Montessori Education

Dr. Maria Montessori felt that the goal of the educational process should be to cultivate the child’s own natural desire to learn. Classroom environments in Montessori education are prepared by scaling to a child’s size and gearing to his or her inner needs, allowing the child to learn by his or her own choice and at his or her own pace. Believing that children are best able to comprehend their environment in very concrete, hands-on ways and through immediate personal contact, Dr. Montessori designed materials to lead the child toward the ability to work in abstractions in numbers, letters, and ideas. These materials are meant only as a means to an end and are to be relied upon less as the child becomes increasingly more able to work with abstractions. Feeling that there is an important correlation between muscular activity and learning, Montessori incorporated movement into the use of the equipment, which includes error-control factors that the child can understand without having to be told.

Dr. Montessori’s research indicated that children have fantastic powers of concentration if properly stimulated, far exceeding that of most adults. Children would rather work than play when given a choice between toys and stimulating work. Montessori educators have a responsibility to train children’s characters to achieve self-discipline and self-direction which result from the mastery of firsthand experience and fulfillment of the inner urge to expand and grow in one’s own way. This growth is achieved without jeopardizing the rights of others to have this same privilege.