Non Judgment

Occasionally, things come together from many sources suddenly as powerful reminders.

Yesterday I was watching the video "Demystifying the bells" by Montessori trainer Vera Ligtelijn-DePass and in her introduction she mentioned Montessori's precept:

"A teacher's work is not to judge the child, but to help him."

So perfectly, this idea came together with what I read last night in "Stillness Speaks":

"To know another human being in their essence, you don't really need to know anything about them- their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing about with a deeper knowing that is non conceptual. Thoughts and concepts create an artificial barrier, a separation between human beings. Without the conceptual barriers, love is naturally present in all human interactions."

"How quick we are to form an opinion of a person, to come to a conclusion about them. You give them a conceptual identity, and that false identity becomes a prison not only for the other person but also for yourself."

"To let go of judgment does not mean that you don't see what they do. It means that you recognize their behavior as a form of conditioning, and you see it and accept it as that. You don't construct and identity out of it for that person."


All this reminded me strongly of how my trainer used to say that we should beware of judging a child, you don't want to be creating self fulfilling prophecies.

It is easy to resort to judgment when you have brand new children in a classroom. They are little strangers that unfold their true selves slowly. Sometimes it's easy to lose patience with the process and race to conclusions. I'm grateful for the reminders that came not so subtly this weekend.