Jul 05 2009
The Plastic v. Glass v. Wood Debate
When I started out as a Montessori educator, we were told that in the Practical Life area, everything needed to be beautiful. The school I worked at had an incredible closet, filled with all kinds of trays, bowls, and utensils in every color of the rainbow. But they were all plastic.
There was an unspoken fear that the children would break glass and subsequently get hurt. We waited until the end of the year to put out anything glass or ceramic, because in theory they were normalized then.
The shelves were set up quite nicely and the children were attracted to the works because of the bright colors. Does that mean we were wrong to use the plastic? They were still learning the process, after all……
The next school I worked at also primarily used plastic. Of course, we were much smaller, and I had a tiny budget with which to work. There may have been a few glass or ceramic items, but not many. Again, the children seemed to be attracted to the activities and were learning from them.
My next school, though there was plastic in many of the classrooms, started making a push toward more glass, ceramic, and wood. The goal was to get back to a more natural environment. Part of the learning process involves using care when handling breakables. A natural consequence of inappropriate handling is they break.
But again, budgets can come into play. If you’re going to have a lot of breakables in the classroom, you must always have a back-up vessel to replace it. Plastic is less likely to break, and therefore more budget-friendly.
Plastic also doesn’t necessarily teach the children to be careful. When it drops, it bounces. Everything is okay.
So, what is the answer? What do you use in your classroom? What experiences have you had?
What was written about glass, wood and plastice was all relevant. Basically, garage sales, and restauarant supply stores make it affordable to have glass in the classroom. Our back closet was filled with extra supplies of glass bowls,pitchers, etc., of course there is always some metal and wood on the shelves which at home in a daily life experience. One thing we always do is put a runner rug right by the shelving for practical life. If it broke the sound was not as startling. Also, if we were working with a few children that were very uneasy with carrying, the assistant in the classroom was assigned to observe those few children and gently guide them to the table.