An Overview of Montessori Education.

If you are not familiar with the education method developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, Mansio Mens would like to offer the opportunity to learn more. Dr. Montessori studied in Italy to become the first female physician. In her medical practice, she analyzed children and concluded from her observations that children build themselves from their environment. Her focus shifted to education and she obtained degrees in psychology and philosophy. She left her medical practice (and her chair at a university) to open the first 'children's house,' where she developed childrens' equipment and exercises based on her observations of children working unassisted by adults.

Dr. Montessori came to the United States in 1913. In 1915, she gained attention with her 'glass house' classroom in San Francisco. She opened a research institute in Spain and started teacher training classes in London. In 1922, she was a government inspector of schools in Italy until she was forced to leave due to political turmoil. She traveled to the Netherlands to open more training facilities. She spent many years in India and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949, 1950 and 1951. Dr. Montessori died in 1952.

In North America, the growth of Montessori education began in 1959 and has grown to more than 6,000 schools in the United States today.

Differences between traditional and Montessori education

Montessori	Traditional
Emphasis on: cognitive and social development	Emphasis on: social development
Teacher has unobtrusive role in classroom	Teacher is center of classroom as "controller"
Environment and methode encourage self-discipline	Teacher acts as primary enforcer of discipline
Mainly individual instruction	Group and individual instruction
Mixed age grouping	Same age grouping
Grouping encourages children to 'teach' and help each other	Most teaching is done by teacher
Child chooses own work	Curriculum is structured for child
Child discovers own concepts from self-teaching materials	Child is guided to concepts by teacher
Child sets own learning pace	Instruction pace usually set by group norm
Child spots own errors from feedback of material	If work is corrected, errors usually pointed out by teacher
Child reinforces own learning by repetition of work and internal feelings of success	Learning is reinforced externally by repetition and rewards
Multi-sensory materials for exploration	Fewer materials for sensory development
Organized program for learning care of self and environment	Less emphasis on self-care instruction
Child can work where he chooses, move around and talk at will (yet not disturb work of others); group work is voluntary	Child usually assigned own chair; encouraged to participate, sit still and listen during group sessions
Organized program for parents to understand the Montessori philospophy and participate in the learning process	Voluntary parent involvement

Learn more about Montessori education from this list of books.