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THE MONTESSORI METHOD
Montessori education is driven by an ambitious aim: To aid the child’s development into a complete adult human being, comfortable with himself, with his society and with humanity as a whole. Whereas the traditional approach to education, which prevails today, remains focused on the transmission of prescribed blocks of knowledge, the Montessori approach is focused on giving support to the natural development of the human being. This is done with the understanding that the fully developed human being is then better disposed to learning the things that he needs to become an integrated and contributing member of society. The substance of the human being—the development of character and integration of the whole personality—are traditionally approached as values that must be instilled into the child. The result is children who are bored or stressed and a society with increasing levels of mental illness.
Today, as it was a century ago, education is rightly seen as a means to tackle poverty, inequality, anti-social behaviour and other ills of society. Prior to birth, it is of course the embryo that guides its own development. The fundamental problem with traditional education is a lack of faith in the child to continue to guide his own development—and to guide the educators in supporting this task. Montessori education begins with the understanding that the role of the adult is to help the unfolding of the child’s inborn developmental powers. The child, from the earliest moments of life, possesses great constructive energies that guide the formation of his mind and the coordination of his body. The Montessori approach was developed without preconceived ideas as to how best to aid the child in his journey to adulthood. Instead, key Montessori ideas emerged from the observation of children in diverse cultures and in many countries:
1. That there are four key developmental planes in the journey to adulthood: 0-6 years old, 6-12 years, 12-18 years and 18-24 years. Each of these planes has its own goals: in the first, the development of the self as an individual being; in the second, the development of the social being; in the third, the birth of the adult and finding one’s sense of self; in the fourth, consolidating the mature personality and becoming a specialised explorer. The complete development of the adult human being requires that the specific needs of each of these periods be satisfied.
2. That within each of these planes the child or adolescent has specific ‘sensitivities’ or
‘windows of opportunity’ to acquire a particular human trait, for example a sensitivity that
guides the child to the acquisition of language in the first plane (0-6 years), or that guides
the child to the development of a moral ‘compass’ in the second plane (6-12 years).
3. That in addition to these age-specific sensitivities, human beings have a number of
behavioural tendencies that give each child the ability to adapt to his or her place and time.
These human traits—for example, to explore, order, manipulate, imagine, repeat, work and
communicate—have been crucial to human evolution and are active within the child.
The following sections explain how Montessori education responds to this understanding of child development:
MONTESSORI PRACTICE
A prepared environment
Montessori education seeks to provide children with environments ideally suited to each stage of development; this allows them to respond to the inner call of specific ‘sensitivities’ and gives them the freedom to act in accordance with their innate human tendencies. Thus, if education is viewed as a method to fulfil the optimum potential of the child in every facet of his emerging personality, this ‘prepared environment’ provides a secure and permanent foundation on which to base education. The prepared environment is different for each developmental plane but guided by the same principles. The prepared environment and the role of the teacher in the classroom distinguish
Montessori from other educational approaches. For example, independent activity constitutes
about 80% of the work in a Montessori classroom while teacher-directed activity accounts for the remaining 20%. The reverse percentages are generally true for traditional education. The special environments enable children to perform various tasks which induce thinking about relationships. The logical, sequential nature of the environment provides orderly structures which guide discovery: Theorems are discovered, not presented; spelling rules are derived through recognition of patterns, not merely memorised. Every aspect of the curriculum involves creative invention and careful, thoughtful analysis. In viewing learning outcomes at each Montessori level, it must be emphasised that why and how students arrive at what they know is just as important as what they know. The most widespread examples of the Montessori prepared environment are those prepared for 3-to 6-year-olds. At this formative age the child is consolidating the formation of the self as an individual
