What is ‘The Montessori Method?
Dr Maria Montessori lived from 1870 to 1952. She was the first woman to attend medical school and the first female Doctor of Medicine in Italy. Through her work with handicapped and socially deprived children, she developed her unique educational method known as the Montessori Method. As a result of her further study, observation, and experimentation, she found the principles of her method to be applicable to all children. She has had a major impact on the field of education in general and in the way we understand and teach children today.
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Montessori's influence can be seen not only in the number of schools that bear her name, but throughout the fields of child care, education, and child development. Many of her ideas are now part of our common knowledge, language, and thinking about children. She was an innovator in the field of education and ideas that were once met with great resistance in her day now seem natural as accepted aspects of childhood. |
What Makes Montessori Education Unique?
The whole child approach
The primary goal of a Montessori program is to help each child reach their full potential in all areas of life. Activities promote the development of social skills, emotional growth, and physical coordination as well as cognitive preparation for future intellectual academic endeavors. The holistic curriculum, under the direction of a specifically prepared teacher, allows the child to experience the joy of learning, the time to enjoy the process, and ensures the development of self esteem. It provides the experiences from which children create their knowledge.
The Prepared Environment
In order for self directed learning to take place, the whole learning environment - classroom, materials, and social setting/ atmosphere - must be supportive of the child. The teacher provides the necessary resources, including opportunities for children to function in a safe and positive environment. Together, the teacher and child form a relationship based on trust and respect that fosters self confidence and a willingness to try new things.
The Montessori Materials
Dr. Montessori's observations of the kinds of things which children enjoy and go back to repeatedly, led her to design a number of multi-sensory, sequential, and self correcting materials to facilitate learning.
The Teacher - Originally called a "Directress",
The Montessori teacher functions as a designer of the environment, resource person, role model, demonstrator, record-keeper and meticulous observer of each child's behavior and growth. The teacher facilitates learning.
Areas Of The Montessori Environment
Practical Life
The Practical Life exercises within the Montessori Environment form the foundation of independence for each child. Presented gracefully by the directress, the child benefits in the life skills these exercises offer.
Sensorial
Each sensorial activity used is geared towards a particular sense with the exclusion of all others. This gives focus to the task at hand without other concepts interfering.
Cultural Area
The cultural programme includes the topics of botany, zoology, geography, history, art, music and science. As the child’s character is forming through the use of his senses, each of these topics are presented in a ‘hands-on’ manner where the child becomes the core of the presentation. The directress simply plants the seeds at the correct time which the child will cultivate as he uses the given information to find his place in the universe by associating himself with other cultures and social understanding.
Language
The language programme is divided into categories of phonetic words, phonograms, sight words and grammar; each section being introduced by the directress at the correct ‘stage’ of the child’s language development
Mathematics
