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Maria Montessori developed the most compassionate and adaptable
educational system. She sought to make the parents and educators
of the world understand the vital importance of children’s
sensitive periods of learning in their early years.
“Education is a natural process which develops
spontaneously. It is not acquired merely by listening to
words, but through experiences in which the child acts on
his environment.”
Children flourish in a nurturing environment where an abundance
of interesting age-appropriate materials help them discover
and understand the world around them. A pronounced joy of learning
and self-confidence emerges when the needs of the child are
fulfilled in successful learning experiences. Children gain
self-esteem and learn to interact with others in a non-competetive
learning environment.
How Does It Work?
This system of education is both a philosophy
of child growth and a rationale for guiding such growth.
It is based on the child’s developmental needs for
freedom with limits and a carefully prepared environment
which guarantees exposure to materials and experiences through
which to develop intelligence as well as physical and psychological
abilities. It is designed to take full advantage of the self-motivation
and unique ability of children to develop their own capabilities.
The child needs adults to expose him to the possibilities
of his life but the child himself must direct his response
to those possibilities. Premises of Montessori education
are:
- Children to be respected as different from adults, and
as individuals who differ from each other.
- The child possesses unusual sensitivity and mental powers
for absorbing and learning from his environment that are
unlike those of the adult both in quality and capacity.
- The most important years of growth are the first six years
of life when unconscious learning is gradually brought to
the conscious level.
The child has a deep love and need for purposeful work. He works,
however, not as an adult for profit and completion of a job,
but for the sake of the activity itself. It is this activity
which accomplishes for him his most important goal: the development
of himself-his mental, physical, and psychological powers.
Formation of Concepts
Montessori placed great emphasis upon the education of the
senses. The senses require training if they are to become affective
in helping the individual acquire further education.
The initial purpose of the Montessori materials is to develop
independence, self-confidence, concentration, coordination,
and order. The child is lead to the development of his senses
in perceiving differences, contrasts and similarities clearly
and accurately.
Learning with the materials begins with concrete experiences,
which are structured to gradually lead to greater abstractures.
The materials have a built-in control of error and a child
will repeat theses jobs many times to develop his senses.
The materials deal with different senses that the child possesses:
- Visual (Sight)
- Tactile (Touch)
- Auditory (Sound)
- Gustatory (Taste)
- Olfactory (Smell)
- Steregnostic (Geometric Solids)
- Thermic (Temperature)
- Baric (Weight)
- Chromatic (Color)
Please click here to read some frequently asked question about
a Montessori education. |
