Who was Maria Montessori?
    The Montessori approach has attracted interest for more then 100 years.  It was founded by Maria Montessori.  Maria
Montessori began her career as an Italian physician and turned into an educator.  She spent many years working with and
observing children.  She built on some of the ideas of others who had worked with children, and she developed and refined
her own ideas, materials, and methods.  
   In 1892 Maria was accepted into medical school and stunned everyone.  During this time woman were not admitted into the
school.  During her studies Maria was awarded for her work in pathology and won a position in the university hospital.  In her
last two years of school she studied pediatrics and worked in a psychiatric clinic and in several hospitals, including one for
children.  She graduated in 1896 at the top of her class as a specialist in surgery and in the diseases of women and children.
 She became the first woman in Italy to be certified as a medical doctor.  
   After she graduated she was given a position at the university hospital.  One of her duties as a doctor was to visit what were
then called insane asylums to select patients for a university study.  Montessori discovered that many children with mental,
physical, or emotional disabilities were being kept in asylums alongside adults with major psychiatric disorders.  She began
to notice that the children would focus on even the smallest new objects that would come into the environment, such as a
crumb.  She began feeling that these children were being deprived of stimulation and wondered if their minds were simply
unused.  This wondering made her research what others had already researched on the subject.  She began modifying and
adapting what others had already discovered.
    In the later part of the 1890's Montessori began becoming known for her work with educating children with disabilities.  She
began teaching at a university for female teachers and began putting her ideas into work.  In 1900 she was asked to become
the co-director of a school for children with various disabilities.  She began putting her ideas into practice.  In 1904 Maria
changed career paths and went back to school to become a teacher.  Her work with children with disabilities showed that
most of them could learn many skills.  She became known as an educator who could accomplish miracles with children who
presented special challenges.  
   In 1907 Maria opened the first Casa Dei Bambini "The Children's House" in San Lorenzo, one of the worst slums in Rome.  
Her first class was 50 children ages three to six years old.  She introduced the children to methods and materials similar to
the ones she used with the children with disabilities.  She had the children preparing meals, cleaning up and other chores.  
The success at Casa Dei Bambini changed the way people viewed three year olds and their abilities.  The Montessori spread
from there to include all levels of education.  

What is the Montessori System of Education?
    It is a philosophy of education based on the child's innate ability to develop himself at his pace in a non-competitive
environment.  The child follows his own interest by selecting materials to manipulate and experiment with from various areas
of the classroom.  Rather than "teaching" the child concepts, an environment is designed to stimulate the child's interest and
facilitate her comprehension and coordination skills with little or no adult intervention.  The Montessori teacher guides the
child to developmentally appropriate exercises.  By building upon a series of successes, a child gains self-confidence and a
love for learning.  

What is a Montessori Classroom?
    A Montessori classroom is a child-sized world.  Whatever is in the world outside can be incorporated meaningfully in the
Montessori classroom.  To a child, the world can seem unmanageable.  It is too big, too complex, and too confusing.  The
careful selection of materials by the teacher, an environment is set up that allows the child to explore life at a level she can
understand.  The materials or exercises are designed to stimulate independent exploration.  They are self correcting and
increase in complexity as the child masters each process.  This prepared environment entices the child to proceed at his own
pace from simple activities to more complex ones.  Through this process the child's natural curiosity is satisfied and he
begins to experience the joy of discovering the world around him.  

What is the Role of the Teacher?  
   The role of the teacher is to guide each child, introducing the materials, and assisting where needed.  An important task is
careful observation.  This helps the teacher prepare the environment with the child's interest in mind.  The teacher is
constantly alert to the direction in which the child is going, and actively works to help the child achieve her goals.  The
Montessori teacher facilitates the classroom activities, carefully planning the environment, and helping the children progress
from one activity to the next.  Montessorians are trained to deal with each child individually.  This is often called "following the
child".  Montessori teachers often stand back while the child is working to allow the child the satisfaction of his discovery.  

The Environment:
     Montessori considered her emphasis on the environment a unique element of her method.  The "prepared environment" is
a place where the child can learn to do things for himself without the immediate help of adults.  It is a place of beauty with
child-sized furnishings, carefully structured and ordered by an adult to enhance the child's freedom.  The environment
includes a variety of subjects.  

The Sensitive Periods:
    Children pass through phases in which their ability to acquire new skills is at a peak.  Dr. Montessori observed several
sensitive periods in the young child's life; a need for order in the environment, use of the hand, development of movement,
development of speech, a fascination with the minute and details of objects, and a time of social interest.  Infants grow and
change at a tremendous rate by absorbing every experience like little sponges.  Elementary children who are in the
intermediate period, love to memorize and increase their powers of reasoning.  Teenage children, in a period of great
physical and emotional change, have an intense interest in social interaction and relationship.  


Key Montessori Terms:
1.  Control of Error:  refers to a method of self-correction that is built into both materials and teaching methods in a program
and provides children with opportunities to learn by correcting themselves rather than depend on adults to correct them.  
Montessori believed that if given opportunity, training and experience, children would learn to be self-reliant, correcting
themselves rather than looking to the adult for correction and approval.  Instead of control being applied by the teacher
through instructions and reward and punishment, control of error is built into the design of the Montessori classroom and into
the approach the teacher takes.  
2.  Cosmic Education:  this is an overall Montessori approach to education that involves helping children develop an
awareness that everything in the universe is connected and interdependent and forms a harmonious whole and that they
themselves are part of and contribute to that whole.  Montessori educated children develop a deeper appreciation of the world
around them.  
3.  Independence:  As children reach each developmental milestone, they acquire more potential for independence, which
can be described not only as freedom from control by others but also freedom from dependence on others.  Montessori
programs give children freedom to move around the classroom, freedom to choose the activities they are ready to learn, and
training in a number of practical skills that allow the children to do many things for themselves.  Independence in a
Montessori program is based on everyone respecting the work and right of others.  Independence does not mean that a child
can choose to disturb other children or interrupt the teacher at will.
4.  Modeling:  Modeling takes place when the teacher consciously behaves in a way he/she asks the children to behave--truly
showing "I do as I ask you to do."  
5.  Normalization:  This is the mental state children reach when they approach their studies with enthusiasm, work with little
direction, treat others in a respectful way, and can work quietly on their own or with others.  To Montessori, this state was the
normal one for children, and is strived for in all aspects of the Montessori program.  The joy and serenity that is possible with
normalization will happen only when they Montessori method is applied effectively and consistently.  Children who are not
encouraged to become more independent will not discover what they are truly capable of.  Children who rely on others for
correction will not develop the confidence, self discipline, and skills to do work that interests them.  Normalization is truly the
culmination of everything that is done in a Montessori classroom.  Children in a Montessori classroom can choose such
things as; the work they do, how long they work with a material or activity, how often they repeat an activity, and where they
work in the classroom.  
6.  Planes of Development:  Montessori believed that growth, development and learning for children and youth happen in
waves, showing four distinct planes, or periods of development.  The first (birth-6), second (6-12), third (12-18), and forth
18-24).  In each plane children and youth are drawn to different skills and activities and can make enormous progress in
these skills and activities---if they have the opportunities to explore and practice them.  The Montessori method is designed to
take maximum advantage of each plane of development.  
7.  Practical Life Activities:  Practical life activities form the basic part of the Montessori method and refer to an increasingly
challenging series of small motor tasks involving practical real-life goals.  In an early childhood program, the children spend
much time on practical life activities and receive many benefits from them, including opportunities to develop motor skill,
independence, and self-confidence, emulate what others are doing, and practice focusing skills.  By the elementary level,
practical life activities offer different opportunities.  At this stage, the children are more drawn to explore academic subjects
and have many other means for practicing motor skills. For children at this stage, practical life activities become a way of
contributing in a real way to the quality of life in the classroom, including such activities as sweeping, dusting, caring for
plants and etc.  In a Montessori program children have much of the responsibility of caring for the classroom.  
8.  Prepared Environment:  In a Montessori classroom everything is carefully designed and chosen by the teacher to facilitate
the children's learning.  The Montessori environment aims to provide a calm, neutral, quiet background that supports learning
in various ways, from providing space and time to concentrate to showing ways of organizing so that student can find and
replace materials easily.  
9.  Sensitive periods:  refers to periods of time when, given ample opportunities, children are absorbed by and focus their
attentions and energies on one thing, sometimes seeming driven to develop a certain skill.  Staying informed and aware of
each child's sensitive period is a part of the Montessori teacher's job.  
10.  Work Period:  Also called a work cycle refers to the uninterrupted periods of time made available in a Montessori program
for children to work with specific learning materials of their choice in the ways for which the materials were designed.  The
goal is that the child is engaged in a constructive way during the work period.  The child might be working on her/his own or in
a small group, receiving a presentation, deciding which activity to choose or watching someone else.  

References:  Pacific Northwest Montessori Association and North American Montessori Council.  


Selected Quotes from Maria Montessori:
"... we live in democracies, but for this to be really true, everyone must be democratic or rather everyone must live in a
democratic way, even those who come between the ages of 0 and 20" (Rome Lecture, 1951)

"At this point one has to ask why one section of humanity is allowed to express its free choice for a government that it wants
by voting, while the other half cannot show its own will in the same way. How can the soul be formed in such constriction?
Children have no choice either in their school or in their teacher, nothing. Education understood like this is no education for
the man who wants to grow into something great. There is no provision for such an approach in education today".

"Children unaided can construct an orderly society. For us adults, prions, police, soldiers and guns are necessary. Children
solve their problems peacefully"
Montessori Philosopy
Rainier View Montessori Academy
9716 224th st E
Graham WA 98388         
(253) 262-3292