Why I say “thank you”, and not “bravo”.
If you are familiar with the Montessori education system, you know it can be surprising at times. When I learned a bit about it, I discovered Montessori educators are careful not to cheer the achievements of the children. Instead, they routinely ask them what they think about their work: they invite them to reflect upon their result and express their point of view about it. It may counter-intuitive, but it is meant to let them build their thoughts in relation to their experience, and not only to please someone else (the teacher, their parents, …). Working to please someone else is an external motivation: you try to be good at school (for instance) to meet social expectations. Working to achieve things that are dear or important to you is called internal motivation: something that is clearly valuable to you and that you pursue for the sake of it, not to please others. Internal motivation is more meaningful and can be much more powerful to achieve high ends. Montessori education intents to create a safe space where internal motivation can flourish.
As a facilitator, my job is to provide an environment that enables the participants to focus on their building process, make their learning, and share it with the group. I try to remain a catalyst of their collective intelligence, and not be part of their system. I show interest in every model, making what it takes to understand their logic and their contribution to the group. But I do not evaluate the content of their models, I do not rate, I do not cheer.
Think for a second of the consequences of cheering up to the models your participants produced. Maybe you did not noticed, because being appreciative has become a natural stance, but you have just placed yourself in the position of judging their content, albeit positively. What will happen when you are less cheering, or just forget to be appreciative?
I do not want my participants to look at me asking: “is my answer alright?”; I want them to focus on their flow and deliver their best answer.
Avoiding any positive or negative feedback on the content from the facilitator side can help them rely on their inner motivation to solve the complex issue.
Of course they will need some sort of feedback, that’s why I thank them for answering my questions with bricks and playing the game seriously.
