What is Montessori education?
“The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child's own natural desire to learn.” — Maria Montessori
Over a century ago, Dr. Maria Montessori, (1870 -1952) developed a child-centric approach for educating children that revolutionized learning. Today, the Montessori Method continues to transform education around the world for people of all ages.
Read more about Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori began her professional career as a physician, but she also studied special education and brain development. Her early work centered on women’s rights and social reform and evolved to encompass innovative approaches to education. She was a true pioneer as she sought to bring forward a science-based approach to how human beings develop and learn. Her success with her first early childhood classroom in the slums of Rome in 1907 led to international recognition. In the decades that followed, she traveled all over the world, lecturing, writing, teaching teachers, and establishing training programs. Over the decades, she expanded age groups from infancy through adolescence. After watching two horrific world wars impact her work, Montessori’s commitment to education for peace became a guiding principle, and she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.
As soon as you enter a Montessori classroom, you notice that something different is unfolding. With plants, pets, and an open, beautiful environment, Montessori classrooms are immediately recognizable. Teachers act as compassionate guides, protecting a peaceful but productive learning environment. Children work independently and in groups, with multisensory, often self-correcting materials; deeply engaged in their work; and respectful of themselves and their surroundings.
The Montessori Method fosters rigorous, self-motivated growth for children and adolescents in all areas of their development — cognitive, emotional, social, and physical. The implementation of Montessori varies, depending on which age group is being served, but aspects remain the same: multi-age groups, offering freedom within limits, and using observation as a tool to guide the interactions. Montessori educators are attuned to the natural development of the individual at each stage of their journey — the powers of the absorbent mind, sensitive periods, and human tendencies.
Philosophy of Teaching and Care
Modeling compassionate problem-solving, brave learning, and imaginative play
“The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.” — Maria Montessori
Montessorians see the main aim of education as preparation for life. This includes attention to executive function skills and social-emotional development as much as it does other major milestones such as learning to walk or read. While we honor the child before us today, we also see our role as facilitators of human development — serving the adult in the making.
The Montessori Approach
Some of the primary hallmarks of the Montessori approach that set it apart from traditional education:
Multi-age Groupings
Multi-age groupings of children help them learn at their own pace in three-year cycles of class groupings. Older children often serve as role models and helpers for younger children, and younger children are motivated to stretch in order to access the exciting activities that their older peers are enjoying. This enhanced social interaction welcomes both inclusion and accountability, setting the stage for developing independence within successful learning communities.
Spontaneous Activity
Spontaneous activity including hands-on, sequential, self-correcting materials are designed to ignite the child’s interest towards self-directed learning and discovery. Children often call this their “work, “ mirroring adult language, but creativity, exploration and experimentation are encouraged rather than rote memorization of facts. Children proudly feel that they taught themselves a new skill or concept because work with the materials helps them expand their innate abilities. This helps to nurture confidence and love of learning, which is critical in the first six years of life.
The Prepared Environment
Each Montessori classroom is a home-away-from home for children with places to work, rest, prepare food, clean up, explore, and learn together in a family-like setting. Because Montessori recognizes the connection between purposeful movement and learning, our activities encourage ample movement. Teachers invest thoughtful planning and attention ahead of time to create beautiful, orderly environments with natural elements, plants, pets, and carefully crafted spaces to awaken curiosity and connection. The children know that their contributions to the care of the environment are part of how they experience community--where everyone gives and everyone benefits.
Individualized instruction
Montessori teachers are trained to plan for developmentally-appropriate activities and present new material to children individually based upon each child’s strengths, interests, needs and progress. There is no one-size-fits all approach. Because every child is different, every child deserves an approach as unique as they are along the path to independence.
Uninterrupted time
Montessori was one of the first pioneers to promote the idea that children work best with longer blocks of uninterrupted time in order to facilitate creative learning. Rather than herding children through one group activity after another, the classroom areas invite children to work with a chosen activity as long as they like, in order to support their growing sense of concentration and flow.
The Role of the Guide
Montessori teachers see themselves as caring facilitators to the child’s development and learning, and so many call themselves Guides. Instead of giving the same lesson at the same time for an entire group of children (and hoping for the best), Montessori guides individualize teaching and invest in building a relationship of safety and trust first–both with the child and their family–in order to facilitate optimal learning and growth. Montessori guides are dedicated to careful observation and strive to be impeccable role models of lifelong learning.
Freedom within limits
looks a little different at each age level, but is always grounded within profound respect for each child’s innate potential and inner guide within the context of a classroom community. In the infant environment, babies are free to explore their carefully crafted surroundings under the loving and encouraging care of the adults. There are no high-chairs, bouncy seats or other contraptions that can become an obstacle to their physical development which is so critical in the first couple years of life. In the toddler area, children come to trust consistent routines that protect a sense of emotional safety as they engage in purposeful practical life activities that help them develop important life skills such as feeling that they are able to contribute as valued members. The three-through-six year old community share group agreements to care for themselves, each other, and their environment and within those limits, they enjoy a lot of freedom to make vital connections with one another and classroom life.
