ABOUT THE MONTESSORI METHOD

What Is the Montessori method?

The Montessori method is a philosophy and method of education, which emphasises the potential of the young child, and which develops the potential by utilising specially trained teachers and special teaching materials.

Montessori teachers recognise in children a natural curiosity to learn and the Montessori Materials help awaken this desire and channel that curiosity into a learning experience which children enjoy. The Montessori materials help children to understand what they have learnt by associating an abstract concept with a concrete sensorial experience. The Montessori method stresses that children learn at their own pace so that fast learners are not held back and slow learners are not frustrated by their inability to keep up.
The Montessori classroom offers unique educational didactic (self teaching) materials, which are manipulated by the children in the classroom. They accommodate many levels of ability. They aid this growth by providing stimuli that captures the child's attention and initiates a process of concentration. Children uses the materials provided to develop co-ordination, attention to details and good working habits. When the environment offers materials that polarise the children, the teacher is then able to give the freedom needed for healthy development.

Why should you send your child to a Montessori school?

Montessori is education. Not a nursery school. The best time to start your child's education is during the early years 2 1/2 to 3 years when most of a 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.

What does Montessori offer my child?

Montessori allows children to experience the excitement of learning through their own choice. Dr Maria Montessori observed that it was easier for a child to learn a particular skill during the corresponding "sensitive period" than at any other time in life. These are periods of intense fascination for learning a particular skill. Montessori allows children the freedom to select individual activities, which correspond to their own periods of interest and readiness, and to progress at their own pace. A child who acquires the basic skills of reading and arithmetic in this natural way has the advantage of beginning an education without drudgery, boredom and of discouragement.

Will this approach help a child with difficulties in reading, spelling and math?

A multi - faceted approach to reading and spelling, which includes phonetics and sight word approach plus colour coding of materials, enables children to move at their own pace. Command boxes and movable grammar materials excite the children's interest and will help them to accomplish more difficult tasks.

Montessori approach to math allows a clear and simplified understanding of our number system. The materials isolate the difficulty and act as a control of error. Thus the child is able to perform the work with 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 and complex world. He wants to do, 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 becomes a full person. He is educated."

(Dr Maria Montessori)

Does Montessori foster creativity?

Experience tells us that "creating" cannot be taught and that the child's environment tends to either foster or restrict creative potential. To foster creativity, Montessori realised that the environment must itself be beautiful, harmonious, and based on reality in order for children to organise their perceptions of it. Children therefore, need freedom to develop creativity - freedom to select what attracts them to their environment, and to relate it without interruption and for as long as they like, to discover solutions and ideas and select answers of their own and to communicate and share their discoveries with others at will. Creativity is involved with the intellectual as well as the aesthetic processes of the mind. Children in the Montessori classroom are free from judgement by an outside authority that so inhibits the creative impulse.

Why are Montessori children generally self-confident, out going and self-reliant?

Montessori is based on a profound respect for each child's personality. Children work from their own free choice and are allowed a large measure of independence, which forms the basis for self-discipline.

As children progress at their own pace and successfully complete the self- correcting exercises, they develop confidence in their ability to understand their achievement.

Montessori presents endless opportunities among children for mutual help, which is joyfully given and received. Co-operative social interaction among children of different ages engenders feelings of friendship, respect for the rights of others and self-confidence.

These aspects of the Montessori program help children eliminate the necessity for coercion, which often causes feelings of inferiority and stress.

The role of the teacher

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 interest and needs of each child; and her daily plan proceeds from her observations rather than from a prepared curriculum. She demonstrates the correct usage of materials as the children individually choose them, carefully watches the progress and keeps a record of their work. The Directress, who prepares the environment, directs the activities, and offers each child enticement and stimulation, carefully guides individual children's total development as well as their progress toward self-discipline. The mutual respects of the student and the teacher-guide are the most important factor in this process.

The Upgraded Classroom (Vertical grouping)

The greatest possibility for flexibility in permitting individual lessons and progress, while still retaining group sessions at no expense to the individual child exist in the Montessori environment. The use of individual materials permits a varied pace that 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. Only the children themselves can usually make the most satisfying choice. The Montessori classroom offers children the opportunity to choose from a wide variety of graded materials. The child can grow as their interests lead them from one level of complexity to another. They work in a group composed of individuals of various ages, abilities, cultures and interest 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 knowledge by helping the younger ones, hence, they add to the group as they receive from it what they need.

What is the Montessori concept of freedom in the classroom?

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 are slaves to their immediate desires. Allowing this behaviour to profligate merely forms a habit that is hard to change. Freedom does not mean being able to do what you want to do, it simply means able to distinguish what is constructive and beneficial and being able to carry that out.

Can a child without a pre-school back ground benefit from the primary
school program?

Since the children are treated individually, not collectively, in an upgraded approach, stimulation and interest are sought out at their own individual levels and not in accordance with the group. Dr Maria Montesson' maintains, "Education is an aid to life" Hence there is no period in the child's life that cannot benefit from the Montessori approach to education.

What happens when a Montessori child enters the public school system?

The habits and skills, which a child develops in a Montessori class last a lifetime.  Since Montessori education is successful in developing concentration, self-discipline, a love of learning and social skills. The child is better equipped to enter new situations and easily adjust to the traditional school environment. Good habits that are acquired early in a child's life result in a lifelong pursuit of knowledge.