The Montessori House-The Montessori Method

An Introduction to the Montessori Method of Early Childhood Development

Maria Montessori started a revolution in education by her observations of the way children learn. As obvious as it seems now, few agreed at the beginning of the century that children (and everyone else) learn best by doing. Schools were set up to pump adult information by rote repetition into the passive heads of well disciplined sedentary pupils at a prescribed rate for everyone. A harsh measure of discipline and the label of failure was meted out to anyone who couldn't keep up. Woe to the little ones whose learning clocks ticked to a different measure, or who need some sensory input to help them absorb the information. Dr. Montessori had carefully chronicled and refined her methods of reaching young children in Italy.

She had been put in charge of difficult or slow learning and impoverished children. She discovered that they could learn very well, better, in fact much better, than "normal" children if they were provided with materials that stimulated their senses. She found that the children responded to her methods with the quickest pace of learning if they were reached during the crucial early years before the age of six.

She also discovered that there were natural learning spurts for different subjects and skills that followed a definite schedule as the young children developed. She called these growth spurts "sensitive periods," times when the young mind is like a sponge ready to rapidly absorb all it can of a particular skill. Afterward, when the crucial period is concluded, if the subject was not mastered according to the natural rhythm, much greater effort would be required to learn it later.

First in Italy and later in America she focused corrective attention for educators on children's own pace of learning critical information and on the vital importance of active sensory stimulation for the process of learning. She discovered that a child left free to explore a carefully planned environment will respond to inner impulses to learn with a minimum of adult assistance. She found that in an orderly well kept environment, the child will adapt to a rule of respect for other's work spaces and will respond with its own self control to facilitate the sheer fun and joy of learning- for everyone.

The unfamiliar observer of a new Montessori class is truly amazed to see the remarkable transformation into discipline and order in a classroom full of three-year-olds free to wander and choose whatever material they wish to study.

The Montessori approach to early childhood development has spread worldwide. National and international societies perpetuate her discoveries through teacher training and school certification.

Some of the guiding principles of the Montessori philosophy are:

Children learn and grow best in an inviting and enriched environment where they are free to choose what interests them.
The child's "work" is to develop the "person" he or she is to become.
The "teacher's" job is to develop and care for the learning environment and attune it to the individual child's growing needs.
A prepared Montessori environment encourages the children to explore and discover meaning for themselves about the world around them. They do that by manipulating physical objects and materials (real, not imaginary things) that long experience has determined to be ideally suited to particular learning stages. The intricacies of that automatic and wonderful process become clearer as the year progresses and the results become apparent.
A child is an enthusiastic "worker" explorer. He or she becomes a self actualizer by following an inner drive toward new discoveries and new achievements.
A good Montessori teacher must be a culturally literate facilitator, keeper of the ground rules, demonstrator of the materials, and all-seeing observer. She must be quick to track learning progress and be ready with new materials geared to the next stages of the child's growth patterns, needs and personal inclinations.