Applying Montessori philosophy in home environment part 1
When a couple are getting ready for the first child, they will be bombarded with so many ads and well meaning friends and relatives on what they “need” for that child. Many of these ads are aimed at selling things that do not provide what is really good for the child.
Many of the items are overstimulating for the young child (too many objects, uncomfortably bright colors), they hamper the natural development of important abilities such as language (pacifiers) and movement (cribs, swings, and high chairs) and even sometimes can be dangerous (walkers and off-gases from plastic).
A simple, natural, and gentle environment that encourages feelings of safety, and encourages the child to communicate with others and to move around—that is the better environment for the child from birth to three. A home theater system, a big plasma TV and home theater sconces may be nice to have. But, listen to the sounds: can you hear the wind in the trees, or are the sounds of nature overwhelmed by the sound of a TV or radio? The child, unable to filter out the unnecessary or the disturbing noises as the adult can, will hear and be affected by every sound and sight! It is important for the child’s sense of order, his security, to keep the environment the same for the first year.
Filed under About Montessori, Montessori | Comment (0)Respect
The true hallmark of Montessori is its deep respect for the dignity of every child. While Montessori is used in a wide variety of communities with different religious backgrounds, Dr. Montessori was a Catholic and her philosophy is very much influenced by Catholic teaching of “the inherent dignity of the human person”
Respect does not mean that everybody is supposed to pretend to like everybody else all the time. Respect does mean that conflicts are to be resolved with consideration for the dignity of everyone involved. Respect is the foundation for access to the higher possibilities of learning.
Maria Montessori began looking at education from the child’s point of view, and recognized that children do not learn the same way that adults do. She also saw that adults often greatly underestimate the intellectual capacity of children, because the children are not able to express themselves fully in adult-style communication.
In a Montessori classroom, the respect toward children is based on Maria Montessori’s discovery and insight that children learn and think very differently from adults. Adults may start their learning with abstraction i.e. an adult college student may listen to a mathematics professor lecture about mathematical principles he has no concrete experience with the principles being described. Children very rarely learn in this way. Respect for the child, therefore, opened the way for the insight that children learn best from sensory approaches to knowledge before attempting abstraction. For example, the first step in learning to read is to trace one’s fingers over sandpaper cutouts of the letters of the alphabet. “From hands to mind” is the practical foundation of the Montessori Method.
The children are also shown to work on a small mat laid out on the floor and putting works away properly so that next person can use them. The mat sets the boundaries of the work, and guide the other children to respect others’ need to concentrate and not to disturb them at work. This teaches respect for the environment and to work with others in cooperative and constructive ways. As children learn about ways to care about the micro environment and the people in it, they will learn to care for the community and global environment.”Respect” in Montessori is not a command or a code for hierarchy, in the sense of authotarian “students must respect the teacher.” But, certainly, students must respect the teacher, and the teacher must respect the students, and the students must respect each other. Of course since nobody is perfect, nobody at in a Montessori school achieves this high standard of respect every single moment during the school year.
Tim Seldin, president of the Montessori Foundation, explains that “Montessori is a way of life. It is a philosophy about how human beings ought to live their lives and treat one another. It is an attitude of respect for each human being, no matter how young or how old. It is a sense of partnership, rather than power and authority.” (”Montessori in the Home,” Tomorrow’s Child, Spring 2000, p. 5.)
Filed under About Montessori | Comment (1)Principles in using Montessori materials
“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. …He must find out how to concentrate, and for this he needs things to concentrate upon…Indeed, it is just here that the importance of our schools really lies. They are places in which the child can find the kind of work that permits him to do this.”
Maria Montessori
The materials must correspond to the child’s inner needs, and they must be presented to the child at the right moment in his development.The right moment in development must be determined by observation and experimentation. The teacher/parent watches for the quality of concentration and for spontaneous repetition. These responses indicate the meaningfulness of the material to him at that particular moment in his growth and whether the intensity of the stimulus which that material represents for him is also matched to his internal needs.
Five other Principles in using Montessori Materials:
1. Difficulty or the error that the child is to discover and understand must be isolated in a single piece of material.
2. The materials progress from simple to more complex design and usage.
3. The materials are designed to prepare the child indirectly for future learning.This principle of indirect preparation enables the child to experience success in his endeavors much more readily and aids the development of self-confidence and initiative.
4. The materials begin as concrete expressions of an idea and gradually become more and more abstract representations.The greater a child’s absorption the more likely he is making the transition from concrete to abstract knowledge.
5. Montessori materials are designed for auto-education. The control of error lies in the materials themselves rather than in the teacher.
“ ‘Control of error’ is any kind of indicator which tells us whether we are going toward our goal, or away from it…” Maria MontessoriThe teacher/parent is never to point out an error to a child.
If the child cannot see the error for himself, it means he has not sufficiently developed to do so. In time, he will be able to see it and will correct his own errors.
“What interests the child is the sensation, not only of placing the objects, but of acquiring a new power of perception, enabling him to recognize the difference of dimension in the cylinders.” Maria Montessori
There are several basic rules in the use of the Montessori Materials:
1. Children are required to treat them with respect.
When using materials, he is to bring all the materials necessary and arrange them on a mat or rug in an organized manner. He is to return the materials to their proper place and in the same condition in which he found them.
2. The child has a right not to be interrupted while working with the materials either by another child or the teacher.
Fundamental Lessons
Introduction of new material to the child is called the Fundamental Lesson.
The purpose of this lesson is to present the child with a key to the materials and their possibilities for him…and…to enable the teacher to discover more about the child and his inner development.
The teacher uses the lesson to observe the child’s reactions, and will experiment with different approaches to him.
Maria said that in this sense, “the lesson corresponds to an experiment.”
Introducing a lesson at the right moment requires sensitivity and experience.
Maria said “In such a delicate task, a great art must suggest the moment, and limit the intervention, in order that we shall arouse no perturbation, cause no deviation, but rather that we shall help the soul which is coming into the fullness of life, and which shall live from its own forces.”
Such lessons will be given almost exclusively on an individual basis.
Maria said “The child not only needs something interesting to do, but also likes to be shown exactly how to do it. Precision is found to attract him deeply, and this it is that keeps him at work.”
Characteristics of the Fundamental Lesson are:
Precision
Orderly Presentation
Brevity
Simplicity
Objectivity
Maria said “The lesson must be presented in such a way that the personality of the teacher shall disappear. There shall remain in evidence only the object to which she wishes to call the attention of the child.”
After the Fundamental lesson has been presented, the teacher invites the child to use the material as she has done.
The teacher then stays on to observe the child’s actions. She is careful not to interfere with his liberty.
If the child shows the teacher that she has misjudged the moment of introduction, the teacher suggests they put the material away and use it another day.
If the child shows that he was ready for the presentation, then the child is allowed to continue with the activity for as long as he likes.
Maria said “This phenomenon does not always occur…In fact, repetition corresponds to a need…It is necessary to offer those exercises which correspond to the need of development felt by an organism.”
One of the main things the teacher will watch for will be the repetition of an exercise.
After repetition of an exercise, the child will begin to create new ways in which to use the materials. Often he will combine more than one exercise or different materials.
In traditional classrooms using traditional toys, the child cannot be creative because of the nature of the materials around him. In the search for something of value the child ends up taking them apart and destroying them.
Montessori materials are carefully designed and constructed with a definite purpose in mind.
Filed under About Montessori, Montessori Education | Comment (0)Freedom and Responsibility in Montessori
Freedom is very important concept that leads to nurturing of independence. However freedom is also one of the most misunderstood aspects of Montessori. Many people assume that when we describe freedom, we mean that students can do whatever they wish. This is not true. Freedom means choice within limits. Freedom has a counterpart - responsibility. They are inseparable; they go hand-in-hand and work with one another.
We always give choices within limits, for example, we do not just ask a wondering child or a child who is disturbing another child to not disturb or go work. We would instead redirecting her by asking her whether she would like to pick a work to do, or she would like the teacher to pick one for her.
Children responded well to this, becasue they felt that they are not being forced to do something, but was giving choices, they would respond by picking a work from the shelf, or they will ask the teacher to show them a work.
Freedom to choose one’s own work is an essential hallmark of Montessori education. Freedom is the route to self discipline. But, the freedom is also comes with responsibility. Children in a class/home are accorded more freedom of choice as they demonstrate higher degrees of responsibility. Responsible behavior includes respect for the materials and using them for their intended purpose, the ability to concentrate and be engaged in work, and to work within reasonable time frames on an activity or follow-up from a lesson.
Young children need a lot of movement, confining them to a fixed seat is unnatural. In a Montessori classroom, a student has freedom of movement within the prepared environment, as long as he is able to move responsibly. In fact, there is a lot of movement within the classrooms. Students move around when they are ready to choose new work, when they are finished with some work, when they want to talk with someone, or when they turn on the bathroom lighting to go to the bathroom or go to the pantry to get a drink. In our environment, these are choices that the students make, not choices that the teachers make.
Filed under About Montessori, Montessori | Comments (3)Grace and Courtesy Exercises
After I talked so much about how important it’s to train children to be able to focus and concentrate first before we started them the academic subjects, I am actually quite afraid of well meaning friends who brought their children to my school to play-play so that their children can learn to focus and concentrate. They usually left me with a classroom that looked like just visited by hurricane!Montessori education is actually more than just “playing” with the apparatus. Children who are not train how to handle the equipment, children whose body and spirit are not in tune, they will not know how to behave in the classroom and pay attention in handling the Montessori apparatus, they would just treat them like any other toys, after the initial excitement, they would just dump them aside and/or don’t want to return them to where they belong. Unless they have Plantar Fasciitis, children who are not train to be aware of their body movement would either run wild or bump into things in the classroom.
That’s why it’s very important for us to teach the grace and courtesy exercises first, before we let them handle the apparatus. It will be too late to chase after them and shout after them, when they started to go wild in the classroom. It’s really not the children’ fault that we should punish them for that. We need to give them the training they need, so that they are away of their movement and the noise they produced.
Walking on the line and the silent game are two important exercises that help the children to be aware of their body movement and get in tune with their inner spirit. It may sound like real mysterious, but I assured you, it’s not. It’s the secret behind a “quiet” Montessori classroom.
Filed under About Montessori, Parenting | Comments (2)The prepared Environment
The “prepared environment” is Maria Montessori’s concept that the environment can be designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.
The Montessori learning environment is much different than the traditional model. Instead of information passing from the teacher to the student, the teacher is putting the child in touch with the environment, and helping him learn to make intelligent choices and to carry out exploration and research in a prepared environment. The teacher then protects the student’s concentration from interruption. This fosters a love of lifetime learning in the student.
It is the role of the adult to prepare, and continue to prepare, the environment, to link the child to it through well-thought-out introductions to books and materials, projects, and lessons, which nurture the child’s exploration and creativity. Children thus taught then learn to find answers for themselves.
In the prepared environment, the shelves are carefully arranged and the rooms are well lit with natural light or proper indoor lighting. There are a variety of activities as well as a great deal of movements in this prepared environment.
For example, a three-year-old may be doing counting (L), practice “writing” on sandpaper numbers (R).
while the four-year-old nearby cleaning the glass window (L), practise writing on the blackboard.
and another child is working with a specially designed set of beads.
Practice sweeping with the wood curls(L), cleaning the chair(R)
Real life sweeping.
19 months old doing transfering of buttons from basket to tumbler(L), taking his snacks.
Sometimes an entire class may be involved in a group activity, such as storytelling, singing, silent game, walking on the line or movement.In the calm, ordered space of the Montessori prepared environment, children work on activities of their own choice at their own pace. They experience is a blend of freedom and self-discipline in a place especially designed to meet their developmental needs.
First time visitor never failed to comment about how “quiet” my classroom and how weird this children are working on their own, and was probably puzzled what spell I casted on them.:-) Maybe we expected and accepted the the assumption that children like run around aimlessly, and that is the norm?
Maria Montessori said children prefers work than play, and their can only be their natural self when their natral self is satisfied through work. It’s also through work they acquired the power of concentration and be normalized.
Filed under About Montessori, prepared environment | Comments (2)
