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What is
Montessori?  What
is Montessori?
How
did it begin? She carried her message throughout the world, including the United States as early as 1912. After an enthusiastic first response, interest in the U.S. waned until a reintroduction of the method in the mid-1950s , followed by the organization of the American Montessori Society in 1960. What
makes Montessori education unique? The teacher acts
as a facilitator of learning. Extensive training--a minimum of
a full year following the baccalaureate degree is required for
a full AMS credential, including a year's student teaching under
supervision--is specialized for the
THE MONTESSORI "METHOD" of bringing up and educating children
Dr. Montessori gave the world a scientific method, practical and tested, for bringing forth the very best in young human beings. She taught adults how to respect individual differences, and to emphasize social interaction and the education of the whole personality rather than the teaching of a specific body of knowledge. Montessori practice is always up-to-date and dynamic because observation and the meeting of needs is continual and specific for each child. When physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs are met children glow with excitement and a drive to play and work with enthusiasm, to learn, and to create. They exhibit a desire to teach, help, and care for others and for their environment. The high level
of academic achievement so common in Montessori schools is a
natural outcome of experience in such a supportive environment.
The Montessori method of education is a model which serves the
needs of children of all levels of
How
does it work?
How
is creativity encouraged?
- Maria Montessori,
Education for a New World Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. She worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology. She believed that each child is born with a unique potential to be revealed, rather than as a "blank slate" waiting to be written upon. Her main contributions to the work of those of us raising and educating children are in these areas: Preparing the most
natural and life supporting environment for the child THE EARLY YEARS
In 1907 she was given the opportunity to study "normal" children, taking charge of fifty poor children of the dirty, desolate streets of the San Lorenzo slum on the outskirts of Rome. The news of the unprecedented success of her work in this Casa dei Bambini "House of Children" soon spread around the world, people coming from far and wide to see the children for themselves. Dr. Montessori was as astonished as anyone at the realized potential of these children: Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants - doing nothing but living and walking about - came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning: would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so passes little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love FROM EUROPE TO THE UNITED STATES, INDIA, AND THE REST OF THE WORLD Invited to the USA by Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and others, Dr. Montessori spoke at Carnegie Hall in 1915. She was invited to set up a classroom at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where spectators watched twenty-one children, all new to this Montessori method, behind a glass wall for four months. The only two gold medals awarded for education went to this class, and the education of young children was altered forever. During World War II Dr. Montessori was forced into exile from Italy because of her anti-fascist views and lived and worked in India. Her concern with education for peace intensified and she was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since her death an interest in Dr. Montessori's methods have continued to spread throughout the world. Her message to those who emulated her was always to turn one's attention to the child, to "follow the child". It is because of this basic tenet, and the observation guidelines left by her, that Dr. Montessori's ideas will never become obsolete. |
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The "whole child" approach.
The primary goal of a Montessori program is to help each child
reach his full potential in all areas of life. Activities promote
the development of social skills, emotional growth, and physical
coordination, as well as cognitive preparation. The holistic
curriculum, under the direction of a specially prepared teacher,
allows the child to experience the joy of learning, time to enjoy
the process and insure the development of self-esteem, and 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--room,
materials, and social climate--must be supportive of the learner.
The teacher provides necessary resources, including opportunities
for children to function in a safe and positive climate. The
teacher thus gains the children's trust, which enables them to
try new things and build self-confidence. 
After
years of expression mainly in pre-schools, Montessori philosophy
is finally being used as originally intended, as a method of
seeing children as they really are and of creating environments
which foster the fulfillment of their highest potential - spiritual,
emotional, physical, and intellectual - as members of a family,
the world community and the Cosmos.
Each Montessori class, operates
on the principle of freedom within limits. Every program has
its set of ground rules which differs from age to age, but is
always based on core Montessori beliefs--respect for each other
and for the environment. 
Research studies show that Montessori
children are well prepared for later life academically, socially,
and emotionally. In addition to scoring well on standardized
tests, Montessori children are ranked above average on such criteria
as following directions, turning in work on time, listening attentively,
using basic skills, showing responsibility, asking provocative
questions, showing enthusiasm for learning, and adapting to new
situations.
Scientific
observation has established that education is not what the teacher
gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out
by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to
words but by experiences upon the environment. The task of the
teacher becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural
activity, spread over a specially prepared environment, and then
refraining from obtrusive interference. Human teachers can only
help the great work that is being done, as servants help the
master. Doing so, they will be witnesses to the unfolding of
the human soul and to the rising of a New Man who will not be
a victim of events, but will have the clarity of vision to direct
and shape the future of human society.
Maria
Montessori was always a little ahead of her time. At age thirteen,
against the wishes of her father but with the support of her
mother, she began to attend a boys' technical school. After seven
years of engineering she began premed and, in 1896 became a physician.
In her work at the University of Rome psychiatric clinic Dr.
Montessori developed an interest in the treatment of children
and, for several years, she worked, wrote, and spoke on their
behalf.
