HISTORY
Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was a pioneer in the field of early childhood education. She made history by being the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. Between 1886 and 1906 she represented Italy in two European women's conferences, had a medical practice, and was made a professor of anthropology at the University of Rome.
In her medical practice, Montessori began working with mentally delayed children. As she watched them play she became convinced they were capable of learning given the right opportunity. Trained as a scientist, Montessori began to experiment and develop materials. Finally she was confident enough to have some children take the state education exams. To everyone’s amazement they not only did well, but surpassed some of the “normally developed” children. Her clinical observations formed during this time led to the conclusion that children construct themselves using what they find in their environment.
Montessori’s insights about child development received such acclaim that she was asked to begin a pre-school in Rome’s inner city. Although she had never intended to focus on education, she accepted, and founded the first “Casa dei Bambini” or “Children’s House” in 1907. In her work that followed, Montessori noted that children possessed natural abilities which were far greater than imagined. She observed that children had a wonderful ability to absorb information, could concentrate for long periods of time, and actively taught themselves. These observations, along with additional discoveries, eventually became the foundation of what was to be called the Montessori Method. Montessori also developed an array of unique developmental materials, most of which are still used today.
In 1913 Montessori made a visit to the United States where her method was hailed by such notables as Thomas Edison, Helen Keller and Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, who founded the Montessori Educational Association in Washington D.C. Although invited to open a Montessori training center in the United States she preferred to return to her native country. However, in 1934 she was forced to leave Italy due to her opposition of Mussolini’s government. She moved to the Netherlands where she opened a Montessori training center in Laren. She also founded a series of teacher training courses in India in 1939.
Dr. Montessori’s lectures around the world focused on educational reform, the pursuit of which she believed would lead to a better world. During the last years of her life, she was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace prize. Maria Montessori died in the Netherlands in 1952. Today her legacy continues on every continent, where Montessori schools serve children from birth through high school.
The Montessori Method
Although we sometimes hear the word “philosophy” applied to Montessori education, it is not a set of beliefs, but rather a scientific method, an approach to the child which has as its core a fundamental respect for the abilities with which each child is endowed. Dr. Montessori was a scientist and a physician. When she opened her first Children’s House in 1907 very little work had been done in the field of early child development. Because of her background, Montessori used scientific techniques to watch children as they worked and played. She drew conclusions, made adjustments depending upon what she had seen, and observed again. Every piece of equipment and every activity she developed was a result of watching children’s natural development. Moreover, her conclusions were drawn from observations taken from numerous schools, in more than one country, over a long period of time.
Main Observations
Most important to Montessori is the observation that children build themselves using what is available in their environment. Young children learn in a multi-sensory fashion, not by just watching or listening. Between the ages of birth and six they also have an enormous capacity to learn with an apparent lack of effort. Montessori called this period “The Absorbent Mind.” Montessori also noted times in children’s development where they could learn certain skills easier, so-called “sensitive periods.” Once these periods were over, learning came with more struggle, and sometimes not at all. She concluded that any effective form of education should incorporate and take advantage of these natural cycles of learning. Some sensitive periods lasted for years, others she speculated only for a period of days. Those she clearly identified included sensitive periods for movement, learning by touch, language, order, imagination and socialization.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic observations Montessori made concerned the ability of young children to concentrate. Up to that time young children were considered to have very brief attention spans. She noticed, however, that when deeply interested in a carefully designed material a child could focus in such a way that he or she seemed to shut out every distraction – what we would call today being in the “zone” or “flow.” Moreover she noticed that children who repeatedly experienced this kind of concentration were not only joyous learners, but exhibited an inner calm and self reliance she became convinced was the natural state of childhood. She called this “normalization.”
Montessori observed and believed in the ability of each child. However, she also knew that children didn’t develop their full potential in a void. They required a carefully prepared developmental environment upon which they could act. It was this environment in combination with the adult and Montessori’s educational materials which formed the foundation for her method. And it is the interaction of the child, the adult, and the environment which make her approach so eminently successful, not just as an alternate form of schooling, but as an authentic education for life.
The Prepared Environment
Children are born with certain abilities, but they don’t develop them in a void! They need a carefully prepared environment, which meets their needs at each level of development, in order to fully realize their potential. As infants we do not learn to walk by lying in a crib, nor do we learn by an adult forcing our limbs to move beneath us. We are driven to learn to walk when our neurons start firing. We succeed when, and only when we are allowed to freely move in a place where there are objects for pulling up and standing. Nature and practice takes care of the rest!
Characteristics of the Prepared Environment
Freedom is an important component of the prepared environment. Of course this is freedom within limits. We want infants to walk, but we won’t let them experiment in dangerous places. Similarly, in a classroom setting, we want children to explore and choose, but they cannot abuse things or people as they do so, nor can they choose activities they do not understand or are not ready for. This is an important distinction since Montessori classrooms have materials which span several years.
Matching the activities to the children’s development is another primary characteristic of the prepared environment, starting with physical development. If you were to visit Montessori environments starting at infant and ending in high school, you would notice the furniture seeming to grow! It seems a simple and obvious thing to do today, but Montessori was the first educator to insist that objects and furniture be child-sized. The rationale for this was not just because she realized children didn’t function well using adult-sized things. She also realized the environment affected their emotional development.
Consider how you would feel if everything around you was two times too large. You had to climb up to sit down, or peer out windows on tiptoe or eat using giant utensils. You would not only feel awkward or like you didn’t belong, you probably would become frustrated because you had to rely on others to function – you couldn’t be independent. Small wonder children, wanting to do things by themselves, sometimes resort to tantrums!
Environments also must match children’s cognitive development. Materials and activities in each Montessori class are chosen to meet growing abilities and needs. And because children are allowed to learn at their own pace, the materials which are available go beyond their age or grade level. Montessori’s first elementary environments were separated from the pre-school classes by waist-high partitions, and she routinely allowed the children to take “academic walks” to see what interested them.
Montessori also felt it was important to provide the children with real, functional materials. Because learning occurs through their senses, they are given real dishes to wash with real soap, they prepare real food, arrange real flowers in glass vases and work in the garden with real tools. Consequently, the contributions they make to their environment and community are real, as is their self esteem. The prepared environment also addresses children’s spiritual development. Their sensitivity to nature and beauty is reflected in the Montessori environment through the use of natural materials. In addition, the environments are logically arranged and orderly.
The Role of the Adult
The final component of the prepared environment is the adult. Montessori felt that the adult’s role should be one of observant guide, someone who created the setting for children, connected them to activities, but then pulled back so as to not get in the way. She did not feel adults should so much “teach” children as they should “direct” them to materials, presenting a lesson, but then allowing them the freedom to practice, take risks, make errors and try again on their own. This is why she preferred the term director or directress to the term teacher. Adults are also responsible for providing children with large blocks of time during which they can work, uninterrupted. Even in 1907 Montessori mentioned how the adult world, with its machines, fast pace and interruptions was unsuitable for the child!
By building schools or Children’s Houses, the adult also creates a tiny community in which the children can develop their social life. Visitors to Montessori preschools, seeing how independent the children are, sometimes think this means they aren’t developing their social side. Montessori comments:
“What is social life if not the solving of social problems, behaving properly and pursuing aims acceptable to all? To [others] social life consists of sitting side by side and hearing someone else talk: but that is just the opposite. The only social life that children get in the ordinary schools is during playtime or on excursions. Ours life always in an active community.”
Books by Dr. Maria Montessori
The Montessori Method
The Absorbent Mind
The Secret of Childhood
The Discovery of the Child
Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook
The Advanced Montessori Method, Volumes I and II
What You Should Know About Your Child
Education for a New World
To Educate the Human Potential
Formation of Man
The Child
Reconstruction in Education
The California Lectures of Maria Montessori, 1915 (Clio Press)
The Absorbent Mind
The Secret of Childhood
The Discovery of the Child
Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook
The Advanced Montessori Method, Volumes I and II
What You Should Know About Your Child
Education for a New World
To Educate the Human Potential
Formation of Man
The Child
Reconstruction in Education
The California Lectures of Maria Montessori, 1915 (Clio Press)
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