Montessori philosophy

The Montessori Method of Education is based upon the philosophy of Maria Montessori who dedicated her life to understanding the needs of children.  She stated, “The most important period of life is not the age of university studies but the first one - the period from birth to age six.  For that is the time when man’s intelligence itself, his greatest implement is being formed...At no other age has the child greater need of intelligent help and any obstacle that impedes his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection.”  Psychological studies have confirmed Dr Montessori’s statement. Dr Bloom of the University of Chicago found that from “conception to age 4, the individual develops 50% of his mature intelligence; from ages 4 to 8 he develops another 30% . . . This would suggest the very rapid growth of intelligence in the early years and the possible great influence of the early environment on this development.”

 The premise of the Montessori philosophy of education is that all children carry within themselves the person they will become. In order to develop physical, intellectual, and spiritual potential to the fullest, the child must have freedom - a freedom that is achieved through order and self discipline. The world of the child, say Montessori educators, is full of sights and sounds which at first appear chaotic. From this chaos children must gradually create order, learn to distinguish among the impressions that assail their senses, and slowly but surely gain mastery of themselves and their environment.

Dr. Montessori developed what she called the “Prepared Environment,” which already possesses a certain order and allows children to learn at their own speed, according to their own capacities and in a noncompetitive atmosphere. “Never let children risk failure until they have a reasonable chance of success.”

Dr. Montessori has recognized that the only valid impulse to learning is the self-motivation of the child. Children move themselves toward learning. The teacher prepares the environment, guides the activity, and challenges the child, but it is the child who learns, who is motivated through work itself to persist in a given task. If Montessori children are free to learn, it is because they have acquired an “inner discipline” from their exposure to both physical and mental order.

This is the core of Dr. Montessori’s philosophy. Social adjustment, though a necessary condition for learning in a schoolroom, is not the purpose of education. Patterns of concentration, “stick-to-itiveness” and thoroughness, established early in childhood, produce a confident, competent learner in later years. Montessori teaches children to observe, to think, and to judge. It introduces children to the joy of learning at an early age and provides a framework in which intellectual and social discipline go hand in hand.