What is Montessori
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was the first woman doctor to graduate in Italy. This determination and intelligence helped her create an understanding of children and their developmental needs that has flourished world wide.
Dr. Montessori used her scientific training to observe children in their environment. From these observations, she developed scientific materials to assist the children in their understanding of the world. Maria Montessori saw education as not merely the transfer of knowledge, but an ‘Aid to Life’. For much of this century her methods have been successfully practiced with children of almost every race, language and cultural background.
Montessori education provides a stimulating environment which helps to prepare the child for future learning and living. The Montessori environment provides a balance of individual and group work, challenge and support, free choice and appropriate limits, independence and collaboration. It takes the whole child into consideration and helps the child move towards a real joy of learning and living.
The Montessori Approach to Education
The Montessori approach to education is concerned with the development of human potential. It is an approach based on “following the child”; on recognising and responding to the developmental needs of children. She believed strongly in the innate capacity of children to do their own learning. She recognised that learning is stimulated by an inner need and carries for the child its own motivations and rewards.
Montessori’s approach is reflected more in the development of qualities (independence, self-confidence, self-discipline) and skills (concentration, orderly work habits) than in the mastery of subject areas.
“The most important period of life is not the age of university studies but the first one,
the period from birth to the age of six.
The more fully the needs of one period are met the greater will be the success of the next.”
Dr Maria Montessori.