Montessori method

The Montessori method is a methodology and educational philosophy for nursery and elementary school education, first developed by Dr. Maria Montessori.

Origin
In 1897, Maria Montessori joined the staff at the University of Rome as a voluntary assistant. One of her responsibilities is what led her to develop her educational philosophy. She was to visit asylums for the insane where she came across feebleminded children, unable to function in schools or families. Montessori found the children very responsive to doing work with their hands and bodies. In 1901 she returned to the University of Rome with a desire to study the mind instead of the body. In 1904 she was offered a job teaching as the professor of anthropology at the University of Rome. She accepted but in 1906 gave the job up to work with sixty young children of working families. Her work was so successful that even learning disabled children began to pass examinations for normal children. With these sixty children she started a "Children's House" in San Lorenzo Rome. This children's home was an environment that offered the children the opportunity to develop their activities (Kramer, 1976). She began to notice how the children absorbed knowledge almost effortlessly from their surroundings which helped inspire her lifelong pursuit of educational reform.

Philosophy
The Montessori method is described as a way of thinking about who children are. As a philosophy, it emphasizes the unique individuality of each child, it also emphasizes that children are distinctly different than adults in the way they develop and think, that they aren't just "adults in small bodies". Dr. Montessori believed in children's rights and the worth, value and importance of children. Comparisons to norms and standards measured by traditional educational systems are discouraged in Montessori practice, it is expected that some children will master some skills slower than others, and some skills faster. Instead, Montessori adherents believe that children should be free to succeed and learn without restriction or criticism. Dr. Montessori believed that rewards and punishments for behavior were damaging the inner attitudes of children and people.

As an educational approach, the Montessori method's central focus is on the needs, talents, gifts, and special individuality of each child. The child controls the pace, topic and repetition of lessons independent of the rest of the class or of the teacher. Children who experience the joy of learning are believed to be happy, confident, and fulfilled.

Additional important skills emphasized by the Montessori method are self-reliance and independence. Independence is encouraged by teaching a child "practical life" skills, Montessori preschool children learn to dress themselves, help cook, clean, put their toys and clothes away and take an active part of their household, neighborhood and school. Montessori education carried through the elementary and high school years begins to encourage more group work but still relies on the student as the guide and guardian of his or her own intellectual development.

Pedagogy

 * instruction of children in 3-year age groups, corresponding to sensitive periods of development (example: Birth-3, 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12 years old with an Erdkinder program for early teens)
 * children as competent beings, encouraged to make small and large decisions
 * observation of the child in the environment as the basis for ongoing curriculum development (presentation of subsequent exercises for skill development and information accumulation)
 * child-sized furniture and creation of a child-sized environment (microcosm) in which each can be competent to produce overall a self-running children's world
 * parent participation to include basic and proper attention to health screening and hygiene as a prerequisite to schooling
 * delineation of a scale of sensitive periods of development, which provides a focus for class work that is appropriate and uniquely stimulating and motivating to the child (including sensitive periods for language development, sensorial experimentation and refinement, and various levels of social interaction)
 * the importance of the "absorbent mind," the limitless motivation of the young child to achieve competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they occur within each sensitive period. The phenomenon is characterized by the young child's capacity for repetition of activities within sensitive period categories (Example: exhaustive babbling as language practice leading to language competence).
 * self-correcting "auto-didactic" materials (some based on work of Itard and Seguin)

Implementation
Montessori lessons work in a methodical way. Each step leads directly to a new level of learning or concept. When a child plays, he or she is really learning the basis for later concepts. Repetition of activities is considered an integral part of this learning process. Children are encouraged to repeat activities as often as they wish until they tire of them.

For young children, Montessori is a hands-on approach to learning. It encourages children to develop their observation skills by doing many types of activities. These activities include use of the five senses, kinetic movement, spatial refinement, small and large motor skill coordination, and concrete knowledge that leads to later abstraction.

For a primary education-stage child Montessori encourages a child to proceed at his or her own pace onto abstract thinking, writing, reading, science, mathematics and most importantly, to absorb his or her culture and environment. Culture is defined to include interaction with nature, art, music, religion, societal organizations, and customs. Many modern Montessori schools will also include studies of foreign cultures and languages. These cultural lessons are used to introduce concepts that will be used in reading comprehension, especially the use of nomenclature cards with both labels and pictures.

A Montessori teacher or instructor observes each child like a scientist, providing every child with an individual program for learning. Some adults are put off by some Montessori teachers' manners &mdash; some appearing too subdued, others too stern, none of them necessarily praising or coddling the children. Phoebe Child, head of the Montessori trust in London, said "we must be prepared to wait patiently like a servant, to watch carefully like a scientist, and to understand through love and wonder like a saint." Dr. Montessori encouraged each guide to be like a light to the children helping to open their eyes to wonders around them rather than amusing them like a clown. The teacher should be an individual guide, not the leader of the classroom.

The adults are by no means the only source of informaton in the classroom and adults directing the children is not the norm. Adults are present to guide and help the child navigate his or her own learning process as the child receives knowledge, information and experience from the prepared environment.

Home schoolers may find both the philosophy and the materials useful to them since each child is treated as an individual and since activities are self-contained, self-correcting, and expandable. Aspects of the Montessori Method can easily scale down to a homeschooling environment - save, of course, Montessori's requirement for large mixed age groups of children.

Goals
The main goal of Montessori is to provide a stimulating, child oriented environment in which children can explore, touch, and learn without fear. In a Montessori classroom everything is oriented to the child: there is no teacher's desk or teacher's side of the room, because the teacher is only guide and facilitator, never dictator or director.

A 2005 book, entitled Montessori: Science Behind the Genius, by Angeline Stoll Lillard looks at how some of the foundational components of Montessori environments stand up in respect to current research on developmental psychology.

Montessori in the USA
There are currently over 3,000 privately held Montessori schools in the USA, as well as several hundred public schools that include Montessori programs (see below). Most schools will have a primary program (from 3-6 years) and often a lower elementary (6-9 years). Less common is the upper elementary programs (9-12 years), although about one school in eight will have this program. The Montessori environment for toddlers is also a bit of a rarity as well. At this time there is no "standard" Montessori high school, as Maria Montessori's work was primarily centered around younger children, but several pilot Montessori high schools were recently opened based on writings by Montessori on 'erdkinder'. Schools such as the Arthur Morgan School in North Carolina and the Hershey School come closest to meeting the goals Montessori had for adolescent education.

The term 'Montessori'
There are thousands of schools that label themselves as Montessori schools, either directly or through notations such as 'founded on Montessori principles' or 'Montessori/Waldorf'. Because the term 'Montessori' isn't trademarked, and there is no single accrediting body, there is no one single definition that can be associated with a school having Montessori in its title. There are two major Teacher Training bodies in the US: AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) and AMS (American Montessori Society). There are many other trainings out there as well: MEPI (Montessori Education Programs International), and UMA (United Montessori Association) to name a few. Many Montessori Teacher Training Programs are also accredited by the US Department of Education's MACTE (The Montessori Accredidation Council for Teacher Education).

On Pedagogical Materials
The original didactic materials were specific in design, conforming to exacting standards. All of the material was based on SI units of measurement. For instance, the Pink Tower was based on the 1cm cube. The standard use of sizes allows the materials to all work together and complement each other.

Montessori programs in public schools of USA
A survey conducted in 1981 collected data from 25 of the approximately 50 school districts nationwide known to have Montessori programs at the time (Chattin-McNichols, 1981). The only other study of public Montessori programs is much more recent. During school year 1990-91, this study received responses from 63 of the 120 school districts or schools to whom surveys were sent (Michlesen and Cummings, 1991). Results from this study indicate that the number of students in the schools or school districts averaged 233, with an average of 10 teachers per program. A total of 32, or 58%, of the schools surveyed reported that they were magnet schools. A total of 69% of the Montessori programs shared a building with other programs. District funding for the training of Montessori teachers was provided in 66% of the districts. Only 42% of the programs provided the three-year age span of three-, four-, and five-year-olds. This is indicative of the fact that the degree to which particular districts implement the Montessori model varies.

A total of 16 of the 57 schools charged tuition for some part of the program. About two thirds of the programs provided free transportation. In addition, two thirds of the districts reported that additional staff were used in the Montessori magnet schools. These factors can add to the overall costs of the program.

Criticisms
A wide range of often mutually exclusive criticisms have been launched at the Montessori method. Some parents believe the Montessori environment to leave the children "too free" while others see the Montessori principle of "freedom within limits" to be stifling to children. Some see Montessori schools as prep schools for preschoolers while others decry the children spending time on such menial tasks as washing tables or arranging flowers.

Within the Montessori professional community, there have historically been squabbles ranging from minutae to the core principles of the philosophy. Accusations are asserted from one training background to another that they are too strict or dated while others are accused of diluting Montessori's scientifically derived vision of ideal environments to support human development.

The current widespread lack of public Montessori programs have led some to the conclusion that Montessori schools are elitist and only for the rich, despite the fact that Maria Montessori developed her method to help the poor and mentally handicapped. There are many efforts being put forth to shift away from this to allow any family who wishes to participate in Montessori environments.

Some also argue that the Montessori environment is not useful to children of all temperaments. Children who are easily overstimulated, or those who tend to be overly aggressive, may be examples of children who might not adapt as easily to a Montessori program.

Observation
Dr Montessori's pedagogy and theory was based on her own observations of children. To this day many Teacher Training programs and schools for children encourage adults to observe children within and without Montessori environments, to discern what the child is seeking, doing, longing for and achieving.

Famous Montessori students

 * Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
 * Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
 * Anne Frank
 * Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian painter and architect
 * Lawrence E. Page, co-founder of Google
 * Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia

Quote
"I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method."
 * -- Dr. Maria Montessori.