Embodied Scaffolds

"What the hand does, the mind remembers." - Maria Montessori

I’m thinking about Maria Montessori this morning. About her focus on giving work to the hands before you give it to the mind. For example, in Montessori education, kids are given sandpaper letters to trace with their fingers before they are taught to read or write. Visual and motor neurons fire, strengthen, myelinate, memorizing the shape and the direction of the stroke, the hand and arm movements.

Later, Montessori adds letter name and sound, scoring music atop the dance that had previously begun, and sound and meaning neurons join, linking, firing, strengthening, myelinating.

Sandpaper letter cards in a wooden box. Behind is a vase with teddy bear sunflowers and lemon verbena.

All learning is embodied, but Maria Montessori saw the need to highlight the embodied nature of learning. And, indeed, later education scholars saw the benefit of scaffolding with “manipulatives,” things that can be held in the hands, moved around, played with, as a way of getting kids to engage with higher level learning.

I feel like I (we?) need a physical scaffold right now for engaging with the world. How do we build the communities we need to overcome whitesupermacypatriarchyfascism and also just to live better lives. Lives that don’t crush us like this.

Maybe, some day, we’ll learn how to do it at a larger, less embodied scale. But right now I feel like I need to give something to my hands because my mind is overwhelmed.

Every week, my mom does it. She goes to Tesla or a busy corner or a town square. She and others—a few, a score, hundreds, thousands—it depends on the day—they take paperboard and they use the markers that squeak. They protest.

This, it strikes me, is embodied speech. It is speech that acts and moves, like tracing sandpaper letters. You feel it with your feet and your legs and your arms and your chest.

Not just the act of protesting but the act of relationship building, community making. Each time they come together, the link strengthens, like a neural connection. The myelin thickens, the path to each other becomes quicker and easier to travel.

I want to find my pathway, too, but but my skill gaps are significant. I need a manipulative scaffold, something to hold in my hand. My mind is overwhelmed.

Today, I will get paper out and pens. I’ll get out sandpaper and paintbrush, drill and screws. I’ll find the shovel and dig and plant. I will make something beautiful.

Then tomorrow, I’ll try to do it again. This is how habits build, how myelin ensheaths. Soon, it will become easier, and I’ll try applying my learning in new ways.

Maybe I’ll show someone else, share a tool, offer companionship. Maybe we can make a new world.