Walden Montessori Academy

• The History of Montessori Education

 

 

• Maria Montessori and her teachings recognized by Time Magazine

 

Dr. Maria Montessori, physician, anthropologist, pedagogue, for over fifty years studied children of all racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Her intense scientific observation of the human being from birth to maturity allowed her to distill a complex of philosophical, psychological and pedagogical principles. These, together with a vast range of auto-didactic materials, came to be known as the Montessori Method of Education.

The Montessori approach offers a broad vision of education as an aid to life. It is designed to help children with their task of inner construction as they grow from childhood to maturity. It succeeds because it draws its principles from the natural development of the child. Its flexibility provides a matrix within which each individual child’s inner directives freely guide the child toward wholesome growth.

Montessori classrooms provide a prepared environment where children are free to respond to their natural tendency to work. The children’s innate passion for learning is encouraged by giving them opportunities to engage in spontaneous, purposeful activities with the guidance of a trained adult.  Montessori taught her teachers to guide and inspire the children and not to force or lecture. Determining the needs of the child through observation, then guiding the child accordingly to appropriate learning activities and materials was the key to cultivating the child’s natural desire to learn.

Through their work, the children develop concentration and joyful self discipline. Within a framework of order, the children progress at their own pace and rhythm, according to their own individual capabilities and choices. Montessori observed that sensitive periods are periods of time when children are absorbed by and focus their attentions and energies on one thing, seemingly driven to develop a certain skill. This skill is easier to learn during this corresponding period than at any other time in their life. Therefore, allowing a child the freedom to choose activities that are of interest to them greatly enhances their ability to learn.

From birth to age six, young children are capable of absorbing huge amounts of information through their senses. During this rapid growth in intelligence it is important that children are exposed to an enriched environment to facilitate their optimum intellectual growth. If placed in the proper environment, children will “normalize,” which means they will develop into whole, peaceful adults with a love of learning.