MARIA MONTESSORI Chapter 6 History of Early Childhood Education Sandra Hogg

The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. -Dr. Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was born at Chiaravalle, in the province Ancoma, Italy, on August 31, Her father was a military man and her mother a very well-educated woman. Alessandro and Renilde Montessori

Maria attended schools in Ancoma, and at the age of 13 she entered a technical school. She later decided to study medicine and enrolled in the University of Rome. She became the first woman in Italy to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine. She became an assistant doctor at the University of Rome psychiatric clinic.

 Maria specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry.  In 1899 Maria was appointed the director of the new State Orthophrenic School for Deficient Children.  In 1904 Maria was appointed to teach anthropology at the University of Rome

Maria created “ a house for children” rather than a school. The young children learned to read and write without direct instruction. Magazine articles about Montessori’s work began to appear in the United States in 1909.

 Montessori schools were forbidden in Germany and Italy between 1935 and Maria left Italy and went first to Spain and later to India. She remained in India between 1939 and 1946, giving training courses and assisting in the setting up of schools in a number of Indian cities and provinces. In 1947 Montessori assisted in the opening of a Training Centre in London it was called St. Nicholas Training Centre. (This center is still in existence today.)

INTERVIEW WITH DR. MARIA MONTESSORI

 Question: Maria what are your educational thoughts?  Answer: I believe in the universality of children and their needs. I believe that individuals must develop all aspects of themselves.  Question: Maria how do you feel children should be treated?  Answer: The child should not be regarded as a feeble and helpless creature… but as a spiritual embryo, possessed of an active psychic life from the day that he is born and guided by subtle instincts enabling him to build up the human personality.

 Question: How do you regard a child’s development?  Answer: I feel that a child’s formation is the result of careful, patient, and systematic scientific observations of an environment that is adapted to their needs.  Question: When do believe a child is ready to learn?  Answer: I believe that education begins at birth and the first 6 years of life are the most important years.

 Question: What are your views on mental development of a child?  Answer: There are times referred to as “sensitive periods” which are blocks of time in a child’s life when he has an intense desire to make contact with his world. They reveal an intense and extraordinary interest in certain objects. This is also a time if a child is prevented from following his interest, the opportunity maybe lost forever.

 Question: How does mental development work?  Answer: The first six years of life constitute the first stage. It is a period of “transformation” divided into two subperiods. The first substage extends from birth to three years old, this is the time of the “unconscious absorbent mind.” It is characterized by the unconscious growth and absorption of information from the child’s surroundings.

 Answer: At the age of 3, the child enters the stage of the “conscious absorbent mind,” which lasts until the age of six. During this time, the child slowly brings knowledge from his unconscious to the conscious level. Orem says that during his first six years, the child forms his intelligence and his psych, as he works in freedom.

 Answer: The second stage of cognitive development encompasses the age from 6 through 12. This is an intermediate period, and a period of uniform growth. From age 6 to 9, the child builds the artistic and academic skills that will be essential for living a full life in his specific culture. From age 9 to 12, the child is “ready to open himself to knowledge of the universe itself.”

 Answer: The years from 12 to 18 form the third transformational stage. This interval is divided into 2 substages: “puberty” which last from 12 to 15 and “adolescence,” from age 15 to 18. This is the time for exploring more concentrated areas of interest in depth. After age 18 there is no longer any transformation, the individual simply becomes older.

 Question: Very interesting…. Dr. Montessori what are the differences between children and adults in your opinion?  Answer: A child is in a continual state of growth and metamorphosis, whereas the adult has reached the norm of the species. I believe the modes of learning we engage in as children will determine the modes of learning we engage in as adults.

 Question: How would you define work and play in the classroom?  Answer: Well, in the Montessori classroom, a child is provided with the freedom to make choices and do real work. The child has the autonomy to decide what is engaging. “Play is the child’s work.” Only those forms of play that have an adaptive, preparatory function are acceptable.

 Question: What are your aims and goals in education?  Answer: I want to instill the joy of learning, by allowing a discovery process. The objective is to provide a place of peaceful, harmonic cooperation that are inherent and authentic. “I want to help children everywhere to love learning.” The goal is to allow children to “accomplish in a few weeks, in some particular subject, what would have taken months to learn at the tempo of ordinary class teaching.”

 Question: What are your principles of learning and instruction?  Answer: I believe that students should be grouped in heterogeneous groups by age with self-selected, self-paced materials that progress in difficulty from simple to more complex from the concrete to the abstract.

 Question: How did you create the educational environment at the Children’s House (Casa Dei Bambini?)  Answer: We chose large open rooms with physical appropriate furniture for children not adults and provided didactic materials that were easily accessible for the child to obtain.

 Question: What exactly are didactic materials?  Answer: (smile) They are learning games and devices designed to directly prepare a child for future academic learning in the areas of language, mathematics, science, social studies, and the arts. They are divided into practical life exercises, sensorial materials and academic materials.

 Question: Um….how do the students know how to use the materials?  Answer: At the beginning of instruction children are shown how to use the materials and not just allowed to mess around with them.  Question: What is the role of the teacher?  Answer: They are the “directress,” they prepare the environment and guide the classroom. They observe the children, take notes of their readiness to move on, and demonstrate proper use of the materials. We were very careful that the adult’s role didn’t create a dependency environment for the child.

 Question: Do you provide or believe in teacher development trainings?  Answer: In the beginning we employed untrained young women and taught them how to prepare the environment, observe children, facilitate children’s interactions with the environment, and to communicate with the children in their care and their parents. However, during the 1960s the International Training Course in the United States was a fifth-year internship program for college graduates. Courses were taught by experienced Montessorians and qualified university lecturers. The number of Montessori organizations have grown considerably in the U.S. since then and they endorse some of the one thousand teacher preparation centers.

 Question: How do you compare with others and their teaching methods?  Answer: Well Froebal and I have very close similarities. We both believe that the adult should be careful to avoid molding the child, and children should be allowed to engage in spontaneous activity. However, where Froebelians work with groups of children, I believe in working with the individual child.

 Answer: Dewey and I also have similar learning styles. We both emphasize the act of freedom, self-activity, and self- education. We both believe in the use of practical life activities. Lastly, Piaget and I both know the need for empathy for the child. We realize the need for observation in order to determine what the needs of the child are. Our main focus is the that nurture determines what will be learned while nature provides the prerequisite capacities.

 Thank you Dr. Montessori, I think I have learned quite a bit about your philosophy and your dedication to children. I hope that regardless to the school a child attends, The idea of respect for children and their development are characteristics and principles we can all adapt in our classrooms.  Thank you Dr. Hogg (to be), I know you will strive to carry out my dreams!!!!!

 Dr. Montessori died on May 6,1952, at Noordwijk-on-Sea, the Netherlands, of a cerbral hemmorhage. In 1960, the American Montessori Society (AMS) was founded as a sign of rememberance of the Montessori method in the U.S. Along with the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) which was founded in 1929 in which Maria presided over until her death, both organizations publish books and periodicals designed to maintain the connection between the Montessori teachers of today, their historical counterparts, and Dr. Montessori’s work.

 Dr. Montessori was a prolific writer, and the majority of her publications have been translated into English as well as other languages. Her first work was published in Italian as II Metodo della Pedogogia Scientifica applicato all’educazione infantile nelle Casa dei Bambine was translated by Anne E George as The Montessori Method, appearing in 1912.

Other important works that appeared in the United States are:  Dr Montessori’s Own Handbook  The Advanced Montessori Method, volume I  Spontaneous Activity in Education  The Advanced Montessori Method, volume II  The Montessori Elementary Material  The Montessori Didactic Apparatus  The Absorbent Mind  Peace and Education

Dr. Montessori believed that the problem of world peace can never be satisfactorily solved until we start with the child. “By taking the child into consideration we touch something common to all humanity. We cannot achieve world harmony simple by attempting to unite all these adult people who are so different: but we can achieve it if we begin with the child who is not born with national and racial prejudices.”