THE PREPARED ENVIRONMENT

The prepared environment follows the Darwinian concept of survival by adaptation. All children “must have access to an environment that meets their daily needs.” This is the responsibility of the adult. Prepared for the child should be an atmosphere that is free of anxiety. The environment must be ready both physically and psychologically in a way that will promote optimal human development. An unnatural environment hinders true nature and growth. The basic elements of such a positive environment include:

• Physical and psychological nourishment

• Protection

• Stimulation

• Trust

• Predictability

• Safety

   

A proper environment for the child’s growth depends on three major factors:

The lengthening or lack of any of these three major constituents will distort the balance of the well prepared environment, so care should be given to all in equal turn.

GROUP OF CHILDREN

A mixed group of children in age (within each developmental sub-plane), gender, ethnicity, nationality, cultural background, etc., will foster in the child during her very formative years the acceptance and understanding of multiple view-points. As the child grows, the active participation and balanced representation of a wide variety of peers will give the child access to invaluable experience and opportunity to test her developing faculties amid a much larger universe. This will be beneficial constantly throughout her education, though specific benefit will be determined by the needs of the child at each associative Plane of Development.

ENVIRONMENT

The child will benefit greatly from a full freedom of movement within her prepared environment. Her distinct and clear environment is a home-like place of belonging, and there will be no places disallowed to him. Similarly, the child should never be assigned to a certain table or desk, the whole classroom is for all children in the room. In this way will the child in patience learn to respect others and the value of sharing.

Aesthetically, the Prepared Environment should be pleasing, but never too fancy. Simple and familiar in warm tones and paler shades. Comfort will aid the child in her concentration. Furniture should be moulded to the natural flow of the classroom, and in both alignment and size designed for the proportions of the child. “[I]f we prepare in a ‘Children’s House’ an environment for the child that conformed to his size, to his energy and to his psychic faculties, the child would be at liberty and a great step would have been taken toward the resolution of the educational problem.”¹ There should be available a water supply and mirror for grooming, both of which constructed at the level of the child. But while the adult must remain conscious to provide for the child a set of materials and infrastructure appropriate to her size, there should be no special concession made to accommodate for the child’s margin of error. Hardwood floors amplify the ungraceful movements of chairs, desks and feet; unfixed, light furniture provides a necessary freedom of movement, but their very delicacy requires little disruption to topple and fall; ink stains and spills can clearly be seen on lightly coloured desks; breakable items such as ceramic mugs and glass jugs will shatter if dropped. All of these considerations, though at first seemingly advisable to be avoided in a children’s environment, should on the contrary be welcomed. The child will surely notice her lack of grace and perfection when she turns-over a desk upon standing; she will be given a very certain and remarkable indicator indeed should the jug slip from her hand and shatter on the floor. Without noticeable signs such as these, the child will not ever know that she has come to err, and so she would never find motivation to refine her imperfect movements.

Ideally, the child would have access to an outdoor area in which to work, passage between the indoor and outdoor environment not-limited and free. All work could be completed either inside or out, at only the discretion of the child herself. she should have a garden in which she might be able to plant and watch things grow for herself, and perhaps access to even some sort of wild and untamed areas. In this outdoors will the child encounter insects and creatures, and through that contact she will learn a respect of all things living. A school may also choose to arrange some sort of short-term visits of domesticated animals to the classroom for the child’s benefit.

Whether inside or out, the child should have access to some quiet place – a place where she may be-still her body and mind, avoid interruption, assimilate recent knowledge. All humans have the right to find peace from time to again, and there should be available a sanctuary for the child to exercise this want. Similarly, there should be set up a small library or reading area in which a child may retire with a book. she should have available both a comfortable chair for her ease and also a small table at which she may sit to rest larger books in front of him.

MATERIALS

Materials, not unlike environment, must put the “adult world within reach of the child.”² They should be all-accessible, that is to say that the child should have free access to everything in the room, and should be of a nature as to allow the child a chance to exercise her skills in real-world applications. The child learns by replication of the world she is assimilating, and so she will therefore show great interest in the things and actions she sees in everyday life. she longs to be a part of that life, but her size prevents her from using to her benefit the tools already available. It is for this reason that materials should be provided for her that will duplicate the familiar things she regularly sees, but sized appropriately to her own proportions. Through the use of these provisions, the child will benefit greatly.

Materials, and indeed the environment itself, should be kept at all times in pristine condition and free of clutter. Shelving should be chosen that will show the materials in the very best light. Materials should be kept to the front, and never should shelves become cramped disorganised. A child’s eye should be able to focus on each piece of work individually in order to be best captured by its interest. And when the child is in fact captivated, she should be able to find readily all the material she needs for the completion a task. In this light, all materials should be kept with others of their ilk (sensorial with sensorial, practical life with practical life, etc.), and, where applicable, materials that consist of more than one piece should be grouped together. The shelf reads from left to right, as in reading, and any materials that logically follow from one to the next should be displayed in that fashion. Everything – shelves and materials and countertops, et al. – must remain clean and dust-free at all times: dirty material will quickly turn away interest in its work, but a clean presentation can have the power to draw even a reluctant child.

Special care should be afforded to keep the entrance clear. There is an easy tendency for bags and hats and jackets to gather in an entrance area. This should be curtailed. Just as a tidy entrance can set the mood for the rest of the class, so too will it engender a false impression of what is expected of studies and order inside. The entrance area itself, and access outside where possible, should be as accommodating as possible to little people: door not too heavy, nob at the child’s level.

Throughout the entirety of this environment’s preparation, careful deference must be made to the knowledge that it is the process of real action, not the end product, that is most important for the child. The child will be moving throughout this space, for this is her space, and so the adult must therefore design the room with the education and development of the child in mind– not convenience for the adult.

ADULT

Preparation of a safe and comfortable place for the child is solely the responsibility of the adult. He can study to know expressly what a space needs in order to foster the child, but every environment is ultimately a manifestation of the person who creates it. With this in mind, the adult must first take care to take care of herself. One is reminded of the slogan of the Boy Scouts when considering what it takes to become a Prepared Adult: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

The Prepared Adult will be trained with a deep understanding for the pedagogy of the child’s needs and Human Tendencies, and he will also hold the knowledge of what it means to create a Prepared Environment with Prepared Material, Prepared Space, Prepared Peer Networks and even Prepared Adult. He will accept and appreciate his constant role of patience, humility, confidence, grace, and forgiveness. He will present an air that will welcome the child’s freedom to be at unguarded ease – free to be curious, inquisitive and contemplative. This will inspire confidence and personal acceptance in the child. The adult will be friendly with mistakes, and will treat materials and child alike with warmth and respect. This will promote only helpful interactions as the adult remains calm in all situations, a protector of the child’s concentration. The child can sense moods well, including the mood of an entire room, and a Prepared Adult will create in his Prepared Environment a place of spiritual rest.

In the classroom, the adult is a listener: he shows that he cares and that the child has worth. He communicates with parents and staff, thus creating a breakwater for the child against the adult world outside her sanctuary. But the adult’s is a two-fold role: while he must provide a dynamic link between material and the child, the adult will become increasingly passive as the child grows more active, “for the formation of individuality, or that re call the freedom of the child, can only involve increasing independences from the adult, realized through an environment suited to the child, in which he can find that he requires to develop his own functions.”³

If the culmination of all these things is met – Prepared Adult, Prepared Space, Prepared Materials, Correct Group Dynamic – the child will have available to her all the tools she needs to achieve normalisation, and she will exhibit joyfulness, independence, respect, sensitivity, contemplation, cooperation, compassion, perseverance, concentration, imagination, creativity, and a love of learning that she will keep throughout her entire life.

This is the environment that allows for optimal human development.