WHY MONTESSORI

Dr. Montessori, one of the most important educators of our time, emphasised the need for early education. She wrote, “The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to age six. For that is the time when man’s intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers...at no other age has the child greater need of an intelligent help, and any obstacle that impedes his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection”.

Montessori attitudes and philosophy are most consistent with the needs of a child in the process of developing and learning. Montessori’s educational theories are based on the way a child develops naturally and are then correlated to use as an educational system consistent with these laws. 

Dr. Montessori believed that no human being is educated by another person. People teach themselves. A truly educated individual continues learning long after the hours and years spent in a classroom because he or she is motivated from within by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge. She felt, therefore, that the goal of early education should not be to fill children with facts from a pre-selected course of studies, but rather to cultivate their own natural desire to learn. Her experiments made the child the centre of education; her program is adapted to the interests and needs of children. As a result, children concentrate with enthusiasm and achieve a real and profound understanding of their work. This intellectual progress is accompanied by emotional growth. The children become harmonious in movement, independent in work and honest and helpful with one another.

Dr Montessori discovered, and recent educational research has verified successive phases of growth in children each with characteristic sensitivities which guide physical and mental development. These phases of growth, she called “sensitive periods”. They are outwardly recognisable by an intense interest which the child shows for certain sensorial and abstract experiences. Dr Montessori discovered that the guiding sensitivities constitute needs in the child which demand fulfilment and are universal to all children. Thus, the validity of Dr Montessori’s observations have remained constant since she began her task of the discovery of the child.

The function of the teacher in a Montessori classroom differs considerably from that of the traditional teacher; hence, Dr Montessori used the term “Directress”. The directress brings children into contact with the world in which they live and the tools by which they learn to cope with the world. She is, first of all, a very keen observer of the individual interests and needs of each child; her daily plan proceeds from her observations rather than from a prepared curriculum. She demonstrates the correct use of materials as they are individually chosen by the children, carefully watches the progress and keeps a record of their work. Individual children’s total development as well as their progress toward self-discipline is carefully guided by the directress, who prepares the environment, directs the activities, and offers each child enticement and stimulation. The mutual respect of the student and the teacher-guide is the most important factor in this process.

The greatest possibility for flexibility in permitting individual lessons and progress, while still retaining group sessions at no expense to the individual child exists in the Montessori environment. The use of individual materials permits a varied place and accommodates many levels of ability in the classroom. If the classroom equipment is to be challenging enough to provoke a learning response, it must be properly matched to the sensitivities of each child. The most satisfying choice can usually be made only by the children themselves. The Montessori classroom offers children the opportunity to choose from a wide variety of graded materials. The child can grow as their interest leads them from one level of complexity to another. They work in a group composed of individuals of various ages, abilities, cultures and interests and are not required to follow anyone else’s programme... It permits the younger children a graded series of models for imitation, and the older ones an opportunity to reinforce their own knowledge by helping the younger ones. Hence, they add to the group as they receive from it what they need.

Montessori is education... not a nursery school. The best time to start your child’s education is during the early years... 2_ to 3 years when most of the child’s intelligence and social characteristics are formed. 50% of the child’s mental development occurs before 4 years of age. In a Montessori School, your child will learn to think in logical patterns and to deal with reality. Children with a Montessori background become better prepared to cope with the complex challenges of tomorrow’s world.

A multi-faceted approach to reading and spelling, which includes phonetic and sight word approach plus colour-coding of materials, enables children to move at their own pace. Command boxes and moveable grammar materials excite the children’s interest and help them to accomplish more difficult tasks. Montessori’s concrete approach to mathematics allows a clear and simplified understanding of our number system. The materials isolate the difficulty and a control of error exists within the apparatus. Thus, the child is able to perform the work with a minimum interference from the adult and therefore receives the ultimate satisfaction of self-accomplishment. “The child has one intuitive aim: self-development. He desperately wants to develop his resources, his ability to cope with a strange, complex world. He wants to do and see and learn for himself, through his senses and not through the eyes of an adult. The child who accomplishes this moves into harmony with his world and he become a full person. He is educated”. (Maria Montessori)

The Montessori environment includes a fine balance between structure and freedom. The concept of freedom carrying responsibility is gradually introduced from the time a child enters school. The Montessori children have a wide variety of constructive paths to choose. They gain the skills and tools to accomplish their choices and they are taught the social values that enable them to make enlightened choices. Undisciplined and unskilled children are not free, but rather they are slaves to their immediate desires. Allowing this behaviour to proliferate merely forms a habit that is hard to change. Children do not benefit from destructive behaviour and they become unhappy. Freedom does not involve being able to do what you want to do. It does involve being able to distinguish what is constructive and beneficial and being able to carry that out.