with our Earth Pod.

Yati
Back to making the Earth Pod. I forgot to mention planting various seeds and seedlings around the tree.

Hiro
It would be great to find seedlings grown without pesticides.

Yati
You plant about ten times more varieties than people expect. There’s this image of monoculture, planting just one type in a field, evenly spaced as the seed packet instructs.

Hiro
Ignore the packet instructions. I’m not sure if we should call it “synecoculture,” growing many species together like a natural ecosystem, but there’s monoculture and polyculture. Modern agriculture is based on monoculture. But planting massive amounts of a single crop leads to enormous environmental destruction.

Yati
It’s shocking.

Hiro
In nature, this is abnormal. If one species takes over, something’s wrong. Normally, many things grow. If you went to a forest and only one plant grew there, that would be abnormal.

Yati
This connects to Montessori education. Mixed ages, and the more diversity the better.

Hiro
Self-organization happens there. When self-organization occurs at the ecosystem level, that’s a natural forest. Animals too, from small to large, and microorganisms. How has Earth developed? Various species emerged, all cooperating, eating and being eaten. Predator-prey relationships formed, and that’s how we got here.

Yati
Right.

Hiro
In the Cambrian period, there was a time when species diversity exploded. Why did the Cambrian explosion happen? This is just my personal theory, but I think it’s because predator-prey relationships emerged. What I mean is, when eating-and-being-eaten relationships form, like A eats B, but B eats C, relationships become incredibly complex. If you think about it in terms of logical structure, it’s the same as the explosion of language. There’s “you” and “me,” self and other. First, what is self? What is other? Then there’s the self within the other. Then, “The other will think this, so I should do that.” And the mind becomes increasingly complex and develops. What’s happening is that you simulate the other’s mind to understand yourself. Take it further: the other within yourself within the other’s mind. Logical structure becomes more complex through nesting.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
If you study computer programming or mathematical logic, you’ll understand. When this happens at the biological level, organisms became able to express incredibly complex forms.

Yati
Like the mitochondria in our cells, which were originally separate organisms that were incorporated.

Hiro
Yes. There’s talk of viruses as another domain of life. Cells may have acquired nuclei by incorporating viruses. Life has always been about eating and being eaten. If you view eating-and-being-eaten negatively, it’s killing and being killed. But it’s incorporation. Living things, if they’re eukaryotes, have DNA. Seen as a programmatic act of incorporating DNA into yourself, it’s just nesting.

Yati
That’s an interesting way to think about it.

Hiro
Plus, from mouth to anus, it’s like a pipe, with things temporarily staying in between. We call it digestion. Breaking down, extracting ATP and energy in mitochondria, aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration. People think all organisms have stomachs, but some don’t. Carp and goldfish have no stomach. Stomachless fish.

Yati
Straight to intestine.

Hiro
So there’s no stomach digestion. Eat and excrete. No stomach acid. Carp eat anything, but they’re not tasting it, just passing it through. By human standards, lots of things can’t be explained. But at this logical level of eating and being eaten, nesting structures, and logical structures, you can treat plants and animals equally, and the microbial world equally too. So imagine you’re a god, creating single-celled organisms, then multicellular organisms, then mammals, insects. How do you make all these emerge? What would you do?

Yati
That’s tough. Just allowing DNA to take various patterns isn’t enough, right?

Hiro
I can’t think of any way to increase diversity other than creating nesting relationships. Rather than lengthening the DNA chain, I think the concepts of parasitism and symbiosis are necessary.

Yati
Mitochondria come from the mother. Nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Two different DNAs coexist within us.

Hiro
So there’s the “endosymbiotic theory,” the idea that chloroplasts and mitochondria became symbionts within cells, which was the origin of complex cells. It was proposed by Lynn Margulis, a female biologist.

Yati
She’s like Maria Montessori. Intuitively sharp.

Hiro
But at the time, Darwinism was dominant in the scientific community. “No way,” people said. She was attacked harshly. But eventually, biology changed. Endosymbiosis was proven correct. Such organisms were actually found. A bit of trivia: Lynn Margulis was the ex-wife of Carl Sagan, the astronomer and physicist, who also wrote science fiction. A genius.

Yati
Ex, though. Like Maria Montessori, maybe she had some punk-rock, intense personality.

Hiro
Women really do pick fights and change things. Maria Montessori picked a fight with the education world and changed it. Lynn Margulis picked a fight with the biology world and changed it.

Yati
I need to pick a fight with something.

Hiro
Right. I’d like you to pick a fight with mathematics. That’s what Buckminster Fuller’s synergetics is about.

Yati
We should also mention Rachel Carson. Silent Spring really is arriving. We’re recording this while driving to a big farm near us, and you can see cows grazing and running around.

Hiro
There’s a Japanese method called yamachi rakuno, where cows graze freely on mountain pastures of native grass, around the clock, all year round. Look it up for details. Calves can run around, race down slopes, play. Their legs get strong and healthy. That’s the essence, I think, for children’s environments too. Current Montessori education has been optimized for how to make children smart and healthy indoors. But where have cows lived? How have they lived? Not indoors. Would living indoors from now on make cows happy? Definitely not. The same applies to humans. Have people always been shut inside buildings? No. We adventured to various places, traveled, and came back. So that should be the standard for how children spend their time and learn. If you regularly talk with children about things like the Cambrian explosion, they’ll naturally become smart even if you give them freedom every day. So it’s not about materials. It’s about culture. Freedom and culture.

Yati
Maria Montessori said similar things. She said ironically that schools need museums. So the point is: try working with a real Earth Pod. We should clarify: “Don’t do this to harvest vegetables or fruit. Do it to cultivate and observe an ecosystem.” Even when aphids or insects come, don’t use chemicals. Just watch.

Hiro
Right. A pod for cultivating ecosystems, not crops. A kit for observing Earth’s history. Food chains form on their own.

Yati
Also, since you plant various seeds, different sprouts emerge, and it’s fun to research what they are.

Hiro
Please plant seeds from various families, like the nightshade family, the daisy family, and the bean family. Look at field guides, research characteristics, and you can have a Linnaeus-like experience, the botanist who classified plants. From there, you’ll become interested in what things are, on roadsides and in parks. Also, in 6 to 12 there’s a material called the Timeline of Life for learning life’s history, but the microorganism section is really weak. Japan had Kumagusu Minakata, a naturalist famous for his research on slime molds, who published more solo papers in Nature than anyone. Experiment with microorganisms in your Earth Pod and have a Minakata experience. Enjoy getting into slime molds.

Yati
And it’s nice to harvest too. The taste of no-fertilizer, no-pesticide cherry tomatoes or edamame from the Earth Pod is completely different. For us, having herbs readily available was great. At first, I worried when my younger daughter kept picking herbs, but picking them actually makes herbs stronger and they grow more.

Hiro
I don’t want to give away too much, but this principle applies to all plants. When you pull weeds, keeping what you need and pulling the rest, the weeds get stronger and grow back. You’re doing the opposite. It’s better to take just a little of what you need. Herbivores eat just the tops, the tasty parts, and leave the rest, and that actually becomes good stimulation for the plant. A little stress, and the plant puts down deeper roots and tries to grow more.

Yati
It really is the opposite of textbooks. Instead of every kid growing the same bean sprout in a cup, people should try growing 10 or 100 varieties. We look forward to hearing about your Earth Pod experiments.

Furthermore, if expensive Montessori materials are reimagined into activities where children craft the tools themselves, the cost of materials becomes zero while simultaneously elevating the quality of the learning experience.

In this discussion, we explored a bold idea regarding an “outdoor Montessori” approach—one that challenges the trend of education becoming increasingly indoor-focused as modernization progresses.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Stepping outside brings a sense of freedom.

Yati
For ages 3 to 6, I’d like to introduce “Nature Game.”

Hiro
Okay.

Yati
First, some general background. Nature Game is what Japan calls Sharing Nature, a nature-experience program developed in 1979 by American naturalist Joseph Cornell. The goal is to fully engage the senses, enjoy nature, and feel a sense of unity with it. There are all kinds of games, about 180 currently. Cornell, the founder, says things like “share rather than teach,” “guides should be receptive,” and “experience first, explanation later.” That’s pretty close to Montessori education.

Hiro
Oh, I see.

Yati
Cornell developed his own learning theory called “Flow Learning.” It has four stages that naturally guide participants into deeper experiences: first, awaken enthusiasm; second, focus attention; third, offer direct experience; and fourth, share inspiration. It’s been called one of five outstanding educational theories, alongside those of Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, and Howard Gardner.

Hiro
You really have to experience it to understand. What I want to say about Nature Game is that it’s brilliant game design. You might think, “What’s fun about Nature Game?” Even hearing explanations or watching it, I’m the type to judge things by information, so I used to think, “What’s the point? You’re just playing with nature.” But when I participated through my daughter’s preschool, I thought, “This is beautiful as game design.”

Yati
Right.

Hiro
For example, in a forest or a park with some plants, you collect fallen leaves and sort them by shape. It’s surprisingly fun.

Yati
You never paid attention to the leaves lying around, but when you look closely, you notice all kinds of things. Also, if you take black cardstock with just circles and squares cut out and stick leaves on, then hold it up to the light, and it looks really beautiful.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
We also did a game where you have ordinary flower beds, and artificial objects are hidden among them. You look carefully and count how many there are. Insect figurines, a CD, a toothbrush hidden in there, and you don’t notice at all. You realize how much you think you’re seeing but aren’t.

Hiro
You realize how little you actually observe in nature. Your observation skills improve.

Yati
You can do this at home too.

Hiro
As I always say, Montessori education is optimized for how to spend time inside a school. It doesn’t consider how to spend time outside the school. That means it doesn’t consider how to spend time at home. “Home Montessori” advice comes from Montessori school directors and the like. The only people who can truly speak about Montessori education at home are those who did Montessori only at home, not people running schools. People who focus on the home.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
On the other hand, Nature Game was designed around how to help people notice various things in nature. I want children to notice many things, but I don’t want to do it through instruction, by teaching knowledge like “This ant does this” or “This plant is like that.” I want them to use their five senses. I want to draw out their sense of wonder.

Yati
Rachel Carson.

Hiro
I want children to enjoy nature through their own senses. I want them to love nature. So Nature Game is actually like outdoor teaching materials. Don’t you think?

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
Montessori’s sensorial materials and geography are actually connected to this too. Montessori activities all start from the senses. But children aren’t aware of that. The puzzle they’re doing sensorially turns out to be a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. So misguided Montessori teachers use that as a selling point: “This is actually a proof of the Pythagorean theorem.” But that’s not the important part. That comes later. The child being absorbed comes first.

Yati
Right.

Hiro
This applies to the binomial cube, the trinomial cube, everything. They’re artificial, but experiencing mathematical beauty indoors with blocks is considered Montessori’s essence. Nature Game is outdoors, with the real thing. No craftsman made it. Nature produces it. The shapes, colors, smells of plants are produced by nature. So it’s far more Montessori-like. This is what we’re aiming for. This is what Polymath School’s 3-to-6 program is modeled on.

Yati
So the question is: how can we use real natural objects like in Nature Game to do indoors what Montessori education does with senses, math, language, and culture?

Hiro
And I think the default should be outdoors. Basically, spending time in nature is less stressful. There’s a hormone called cortisol that rises with stress, but doesn’t it go down when you’re in nature? In cities, the common idea is that you’re always inside buildings, stress builds up, so occasionally go outside to refresh. But I think the reverse is better: normally spend time in nature-rich places, and occasionally go indoors to a library, sports hall, playroom, café, restaurant, to cook. After all, that’s how human history has been. Being indoors all the time is historically abnormal. [laughs]

Yati
As we talked about in a previous episode, time spent outdoors is really decreasing due to climate change and infectious diseases.

Hiro
Historically, humans spent most of their time outside. Farmers are probably the ideal. They basically work outside all day. Rain or shine, they work outdoors, in sheds connected to the outside, the boundary between inside and outside is blurry. Not always inside or always outside, but crossing the boundary back and forth. So I think the modern idea that “being indoors is normal and being outdoors is abnormal” is itself abnormal.

Yati
Since moving to the countryside in northern Japan, we’ve been doing indoor things outdoors. Taking a laptop to a big farm nearby to work, spreading Montessori materials in a park, cooking and eating outside. It clears your mind, and you want to spend more time outdoors.

Hiro
Please join a local Sharing Nature group. And what I want to emphasize is the name we use in Japan: it’s not “nature education.” Not a nature education group, not nature education, not nature learning. It’s Nature Game. A game. I want to stress this. If you approach it with the adult mindset of “Nature is so wonderful,” it becomes a nature education meeting. It becomes a nature tour, a nature guide. But from a child’s perspective, they don’t want to hear that. It’s boring. Being talked at about things they’re not interested in is boring.

Yati
Maybe that’s why our Scientific Montessori articles don’t get read much. [laughs]

Hiro
Adults don’t know this, but children want to discover things themselves. That’s why games work. That’s why calling it a “game” is important. Children who’ve drifted far from nature will probably say, “This is boring,” right away when they go to Nature Game. That’s because they’ve been watching YouTube or immersed in fantasy worlds, and that’s concerning. Anyway, as an interaction with nature, or really with the universe, Nature Game is a wonderful opportunity.

Yati
I’d like to hear more about applying Nature Game to Montessori education.

Hiro
I’ve been thinking about how to create an indoor version of Nature Game. I think it might lead to an evolved Montessori education without materials. For example, pick up tree branches outside and sort them.

Yati
You won’t find branches conveniently lying around.

Hiro
Oh, you will. What’s fun about the experience is that you start by searching for suitable branches. That’s interesting. Then you realize branches are really bent, broken, thin, thick. You notice that first. Then somehow you gather 10 branches of similar thickness, similar feel, differing only in length. In Montessori, that’s sold as a ready-made product.

Yati
The red rods set costs a few hundred dollars.

Hiro
But in a forest or nature-rich area, children can make it themselves for free, from stuff lying around. Their own materials. With variations, too. Next time, find 10 branches of the same length but different thicknesses.

Yati
That’s interesting.

Hiro
The sets have many variations, and that’s actually learning the math concept of sets, as in set theory.

Yati
But can you really prepare an environment where such perfect branches are available?

Hiro
Leaves work too. Big leaves, small leaves. You can line leaves up from smallest to largest. All you need is something you can put in order.

Yati
There are activities that use color tablets to sort fallen leaves by color. Nature Game has similar activities.

Hiro
What I’m saying is that expensive Montessori materials can be replicated for free with the same effect. In fact, doing it yourself for free lets you reach deeper concepts. A 3-year-old can understand the concept of sets. A little Bourbaki at three, like the French mathematicians who rebuilt math on set theory.

Yati
Have you actually tried this?

Hiro
Yes. At Polymath School, with a child from our 3-to-6 program, we walked around a pond near our school and incorporated Nature Game elements, collecting fallen leaves and asking, “Are there any the same color?” Ultimately, if the adult working with children truly understands the essence of mathematical concepts, you can create play from things lying in nature or free pebbles, and through that play, children unconsciously notice and discover mathematical concepts.

Yati
The other day, I was wondering how to measure the volume of a rectangular block. I ended up using Archimedes’ principle with a digital kitchen scale, a transparent container, tongs, and water, and measured it accurately. Measuring the block with a ruler gave 3 by 3 by 6 centimeters, which is 54 cubic centimeters. I placed the water-filled container on the scale, held the block with tongs, submerged it in the water, and the weight showed 54 grams, matching the volume. The trick was subtracting the tongs.

Hiro
I see.

Yati
And about buoyancy, when my older daughter was in the bath, she picked up my younger daughter and discovered, “Wait, why is she so light?!” If adults don’t understand things well themselves, the textbook just becomes the teaching material, and they can’t recognize everyday things and phenomena as the same concepts.

Hiro
Now that it’s winter, Polymath School has more indoor activities, and we’ve been using materials. But honestly, it’s not that interesting. If adults find it uninteresting, children certainly do even more.

Yati
That sounds like it could be misunderstood. The children do enjoy and concentrate on the materials. But Polymath School’s usual outdoor activities are so free and fun that compared to that, indoor activities still need to evolve.

Hiro
Polymath School’s free-range style means being under the blue sky, freely racing on balance bikes, throwing balls far, playing frisbee, climbing high hills. You don’t feel that sense of liberation indoors, that satisfaction.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
We need to evolve the materials. So I’m thinking we should go to the mountains, collect branches, do campfire science. At a ski resort, there’s lots of snow, so you can make whatever you want. Last time, at our cooking club at Polymath School, we made snowmen and snow huts outside. The kids wanted to make a snowman with three snowballs. Head, chest, belly. “It’s like an insect,” we said.

Yati
3D sculpture is fun.

Hiro
Snow is convenient. You can make all kinds of things. Sculpt freely. And sledding down slopes is fun and a physics experience.

Yati
That connects to calculus too.

Hiro
So I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with the idea that using Montessori materials indoors is what Montessori education means. I think what Maria Montessori was talking about was much broader. One more thing I want to point out: in early Montessori photos, activities are all happening outdoors. There’s hardly anything done inside. They’re in outdoor plazas, spreading out something, maybe a rug, and doing activities there.

Yati
A quick search brings those up. Photos of children at tables on grassy areas, doing activities. They look so joyful. I love those photos.

Hiro
It’s a complete contrast to conventional education. Doing Montessori activities outdoors is important. We’re still in the experimental stage, but I think the future of Montessori education lies in this direction.

Yati
I agree. Though I do want to gather all the materials. [laughs]

The issue of our collective survival—the key to sustaining Earth’s civilization—lies right beneath our feet. It is about restoring soil health, expanding biodiversity, and strengthening ecosystems.

Yet, we cannot learn how to do this through compulsory education or university curricula. This is not found at the far end of hyper-specialization, but rather in a philosophy of nature-based management reached through becoming a true “polymath.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

We are kept alive by invisible relationships.

Yati
Today’s topic is “nature education.” We’ve talked before about the importance of touching real nature, but Montessori education doesn’t stop there. That’s what sets it apart from other approaches. I wanted to summarize that here.

Hiro
Don’t start a fight with Steiner education, or Waldorf education as it’s known in some countries, right off the bat. [laughs]

Yati
[laughs] In Montessori education, we discuss macro perspectives with children: the cosmic view, the planetary view, and across time, what happened long ago and how things evolved. I’d like you to organize that for us. You’ve been talking recently about “global collapse,” but it’s an unfamiliar term, so please explain.

Hiro
There’s a book that recently came out called Extended Ecosystems. It’s by someone named Funabashi, whom I’ve been following on my own. He’s a researcher at Sony’s lab. Early in the book, he points out that everyone says, “Save the Earth,” but the Earth isn’t the one that needs saving. The real question is whether humanity can be saved. It’s civilization that needs rescuing. In other words, in the discussion of environmental protection, subject and object are reversed.

Yati
So it’s not us saving the Earth, but whether the Earth can save us. The Earth itself won’t break?

Hiro
Right. Looking at Earth’s history, it’s been turbulent. There were periods so hot that rocks melted, and periods when everything froze into a snowball, completely iced over. Through all that, we arrived at the present. Even if you set off tons of nuclear bombs and weapons, the Earth won’t break. It just becomes a planet where life can’t survive. So “war” is humanity’s collective apoptosis. We’re just destroying the civilization we built ourselves. And that includes ecosystems.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
So humanity’s ultimate question is: Can we save ourselves? Can we sustain civilization? That’s point one. And ecosystems are what matter most. But most people don’t really understand what “ecosystem” means.

Yati
True. What is an ecosystem?

Hiro
Wherever there’s life, an ecosystem always emerges. You don’t create it intentionally. It forms on its own. And without an ecosystem, life cannot survive.

Yati
Can you give a concrete example?

Hiro
Say a honeybee stings and kills some king. The king’s people declare it a terrible crime and decide to kill all the honeybees. Then they themselves die afterward.

Yati
Because without honeybees, there’s no pollination. Nothing bears fruit, and food disappears.

Hiro
So if you remove something quietly supporting an established ecosystem, you eliminate the ecosystem, and all living things are affected and can’t survive. Everyone thinks, “I earn money through my own effort,” but at the very root of economic activity is the ecosystem. For example, we talk about primary and secondary industries, but there’s actually a zeroth industry that no one talks about, and that’s the ecosystem.

Yati
“Zeroth industry” isn’t a common term.

Hiro
I made it up. Polymath Research terminology.

Yati
So recently, the zeroth industry, the ecosystem, is breaking down, and that’s affecting primary industries.

Hiro
Right. Salmon aren’t returning upstream. Seafood can’t be caught near Japan’s coasts. Kelp can’t be harvested. It’s all starting. Even shiitake mushrooms. In Japan they’re grown outdoors on cut logs from trees like sawtooth oak, and now those logs are becoming unavailable. Rice yields are down too. When ecosystems are destroyed, it massively impacts our economic activity, and only then do people finally notice.

Yati
That ecosystems are important.

Hiro
And we’ve been ignoring them until now. Treating them as if they didn’t exist. We farm however we like to maximize profit. For example, the amount of rice a given paddy can produce is determined by ecosystem function. There’s an ecological limit. To exceed it and harvest more, people add chemically synthesized fertilizers: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Pushing things that hard leads to disease and increased insect decomposition. Then they apply chemicals. They’re called “pesticides,” but essentially, you’re spreading poison. Insecticides. When you say “pesticide,” it sounds like you’re applying something good for plants. But “insecticide.” Doesn’t that sound off-putting?

Yati
It is. Food sprayed with insecticide.

Hiro
But without insecticides, you can’t get enough rice anymore. That’s how degraded the ecosystem has become.

Yati
A dire situation.

Hiro
There are several pesticides, or really insecticides, and neonicotinoids and pyrethroids are especially toxic. Because they work so well on insects, they’re used on rice, fruit trees, and all kinds of crops. The harm isn’t being publicized at all. Especially in Japan, people don’t know. The herbicide glyphosate is also terrible.

Yati
Studies in Science and Nature have shown that neonicotinoid pesticides have fatal effects on honeybees, and some researchers point to them as a cause of developmental disorders in humans. In response, Europe has banned them, but Japan has actually loosened regulations. Usage keeps increasing year after year. Why is this happening? Why isn’t it known?

Hiro
Because advertisers shape what gets covered. It’s never covered on TV. The sponsors are the big companies that make and sell these products. They run commercials, so the media never reports it. Plus there’s school education. It’s truly terrible, teaching lies. They say fertilizer is necessary. “Plants need sunlight, water, and fertilizer.” That’s false. This knowledge comes from organizations like Japan’s national farm cooperative, which also sells the agrochemicals it researches. Their research assumes pesticides and fertilizers are normal. That’s how wrong information spreads. It’s not scientific. The correct statement is: “Sunlight, clean water, healthy soil with diverse microorganisms, and organic exchange with insects, birds, and other living things.” If you’re fine with abnormal plants, maybe the textbook definition is okay. But healthy natural plants don’t need added fertilizer. Microorganisms bring what’s needed. There’s a network for that.

Yati
After being so thoroughly educated, believing that scientists and research institutions wouldn’t do bad things or tell lies, it’s full of realities that are hard to believe.

Hiro
We really live not knowing so many things. And the greatest ignorance? A poor understanding of ecosystems.

Yati
Even adults and experts don’t understand. Ecosystems aren’t even included in compulsory education. Why not?

Hiro
Because it requires speaking comprehensively. It involves plants and animals, climate, atmosphere, element distribution, water cycles, rock cycles, all kinds of planetary science. In other words, it’s polymath in nature. Montessori’s six to twelve elementary curriculum does cover it properly, but conventional education can’t handle it.

Yati
You mean ecosystems can’t be studied by extracting a single part?

Hiro
You can’t extract parts. If it were a matter of “matter,” you could just look at matter. But it’s not about “matter.” It’s about “relationships.” The essence is in the relationships. Synergy.

Yati
Because it’s about relationships, ecosystems are invisible. “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Hiro
Yes. It demands imagination. And right now, ecosystems are deteriorating more and more. When ecosystems deteriorate, ecosystem services decline. To put it simply: when a town becomes depopulated and shrinks to a village, services get worse, right? Administrative services. This is the nature version.

Yati
Schools close, infrastructure can’t be maintained. And many organisms are facing that kind of problem.

Hiro
So many living things. Insects, fish, birds. These are creatures humans often dislike. We’re alive because of them. Mole crickets, water striders. Even the creatures nobody sings about. Everyone is needed, everyone matters.

Yati
So we really have been supported by the zeroth industry. Like a pyramid.

Hiro
No, it’s not a pyramid. Thinking of it as a pyramid prevents you from understanding the essence. Everything is interconnected.

Yati
Not a pyramid. A network.

Hiro
The essence is in the relationships, not the matter. It’s not that a place becomes rich because some great person is there. It becomes rich because there are many diverse connections.

Yati
I see. If you understand this through nature from an early age, you realize everything works that way. If you understand humans as a network too, everything is connected, so instead of blaming someone, you need to look at the whole.

Hiro
Right. When people say “nature education,” they tend to extract elements, like “Let’s study birds,” and specialize. But if you treat nature as nature itself without extracting, the basic unit is the ecosystem. The network.

Yati
So you need to be a polymath, not a specialist.

Hiro
Viewed as an ecosystem, you can’t separate things, so you can’t specialize. You can’t treat insects, birds, primates, and plants as separate categories. But what’s strange now is that specialists in “agricultural science” are handling agriculture, which is ecosystem management technology. That’s why things go wrong.

Yati
It really is strange that people at pharmaceutical companies and food safety committees, who don’t understand ecosystems, are making all the decisions about pesticides and fertilizers.

Hiro
Right. If I had to pick the most polymath field among today’s specialized disciplines, I’d personally say computer science.

Yati
That’s surprising. Why?

Hiro
Take complex systems, for example. It’s a research field about complex networks. Thinking about combinations in complex networks basically leads to combinatorial explosion. Even computers hit combinatorial explosion, so humans certainly can’t do better. But thanks to computers, we can handle more phenomena. Through massive records and precise repeated calculations, we can understand multiple individual events as a network. The internet is a network. Without computers, you can’t handle the vast combinations of event networks. And computers are applied to everything, agriculture, nature everywhere. That’s polymath.

Yati
I see. Computer science is mathematical, but it’s applied to so many things. You can’t draw boundaries like “math” or “agricultural science.”

Hiro
So I’m not trying to justify what we do, but since we’ve been working with computers for so long, we generally understand. We can see when people say, “What’s true in other fields doesn’t apply here.” Algorithms that can’t be applied elsewhere, programs without reproducibility, those are just bugs.

Yati
Right. It’s really strange to say something doesn’t apply to other fields.

Hiro
The chemical story being pushed in agriculture, “You can’t grow rice without this medicine,” is wrong. Because in other fields, that thinking doesn’t hold. Debug it properly. Pun intended.

Yati
Stink bugs are swarming, so they spray insecticide on the rice. Then the stink bugs develop resistance, so they need even stronger insecticides, and in that cycle, all life is affected, organisms keep dying, and ecosystems are on the verge of collapse. This direction is clearly wrong. Conversely, if you push in the direction of enriching ecosystems to the extreme, will problems arise?

Hiro
It just gets incredibly rich. [laughs] From Earth’s beginning, there were long periods with no plants or animals. Just single-celled organisms near deep-sea volcanic vents. Now life is everywhere. How rich is that? Without that richness, humans wouldn’t have been born. That’s thanks to ecosystems becoming richer. So what we need to do is, as members of the ecosystem, enrich it further. Through that, let new life forms naturally emerge. Create an environment for birth. Give rise to beings far wiser, kinder, and more loving than us. Not AI. Organic life.

Yati
Is that what “extended ecosystems” means?

Hiro
Yes. It’s the idea: “How can human intelligence enrich ecosystems?” Humanity has never thought this way before. You treat complex things as complex, and they become more complex, but through self-organization, entropy actually decreases locally. Pretty lofty. [laughs]

Yati
It’s getting complicated, so those who are interested should read Funabashi’s book, though it runs to 696 pages. For parents raising children, what should they do to promote correct understanding of ecosystems?

Hiro
Opportunities to touch real nature are essential. Not abstract nature. Not quasi-experiencing nature through picture books or fantasy. Real nature. Don’t leave the soil. Traditions all over the world say that if you leave the soil, you’ll grow into an abnormal human being.

Yati
People demand rice and vegetables that look flawless like industrial products, and they end up being the ones who force insecticide spraying. Japan grades rice by appearance, and when stink bugs suck the juice, about two grains in a thousand get discolored. That alone drops the grade and cuts the farmer’s price, so let’s spray insecticide. That’s an abnormal way of thinking. If you actually touch soil and grow vegetables, your perspective changes.

Hiro
“Live with the soil, don’t leave the soil.” That’s one policy. It’s a problem that people who never received proper nature education complain, hold power, and shape society to their standards. The stink bug problem, and the bears now coming down into Japanese towns. If we leave it to those people, we’ll keep going in the wrong direction. Both are problems caused by planting conifers against nature’s way. After the war, Japan replaced natural broadleaf forests with cedar and cypress plantations, and the animals lost their food. We need to solve that, or we’ll struggle forever.

Yati
At Polymath School of Morioka, we’re starting to keep Japanese honeybees, the native species. By working with the real thing and introducing the research I mentioned, we’re deepening our understanding of ecosystems with the children, along with the taste of real honey, including the problem of bees being affected by pesticides.

Hiro
It’s uncertain whether Einstein really said it, but there’s the famous quote, “If honeybees disappeared from the face of the Earth, humanity would have only four years left.” It’s starting to come true. I want many children to know this. A rich harvest depends on the work of insects.

In the adult world—particularly in sports and business—the “military-style” teamwork centered around a commander has long been celebrated. However, a deep study of Montessori education reveals that there is actually room for evolution here.

In other words, by basing it on the true nature of children who are spontaneous, creative, and self-motivated, a new form of teamwork known as “Montessori-style teamwork” becomes possible. This requires every single individual to be an independent Montessori child.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Teamwork evolves as the prefrontal cortex develops.

Hiro
For children ages six to twelve, I want to talk about teamwork.

Yati
Like how playing team sports builds teamwork?

Hiro
That’s the common idea, but what even is teamwork? I think the current concept of teamwork mostly idealizes the military. If winning the competition is the priority, you end up with an army. An army wins by destroying the enemy army, and that requires discipline. So what’s most efficient isn’t everyone thinking freely. It’s how quickly they can carry out the commander’s orders. Top-down.

Yati
Right. The will of the top reaches every corner. Everyone uniting to follow orders is considered teamwork.

Hiro
It’s the same in business. In Japan, companies model themselves on the Self-Defense Forces, Japan’s military; in Silicon Valley, it’s the U.S. Military style. “To win.”

Yati
School education too.

Hiro
Take baseball. The game design itself is a war simulation. They say “steal a base.” An out is called a “kill.” You “gun down” a runner. Pretty violent language. You disrupt the defense and make it home.

Yati
So it was war all along. The Olympics are called a festival of peace, though.

Hiro
No, the Olympics have come full circle to being a festival of peace. Originally, sports were used to vent humanity’s wild nature. Humans have historically been barbaric, killing each other constantly. In ancient Rome’s Colosseum, people fought to the death. We don’t do that now, but we still enjoy boxing, kickboxing, martial arts. Those count as sports too. The deep emotional part of the brain, the limbic system, is called the reptilian brain. It’s extremely primitive and brutal. Chimpanzees in the jungle are very wild; without a developed neocortex, they’re incredibly violent.

Yati
They fight for dominance.

Hiro
And they have 200 kilograms of grip strength, about 440 pounds. Terrifying. From there, we gradually evolved, developed the neocortex, and suppressed the emotional system. But instincts push back. You want to eat what you want to eat, and you want to kill whoever annoys you. We have that wild side. Sports provide an outlet for it.

Yati
We need to let it out.

Hiro
Sports always have rules. In the human brain, the neocortex restrains the limbic system. Sports simulate this through rules. The rules play the role of the neocortex. In daily life, the neocortex checks social rules and regulates how much we can express our limbic impulses. In sports, it’s done within the game’s framework. In baseball, if you hit someone with a pitch and they retaliate, a brawl breaks out. Everyone has to understand that’s not allowed, or sports can’t function.

Yati
Right. No matter how angry you get.

Hiro
Even when the umpire makes a bad call. Referees are interesting. Team sports always have them. The person who pulls out red cards. In an evolved brain, that referee is always inside you. [laughs]

Yati
The referee in your head says, “That comment would be a red card,” and holds you back. [laughs]

Hiro
“If I say this, maybe I’ll get a yellow card, so let me rephrase it more safely.” “I shouldn’t say anything sexist.” As society evolves, acceptable expressions keep getting gentler. We’re right in the middle of that transition. Actually, pretty far along. People born before the 1990s must have it tough. Yellow cards come out fast.

Yati
There’s a hit TV comedy about exactly that. A man with 1980s values wakes up in today’s Japan and can’t say anything right.

Hiro
Stuff you thought was “no big deal” is now totally out. Political correctness, unconscious bias, compliance. All these foreign loanword concepts keep coming in from Europe. And in Japan we even coined a buzzword for it, futehodo, short for that show’s title, “That’s Too Much!”

Yati
For us in our 30s, who grew up after that shift, it feels like common sense. The world has become much more livable.

Hiro
Nominication, the Japanese idea that you bond with colleagues by drinking together, makes no sense to me. Just communicate normally. “I can’t say anything sober.” I can’t relate at all.

Yati
Just say it properly. Step into the ring and fight fair.

Hiro
If you have something to say, say it. Because they haven’t trained for that, they drink and cause problems. They haven’t been checking themselves against their inner referee, so they make inappropriate remarks, commit harassment. Everything becomes harassment. They act at a level they think is okay, and it turns out to be harassment. They become the emperor with no clothes.

Yati
Young people are really skillful with this. They say what they want without drinking, and it doesn’t become a problem. How did they train?

Hiro
There’s this wonderful system called the internet, and that’s where they trained. The internet connects the whole world, not just Japan. On YouTube, you can watch videos from everywhere. Different languages, English, Chinese, and different cultures. You start to see things in relative terms. Nothing is absolute. That makes you a bit humble. Depends on the person.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
But the generation that watched TV shows constantly telling them how amazing Japan is really believes Japan is amazing. Japan does have amazing aspects, but instead of saying it out of insecurity by comparing to others, I’d rather understand it from a larger perspective, like the role the Japanese archipelago plays in Earth’s ecosystem.

Yati
We got sidetracked, but back to teamwork: you’re saying that teamwork is shifting from using the limbic system to using a bit more neocortex, but isn’t there a kind of “neocortex-centered teamwork”? And sports might evolve along with that.

Hiro
Exactly. At the brain level, everything is built assuming the limbic system is at work. The military model is used as a framework to channel that energy in a good direction while suppressing the limbic system. But flip that around, and it means everyone’s neocortex is underdeveloped. So it’s a model for how to get results from underdeveloped people, a way to unite selfish actors toward a goal. But if individual strength is high to begin with, that’s not needed.

Yati
Keisuke Honda just entered the chat. “Individual strength” is one of the Japanese soccer star’s catchphrases.

Hiro
That’s where the “room for growth” is, another one of his phrases. I think that’s what Keisuke Honda is saying. Each child’s power is the power of the prefrontal cortex. If each person can act autonomously, we can have Montessori-style collaboration instead of military-style. Sports evolve, teamwork evolves, business evolves. That’s why Google feels Montessori-like and fresh.

Yati
It’s very Hiro that when talking about sports and Montessori children, you don’t bring up Steph Curry the basketball player. You start talking about Google.

Hiro
Steph Curry is about exceptional individual strength within the old framework. We’re talking about teamwork, so that’s not relevant.

Yati
So the Google teamwork story. Is it about the two Montessori children?

Hiro
No, no. It’s not just about Larry Page and Sergey Brin, it’s about the whole company. Google basically gathered smart people, mathematicians and physicists with developed prefrontal cortices, prepared the environment, and let them play as much as they wanted, do whatever they wanted. That’s why it made headlines. Offices like that didn’t exist. A playground, unlimited free gourmet food, a gym, nap pods. A dream place. It pulled the rug out from people saying, “You’re not here to play.” Google was saying, “Please come play at work.”

Yati
Everyone aspired to that. There was the 20% rule, about one day a week to work on whatever you wanted. A company that respected autonomy.

Hiro
Apparently that’s gone now. When Google started, Larry Page said, “We don’t need managers,” and abolished managers.

Yati
Wait. No bosses?

Hiro
Right. He said management wasn’t necessary.

Yati
What does that mean? Teams and leaders just form on their own?

Hiro
No. The idea is that managing yourself is the default. In the existing work model, bosses train and evaluate subordinates. Or 360-degree reviews where colleagues evaluate you. He was saying we don’t need evaluation.

Yati
That’s so Montessori. Maybe it didn’t work because not everyone was a Montessori child.

Hiro
Every Friday, at the end of the workweek, Google held an all-hands meeting. So everyone knew the company’s situation, what problems existed, what the bottlenecks were, what people were struggling with. Since everyone understood, people could assign themselves to work, tackle it on their own, clear the bottlenecks, and the company would run.

Yati
Instead of a boss saying, “You do this job,” you decide, “I’ll take that on.” That’s high-level and efficient. But I really feel this at our Polymath School during cooking activities. Kids say things like, “You’re cutting carrots, so I’ll cut mushrooms,” on their own, and they work so fast.

Hiro
Exactly. “This area is messy, so I’ll tidy up.” In Google’s defense, apparently this culture still exists. Someone inside Google said so.

Yati
How do you know someone inside Google? [laughs]

Hiro
You can Google it. What that person said is that their work disappears.

Yati
What does that mean? [laughs]

Hiro
Colleagues just do it. Everyone’s capable, so they finish their own work quickly, get bored playing, and start grabbing colleagues’ work. “I’ll take care of this.” Then your work is gone. So you take someone else’s work, and no matter what position you’re in, everyone keeps getting more free time. It’s futuristic.

Yati
What is this, a new game? A job-grabbing game. But I felt that at our Polymath School cooking session I mentioned. Not just the kids. Parents were thinking for themselves and pitching in too. It was so easy.

Hiro
Right. When a team moves proactively, everyone has it easy. That’s real teamwork. No orders needed.

Yati
In that kind of Montessori-style, Google-style teamwork, even when someone proposes something that seems impossible, maybe everyone gets excited and says, “Let’s try it.” Like, “Can we create the world’s most intellectual school without owning a building?”

Hiro
Exactly. “Let’s look into that,” and you try it. What’s important is including what you want to do. Being smart means you don’t set aside what you want for what the team wants. You align them.

Yati
Normally you can’t. If you help one side, you hurt the other. You’re going for two birds with one stone, or three. Work-life balance too. When I was studying Montessori education, I struggled with leaving my own child to get certified.

Hiro
Right. You make it a trade-off. But being able to make it not a trade-off, that’s the advantage of a developed prefrontal cortex. What’s needed to break through dilemmas? Creativity.

Yati
Normally, to make a school 100 times better, you’d make it 100 times bigger, hire 100 times better teachers, introduce cutting-edge technology, increase class hours, and costs keep rising. But you think about doing it for zero cost, with less time. That’s unbeatable. Thinking about it that way, it makes sense that Google owns YouTube and DeepMind and is actively transforming society.

Hiro
This is a complete tangent, but Google avoided decline because of DeepMind. Demis Hassabis of DeepMind didn’t originally want to be acquired by Google. Larry Page convinced him: “What you’re doing is basic research. You should calculate how much money and time basic research takes. Spending half your precious brainpower on fundraising and half on basic research, isn’t that wasteful? Join Google, and you won’t worry about funding. You can use Google’s resources and do even greater basic research.” That’s how Google bought DeepMind for 600 million dollars. YouTube was 1.6 billion dollars. Montessori children are great at using money with a long-term perspective.

Yati
Amazing shoppers. This example helps me understand what future teamwork looks like. It’s win-win.

Hiro
To get a bit technical, the genius Demis Hassabis says the fundamental stuff in the physical world isn’t energy or matter. Below what we commonly call matter, there’s another layer: information. In other words, everything might be computable as information. It goes beyond physics.

Yati
I see. That’s the thinking behind using AI to beat Go champions, designing proteins, and so on.

Hiro
Right. They’re searching through physical information, so it’s the natural evolution of Google. Demis, who won the Nobel Prize, says AI can learn and reproduce even the most fundamental, black-box parts of physical laws through neural networks. Without trial and error in the physical world, just by watching videos, you can know anything, become a genius. That’s the claim. When it comes to real-world implementation, careless mistakes are scary. Current AI hasn’t experienced reality, so it isn’t truly “intelligent.”

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
The Nobel Prize is very Western. Westerners highly value invention, creating something new. Easterners, on the other hand, find value in how to use what already exists. For example, the Western approach is to extract antibiotics from soil bacteria and make medicine. The Eastern approach is: if they’re in the soil, let’s cherish the soil, enrich it, eat the healthy plants that grow from it every day, and we won’t need medicine. If we study Montessori, science, and teamwork from an Eastern perspective, there’s still so much room to evolve.

Yati
Like China’s Shennong Bencao Jing, the oldest known book of herbal medicine, or India’s Ayurveda. Cultures that treasure the soil and use medicinal herbs and spices. In summary, if we can creatively fuse West and East, the world can become more peaceful.

The side effects of this extend heavily not just to adults, but to children as well. In this episode, we focus on bodily coordination and discuss the issues of delayed potty training and bedwetting from the perspective of Eastern medicine.

We also touch upon the concept of “myelination” covered in Montessori developmental theory.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Moving your body toward what feels good will sort it out

Hiro
I want to talk about an issue for three to six year olds that may not seem related to sports at first, but actually is.

Yati
What’s that?

Hiro
The diaper problem. Bed-wetting, basically.

Yati
Children not getting out of diapers. I’ve been hearing from people whose four or five year olds are really struggling with this. And some elementary-school-age children still use diapers.

Hiro
Right. So where does the cause lie? Why can’t they get out of diapers? Because they leak. So why do they leak? At their age, they should be able to do it. Normally, the bladder sends a notification: “I’m full. Please go to the toilet.” And you can go. But that notification isn’t coming. Or it comes, but by then it’s already too late. They’re at their limit. Why does this happen?

Yati
In Montessori education, around 18 months, when walking stabilizes, is the sensitive period for toilet learning. It’s not officially part of Montessori’s list of sensitive periods, but I think it should be called one. Theoretically, if walking stabilizes around 18 months, it means myelination has progressed all the way to the feet. Myelination is the developmental process where nerve fibers get wrapped in myelin, an insulating sheath that speeds up electrical signals. So myelination should also have reached the bladder. Signals from the bladder can now reach the brain without leaking. At the same time, the language areas of the brain are myelinating, so children can understand and say, “I need to go to the toilet.”

Hiro
I see. For people who don’t know this, it’s eye-opening. The nervous system is like opening roads. If a road isn’t open, vehicles can’t travel on it to transport supplies, and that’s a problem. Nerves convert electrical signals into chemical signals, into neurotransmitters, and release them across synapses. The nerve endings aren’t physically connected, but they communicate by sending molecules across the gap. Basically, the network transmits electrical signals, zing, zing, zing, and stimuli travel along them. So you’re saying the nerves connecting the bladder and the brain are still being built.

Yati
Exactly. Those nerves are like electrical cables. At birth, the inner wires are exposed and signals leak out. Gradually, insulating tape is wrapped around them and they stop leaking. That’s myelination. The substances needed for myelination are optimally balanced in breast milk, which is one reason breast milk is said to be better than formula. And the connection to sports? It comes back to walking more. Moving a lot promotes myelination.

Hiro
Scientifically, it’s clear that walking activates the brain the most. It’s the best for dementia prevention too. So if it’s important even in old age, it’s even more important for newborns. It affects development. As the brain grows healthily, language emerges. And children become what adults would call “well-behaved.” Not rough, not wild, not throwing tantrums. Tantrums are a kind of panic. Stimuli exceed what the child can handle, and they don’t know how to respond. Like a dam breaking. I think that’s what’s happening internally. Neurotransmitters keep arriving, dopamine floods in, the child doesn’t know how to react, and they explode.

Yati
Right now I’m working with a child who tends to have tantrums, and lots of exercise has really helped.

Hiro
Yes. The logic is simple. As the nervous system develops, neurotransmitter release becomes smoother, and the right amount is released. When signals don’t get through, the body releases more: “No response? Send more.” But there’s the “all or none law.” You might remember it from science class at school. Organisms don’t respond in a linear way.

Yati
There’s a threshold. Once neurotransmitter levels exceed a certain value, the response fires.

Hiro
Exactly. It responds like a sigmoid function that jumps up all at once. So that’s why tantrums happen. Theoretically, anyway. When children walk a lot, nerve construction goes smoothly, neurotransmitter release goes smoothly, and everything works well.

Yati
Walking is amazing.

Hiro
What every adult needs to know is that proper development requires a proper environment. Without it, development stalls. If a child has learned to walk on two legs but doesn’t use that ability, they may keep behaving like a quadruped, in a more primitive, animal-like way. And their body just keeps growing larger.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
Older people sometimes say from experience, “They’ll straighten out when they’re older.” But that’s not what’s happening now. There are more adults who can’t adapt to their environment, who can’t hold down a job.

Yati
Lifestyles have changed. There were pandemic lockdowns, extreme heat, urban living, car-dependent societies. It’s hard to create an environment for walking.

Hiro
Right. There isn’t as much nature as before. In the past, you could do all this in nature. You could act like an ape, catch fish, spear fish and eat them, burn wood, play in nature in all kinds of ways. That’s how various nerves developed. Now everything is buildings and artificial. You basically can’t live a forest life, a wild life. The nervous system is bored. There’s just TV, digital stuff, little stimulation. People play video games all day, stay shut in at home. The environment is different, so the old rules of thumb don’t apply.

Yati
Right. So back to the diaper problem. Even if the nerves develop and the child can use the toilet, environmental changes or stress can make them unable to again. In Montessori education, this is called “regression.” It’s a common, temporary thing that resolves without special intervention.

Hiro
That’s like a faith healer saying, “An evil spirit has possessed you. Let’s pray. When the spirit leaves, you’ll be cured.” Scientifically, it’s the same nerve-transmission problem. A physical issue. There are sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves, the accelerator and the brake. When a signal comes from the bladder, either the brake doesn’t work and they leak, or the brake signal doesn’t get through. The road exists but can’t be used, or the road doesn’t exist at all. Even doctors don’t understand this. If you go to a developmental clinic about diapers, they offer empty reassurance and prescribe medication. If a child starts wetting the bed in elementary school or has frequent urination, it’s called “enuresis” and they get medication, but that’s not a solution.

Yati
Montessori education doesn’t solve it. Modern medicine doesn’t solve it. Is there no hope?

Hiro
I have a solution in my toolkit.

Yati
What is it?

Hiro
Sotai-ho, a Japanese movement therapy, has a method for curing bed-wetting. It’s Eastern medicine. For children, you lay them down and tickle their sides, just a little tickle.

Yati
What? No way. That can’t cure it. [laughs]

Hiro
If it’s psychogenic, it can cure anything. Stomachaches, headaches, unexplained symptoms with a psychological cause. The stuff doctors usually say is “stress-related.” Tickling cures all of it.

Yati
That’s too funny. [laughs]

Hiro
I know it sounds like a trick, but without understanding the principle, you’d think it’s nonsense. It’s an application of sotai-ho principles.

Yati
What’s the principle of sotai-ho?

Hiro
“Move in the direction that feels good.” Plants do this too. If you watch them, they move toward sunlight, away from strong wind, toward what feels comfortable. It’s the same for humans. Would you rather be somewhere cold and damp, or somewhere warm and cozy?

Yati
Warm and cozy.

Hiro
Any living thing, given a choice between a cold, windy place and a nice, comfortable one, chooses the comfortable one. But various circumstances can twist that. Say you think, “This land is cheap, let’s build here even though it’s cold and damp,” or, “These windows are cheaper, let’s face them north.” What happens? You start feeling unwell.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
You’re going against reason. There’s a direction that’s physically easier to move in.

Yati
But hasn’t science advanced precisely because we pushed against that?

Hiro
Humans went from walking on four legs to two, but the skeletal structure hasn’t changed. Fundamentally, there’s a spine. We’re vertebrates. Quadrupeds and even centipedes are the same: a central spine with a big nerve running through it, branching left and right to the limbs. Slender nerves run through. At the head end, the brain forms. The brain picks up stimuli, sends signals to the nerves, the muscles receive them, and we move. This basic structure hasn’t changed. Picture a four-legged lizard: from dragging its belly like a snake, the body rose up slightly. Limbs developed and lifted the body. The limbs extended, it became like a mouse, climbed trees, and the arms, the front legs, stretched out. Then it came down from the trees, stood up like a meerkat, and started walking on two legs. That’s us now. We pushed boundaries, but we didn’t defy reason.

Yati
We look very different, but the basic structure is the same.

Hiro
Here’s the interesting part: you can’t bend your limbs backward. Joints only bend in certain directions. But take modern Homo sapiens constantly using smartphones. The body is fixed in one position. The right arm, shoulder, and neck are always under the same load, and you get stiff. In the past, people did all kinds of movements in nature: climbing trees, carrying things, splashing water. Now we keep making the same movements. Imbalances develop. The spine shifts out of alignment. The most important thing is having a well-aligned spine, because that’s where the thickest nerve runs. What I’m saying is: more than just walking, having proper skeletal alignment might be what matters most.

Yati
How do you walk correctly?

Hiro
You move from the tanden, the center of gravity in your lower abdomen. This goes deep. With shoes, you tend to land on your heel. That’s how modern people walk. It’s wrong. If you jump and try landing on your heels, you’ll see. It hurts. You’ll break bones doing that. Correct landing uses the balls of the feet, below the big toe and the little toe, plus the toes. These three points give balance and cushioning. Try it and you’ll see. Sprinters like Usain Bolt use that cushioning to run like they’re flying. Soccer players like Messi, at the very top level, walk differently. Messi walks with a flat, pattering step.

Yati
Like a baby.

Hiro
Babies are correct. Babies are the masters. When we “correct” them and stop letting them walk barefoot on the ground, their gait gets progressively worse. Babies have potbellies, frog-like posture, and they toddle along. But they don’t have muscles to support themselves. Their heads are incredibly heavy, yet they walk by balance. They don’t get tired. It’s genius.

Yati
Walking geniuses. So shoes are the problem. In Japan, scaffolding workers still wear tabi, split toe shoes with a flexible sole.

Hiro
People used to walk barefoot. The Maasai and other Africans still do. South America is strong in soccer because they play barefoot. The way modern city dwellers walk, striding forward with the legs, is wrong. It’s tiring, hard on the legs, and makes your legs thick. The correct way is to use gravity, not your legs. First the upper body moves forward, as if you’re about to fall. Because you’re about to fall, your leg naturally comes forward to catch you. Everyone does this as a baby. Cheetahs do the same.

Yati
Cheetahs have thin legs but they’re fast.

Hiro
Sotai-ho means moving in the direction that feels physically good for your given skeleton. An easy example: when you do a simple standing stretch and twist your waist left and right, twist more in the direction that’s easier. That releases distortion. By releasing distortions, the body can function as it was meant to, natural healing power increases, and injuries become less likely. If nerves are twisted or warped, signals have trouble getting through. Once that’s resolved, they work normally.

Yati
It could cure all kinds of ailments.

Hiro
So when I say walking is important, I’m only half-saying it. If you walk correctly, just walking naturally corrects distortions and promotes health. Sotai-ho was developed in Sendai, in northern Japan. It’s Eastern medicine. Western medicine tends to cut things away and patch them back together surgically. Eastern medicine draws out the healing power the body already has. That approach is incredibly effective, but so much of it remains unknown. Take moist wound healing, for example. A Japanese doctor devised it and has been spreading it. Instead of cutting away burned skin and grafting new skin on, you keep the wound moist and let the body heal itself. Even in Japan, hospitals still rarely use it for burns. The surgical approach is what’s standard.

Yati
To move in the direction that feels good, the most important thing is to give freedom of movement, and in that sense, it connects to Montessori education. This brings us back to Polymath School of Morioka: we’re using a large park in Iwate, our region in northern Japan, for our activities. There’s a big lawn, a large track for balance bikes, a wide court for ball games, an obstacle course with balance beams. This is exactly the ideal outdoor environment Maria Montessori described. She used the term “racecourse” in some places, and Morioka actually has a large park on a former racecourse.

Hiro
When we give children freedom, they discover things on their own, like grass-sliding on the lawn slopes. We’ll keep adding new sports, like archery and horseback riding, and we can hang hammocks from trees, use the gymnasium. There’s so much more we can do, and the Montessori level at Polymath School will keep rising. We want to establish an Ihatov-style Montessori education model that urban areas can’t replicate. Ihatov is the name the poet Kenji Miyazawa gave to his idealized version of Iwate, his home region.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Montessori Sports from Birth

Yati
Today’s topic is “sports.” What does sports mean for children ages 0 to 3?

Hiro
Sports are wonderful. Thanks to sports, humans have become less violent in some ways. Imagine a world without sports. What would all those muscular people do?

Yati
Good point. Maria Montessori said, “A child who cannot direct coordinated movement toward an intellectual purpose destroys everything. This is because the active muscles are not connected to the mind. Intelligence and movement must work together.” I think she means that if a child breaks things, we should channel that energy into purposeful sports. For example, if a one or two year old throws everything, invite them to play a game of tossing balls into a basket. She also said, “Sports such as tennis and football are not only about controlling the ball accurately. They challenge us to acquire new skills we previously lacked. And this sensation of growing abilities is the true joy of sports.”

Hiro
I want to be clear: this isn’t wonderful because Maria Montessori said it. It’s wonderful because the program already exists within human beings. Montessori education is about preparing an environment that matches and brings out that program.

Yati
So how should we set up the environment for sports?

Hiro
The first thing I want to say is: don’t make it educational. Sports have rules. In basketball, you can’t walk while holding the ball; in tennis, you have to use a racket; you can’t hit outside the lines. Because there are rules anyone can understand, sports are fun.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
So even little one or two year olds, even toddlers, can play sports. In soccer, they might pick up the ball because they don’t understand “no hands,” but they intuitively get that kicking the ball with your feet is fun.

Yati
Right.

Hiro
They may not fully understand the rules, but they can enjoy it as a game, as play. Even babies.

Yati
Without being taught formally, they imitate older kids and adults around them and start having fun doing something similar.

Hiro
Exactly. And I want to say something about movement. It’s better to do all kinds of movements, to try every possible movement. In daily life today, with automation everywhere, people don’t move in many different ways. This is recognized in the sports world too: if you don’t do varied movements, you don’t use all your muscles evenly.

Yati
We don’t get enough exercise. When you do sports after a long break, you get sore muscles.

Hiro
If you keep using the same muscles, the moment you use an unused muscle, you can get injured. If you’ve only been moving laterally, you can’t keep up with vertical movement, and if you force it, you get hurt. You tear a tendon. That’s why we warm up before exercise. Sudden movement causes injuries. Top athletes make sure to do all kinds of movements.

Yati
What does “all kinds of movements” mean?

Hiro
In kinetic terms, there’s a kind of human mechanics. You have bones, tendons attached to them, and muscles stretched over them. The muscles contract and extend to bend joints and produce movement. Fundamentally, there are only three axes of motion: forward and back, side to side, and rotation. Everything is a combination of these.

Yati
That’s very scientific.

Hiro
Yes, it’s a scientific topic. Replicating this in a robot is extremely difficult. Take Tesla’s humanoid robot, which we often discuss: the hands are the hard part. People think “hand” means from the wrist down, but actually the “hand” includes the forearm, from the elbow down.

Yati
It’s true. If you touch your forearm while moving your fingers, you can feel the muscles working.

Hiro
Right. Tendons run all the way through, and the muscles near the elbow control gripping strength. Bending the first joint slightly, bending the second joint. That’s all controlled by the forearm.

Yati
It’s amazing to think that human babies do all these complex hand movements.

Hiro
Ultimately, having these “hands” is what lets us affect the world. Refining the “hand” is one of the unique aspects of Montessori education. The “hand” is an externalization of the brain, meant for manipulating the world. With our hands, we can change the environment and create tools.

Yati
How does this connect to sports?

Hiro
In sports, we use balls, bats, and rackets, and we play with physical motion. But robots still can’t do this. The most advanced humanoid robots as of November 2025 are still practicing walking in parks without falling.

Yati
So they have the motor skills of a 1-year-old.

Hiro
From practicing not to fall in a park to entering a tennis court and beating Djokovic. How many more years will that take?

Yati
There are pitching machines that throw 300 kilometers per hour, about 190 miles per hour, but they’re not humanoid.

Hiro
And even if a machine throws 200 kilometers per hour, about 125 miles per hour, can the catcher catch it? Sports are physically demanding. They push physical limits.

Yati
Children ages 0 to 3, when given freedom, are constantly pushing their limits. In Montessori terms, it’s called “maximum effort.” Around age 1, once children start walking steadily, they want to carry very heavy things. Maria Montessori wrote, “Children like not merely to walk, but to walk long distances and carry quite heavy objects.” “The hand that has learned to grasp must next learn to lift and move heavy things.” What’s difficult for robots is naturally programmed into humans.

Hiro
Even newly walking children, even one or two year olds, can play all kinds of sports. That’s remarkable. If a robot could do it, it would be a major invention. So thinking that little kids can’t do anything is a waste. You should expose them to sports and all kinds of movement. Leverage their versatility. Having them do only one thing is a real waste. This applies to movement, but it also transfers to the senses. It applies to the intelligence that integrates these, the workings of the mind. It applies to work and problem-solving that use the mind. So we need to be more scientific about how to preserve that versatility. For example, Coach Sasaki at Hanamaki Higashi High School in Japan, the school that produced baseball star Shohei Ohtani, X-rays every player’s elbow; if the growth plates haven’t closed and the player is still growing, he doesn’t push weight training or excessive workouts. He coaches scientifically.

Yati
Coaching based only on personal experience feels so primitive. Anyone coaching children in sports needs to scientifically understand the differences between children and adults. There’s now something called “Montessori Sports,” recognized by the Association Montessori Internationale. It’s an effort to apply Montessori theory to sports. Coaches need to know about preserving children’s versatility, preparing the environment, coordinating intelligence and movement, giving freedom, and grace and courtesy.

Hiro
Hanamaki Higashi has developed a kind of “Way of Baseball.” Courtesy toward umpires, picking up trash properly. They treat baseball like a traditional Japanese martial art, where character comes before skill. Character must develop first. That comes before baseball.

Yati
That’s very similar to what’s discussed in Montessori Sports.

Hiro
Sports coaching grounded in development of the whole person. Like bushido, the samurai code. I think Japan is ahead in this area, depending on the coach. So Montessori education isn’t just for parents raising children. Everyone involved with children needs to learn and understand it.

Yati
On a related note, I remembered something from my experience at a midwife-led birth center in Japan. Before giving birth, I had to attend several classes, and one was about learning and practicing correct walking. Proper posture aligns the pelvis, which gives the baby room to move freely inside, and the baby’s position improves. That makes delivery easier for both mother and baby. So they recommend walking with proper posture for pregnant women. On the other hand, if you’re doing desk work, staring at computers and smartphones, the midwives really scold you.

Hiro
When you get to the essence of the body and health, it comes down to blood flow. Blood flows through blood vessels that reach everywhere, from the brain and internal organs to the toes and fingertips, delivering oxygen so cells can live. If blood flow gets blocked somewhere, that’s illness.

Yati
Like a stroke. It’s life-threatening.

Hiro
A blocked heart artery is a heart attack. The point is, proper blood circulation can be defined as health.

Yati
Circulation.

Hiro
If you’re not moving, if you’re always doing desk work or sitting in one spot watching TV, blood still circulates, but imbalances develop. That’s why movement is important, and I always want to emphasize the importance of walking.

Yati
Yes. Walking is good for the brain, too.

Hiro
Right. Becoming bipedal was meaningful. Humans start walking on two legs around age 1. Since they’ve developed that ability, they should walk as much as possible.

Yati
That’s not really considered in current education.

Hiro
The opposite of “walking long distances” is “keeping children confined in small playgrounds or buildings.” That’s the current style. Safety concerns, lack of space in urban areas. There are reasons. But ideally, like forest kindergartens, walking through forests is better. There are benefits from greenery. And hills have slopes and uneven terrain. Walking over various surfaces teaches the senses: “This is dangerous,” “I might trip.” Field trips happen maybe once a year, but ideally the style should be reversed, with field trips every day.

Yati
That’s right. Especially around 18 months, when walking stabilizes. From about age 2, children can walk really long distances, several kilometers, about two miles. They can keep walking for about an hour.

Hiro
Yes. The more they walk, the smarter they get. A sensitive period for walking?

Yati
The thing about field trips is that you set a destination like a mountaintop, and reaching it becomes the goal. But it’s better to walk with “walking” as the purpose. “Let’s go walking today.” Otherwise you end up rushing. Children suddenly stop and spend 20 minutes intently observing something, then start walking again as if nothing happened. If you don’t know this, you say, “Hurry up,” “Walk properly.” The child gets frustrated, thinking, “I wanted to stop and look at something,” and says, “I’m not walking anymore.” The adult then mistakenly thinks, “Maybe this child can’t walk.” So it’s better to make walking the goal. If they walked, that’s a success.

Hiro
It’s also better not to hold hands. It interferes with body movement. It’s like walking with one arm raised the whole time. It makes balancing harder.

Yati
For adults too, it throws off their posture. You do have to choose safe locations, though.

Hiro
So think of yourself as the child’s bodyguard, their security detail. You wouldn’t rush a VIP, right? You stay close but not too close, constantly sensing dangers around them, preventing hazards before they happen.

Yati
That’s exactly right. Maria Montessori said, “Become a servant,” but “bodyguard” fits better. “Servant” sounds like you do everything for them, but really, you’re a bodyguard.

Hiro
Everyone, become your child’s bodyguard. [laughs]

By Hiroki Obara and Yachiko Obara (Polymath Research) · June 26, 2026

Abstract

This paper proposes a “Fractal Development Theory” that extends Maria Montessori’s developmental theory. Montessori’s developmental theory applied Ernst Haeckel’s recapitulation theory (”ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”) to human development, and clarified developmental needs especially from early childhood through boyhood. This paper extends that work by focusing on **brain weight (approximately equal to cranial capacity)**, a more physical quantity, to argue that human developmental needs exhibit a fractal (self-similar) pattern tied to phylogeny. Specifically, the fetal period corresponds to the span from the origin of primitive life to the end of the arboreal life of the apes in the history of life, and development thereafter proceeds in a spiral with a cycle of roughly three years. Each stage of brain weight in ontogeny corresponds in steps to the cranial capacities of the human species seen in the fossil record. This theory contains falsifiable predictions (for example, the adult brain weight of Orrorin tugenensis should be about 400g, and Homo sapiens should have acquired recursive language by mutation), and it further answers why it is necessary to arrange an environment that meets developmental needs: because this is the least costly way to “replay” development. In addition, this theory explains human neoteny (the delay of maturation) as a consequence of ontogeny replaying the accumulation of phylogeny.

Keywords: fractal development, self-similarity, ontogeny and phylogeny, brain weight, recapitulation theory, Montessori developmental theory, developmental needs, falsifiable predictions

https://zenodo.org/records/20949567

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Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Psychoarithmetic, Psychogeometry, and Beyond: Synergetics

Hiro
There’s something called “synergetics.” What is it? In Montessori education, we do “sensorial mathematics,” right? Synergetics is what lies at the end of the road if you keep doing sensorial mathematics without stopping.

Yati
I see. Maria Montessori wrote in her books Psychoarithmetic and Psychogeometry about how to let 7-year-olds experience high-school-level math through the senses. So synergetics is what comes after that.

Hiro
Exactly. Even if you start with Montessori’s sensorial math, conventional education makes you stop and switch to math that doesn’t use the senses. But if you keep going with sensorial math, you reach synergetics, which is cosmic mathematics. Most of the time, though, people stop using their senses midway and start doing human mathematics. That’s why so many people find math difficult.

Yati
We talked about cosmic math versus human math in the 6 to 12 math-education feature, too. Recently, I was shocked to realize that our oldest daughter, who was raised with Montessori education, says the same thing as Buckminster Fuller, the founder of synergetics. When someone explains something to her, she asks, “Is that something you experienced yourself?” In other words, she refuses rote memorization or blindly accepting theories. She refuses to the point of crying.

Hiro
Exactly. Things no one has experienced don’t exist in the universe. Human math defines things that don’t exist in the universe, then twists logic around arbitrarily to produce answers.

Yati
That’s a striking perspective. I wouldn’t have noticed without being told. I never questioned it, but it’s true.

Hiro
People think math is about scribbling away with paper and pen, or chalk on a blackboard. But that’s human math. We need to evolve from there to cosmic mathematics, synergetics, which uses the senses. We need to advance to sophisticated math that uses the senses.

Yati
To evolve, I want to understand synergetics better. First of all, what does the word mean? I know “synergy” is in there. Synergy means multiple elements interacting to produce greater effects than they would alone, a “synergistic effect.”

Hiro
Synergetics is translated as “the geometry of the universe.” It means we advance our understanding of the universe by asking why it’s designed the way it is. Specifically, you understand the universe through its structures and patterns. You might think other disciplines do the same, but the difference is that you understand it through the senses. That’s why research is done through modeling. Modeling means using wooden sticks and thread, strong carbon-fiber wire, to build something called a tensegrity. That’s “a structure composed of tension and compression,” known as a “tensegrity structure.”

Yati
Tensegrity, a word combining “tension” and “integrity.”

Hiro
Right. In the universe, tensegrity structures are the only things that qualify as structures. Everything else isn’t a structure. This may be shocking, but most people’s understanding of “structure” is shallow, so they build buildings that depend on the ground. Because they depend on the ground, when an earthquake hits, they crumble to pieces. In space, the standard is mobile things like spacecraft that don’t depend on gravity. If something can’t exist stably in space, it can’t be called a “structure” in cosmic terms.

Yati
It’s difficult, but I’m starting to understand. By “structure” here, you mean something cosmically self-supporting, something that won’t break even if you take it into outer space or to another planet. There’s talk that microorganisms have tensegrity structures, and that’s why the panspermia hypothesis, the idea that Earth’s first life came from space, is possible. Microorganisms can travel through space alive because they have tensegrity structures. By the same logic, anything that maintains its structure in space has a tensegrity structure. Does that include atoms?

Hiro
Yes. Fuller said atoms are tensegrity structures. That’s why there are 92 naturally occurring elements. Since synergetics is the geometry of the universe, it can show through calculation why there are exactly 92 natural elements.

Yati
I see. Tensegrity structures are also found in cells and skeletal systems in nature, because that’s the structure the universe has adopted. I’ve looked at various examples of tensegrity structures and tried to understand them in my head, but I couldn’t grasp it. This is something you have to actually build to understand. In the Montessori international course, I learned that at the secondary level, which covers ages 12 to 18, students build real bridges and sheds. Through building a bridge that real people will walk across, they learn math, physics, art, whatever is needed. When you start thinking about building a bridge that absolutely won’t collapse in an earthquake, you naturally arrive at tensegrity. If you only do paper-and-pen human math, detached from the universe and the senses, you might never get that idea.

Hiro
Exactly. In Montessori education, we use the senses, so even a 5-year-old can discover how to prove the Pythagorean theorem while playing. Even young children can do advanced mathematics. Synergetics is what comes after that.

Yati
Fuller’s discussion starts with the stability of triangles. In Montessori education, there’s a material called the constructive triangles, which teaches sensorially that all shapes are made of triangles. Isn’t that related?

Hiro
That’s part of the flawed human math. Plane geometry doesn’t exist in the universe. In the real world, the interior angles of a triangle don’t add up to 180 degrees. You can experience this by drawing a triangle on a globe and measuring the angles. If you look at your own body or the parts of any organism, you’ll see that straight lines don’t exist in the universe, only curves. We’re just approximating everything with straight lines.

Yati
I see. We need to evolve to geometry that can actually be experienced. So solid geometry is also wrong from a cosmic-math perspective. We need to remake the teaching materials using tensegrity solids.

Hiro
Yes. We should use vector equilibrium, where angles are flexible. Platonic solids were used in ancient Greece, 2,500 years ago. Using them is hopelessly outdated. People tend to think of shapes and solids as fixed, but rigid solids like concrete are actually very fragile. They collapse under their own weight. You can see that if you keep building a tower taller and taller. What’s the tallest building in the world right now? Doesn’t matter. But if you look at Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree, the famous tall towers in Tokyo, they’re built from combinations of triangles. Squares wouldn’t work; they’d buckle partway up. Tensegrity structures are used in the Tokyo Skytree, too. People focus too much on things that are solid and stationary. In reality, everything is much more dynamic. Tensegrity structures are constantly pulling on each other, always in motion.

Yati
So if we made everything from housing to everything else with tensegrity structures, they’d be self-supporting, wouldn’t collapse in earthquakes, and would use fewer materials, benefits all around. But because education teaches outdated math, everyone ends up thinking and building structures that depend on the ground.

Hiro
Exactly. Spoiler alert: from cells to galaxies, everything uses the same tensegrity structure. Once you realize the universe itself is made of tensegrity structures, studying their properties lets you connect quantum theory and general relativity, understand what gravity is, understand what time is, and explain quantum entanglement and wave-particle duality.

Yati
That’s a lot of information! [laughs] If you could do that, it would be a massive breakthrough. Now I understand why Polymath School is so focused on new mathematics.

Hiro
Yes, we are. Yesterday, I came up with a new interpretation of the quantum double-slit experiment based on tensegrity structures, and I’m going to share it with the kids soon.

Yati
That’s fascinating. It might be another scientific prediction. [laughs]

Hiro
So it’s self-evident that the universe has a tensegrity structure. Calculations based on other premises lead to breakdowns and contradictions. But if you assume tensegrity, there are no contradictions. That said, modern physics is making progress. Loop quantum gravity, for example, is approaching tensegrity. Witten, from superstring theory, says things like, “I’m doing 22nd-century mathematics.” Cute, right?

Yati
So Polymath School is doing 30th-century mathematics?

Hiro
No, ours is eternal mathematics. Cosmic math. [laughs]

Yati
[laughs] Having been steeped in conventional math and physics, I’m very interested in bridging human math and cosmic math.

Hiro
Then work hard on bridging them.

Yati
To incorporate this into the six to twelve environment, isn’t it just about making things? Synergetics is basically about considering how everything in the universe interacts and pulls on each other, and then building the most efficient, sturdy, waste-free things, right?

Hiro
No, no. You’re underestimating it. It’s about “understanding the universe correctly.”

Yati
We covered this in the work feature, that’s humanity’s mission. When we understand the universe correctly, we can become more efficient, help nature, and support the evolution of the universe.

Hiro
Right. This isn’t about the individual level. It’s about collectives or even the cosmic scale. The universe itself has consciousness. As part of that consciousness, the universe reaching self-awareness is what advancing cosmic understanding means.

Yati
That sounds like you’re saying something pretty out there. [laughs]

Hiro
What does it mean in simple terms? It means the universe wakes up. Humans are born, and at first, babies don’t understand who they are or where they are, right? Gradually they come to understand what they are. It’s the same idea. So it becomes religious, philosophical, profound, unavoidably. [laughs]

Yati
I see. First, you realize you’re part of the universe and advance your understanding of it. As this happens across many life forms, since those life forms are also part of the universe, that means the universe is advancing its understanding of itself. The universe is understanding itself. Is that it?

Hiro
Yes. In synergetics, everything is pulling on each other, constantly interrelated. The universe is the same. Every person is connected to someone. No object can exist by itself. Someone said this long ago, around the 6th century BCE.

Yati
Gautama Siddhartha?

Hiro
That was his name before he awakened. By the time he realized it, he was awake. The Buddha. Do you know what summarizes everything the Buddha realized?

Yati
Buddhism.

Hiro
Right. And what is Buddhism? Synergetics. It’s cosmic physics. Our family practices Zen Buddhism, a Japanese tradition of Buddhism, so I don’t know much about other sutras, but if you decode the Heart Sutra, a core text in Mahayana Buddhism, it’s about synergetics. In other words, awakening means realizing the reality of the universe instead of human common sense.

Yati
You’re saying something huge. But it’s true. Buddhism teaches that self and others are the same. You could interpret that as saying we’re all the universe.

Hiro
So when I say “let’s begin synergetics,” I’m saying let’s stop learning human math, conventional school math.

Yati
And realize the true nature of the universe and achieve enlightenment. Polymath School is going to produce one Buddha after another.

Hiro
[laughs] The alternative path is for select people whose senses haven’t been corrupted, so I’m not forcing it. The friction is great.

Yati
I’d like to share something that lets you feel, sensorially, that human math is wrong. Let’s consider Fuller’s frequent claim that “there are no straight lines in the universe.” Straight lines are among the first things you learn in arithmetic and plane geometry. And they don’t exist, meaning you can’t experience them. A straight line is supposed to be perfectly straight and extend infinitely. Try drawing a straight line with paper and pen. You can’t make it perfectly straight. Magnify it, and it’s wavy. And you can’t draw an infinitely extending line. The paper has limits. That’s at the micro level. What about the macro level?

Hiro
Earth orbits the sun and rotates on its axis. So even if you think you’ve drawn a straight line, viewed from afar it spirals around. That’s why straight lines don’t exist in the universe. Human experience is amazing. There’s a Japanese saying, “If you’re in a hurry, take the roundabout way.” That’s literally true. Spiraling around is actually the shortest distance. It looks like you’re going farther away, but you’re actually taking the shortest route. It’s all there in human experiential wisdom.

Yati
I still feel like I’m being tricked. So there really are no straight lines? For example, Fuller often uses great circles, lines passing through the Earth’s center, like meridians or the equator. Aren’t those straight?

Hiro
Those aren’t straight lines. They’re called “geodesic lines,” describing the shortest distance on a sphere. They’re curved because they’re on a spherical surface.

Yati
Right. Then what about a rocket flying through space? Doesn’t it fly in a straight line?

Hiro
If you watch a SpaceX rocket launch, you’ll see, right after liftoff, the rocket curves dramatically. The SpaceX logo represents that curved trajectory.

Yati
I didn’t know that. It’s a beautiful design.

Hiro
Rocket engineers and aerospace professionals probably understand this best. When you launch a rocket from Earth to the Moon, there are no straight lines. Everything is curved, spiraling. Landing is also spiraling, gradually approaching while orbiting. Always rotating.

Yati
What if you push a rock floating in space and let it drift in a straight line by inertia?

Hiro
Even that is bent by the gravitational pull of black holes, nearby celestial bodies, everything in the universe pulling on it. So what you think is a straight line is actually curved.

Yati
What about your line of sight? Aren’t you looking straight at the Sun?

Hiro
Light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach us, and during that time Earth rotates, so your line of sight is curved in cosmic terms. So straight lines don’t exist in the universe. Give up. Unlearn. Human math assumes imaginary spaces that don’t exist and does calculations there. It’s like a child imagining a fantasy world and trying to navigate reality with it. Reality isn’t like that, so it doesn’t work in the real world.

Yati
Just thinking about straight lines really brought that home. All right, let’s begin synergetics with the children.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

From indoor to outdoor, sensorial education using the Earth.

Hiro
In the last episode, we talked about how the essence of the senses is electromagnetic-wave detection. For three to six, I want to discuss what to do in practical terms.

Yati
In Montessori theory, ages 0 to 3 are for accumulating sensory experiences; then ages 3 to 6 are for organizing and refining those experiences. For temperature, for instance, there’s a material called the thermic bottles, metal containers filled with water at 10-degree intervals. You grip them, feel the temperature, and match the ones that are the same. That’s how you refine your sense that temperature is something measurable, that a 10-degree difference feels like this. But now we run an outdoor-style Montessori school, and for ages three to six, even experiences are,

Hiro
nowhere near enough. In modern society, there aren’t many opportunities to use the senses like that. So when people say “accumulate lots of sensory experiences during zero to three,” I wonder if kids really are. Maria Montessori was speaking about 100 years ago. Life then and now are completely different. Today’s lifestyles stimulate the senses far less. Especially since 2020, since the pandemic, that’s even more true. In daycares, for example, masks covered mouths.

Yati
Masks make voices harder to hear, and hiding the mouth makes it harder to imitate pronunciation.

Hiro
Right. You can think of it as a filter in between. That structure shows up elsewhere. Zoo animals aren’t really “real.” TV footage is edited, viewed through some filter. Social media is the same. Instead of going somewhere and seeing and hearing for yourself, you’re watching what someone else saw and heard. Filters everywhere.

Yati
True. So given that, how should we set up sensorial-education environments for three to six?

Hiro
My conclusion: I want to propose “wild Montessori education.” Doing thermic bottles in a cramped room and calling that “sensorial education,” sensorially, that’s pretty weak.

Yati
Well, at our school we routinely do bonfires, so I see your point. And 3-year-olds do the fire-starting themselves.

Hiro
Right. You’re around the fire going, “It’s hot!” Maybe a stick gets charred, or you get a small burn. Burning grass smells scorched; smoke stings your eyes.

Yati
And toasted marshmallows are delicious.

Hiro
Oh, the potato’s done. Judging by smell.

Yati
Burning apple-tree wood smells wonderful. There’s a three to six activity called “walking on the line,” where you make a large ellipse on the floor with tape, and children walk on it with proper posture. You can adjust difficulty: carry a spoon with a ping-pong ball, hold a bell without ringing it, balance a book on your head. At a well-known Montessori school, I saw a 6-year-old light a candle with a match and walk the line holding it. When I first learned about Montessori, I was amazed that a 6-year-old could light a match. But now that we do wilder activities, our 3-year-olds light matches routinely. They use the embers to roast marshmallows. It becomes natural.

Hiro
At Polymath School in Morioka, our school, the primary program does that kind of wild Montessori. A bit of a plug. [laughs]

Yati
The candlelit line-walking is solemn and beautifully Montessori. Compared to that, what we do is almost feral, kind of funny, actually. [laughs] The kids feel natural and free.

Hiro
Yeah. There’s no sense of being forced.

Yati
Observing them, I noticed younger children watch the older ones intently for a while. Then, when something inside tells them “I can do this,” they start. At first they just watch, thinking, “I’m scared, I won’t do it.” Then suddenly they get the confidence: “I can do this too.” That was a discovery. It’s not pretty at all, just wild.

Hiro
Right. Let me introduce what we do at the primary program and what we value. It’ll sound promotional, but here goes. Besides bonfires, we climb a small hill, maybe about 30 meters high, and come back down. For adults it’s no big deal, just decent exercise, but for kids it’s challenging. Legs, core, they really have to work.

Yati
Right. The trail has steps, and even so it’s tough. Around 3 years old, oddly enough, they never say, “I’m tired, carry me.” Walking through a big shopping mall, they’d whine, “I’m tired, I want to ride the kids’ character cart.” But on the mountain, they keep going: “Big leaf!” “A chestnut fell, spiky!” “A bug!” “Something’s dead!” “A baby tree is growing!” Before they know it, they’ve reached the top.

Hiro
Yeah. There’s a “forest kindergarten” element. Compared to real forest kindergartens, we’re beginners. It’s more of a hill attached to a park. I don’t know if other prefectures have parks this size, maybe 20 times larger than what most people imagine.

Yati
There’s a huge lawn, too. Parks in Iwate are enormous. The park we use is 80,000 square meters, about 1.7 Tokyo Domes, using the famous Tokyo baseball stadium as a unit of area, the way people often do in Japan.

Hiro
Tokyo Dome as a unit doesn’t mean much to me. [laughs]

Yati
We’ve also gone fishing. It was a fish pond, but it’s in the forest, where you can catch iwana, a river trout. A child caught one alone, and when removing the hook, they found it incredibly slimy, totally different from ocean fish. Then they gutted, grilled, and ate it themselves. At the end, a big one was caught, and when they opened it up, eggs spilled out.

Hiro
And the swim bladder.

Yati
Right. A child noticed, “Fish don’t have lungs.” But really, the slimy texture left a strong impression.

Hiro
To bring it home, you freeze it and stab a knife into the head.

Yati
Yes. You put the fish in a bag with ice. The kids watched intently. A fish that was swimming moments ago becoming food. Next time, I want to skewer it and grill it over the bonfire. But if we did that in the forest now, bears might show up.

Hiro
True. So we’re constantly striving for the wildest sensorial education we can manage. City people might think we’re just bragging. We’re learning by trial and error. Outdoor Montessori.

Yati
Back to fire: some kindergartens consider it “fire work” when children use a snuffer to put out a candle during religious time. That feels lacking to me.

Hiro
Yeah. In our developmental theory, safely handling fire and cooking over it is something three to six year olds should do. Grilling food over fire, warming yourself by fire, these are things early humans did. Fire-making was among the first activities when humans gained intelligence and began making tools. Cooking started there. Doing home cooking without that experience reverses the natural order. First you learn to use fire; then you learn to cook.

Yati
Right. Around a bonfire, wild instincts revive, adults enjoy it, too.

Hiro
Yeah. Adults feel their daily stress melt away watching fire.

Yati
When my younger daughter was about 2, she was eager to help with cooking at home but kept wanting to be near the flame. She described it as wanting to “poka-poka,” to get warm. I loved how that expressed an instinctive draw to fire. So when we boiled soba, the Japanese buckwheat noodle, I let her add the noodles herself, whatever she decided she could do. Kids want this, and if parents are a little careful and willing, even small children can do more at home than you’d think. Bonfires are harder, locations are limited. We struggled to find a place. Basically, it has to be a campground.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
So at home, even lighting an aromatherapy candle to show real flame is fine.

Hiro
Stovetops are often induction now.

Yati
We’re getting further and further from fire. Wild Montessori really is necessary.

Hiro
Right. Even just boiling noodles is a huge experience, at home or outside. We’re experimenting with outdoor Montessori as a concept. Nobody else is doing this; it’s all about what to do indoors. Outside, spilled water doesn’t matter.

Yati
We tested that, too. Carrying a container of water on a tray in the park. Amazing focus, walking a long distance, clearly enjoying it.

Hiro
Also, with fire, wind is a real challenge, unlike at home, where wind doesn’t stop you from cooking.

Yati
True. You develop ingenuity. It takes time to start a fire; when it’s windy, you strike the match over and over.

Hiro
Right. How do you start a fire without firestarters? It’s tough. There’s a lot to think about. Just being outside uses your brain, your senses. Basically, just being outdoors, cooking, playing, that’s enough.

Yati
Once you do it, you realize the kids are sharper. After lighting a match, if they judge the flame will hold, they move on to the next task, gathering fallen leaves. It’s in their bones. They know what comes next; they think, “Maybe I can add this dry grass,” or “Can I add this green one?” Once, the fire wasn’t catching, and by chance my younger daughter brought a fan. She waved it, flames roared up, and it worked. Learning through discovery. Using senses, experimenting, they surpass the adults in no time. And outdoor activities, even just bonfires, have endless variation. Edamame tastes best boiled right after harvest. I want to grow edamame in a field, harvest it, and boil it immediately over a fire nearby. I look forward to ideas like that coming from the kids.

Hiro
Right. So what’s the ultimate sensorial education? Live somewhere with extreme temperature swings. [laughs]

Yati
Everyone, please move to Iwate. [laughs]

Hiro
I think that’s actually fundamental. Apples get sweeter and tastier with bigger temperature swings.

Yati
Vermont, the U.S. state that gave its name to a popular Japanese curry brand using apples and honey, has a climate similar to Iwate’s. That’s why apples grow there.

Hiro
Temperature swings matter. If it’s true for plants, it’s true for animals; if for animals, why not humans? With big swings, just surviving is tough. You have to adapt, change clothing for the weather, figure out transportation, design your home accordingly. When it snows, you shovel. Pets will die if you don’t care for them. How to get through winter. There’s so much to think about. That’s where inventiveness is honed.

Yati
We run Polymath School outdoors, so we’re facing the question: what do we do in winter in Tohoku, the cold northern region of Japan where Iwate is?

Hiro
We’ve adopted French-style vacations, really long breaks. Our summer vacation is three months; winter break is also three months. Plus spring and fall breaks. [laughs]

Yati
That’s mostly vacation! [laughs] And we only run activities two days a week.

Hiro
In France, it’s six weeks on, two weeks off, plus two to three month summer vacations.

Yati
Shocking by Japanese standards.

Hiro
Right. With that kind of rhythm, breaks everywhere, there’s freedom, so kids start learning what really matters.

Yati
Exactly. At Polymath School, the first half is outdoor activity; the second half is usually at the library. Because of the first half, the second half is incredibly rich, kids stay focused, researching what interests them. And because we don’t pack the schedule, we can research Montessori education scientifically while practicing it.

Hiro
What’s great about being scientific is reproducibility. It has to work for people with different cultures and customs around the world. Even more: it has to work for non-humans, wild animals, plants. Maria Montessori’s ideas have that potential. Nobody says this, but she was drawing on Haeckel’s biogenetic principle. If you read her books, it’s right there, but maybe because no one’s a polymath, they don’t get it.

Yati
Haeckel’s biogenetic principle: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” The idea that an individual’s development repeats the evolutionary history of its species. That’s why Montessori’s books are full of examples from other organisms, tadpoles, caterpillars. And that’s why we talk about other species and discuss, from a developmental-biology perspective, why children need to handle fire.

Hiro
Maria Montessori was originally a medical doctor who studied mathematics and physics, a scientific person who later added pedagogy and anthropology. She measured children’s height, weight, everything as data. She was doing data science before the term existed.

Yati
In the zero to three international course, there’s a 250-hour observation requirement, and the data sheets had a field for finger length. It had become a formality and wasn’t required. So when you pointed out in the July issue that “thumb size might correlate with intelligence,” that was very scientific and very Montessori. And then, a paper from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology came out confirming exactly that. Thumb robustness correlates with intelligence. Scientific Montessori isn’t just explaining the latest science; it’s predicting it. [laughs]

Hiro
So, people might think we’re always making obscure, hard-to-understand points, but I’d like them to know this is the legitimate continuation of Montessori research. [laughs]

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Sensory organs are receptors of electromagnetic waves.

Yati
Today’s topic is “sensorial education.” We touched on the senses last month, but I’d like to get to the heart of sensorial education, starting with what “senses” even are.

Hiro
In a word, the senses are receptors for electromagnetic waves.

Yati
That probably doesn’t make sense to most listeners, so please explain. This definition is groundbreaking. It doesn’t come up in standard physics explanations.

Hiro
This is a scientific perspective. If you look at the electromagnetic spectrum, human senses are receptors for electromagnetic waves ranging from infrared to ultraviolet. For example, there’s a visible-light region, and you can see that this corresponds to sight.

Yati
Right. That’s consistent with the general understanding, so it’s easy to grasp.

Hiro
Exactly. Electromagnetic waves are, well, waves, vibrations. If something vibrates extremely fast or barely vibrates at all, we can’t see it. We can only see things vibrating at a moderate frequency. The same applies to other senses. With hearing, if something vibrates too fast, the pitch is too high to hear; if it barely vibrates, the pitch is too low. We can’t hear either.

Yati
In the case of sound, it’s vibrations in the air. Generally, hearing is understood as sensing air waves. Here, you’re framing it in terms of electromagnetic waves, sensing the electromagnetic waves emitted by media like air or water that carry sound.

Hiro
Right. And smell works the same way. Tiny particles vibrate. How do we identify smells? It’s like the letters humans use. We use 26 letters of the alphabet to write books and express all kinds of things. Similarly, about 300 scent signals are combined to identify smells.

Yati
So it’s not one-to-one. Like a piano: press C, E, and G keys together and you get a C-major chord. With 300 “keys,” you can create incredibly complex expressions.

Hiro
Exactly. Taste is mostly the same as smell. Then there’s touch, which also includes sensing warmth. Infrared light is invisible, but we feel it as “warmth.” Sit by a campfire, and the coals emit far-infrared radiation that warms you. You can’t see it, but your skin feels it.

Yati
That makes sense.

Hiro
But if it gets too hot, you burn yourself and proteins denature. You can only perceive temperatures in a moderate range. Too cold or too hot, and touch stops working. So all senses are organs for catching moderate electromagnetic waves. And everything maps neatly.

Yati
What a brilliant definition. Genius.

Hiro
Well, the person who said this was Buckminster Fuller. If I’d come up with it myself, I’d be a super-genius. [laughs]

Yati
[laughs] This discussion is unique, so let me summarize Fuller’s idea for listeners to savor. Looking at the electromagnetic spectrum, each sense corresponds to a part of it. Essentially, the ultraviolet to infrared range is crucial for human life, and we perceive waves in that range as our various senses.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
We talk about the “five senses,” but I think it’s really just a question of how to divide up this electromagnetic range. In fact, here we’ve combined smell and taste. Neurobiologists have suggested there may be as many as thirty-three senses, but that might just be finer divisions of the same electromagnetic range. What about non-humans?

Hiro
Same principle, but the range of electromagnetic waves they can perceive differs. Bees and Arctic reindeer can see ultraviolet light. Their visible range is wider than ours. Whales and dolphins communicate using ultrasonic frequencies beyond human hearing. Ultimately, senses lead to communication. Human conversation works the same way: the sounds we produce are within the listener’s audible range. We raise and lower our pitch, finely adjusting vibrations so they can be converted into symbols and exchanged. All living things do this.

Yati
Even plants?

Hiro
Absolutely. Plants use scent. What is scent? It involves liquids and atoms or molecules with double bonds. Plants can’t live without water. They draw it up and release scents. The fragrance of spices and herbs is how plants communicate.

Yati
Do plants have five senses?

Hiro
They have them all. In quantum electrodynamics, the quantum of electromagnetic waves is the photon, and plants receive light. When there’s light, they use chlorophyll for photosynthesis. They open flowers only when light is present and turn toward the light. Sunflowers, for example.

Yati
That’s plant “sight.” There’s fascinating research on hearing: certain plants can hear bee wing-beats and increase the sugar concentration in their nectar.

Hiro
So plants enjoy music, too. They “listen” because the water inside them changes form. Its crystalline structure shifts. As for smell, I mentioned spices. When a plant is damaged, it suddenly releases chemicals, like a gas signal, to warn neighbors.

Yati
And touch? Some plants respond when touched, like the sensitive plant, also called Mimosa pudica, or carnivorous plants. They also respond to temperature.

Hiro
Seeds won’t germinate unless it’s warm enough. If we can organize this theory physically, reduce it to principles, sensorial education becomes possible not just for humans, but for animals, plants, microbes, literally all life.

Yati
Meaning all life needs to develop its senses healthily within an appropriate natural environment. As we discussed last month, humans have damaged the environment and disrupted natural sensorial education. Salmon couldn’t develop their sense of smell and can no longer find their way home.

Hiro
And it’s true for humans themselves. By creating things that fool the senses and spreading them widely, we’re harming the natural environment.

Yati
It really is all fake. For sight, there’s video. For hearing, electronic sounds. For smell, synthetic chemicals mimicking natural scents.

Hiro
You used to work on AI that recreated scents. [laughs]

Yati
I was part of the problem. And for touch, there’s plastic with textures that don’t exist in nature, or appliances that mimic the warmth of a campfire. Everything has a fake version.

Hiro
The World Expo in Osaka just ended, and apparently the exhibits were mostly video.

Yati
That’s a waste. This connects to how we set up sensorial-education environments for ages zero to three: the point is to spend time around real things.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
It’s often overlooked, but spending time in natural environments is crucial. Instructors from abroad in my international course were surprised: in Japan, babies aren’t taken outside until the one-month medical checkup, which is a standard Japanese custom. Overseas, that’s unthinkable. They said, “Isn’t that hard on the mother, too?” I realized it varies by country. I later gave birth at a birth center, and they encouraged sunbathing to help with jaundice. With my first child, I didn’t know, so we stayed indoors, and the jaundice was severe.

Hiro
We didn’t know.

Yati
Abroad, people put babies in bassinets and relax outdoors with friends and relatives. Sitting in the shade, watching leaves sway gently in the breeze, it’s like a natural mobile for the baby. Even newborns can benefit from short periods outside, like in the yard.

Hiro
Within reason.

Yati
Another point I really want to emphasize for ages zero to three: there’s this idea that learning requires “the real thing.” To learn “apple,” you need a real apple, before it’s peeled or cut. You say “apple” and hand it to the baby. The baby touches it, feels it’s round, holds it, senses the weight, smells it, feels the texture, and if they bite it, they experience the crunch. “Oh, so this is what an apple is.” That’s zero to three learning.

Hiro
I see.

Yati
So flashcards alone are out of the question for teaching “apple.” Sometimes Montessori language materials are used where children match an apple card to a toy apple. That’s wrong. If you can bring real objects into the classroom, bring real ones. It depends on the teacher’s judgment. In my international course, examples included herbs, fruits, vegetables, and, interestingly, ingredients for dashi, a Japanese soup stock. Things like kombu, which is dried kelp, bonito flakes, which are dried fish flakes, and dried shiitake mushrooms. Real things, touchable and smellable. One school had various pieces of real clothing. You place real items, and only use figurines for things you truly can’t bring in, like large animals or furniture. If flowers, insects, or fish can be brought in, they should be real. This often gets skipped.

Hiro
It’s not just skipped. The point is that fake materials don’t stimulate electromagnetic sensing. What matters is perceiving the light, sound, and vibrations that real things emit. If you replace them with plastic toys or cards, the sensory system, as an electromagnetic-detection device, isn’t used. It doesn’t get trained.

Yati
At home, you can hand vegetables or fruits to your child before eating and let them touch all they want. Say, “This is a pear,” and hand it over. After they’ve enjoyed it, peel it in front of them, cut it, plate it, stick in a fork, and say, “Here you go.” Then they eat and taste. It’s easy to do at home alongside meals. By about 18 months, kids can use toothpicks to peel grape skins and remove seeds. They can cut bananas or strawberries with a potato cutter or butter knife. They can use an apple slicer on sliced apples.

Hiro
There’s a Japanese children’s book about that.

Yati
Our younger daughter started raiding the fridge around 18 months. She’d munch whole cucumbers. [laughs] Fruit can be expensive, so I hesitated, but since moving to Iwate, our prefecture in northern Japan, we go to farmers’ markets. Kids love them. There’s so much variety. Some markets even have real ponies. Lots of encounters with the real thing. Sensorial education doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s about using real things. Wooden toys are well-made and cute, but they can’t compare to the real thing.

Hiro
Using a real glass cup instead of plastic, like a sturdy brand of child-friendly glass cup, is better.

Yati
Right. By deliberately using things that make noise or can break if handled roughly, children learn to be careful. Something surprising: we’ve been day-camping a lot lately, and when we set the table properly outdoors, with nice placemats, real glass cups and ceramic plates instead of disposable paper ones, the kids act more politely. They pour water carefully for others, saying, “Here you go.” They develop consideration for others.

Hiro
In short, it’s “intentional living.”

Yati
Carrying on from last issue. The theme for zero to three is cherishing daily life.

Hiro
But I also think there’s a tendency to overdo it, like “give them the best of everything.” Personally, I think it’s fine to go without.

Yati
Maria Montessori said something like this. “Physiology teaches us that a simple meal eaten outdoors nourishes the body far more than a sumptuous meal in a stuffy, closed room, because outdoors all bodily functions are stimulated and digestion improves.”

Hiro
The outdoor part really does change everything.

Yati
“Likewise, a simple meal shared with loved ones or congenial company nourishes far more than a lavish banquet endured by a tormented secretary at a difficult employer’s table. The keyword here is ‘freedom.’” So just eating outside is enough?

Hiro
Yeah. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. “Intentional living” can sound like it requires money and time, but making sweeping changes is hard. Keep it casual. Make do with what you have.

Yati
True. Where we default to plastic for efficiency or safety, we could start by experimenting with eco-friendly materials or things we already own.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Good work comes from good rest.

Yati
This six to twelve article is titled “Good at Work, Good at Rest.” That’s something you always talk about. Can you explain briefly what it means?

Hiro
Resting is important. If you’re not good at resting, you can’t work for long, and you can’t work efficiently. In other words, “knowing where to ease off” is part of becoming good at work, and mastering something means knowing where you can let go of effort.

Yati
Can you give an example?

Hiro
Say there’s a kid who’s bad at throwing a ball. If you watch closely, they’re tense the whole time. That keeps the arm from whipping properly. To throw far, you relax, then use force only at the very end. Basically, you stay loose.

Yati
By relaxing, you can harness centrifugal force.

Hiro
Right. Figuring out how to produce results while staying relaxed is what you should really be thinking about when it comes to work.

Yati
I always thought Europeans were the ones thinking about “work-life balance.” In one study of over 35,000 people across 30 European countries, higher work-life balance was associated with higher work engagement, a positive, sustained psychological state combining vitality, dedication, and absorption in work. People who were “relaxed” in the sense of valuing time outside work were also good at their jobs.

Hiro
Interesting. But if you can’t do this, time is finite, and what you can accomplish in life is limited. What you choose to do matters.

Yati
The study also found that work-life balance varies by country, explained by welfare regimes, the characteristics of welfare policies and social security systems. Different countries, different patterns. In Japan, as kids, we dream of “taking it easy,” wanting to be YouTubers, for instance. But as adults, we feel like we “have to push hard.”

Hiro
Right. Homework culture is part of the problem. It instills the wrong mindset.

Yati
True.

Hiro
Homework is really terrible. You’re forced to do something unnecessary even after going home, and you get scolded if you don’t. Not a single kid actually wants to do homework.

Yati
Nobody does. We were thrilled when the teacher said, “No homework today.”

Hiro
That’s the opposite of good work. Being forced to do something you don’t want, getting yelled at if you don’t, that’s awful. It leads straight to overtime culture in adulthood. “I’ll take work home.” What we should be training is finishing within the allotted time. There’s a perfect game for this.

Yati
There is. [laughs]

Hiro
It’s called Pikmin. [laughs]

Yati
I played it as an elementary schooler, and I still love it.

Hiro
I really want everyone to play Pikmin. It’s work training dressed up as a game.

Yati
[laughs] Get good at Pikmin, and you get faster at real-world work.

Hiro
It’s pretty intense training. Here’s something most people don’t know: there’s a famous company called McKinsey, often called the world’s hardest firm to get into. It’s a “consulting firm” where only the elite of the elite are hired. A single day of consulting can cost 2 to 3 million yen, the equivalent of about 15,000 to 20,000 dollars. An unbelievable business world.

Yati
That’s about 2,000 dollars an hour. Wow.

Hiro
Basically, they consult for major corporations everyone knows. New hires there spend three years being drilled on one thing.

Yati
What?

Hiro
Preparation. The Japanese call it “dandori,” meaning advance preparation and planning. They’re trained rigorously in dandori. Preparation means that to produce results within the time allowed, you have to get many things ready in advance.

Yati
Exactly.

Hiro
Preparing materials, for example. Before making a proposal, you need to have read a lot of documents. Reading documents means working backward, identifying what you need to read, preparing in advance, and then performing at a high level and finishing on time during the actual consulting work.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
There’s a contract, so you deliver results within that contract period. Otherwise, no one hires you again. At McKinsey, even young employees in their twenties earn tens of millions of yen a year, the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the first thing they learn? Preparation.

Yati
Pikmin.

Hiro
Exactly. That’s what makes Pikmin amazing. A 7 or 8 year old can learn what McKinsey’s brightest spend three years mastering, practically for free, for the cost of about a 30-dollar game, and play as much as they want.

Yati
And you can fail as many times as you like. No one yells at you. You don’t get fired.

Hiro
So if kids master Pikmin, they’ve unconsciously learned the essence of work. They absorb it without realizing. They naturally understand that work means preparing properly and moving forward step by step.

Yati
They can learn the essence of work through a game, starting in childhood.

Hiro
And cooking is the same. If you cook regularly, you know: cooking is preparation. If “dinner is at 7,” you get everything ready by then. One dish, two dishes, whatever you’re making, it all has to be done by that time. It takes a lot of mental effort, so cooking is really good for the brain. Elderly people who cook, maybe because they use their hands, maybe because of the mental planning, have lower rates of dementia.

Yati
Some medical institutions use cooking for rehabilitation, and a lot has been studied about cooking’s effects. But most nutrition research focuses on “what to eat.” Studies that focus on the “cooking” process itself and show it contributes to brain function recovery are rare. Researchers at a Japanese university studied this, led by Dr. Kawashima, who’s famous for designing Nintendo’s Brain Age games. They measured the brains of people while cooking, and found the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for planning and decision-making, was activated when participants planned menus. Further, tasks like “planning the menu,” “cutting,” “stir-frying on a gas stove,” and “plating” activated the brain more than simply moving the hands. In another study, retired elderly men who attended weekly cooking classes and cooked at home five days a week for three months showed improved prefrontal cortex function.

Hiro
There’s a funny phenomenon: men who reach retirement age and never cooked before start cooking and get really into it. Soba noodles, for instance, a Japanese buckwheat noodle.

Yati
If only they’d done it during their working years.

Hiro
Right. It would have helped their work, too. They might have climbed higher. Well, that’s unsolicited advice. [laughs]

Yati
[laughs]

Hiro
The point is, the essence of work is preparation. Coming back to our title, “Good at Work, Good at Rest,” what is preparation, really? It’s about how to create free time. If you’re constantly focused on stir-frying or cutting, you can’t do anything else. Good preparation means reducing time when you’re tied up with one thing and running tasks in parallel. Make soup while you prep the salad. Chill the salad in the fridge so it’s not lukewarm when served. Don’t boil noodles first or they’ll get soggy. Time them to finish right before eating.

Yati
Start the rice first.

Hiro
Exactly. Rice takes time to cook and steam. Know how long water takes to boil. Prepare dashi, the Japanese soup stock, the day before. That’s preparation.

Yati
Preparation.

Hiro
Work is really a chain of preparations. Flip it around, and it’s also about how you spend your rest. Becoming good at resting means being able to use time freely. Your time actually increases.

Yati
You get better at preparation, gain more free time, get better at using that free time, get better at preparation again, a virtuous cycle.

Hiro
So the most important thing isn’t just what you do, it’s also what you don’t do. “Does this really need to be done?” Reviewing that is crucial. But it’s hard to do in elementary school. If a kid says, “I don’t see the point of this, so I’m not doing it,” they get scolded. “This class isn’t relevant to me, so I’ll study on my own. I’ll go read in the library. Excuse me.”

Yati
In college, that’s allowed, even encouraged. If you already know the material, study something else.

Hiro
Right, in college it’s fine. It’s totally self-directed. If you’ve got it, you don’t have to show up. So for elementary students, the ideal environment is probably something like a university.

Yati
When you keep asking, “Does this really need to be done?” you start wondering about exams and credentials, too. Are they really necessary?

Hiro
It’s paradoxical, counterintuitive, but what everyone’s really looking for isn’t rest; it’s work.

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
People think they want endless vacation, but what they really want is work they can be absorbed in.

Yati
That kind of work is enjoyable.

Hiro
Exactly. Doing nothing is actually quite hard. Boredom is hard. The brain craves stimulation. You want to do something. If you fill that void with noise, social media, gossip, your head becomes noisy. Thinking gets scattered. So you resist, cut out the noise, rest properly, and then you’ll want to work. Focus on work, get tired, rest properly. That cycle works for adults and children alike.

Yati
It’d be great if kids could do that from an early age.

Hiro
Related to ages 6 to 12: in infancy, synapses in the brain spread and multiply rapidly. During six to twelve, pruning is happening, and thinking can become scattered. Daily life may suffer.

Yati
In Montessori terms, the precise sense of order in three to six, keeping things in exactly the same place, neat and tidy, gets internalized by six to twelve. Externally, children realize, “I don’t have to be quite so particular.”

Hiro
Right. People say things get “rougher,” but it’s more that children become more “thinking-oriented.” Imagination flourishes, and they can set direction through thought.

Yati
Because order is internalized, this is when they get better at setting priorities and preparing.

Hiro
Yeah. Cooking, cleaning, doing your own things for yourself. Plus doing things for the family, for the community, for the team. Those are fundamental human needs, so it’s good to create an environment that allows for them.

Yati
In regular school, those inner workings aren’t assumed, so kids might be too tired to do them. At this stage, it’s less “practicing” daily life and more “living” it. Maria Montessori said that at three to six, children experience sensory differences among types of fabric, but at six to twelve, they choose their own clothes based on fabric type and learn different ways to care for them.

Hiro
I got sidetracked, so let me get back to the main point. As something other educators don’t say, I want to emphasize the importance of rest. Not “it’s okay to rest sometimes,” but “learning never ends.” The premise is fundamentally different. Finishing an elementary curriculum doesn’t mean learning is complete. Learning has no end. And if learning has no end, swimming forever without coming up for air is exhausting. So you have to learn in bursts, with breaks. Otherwise, you just stop learning entirely. You give up.

Yati
I see. To put this into practice, I think we need a clear definition of “rest.” Is consuming noisy information on social media “not resting,” while reading a book or visiting a museum “resting”? What about playing games to unwind? What about playing Pikmin? Cooking? Are those all rest?

Hiro
I’d define rest as “minimizing noise entering the brain.” You could also call it “intentional living.”

Yati
Huh? Intentional living takes effort, doesn’t it? When you’re tired, it seems impossible. That’s rest? Though I do feel fulfilled when I set the table properly for tea time.

Hiro
Right. Letting go, feeling lighter, being filled. It means consuming information carefully, too.

Yati
Careful information consumption. [laughs] Like reading books. But if you’re exhausted, you can’t. Your eyes just slide off the page.

Hiro
If you’re that tired, your brain is exhausted, so you just have to sleep. But rest essentially means “not being careless.”

Yati
That’s the opposite of normal thinking. “I’m tired today, so let’s do a lazy meal.”

Hiro
But then you use the time you saved scrolling on your phone. If you cut out phone time and other careless activities, real idle time appears and you can truly rest. For example, brewing a single cup of tea very carefully. Actually doing something you might think is a waste of time. That’s rest. Like the Zen expression “kissako,” which simply means “Have some tea.”

Yati
I’m starting to get it. Folding clothes properly. Cleaning into the corners. Lately I’ve been avoiding social media and doing those things, and I feel a strong urge to work.

Hiro
Another way to put it: rest means “using parts of your brain you don’t usually use.” Consciously engaging brain areas that aren’t your usual ones. That’s rest. Meanwhile, the parts you use for work get a break. People don’t realize it, but the brain is active even during sleep.

Yati
That’s a great definition. If you’re on a computer all day, exercise becomes good rest. And what you said earlier, people want “work” more than “rest,” could be rephrased: they want “real rest, where the brain is engaged,” not “fake rest, where the brain barely works.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.

Create an environment that truly delights your child’s sense of smell.

Hiro
The theme is Practical Life, and when we talk about ages 3 to 6, it usually turns into “daily life is important,” “increase sensory experiences,” “let kids help in the kitchen,” but others have already said all that.

Yati
True. [laughs] So, continuing from the zero to three article, let’s dig deeper into the five senses.

Hiro
Sensory information can be broadly divided into two groups. In terms of sense organs, one group is the eyes and ears. The other is everything else: nose, mouth, and touch. Do you know the difference?

Yati
Sight and hearing versus smell, taste, and touch? Well, I don’t know.

Hiro
It’s like a “spot the difference” question. Eyes and ears are non-contact senses.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
Light and sound can be transmitted through TV or radio. But smell and taste, scents and flavors, can’t be transferred as information yet.

Yati
They can’t. You can’t express them digitally.

Hiro
You have to be there to experience them. Same with touch. MIT and others are working on it, but tactile sensations still can’t be transmitted. Smell, for instance, involves receiving chemical substances. And 90 percent of taste is actually smell.

Yati
So we’re mostly “tasting” through our noses.

Hiro
Right. That means smell accounts for two of the five senses. So today I want to talk about smell, specifically, about salmon.

Yati
The fish. Born in rivers, traveling the ocean, returning to rivers, an anadromous fish.

Hiro
Exactly. In Iwate, our prefecture in northern Japan, salmon swim upstream in the rivers. But recently, 97 percent aren’t coming back. Fewer and fewer return each year. Just like people.

Yati
When we moved to Iwate, I was looking forward to seeing salmon run upstream, but I still haven’t seen it. Why aren’t they coming back?

Hiro
The cause is unclear, but when people face problems like this, they blame climate change. There’s an atmosphere of “just say climate change.” A while ago it was COVID-19; now it’s back to climate change. Basically, blame anything but yourself.

Yati
Scientific Montessori not selling well in Japan must be climate change, too.

Hiro
Exactly. Blame that, and everyone nods, “Ah yes, of course.” Anyway, I’m contrarian, so I don’t buy it.

Yati
Right.

Hiro
I wanted to know how salmon actually find their way home, so I looked into it. For those unfamiliar: salmon are anadromous. They hatch from eggs in a river, head out to sea, and in Japan’s case spend about four years circling the Pacific before returning to the same river.

Yati
A four-year journey.

Hiro
Here’s what’s strange: rivers are freshwater.

Yati
Right. No salt.

Hiro
And the ocean is saltwater. Different osmotic pressures.

Yati
How does that work? For a human, it’d be like suddenly switching your drinking water to seawater every day. That’s a huge strain on the body.

Hiro
They go off on this intense warrior training. Remember when Shohei Ohtani, the baseball superstar, wanted to go straight from high school to the American Major Leagues? He was told the “osmotic pressure” was too high, so he joined a Japanese pro baseball team, the Nippon-Ham Fighters, first to acclimate to the pro world before heading to the majors.

Yati
[laughs] That’s right.

Hiro
So over about four years, salmon travel toward Alaska, up north, through the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska, spending four years training in America before returning. It’s called natal homing.

Yati
They go that far?

Hiro
About 30,000 kilometers over four years. They grow big. And their appearance changes. Beautiful as juveniles, almost delicate-looking, but they come back muscular, bulky, totally wild.

Yati
Of the fish, not Ohtani?

Hiro
Yes. Their faces and bodies become rugged. You can tell they’ve been through training. Surviving in the ocean is tough, with sharks and other dangers.

Yati
Yamame trout, a type of trout native to Japan, are also anadromous. Some stay in the river while others go to sea, and the difference is obvious. The ones that went to sea look truly wild.

Hiro
Right. They travel all that way and return home in glory to their hometown. So you’d wonder, “How do they find their way back?”

Yati
Seriously. Four years, all that distance, how do they remember their home river?

Hiro
Exactly. They’re not booking tickets like humans, flying from America, connecting through Tokyo, then taking a regional flight to our local airport. There are no signs in the ocean saying “200 kilometers to go.”

Yati
How do they do it? Maybe like migratory birds? Do they have an internal compass?

Hiro
That possibility has been suggested. The answer is: a magnetic compass and smell. The compass part is still hypothetical. They mainly rely on smell to navigate.

Yati
What do you mean? How could they smell something so far away in the ocean?

Hiro
Most people don’t know this, but fish choose paths and directions by smell. More than two-thirds of a shark’s brain is devoted to smell.

Yati
Really?

Hiro
That’s how they detect a single drop of blood from several kilometers away.

Yati
Scary. You shouldn’t go in the ocean with an injury. You’ll end up in Jaws.

Hiro
That ominous “duh-dun, duh-dun” theme from Jaws? It’s been playing for kilometers already. The shark knew there was blood and came looking.

Yati
Terrifying.

Hiro
Sharks are fish. Fish have incredibly powerful senses of smell. So if salmon aren’t coming back, the scent has either disappeared or been disrupted. They’re lost. And “Did they lose their sense of smell from COVID?” No.

Yati
So it’s not climate change or COVID.

Hiro
I doubt warming changes smells that much. My hypothesis: it’s synthetic chemicals. Fragrance compounds in laundry detergent and fabric softener. Scent compounds in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Those accumulate in rivers and erase the scent of the salmon’s home.

Yati
That might be true.

Hiro
People return to their hometowns sometimes, right? If you have one. When you go back, there’s a smell. “Ah, that’s nostalgic.” Places have their own scent.

Yati
Absolutely. Smell is tied to memory.

Hiro
Smell carries an enormous amount of information, even if we’re not conscious of it. When you stay in one place, your nose adapts, and your brain stops actively perceiving it. But go somewhere different, and the smell is strong. India probably has an Indian smell; America has an American smell. Each place has its scent, a mix of food culture, climate, humidity, and more. If there’s this much variation within a single country like Japan, the natural world must be the same. It’s not strange that salmon remember and can distinguish the scent of where they were born.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
A hot topic lately is bears coming down from the mountains into human areas. Bears apparently have a sense of smell seven times sharper than police dogs. Yet people are running into them unexpectedly. It’s strange. Maybe strong synthetic fragrances are disrupting their noses. Maybe they can no longer detect “human scent.” That’s one hypothesis.

Yati
Losing a functional sense of smell is fatal for wildlife.

Hiro
For wild animals, smell is essential, for finding food and avoiding danger. Bears fear fire, and they can detect a distant fire by the smell of burning. Wildfires are the scariest thing for wildlife. They can avoid fire thanks to their sense of smell.

Yati
So, to bring it back: your hypothesis is that synthetic chemicals may be having a significant impact on wild animals’ sense of smell. There doesn’t seem to be research on this yet.

Hiro
Unfortunately not. Smell varies widely among animals. Their olfactory abilities and how they use them differ from humans. I gave examples of bears and fish, but the importance of smell differs for each species.

Yati
Let’s talk about smell for humans, specifically for three to six year olds.

Hiro
As I said at the start, sensory information divides into two categories. Eyes and ears can basically be satisfied by TV. But smell cannot. So the key senses are smell, taste, and touch. If you set up the environment to prioritize these three, it becomes harder to fake things. If you include sight and hearing when thinking about sensory environments, TV and digital media sneak in. But if you focus on smell, taste, and touch, you naturally avoid artificial chemicals. You move toward natural aromas, plant scents.

Yati
Real herbs, for example.

Hiro
If kids only eat chemical-laden snacks, everything tastes the same. They miss the variety within bitter, sweet, sour. By the way, limonene is apparently the strongest scent molecule in citrus.

Yati
It’s the most abundant fragrance compound in lemons. But natural things contain about 100 scent compounds, and subtle differences create nuanced fragrances. Children can probably distinguish them. In fact, there’s a pine tree called Japanese red pine that contains limonene, and my eldest daughter noticed it smells like lemon.

Hiro
So my point is that artificial, tasteless and odorless Montessori materials alone aren’t enough.

Yati
There’s something called the smelling bottles, small opaque jars with aromas or herbs inside. You prepare pairs with the same scent and children match them. But that alone isn’t enough.

Hiro
Instead of buying herbs, grow them yourself.

Yati
We grow various herbs in planters in front of our house. We grow them, harvest them, play scent-guessing games, use them in cooking, steep them in hot water for herbal tea, and lately we’ve been adding the brew to the bath for a medicinal soak. We’ve even made potpourri.

Hiro
Right. And incense, too, real sandalwood. Creating an environment that delights the sense of smell in many ways is part of living a more intentional life. If you’re familiar with natural scents, you’ll notice when something smells chemically off.

Yati
As I mentioned, natural fragrances contain many compounds. To recreate a rose scent in perfume, you need floral notes, woody notes, citrus notes, many elements.

Hiro
True. And building vocabulary around that helps. Terms like “woody” and “floral” exist, but the natural world is broader. Even within citrus, plants differ. For instance, Japanese pepper, called sansho, is in the citrus family. That sansho aroma comes from citrus origins. The spiciness of sansho berries and the sourness of citrus belong to the same family. This connects to cooking. That’s why sansho pairs well with strawberries.

Yati
That’s interesting.

Hiro
It seems odd at first, but it’s the same principle as strawberries going with oranges.

Yati
Like the idea that foods grown in the same place during the same season taste good together.

Hiro
Vegetables grown naturally are different even at the chemical level, phytochemicals. The smell and flavor differ. If you train your nose properly, you start noticing these things.

Yati
I think children have incredibly sharp senses of smell and taste. They say “It stinks!” right away. [laughs] They love meat braised in red wine, and adding just a little cardamom changes how eagerly they eat curry. Oh, spices are another way to enrich the olfactory environment at home.

Hiro
Cumin and coriander aren’t spicy, so they’re easy to use. Spices let you enjoy combining scents, and they can boost immunity. In old Europe, there were medical professions focused on creating pleasant scents.

Yati
Health conditions show up in body odor, so noticing your child’s scent is important. Strong artificial fragrances might mask that.

Hiro
Smell alone is incredibly deep. Summing it all up as “increase sensory experiences” says almost nothing. What I wanted to convey today is: “Create an environment that truly delights your child’s sense of smell.” And returning to the beginning: salmon remember something from four years earlier. From their perspective, a “distant memory” of early life. Their home scent has changed, and they can’t find their way back. Salmon who can’t return home. It’s sad.

Yati
It is sad.

Hiro
People think if they release lots of fry, salmon will come back upstream, but maybe the cause lies elsewhere. Humans need to reduce the synthetic chemicals we produce. We need to cherish the beautiful chemicals that nature creates. They may seem similar, but they’re fundamentally different.

In particular, while Montessori education emphasizes the importance of sensory experiences, this time we discussed the sense of hearing from a scientific perspective.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Having ears, they hear not.

Yati
Today’s topic is “Practical Life.”

Hiro
I’d like to dig into the five senses this time.

Yati
Maria Montessori put it roughly like this. Nothing reaches the intellect that doesn’t first pass through the senses. A defect in the senses affects every faculty of the mind. In carpentry, it’s not just the hands and eyes being trained. In football, not just the legs and eyes. The whole body and mind are involved in any activity. So why is it that so many people, young and old, fail to see or hear what trained observers easily notice? Having eyes, they see not; having ears, they hear not. Imperfect knowledge comes from poor observation. That’s why the Montessori Children’s House prepares an environment where the mind naturally turns to what should be observed, and the sensory activities go hand in hand with Practical Life. Training becomes training for life. So, “knowledge begins with the senses.” Exploring the senses under the theme of Practical Life is, I believe, in keeping with Maria Montessori’s intent.

Hiro
Let’s start with the zero to three range. At birth, babies can’t really see. Vision is almost nonexistent, and all they can perceive is sound.

Yati
Right. Sound is heard even in the womb.

Hiro
Exactly. And there’s touch and the sense of warmth. Babies sense temperature to know a mother is nearby or that they’re being held.

Yati
They even suck their thumbs in the womb.

Hiro
But they can’t sense temperature from far away. To know what’s happening at a distance, they rely on sound. And then they cry. Crying is how they communicate, using sound.

Yati
That’s true.

Hiro
They don’t suddenly run a fever to signal something. Shivering a lot and generating heat to say, “I’m hungry,” would use up so much energy. To communicate without expending energy, the answer is sound.

Yati
Our four-year-old still does that, stomping her feet when she’s angry.

Hiro
Right. So fundamentally, information is conveyed through sound. That’s why we recently started an English podcast. Communicating through sound is essential to animals, and we felt we had to do it properly. Text is something you look at without making sound; if you don’t look, there’s no information. But sound can be played continuously. Whether you consciously process it is a separate matter, but information is available.

Yati
Listening to difficult material for a long time is tough, though. Even I end up saying, “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

Hiro
That’s a different issue. There’s short-term working memory, and if it’s small, you can’t hold much information, so deep, layered conversations become difficult. Conversation requires a lot of working memory. So it’s good to talk with children a lot so they can train their working memory. There’s a humanities-style interpretation, “creating rich emotional time together,” but from a science perspective, it’s also working-memory training.

Yati
Lately there’s talk about short-video consumption making even young people more forgetful, what some call “digital dementia” or “smartphone brain.”

Hiro
Ultimately, the brain is like a muscle. It’s often thought of as a special organ, closer to internal organs, but it’s more like muscle. If you don’t train it, it weakens. When people age, they stop walking. When they stop walking, their legs and lower back weaken quickly. They get osteoporosis or fall and break bones. You can prevent that, not 100 percent, but largely, if you keep walking. People with a walking habit maintain muscle mass, stay strong in the legs and back, and live healthily. You can fight decline with lifestyle habits. The brain is the same, but these days there are so many traps. Technology keeps developing to minimize how much we have to think. Press a button, and everything’s done for you. That causes the brain to weaken. Once decline reaches a certain point, it becomes dementia.

Yati
There’s even a term now: “smartphone dementia.”

Hiro
But prevention and improvement aren’t complicated. Just adopt a habit of mild training. You don’t need hard hikes or squats to strengthen legs. Just stroll, walk longer distances, do some aerobic exercise. The brain is the same: read aloud, do calculations, that kind of habit. But it has to be effective and convenient. I looked for something simple that I could keep doing long-term, couldn’t find it, so I built an app as a DIY project called BrainDojo. Bit of a plug, I know.

Yati
You really can build a brain-exercise habit in just tens of seconds a day. Maybe brain training is why I, ADHD-leaning as I am, have managed to keep this monthly magazine going. But we got sidetracked. Let’s talk about hearing. How does hearing relate to Practical Life?

Hiro
There’s a Japanese dish called tempura, deep-fried battered seafood and vegetables. Lately I’ve been watching a Japanese cooking anime called Oishinbo with the kids. In one episode, the protagonist and his father compete to pick which chef can fry tempura best, before anyone starts cooking.

Yati
Maybe someone with a big build?

Hiro
The protagonist looked at the chefs’ teeth, nails, and hair, and had them prepare batter, then chose. The father, on the other hand, played a recording of tempura frying sounds and said, “Raise your hand when you hear the sound change.” That’s how he chose.

Yati
Who won?

Hiro
The father. The protagonist checked nails and teeth to see if they were well-trimmed and maintained. Bad habits show up in teeth. If someone smokes, they lose sensitivity to flavor. Hair with styling products dulls the sense of smell. Batter preparation shows skill, whether they chill it properly with ice, for example. You have to do everything right, work carefully, and still be quick. It came down to two chefs, and in the end, the father won by choosing the one who reacted correctly to the sound. The point is that tempura uses all five senses, and sound is critical. If you don’t react to the sound and take the food out immediately, you overfry.

Yati
You do hear sounds when frying, like the rattling when food first goes in. But I thought you judge doneness by color, smell, bubble size, or the feel you get when you tap with a cooking utensil.

Hiro
That’s already too late. Overfried. Amateur. Top-tier chefs at long-established restaurants, the ones you see on YouTube, say it’s all about sound. How well you use your senses determines whether you’re good at cooking or not. Most people rely on visual information, but sometimes sound is the most important.

Yati
We don’t think about it, but just from the sound of water being poured, we can tell whether it’s hot or cold. Sound actually carries a lot of information.

Hiro
Right. A bit on language learning: babies are born able to distinguish sounds not just in their native language but in every language in the world. But between 6 and 12 months, the ability to distinguish foreign sounds drops sharply. In one experiment, nine-month-old infants in English-only homes who interacted directly with Mandarin speakers 12 times over about 5 hours maintained native-level ability to distinguish Mandarin sounds. However, when shown DVDs of the same speakers saying the same things, there was no such effect.

Yati
Researchers argue the key factor wasn’t the live human voice itself, but the presence of live human interaction. The DVDs had studio-quality sound and actually contained more speech samples than the face-to-face sessions. But there’s also evidence in AI that higher audio quality improves recognition accuracy, so we can’t completely rule out that audio quality contains some information babies respond to.

Hiro
True.

Yati
In another experiment, twenty-four to thirty month old toddlers learned new verbs in their native language, comparing “face-to-face interaction,” “Skype interaction,” and “video only.” Video alone didn’t lead to learning. At that stage, the children could already distinguish sounds. They were learning verbs using those sounds, so even lower audio quality should have allowed learning. If someone ran an experiment on whether babies can learn to distinguish foreign sounds via Skype, that might settle the audio-quality-versus-interaction question. The bottom line is that in both infant and toddler cases, simply playing videos doesn’t lead to foreign-language acquisition.

Hiro
Families that succeed with at-home foreign-language learning tend to have siblings rather than only children. You need a real person who will actually speak the foreign language and interact cooperatively with you.

Yati
That’s true. That might be it.

Hiro
Also, Japanese is an especially distant language from English. It’s often said that Japanese speakers have trouble distinguishing the letters L and R. Japanese basically attaches a vowel to every syllable. For example, “class” gets unconsciously pronounced “kurasu” with added vowels. In Japanese transliteration, English words often pick up extra vowels because of these constraints.

Yati
Right. Consonant pronunciation is hard.

Hiro
It’s not only Japanese speakers who struggle with English. French, for example, doesn’t use stress shifts to change meaning the way English does, so French speakers find that difficult, like the word “object,” where stress shifts between noun and verb forms. Japanese has pitch-accent pairs where the same sound can mean different things depending on pitch, like “ame” meaning either rain or candy, so we can grasp the concept. Every speaker gets pulled by the patterns of their native language.

Yati
Huh, I didn’t know that.

Hiro
At the same time, I think it’s important to preserve features unique to your native language. In Japanese, there’s onomatopoeia, like “potsu-potsu” for raindrops falling.

Yati
Actually, onomatopoeia strictly refers to words that imitate actual sounds. Japanese has many words that aren’t like that, bowing “peko-peko,” being “ira-ira” irritated, or going “shiin” silent. In Japan these have been called gitaigo, meaning mimetic words, or gijōgo, meaning emotion-depicting words, but since Western languages rarely have them, they’ve been lumped together with onomatopoeia. Recently, international linguistics has started calling them “ideophones.” Our two-year-old has loved saying “sorori-sorori” while tiptoeing from around age two. That sound doesn’t exist in real life, but the feeling comes through. A fun example.

Hiro
Japanese people have used these expressions for ages. I want to cherish that uniquely Japanese way of perceiving the world.

Yati
And again, authentic sound matters, like adults reading folktales aloud. In my Montessori teacher training course, we learned to talk and sing to babies in the womb. After birth, the mother’s voice becomes a bridge between the world inside and the new world outside, giving the baby security.

Hiro
Voice is important. And it’s good to hear a variety of real sounds, in nature, in the forest, birdsong, insect calls, leaves rustling in the wind. All sorts of sounds. So we want to avoid staying cooped up indoors watching YouTube all the time.

Yati
In the three to six Montessori activities, there’s a game called the Silence Game, where everyone stays still and quiet, listening closely to the sounds around them. It’s fun to try in different places, a park, inside a car. You discover how many sounds there actually are. It calms the mind like meditation. I hope people give it a try.

While worksheet-based learning is a way to increase learning efficiency while reducing management costs for teachers, Maria Montessori criticized it as “busy work.” Is there an alternative to this generalized method of learning?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Learning methods have plenty of room for evolution.

Yati
As I mentioned in the three to six article, this time we’re discussing worksheet learning.

Hiro
In Montessori education, is worksheet learning good or bad?

Yati
It’s bad. AMI’s elementary trainers, the people certified to train teachers, repeatedly devote many pages to saying, “Don’t use worksheets or workbooks.”

Hiro
“Don’t do pencil work.” Why is that?

Yati
“Because we don’t just want to give answers.” And we certainly don’t want rote memorization. We want children to understand for themselves and to reach that understanding in a state of being “set on fire,” deeply engaged. That kind of engagement ultimately leads to new discoveries for humanity. Instead of worksheets, children experiment and make mistakes with didactic materials, set their own problems and research them, or build their own models and materials.

Hiro
So kanji drills and math drills are also out.

Yati
That’s how it goes.

Hiro
Isn’t that specifically for ages 9 to 12?

Yati
Worksheets aren’t part of cosmic education, so it applies to the whole six to twelve range. I believe it’s the same for ages three to six. Worksheet learning never came up in my three to six course.

Hiro
Then how do children develop literacy skills like calculation, reading, and writing?

Yati
They create their own problems. For example, if five or six year olds are doing four-digit addition with the Stamp Game, you just say, “Tell me any four numbers you like,” and that becomes the first number. If you want to avoid carrying, you can say, “Now I’ll pick four numbers I like.” Once children see how problems are created, they start making and solving their own. It’s curious, children aren’t motivated by pre-printed problems, but when they can create the problems themselves, they become eager.

Hiro
Without building that foundation from age three to six, wouldn’t it be pretty painful? The premise is different.

Yati
That’s true. A Montessori environment has many children who are self-reliant, working asynchronously on activities they’ve chosen themselves. For children raised where doing the same thing as everyone else and waiting for instructions is normal, even “pick any number you like” might feel stressful.

Hiro
Exactly. No matter how superior Montessori education is and how bad worksheet learning may be, people ask, “I get the ideal, but what am I supposed to do?” Methods for avoiding worksheets in Montessori education aren’t widely shared or generalized.

Yati
That’s AMI’s fault. I’m grateful to Montessori education for helping me, and precisely because it’s so wonderful, it should become “Open AMI.” Everything should be made freely available. If they’re truly aiming for world peace.

Hiro
Would making it public solve the problem?

Yati
No, that alone wouldn’t be enough. There’s still the issue of teachers. Unless you experienced something Montessori-like as a child, like Will Wright’s games or something similar, and know the joy of becoming absorbed in something and making your own discoveries, you won’t be able to use the materials well. Adults end up guiding children for their own convenience.

Hiro
So the teacher’s own background matters a lot.

Yati
Right. And on top of that, science keeps advancing, new facts emerge, and new technologies become available. You have to keep studying, thinking, and incorporating new things on your own. But people who can do that are rare.

Hiro
And there’s the issue on the children’s side too, like waiting for instructions. Maybe one-on-one teaching would work, but that’s unrealistic. What’s good about worksheets? If the technology is mature, it can be done cheaply. Everyone can use them. You print them, use recycled paper, and the problems are standardized. But there’s also the view that they’re “too outdated” and “too low quality.” On the other hand, the Montessori approach we’re talking about isn’t commoditized yet, so it’s demanding. Still, we can’t just drop existing worksheet learning, and we can’t achieve a perfect Montessori setup. But isn’t there something in between?

Yati
Isn’t that what we’re doing? [laughs]

Hiro
Wait, we are? What do you mean? [laughs]

Yati
We’re digitizing the materials. We’re evolving them and then digitizing them.

Hiro
Go on, even if it sounds like advertising.

Yati
We’re turning didactic materials into apps for iPhone and iPad.

Hiro
This is definitely promotional, but keep going.

Yati
There’s a material called the Sandpaper Letters for learning letters. It’s a thin wooden board with sandpaper cut into the shape of letters, or grooves carved into it, and children trace them in the correct stroke order to learn how to write. We made an app version.

Hiro
In English-speaking countries, three to six year olds learn 26 letters of the alphabet plus 10 numerals. Strictly speaking, there are also sandpaper letters for digraphs like the letters S H and C H. But in Japan, you can’t stop at just hiragana and katakana, the phonetic Japanese writing systems.

Yati
Right. Our app, StudyX Smartpaper Letters, supports over 6,800 characters, including kanji, the Chinese-derived characters used in Japanese. Imagine making that into physical materials. You’d need classroom space, resources to produce them, and transportation costs.

Hiro
A set of 6,800 boards. The materials would cost a fortune.

Yati
Some say that once children are in elementary school, they should learn kanji theoretically by thinking about the meaning of components rather than tracing sensory-based sandpaper letters. But considering how writing evolved, from pictures, to kanji, to hiragana and katakana, I think it’s more natural for three to six year olds to start writing kanji first.

Hiro
Under Montessori purist rules, digital apps aren’t allowed, right? Isn’t AMI telling people to avoid screen time?

Yati
How much time and money do you think it would take to set up the ideal Montessori environment AMI describes for every child in the world? StudyX Smartpaper Letters gets downloaded in China, so we added support for Simplified Chinese characters. That kind of rapid adaptation is only possible with digital.

Hiro
Are you ready to be excommunicated by AMI? [laughs]

Yati
I’m doing this at the risk of excommunication. Maria Montessori was familiar with the cutting-edge technology and developers of her time, and I think she believed education should evolve with the era. But here’s the thing. Environments that officially qualify as “Montessori education” are actually far more restricted than most people realize.

Hiro
How restricted?

Yati
Take Gandhi in India. He exchanged ideas with Maria Montessori, and he tried to adapt Montessori education so it could be practiced even in poverty. He provided real work, spinning thread and making cloth. Gandhi understood the essence of Montessori education so well that Maria personally certified him as a teacher without requiring him to take a course. But in response to Gandhi’s efforts, Maria said something like, “I am not a tailor. I have only provided the fabric. If you want to wear it in an Indian style, how you cut it should be left to the skill and judgment of the teachers.” In other words: don’t call it “Montessori education.”

Hiro
So even Gandhi’s version didn’t count.

Yati
Meanwhile, for an elite school in India that had child-sized furniture and a full set of materials, she said it was “my ideals rendered in brick and mortar.” She held up a Dutch Montessori school with a pool and gymnasium as a model in her training lectures, and she insisted on personally training every teacher and equipping each classroom with a complete set of Montessori materials. So even back then, the spread of Montessori education was heavily restricted. By those standards, you have to wonder whether any environment in Japan qualifies as “Montessori education,” and apps are so far beyond the pale it’s laughable. [laughs]

Hiro
That’s pretty stuck-up. This might sound provocative, but when you actually build apps yourself, you realize: ultimately, “the teacher gets in the way.”

Yati
Exactly! That’s it! Liberation from teachers! And liberation from location constraints at the same time. This is evolution.

Hiro
In a sense, AMI’s very existence would be threatened by apps that “make teachers unnecessary,” so maybe they don’t want that.

Yati
Maybe. With the Sandpaper Letters, having a teacher demonstrate how to write every single character one-on-one is exhausting. Teachers can’t always respond the moment a child is ready, and children want to see it over and over. At the same time, they want a teacher who doesn’t make unnecessary comments.

Hiro
Hard to satisfy all of those at once.

Yati
That’s where a machine wins. It can teach even the most complex kanji accurately every time, whenever the child wants, without saying anything unnecessary. It calculates a score based on tracing accuracy and encourages repetition. My eldest daughter used the app StudyX Smartpaper Letters to teach herself. Within the first half year of elementary school, she finished learning all kanji through sixth grade. Technology just hadn’t caught up before; children’s potential is still largely unknown.

Hiro
The theory was that with lots of children, older ones become teachers for younger ones, but birthrates are declining.

Yati
Right. For a three to six environment, the standard is one teacher, one assistant, and thirty-five to forty-five children, the more the better. But in Japan, where the birthrate is seriously declining, is that even achievable?

Hiro
Tuition running into the millions of yen, the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars, isn’t sustainable either. And as you said, making physical materials isn’t eco-friendly. It goes against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Yati
I learned a lot from actually making wooden materials. You use wood that took hundreds of years to grow. You use paints that prioritize safety. And yet chemical substances are inevitably involved. Shipping also generates a lot of carbon dioxide.

Hiro
Working with your hands really does teach you things.

Yati
It does. People say materials are expensive, but the prices are reasonable. Making them beautifully is hard. They’re actually cheap, if anything. Cheap materials are scary. Where are they cutting costs? They must be using inferior materials.

Hiro
And probably not paying workers fairly. So, in summary, AMI’s approach isn’t sustainable and isn’t cool.

Yati
I’ve thought many times about burning my teaching certificate.

Hiro
That’s radical. [laughs] Well, we’re anti-establishment. We don’t believe Maria Montessori was absolutely right, that’s why we take a scientific approach. We don’t think we’re absolutely right either; we always work with the awareness that we might be wrong.

Yati
True. Our thinking keeps updating, so I’m glad we created a monthly magazine that can deliver the latest information. That said, I do want to point out that physical materials are still genuinely valuable.

Hiro
In what way?

Yati
I made wooden fraction circles, and the other day my eldest daughter used them in an unexpected way while studying math through programming. This is turtle geometry, where a character on screen draws shapes by tracing its path. “Move forward 100 steps, then turn 120 degrees,” repeated, draws an equilateral triangle. Why does that work? She was able to explore that question hands-on with the material. Experimenting hands-on like this really does lead to discoveries.

Hiro
That’s the difference from worksheet learning. If a worksheet tests knowledge and you don’t have that knowledge, you can’t do anything. But with materials, you might figure something out just by handling them.

Yati
That’s absolutely true. For something like these fraction circles, there are hardware stores now where you can use laser cutters, and wood is easy to get, so I think people should try making them. When parents do that kind of thing, children want to make things, too.

Hiro
That’s ideal, but the bar is pretty high for ordinary families. So I think we should keep evolving apps. I made a handwriting-based math drill app, and it gives immediate feedback on whether answers are correct. I was able to design a learning experience where children naturally write numbers carefully and try to solve problems quickly and accurately. There are lots of ways to encourage learning. The specifics are trade secrets, though.

Yati
I hope we can get the apps we’re developing to everyone soon.

Hiro
I’m going to create apps that unleash the creativity of children around the world. Conventional education spoils creativity. We’re fighting against that.

Yati
Ages six to twelve are what Maria Montessori called the most intellectual period, the time to fully unleash imagination. Let me close with her words.

Hiro
Please.

Yati
“The secret of good education is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to sprout and grow under the heat of a flaming imagination. Our aim, therefore, is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force memorization, but to touch the imagination and kindle enthusiasm to the child’s inmost core. We do not want complacent students; we want students hungry for knowledge. Rather than cramming theories into children, we wish to sow life and help them grow, mentally, emotionally, and physically. To do this, we must offer the human mind great and lofty ideas, for the mind is always ready to receive them and asks for more and more.”

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Who we are is down to nature or nurture?

Hiro
Today’s theme for the 3 to 6 age group is “Liberal Arts Starting at Age 3,” the general knowledge children should acquire by age 6.

Yati
There are a lot of books with titles like that these days.

Hiro
Elementary-school entrance exams often test general knowledge.

Yati
Things like Japanese seasonal items, annual events, plants, and science facts.

Hiro
It’s a problem when people try to cram it all in just because general knowledge matters.

Yati
Like flashcards. In Montessori education, the idea is to learn through hands-on experiences using all five senses.

Hiro
Even at tutoring centers, there are so many worksheets.

Yati
Worksheet-based learning is an important topic with a lot to say, so I’ll save it for the 6 to 12 article. Let’s dig into Japanese culture here.

Hiro
This might get a bit tricky. When is a Japanese identity formed?

Yati
Hmm, that’s hard. Maybe when you can use the Japanese language? If someone asks, “Would you like tea or coffee?” and you answer, “Either is fine,” people overseas might react with, “Can’t you choose for yourself?”

Hiro
That’s Japanese culture, right there.

Yati
But you clearly say “water” instead of tea or coffee. There are lots of ways you’re not very Japanese. Maybe it’s generational, like the “relaxed generation,” or because you’ve been exposed to foreign geniuses and overseas information for so long?

Hiro
Maybe it’s the internet. That’s why I’m curious: when does a Japanese person become Japanese?

Yati
By age 6, you’re already Japanese, right?

Hiro
Yoko, our daughter, says she’s a Tokyoite. [laughs]

Yati
That’s one way to think about it. Some say you’re truly Japanese only after three generations.

Hiro
A true Edokko, meaning a third-generation Tokyoite? A Kyoto native?

Yati
Genes play a role, too. Nowadays anyone can get a DNA analysis and discover unexpected countries in their heritage. But even without Japanese genes, spending a long time in Japan, or spending ages 0 to 6 there, seems important.

Hiro
There are many measures, but personally, I think it comes down to how much brain training you’ve had.

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
You know the Japanese comedy duo Taka and Toshi? They have a routine where one of them lists Western-sounding things and the other shouts “Western-style!” as a punchline. So if I say, “Meat pie.”

Yati
“Western-style!”

Hiro
Right. They list things that sound Western. Now, what if someone says, “I want sushi”?

Yati
“Japanese-style!”

Hiro
Exactly. “I want miso soup” or “Shall I bring you tea after your meal?” Those prompt “Japanese-style!” Similarly, you might see the shrug emoji, you know, the one with the palms up, and think, “What’s that?” But once you see foreigners actually doing that gesture in person, you get it. You learn that it means “Oh well” or “Who knows?” That’s the result of training in behavior.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
Ultimately, being Japanese, or any local identity, depends on how much you’ve been trained in local norms.

Yati
So it’s about how much culture, or general knowledge, you’ve learned. Can someone become Japanese in a single generation if they learn a huge amount of Japanese culture?

Hiro
I think it’s more of a gradient. Someone might be mostly American with a dose of Japanese, like Lou Oshiba, a Japanese TV personality famous for randomly swapping English words into Japanese proverbs. [laughs]

Yati
Right, like his parodies of Japanese sayings: “Out of the yabu, a stick!” “Three-days bouzu.” “Grasping at a straw.” “Even a mago looks good in a dress.” [laughs]

Hiro
[laughs]

Yati
By the way, there was a recent trend where Chinese and Japanese people communicate in writing by mixing kanji and English. They use Chinese characters for nouns, since the meanings often match, and English for grammar words. Apparently it makes communication surprisingly easy.

Hiro
There’s even a rock band that sings in that style. The point is, you’re only purely one nationality if you’re deeply rooted in that place. What I was thinking is: as we become more globalized, and in Montessori education we learn about all kinds of places around the world through hands-on experience...

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
...that local rootedness gradually fades. You realize, “Here’s one way of thinking; here’s another.” You start to identify with one perspective over another, or prefer certain ideas. Different elements mix in. If it’s all training, then new models keep entering, languages become relative, and values become relative.

Yati
Right. You start questioning, or even feeling embarrassed by, “Japan first” attitudes.

Hiro
Exactly. When someone has only ever grown up in Japan and doesn’t know other cultures, they can’t relativize. Saying things like that is self-absorbed in a bad way, kind of embarrassing. But once you’ve gone through that, you recognize that you grew up in Japan, carry Japanese elements, know what’s unique about Japan, and want to cherish that. That’s the good version.

Yati
Sounds like evolution. So, what is Japanese culture, really?

Hiro
There’s no objective metric for Japanese culture. It’s defined by people’s perceptions. To define it, you have to examine those perceptions. Each person thinks, “This is Japanese culture,” and that’s how Japanese culture gets defined, almost like voting.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
People say Mount Fuji, geisha, sushi, tempura, but tempura came from the Netherlands. Yet foreigners think, “Tempura is so Japanese.” Fact and perception differ. So what we really need to define is the Japanese person who behaves in a “Japanese-like” way.

Yati
It’s not just tempura. Like “Japanese denim is the best in the world.” When something enters Japan, Japanese people make it Japanese. Think of bento culture: dexterous fingers carefully arranging every little item. That really does add a Japanese element.

Hiro
Ultimately, culture is created by habits. Here’s something more intellectual: there’s such a thing as “Japanese architecture.” It’s become quite Westernized, but traditional Japanese buildings have distinctive features. What do you think they are?

Yati
Wooden joinery? Building without nails?

Hiro
No. The essence isn’t there. The essence of Japanese architecture is “how to let humidity escape.”

Yati
That’s true. My family’s old house had raised floors, and air flowed through every room.

Hiro
Right. There’s less separation between inside and outside. In Europe, they use brick. Brick is sturdy, but it traps moisture and molds.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
On the other hand, that moisture enables fermentation. Microbes can thrive. Fermentation is harder in dry climates. Technology comes from accidental discoveries. In dry places, people mainly processed fruits that already hold moisture, like grapes into wine. Otherwise, they bake. Ferment dough to make it rise, then bake it.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
Eating things raw is basically not done. Bread isn’t eaten raw. Yogurt and cheese exist, but they’re mainly for preservation. So differences in climate and regional environment shape habits, and those habits shape what it means to be of a certain nationality.

Yati
That might be true.

Hiro
Houses influence people. Thatched roofs also let moisture escape, but they’re different from European structures built to last centuries. The philosophy is different. Europeans build things to last a long time without rebuilding; Japanese buildings are made to last, too, but with the assumption that repairs, replacements, and renovations will happen. Shinto shrines even have the concept of sengu, relocating and rebuilding at set intervals, or renovating. So Japanese people have a kind of mobile mindset.

Yati
You mean building something less sturdy, then discarding it and moving when it breaks?

Hiro
More like a temporary dwelling you can move. It’s a 100-yen-shop culture, similar to a dollar store. But when 100-yen-shop quality levels up, it becomes craft, like kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold. You use good materials and make something fine, but it will break, and that impermanence is part of wabi-sabi, the aesthetic of finding beauty in transience.

Yati
That sounds kind of cheap, though.

Hiro
It’s not being poor. It’s wabi-sabi.

Yati
Geta, traditional Japanese wooden sandals, can be repaired part by part, the teeth, the thong, so they last far longer than sneakers.

Hiro
Modular footwear.

Yati
Yukata, the casual summer kimono, are amazing, too. Last year I sewed a yukata and made discovery after discovery. First, with koshi-age and kata-age, tucks at the waist and shoulders, a child can wear the same yukata for years.

Hiro
Adjustable sizing built in.

Yati
And the design uses a narrow bolt of fabric called tan-mono as efficiently as possible, with almost no waste, straight lines everywhere. When I made Western-style clothes, I had to use a big piece of fabric and ended up with lots of scraps. I kept wishing I could design something without scraps, and Japanese people invented that long ago. Even then, there’s a little bit of leftover fabric, and you tuck it into the collar area for future repairs. Isn’t that amazing?!

Hiro
Fundamentally, Japan is an island. Resources are limited. In the end, geography matters.

Yati
And here we connect to the cultural education in Montessori. It starts with a globe that has no borders, land is rough, ocean is smooth, to learn the difference between land and sea. Then you learn continents and oceans, and play with puzzles of countries on each continent.

Hiro
Hands-on geography.

Yati
Right. You do experiments with paired landforms: “island and lake,” “peninsula and gulf,” “isthmus and strait.” Then you explore maps of various places on Earth to see what kinds of landforms exist, color-coding islands and lakes, for example. At the same time, there are materials that show photos of daily life, buildings, clothing, and food from different countries. There are activities where you listen to music from various countries, hear stories about its historical background, and view photos of where that music was enjoyed. There’s also material for learning leaf shapes, which leads to understanding the world’s vegetation.

Hiro
That’s a lot to take in.

Yati
All of this feeds into the 6 to 12 “sensitive period for culture,” when children develop deep intellectual curiosity and a drive to explore the breadth and diversity of the world. Coming back to our topic: Japan is an island nation, so is it similar to another island nation like Britain? What about a small country next to a continent that also has few resources? Is that different from an island nation? Children become able to think through questions like these.

Hiro
Being connected by land makes travel, and invasion, easier. That’s where island nations differ. Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire; easy access makes things volatile. Japan had its own Sengoku period, an era of warring feudal domains, but eventually unified.

Yati
Geographic distance is strongly correlated with genetic diversity, and geographic proximity correlates with similar ways of thinking. So how should 3 to 6 year olds learn about culture?

Hiro
Just enjoy daily life. To enjoy it even more, you need to learn about other cultures so you can relativize your own. Ages 3 to 6 is already the period for learning general knowledge.

Yati
Watching something like Curious George brings in a lot of foreign culture.

Hiro
The problem is there aren’t many anime that teach Japanese culture. The long-running family anime like Sazae-san and Chibi Maruko-chan are outdated now.

Yati
We need more content that reflects contemporary Japanese life without fantasy elements.

Hiro
Young creators need to step up. I wonder if any Montessori alumni will emerge.

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Liberal arts for children from birth.

Yati
Today’s topic is “cultural education.” Your first question might be, “What is cultural education?” Just as schools have subjects like language arts, math, and science, Montessori education has areas such as “language” and “mathematics.” One of those areas used to be called “cultural education.” It covers content like geography, history, biology, and physics, topics that children can start learning as early as 3 to 6 years old. I said “used to be called” because the term “culture” was considered too broad and has been reconsidered. In the international training course I took, it was renamed “language extensions” or folded into the “sensorial” area.

Hiro
I didn’t know that.

Yati
“Cultural education” probably isn’t Maria Montessori’s own term. It seems to have been coined later. Here’s what Montessori herself said: “We discovered that education is not something the teacher gives, but a natural process that develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but through experiences the child has in acting on the environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.” I think she saw everything as culture.

Hiro
So there’s nothing that can’t be called culture?

Yati
Exactly. Maria Montessori observed children around the world and discovered that “humans possess the ‘absorbent mind’ only during the years 0 to 6.” The absorbent mind is like a sponge that takes in everything, language, food, clothing, people’s attitudes and behaviors, and uses it all to build the self, becoming a unique individual. Everything absorbed by the absorbent mind could be called culture.

Hiro
Changing the subject a bit: I believe that to discuss Montessori education scientifically, we need to translate Montessori-specific terms into language shared by other academic fields. Take the word “absorb” in “absorbent mind.” Isn’t it an unsuitable metaphor? In both neuroscience and engineering, “learn” would be more accurate.

Yati
I never thought of it that way. Having once immersed myself in Montessori education, I feel a certain resistance to that idea. But when I recall first learning about Montessori, I did feel a lot of confusion. I kept asking, “What does ‘didactic material’ mean?”

Hiro
To me, “didactic material” sounds like “brain-training equipment.”

Yati
That makes sense. It’s consistent with our pilot issue, “Raising Children Is Growing Brains.” The discussion of the absorbent mind is really about brain science, but since neuroscience wasn’t well developed in Maria Montessori’s time, she borrowed terms from biology, psychology, and philosophy, and used metaphors, to explain her ideas. Terms like “horme,” “mneme,” “nebulae,” and “engram” unnecessarily raise the barrier to learning Montessori education. This seems like a good opportunity to create a table mapping those terms to neuroscience.

Hiro
That makes it much clearer. Getting back to “cultural education,” I personally think these areas can also be organized in terms of brain science.

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
List the Montessori areas for me.

Yati
“Language,” “mathematics,” “sensorial,” “practical life,” and “cultural education.”

Hiro
These areas roughly correspond to regions of the brain. “Language” corresponds to the language areas in the brain. “Mathematics,” as we covered in an earlier issue, also has corresponding brain regions. “Sensorial” corresponds to the sensory cortex. “Practical life” involves movement, so it corresponds to the motor cortex.

Yati
You’re right. This is groundbreaking. I’d wondered whether the way Montessori divides these areas was a bit odd, but it turns out they’re designed to develop the whole brain in a balanced way.

Hiro
Exactly. As for “cultural education,” I think it corresponds to the occipital lobe.

Yati
Tell me more.

Hiro
I’ve been studying neuroscience lately, so I know a bit about the brain. The occipital lobe, at the back of the brain, handles vision, processing images, perceiving your position in space, and so on.

Yati
I looked it up, and it recognizes the shape, color, and speed of movement of things you see. It also recreates what you’ve seen. It works with the hippocampus for memory and the prefrontal cortex for judgment, so you can decide, “The light is red, so I shouldn’t cross.”

Hiro
It’s also the area involved in viewing things and enjoying visual experiences. That’s what “cultural education” corresponds to. Or maybe we should call it “knowledge education.”

Yati
Right.

Hiro
Isn’t “cultural education” really training to expand knowledge? It doesn’t matter whether the knowledge is about another culture or your own; it’s simply about gaining knowledge and becoming more cultured, developing general education. Like a culture course.

Yati
A “culture center”!

Hiro
The English word “culture” is broad, but personally, I feel what we’re really pointing at here is “liberal education,” or cultivation.

Yati
So it was “liberal-arts education” all along.

Hiro
Exactly. Liberal arts.

Yati
So, what should we do to cultivate liberal arts starting from ages 0 to 3?

Hiro
Liberal arts from ages 0 to 3, huh? Anything works, really, but the biggest bottleneck isn’t the environment. It’s the parents and other adults.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
For example, families that visit art museums are different from those that don’t. Their motivation toward art is different.

Yati
True. The same goes for science museums. Did you go to art museums as a child?

Hiro
Actually, I grew up in Iwate Prefecture, in northern Japan, where artwork was displayed all around town, so I didn’t need to go to a museum. [laughs]

Yati
That’s not fair!

Hiro
I got to see works by Shigeo Fukuda, a world-renowned Japanese graphic designer, for free.

Yati
Learning from world-class art. Oh, if I say “absorbing,” you’ll scold me again. Learning from world-class art.

Hiro
Learning. And it’s not just art. Culturally rich towns let you feel “culture” in general. Literature, too.

Yati
Iwate is brimming with traces of Kenji Miyazawa, the beloved Japanese poet and children’s author from that region.

Hiro
If you grow up in a place without a local poet or author, you won’t feel close to literature, unless your parents engage with it themselves.

Yati
In the end, for liberal arts from 0 to 3, “Move to a culturally rich city” is a sad conclusion, but Morioka really is a cultural place. In my Montessori international course, a trainer from abroad said, “Enjoy outdoor concerts in the plaza with your baby.” I thought, “That’s just overseas culture.” But when I came to Morioka, the capital of Iwate Prefecture, there’s a weekly evening street market called Yo-ichi with authentic string-instrument performances, and kids dancing along.

Hiro
Even the nearby Aeon mall had flute trios.

Yati
Exactly. At Yo-ichi, high-school calligraphy clubs do live performances writing giant pieces. Walking around, you see statues of Kenji Miyazawa. There’s Kōgensha, a shop featuring traditional folk crafts from all over Japan. There used to be Iwaizumi Junboku Kagu, a furniture shop whose motto was “Wood that has lived for three hundred years becomes furniture you can use for three hundred years,” though it’s closed now. And adults are having a blast with sea urchin, oysters, local craft beer, and wine.

Hiro
This is turning into a Morioka advertisement.

Yati
But even in Fukuoka, in southern Japan, the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra held concerts that babies could attend. If you look, you can find things like that.

Hiro
True. There’s usually something. Even if you don’t search, you might try attending something you normally ignore, like sumo wrestling or rakugo, the Japanese art of comic storytelling, whatever.

Yati
Right. Culture isn’t just about enjoying it. There’s also the side of creating it.

Hiro
Culture is an accumulation of comprehensive arts. You could call it humanity’s collective memory. Every region has its own culture, an aggregate of the activities of the people who’ve lived there. In simple terms: what have people done? That’s shaped by script, language, customs, climate, and environment. When we say “cultural education,” it encompasses tremendous diversity.

Yati
For example?

Hiro
Take writing systems. Not everyone uses the same script. Chinese people use Chinese characters, English speakers use the Roman alphabet, Japanese people use Japanese script, and each system developed differently. Ideographic scripts express meaning; phonetic scripts express sound. These differences give rise to people who prefer manga and anime, or people who prefer music and podcasts. It’s less about preference and more about aptitude.

Yati
Interesting.

Hiro
Ultimately, human art may be an extension of language. Trace it back far enough and you reach the cave paintings at Lascaux or Altamira. At its core, culture begins with “expressing what you want to express.” Art came first, then art developed, and writing and numbers emerged. Those developed further into scholarship and technology.

Yati
What about religion?

Hiro
Religion? That came even before writing and numbers. Art developed and gave rise to religion. Idol worship: shaping gods into figures, venerating them, feeling gratitude. Everything starts with art. Work, too, began there.

Yati
To apply this to children’s education, should we trace that history?

Hiro
“Cultural education” sounds vague, but essentially, you should have something you want to express and develop the habit of expressing it. First, it’s important to have something you want to express. Second, you need the freedom to express it however you like. Freedom of expression. Freedom of speech and expression really matter for a culturally rich life.

Yati
When 1- to 2-year-olds paint with paints, the pictures are unique, and the moment they’re painting looks like pure joy. The act of painting and expressing is more important than the finished piece. In my Montessori international course, we were explicitly taught, “Art activities exist solely for children’s self-expression.” That’s how much care is needed, adults must refrain from evaluating, to achieve true free expression. Let me close with a quote from Maria Montessori: “If we wish to give the child the joy of drawing, we must create in him an eye that sees, a hand that obeys, and a soul that feels.”

Hiro
In other words: “Children seek not evaluation, but the opportunity for self-expression.”

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Self-reliance equals freedom.

Yati
In this article on the 6 to 12 age group, I’d like to look at the history of hands and work. Got any interesting insights?

Hiro
There’s a theory proposed by the founder of Omron called “SINIC Theory.”

Yati
What kind of theory?

Hiro
It was developed to predict how human society evolves. The idea is that “management is prediction.”

Yati
How do you make predictions?

Hiro
Ultimately, you study history. When you do, you see that human society started with primitive life, then moved to agricultural life, followed by handicraft, the craft era, then industrial society.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
After that came automation, society transformed by spinning machines and steam engines.

Yati
The First Industrial Revolution, around the 1760s to the early 1800s.

Hiro
Right. Then spinning machines evolved, machines in general evolved, and computers emerged.

Yati
Machines began to compute.

Hiro
And after that came the information society, where everything became digitized. What comes next? Right now, we’re in the “optimization society.”

Yati
What does “optimization society” mean, specifically?

Hiro
It means turning everything into computation problems and letting computers solve them. To optimize information, what’s the first step?

Yati
You gather information.

Hiro
Exactly. You collect it in one place, amass huge amounts of data, run calculations, and optimize.

Yati
That’s exactly what’s happening in AI development right now. To train an AI, you have to gather data in one location.

Hiro
Right. In other words, it’s centralization.

Yati
A centralized structure.

Hiro
So what comes next?

Yati
The opposite of centralization? Each entity starts doing its own optimization, calculating on its own smartphone or computer?

Hiro
Exactly. After the optimization society comes the “autonomous society.” This is said to begin in 2025.

Yati
That’s last year.

Hiro
From about 2025 to 2032.

Yati
What’s good about an “autonomous society”?

Hiro
When something shifts from centralized to distributed, it becomes more efficient.

Yati
Can you give an example?

Hiro
Right now, computers rely on “the cloud,” where data is sent to a central location, processed there, and the results are returned. In an autonomous society, each device, every smartphone and personal computer, handles what the cloud used to do. Processing is distributed. AI works the same way today: data is collected centrally, computed there, and accessed remotely. But going forward, there’s no need to access a central server; each device handles things locally. That’s the autonomous society.

Yati
Does social structure change, too?

Hiro
Yes, the same principle applies. Schools, for example, currently bring everyone to one place for activities and then send them home. That’s centralized. And the curriculum is determined by something like Japan’s Ministry of Education, implemented uniformly across the country. So there’s a hierarchy with the ministry at the top. Instead, in an autonomous society, each person has a personalized curriculum tailored to them and carries it out independently.

Yati
True self-reliance.

Hiro
Exactly. There’s no longer any central authority to depend on. Government works the same way. In Japan, governance centers on Kasumigaseki in Tokyo, but authority shifts to local areas, where each community governs itself. That’s the autonomous society. This is the evolution of human society. We’re moving forward.

Yati
Looking at the SINIC Theory diagram, it’s drawn as a spiral, climbing upward but also, in a sense, returning to the past. Does that mean going back to primitive times? What does that mean?

Hiro
Let’s talk about what happens once the autonomous society is complete. Starting around 2033, we enter what’s called the “natural society.” That’s Omron’s term. It’s not a return to the “primitive era” I mentioned. It’s ascending the spiral one level higher. In other words, it’s a “supra-natural society.”

Yati
Wait, that’s exactly what Maria Montessori said: “To contribute to the child is to contribute to all life. By aiding the work of nature, we raise nature to the supra-natural stage. That is the law of life. It is children who bring about the new stage toward a higher dimension.”

Hiro
Exactly. In the end, everyone pursues what they want to do, and that naturally works to improve both the environment and society. Actually, Confucius already said something similar in the Analects: “At seventy, I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the bounds of right.” As you mature, doing what you want while naturally staying within propriety is what’s traditionally called “human virtue.” The same principle applies at both the individual and societal scale. Does that make sense?

Yati
Say that again.

Hiro
Right now, if everyone just acted selfishly, society would collapse. But in an ultimately perfected society, each person is self-reliant; and when they all act freely, the result is an incredibly good society.

Yati
No need for rules to constrain anyone.

Hiro
Exactly. No constitution or laws required. No one needs to control anyone. It’s called a “non-control society.” Control is unnecessary.

Yati
Does that mean people genuinely care about each other? That ethics are highly developed?

Hiro
You could say they care about each other, or that from the outside it looks like high ethics. But it’s not forced. They’re acting freely, and it just works out that way.

Yati
An ideal society.

Hiro
Right. Two major trends to note: “things and the individual.” Modern society has emphasized things. Originally, the focus was on “heart and community.” Over time, the emphasis shifted from “heart” to “things,” and from “community” to “the individual.”

Yati
I see.

Hiro
In primitive life, people valued richness of heart and richness of communal life. We’re spiraling back toward that.

Yati
But if we’re talking about “self-reliant individuals,” how does that fit with “community and heart”?

Hiro
Self-reliance has three dimensions: mental self-reliance, physical self-reliance, and economic self-reliance. There’s a lot of overlap with Montessori here.

Yati
Montessori says “self-reliance equals freedom.”

Hiro
Exactly. In the autonomous society, three key perspectives matter: self-reliance, collaboration, and creation. Various things emerge at the boundaries between them. Between self-reliance and collaboration lies “altruism.” Between collaboration and creation lies “emergence.” Between creation and self-reliance lies “empathy.” In other words, you can’t be altruistic unless you’re first self-reliant.

Yati
That’s true. Montessori children can make delicious food themselves, so they can offer cookies to friends without a second thought.

Hiro
What is “selfishness,” really? It’s ultimately an expression of the desire to be self-reliant.

Yati
That may be true.

Hiro
So, bottom line: the transition to an autonomous society starts in 2025.

Yati
Sounds like “The transition to digital TV is starting.”

Hiro
The optimization society will fade away. And what is this new autonomous society? It’s essentially a “Montessori society.”

Yati
Wait, so it’s already here? Does that mean we don’t even need Montessori anymore?

Hiro
The point is that this time, humans themselves must change.

Yati
What do you mean, “this time”?

Hiro
Up until now, the focus was on improving machines. Now, improved machines will help improve humans.

Yati
Machines will change us?

Hiro
Yes. AI is part of that. People who adapt easily will be fine, but those who struggle to change will find it extremely painful. Children can still change. And what technology is called for now? Something called “mind-body technology,” technology for the mental dimension. Controlling the mind.

Yati
I can’t quite picture it. You mean “manipulating or controlling the mind”?

Hiro
Yes, controlling mental states. There are already signs of this. Brain machine interfaces, or BMI for short, use brainwaves to control computers. Smartwatches measure heart rate; if your heart stops, they automatically call an ambulance or send a rescue team. In mountain climbing, for example, if someone gets lost, GPS connects to rescuers.

Yati
So similarly, we’ll monitor mental states and provide feedback to the mind?

Hiro
We’re not quite there yet. Right now, we track blood pressure and health data, but that will advance to tracking mental states. “This person is heading toward depression” or “This person is getting a bit too overconfident.”

Yati
[laughs]

Hiro
Or “They’re eating properly.”

Yati
Like a good mother.

Hiro
Exactly. Doing what a mother would normally do. But not everyone has a good mother. So if we had a “mother AI,” people could rely on it for comfort.

Yati
A mentor.

Hiro
Yes, mentoring. The point is to value the mind. Things like motivation have been invisible, so they were neglected, but they’re incredibly important. Ignoring them is why we have problems like depression. Harassment, too: harassment is essentially “mental distress.” Once “mental distress” is properly recognized, harassment becomes unacceptable. In other words, the mental dimension is finally being evaluated appropriately.

Yati
When you think about it that way, a lot is changing.

Hiro
Before, we only thought about physical needs, like “as long as you’re sheltered from wind and rain.” Now we ask, “Is this space genuinely comfortable to be in?” Schools, too: it used to be “as long as you acquire knowledge.” Now we ask, “Are students learning what they actually want to learn?” and “Are they unhappy about it?” Evaluating that, and bringing unhappiness down to zero, is probably what mind-body technology is about. In short, “always achieving good mental health.”

Yati
I can actually feel us heading in that direction. Technology is making it happen.

Hiro
Even injections. Nobody likes the pain, so needles as thin as a mosquito’s proboscis make them painless. That’s scientific progress.

Yati
As science advances, things we used to “just put up with” become unnecessary to endure.

Hiro
School health checkups could be done remotely or distributed to address shortages of female doctors, for example.

Yati
Medical interviews could be handled by AI. And if every household had technology to monitor health on a daily basis, there’d be no need to gather everyone at school for checkups.

Hiro
If toilets evolve, we could assess gut microbiota every day. And not just physical health. Mental health, too, improving in real time.

Yati
What’s so great about being healthy in body and mind? Work performance goes up. I’m experiencing that firsthand now that I’ve started making sure I get enough sleep.

Hiro
Right now, most Japanese people, both children and adults, are sleep-deprived. Sleep deprivation hurts work performance. So first, let’s fix the sleep deficit, before any other debates. Even the National Diet building is turning into a nap room. So, everyone: please get as much sleep as you can.

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

To be genuine or to be fake, that is the question.

Hiro
Today’s theme for the 3 to 6 age group is “real work.”

Yati
As opposed to fake work, right? Not pretend cooking. Actually making real food, cleaning, tidying up, doing laundry, and so on.

Hiro
Yeah. Western educators make a big deal out of this and call it “Practical Life exercises,” but honestly, why not just call it “daily life”?

Yati
I get why they want to add the word “exercises,” though.

Hiro
The key point is the work itself. So what kind of work? Work that uses the hands. Do plenty of hands-on work, and you’re all set.

Yati
Well then, that wraps up our 3 to 6 discussion!

Hiro
[laughs] I’m being told this isn’t very scientific…

Yati
All right, let’s dig deeper into what real work means.

Hiro
Instead of heading toward toys, fantasy, or video games, do as much real stuff as possible. The best environment for that? A farm.

Yati
Farms are overflowing with real work.

Hiro
Harvesting vegetables, tilling soil, hauling what you’ve picked, sorting produce, packing boxes. There’s all sorts of work kids can do. And here’s a classic farm-kid confession: I was made to help out constantly, and honestly, I hated it. [laughs]

Yati
So you didn’t like it! [laughs] But there’s work at just the right difficulty level for children aged 3 to 6, and that’s rare. Most real work is either too hard or too dangerous for young children.

Hiro
Right. On a Montessori-related note: Maria Montessori, you know, pretty much abandoned her own son...

Yati
Phrasing! [laughs]

Hiro
...she placed her son with a farming family.

Yati
True. When I first heard that, I thought how painful it must have been for her not to practice her own educational ideas with her son. But once I understood farm life, it made so much sense I almost wondered if she did it on purpose. Maybe the “Children’s House” was modeled after “children on a farm.”

Hiro
She probably did choose it deliberately, partly because of the rural setting and partly the idea that if you want something done, ask a busy person. If you need someone to raise a child, ask people who raise things for a living.

Yati
Exactly. It’s all connected. Humans are part of nature, so someone skilled at nurturing plants is often good at nurturing children, too.

Hiro
Right. When we say “farm,” we tend to picture just crops, but traditional farms raised livestock as well.

Yati
Cows, horses. They used to put them to work. If you can get a cow or horse to work, maybe getting a child aged 3 to 6 to pitch in isn’t so hard after all.

Hiro
Here’s another Montessori-related anecdote. Jeff Bezos is famous as a Montessori child.

Yati
He comes up almost every issue. The founder of Amazon.

Hiro
Bezos didn’t attend a Montessori elementary school. But when he was young, his mother remarried, and his maternal grandfather, a former military officer, started a ranch in Texas after retiring.

Yati
You know a lot about this.

Hiro
Every summer, Bezos went to that ranch. He did farm chores like building things, even constructing a crane, I heard, all while working alongside his grandfather. He loved it. And he kept going back every summer from age 4 until about 16 or 17.

Yati
So he got his “secondary” experience there, too.

Hiro
Exactly. As a young child, Bezos went to a Montessori preschool. For elementary, he was in a gifted program called the “Vanguard Program,” which nurtured curiosity and exploration, but he never did Montessori elementary.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
Still, he had plenty of real-work experience on that ranch. That’s where he learned how to work.

Yati
I see.

Hiro
Bezos has said that time was “the best.” All kinds of tasks, castrating livestock, treating his own injuries. He did it all.

Yati
Mm-hmm.

Hiro
They’d start early in the morning, then break for lunch at the house and watch soap operas on TV together. He said he loved that.

Yati
Sounds like a Japanese summer vacation.

Hiro
Remember those shows that came on at 1:00 and 1:30? America had the same kind of thing. On rainy days, he’d go to the library, which was full of science-fiction novels. He’d read them endlessly and let his imagination roam.

Yati
That’s a great balance.

Hiro
Totally. Pretty ideal, actually, farm work plus intellectual stimulation. “Plow when it’s sunny, read when it rains.” Now Bezos is focused on space. This is turning into a Bezos biography rather than Montessori talk, but he runs Blue Origin, a company building spacecraft for space transport. By the way, he hasn’t retired from Amazon. What sparked it all? Watching the Apollo moon landing at his grandfather’s house when he was five.

Yati
In Montessori terms, that’s right in the “hero worship” period, when children find role models.

Hiro
Right. Astronauts, aerospace engineers, rocket scientists became his heroes, and Bezos headed into the STEM world.

Yati
Even without Montessori elementary, he gave himself a cosmic education.

Hiro
Exactly. That’s why Blue Origin’s rockets are named after legendary astronauts, like New Shepard, New Armstrong, and so on.

Yati
I didn’t know that.

Hiro
He’s serious about it.

Yati
Speaking of our 0 to 3 discussion, does Bezos have big hands?

Hiro
I’ll let everyone look that up themselves, but he’s surprisingly short. His laugh, though, is huge.

Yati
[laughs] As for whether his brain is big, well, he writes beautifully. There’s a piece he posted on Twitter when he launched the Montessori-inspired Day 1 preschool, and it’s definitely worth reading. He also tells Amazon employees to “write long documents.”

Hiro
“No PowerPoint. Write a six-page memo.” That’s brutal for people who can’t write.

Yati
I couldn’t work at Amazon.

Hiro
Apparently, many Americans can’t write, or read, for that matter.

Yati
Really?

Hiro
That’s partly why “AI writing” is such a big deal right now. Lots of people struggle with reading and writing, so these tools are popular. When someone says “keep emails short,” it’s often because they can’t handle long text. They blame being busy or short on time, but the real issue is that long reading feels painful. Hence the appeal of 140-character limits and photo- or video-based social media.

Yati
Makes sense.

Hiro
Anyway, I got sidetracked. The point is, Bezos grew up doing real work. He’s also involved with the Long Now Foundation and helped build the 10,000-Year Clock.

Yati
A clock that chimes a different tone every day for 10,000 years. On the site, Bezos, again writing beautifully, describes the clock as “a symbol for long-term thinking.”

Hiro
He’s also donated around $200 million to the Smithsonian to help build museums.

Yati
Of that, $70 million went toward renovating the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and $130 million funded a new educational facility called the Bezos Learning Center. It sounds like a museum-based learning space. Maria Montessori once said, “The school should have a ‘museum of machines.’ The machines should be of a suitable size for children to take apart and reassemble, to use and repair.” This center might embody some of those ideas.

Hiro
Amazon’s headquarters also has a greenhouse called The Spheres, where they collect plants from around the world and conserve species.

Yati
So even as an adult, he keeps doing real work.

Hiro
Exactly.

Yati
I feel like children’s natural interest in real work is being commercially co-opted. When their imagination blossoms and they become curious about people in other countries, their lifestyles, clothing, and cuisine, that interest gets hijacked by Disney princess dresses. But when that curiosity emerges, I also wonder: what counts as real work in that context? Montessori has map materials and tools that show how people live around the world, but still…

Hiro
Maybe the real work is making friends around the world? On a related note, I think it was Will Wright who said there are two types of people: producers and consumers. When something moves you, some people say “Wow, that was amazing” and stop there. Others say, “Great, I’ll use this as inspiration and make something myself.”

Yati
Like reading a great manga and starting to draw your own.

Hiro
Or eating delicious food and deciding to cook it yourself. So the Disney thing is more about people who tend to consume. Consumers, in a way, are at a disadvantage. You could say their hands haven’t developed fully.

Yati
Instead of buying the dress, you could design and make your own. This connects to something Maria Montessori wrote: “Love guides the child not toward possessing things but toward the work that can be accomplished with them. And once work begins, people engage with one another, because no one can work alone. This is how life evolves. Interesting work elevates the individual and enhances the value of personality.”

Hiro
Mm-hmm.

Yati
She continues: “But if the individual is prevented from acting, love turns into possessiveness, and instead of cooperation there is conflict. Instead of collaboration, opposition arises. This great revelation comes from the child.”

Hiro
Heavy.

Yati
And then: “There are two paths of personality development: becoming a person who loves or becoming a person trapped by possessions; becoming independent and working in harmony with others or becoming a slave to possessions and hating others. These correspond to good and evil, heaven and hell. One path leads to supernatural perfection; the other leads to degradation below our true nature.”

Hiro
That’s long. I’m not good with long texts. Could you summarize it a bit?

Yati
Oh, come on! [laughs]

Hiro
Seriously, though, AI isn’t the only thing advancing; robots are, too. Household robots are already here, so how we relate to AI and robots is becoming an important question. They shouldn’t just be servants; we need to become friends with them. Cooperation instead of competition.

Yati
With a kind heart.

Hiro
Exactly. And for that, as we discussed in the brain issue, we need to train the prefrontal cortex, and that means working with our hands.

Yati
I’d like to add a few points we didn’t cover in the 0 to 3 article about spending time in nature, since it’s relevant to the 3 to 6 stage as well. Researchers have long studied how early nature experiences influence later biophilia and environmental attitudes. Nature experiences are associated with improved cognitive function and academic performance, as well as lower rates of mental illness in children.

Hiro
Interesting.

Yati
Maria Montessori also recommended Boy Scout-style activities for elementary-aged children, and I think this applies to 5 and 6 year olds, too. Kids who are hooked on Minecraft may actually be interested in real-life survival.

Hiro
Scouting is survival training. What to do if you get lost in the woods, how to survive if you’re swept away by a river, how to tie knots, how to secure drinking water and food. Practical knowledge.

Yati
We don’t know any of that, do we?

Hiro
I’ve been learning from the blog of Yajin Mu, a Japanese survivalist blogger who writes about wilderness skills, but I still have a long way to go.

Yati
Let’s explore this further in an upcoming issue on nature education.

Hiro
To sum up: the more real work you do, the more your hands develop; and the more your hands develop, the better you get at real work. Whether children enter that positive cycle determines whether they grow into people who do great work or merely consume commercial products. It sounds harsh, but that’s the message in Montessori’s writings.

Yati
True. Maria Montessori was always saying things that stirred controversy.

Hiro
Indeed. And we’d like to keep stirring things up ourselves.

Yati
As advocates for children.

Profile

Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.

Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. CEO of StudyX and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Works as a software developer and game designer. Father of two.

Humanity exists to fully understand the universe.

Yati
Today’s topic is “Hands and Work.” Let me introduce some quotes from Maria Montessori: “The hand is the instrument of intelligence. Children learn by touching and moving things.” “Children play with their hands, come to work with their hands, and through accumulating such experiences, they form their personalities.” “Children teach us that we must use our hands to continue developing intelligence.” “Hands and Work” are important for both mental development and human intelligence.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
Before we discuss “Hands and Work,” I want to define “work.” What is “work”? Maria Montessori said it’s “changing the environment” or “creating something supranatural,” but I find that a bit hard to understand.

Hiro
That doesn’t really say anything. We need to define it more physically. There’s a physical definition of work too. What corresponds to work is energy.

Yati
Right. In physics, work is defined as force times distance, and its unit is energy.

Hiro
Energy exists for doing work. It’s a physics term. What Montessori calls “work” isn’t about earning a living. I think it’s physical work. Physical work is, for example, moving an object from here to there, or from a low place to a high place. Energy is used in the form of potential energy, kinetic energy, and so on. And in this universe, no matter how much energy you use, it doesn’t decrease. It doesn’t decrease, and it doesn’t increase.

Yati
The law of conservation of energy.

Hiro
Energy is transformed. What was potential energy here becomes kinetic energy there and does some kind of work. Cosmically, it’s like equivalent exchange. Generally, when people say “work,” they think of it as something to “earn a living,” but that’s the common-sense definition in human society. Human civilization has been advancing and getting smarter, but it’s still inferior.

Yati
What do you mean?

Hiro
In a perfectly physical world, “earning a living” isn’t part of it. The compensation for work in nature is different from the human world. Nothing in nature earns a living. Things simply do work.

Yati
For example, what does this mean for plants?

Hiro
When we say plants, there are trees, grass, all kinds. This is also a human classification. There’s a huge tree with grass underneath it.

Yati
And climbing vines.

Hiro
Right. There are small ones and big ones. And they’re all doing work. Each one blooms flowers. Respiration and photosynthesis are also work. This relates to the Constructal Law, a new law I’m currently studying. Let me introduce it briefly. It’s a law of design.

Yati
Tell me more.

Hiro
The design of this world is progressing in a certain direction according to physical laws. We call that “evolution.” What direction is it going? The law says it’s “progressing toward greater efficiency.”

Yati
What does efficiency mean here?

Hiro
Efficiency means “making the flow that flows through you flow even more.”

Yati
So the universe is evolving so that flow flows even more. What does that mean concretely?

Hiro
For example, with plants, you can’t see inside a plant, but water flows through it, and oxygen too. When photosynthesizing, leaves open their stomata. At the same time, water and oxygen flow out as gas. Conversely, plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, convert it to carbohydrates through photosynthesis, release sugars from their roots, and pass them to microorganisms. That’s the work they’re doing.

Yati
There’s flow.

Hiro
This has become clear recently with the advancement of science and technology. Before, we just looked at plants blankly and wondered, “Why is it here?” But thankfully, we can eat them, burn them for warmth, and there are all sorts of uses. From a human perspective, we thought plants were doing work for us.

Yati
Right.

Hiro
But actually, when science and technology let us see the micro and macro worlds, we find that just by being there, not moving, they’re doing work just by existing.

Yati
And on a macro level, they’re increasing the efficiency of Earth’s cycles?

Hiro
Not Earth. The universe. In this case, they live on Earth but are doing work for the universe. Why? Because energy isn’t conserved per planet. It’s conserved across the entire universe.

Yati
This is what’s fascinating about physics.

Hiro
It’s amazing. The same laws govern tiny, tiny, invisibly tiny microorganisms and worlds far larger than galaxies.

Yati
Getting back to the topic. In this cosmic evolution, what is humanity’s work?

Hiro
What I want to say, and this is a bit of a leap, is that the work given to humanity as intelligent life is to achieve complete understanding of the entire universe.

Yati
What lies beyond understanding the universe?

Hiro
By understanding the universe, we become able to increase efficiency further. We help nature.

Yati
I see. We’re pushing forward the evolution of the universe.

Hiro
To properly connect this to today’s theme: humans have hands. Having hands means we can manipulate our environment. There’s also the philosophy of operationalism, the idea that the meaning of a concept comes from how we operate on it. For example, beavers build dams too. They block rivers. Beavers gnaw on big trees, conifers, with their teeth.

Yati
With their big front teeth.

Hiro
Right, they’re rodents. And they gnaw on trees that are still standing. They stop partway so they don’t get crushed when it falls. Then at some point, strong wind shakes it and it finally breaks. Then they gnaw it smaller to use. They’re forest carpenters. They’re called a “keystone species.”

Yati
A species that’s important for the ecosystem.

Hiro
They have a big impact on rivers and forests. By damming rivers, fish can’t swim upstream, which creates habitats for various birds. When water overflows, tributaries form. Water seeps into the soil and vegetation changes. By disturbing the ecosystem like this, they make it more diverse and stable.

Yati
But for beavers, they’re just building their own nests, right?

Hiro
Exactly. Beavers probably aren’t thinking, “I’m going to improve the forest environment.” They want a home, so they fell trees, gather them, build a safe place to sleep, and that becomes a natural dam.

Yati
And humans are the same?

Hiro
Yes. Humans also act on self-interest, drilling for oil, doing things for survival. Once they can ensure their own survival, they scale up for the survival of their community. Sometimes science goes too far and causes environmental destruction, sometimes we learn from nature, going back and forth in balance, developing like climbing a spiral.

Yati
So with that human mission in mind, what should we do during ages 0 to 3?

Hiro
Spend time in nature.

Yati
I thought given this theme, you’d say “use your hands to work in nature.”

Hiro
No. If you don’t interfere with children in nature, they’ll start using their hands on their own.

Yati
Why is spending time in nature important?

Hiro
Because no matter how hard humans try, what they create can’t beat the designs nature produces. Great designers usually come from the countryside. Biological design evolves according to cosmic laws. It’s efficient, and it’s about cooperation, not competition. When you touch a pill bug and wonder why it rolls up, you’re sensing those laws. Noticing the seasons naturally is also natural.

Yati
I was worried our older daughter would be bored on the long kindergarten bus rides, but she was moved by how Mount Iwate, in northern Japan, changed through the four seasons.

Hiro
Right. If I had to say what to be careful about when spending time in nature, it’s “don’t let them die.” Nature is harsh.

Yati
What else is important besides spending time in nature?

Hiro
Walking, eating, sleeping.

Yati
As a Montessorian, once children can walk and use their hands, they can do things for themselves and household tasks, so I tend to want to recommend that. But yes, walking is important. Children around 18 months to 2 years who can walk well really walk as if walking is their job. Including eating and sleeping, it’s about building the foundation for the brain and body.

Hiro
By the Constructal Law I mentioned earlier, bigger is advantageous. Speaking of hands, humans have longer thumbs than other great apes. Because this thumb opposes the other fingers, we can grasp things. Large, dexterous hands are a characteristic of Homo sapiens. The magnificence of the thumb might be proportional to intelligence.

Yati
Maybe so. Whether it’s finger length, physique, or brain size, there are individual differences, but everyone can aim for their personal best.

Hiro
Speaking of brains, the current Homo sapiens average is about 1,130 cubic centimeters for women and 1,270 cubic centimeters for men, but some famous Russian writers had nearly 2,000 cubic centimeters.

Yati
They say Einstein’s was surprisingly small. It’s mysterious.

Hiro
AI could solve math problems relatively quickly early on, but only recently became able to produce literary writing. Writing text that makes people groan is that difficult. It probably requires thinking about how the world works and how people feel, activating many different parts of a large brain.

Yati
A large brain seems necessary for understanding the universe too. We’ll cover “eating” in a future issue. As for “sleeping,” I recently watched videos of sleep researcher Professor Masashi Yanagisawa, and I really think everyone should sleep more, not just children.

Hiro
Right.

Yati
Sleep regularity and quality are important, but securing enough sleep quantity is the top priority. For adults, around 8 hours; for elementary schoolers, about 10 hours; so for ages 0 to 3, it’s even more.

Hiro
Children who sleep grow well.

Yati
There’s also research showing differences in hippocampus size based on whether children got enough sleep in early childhood.

Hiro
That’s significant.

Yati
Also, when you get enough sleep, you become more altruistic. Even just 1 hour of sleep deprivation makes people less altruistic. This is evident from charity donations clearly decreasing on the day daylight saving time starts.

Hiro
Religions should let their followers sleep rather than preaching about altruism.

Yati
Toward humanity’s mission of “complete understanding of the entire universe,” during ages 0 to 3, let’s spend time in nature, eat well, walk plenty, and sleep well.

Hiro
With smiles and good spirits.