Montessori and constructivism

Montessori Life, Winter 2003 by Elkind, David

Constructivism

The third, constructivist position is, as one might expect, somewhere between the other two. It argues that our knowledge of the world has both empiricist and nativist components. There is indeed a real world that exists independently of our senses. Yet we can only know that world through inborn categories that organize the information coming in from our senses. Space, time, and number, for example, do not exist in the real world but are forms that we impose upon the environment in order to understand and to control it. From this perspective the mind operates not so much in a mechanical way as it does in a human way. In effect, the mind operates like an artist who takes something from himself or herself and something from the world and then brings them together to create something that cannot be reduced to either one. The mantra of this position is that "we construct our knowledge of reality out of our experiences with the environment." Although there is a real environment, we can never know it in and of itself (Kant's ding am selbst) but only our interpretations of it.

Constructivism has been translated into a number of different pedagogical systems. One of the underlying themes of these constructivist approaches is discovery learning. Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of the kindergarten, held to the constructivist position. He gave children what he called his 20 "gifts," which ranged from a simple ball and square to geometrically shaped pieces of colored paper, to be arranged in different patterns. Froebel was a crystallographer by profession and believed that with his gifts children would be able to discover underlying patterns that would hold at different levels of understanding. The ball would give the child the concept of roundness but also later of the earth, and eventually the universe. Froebel thus emphasized the importance of the child's own actions in discovering the world. In Froebel's view, it is the child interacting with the world that is his or her means of discovering it.

The Child

To briefly summarize these three epistemologies, it might be useful to describe the kind of child presupposed by each position. For the empiricist the child is a mime, who arrives at knowledge by being able to copy each and every experience. The nativist, in contrast, looks upon the child as a logician, who arrives at knowledge through reason. In contrast, the constructivist sees the child as the architect of his or her own knowledge. These three models are, of course, ideal types that do not exist in practice. Every child has a bit of the mime, the logician, and the architect in himself or herself. Indeed these three models might be described as the three basic modes of learning: imitation, reason, and construction. Opposed educational systems tend to focus upon and elaborate one or another of these dispositions but always include at least a bit of the others.

Maria Montessori

Given these three basic epistemologies, to which one does Montessori ascribe? In many respects Montessori is an eclectic, because her approach incorporates all three epistemologies. One could, for example, argue that Montessori was a nativist. She was steeped in the writings of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, all of whom stressed that children have their own ways of coming to know the world. But she was also influenced by Giuseppe Sergi, an anthropology professor, who impressed upon her the importance of the school environment. The significance of the environment became even more apparent to Montessori in her work with retarded children. Using some of the methods and materials of hard and Seguin, she found that so-called retarded children could make quite remarkable progress. In short, in her formative years Montessori was influenced both by the nativists and by the empiricists. These two perspectives are reflected in her educational methodology. Yet Montessori also knew of and read Piaget. Indeed, some of her foundation ideas also reflect a constructivist emphasis. Perhaps it is because Montessori education encompasses all three epistemologies that it has survived and continued to grow as a pedagogical influence.