Montessori Method

Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence, Apr 06, 2001

Maria Montessori 's educational methods are based on individualized, self-directed study, with children choosing the activities they want to work on and proceeding at their own pace, either alone or in small groups, using specially devised instructional materials that allow them to monitor and correct their own errors. The cornerstone of the method is the enjoyment and satisfaction that are produced when children's natural love of learning is respected and allowed to flourish without the regimentation of traditional instructional systems.

Maria Montessori pursued a lifelong interest in human development, first as a physician and later as an educator. The first woman in Italy to be awarded a degree in medicine, she began developing her educational methods while working with retarded children in the Orthophrenic School from 1898 to 1900. After a number of these children made sufficient progress to pass examinations administered to children of normal ability, Montessori turned her attention to general education. In 1907 she took charge of a day care program for children of tenement dwellers in Rome, designed primarily to keep the unruly preschoolers out of trouble. Her Casa dei Bambini (Children's House) inaugurated two decades of developing educational methods by careful observation and a continual process of trial and error. In addition to the intellectual progress made by Montessori's pupils when they were free to engage in activities that interested them and to learn at their own pace, the children also showed impressive and unexpected gains in social development, becoming calmer, kinder, more disciplined, and more independent. As more schools were opened and Montessori's methods were used with children of middle-class and wealthy families, interest in her educational innovations grew throughout Italy and abroad.

By 1909 Montessori had published an account of her work at the Casa dei Bambini, and she later wrote numerous articles and books that drew on her classroom experiences for the formulation of educational theories and principles. The Association Montessori Internationale was founded in 1929, with Montessori serving as president until her death. After working as a government inspector of schools in the 1920s, Montessori left Italy for Spain in 1934, eventually moving to the Netherlands, where she died in 1952.

By 1912 Montessori's ideas had gained attention in the United States. In that year an English translation of her first book was published, and the first Montessori school in the U.S. was opened in Tarrytown, New York. However, after an initial burst of activity, interest in Montessori's methods fell into a decline that lasted for several decades, due largely to their divergence from the contemporary theories of American psychologists and educators, which downplayed the role of environmental factors in the development of intelligence. Montessori education has enjoyed a resurgence in the U.S. since the 1950s, and its methods are practiced and adapted today in public as well as private and parochial education.

The philosophy of linear development underlies traditional methods of education (i.e., children get a little smarter every year). Montessori believed that intellectual development takes place in four distinct periods called "planes" that correspond to the chronological stages of birth to age 6, 6-12, 12-18, and 18-24. Moreover, development within each of these planes surges and then declines, with the developmental peaks occurring at the ages of 3, 9, 15, and 21. Montessori's ideas resemble those of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in that she believed the nature of intelligence and learning is qualitatively different at each stage of development. For example, she contrasted the rapid, instinctive learning of children up to the age of six with the more deliberate learning styles of older children and adults. She labeled preschoolers' ability to "soak up" aspects of their environments the "Absorbent Mind." Also like Piaget, she theorized that accomplishments at each stage build on those of the previous ones, and that inadequate development at any stage will influence the ability to carry out the developmental tasks of later stages.

Another one of Montessori's basic concepts is that of "sensitive periods," distinct but overlapping age ranges that are most favorable for development in specific areas. According to Montessori, the ages of one to five constitute a sensitive period for development through the five senses. She thought it important for children of this age to have educational experiences that exercise the senses as fully as possible. The sensitive period for language, when children are acutely sensitive to sounds and able to discriminate between them, occurs between the ages of three months and five or five-and-one-half years. A sensitive period for order, when children want things to follow familiar and reassuring patterns that allow them to organize their experiences, lasts roughly from the first birthday to the age of three. According to Montessori, the upsets of the "terrible twos," which seem so disorderly, are often exaggerated reactions to small disruptions in order not perceived by adults. Next comes the sensitive period for "small details," around the age of two, when children tend to focus on a single aspect of an object or situation more readily than on the whole. According to Montessori, this period develops the powers of observation as well as the ability to concentrate on one thing for an extended period of time. During the following sensitive period, occurring roughly between the ages of two-and-one-half and four, children develop their motor coordination through a tendency to perform and repeat a variety of everyday motions, an activity that may appear pointless to adults but is actually helping children learn to control the movements of their bodies. During the final sensitive period, children develop their social skills by attentiveness to the feelings and behavior of others. During this period, they progress from parallel to cooperative play and are introduced to standard social rules, such as those involved in table manners.