Montessori Notes

Pretend Play

Lately ada dengar statement yang mengatakan dalam Montessori tak dibenarkan langsung pretend play.

Well statement ni bagi saya langsung tak betul. Sebab dalam kelas Montessori ada juga pretend play tapi berdasarkan realiti. Apa yang tak boleh adalah bila pretend play melibatkan fantasy. Fantasy tak digalakkan untuk umur 0-6 tahun. The younger the child, lagi tak boleh didedahkan. Boleh search ‘fantasy’ dalam blog ini untuk bacaan lanjut.

Ada yang bertanya di dalam training saya, what about pretend play kepada trainer saya. Trainer saya beritahu, “Sure, we do pretend play. But with real things. They want to pretend to be their mother to cook and serve, they can go to the snack table or kitchen and bake cookies and serve their friends. They want to pretend play looking after younger child, sure, they go look after younger children in their environment.”

Kebetulan saya jumpa kajian yang dikeluarkan oleh Angeline Lillard, penulis buku Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius.

Boleh baca di sini: How Adults Can Help Children

Kajian beliau di pengakhiran slide tu caught my attention:

Memang bila kita sediakan banyak mainan dan yang jenis pretend play macam kitchen, masak-masak, jaga-jaga baby etc. itulah yang mereka main. Tetapi jika contohnya kita offer mereka masak betul-betul, mereka akan lebih cenderung untuk masak betul-betul. Pernah tak, kita nampak dia main dengan mainan makanan etc, kita pun Oklah, hari ni jom kita masak. Kita pun ajak anak kita masak. Mereka boleh pecahkan telur, kacau, tuang masuk dalam pan, tunggu masak. Next time, mereka akan minta lagi. Kita pun penat fikirkan nak kena kemas kesepahan di dapur, kita pun suruh main je mainan tu. Nampak tak muka dissapoitment mereka tu. Mereka akan berkali-kali minta buat lagi? If you give them choice, nak masak kat dapur ke nak main masak-masak? Apa jawapan diorang?

It was the children themselves who showed that they preferred…the small ‘real-life’ utensils to toys…Having given the child real things in a real world, we expected to see [the child’s] joy and delight in using them. But actually we saw far more than that. The child’s whole personality changed, and the first sign of this was an asser.on of independence. It was as though [the child] were saying: ‘I want to do everything myself’.

(Montessori, 1967, pp. 169-170)

Mereka akan sentiasa pilih aktiviti ‘purposeful’.

Environment yang hanya mainan dan tiada langsung offer real life activity vs environment yang offer real life activity dan mainan.

Untuk baca lebih lanjut kajian beliau tentang PLAY, boleh baca lebih lanjut di sini: Playful Learning and Montessori Education

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.