There's a new book by Jonah Lehrer, entitled Imagine: How Creativity Works, that seeks to address the "new science of creativity". In the book, Lehrer recounts a beautiful example, one that pertains directly to Montessori. He tells the story of the budding young composer Bruce Adolphe and how he had just written a cello piece for his Juilliard classmate, Yo-Yo Ma. "I'd never written for the instrument before", recalls Adolphe.
As Lehrer goes on to explain, framing the conversation, "He'd (Adolphe) shown a draft of his composition to a Juilliard instructor, who told him that the piece featured a chord that was impossible to play. Before Adolphe could correct the music, however, Ma decided to rehearse the composition in his dorm room." Here's the most fascinating part, "when the impossible chord came, he somehow found a way to play it," describes Adolphe.
You see, Ma didn't realize that it was "impossible", and if he did, that limitation didn't prevent him from finding a way to express the chord. Which leads us to children, and Montessori, more specifically. For children, nothing is impossible. There are no limits: on imagination, on creativity, on temporality, or, any of the basic constructs of their world. When they believe in themselves, they believe that anything is possible. Even the impossible! This is a basic tenet of the Montessori approach to education.
As we'll see, possibility is related to confidence. It has everything to do with confidence, and an ability to see and feel the world anew. Practice, of course, always helps, but it's the performance that comes to matter. As Ma inspires, "The best storytellers always get really into their own stories. They're waving their arms, laughing at their own jokes. That's what I try to be like on stage...I know that some of the best music happens when you let yourself get a little carried away."
Ma goes on to relay how he relaxes before a performance, staying loose and yet ready to engage. In another gem of a quote, Ma states, "If you show that you're worried, then everybody feels uncomfortable. This is what I learned from Julia Child. You know, she would drop her roast chicken on the floor, but did she scream? Did she cry or panic? No, she just calmly picked the chicken off the floor and managed to keep her smile. Plauying the cellos is the same way. I will make a mistake on stage. And you know what? I welcome that first mistake."
Montessori also fosters a positive conception of mistakes, but we'll leave that discussion for another time. The point to note here, is that Yo-Yo Ma, when faced with the seemingly impossible, and despite the declarations as such, found a way to make it possible.
It's also of interest to note, that both Yo-Yo Ma and Julia Child were Montessori students.
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