COSMIC EDUCATION

The curriculum for the Second Plane of Development is that of “Cosmic Education.” It is the introduction to the Cosmos and its workings. The Universe and all its forms, as they unfolded, performed their tasks to make possible the Child’s being here now, able to take part in Life. Exposure to the Cosmos, in that understanding, enables the Child to construct herself and know herself as an individual. It allows her to be part of, benefit from and give to Society.

The Child’s mind from 6-12 is interested in the underlying answers for things, not just the facts that compelled her in her Younger Years. If the mind of the Child is able to develop a large, factual base, and if exposed to all aspects of culture, in the Second Plane she will be ready to search of relationships and abstractions. The functioning Reasoning Mind at the Second Plane can grasp facts and work with them. “Reasoning keeps things in their relationship to one another, compares them, deduces from them, arrives at conclusions”¹.

What is the link that holds the Cosmos together? What is it that forms the interrelationship between all things? What carries the stars? What could bring peace to Humanity? Order. Order is the base of the functioning Universe. How can we know Order? How can we show that it, in fact, forms the interrelationship between all things? This is what Cosmic Education is all about.

But Cosmic Education is more than just subjects being revealed, it is that the subjects themselves can’t be separated. Everything effects everything else. Stories are interlinked, ideas are related, one thing is dependent upon the former. Regardless upon the age of the Child, whether 6 or 12 or anything in between at any level of understanding, this seed must be planted to encourage excitement and wonder for the forces around us. The Child will not necessarily be able to regurgitate what she was just told, and it would be a detriment to her to ask her to do so, but that kernel of Truth will germinate within her until it is ready to spring forth and allow her to climb on the limbs and vines of its grandeur.

Follow-up stories, in their time, will reiterate these initial ideas, and expound upon their meaning. When the time comes, the Child will be thirsting for it, dying to know more. “The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core. We do not want complacent pupils, but eager ones; we seek to sow life in the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth, mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind, which we find ever ready to receive them, demanding more and more.”² Until then, the Child will follow her own path to understanding, and will be able in her success at finding out more to evaluate herself and recognize her own capabilities.

This ability for love of learning and honest self-evaluation should be given to the Child early. Recognizing weaknesses, she can work on them. What the Child will know is how to learn, how to find out information, and the ability to locate means to an end. From this, the Child can develop her potential, and take something of value into Society.

Interest for the Child corresponds to psychic characteristics, the state of her spiritual needs. The Child, therefore, must be given the “Whole Picture”; unrelated items would not meet those psychical characteristics. And from this, the Child’s sense of wonder will be aroused. The Child must be given something to admire, and the heroes and heroines in the stories she hears will fascinate her and give to the Child the True Fantasy she needs to entice interest and satisfy the longings of her Developmental Plane. Interest cannot be made for the Child, she can only be given the possibility. But with the Keys to Understanding, the Child can be left free.

SYLLABUS

The syllabus, though only for the Adult’s benefit and never taught to the children, is designed to give the Child a wider wonder for the Universe. Cosmic Education relates to the development of the Universe as a whole, and specifically the Human story within it. This whole story meets the psychical want of the Second Plane Child.

Cosmic Education explores the relationship between the Universe and Humanity. The story is given in such a way that the Child cannot help but to want to know more, and only just enough of the story is given to promote that interest so that the Child can explore the rest. If everything were given, there would be nowhere in the entire Universe for the Child to go. She will, through this, be able to better understand her place in the Universe to become a “Cosmic Agent”: someone devoted to fulfilling her role as have all those who have passed before to allow her to be here today.

Education will start with the Universe. Through observation and discovery of laws and patterns—ideas firmly familiar within the Child who has passed through her Tendency for Orientation and developed her Reasoning Mind—the Child will see Order. Everything is based on Order. With this foundation, the Child can understand the laws underlying existence, and with that the Child can explore further the implications of the teaser she heard using her Imagination and Reasoning Mind. She can understand the connection between not just the subjects of things, but of the things themselves, and thus develop her sense of Personal responsibility. She will foster an appreciation of all that has gone on before her; she will understand her place in creation.

In this way children can be “equipped in their whole being for the adventure of life, accustomed to the few exercise of will and judgment, illuminated by imagination and enthusiasm. Only such pupils can exercise rightly the duties of citizens in a civilized commonwealth.”³

The Universe began, the Earth formed, Life evolved on Earth, and the Humans came last into this finally Prepared Environment that would satisfy their needs. That is the drama of Life on Earth, everything that came before unfurling to set the stage for the last actor. The Child must know how she fits into the picture. She will long to know the special role Human Beings have to play.

Every creature, except one, has within it innately the instincts it needs to survive. Each of these, and all the plants and minerals and gasses and liquids besides, played only their part, but their part was one part of the Whole. All lifeforms had a task, even if they were unaware that they might, and all Life worked together. Like the little creatures in the water, consuming what they need to survive but what are pollutants to everyone else and thus keeping the ocean clean for all the creatures, so too did every existence ensure the continuing cycle of Nature. Opposing forces working to maintain Life.

Human Beings, uniquely, were given the possibility of making their own way. Of achieving by their own, conscious efforts. They came into the same environment, but shod a different path. Humans had few natural instincts—for smiling, for sucking, and little if any more—but were given two gifts: Intellects and Will. Intellect: the power to Know. Will: the power to Choose, the power to Love. And with these two tools, Humanity was handed the task to construct its own pattern in life.

He also had the instrument of the hand with its opposable thumb, and with it he could imagine and invent. Once he had met his physical needs, Man was able to focus on his spiritual needs, and his pioneering drive led him to create newer tools that would allow him to realize those physical needs faster.

And Man also had the ability to change the environment to suit his needs. It is therefore Man’s job to have care for the environment.

Certain facts bring us to different aspects of Human Culture. The rocks lead us to learn about geology, the plants draw us to botany, the currents teach us about geography, and so on. The sciences are stories of our Earth, our Universe, our lives, our past, our tools for survival and interaction, our discoveries, our push to know and perfect, our means of communication, our expression… All of this is a part of Cosmic Education, but History is central. The Child finds her place in life the the aid of history, and through it recognizes the gifts Human Beings have given to each other.

But the understanding goes further to recognize that the great drama of Human Beings is not isolated, but a part of the Universe. Plants, animals, rocks, elements and everything else are not just things and backdrops, but One with us. They are what give us our gifts, but the favor must be reciprocal.

This is the most important message to get out to children and elsewhere. The subject of the curriculum have to do with the totality of the Cosmos not because they’re the topics we must cover for Board of Studies, but because they are the most important topics we must teach. The curriculum is the Universe itself, not lessons in books to be regurgitated. Cosmic Education is about how to present the Universe to the child like a diamond ring, and entice her.

ROLE OF ADULT

Through the unfolding of Cosmic Education as seen through the eyes of a child, the Adult can open his own eyes. It can change the Adult’s outlook. This is a huge lesson, and arguably the most important; it is the Adult’s responsibility to have faith in the Child. That means to let the seeds of Understanding be sewn, and then to let them lie and lay root. It will do nothing but harm to disturb the seed one planted.

To best give these impressions, the Adult must appeal to the Child’s Imagination and Sense of Reason. He should make the story captivating to draw the Child into this great tool for a lifelong love of learning. He may have to give the presentation several times to give the Child’s interest the chance to develop, but he will prevail in the end. This story has the ability to stretch the intellect, make budding scholars and promote academic excellence.

“Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgment, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear.”⁴

1Montessori, Dr. Maria. source unknown.

2Montessori, Dr. Maria. To Educate the Human Potential. Clio Press, Oxford. 1989. (p. 11)

3Montessori, Dr. Maria. To Educate the Human Potential. Clio Press, Oxford. 1989. (p. 1)

4Montessori, Dr. Maria. To Educate the Human Potential. Clio Press, Oxford. 1989.