What is Montessori Education?
Montessori is one of the fastest-growing and most popular educational methods in the United States today. It began in Italy in the early 1900s by Dr. Maria Montessori, a doctor and educator who achieved remarkable results with children by designing an educational program that makes the most of the innate desire of children to learn. The Montessori classroom is at the same time disciplined and self-directed. Children are provided with hands-on materials that enable them to learn math, language, science, and history, while at the same time developing intellectual curiosity, self-respect, and respect for the world around them. Instructors give small group lessons or one-on-one lessons, and then monitor the children’s progress as they complete projects on their own, at their own pace. Montessori graduates are self-directed, motivated learners who are notable for the continuing excitement they find in learning. There are currrently over 200 public school Montessori programs.
Dr. Maria Montessori became the first woman physician in Italy in 1896. After years of observing children and how they were eager to learn, she left the practice of medicine in 1906 to develop a new method of education for children. She made teaching materials which the children used to teach themselves. She trained teachers in many countries to use her materials and follow her methods. She wrote many books documenting her observations.
Dr. Montessori spent the last forty-five years of her life observing and learning from children. During this period, she brought about a worldwide revolution in the classroom. Her model of education was based upon each child’s inborn desire to learn. Montessori education begins by the time the child is three. Dr. Montessori believed that children have an absorbent mind which enables them to absorb an immense amount of information during their first six years. Her life’s work was in the creation of education materials, which aid the child in this learning process. This interest in children and education led Dr. Montessori to the development of a philosophy of world unity and peaceful interdependence. As a result of this work, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the years 1949, 1950, and 1951.
The concepts and information taken in from birth to three are part of the unconscious mind; they become part of the child’s conscious intelligence as the child more actively manipulates objects in the environment from ages three to six. Dr. Montessori described the age of 6 to 12 as the second plane of development when the child is attaining a greater degree of intellectual independence. The Montessori classroom is prepared with the materials children need to develop themselves during their sensitive periods for learning particular skills. This is the time when a skill is learned most easily; a skill not learned may interfere with subsequent learning. The Montessori teacher maintains a classroom environment in which each child is able to develop fully, while all learn to respect each other and the materials in the environment.
Montessori classes are divided into age groupings. The children spend three years at each level, progressing at their own rates. The older children at each level naturally help the younger ones. The younger ones benefit from seeing all the possiblities for learning. Each level builds upon the others. The concrete materials at each level allow the children to first learn through their senses and then move to abstraction in the later elementary years. Children in Montessori classes learn according to their own developmental time line. They are expected to make responsible choices for their learning and to use their freedom well. Children appreciate the respect they are given and become mature individuals who love to learn.
Benefits
Angeline Stoll Lillard’s award-winning 2005 book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius (Oxford University Press) presents the first really comprehensive overview evaluating Montessori versus conventional education in terms of research relevant to their underlying principles. Lillard cites research indicating that Montessori’s basic methods are more suited to what psychology research reveals about human development, and argues the need for more research.
A 2006 study published in the journal “Science” concluded that Montessori students (at ages 5 and 12) performed better than control students who had lost the random computerized lottery to go to Montessori in prior years and instead went to a variety of different conventional schools. This better performance was obtained in a variety of areas, including not only traditional academic areas such as language and math, but in social skills as well (though by age 12 academic benefits had largely disappeared).
On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who, because of a random lottery, attended other schools. By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on standardized tests of reading and math, engaged in positive interaction on the playground more, and showed advanced social cognition and executive control more. They also showed more concern for fairness and justice. At the end of elementary school, Montessori children wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.
The authors concluded that, “when strictly implemented, Montessori education fosters social and academic skills that are equal or superior to those fostered by a pool of other types of schools.” Research by K. Dohrmann and colleagues supplements this by showing superior math and science performance in high school by children who previously attended public Montessori (as compared to high school classmates, over half of whom were at the most selective city public high schools); and two studies by Rathunde and Csikszentmihalyi showing a higher level of interest and motivation while doing school work as well as more positive social relations among Montessori middle-schoolers as opposed to matched controls.
More Information:
- Montessori Method explained, on Wikipedia
- About Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952)
- 40 Developmental Assets for Middle Childhood
- The Association Montessori Internationale
- North American Montessori Teachers’ Association
- American Montessori Society
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