Montessori Principles
MCI (Surrey)
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Montessori Principles |
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MCI (Surrey) |
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Maria Montessori To further her theories she set up what she called 'children's houses' to provide a safe, carefully structured environment. Here the children, guided by their teachers, could develop their social, physical, cultural and intellectual skills individually at their own pace, learning to solve problems for themselves as they occurred. She also encouraged cross-cultural understanding and care for the environment. Maria Montessori died in 1952, leaving a lasting legacy which, 100 years after she formulated her ideas, is now recognised as a highly perceptive and practical philosophy for successful early years education. |
Independence is a key concept. Right from the start, children are taught to manage their own clothes and how to care for the classroom, using child-sized brushes, pans and dusters. These skills give them greater freedom to pursue their chosen activities without constant dependence on a teacher.
In this child-led approach to early childhood education, the role of the teacher is to assist the children to follow whatever interests them at any particular time. Maria Montessori believed that children have certain windows of opportunity, called 'sensitive periods', and it is the teacher's job to recognise these and help the child to make the most of them. When the child is happily working, the teacher does not intervene until the child experiences difficulty, and then provides the minimum guidance necessary for the child to continue to work at their own pace and rhythm. Development comes naturally as a result of the child's own exploration of a particular activity.
Learning environment
Typically, a Montessori class has children aged between 2½ and 6 years old: the older ones help the younger ones, which assists social, emotional, and intellectual development. 
Classes last for a minimum of three hours, with no fixed schedule. This enables the children to spend as much (or as little) time as they wish on any one activity. Equipment is stored around the classroom, and the children are taught that they must return one set of materials before taking another.
Montessori classrooms are often noted for special pieces of equipment, many of which were created by Maria Montessori. These are designed specifically to provide concrete representations of abstract concepts. For example, mathematical concepts are established using number rods, golden beads and spindle boxes, all designed to be interesting, fun and self-correcting, so that the child can see immediately if they make a mistake.
Her studies led her to formulate a method of education emphasising the freedom and self-development of children, but combined with a practical approach. Rather than impose a fixed and didactic curriculum that simply satisfied the teacher's need for structure, Maria found that children are natural learners, if they are allowed the freedom to pursue what interests them at the right time.