The Purpose of Montessori Education

The Purpose of Montessori Education

Dr. Maria Montessori believed that no human being is educated by another person. He must do it himself or it will never be done. A truly educated individual continues learning long after the hours and years he spends in the classroom because he is motivated from within by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge. Dr. Montessori felt, therefore, that the goal of early childhood education should not be to fill the child with facts from a pre-selected course of studies, but rather to cultivate his own natural desire to learn.

In the Montessori classroom this objective is approached in two ways: first, by allowing each child to experience the excitement of learning by his own choice rather than by being forced; and second, by helping him to perfect all his natural tools for learning, so that his ability will be at a maximum in future learning situations. The Montessori materials have this dual long-range purpose in addition to their immediate purpose of giving specific information to the child.

HOW THE CHILDREN LEARN

The use of the materials is based on the young child’s unique aptitude for learning which Dr. Montessori identified as the “absorbent mind”. In her writings she frequently compared the young mind to a sponge. It literally absorbs information from the environment. The process is particularly evident in the way in which a two year-old learns his native language, without formal instruction and without the conscious, tedious effort which an adult must make to master a foreign activity for the young child who employs all his senses to investigate his interesting surroundings.

Since the child retains this ability to learn by absorbing until he is almost seven years old, Dr. Montessori reasoned that his experience could be enriched by a classroom where he could handle materials which would demonstrate basic educational information to him. Over sixty years of experience have proved her theory that a young child can learn to read, write and calculate in the same natural way that he learns to walk and talk. In a Montessori classroom the equipment invites him to do this at his own periods of interest and readiness.

Dr. Montessori always emphasized that the hand is the chief teacher of the child. In order to learn there must be concentration, and the best way a child can concentrate is by fixing his attention on some task he is performing with his hands. (The adult habit of doodling is a remnant of this practice). All the equipment in a Montessori classroom allows the child to reinforce his casual impressions by inviting him to use his hands for learning.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EARLY YEARS

In The Absorbent Mind, Dr. Montessori wrote, “The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of 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”.

Recent psychological studies based on controlled research have confirmed these theories of Dr. Montessori. After analyzing thousands of such studies, Dr. Benjamin S. Boom of the University of Chicago, wrote in Stability and Change in Human Characteristics, “From conception to age 4, to 8 he develops another 30%….This would suggest the very rapid growth of intelligence in the early years and the possible great influence of the early environment on this development”.

Like Dr. Montessori, Dr. Bloom believes “that the environment will have maximum impact on a specific trait during that trait’s period of most rapid growth”. As an extreme example, a starvation diet would not affect the height of an eighteen year-old baby. Since eighty percent of the child’s mental development takes place before he is eight years old, the importance of favorable conditions during these years can hardly be over emphasized.

SENSITIVE PERIODS

Another observation of Dr. Montessori’s, which has been reinforced by modern research, is the inportance of the sensitive periods for early learning. These are periods of intense fascination for learning a particular characteristic or skill, such as going up and down steps, putting things in order, counting or reading. It is easier for the child to learn a particular skill during the corresponding sensitive period than at any other time in his life. The Montessori classroom takes advantage of this fact by allowing the child freedom to select individual activities which correspond to his own periods of interest.

AT WHAT AGES?

Although the entrance age varies in individual schools a child can usually enter a Montessori classroom between the ages of two and one half and four, depending on when he can be happy and comfortable in a classroom situation. He will begin with the simplest exercises based on activities which all children enjoy. The equipment which he uses at three and four will help him to develop the concentration, coordination and working habits necessary for the more advanced exercises he will perform at five and six. The entire program of learning is purposefully structured. Therefore, optimum results cannot be expected either for a child who misses the early years of the cycle, or for one who is withdrawn before he finishes the basic materials described here.

Parents should understand that a Montessori school is neither a baby-sitting service nor a play school that prepares a child for traditional kindergarten. Rather, it is a unique cycle of learning designed to take advantage of the child’s sensitive years between three and six, when he can absorb information from an enriched environment. A child who acquires the basic skills of reading and arithmetic in this natural way has the advantage of beginning his education without drudgery, boredom or discouragement. By pursuing his individual interests in a Montessori classroom, he gains an early enthusiasm for learning, which is the key to his becoming a truly educated person.

MONTESSORI EDUCATION – A Few Questions and Answers

WHAT IS IT?

This system of education is both a philosophy of child growth and a rationale for guiding such growth. It is based on the child’s developmental needs for freedom within limits and a carefully prepared environment which guarantees exposure to materials and experiences through which to develop intelligence as well as physical and psychological abilities. It is designed to take full advantage of the self-motivation and unique ability of children to develop their own capabilities. The child needs adults to expose him to the possibilities of his life, but the child himself must direct his response to those possibilities. Premises of Montessori education are:

Children are to be respected as different from adults, and as individuals who differ from each other.

The child possesses unusual sensitivity and mental powers for absorbing and learning from his environment that are unlike those for the adult both in quality and capacity.

The most important years of growth are the first six years. Unconscious learning is gradually brought to the conscious level.

The child has a deep love and need for purposeful work. He works, however, not as an adult for profit and completion of a job, but for the sake of the activity itself. It is this activity which accomplishes for him his most important goal: the development of himself — his mental, physical and psychological powers.

IS IT FOR ALL CHILDREN?

The Montessori system has been used successfully with children between the ages of two and a half and eighteen from all socio-economic levels, representing those in regular classes as well as gifted, retarded, emotionally disturbed, and physically handicapped. Because of its individual approach, it is uniquely suited to public education, where children of many backgrounds are grouped together. It is also appropriate for classes in which the student teacher ratio is high because children learn at an early age to work independently.

IS THE CHILD FREE TO DO WHAT HE CHOOSES IN THE CLASSROOM?

The child is free to move about the classroom at will, to talk to other children, to work with any equipment whose purpose he understands, or to ask the teacher to introduce new material to him. He is not free to disturb other children at work or to abuse the equipment that is so important to his development.

WHAT DOES THE DIRECTRESS DO?

The directress works with individual children, introduces material, and gives guidance where needed. One of her primary tasks is careful observation of each child in order to determine his needs and to gain the knowledge she needs in preparing the environment to aid his growth. Her method of teaching is indirect in that she neither imposes upon the child as in direct teaching nor abandons him as a nondirective, permissive approach. Rather, she is constantly alert to the direction in which the child himself has indicated he wishes to go and she actively seeks ways to help him accomplish his goals.

WHAT DOES IT DO FOR THE CHILD?

The goals of Montessori for children are several:

1. It encourages self-discipline, self-knowledge, and independence.
2. It encourages enthusiasm for learning
3. It is an organized approach to problem solving and academic skills.