Montessori

Unveiling the Montessori Magic: A Journey into Maria Montessori’s Educational Legacy

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori had an innovative perspective regarding education. She did not look at a set of skills or a body of knowledge. Instead she focused on the development of the whole person over the course of gaining maturity – Montessori saw education as a means whereby children develop their personality so as to eventually achieve a mature and independent adulthood. Her educational method is in use today in a number of public as well as private schools throughout the world.

A few inspiring quotes from Maria Montessori:

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”

“Play is the work of the child.”

Montessori education method

The Montessori method is an educational method for children, based on theories of child development originated by Italian educator Maria Montessori in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is applied primarily in preschool and elementary school settings, though some Montessori high schools exist.

The method is characterized by an emphasis on self-directed activity on the part of the child and clinical observation on the part of the teacher (often called a “director”, “directress”, or “guide”). It stresses the importance of adapting the child’s learning environment to his or her developmental level, and of the role of physical activity in absorbing academic concepts and practical skills.

The Montessori philosophy is built upon the idea that children develop and think differently than adults; that they are not merely “adults in small bodies”. Dr. Montessori advocated children’s rights, children working to develop themselves into adults, and that these developments would lead to world peace. The Montessori method discourages traditional measurements of achievement (grades, tests) under the premise that it is damaging to the inner growth of children (and adults). Feedback and qualitative analysis of a child’s performance does exist but is usually provided in the form of a list of skills, activities and critical points, and sometimes a narrative of the child’s achievements, strengths and weaknesses, with emphasis on the improvement of those weaknesses.

What is the Montessori Method of Education?
Most simply put, the Montessori method of education is explained as allowing and facilitating a child’s learning by making use of their own natural curiosity about the world and by providing an environment and material that will encourage and guide their natural drive to learn. It is self-paced individual learning in a cooperative environment that focuses on human potential and excellence.

Quotes from Maria Montessori

“To stimulate life, – leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, – herein lies the first take to the educator. In such a delicate task, a great art must suggest the moment, and limit the intervention, in order that we shall arouse no perturbation, cause no deviation, but rather that we shall help the soul which is coming into the fulness of life, and and which shall live from its own forces. This art must accompany the scientific method.” – from The Montessori Method

“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.” – from The Secret of Childhood

“When mental development is under discussion, there are many who say, ‘How does movement come into it? We are talking about the mind.’ And when we think of intellectual activity, we always imagine people sitting still, motionless. But mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it. It is vital that educational theory and practice should be informed by that idea.” – from The Absorbent Mind

“The child must possess within himself, from birth, a capacity – only a potential at first – of abstracting or taking off from particular things their essential qualities. If you watch carefully any small child, of one to two years old, you will see that he is not only interested in objects as a whole, but also in their qualities, such as roughness, smoothness, hardness, softness, colour, taste, texture, weight, pliability, and so on.” – from Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work

“I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most simple forms of living things, which all those aids which science gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature.” – from The Advanced Montessori Method

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