The Mindful Montessori Way

As MST’s “first teacher”, Naoko Kikkawa has guided generations of children over two plus decades in the Sunshine program. She has mentored so many of our teachers over the years. And when she retired from the classroom, Naoko has been our voice of conscience as the Sustainability Lead. 

Among the dozens of projects she shepherds are planting a native forest in our Garden, raising awareness of microplastics, introducing non-toxic school materials, coaxing a waste company to collect our recyclables and prodding along the student, parent and faculty sustainability groups. 

The Path of a Teacher

I am incredibly fortunate to have taught at The Montessori School of Tokyo and to continue working with children on environmental protection activities.

As a child, I vaguely wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. However, I never seriously considered pursuing that path; it felt like it just happened naturally. I didn't enjoy studying, and while I've always valued discipline, I felt I couldn't quite adapt to common sense or rules that seemed unnecessary. 

From a young age, I strongly desired to get along well and spend time peacefully with those around me, and as a child, I didn't often express my opinions to anyone outside my family. I've often questioned unreasonable rules that weren't child-centered, but I never spoke up. I never imagined I'd become someone who enforces rules, a teacher standing before children. I believe this wouldn't have been possible without Montessori education, which fosters mutual respect, compassion, and self-confidence in accordance with children's development.

The Mindful Montessori Way

The mindful way of life taught by Montessori education is like a treasure. This is the means to achieve sustainable living, and it's the way of life I want to pass on to children. Let's have fun and be creative in thinking about what we can reduce in our lives, both materially and in our consumption, as simply as possible. This may enrich our lives and give us a more relaxed and fulfilling time. And above all, there is still so much we adults can do to ensure that our children can live sustainably, safely, and peacefully in the future.

In our busy daily lives, we have become accustomed to rushing things and generating large amounts of waste. Perhaps we are keeping ourselves busy by filling the time we save with other things, along with the mountains of garbage.

There is no concept of garbage in nature. Let's at least take a moment, even just once a week, to think about plants and other living things.

A Single Rippling Drop of Water

Our behavioral change is crucial to avoid burdening children with these challenges. Each individual's actions may be small. We've entered a period where significant systemic change is more necessary than ever, but even so, if we are each a single drop of water, the ripples that one drop creates on the surface will spread. Let each of us become that single drop, creating large ripples that will generate big waves in the ocean.

A Healthy World For My Daughter

I experienced a normal student life, employment, marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth. Becoming a parent has propelled my learning forward and allowed me to take a new step as a person.

My desire to protect my daughter is now my greatest motivation for working in environmental protection as the MST Sustainability Lead. I want to spread the forest-building education I'm currently involved in to stop climate change and leave a peaceful world, the goal of Montessori education, for my daughter and future generations. To achieve this, we must transform our own actions. My daughter's birth, and the many children I've spent time with, have guided me towards the environment and daily learning.

First, to ensure my daughter's food was safe, I considered safe food made with reduced or no pesticides and clean water. This led me to worry about the chemicals we were using in our daily lives. I tried to switch to traditional products, but a mindful lifestyle is time-consuming, and I often reverted to easy, time-saving synthetic chemicals.

As long as we live on this earth, what we use comes back to us. Things that are good for the environment should be good for my daughter, my family, and everyone, but I always feel that maintaining this is difficult.

The Turning Point

While I was making small efforts to protect the environment at home, a major turning point occurred: my encounter with Montessori education. When my daughter turned five and started kindergarten, a friend introduced me to a small kindergarten, the predecessor of the current MST, where I began working as an assistant.

At that time, I had absolutely no knowledge of Montessori education, but I remember being deeply impressed as I gradually learned about the significance of the teaching materials the children used. At the recommendation of the headmistress at the time, I underwent two years of Montessori education at night. The first thing I realized during that training was how much easier life would have been if I had received this education as a child. I always told my daughter that learning is fun, but in reality, I only truly understood that joy during my teacher training.

I still remember the surprise I felt when I read the sheet of paper I was given on the first day. The first line read "a state of chaos," and the very last line read "world peace." It stated that Montessori's ultimate goal is world peace. And looking at the current global situation, I believe that achieving world peace is the best course of action for sustainable environmental protection for all living things.

Montessori's Ultimate Goal: World Peace

Here, I'd like to talk a little about world peace, the ultimate goal of Montessori education.

It can be achieved when each of us embraces true peace in our hearts. I realized that this can only be achieved through education that values ​​disciplined freedom in a way that is appropriate for the development and growth of children—that is, human beings—through scientific observation, rather than simply setting rules from an adult's perspective. Each individual's heart can be filled with a sense of fulfillment and peace. 

If everyone can live in peace, then conflict will certainly not occur. If children who possess such inner peace grow up, it is only natural that peace will come to the world. What we adults can do is question the common sense we have learned and reach a broader perspective, starting with our own families. It is about adults not hindering children's growth and discerning what is truly necessary to instill peace in children's hearts.

Certainly, basic knowledge is important. That is precisely why it is so important to make that knowledge interesting. In the classroom, we introduce a lot of information that may not seem directly related to what is simply called "studying." We focus on what interests the children, and as they explore that interest, studying other fields naturally becomes necessary. That is how children can truly learn.

I believe that Montessori education is not simply about providing education and studying, but that the most important thing is to live each day carefully with the children. And that is why I feel it becomes possible to create sustainable conditions and rules with our own hands.

The Voices of Children and the Voiceless

Montessori education places great importance on the environment we are currently in, but working with children in the classroom for nearly 30 years has gradually broadened my perspective, and I have started to look beyond my immediate surroundings to a broader view of the environment.

For example, after watching the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, shared by former US Vice President Al Gore, I learned that our actions are leading the world's environment in an undesirable direction. I also saw children around the world raising their voices for environmental protection. They were very angry. It seemed that their anger stemmed from anxiety and fear that their environment was not sustainable and that our current lifestyle would not allow them and future generations to survive. As an adult, I wanted to do something to help them. 

Montessori education inherently teaches the importance of treating things with care and living a mindful, non-disposable lifestyle, so the classroom naturally maintains an environmentally friendly environment. From there, we explored and implemented ways for the children to make even more environmentally conscious choices. It was around this time that we began sharing with the children the suffering caused by plastic pollution and our actions to living creatures on Earth. For example, we removed plastic bags from the trash cans in the classroom, recycled used drawing paper, and worked to reduce waste within the classroom. These were small things, but we believed it was important to change the classroom system so that everyone could easily engage in environmentally friendly actions.

The children were always flexible and responsive. This experience in the class has been invaluable in my work as a Sustainability Lead in environmental protection activities after retiring as a teacher.

What we learned from previous generations is to cherish what we have, take our time, and live each day mindfully. Let's pass on to our children that this is an environmentally friendly and sustainable way of life as the way Montessori education keeps showing us. I hope we ourselves can rearrange our current lifestyles, and I hope that our children will change the direction towards a better future.

Naoko Kikkawa

Sustainability Lead