In 2005, poverty and child labor are growing problems that threaten the stability and progress of all countries in our complex global economy. Many look to education as a solution, without realizing the true cause or nature of the problem itself.

Confusing cause with effect, conventional efforts to end poverty and child labor only add to the problems they seek to remedy. For example, if the cause of poverty were simply lack of money by poor people, we could readily solve the problem by giving them money. Likewise, if the cause of child labor were simply lack of conventional education, we could easily solve this problem by making the children attend ordinary formal schooling. In practice, however, applying this superficial logic will only add to the problem it seeks to remedy.

Sadly, the US government appears committed to following this faulty logic in its efforts to eradicate child labor through education. The Department of Labor (DOL) uses some $350 million dollars to fund “education initiative” grants, which limit funding to conventional education only.

Conventional education essentially delivers a predetermined curriculum to children through formalized teacher-directed group instruction. This ordinary formal schooling actually encourages dependency on external authority, discouraging those positive character qualities that children most need to overcome the negative conditions of poverty and child labor. It prohibits children from developing such positive character qualities as self-reliance, personal initiative, integrity and self-directed learning.

The Department of Labor disregards the substantive effects of its funding on character development, measuring success, value and progress of its various projects instead by how many children they physically move from abusive child labor to formal school instruction in a specified period of time. Whatever short-term benefit these projects may bring about while running, this will largely disappear after the funding is gone.

DOL pursues its misguided philosophy by funding projects that pay poor parents to cover expenses for their children to attend formal conventional schooling. However, when the free money ends, the children generally return to the same unwholesome life-style as before. Other projects seek to raise awareness of child labor by distributing notices or conducting lectures and workshop to urge greater attention to the problem of child labor. However, these efforts don’t address the underlying issue of defective character development, which is the central cause in the matter.

Clearly the DOL doesn’t know the cause of child abuse and poverty because it funds some projects to study this matter in detail. Unfortunately, all these studies revolve around the same essential conventional education, which either ignores or does not recognize the cause it is seeking to find.

Happily, there is a type of education that can effectively address and resolve the cause of both poverty and child labor. The International Montessori Society (IMS) offered this unconventional approach in several specific project proposals for DOL funding. Of course, the Department rejected these projects as falling outside of its conventional philosophy and criteria.

The IMS project is titled “Character Teaching”, to designate its primary focus to the core issue of proper character development in children. It employs a novel “exchange of value” concept, which involves giving a small amount of money to poor working children in exchange for a brief amount of their time for instruction in basic academic skills. Detractors and conventional educators generally object to this concept because they say that giving even a small amount of money to poor working children will corrupt them and encourage their further harmful child labor. By contrast, Lee Havis, IMS director, argues, “this ‘exchange of value’ is vital for establishing a relationship of trust, respect and accountability with the children involved. It allows them to directly experience self-worth, integrity and personal accountability, which repeated over time will ultimately become deeply incorporated into their whole way of being and character for life”.

The Character Teaching project follows the basic scientific approach pioneered by Dr. Maria Montessori in the early 1900’s. In 1907, Montessori applied this approach with poor, neglected children in the slums of Rome, Italy. In this way, she discovered children having natural qualities of self-discipline, order and instincts for independence. In modern times, this Montessori teaching has largely failed to achieve the original promised results due to a lack of consistent and comprehensive technology for its effective practice.

According to Havis, a key factor in the potential success of the IMS character teaching project is using a new comprehensive technology he perfected and consolidated for Montessori education in 2003. He says, “Combining this new technology of Montessori teaching with the concept of ‘exchange of value’, we now have a sound educational approach that can begin to cure the cause of poverty and child abuse in the world. It just awaits a country government willing to give this unconventional new education a chance to operate.”

For further information, contact:
Lee Havis
International Montessori Society
9525 Georgia Ave. #200
Silver Spring, MD 20910
http://imsmontessori.org
301-589-1127 • email: havis@erols.com