Planes of Development
By : MG Virdina J
As human beings we will go through this phase >> born – growing up – getting old – leave the world and come back to Who created you. This time let me concentrate only on growing up part.
Growing up >> develop, by Oxford Languages de·vel·op /dəˈveləp/ means grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced or elaborate.
There are 4 planes of development by Maria Montessori :
1. Infancy (age of 0-6) = Physical & Biological Independence >> let me do it myself
Focus on self, exploring environment through the senses of what; what is this? What is that? What is this for? For what purpose? What? What? What? High curiosity.
2. Childhood (age of 6-12) = Mental Independence >> help me think
Starting to focus on local community, such as friends or family. Exploring ideas and information; How? followed by Why? Howto do this? Why you do this? How to make that? Why you make that? How babies get into mom’s belly? Oops! They need to know the reason why above all things.
3. Adolescence (age of 12-18) = Social Independence >> help me think with you
Focus on global community, transition from family life to life in society, starting to make own community/friends from the secondary grade that probably could last for a very long time.
4. Maturity (age of 18-24) = Spiritual & Moral Independence >> how can I help you?
Focus on (real) society. Starting university years many of them (west culture) start to live independent life by living apart from their parents. They have desire to take their place in the society, how can I be useful for my community.
I myself don’t against the above Maria Montessori’s 4 planes of development, but based on what I observed (purposely and spontaneously), there are slightly differences on the age range and maturity from 1900 and today. This is what I mean about the differences :
1. Infancy (age of 0-6) = Physical & Biological Independence >> let me do it myself can I do it myself?
These days, not all youngsters from 0-6 years old got will to do something by themselves, not because they are not able but they choose not to. There are few (or perhaps many) of them who are used to being served, they used to get all they ‘need’ instantly. Example : some of 2nd graders even still not able to feed himself >> eat by themselves, because they have no will to even try to do it since the early age. Being fed became a need. There is no curiosity what is spoon/fork really for, or how to spoon food properly from the plate to their mouth. 2nd graders = age of 7 in Indonesia. From this example alone the age range is already held significant variance.
2. Childhood (age of 6-12) = Mental Independence >> help me think I think I can think by myself
It looks like the opposite of above writings but from the observation I did (not purposely) on the surrounding environment, kids these days are so much “adults” than their age. Thanks to the sophistication of technology, nowadays children are so much familiar with gadget. They could learn so many things out of school from the internet. They surf into it once and twice and voila! they can do many things with their gadget. Again, there is no more curiosity because they could find all the wonders through the internet.
3. Adolescence (age of 12-18) = Social Independence >> help me think with you I can think by myself
I don’t need to think with you, I’m an adult and I can think by myself. Rebel. Teenagers characteristic. I remember I used to say B when my mom say A, quite often. Why she won’t agree with me on many things? That made the communication became 1 way, my way.
4. Maturity (age of 18-24) = Spiritual & Moral Independence >> how can I help you? I might help you.
I came from small town, many of us (me and my high school friends) moved out from our hometown either to this capital city or other cities in Indonesia to continue our studies in university/college. That period was the time for us to live apart from our family. Many of us literally pushed to be more independent by living alone in a boarding house (kost), but some of us were still ‘attached’ to the family – living with aunt/uncle/other relatives. How about my classmates? My class was a quite big class, I had around 30s classmates and among us, only few stayed in the boarding house while the majority went back and forth from their house (parent house) to the campus (and office when finally we graduated and started real work in the real world). For us the out-of-state students living away from our family taught us many things, we adapted to new environment and forced to be real adult by managing the financial (pocket money) given by our parents, even some of us earned their own pocket money by doing part time job. Slowly but sure we started to walk towards the real society.
So my conclusion is yes the 4 planes of development will always be there, however there are differences of today’s society, age range and what the stage means for society today.
