I’m pretty sure upon your research of different education options for your child you came across the term ‘Montessori School‘ before. To be honest, I have seen it plenty of times from my own personal research, but never a term I saw when I was studying education at university.
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I always had this presumption that teachers at a Montessori School were all about getting children playing all day and playing with a whole bunch of wooden blocks and toys (yes, very lame of me to assume this without actually looking into it).
So I decided to do a bit of a research to find out more about what is involved in Montessori Schools and what their outlook towards education is. I was actually pretty amazed to find out how child focused it really is and considering how old this form of education is, it actually is quite forward thinking.
What is Montessori Education?
Each child learns differently and have different interests. This is fundamental to Montessori’s educational approach.
Each Montessori School looks at education as an approach to support children’s full growth and development to learning. They see education as a way to ‘aid life’ and develop a life long love of learning by following their natural instinct to learn.
A focus on positive social development and wellbeing together with inclusivity, allow children to develop confidence, independent learning, curiosity and autonomy in their journey through education and learning.
The best part about how a Montessori School operates is that they believe that children are all different and prefer different ways of learning. Each approach to learning is catered for each individual child.
Philosophies of a Montessori School
Some of the points that I find interesting with Montessori education is the relationships between the students, their family and the teachers. This relationship helps foster learning and understand that it is a community effort to offer support towards a child’s education and not solely on the teacher themselves.
Some of their philosophies include,
- Each child is an individual person and through support between both parents and teachers, will help guide children to become the people who they want to become
- Respect around a child’s potential and development through nurturing
- Education is a way to aid ones life and fosters its importance in lifelong learning
- Each child learns differently, have different developmental needs and interests. There are many learning styles that suit individual children’s needs and this needs to be considered for children to reach their full potential
- Children are active learners
- Learning is supported by teacher observations and guidance
- The home and outside world is connected when dealing with learning
“Free the child’s potential and you will transform them into the world”
-Doctor Maria Montessori
Where did Montessori Education come from? A history
Montessori education is a method of education that was developed in Europe by Doctor Maria Montessori (I was actually quite surprised to find out that this method of education is over 100 years old!) Through her observations of underprivileged children and how they learn, she developed a better way to educate children embedded in evidence of the astounding results she uncovered.
Maria Montessori was before her time, being born in 1870 in a well educated family, she aspired to become an engineer (yes! a female engineer at that time!) When she finished school, she wanted to become a doctor. Of course there were some hurdles and she initially was denied entry into medical school, but once she received a pardon from the Pope at the time, she was able to enrol and study medicine.
She had plenty of challenges studying medicine at the time considering she was a woman, but did graduate at the end as a doctor. She was great at treating patients and was respected for treating people from all social classes.
Volunteering at a psychiatric clinic, she developed an interest in working with the children with learning needs and disabilities. She found that there was no support for mentally and developmentally disabled children (which in turn she believed was the reason for their learning issues).
Through her continuation of studies, she developed her own educational philosophy and was given the opportunity to showcase her educational materials by opening up the first ‘children’s house’ (Casa dei Bambini). Organising her various activities she found that some students engaged in the activities and others didn’t. She kept the students who found engagement in the activities and found that they basically educated themselves.
By 1909 she started training other people in her techniques and educational approach, her notes put together were made into her first book, eventually translated into 20 languages and named this new approach ‘The Montessori Method’.
Of course her history of lecturing and spreading the word of her approach continued into the future, but a giant set back almost made everything she started almost crumble (such as world wars and house arrests), but thankfully after all these, she was able to continue her legacy which then passed onto her son who continued her passion for a change to education and learning.
“The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn”
-Doctor Maria Montessori
What does a Montessori School classroom look like?
Montessori classrooms organise their spaces to allow the children’s psychological and physical needs to be met, depending on what stage of development they are. The spaces, or ‘prepared environments’ as they call them, are sequenced in a way with a range of hand-on materials and activities which help stimulate curiosity and discovery in learning.
This easy accessibility to the materials, works to entice children to interact with the materials and activities naturally. Children engage based on their interests which is self-paced and individualised which in turn allows the association of learning to occur.
The focus on individualised learning is a big aspect of Montessori schools, but it is important to remember that the classroom is also a space that is communal and has many children in it. This is where students learn to be social beings and how to interact with their teachers and their peers.
Children watch how each child interacts with the activities which help them themselves gain experience and confidence to try the activity themselves (very similar to ZPD learning or Zone of Proximal Development for anyone interested in this type of learning.) The whole idea is to abolish a competitive classroom environment and have a more collaborative and cooperative one.
The most obvious thing Montessori schools offer is a vast difference between the the traditional sense of a classroom environment and education (as we personally were subject to have gone through) in how activities are structured, fostering a prepared classroom environment to different learning styles and freedom in learning.
“Children learn naturally through activity and their characters develop through freedom”
-Doctor Maria Montessori
Main focus of a ‘Prepared Classroom’ Environment – Simplified
- Independence: Enabling children to be not be dependent on adults. By doing things for themselves, they learn to make choices independently.
- Indirect Preparation: Activities that are developed with the idea that it will eventually lead to or prepare children for other skills in the future.
- Order: The consistency of order in the classroom environment, the order in which things are done or presented, social order etc.
- Choice: Giving children choice in what activities they want to do which is fostered based on the classroom environment
- Freedom: Children having total freedom in their learning, how long they spend on an activity as long as it doesn’t impede others
- Mixed Age Range: Classrooms include children from different ages (at least 3 year gap) where they can learn from each other and minimise competition
- Movement: Free movement to physically access things in the classroom
- Control of Error: Allowing children to learn from their mistakes
- Materials: Materials are age-based to allow for development to happen. Also a range of materials to be on offer to encourage interaction and learning
- Role of Adult: The teacher (not referred to in a traditional sense), is seen as the ‘adult’ in the Montessori classroom, who facilitates learning and helps aid the child to teach themselves
There are so many elements that make this method of education a favourable one too many parents. There are Montessori schools all over the world and possibly ones near you. Some parents also choose to opt into bringing the Montessori approach into their own homes. Their website offers a section of activities you can try at home with your children.
If this approach interests you, Instagram also has a range of inspirational Montessori activities. I was very surprised to see how many mum and dads around the world have taken on this approach and share videos and photos of sample Montessori activities or materials they have made for their own children to engage in.
I have to say, my research into finding out more about Montessori has really inspired me to look into it even more and definitely integrate this method at home. I am interested to see exactly how it plays out!
Let me know what you think about the Montessori method? Are you already a parent or educator that uses this method? What do you like about it? What activities and materials have you used with your children? Share your ideas below in the comment section!
Want to read more of our blogs? Check this one out – The Importance of Resilience for Kids – 10 Eye-Opening ways to Teach Resilience to your Children
