Importance of Practical Life Exercises

Write a comprehensive note on the importance of practical life exercises?

Practical exercises are those exercises which help a child to learn meaningful activities in a purposeful way. It helps in his daily life because it is actually those actions which are normally performed by everybody.

"The child can only develop by means of experience in his environment. We call such experience work."

Importance of practical life exercises:          

There is a great importance of practical life exercises. Some are given below.

For Independence:

EPL helps a child do be independent. Because it helps him to do activities by himself rather than others do for him. If a teacher or an adult helps the child do activities themselves rather than to doing for him makes him independent.  That independence becomes his personality trait and will help him for future life also.

For developing love for work:

EPL helps the child to develop love for work because he enjoys going activities of the daily routine by himself. It gives the child feeling of being important. He loves to do combing his hair, brush his teeth, carrying trays and glasses, rolling and unrolling the mat, picking up leaves, cleaning home and surroundings etc. All these activities have a great importance in every individual’s life so that EPL generates love for them.

 For self-Satisfaction and self-respect:

Every child wants to do practical life exercises as he sees his family member doing these activities on daily basis. If adults let the cild to do these activities, his desires fulfills, he gains self-satisfaction and self-respect.  If these exercises are done by child perfectly and appropriately, he may be a good and well-mannered person in his future life. Modern life is so much busy and children need to learn very efficient skills and intelligence; practical life exercises enable them to do that.

For making world a better organized and tidier place:

In the Montessori school, “there is a place for everything, and everything has a place” this principle is followed. So, if we want to make world a better place, we need to make it well organized and tidier place and Montessori School teaches students to do it by the help of practical life exercises. By ignoring these exercises, child’s life becomes full of mess for example we may leave his clothes on bed or leave the utensils on the table or instead of putting things back to their place, he may put it everywhere.  So, in order to make the world better, Montessori school provides him perfect cupboard and shelves that are made according to the size of the child. He unintentionally learns how to organize things at school as well as home.  And these activities help to form good habits among children. 

For learning to Give and take help gracefully:

Exercises of practical life help the child to give and take help gracefully from younger and older students by pleasure at school and home. For example, the statement of saying “go and clean your room” should be spoken in a very good way. The tone should be polite. Rather than saying “go and clean your room” should be said “let us all clean the room”. By doing this by adults, the child feels good and his self-esteem will raised up.  The child who receives help would later be the first helper.

For passing good habits to the next generation:

If an adult complains of doing his work, the child will do the same by imitating it. So, practical life exercises form love for working and working it in the proper and well- affected way.  Therefore, in order to avoid mess, practical life exercises are helpful for passing good habits to the next generation. 

For Perfection of movement:

There are lots of activities in the Montessori school which help children to be perfect in their practical life exercises.  Rolling up a carpet, polishing up the shoes, washing the basin and floor, setting table, opening and closing boxes, and windows, arranging rooms, putting chairs in order, drawing curtains,  carrying furniture etc. are the exercise which help children in body and muscle movements . He can move his hands and eyes accurately and avoids superfluous movement. In grace and courtesy, he learns how to move in a society gracefully. He learns to control body movements which make him to walk, stand and sit excellently.

For Normalization of the child:

The age of 0 -7 is the age of sensitiveness. Every child has a strong urge to work for development. If the child couldn’t get opportunity to fulfill his urges, it may result in deviation. That’s why, practical life exercises help children to fulfill their strong inner urges and by the fulfillment of theses urges lead children to normality. 

For developing love for universe:

Practical life exercises include personal care, care of the environment, care of living things and grace and courtesy and all these are necessary for developing love for universe. The child starts loving all forms of life and become peaceful and responsible individual who do care for this universe.

For avoiding personality disorder:

The children who have lack of confidence or not courage to face the world are actually those who are rejected or suppressed their inner urge by their guardians in the sensitive period.  They do not show interest in doing activities in their life because they could not able to fulfill their urge in sensitive period. So, in order to avoid this kind of personality disorder, practical life exercises really help to fulfill their strong urges inside their heart.

To sum up, exercises of practical life help a child to be independent and face the world. In order to make world better place. We should give freedom to children.