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By Jane Beckerdite
This unusual philosophy is the main principle of the Montessori Method, an educational system in which the goal is to cultivate a child’s natural desire to learn.
The goal of the Montessori Method is not to fill children with facts or prepare them for exams, but to take advantage of intuitive learning tendencies at different stages. The method was invented by Dr. Maria Montessori, born in 1870, who was the first woman
in Italy to receive a medical degree. She worked in
the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology, and believed that each child is born with a potential
to be revealed, rather than a blank slate waiting to
be written upon.
Annette Haines, director of training at the Montessori Training Center of St. Louis, echoes this sentiment. “(The Montessori Method) is not simply another method
of education based on a syllabus or
curriculum, but rather is a way of providing a help to life based on laws of human
development,” she says. “Its aim is not necessarily to have children get higher
test scores or know more facts, but to
help them grow to become healthy, happy, complete, functional individuals adapted to their time and place.”
Patricia Widder, whose three daughters attend Chesterfield Montessori School, believes the Montessori Method is unique and rewarding.
“It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen,” Widder says. “In the classroom they learn life skills they’ll need as adults. They learn problem solving and cooperation.”
Widder says her girls, ages 9, 8, 6, have been taught self-confidence, a respect for others, and a love of learning. “They don’t lose that sense of wonder–that learning things is a great thing to do,” she says. “They are self-motivated and driven by their own desires to learn. And if there is something they still need to master, there’s not that stigma of ‘you’re behind.’”
 Children learn at their own pace, without interruption, and according to their own choice of activities. |
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Although the St. Louis region has a relatively low number of Montessori schools, advocates say they are thriving because they offer what many parents want–a
distinct approach to education.
Preventing learned helplessness is a key principle of the Montessori Method. Diane Lamboley, admissions director for Chesterfield Montessori, says Montessori schools foster true independence in children. “It’s their world,” she says. “It’s their environment. They really can learn how to take care of themselves.”
Parents are encouraged to use Montessori methods at home. “We tell parents to put out small dishes and glasses so children can reach them for themselves,” Lamboley says. “Put milk into a small jug so they can get their own cereal. Everything they need should be accessible.”
Widder says her children are now able to prepare meals, clean the house and take an active role in caring for themselves. One of the reasons her girls have time for such activities at home is that children enrolled in Montessori schools have no homework.
“Time is well spent in class,” Widder explains. “They’re not wasting any part of their day. So when school is out, they’re done. This gives us all time for family things.”
Dr. Montessori founded the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) in 1929 for teacher training. Today, AMI also provides accreditation to Montessori schools. A course of study for future teachers who enter the training program generally takes nine months, or three summers, and ensues after the completion of a traditional bachelor’s degree in education. Instructors are taught not to teach, but rather to guide, observe and encourage a student’s learning.
Montessori classes place children in three-year age groups (3 to 6, for example), forming communities in which the older children spontaneously share their knowledge with the younger ones. Groups generally stay together with the same teacher for three years. Children learn at their own pace, without interruption, and according to their own choice of activities.
| Founder and Head of the Chesterfield Montessori School Anita Chastin observes the children’s self-motivated activities. |
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According to Haines, research shows the Montessori Method works well. “A new longitudinal study from Milwaukee shows a surprisingly persistent superiority in mathematics scores among Montessori children,” Haines says. “Another recent study out of the University of Utah...showed that adolescents in Montessori programs have a more positive attitude towards their school, their teachers, and their school experience.”
Lamboley says Montessori schools are student-directed. “What we’ve found is that children instinctively like to learn,” she says. “They do have to participate in all areas, but if they choose to spend more time writing one day, that’s great because they know that the next day they can do geography.”
Aside from individual learning, children also participate in group time, in which they read a story or go for a walk on Chesterfield’s five-acre campus. “We have all this wonderful green space. It feels good here and it’s much more easy and fun to learn this way,” Lamboley says.
Parents of children who attend Montessori schools traditionally come from across the globe. With a current enrollment of 130 at Chesterfield Montessori, the school has a “come as you are” stance.
“We have this incredible mix of children and we accept everyone. We have no religious affiliation whatsoever,” Lamboley says.
“Our whole philosophy is that everyone is accepted.”
Method-Maker
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The child has one intuitive aim–self-development. He desperately wants to develop his resources, his ability to cope with a strange, complex world. He wants to do and see and learn for himself–through his senses and not through the eye of an adult. The child who accomplishes this moves into harmony with this world. He becomes a full person. He is educated.
-Dr. Maria Montessori
The Montessori Method of education follows from the experiences and discoveries of Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952). Upon graduation as the first female physician in Italy, Montessori initially became interested in the education and training of special needs children. She designed materials and techniques that allowed them to work in areas previously considered beyond their capacity. Montessori’s greatest triumph came when these children took official exams along with other children and passed.
Montessori believed in a child’s remarkable, almost effortless, ability to absorb knowledge from their surroundings and teach themselves. This
simple and profound truth inspired Montessori’s lifelong pursuit of educational reform, curriculum development, methodology, psychology, teaching and teacher training—all based on her dedication to further the self-creating process of the child.
Montessori worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology. She believed each child is born with a unique potential to be revealed, not a “blank slate” waiting to be written upon. Her main educational goals were to prepare the most natural and life-supporting environment for the child; observe the child living freely in this environment; and continually adapt the environment in order that the child may fulfill his or her greatest potential—physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Montessori opened the “Casa dei Bambini” (House of Children) in 1907, where she took charge of 50 poor children from the San Lorenzo slum on the outskirts of Rome. The news of the unprecedented success of her work soon spread around the world.
Montessori was as astonished as anyone at the realized potential of these children. “Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants–doing nothing but living and walking about–came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning: would you not think I was romancing?” Montessori said. “Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child’s way of learning.”
Invited to the United States by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, Montessori spoke at Carnegie Hall in 1915. She was invited to set up a classroom at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where spectators watched 21 children, all new to the Montessori Method, behind a glass wall for four months.
During World War II, Montessori was forced into exile and moved to India because of her anti-fascist views. Her concern with “education for peace” intensified and she was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since her death in 1952, an interest in Montessori’s methods has continued to spread throughout the world. Her message to those who emulated her was always to “follow the child.” |
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