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What is false fatigue in Montessori?

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I love this graph from from Spontaneous Activity in Education by Maria Montessori. What you’ll see is a 3-hour work cycle in a classroom in (I believe) a 3-6 classroom.

false fatigue in Montessori

In this graph the children arrive at 9am. For the first 30 minutes you have the children arriving, settling in, greeting and observing each other. Then from 9:30 to 10am you see the children often selecting work they know already, an easier work. 

Around 10am you see a dip – this is “false fatigue.” This is where the class can be a little unsettled, marked on the graph as “agitation.” A child might want to use the toilet, there may be a feeling of unrest and distraction and we may feel like we want to round them up to read a book, sing a song and control the energy.

The wise Montessori teacher knows and observes (stepping in only where a child might hurt themselves, another child or the environment) because they know that after this false fatigue we see some of the deepest work of the session – marked on the graph “most earnest work, new and difficult work.”

The end of the graph the work slowly comes to a stop and I love how it is marked “calm serenity.” When a child feels satisfied, challenged, and peaceful, they have that hallmark calm of a Montessori classroom.

So what can we do with this information?

I’m curious! Take some time to observe a morning at home:

  • do you see something similar happen in your home? 
  • do you observe false fatigue? 
  • if so, can you sit out the chaos of the “false fatigue” to see them come to some of their deepest work of the morning? 
  • does this happen at other times of day too?

Note: For a toddler this may be a shorter work cycle of around 2 hours