The Long Black Line

The children in the Lower Elementary classrooms will be receiving the lesson entitled, The Long Black Line  this week. 

In 1939, Dr. Montessori was working with several children in India. One of the children told her that there was nothing that he and India could learn from someone in the West. After all, the oldest real civilization was in India 10,000 years ago. Egypt was 3.5 thousand years ago. Babylon and Assyria were 5,000 years ago.  The Indian civilization was actually 9,000 years old, but she said she would make it 10,000 to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Later she asked a printer to make a strip of cloth 300 meters long and 50 cm. wide. 299.99 were in black and 0.01 meters were in white.

When the roll was ready, she had it brought to the school and said "Now, I'm ready for something".

She had 2 teachers on bicycles unroll the whole thing along the street. They started with all black and finally came to the little piece of red.

The children asked what it was. Montessori said it was the history of the earth since it was created.

The children asked if it was of one color. Montessori answered. No. It changed to red when the history of humans began.

 

Submitted by: Jenn Darmogray