PROGRAMS
High School

The Second Half of the Montessori’s Third Plane of Development:
Understanding the meaning of what a Montessori high school is

Curriculum and Courses • Counseling and Student Life • Overseas Travel • Recent Activities

For the third plane of development, Montessori created a new term, “valorization.” She saw it as a grown-up version of “normalization,” which was the goal for the child’s first 11 years. Valorization describes the process an adolescent must go through in order to integrate a mature identity and the sense of being able to succeed in life by his/her own efforts, or, in other words, become an adult.

It is our goal, as mentors and teachers for the second half of this plane, to build on the previous experience of “normalization” in order fulfill the realization of “valorization.”

The third plane of development includes the six-year span from years 12 to 18. This plane is similar to the first plane and is considered a time of great activity, which gives the emergence of an adult.

The first three years, 12-15, the adolescent is an older youth, while the second three years, 15-18, he/she becomes a young adult. Montessori compared the years of older youths, 12-15 to 0-3. Both periods in one’s life are times of extreme vulnerability. Like the infant, there is a “great weakness apparent and great consideration” and care must be taken in the realization of (instead of normalization) valorization. A new creation is taking place—the adult. During the first three years, this transition into adulthood is characterized with much unrest, but in the second three years there is a quelling and calming in the awareness of becoming adults.

During the first three years much is going on, as Pat and Kevin, our middle school teachers, will attest.  Bodies are changing, views of the world are changing, and psyches are changing. At the end of this first half of the plane, these older youths have built a lot of their “tools”--socially, academically and physically--and it is in the next three years, as young adults, that they will use these tools to ready themselves for the next plane. 

The young adult needs to work, plan, and carry out long-term goals. He/she puts into practice all of the practical life skills acquired throughout their Montessori education to become an adult. Montessori suggested that during the first half of this that plane a student expands his/her academics and interactions with the physical world and their community, allowing him/her to explore all of the options of what/who who he/she might one day become. A lot of decisions about what he/she wants to be--the creation of identity and the principles with which one will live--are established during this period.

One of the major roles for the school is to see that young adults are consciously working at creating themselves and finding their role in the world. They still play but now work and play are integrated in the pursuit of fulfilling long-range goals. Our role is to help young people develop their goals, practice the self-discipline it takes to be consistent, and learn to take the long-view toward life as an adult.