About Montessori | Why Montessori | How the Montessori Method Is Unique
ABOUT MONTESSORI
Nominated
three times for the Noble Peace Prize in 1949, 1950, and 1951, Dr.
Maria Montessori was an education pioneer who established the Montessori
Method. Born in Italy, she became the first woman doctor. Shortly
afterward, her desire to help children was so strong that she gave
up her medical practice to work with children of working parents.
There, she established what is now known as the Montessori Method
and the first children’s house (Casa de Bambini).
Dr. Maria Montessori, through her observation, realized that children
learn to absorb their environment effortlessly. It was through these
observation, that every material and equipment was designed so that
children could do work without much assistance from the adult. Throughout
the years, many who studied under her went on to make their own
contributions to education and child psychology, including Anna
Freud, Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson.
She is credited with the development of the open classroom, individualized
education, manipulative learning materials, teaching toys, child-size
tables and chairs and programmed instruction. In the last 35 years,
educators in Europe and North America have begun to recognize the
consistency between the Montessori approach with what we have learned
from research into child development.
Throughout her career as an educator, Dr. Maria Montessori visited
many countries, including her first visit to the United States in
1913. It was at this time the Montessori Educational Association
was founded in Washington, DC by Alexander Graham Bell and his wife
Mabel. She had staunch supporters such as Thomas Edison and Helen
Keller. In the years ahead, she traveled throughout Europe and Asia
giving lectures and establishing Teacher Training Institutions.
Dr. Montessori died in Noordwijk, Holland in 1952; yet her work
lives on through dedicated schools and the Montessori Organization.
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WHY MONTESSORI?
Montessori
offers a rigorous and innovative academic program. The curriculum
is organized into overlapping subjects, rather than individualized
subjects that children merely memorize and covered by the teacher
only once at a specific grade level.
The Montessori Curriculum should be introduced in the early years
of a child’s life, at least starting at three years of age
and continued into later years. The lessons are introduced in a
stages starting from simple and concrete. The lessons are repeated
and reintroduced with added challenges throughout the consequent
years with a degree of abstraction and complexity. By introducing
the lessons in a simple and concrete manner, it helps the child
to complete the lessons and feel as if though he/she has succeeded.
Then challenges are added on without the child being aware of the
complexity of the lesson. Thus, instilling independence, self confidence
and self esteem in the child about his/her work.
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HOW THE MONTESSORI METHOD IS UNIQUE WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER PRE-SCHOOLS
In most pre-schools a teacher teaches the children educational concepts
in a group. In the Montessori school the children learn concepts spontaneously
as they work independently with the many materials in the environment.
The materials in the Montessori classroom progress from simple to
more complex design and usage, each level of understanding being worked
through repetition to reach the next level of understanding. The child
has an ability to manipulate the materials. The child learns by arranging
materials in a specific way, which explains the function of a concept.
The movement and the work are inseparable: With his/her thinking,
the materials begin as concrete expressions of a concept and gradually
become more abstract expressions of that concept. The materials are
designed for self-education and self-correction.
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