What...and Who… is Montessori?
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Thoughtfully designed materials help students manipulate and experience concepts to develop a concrete understanding. This understanding will eventually allow them to grasp related abstract concepts.
Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 - May 6, 1952) was a pioneer of her time. She was a scientist, physician, and educator.
Although she graduated from medical school, it’s for her work in the realm of education that she’s most well-known. It seems appropriate today, on her birthday, to explain a little bit about who she was and what she did to enlighten the world of education.
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Through her early career in a psychiatric clinic, Maria worked closely with children who had cognitive disabilities. These students had previously been deemed “uneducable”. Her observations and work with these children led her to pursue educational methods dedicated to their growth.
Maria’s students excelled under her to the point that when tested with their peers in public schools, many successfully passed the same examinations.
The results were miraculous and formed the foundation of the Montessori methods still practiced worldwide today.
News of the success of Maria’s first students with disabilities spread. Over time, her methods were replicated, taught, and shared globally. They were applied to students of all backgrounds and cognitive abilities. She continued to develop these materials and methods while maintaining common underlying principles.
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It’s hard to boil down the Montessori philosophy into one simple statement. Being the holistic approach to learning that it is, the Montessori method is tailored and individualized to each student’s development as a person. The focus isn’t simply on memorizing facts, passing tests, and moving students through a curriculum. Instead, focus shifts toward each student’s needs - physical, intellectual, social, and emotional. All of these components of a child work together to contribute to healthy growth. All of these components and needs together determine the educational course of each child.
Respect was possibly the most overarching principle of Maria’s approach to education. When given a classroom full of students with learning disabilities, she respected their pace and developmental needs. She respected the time and space it took each individual to work through a process. She modeled respect, and therefore she taught respect.
In a Montessori education, there is also a heavy emphasis on letting each child take the lead. This allows the teacher (or guide) to become a detail-oriented observer - watching what interests the child, how he interacts with others, his behavior patterns, his responses to the environment. Through careful and objective observation, the teacher is able to prepare an environment and lessons geared toward each student’s own interests. In this way, a teacher capitalizes on a child’s desire to learn, thus creating an environment where true learning can actually take place...not just teaching.
Montessori education is a developmentally-focused approach to learning. While many children pass through developmental stages at similar times, this is almost never a one-size-fits-all prescription. Montessori teachers aim to be in tune to each child, presenting a lesson when it is most likely to be readily received by that particular child.
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One blog post is hardly enough to even scratch the surface of the Montessori philosophy.
Throughout the school year, we’ll cover much more content related to the Montessori education, methodology, and philosophy. As we aim to continue learning and growing with our students, we also want to bring families along on this journey. We’ll dig into topics including:
Components of a Montessori classroom
Stages of growth and development
Sensitive periods
Principles governing a child’s growth
Implementing Montessori practices in the home
Much much more
We’re eager to start our school year at Academy of the Winds, and we invite families and community members to join us in learning about this timeless style of education that transcends cultures. The Montessori education is about more than just school. It’s a lifestyle that fosters children on their way to becoming confident, independent, innovative members of society.
“We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.”