What is Montessori?
Montessori education was developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, a Catholic doctor, scientist and educator. It is a comprehensive educational approach based on scientific observations of children from birth to adulthood. Montessori studied children of all racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds for over 50 years and created her principles around the natural development of the child.
Montessori education allows children to advance at their own pace, according to their individual capabilities. Montessori believed every child is born with an innate desire to learn and experience the world. By encouraging children’s interests and cultivating their inborn strengths, Montessori believed that children would develop into confident and productive adults.
Dr. Montessori observed that children experience sensitive periods, or planes of development, as they grow. As their students develop, Montessori guides match appropriate lessons and materials to these sensitive periods when learning is most naturally absorbed and internalized. When education is organized in accord with these sensitive periods, children work with remarkable, sustained enthusiasm.
The signature of Montessori education is allowing the child to learn using all of their senses. Montessori materials are hands-on and help the child to learn discrimination and order. Working with sensorial materials helps prepare a child to be logical, aware and perceptive. Lessons start out with concrete materials and continue into the abstract as they progress.
Components necessary for a program to be considered authentically Montessori include multiage groupings that foster peer learning, uninterrupted blocks of work time, and freedom to choose work activity (within limits). In addition, a full complement of specially designed Montessori learning materials are meticulously arranged and available for use in a beautiful environment.
Dr. Montessori’s pedagogy has been time tested, with over 100 years of success in diverse cultures throughout the world. A Montessori education is designed to cultivate academically competitive scholars, enthusiastic lifelong learners, and future adults ready and empowered to serve the world community.
The Prepared Environment
In the prepared environment, children work through repetition with beautiful manipulative materials to master each lesson. This repetition, often with materials that are self-correcting, helps them to have a deep understanding of the concept and develops persistence. The work emphasizes both process and product.
Throughout her career, Dr. Montessori continually fine-tuned the educational materials and classroom layout to aid children in the process of self-discovery. She understood their desire for a strong sense of order and ability to develop sustained concentration when allowed freedom of movement and use of engaging sensorial materials.
The Montessori classroom embraces the concept of “freedom within limits,” meaning that children have some liberty to choose their work, whether to work individually or collaboratively, and to move about the classroom. However, they are also subject to age-appropriate limits and direction from their guides.
The Montessori Guide
The Montessori teacher, or guide, as we more appropriately refer to the role, compassionately supports children in their self-development. An integral part of the prepared environment, the guide is foremost an observer trained to recognize the optimal time to present materials and lessons to children as they become ready. The guides are also models of the attitude and behaviors being cultivated in the classroom community, including respect, kindness, patience, warmth and joy in learning. Their extensive training prepares them to negotiate the delicate balance of honoring the child’s interests and independence while providing the necessary limits for growth.