When Dr. Maria Montessori became the manager of a school for mentally-handicapped kids. she exposed them to an environment that was extremely contributing to larning. After two old ages. the kids. who had once been labeled _uneducable_ . were able to go through a trial with normal kids. This dramatic success led her to analyze how normal kids learn. She reasoned that if mentally handicapped kids could be brought up to the degree of normal. so normal kids could stand out. Following a biennial survey of anthropology and psychological science. she took over a school in the slums of Rome. where her usage of stuffs and resources led to optimal self-learning on the portion of the kids. She hired an helper who was directed non to _teach_ . but alternatively to show usage of the stuffs to kids who were interested and to demo them how to maintain their classroom clean and orderly. What Dr. Montessori called _auto-education_ ( the natural manner kids learn ) gained universe attending because of its dramatic consequences.
The Montessori Method is based on the thought that every kid has a natural manner of acquisition. If encouraged and nurtured. the kid will boom and go an educated individual:
“Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or instructors. where survey was unknown. and yet the inhabitants-doing nil but life and walking about-came to cognize all things. to transport in their heads the whole of acquisition ; would you non believe I was wooing? Well. merely this. which seems so notional as to be nil but the innovation of a fertile imaginativeness. is a world. It is the child’s manner of larning. This is the way he follows. He learns everything without cognizing he is larning it. and in making so he passes small by small from the unconscious to the witting. steping ever in the waies of joy and love” ( Montessori. 1912 ) .
In this essay we will compare Montessori schools to public schools and argue that a Montessori school is a superior topographic point for kids to larn. Unlike most kids in public schools. kids in Montessori schools become eager scholars who do non necessitate to be rewarded or punished for their attempts.
Goals for the pupils in Montessori are to turn personally. to research and appreciate life. to populate by rules. and to go life long scholars. A primary end is to assist kids develop into _whole persons_ who will populate out their potencies as human existences. be responsible members of the community. and stewards of the environment. Unlike public schools. which place a great accent on standardised trial tonss as their primary step of success. Montessori schools take small involvement in standardised testing. Roemer ( 1998 ) did a survey. which examined and compared larning outcomes as developed by public schools and Montessori schools. She points out that “Many [ populace ] school plans today were originally designed for the nineteenth century. and it is recognized that they are incapable of learning pupils how to work out many modern-day and future problems” ( p. 38 ) . Because the new information based society calls for new accomplishments. reformists are analyzing what pupils need to cognize for life in a technological society.
Learning results are “the presentation of what you have learned instead than repeating facts and expressions learned from a text edition to gain a mark of grade” ( p. 39 ) . Thirty provinces have identified larning results they desire for their pupils. Montessori larning results have been identified and are found in a papers used by schools seeking accreditation. _The Authentic American Montessori School_ by Nancy Rambusch. The research worker looked at sample groups of scholar outcome statements. She found that public schools place the highest value on cognitive accomplishments. while Montessori schools stress personal accomplishments as most of import. At first glimpse. this could be upseting. But Montessori purposes at bettering the person in order to better society and points out that for striplings to develop to the full and live in the existent universe. it is indispensable that they grow into people with both caputs and custodies. Likewise. kids who feel loved. secure. and appreciated develop self-discipline which is required for acquisition. good citizenship. and a meaningful life.
Mindfulness. or populating consciously. besides contributes to self-discipline ( Celeste et al. 2003 ) . Teachers in public schools did non rank accomplishment as their top precedence. but 57 % ranked self-discipline highest. Success in Montessori schools includes academic art every bit good as academic follow-through. Self-discipline is defined. non merely as non-disruptive behaviour. but as independency. autonomy. and doggedness ; personal integrity-self-knowledge and moral fortitude. Success besides requires responsible citizenship with grasp of diverseness and positive parts to the community and _enjoyment_ of work. intrinsic motive. sense of purpose. and sharing with others. Celeste et Al concluded that “the Montessori community expects and measures consequences as a gage of the acquisition procedure ; nevertheless. the results for pupils are far more balanced and far more inclusive than in traditional settings” ( p. 47 ) .
It is exactly this holistic focal point of Montessori schools that makes them superior. Academic accomplishment is but one portion of true instruction. Because the instructor is trained to learn merely one kid at a clip. observations of the kid are made and recorded. and the instructor surveies what is traveling on in order to steer the kid further in his or her development. Merely a rare instructor in public school could make this. In a Montessori school all topics are interwoven. unlike public schools where kids study one topic for a limited period of clip and so travel on to something else. normally unrelated.
There is _coherence_ to the acquisition in the Montessori school. What a kid learns leads of course to the following thing he or she will larn. And kids who are larning are non interrupted or capable to clip restraints. Evaluation of a child’s work is normally by portfolio. the teacher’s observation. and record maintaining instead than classs as in the public school. Montessori instructors feel that the existent trial for whether or non a system is working. is in the children’s achievements and behaviour. “their felicity. adulthood. kindness. and love of larning. concentration. and work” ( Olaf. 2004 ) .
The Montessori method involves “seeing kids as they truly are and making an environment that Fosters fulfilment of their highest potential-spiritual. emotional. physical. and intellectual-as members of a household. the universe community and the Cosmos” ( Montessori web site. 2006 ) . A Montessori school celebrates the alone individualism of each kid and recognizes that kids are non like grownups and do non larn as grownups do. Public schools are non able to concern themselves with the whole individual in the manner that Montessori schools are. Teachers must be specially trained to turn to the whole personality alternatively of simply learning a specific organic structure of cognition as public schools do. Teachers do non talk in Montessori schools. They ask Socratic inquiries alternatively.
Montessori schools claim a high degree of academic accomplishment. Students in 6-12. for illustration. are ready for degrees of work non normally presented until much later in public schools. This high degree is believed to be a natural result of a supportive acquisition environment. Children work at their ain degree of ability in a autonomous mode toward believing. composing. reading. scientific discipline. math. and cultural consciousness. Mixed-age groups that the kids work in are more like existent life in society than schoolrooms in public schools offer where all the kids are the same age ( Montessori web site. 2006 ) and expected to larn the same things.
In a Montessori school there is a defined consciousness of sensitive periods of development. which informs the focal point of category work. Lessons are appropriate. stimulating. and actuating to the kid. Children are viewed as competent existences who can do determinations. both big and little. They are expected to take what they want to larn about from the assortment of larning stuffs that are provided. Ongoing course of study development evolves on the footing of detecting the single kid in the environment and presenting stuffs that help the child’s accomplishment development. The school uses child-sized furniture and a child-sized environment so that kids can run their universe themselves. Young kids are seen as limitlessly motivated to larn. They have “absorbent minds” and are able to hone their accomplishments and apprehensions in a natural manner within each sensitive period ( Wikipedia. 2005 ) .
Lessons are presented methodically so that each measure leads straight to a new degree of larning or a broadened construct. Playing is larning and readying for ulterior constructs. Repeat is needed for the acquisition procedure. so kids are encouraged to reiterate activities until they are tired of them. A hands-on attack encourages immature kids to develop their experimental accomplishments. The five senses are portion of these larning activities with kinetic motion. spacial polish. little and big motor accomplishment coordination. and concrete cognition that leads to abstraction subsequently. The instructor acts as a usher and facilitator instead than a dictator or a manager. In this environment kids are free to research. touch. and larn without fright.
In an article titled “Counting or Playing? ” a Montessori instructor wrote about having a phone call from a parent who was concerned because her girl had come place from school and said that she and her friend had played with beads all twenty-four hours. The female parent thought her girl should make something more ambitious. The instructor explained that the girl had looked around for work to take and gone to the math shelf to see the stuffs at that place. “Deciding on a work that is a little more hard. she invites Susan. who merely walked by. and they work together. They roll out their carpets. put out the stuffs. and get down. During this clip. they learn that 5. 491 is non merely ‘five thousand four hundred and ninety-one’ but really 5 1000s. 4 100s. 9 10s. and 1 unit. They begin to understand that as you get 10 units. you can interchange the units for another 10. and as you get 10 10s. you can interchange them for 1 hundred. After about 20 proceedingss. the misss put their work off. Finally. it is clip to travel place. and when her female parent asks. ‘What did you make in school today? ’ her simple reply is ‘Susan and I played with beads all twenty-four hours on a carpet. “
Although the two pupils had learned of import math constructs. they didn’t think of it as work. They had merriment. But “playing with beads” helped them fix for more abstract work subsequently. It gave them what they needed to cognize in order to truly understand a 10. 100. or a 1000 in comparing to a individual unit ( Bronsil. 2005 ) . This is a far call from the pupil who comes place from public school and in answer to the same inquiry says. “Nothin’ . It was tiring. ” As Dr. Montessori put it. “We know merely excessively good the regretful spectacle of the instructor who. in the ordinary classroom. must pour certain cut and dried facts into the caputs of the bookmans. In order to win in this waste undertaking. she finds it necessary to train her students into stationariness and to coerce their attending. Prizes and penalties are ever-ready and efficient AIDSs to the maestro who must coerce into a given attitude of head and organic structure those who are condemned to be his listeners” ( Montessori. 1912 ) . Montessori schools encourage kids to love acquisition.
Bronsil. M. ( 2005 ) . Counting or playing? _Montessori Life_ . 17 ( 3 ) . 48-49.
Celeste. N. . DeAubrey. D. . Freilino. M. . McDurham. R. . Noel. A. . and Smith. L. ( 2003 ) . Identifying precedences for success in the Montessori Middle School. _Montessori Life_ . 15 ( 3 ) . 45-47.
Montessori. M. ( 1912 ) . _The Montessori Method_ . Trans. By Anne Everett George. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Full text available online: hypertext transfer protocol: //digital. library. upenn. edu/women/montessori/method/method-I. hypertext markup language.
Olaf. M. ( 2004 ) . An debut to Montessori doctrine and pattern. _Child of the World: Essential Montessori for Age three to twelve. _ Accessed 6/30/07: hypertext transfer protocol: //www. michaelolaf. net/1CW312MI. hypertext markup language.
Roemer. K. ( 1998 ) . Outcome based instruction and Montessori schools.
_Montessori Life_ . 10 ( 4 ) . 38-41.
Wikipedia on-line encyclopaedia. Montessori method. Accessed 7/1/07: hypertext transfer protocol: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Montessori_method.