Whenever I meet new people and have said that I am a Montessori teacher, the vast majority of them just assume Montessori means preschool or kindergarten. Most people don’t even realize that Montessori is not a specific place but more of a method of teaching. It is also a way of life. So what exactly is the Montessori Method?
What is Montessori?
I’ll first start out by saying it is a method of teaching that focuses on child centered learning. It is an approach designed to help children reach their fullest potential and develop a love for learning. Montessori focuses on allowing children to learn and develop at their own pace and helps prepare them for life in the real world.
Ok that sounds pretty good but it still doesn’t exactly explain precisely what Montessori is. To explain this we take a look at a traditional classroom. You can imagine a traditional classroom focuses on the teacher teaching group lessons and children learning the same topics as their peers at the same time. This is what one will refer to as a teacher centered learning. The teacher decides what is taught on that day. Montessori learning is child centered which means that the children decide what is learnt. Ok, Ok, this probably sounds like total nonsense to most people but let me explain.
After many years of research the founder of the Montessori method, Dr. Maria Montessori observed that children are natural learners and they gravitate towards learning and absorbing new information. They want to learn and when they are left to their own devices with the appropriate stimuli, children actually can learn and do learn on their own. More importantly they always choose to learn.
This might sound impossible to most parents but I assure you it is possible and I have experienced it within many classrooms and many children over the years.
The key is the combination of 5 important ingredients
- The Prepared Environment
- The Montessori Materials
- The Teacher
- The Mixed Age Group
- The Whole Child Approach
The Prepared Environment
The prepared environment refers to the classroom. It is carefully laid out to support children’s learning. There are low shelves and all activities are easily accessible to the children. Each activity has its place on the shelf and children can easily reach it and return it to its proper place without assistance. The environment houses a plethora of stimulating activities which are child directed. The Environment is designed for the child to be comfortable. Everything is low shelving, small chairs and tables, handles for tiny hands, spaces for tiny bodies, it is in essence a “children’s House” (Maria Montessori coined this term to describe her classrooms). If you as an adult go into a Montessori prepared environment, be certain that you will have to bend down lots (watch your back) and it probably won’t have many adult options for seating and working. This is because it is designed for children and not adults. The key to all of this is to allow the children to manage all aspects of the environment without the aid of the teacher. This includes cleaning up and keeping the classroom tidy. It allows for the children to become independent and be able to not only learn independently but also manage the community themselves.
The Montessori Materials
Within the prepared environment, there are the Montessori materials. This refers to individual activities that when worked/played with are designed to impart a new skill for the child. Let’s take for example the pink tower which is a set of building blocks. Building these blocks helps a little one develop hand eye coordination, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, spatial awareness, balance, awareness of size and weight etc. (the list goes on). Once a child has mastered that activity you can be sure the little one has developed all these skills . There are lots of Montessori activities that are on shelves from practical life activities (helping to learn life skills eg sweeping, washing dishes), to culture (learning about people, places, animals), to science (experiments), to language (learning reading, speaking and grammar) to mathematics (counting, addition, subtraction). The environment is packed with many activities that address every part of learning a child may want to explore. What’s special about the Montessori Environment is that each activity is out on the shelf and the child can pick and choose what he/she wants to work on. This might sound ludicrous to some parents but I assure you that children eventually explore most if not all the materials in a given classroom over the course of about 3 years.
The Teacher
The teacher’s role in a Montessori classroom differs slightly from traditional classrooms. Firstly a Montessori teacher is usually described as a directress or director. This is because they don’t teach children but instead direct or guide the children to what they can learn. The teacher’s job is to observe each child and take note of their individual interests then introduce each child to an activity that is in line with their age, stage and area of interest. After being introduced to /shown an activity, the child is free to revisit that activity at any time whenever he/she chooses. The teacher curates an individual plan for each child in the classroom. It seems like a giant task to keep track of 30 individual children’s interests and show each one an activity tailored to them but that is essentially what each Montessori Teacher does everyday and more.
The Mixed Age Group
In a Montessori classroom, you will often find mixed age groups. This means in one classroom there will be different ages – 3yr olds, 4yr olds and 5 yr olds (other ages too depending on the class). It might seem bizarre to keep children that are at different learning levels together, however the beauty of the community allows this to be a positive rather than a crazy mess. Having mixed ages allows older children to feel grown up and take on more responsibility. They adopt leadership roles and become role models for the younger ones. They often teach the younger ones activities. What better way to perfect a skill than to teach it? In turn the younger ones benefit from having older children as role models and the older children look out for them. The little ones look up to these older children and they strive to become better. Oftentimes you find that the little children learn better from older kids than the teacher. It is a synergetic relationship between the ages.
The Whole Child Approach
The whole child approach focuses not only on the academic side of learning but also on social skills and emotional growth. The intangible aspects of the Montessori classroom create an atmosphere of respect and peace. Children learn how to interact with each other and resolve conflicts with grace and courtesy. Montessori teaching places value on the whole child, that is to say it teaches children holistically. The prepared environment not only carries stimulating materials that facilitate academic and physical learning but it also includes activities that teach morals, respect, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Montessori learning is about the development of the mind and body but also includes happiness activities for the soul.
Why is Montessori Special?
Montessori is more than a curriculum or a school, it’s a method of learning how to learn and how to enjoy learning. It encourages independence in children and cultivates their strengths. Most importantly it equips them with skills that they need to enjoy a fulfilling life.
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